A Perfect Storm (3 page)

“However, we certainly don't need a spirit board in this house to contact the dead. If you'd like, after dinner, we can go to my room and have a séance.”

Lily grinned and twirled in a circle, doing a little happy dance.

“It's been awhile since I contacted anyone famous, just for fun,” Lady Azura mused. “I did once contact Elvis so he could sing ‘Love Me Tender' just for me.”

Lily looked totally awestruck. I, however, was feeling quite the opposite. One of my English vocab words popped into my head: “apprehensive,” and it summed up how I was feeling about this whole plan.

“But doing it just for fun?” I said. “Think about what might happen! What if something goes wrong?”

“I am a professional, Sara,” Lady Azura scoffed. “I conduct séances all the time for my clients. It's perfectly harmless.”

Just then the door opened, and my dad stepped into the kitchen, bringing with him a swirl of dry leaves. So the matter was forgotten for the moment. But I didn't have a good feeling about the evening.

The artichoke pasta turned out pretty well. Both my dad and Lady Azura had second helpings. My great-grandmother is a tiny woman. I often wonder where she puts it all.

After the dishes were done, my father sat down at the table to open up his pile of mail, while Lady Azura retired to her bedroom to change out of her flowing dress into something a little more comfortable. Lily and I bustled around, collecting stuff to construct giant ice-cream sundaes for ourselves.

“Oh, I forgot about this,” said my dad, staring at a thick, cream-colored card he'd just pulled out of a thick, cream-colored envelope. “I've been invited to a wedding in two weeks. It's a buddy of mine from college named Costi. He's getting remarried. Sara, do you want to come as my date? It should actually be pretty
fun. The bride, Lena, is an actress on some TV show, and Costi told me there are a few movie stars on the guest list.”

“Awesome!” said Lily.

I smiled. “Sure, Dad. Sounds fun. Do you know what TV show the bride is on?”

My dad scratched his head, like he was trying to remember, and then shrugged. “I don't remember. But it was one I've never heard of.” Not that surprising, actually. My dad didn't watch a lot of TV.

Recently I'd been a little worried about my dad. He hadn't gone out on a date in weeks, or at least as far as I knew. He was still a handsome guy, for someone over forty at least, and I was concerned that he wasn't having enough fun. He worked a lot, and when he wasn't working, he was always at home, fixing up the house for Lady Azura or reading one of his mystery novels. I loved to read too, but I didn't think he should be spending all his evenings that way.

My dad headed upstairs early, saying he had a report to work on for Monday morning. Lily and I were just scraping the bottoms of our sundae bowls when Lady Azura emerged, wearing her “comfortable”
clothes. For her that meant a lime-green cashmere pullover, harem pants, and high-heeled mule slippers. I marveled at the woman's ability to navigate around furniture in those heels. I'd frequently heard her complain that her old bones were achy, and in fact, I had not seen her climb the stairs to the second floor in all the time I'd lived with her. Yet she walked around the house in fancy shoes with high heels. As with everything else about my great-grandmother, the woman was a bundle of contradictions.

“Are we ready?” she asked us.

Lily and I exchanged looks. Lily's look was excited. Mine was unenthusiastic. Lily had to be perplexed by my attitude in general recently. My reluctance to do the séance. My distracted state at Scoops yesterday. My weird relationship with Mason. She had to be wondering why I couldn't just lighten up.

The thing was, I'd told her I didn't
like
-like Mason, but that wasn't exactly true. When I had told her that, I had been unsure of how I felt about him, so it wasn't as if I had lied exactly. It was just hard for me to explain why I felt like I had such a connection with him, since I couldn't tell her about his powers. Because of our
connection, our shared secret, we talked and texted a lot. There was no way I could tell her that I'd gotten to know him really well and that now I was definitely, officially crushing on him. What I didn't know was whether he was crushing on me too. I wished I could ask Lily for advice. She'd helped me out a lot with my first-ever crush, Jayden Mendes.

We followed Lady Azura down the creaky hardwood floor of the hallway, through the purple velvet curtains, and into the séance room.

