Bella stands in the Rose Room, staring at the message on her phone.
Bella, it’s Sam.
It had come in the middle of the night from an unknown number.
Who’d play a trick like this on her? Her mind races through possibilities.
Even Jiffy, for all his mischievous pranks, would never be so cruel.
She types, Who is this? and hits Send before she can change her mind.
The message whooshes off, far more likely to some human prankster than to the Great Beyond. Whoever it is won’t reply, and she can delete the message and move on.
She texts Misty, FYI, Jiffy’s here with Max and Luther’s stopping by your house.
After sending it, she sees that there’s a response from Unknown. It’s a single word: Sam.
She shakes her head. ‘No, you’re not.’
There’s absolutely no way that her dead husband is, what? Sitting on a cloud in a white robe and halo, cell phone in hand?
Then again … what about the tourmaline necklace?
What about Einstein?
Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe.
Science. Physics. Energy.
Sometimes miracles aren’t miracles at all.
She considers the vast wealth of commonplace technology that had been unheard of just a few generations ago. Ordinary people had never flipped a light switch, flown in a plane, used a microwave, a telephone, a computer …
A hundred years or even decades ago, pressing a button on a handheld device and instantaneously being able to communicate with a loved one on the other side of the world would have been a magical feat.
Now, everyone knows that it’s just technologists manipulating energy.
By the same token, what Bella finds utterly inconceivable in this moment might be well within the realm of possibility in the not-so-distant future.
She’d witnessed wind chimes moving without the wind; had seen lights flicker and television stations change seemingly of their own accord.
Why is a text message any more miraculous?
She thinks of Candace and Tommy and their equipment. Maybe spirit energy harnessing electromagnetic communication makes as much sense as the necklace turning up at Valley View and Sam’s apparition at the airport.
‘Really? Come on. Occam’s razor, Bella,’ she mutters.
What’s the simplest explanation for any of this?
That someone very much alive, hidden behind an unknown number, is playing a prank.
Ellipses wobble in the text window.
A new message pops up. I can explain.
‘Oh, really?’ she murmurs.
She knows better than to engage. Yet, for some reason, she finds it necessary to send a lengthy response, one that takes forever to type on her phone’s small keyboard just using her thumb.
What is there to explain? You can’t be Sam. Sam is dead.
Send. Done. Now she can walk away, except …
The dots are back, and curiosity gets the better of her. She waits for the next message.
When it comes, she rolls her eyes.
I’m not dead.
Ah, Lily Dale semantics. Dead isn’t dead.
Who is this? she asks again.
As she hits Send, she hears footsteps in the hall.
Someone knocks on the door.
‘Bella?’ Grant calls. ‘Are you in there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is everything OK?’
She clears her throat. ‘Everything’s fine. I’ll, um … I’ll be right out.’
‘Thanks. I’ve got something to discuss with you, and it, uh … it’s not going to be easy.’
Five minutes later, seated across from Grant in the parlor, Bella grips the arms of the chair, fighting the urge to double over as though he’s just punched her in the gut.
This is too much. First the string of text messages about Sam’s faked death, and now Grant announcing that he’s going to sell Valley View out from under her?
‘I’ve tried to make it work, but no matter which way I run the numbers, it just doesn’t. I’m so sorry,’ he adds, like a doctor delivering grim news.
He meets her gaze and then he looks away. She realizes he’s checking the mantel clock above her head, and then, almost imperceptibly, his watch.
Her mind flashes back to Dr Stacey Fischer, Sam’s oncologist. She’d come so highly recommended, but Bella had disliked her from the start.
‘It’s twenty minutes slow,’ she tells Grant.
‘Excuse me?’
She points up at the clock. ‘It’s an antique. It loses a minute a day. I reset it at the beginning of every month.’
‘Terrific. So it’s like everything else in this house – broken and useless.’
‘Not … everything. The … the shades are new, and … and that lamp,’ she adds, looking wildly around the room in an effort to show Grant that he’s wrong. ‘It was broken, but Hugo fixed it. He’s the electrician who rewired the walls and … and he helps me. So many people help me. We’ve done so much work here, and … and …’
She closes her mouth, unable to push another word past the massive ache in her throat.