I stopped in the red foyer, hesitant. Lady Azura was clearly almost as excited about this as Lily. She'd been in already and had lit the candles and drawn the shades. I smelled something cinnamony, with a hint of sweetness.

A resigned sigh escaped me, which I hoped only I heard. I moved into the room and sat down at the round table with Lily and Lady Azura.

Lady Azura reached out and grasped one of each of our hands. Lily and I grasped each other's.

“Lily, is there anyone in particular you would like me to reach? Or shall I just cast a wide net and see who's available?”

Lily's eyes were as wide as saucers. “You can do
that? Just see who wants to come hang out and they'll just join us?”

I started to protest, to tell Lily that was most definitely not how it was done, but Lady Azura silenced me with one of her looks. “Of course I can do that. Close your eyes. Empty your minds.”

“You must not set up any barriers, either of you,” she continued. I knew she was speaking mostly to me. I tried to empty my mind. Not to block. It wasn't easy. Like being in a dodgeball game and being told not to try to ward off the balls that get thrown at you.

Several long minutes passed. Occasionally Lady Azura would mumble something, but it didn't seem to me like whatever she was doing was working. Lily's hand was warm and dry in my left hand. Lady Azura's felt tiny, papery, but her old fingers still grasped mine firmly.

After a few more moments, Lady Azura cleared her throat and started talking. Her voice sounded even huskier than usual. “I would like to invite our spirit friends that are in our midst to come join us. We are seeking any famous thespians or musicians from the glamorous eras. My lovely young companions wish to delight in the company of the true stars,
those of yesteryear. Will anyone oblige us? Marilyn? Elvis? Johnny? Is there anyone there?” This sounded different from what Lady Azura usually said when we were conjuring spirits, but I thought maybe she was putting on a little more of a show for Lily than she did for just me.

I tried to keep my mind open, but this all felt very silly. Stars of yesteryear? Who was going to respond to that?

“Fred?” whispered Lily. “Ginger?”

I opened my eyes. Lily had opened hers as well.

Lady Azura was humming quietly. “I am sensing Irene Dunne. Frederick Arnault. Ella Chase. Please, come through. We would love to have the pleasure of your company if you would care to appear.”

I had never heard of those old-time celebrities, but that wasn't all that surprising, as Lady Azura and I were three generations apart, and I didn't watch a lot of old movies.

My eyes were drawn to something in the corner of the room. A silvery glimmer. As quickly as it had appeared, it faded away again. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw another shimmery shape,
but as soon as I looked at it straight on, there was nothing there. Was I imagining it? I remembered one evening last summer, sitting on the porch with my dad and Lady Azura, watching the fireflies. As soon as one lit up and your eye went to it, it went dark again. I'd had to stare at a dark spot near the hedge and just wait for one to flit by and light up.

I tried this technique now. Looked at a dark corner of the room. Waited for the silvery shimmer. Nothing happened. We were alone. There were no spirits here.

Lady Azura opened her eyes. “Sara,” she said in her regular voice, “are you intentionally blocking them?”

“What? No!” My answer came out more forcefully than I had intended.

I took a deep breath and continued. “I don't think there are any spirits here.”

Lady Azura dismissed what I had said with a wave of her hand. “They are teetering nearby. I can sense them. But they are not coming through all the way. It is as if they are being blocked.” Her eyes met mine.

“Well, if I am blocking them somehow,” I said, looking away, “I'm not doing it on purpose.”

Lady Azura shrugged and turned to Lily. “I'm sorry,
my dear,” she said to her. “But I fear we will not be successful tonight.”

Lily looked disappointed, but also a little impressed. “So Sara's powers are so strong that she can cancel yours out?”

“I wouldn't put it that way,” Lady Azura said drily. “Though Sara's powers are indeed very strong. But I suspect what is happening here is that Sara is, perhaps unintentionally, preventing the spirits from being able to join us simply because she does not want them to. She's not comfortable with this séance. The vibes in this room are all wrong.”

I couldn't tell if Lady Azura was annoyed at me or not. The look on her face was hard to read as she continued talking to Lily. “I believe that I was nearly successful in conjuring these spirits, but they do not feel welcome here”—I started to protest, and she silenced me with a look—“whether that is intentional or not on Sara's part. But they can sense it. As a result, they are stuck. Hesitant to come all the way in. Like a crowded doctor's waiting room. The spirits are lined up and ready to come in, but the doctor isn't seeing patients.”

A doctor's waiting room? This made no sense to
me. I wondered if maybe Lady Azura was just making up excuses for not being able to conjure the celebrity spirits Lily had asked for. But a small part of me wondered if I had really blocked them. Could I do that? If I was being really honest, I had to admit that I didn't want them here. Didn't want to do a séance with my best friend and my great-grandmother just for fun. I just wasn't comfortable with it.

I could tell Lily was disappointed, and I felt bad about it. “I'm sorry, Lil,” I said. “If I was doing that, I didn't do it on purpose.”

Lady Azura clasped my hand. “We believe you, my dear,” she said kindly. “Don't we, Lily?”

Lily smiled at me and nodded. “No worries, Sara. I think it's totally cool anyway. Thanks for trying, Lady Azura.”

When Lady Azura didn't answer, I looked at her and saw she had walked over to the cabinet where she stored her crystals. “I could also be wrong about the origin of the block,” she said distractedly as she carefully peered at some crystals on the shelf. “I sense a tremendous disturbance in the atmosphere.”

“What kind of disturbance?” asked Lily.

“It feels weather related,” Lady Azura replied as she laid a few crystals out on the table. “It is coming on very quickly, though. I think perhaps a storm is brewing outside.”

A storm? Well, that was no big deal. “Well, I guess that makes me feel better, that it's not all my doing,” I said.

Lily stood up. “Like I said, no worries,” she repeated, playfully tapping me on my shoulder. “I don't know what I would have said to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers anyway! Come on. Let's go upstairs and get ready for bed.”

We thanked Lady Azura and headed out into the hallway. My dad was coming down the front stairs.

“Oh, good,” he said, noticing us right away. “I was coming to look for you. There's a storm coming up the coast that's supposed to make a turn to the west and may head straight for us over the weekend.”

“A big one?” asked Lily. “Like one that would cause atmospheric disturbances?”

My dad furrowed his brow and grinned at her good-naturedly. “Could be, Lil,” he said. “Right now it's out to sea and categorized as a full-fledged
hurricane. Hurricane Seymour, they're calling it. The storm is still quite far south and east of us, and they think it will be downgraded to a tropical storm by Sunday morning,” he said. “Still, people in these parts don't play around with big coastal storms. They know how to batten down the hatches. Local businesses are already boarding up, and the lines at the store are getting longer. Our house is close enough to the water that we should take it seriously. Get ready for power outages and that sort of thing.”

I swallowed. I'd never been in a hurricane before. Was this what Lady Azura had been sensing? It must be. I was really impressed. But also worried. Weren't hurricanes really serious?

My dad saw my anxious face. He put his arm around me. “Don't worry, kiddo,” he said. “Your wonderful father here has already installed the hardware for hurricane panels on all the windows. I'll put up the actual panels tomorrow. We'll be safe and sound if the storm does come.”

Lily and I stayed up pretty late talking.
She kept saying how lucky I was that I had a great-grandmother as
cool as Lady Azura, who could not only talk to spirits, but also know stuff about the weather. It felt good to listen to Lily gush on and on about her. I loved knowing that two of my favorite people liked each other so much.

It was past midnight before we finally unrolled Lily's sleeping bag on the trundle bed. As soon as we were both comfy under our covers, I confessed to her that I had changed my mind about Mason. That I definitely
like
-liked him.

“Well, this is obviously not news to me,” said Lily. “I've been able to tell for a while now . . . even if you didn't realize it. Anyway, he likes you too.” She was lying on her stomach, the trundle perpendicular to my bed, and had her chin propped in her hands.

“I'm not so sure,” I said. “He's so . . . hot and cold with me.”

“That's because he's scared of you, Sar,” said Lily.

“Why would he be
scared
of me?”