Outside, thunder rumbles. Glancing at the window, she sees that the world beyond has gone murky, as if Grant’s bombshell snuffed out the sun.
‘Bella, you’ve done an amazing job here,’ he’s saying. ‘Really. You’ve gone way above and beyond, and I’m not really sure why a young woman like you has been willing to stick it out for this long.’
He doesn’t understand. Not at all. But if she tries to explain it now, she’s going to cry.
Something tells her that Grant isn’t a man who will anticipate a bout of tears in what he views as a business endeavor. Anyway, she’d promised Sam that she’d stay strong, and she’s stayed true to her word through enough harrowing situations to last a lifetime. This one isn’t life-or-death, and it’s not going to be her undoing.
‘I mean, it’s pretty amazing, what you’ve done here. It’s not even a labor of love for you like it is for me,’ he goes on. ‘You didn’t even know Aunt Leona.’
How can she explain that she had? Maybe they hadn’t met when Leona was alive, or since – certainly not in the woo-woo Lily Dale Dead Isn’t Dead way. But Leona had loved this house and been as much a part of it as Bella is – and Nadine, and Pandora, too. They’d all left a part of themselves here, an imprint as intrinsic as the stone foundation and wrought-iron grillwork that crowns the mansard.
Grant takes a white handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the sheen of sweat from his handsome face.
Bella hears footsteps on the stairs: the St Clair sisters and Hester Garretson, coming down to breakfast.
‘No, Opal, that isn’t how it happened,’ Ruby says. ‘Mother and Clark Gable had their torrid affair long before Clark passed on.’
‘Are you sure? I’ve always thought it was afterward.’
‘I don’t think so, dear. Hester, did we mention that we’re from Akron?’
‘You did.’
‘And Clark’s hometown was just a stone’s throw away!’
‘You mentioned that, too,’ Hester tells Opal as the three women enter the parlor.
Grant gets to his feet. ‘Good morning, ladies.’
‘Why, here’s Clark now,’ Opal says. ‘We’ll just have to ask him when it was.’
‘Clark? Goodness, no, dear, this isn’t Clark. Clark has a mustache.’
Opal scans the room and spots Bella. ‘You’re right. And that’s certainly not Mother.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Ruby lifts the glasses that are on a chain around her neck, peering through them.
‘That’s not your mother. It’s Bella!’ Hester informs the sisters.
Bella nods and gives a little wave as they continue on into the breakfast room.
Grant looks at her. ‘I can’t believe what you have to put up with here.’
Again, he mops his face with the handkerchief.
She wants to tell him that she’s charmed by the St Clair sisters – by all the guests. That they keep things lively; that she enjoys spending time with even the most eccentric among them.
Again, thunder rumbles in the distance. On its heels, in the back of the house, a puppy lets out a loud bark.
‘Was that a dog?’ Grant asks.
Another bark, and Bella realizes that it wasn’t a puppy. It was the big guy.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It was a dog.’
‘You got a dog?’
‘I’ve got four, at the moment. But it’s only temporary.’
‘Oh?’
‘They’re fosters.’
‘Oh. Anyway … as I was saying, Valley View is my burden, not yours. It isn’t right for me to expect you to keep this crazy place running and keep your life on hold indefinitely while I’m off living mine. Especially here. Lily Dale is no place for a regular person to live, and it’s certainly no place for a child to grow up.’
‘No!’ she blurts.
‘I know. And I’m sorry your son had to be exposed to—’
‘That’s not what I meant! Grant, Lily Dale is the perfect place for a child to grow up. Max loves it, and so do I. It’s been our home for more than a year now.’
‘Only by default, though, right? You didn’t move here because you wanted to. You were moving to Chicago when your car broke down. Isn’t that how it happened?’
‘It is, technically, but …’
Bella had accepted Millicent’s invitation to make a fresh start in Chicago with great reluctance, convinced it was her only option.
Maybe it was, for the person she’d once been.
She’s changed, and so has her mother-in-law.
Back then, Millicent was still earning Bella’s private nickname for her, Maleficent, and her Chicago penthouse wouldn’t have been a soft landing spot for a messy kindergartener.
These days, the place has seen its share of Lego blocks and grape juice stains, and Millicent is positively Mellow-cent.
Maybe that’s due to advancing age, or to finding love again. Or perhaps losing her only child, Sam, had made his mother reexamine her priorities. Whatever the reason, Bella is grateful for her mother-in-law’s new role in her life, and Max’s, though she’s no more interested in moving in with Millicent now than she had been last year.
‘In any case,’ Grant says, ‘I’m sure you’re eager to get on with your plan for Chicago.’
‘Oh, I didn’t really want to live there. It was only going to be …’
‘Temporary?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I see. But so was this.’
Grant’s words land with a thud.
‘I was never planning to keep this place forever, Bella. My aunt wouldn’t have expected me to. She knew this …’ He waves a hand around the parlor. ‘This isn’t me. It isn’t you, either. It’s a good place for dusty antiques, dotty old ladies, and ghost hunters. But that’s about it.’
‘Did someone say ghost hunters?’ a cheerful female voice says.
Bella turns to see Candace in the doorway.
Her smile fades as she takes in the scene. ‘Am I interrupting something? Bella, are you OK?’
She nods, again trying to swallow the ache in her throat.
‘You don’t seem OK.’ Candace turns to Grant. ‘Sorry. When I heard you say ghost hunters, I figured you were talking about us.’
‘You’re a ghost hunter?’ he asks.
‘Candace. And this is Tommy,’ she adds as her husband comes up behind her. ‘We’re the Specter Inspectors?’
Clearly, that means nothing to Grant, but he offers a handshake and says, ‘I’m Grant Everard. I’m the … owner.’
‘Of Valley View?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t tell you how much we’ve loved being here,’ Candace says. ‘I was just telling Grant; I wish we could stay for a month.’
‘You said you wished you could stay forever.’
‘Well, that, too,’ she agrees with her husband. ‘I’d give anything to find a place like this in Southern California.’
‘That’s where you’re from?’ Grant asks.
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t suppose you want to move here?’
‘You mean to Lily Dale?’ Tommy asks.
‘I mean to Valley View. I’ve got to get rid of it.’
Get rid of it, like it’s a soggy wad of chewed bubblegum.
Bella scowls. ‘You do know that you can’t sell it to just anyone, Grant?’
‘I’m aware. It’s going to take some time, I know, but—’
‘I don’t mean to interrupt,’ Candace says, ‘but – you’re selling Valley View?’
Grant raises an eyebrow. ‘I am.’
Candace looks at Tommy, who gives a little nod.
‘What’s your asking price, Mr Everard?’
‘I haven’t gotten that far. Why? Are you interested?’
‘Absolutely. Right, honey?’
‘Yes! It’s perfect.’
‘But there are restrictions!’ Bella announces, hearing the panic edging into her voice. ‘You have to be a spiritualist to get a leasehold in the Dale.’
‘We are spiritualists,’ Tommy assures her.
‘But are you members of the Lily Dale Assembly?’
‘We are,’ Candace says. ‘We joined a few years ago, when we were filming here.’
Bella’s heart sinks. ‘Well, you … you wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage.’
‘Not a problem,’ Tommy says, mostly to Grant. ‘How soon were you looking to sell?’
‘As soon as possible.’
‘But how can you live here? Don’t you need to be in Hollywood, for your show?’
Bella’s question comes out in a strangled cry, and they all turn to gape at her.
‘The Specter Inspectors is shot on location, so we can live anywhere,’ Candace tells her. ‘This would be perfect, because—’
She breaks off at a loud knock on the front door.
Bella hears it open, and a man’s voice calls, ‘Mr Everard?’
‘In here, Marty.’
A nervous-looking bald man appears in the doorway. He’s wearing a suit and tie.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but if it’s going to be awhile, I thought maybe I should leave and come back?’
‘Not much longer. Why? Is everything OK out there?’
‘Yes, but, uh …’ Marty glances around uncomfortably. ‘I’d rather wait somewhere else, if you don’t mind.’
‘I thought you’d be better off in the car in the air conditioning.’
‘I thought so, too, but I keep getting, uh …’
When he doesn’t go on, Grant prods him. ‘You keep getting … what?’
‘Propositioned!’ Marty blurts. ‘I mean, you get used to that kind of thing when you’re working a job in the city, but here?’
‘What do you mean?’ Grant asks. ‘Propositioned by who?’
‘Prostitutes!’
‘Prostitutes!’ Bella gapes at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t play dumb with me. I’m onto you people.’
‘But … there aren’t any prostitutes here.’
‘The place is crawling with them,’ Marty insists. ‘The first one told me that she’s booked but she wants to set me up with her friend Misty, and now another one comes along wearing this getup like she’s about to do the Dance of the Seven Veils.’
‘Maybe it was Salome’s spirit?’ Candace suggests.
‘She was no ghost. She told me she used to be the mistress here, and she offered to, uh … “cleanse my chakras”.’
‘Wait – did she have a British accent?’ Bella asks.
‘Yes.’
The front door opens again, and as if on cue, a voice calls, ‘Isabella?’
‘That’s her!’ Marty looks around as if for a place to hide.
‘What’s going on?’ Grant asks Bella.
‘It’s just Pandora.’
‘Pandora! That’s her! Why is she following me?’
‘Relax, Marty. She’s a medium, not a prostitute, unless …’ Grant raises an eyebrow at Bella. ‘Wait, she’s not, is she?’
‘Of course not,’ Bella assures him, and calls, ‘Pandora? We’re in here.’
‘Just a moment, Isabella. I’m disrobing.’
‘Disrobing!’ Marty shrinks back against the wall. ‘I thought I was clear when I told her I’m a happily married man, but she’s obviously got the wrong idea.’
Pandora sails into the room, wearing one of her usual floral print dresses. ‘Isabella, I’m wondering if I might ask your advice about—’
She stops short, noticing the others.
‘Hi, Pandora,’ Grant says.
‘Hello, Mr Everard. I do hope you’re well.’
‘I am, I am. Marty here tells us you offered to cleanse his chakras?’
‘Yes, I rather sensed a blockage and had hoped to free his energy.’
Marty turns and makes a beeline for the door, telling Grant, ‘I’ll be out in the car.’
‘If you change your mind, Mr Kowalski, I’m right across the way, as I said, at Cotswold Corner. I take walk-ins, but it’s always best to call ahead.’ She glances at Candace and Tommy. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Pandora Feeney.’
‘I’m Tommy, she’s Candace. Now, Mr Everard, as I was saying, if you’re trying to find a a buyer for this place, look no further.’
Pandora gasps. ‘A buyer? For Valley View?’
Bella nods glumly. ‘Grant is going to sell it.’
‘And we’re going to buy it!’ Candace announces.
‘And do what with it?’ Pandora asks.
‘Live here. What else?’
‘You’re going to run a guesthouse? Ah, your television program has hit the skids, has it? I’m afraid every star loses its luster sooner or later,’ she adds with a dark gleam in her eye, undoubtedly thinking of her ex-husband Orville.
‘We’re not going to run a guesthouse,’ Tommy says. ‘It will be our home.’
‘But what about Isabella and the lad?’
Candace and Tommy exchange a glance.
‘Well, it’s not like we’re moving in tomorrow,’ Candace tells Bella. ‘You and your family will have plenty of time to find a new place to live.’
‘This won’t do,’ Pandora informs them. ‘It won’t do at all. You can’t just barge into Valley View and wrangle it away from us!’
Grant clears his throat. ‘With all due respect, Pandora, you don’t live here anymore, and I’ve never lived here and never will, and they’ – he indicates Candace and Tommy – ‘would love to live here, so—’
‘But Isabella does live here!’ Pandora says. ‘This is her home – and her business. She’s done a brilliant job of keeping it up. You can’t just—’
‘Pandora,’ Bella cuts in. ‘Thank you, but he can just …’ She turns to Grant. ‘I’m sorry for all this. I understand. I do. If you hadn’t already made this decision, you would have as soon as you saw the spreadsheet. I should have seen it coming, but then, I’m not a medium. I’m just a normal person, like you said.’
‘Bella, it didn’t even occur to me that you might want to stay on here,’ he says. ‘Are you interested in buying it?’
She shakes her head.
‘I can’t. I’m … I’m not a spiritualist. But it’s OK. Really. Max and I will be fine, wherever we end up.’
‘Isabella—’
‘Pandora, please don’t.’ She shakes her head and turns toward the stairs. ‘Sorry, if you’ll excuse me …’
She makes a run for the stairs, determined not to let them see her cry.