by Edie Claire
“I think so,” I said with optimism. Nothing could prevent me from seeing the shadows, but if I had learned how to keep the regular blind down in the background of my mind, I could figure this out, too. If not, I could always shut my eyes again.
I opened my lids slowly. The transparent outline of a man’s bare shoulder moved across my lap. His spear stuck up in my face.
Fear. Anger.
Glowing platinum!
It took only a second to make my emotions stable again. I focused on the solid part of the car in front of me and looked through the wispy image to see a little spiral-bound notebook propped up on the dashboard. Written on it in Tara’s clear block letters was “Zane, text Tara now if you see this!”
I chuckled. “How is he going to text you?”
“He has both our numbers,” Kylee added from the back seat. “We had to arrange your little surprise, didn’t we? Good thing we were in communication, too, since our flight kept getting delayed. Are you still okay?”
“Perfect,” I said proudly. “I’ll just sit here and stare. Why don’t you guys check out the view? I hear it’s amazing.”
They seemed to be exchanging a glance. “We’ll go one at a time,” Tara announced, and I heard Kylee open the back door.
“Pay the parking machine!” I called after her before it closed again. Then I relaxed and enjoyed my glowing platinum some more. It was warm and cozy inside.
“You seem awfully chipper,” Tara said suspiciously a few minutes later.
“I can’t help it,” I said, still smiling. “This is going to work. I can block the emotions of these shadows a hundred percent, and I can block Zane’s access too. I know I can. I’ve been staring at this sign for what, five minutes now? He’d text if he saw it. I can’t tell you what a relief this is. I’ve been going crazy thinking about what it would be like to lose every shred of privacy for the rest of my natural life. Because that’s exactly what would happen if anytime Zane wanted to he could just—”
Tara’s phone buzzed on the dash.
No, no, no!
Terror shot through me. Tara grabbed her phone.
Rage. Fear. Horror. Pain...
I closed my eyes quickly and cursed myself for losing focus. Walls up! The emotions of the soldiers left me, but my own panic remained. I opened my eyes again to find Tara staring at her phone with a disgusted expression.
“What?” I practically screamed. My platinum couldn’t have failed. It just couldn’t! Everything had been going so wonderfully with Zane all summer. I knew that no relationship was perfect, but ours had seemed like it was starting out pretty darn close. As long as he felt the same way about me that I did about him, nothing could get in our way. But this? How could I ever deal with this?
I wasn’t sure that I could. And even though I knew it wasn’t Zane’s fault, I was still irrationally angry with him for having such an unfair advantage over me.
I wasn’t sure I could ever get over that, either.
“It’s Kylee,” Tara said with an eye roll. “She can’t figure out how to pay the stupid machine. You mind if we switch off?”
I collapsed back into my seat. For a long moment, I couldn’t seem to move. “No,” I murmured.
Tara got out of the car.
I couldn’t handle much more of this. The uncertainty was killing me. I pulled out my own phone, called Zane, and closed my eyes. Then I set my platinum walls on high glow.
“Hey,” he answered, still sounding a little on the nervous side. “Everything okay?”
“Not sure on that,” I answered honestly. “Could you do me a favor? Wait exactly three minutes from now, and then I want you to try to see what I’m seeing. For one minute, maybe. Then give up. Okay?”
I heard an uncomfortable exhale. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“All right. Then what do I do?”
“You’ll know. Or if you don’t know, I’ll call you.”
“Okay, then. T minus three minutes,” he agreed, trying to sound cheerful. It was a half-hearted effort for him. He knew that I was uptight, and I was too uptight to convince him otherwise.
We hung up. I checked the time on my phone and settled in. When Kylee returned a few moments later and popped into the front seat beside me, I explained my plan. She quickly crossed out Tara’s name on the sign and replaced it with her own, then put her phone on the dash and waited with anticipation. When the three-minute mark arrived, I stared at the sign. But inwardly, I was focusing on those glowing bands of platinum with all my might.
Safe and secure. Impenetrable. Just me and my own brain, thank you very much. Warm and cozy. A thousand light-years thick…
Either I almost hypnotized myself, or I almost fell asleep, because I heard nothing until Kylee shook me by the shoulder. “Kali! Can’t you hear me? Snap out of it! It’s been a minute and a half already!”
I snapped out of it. “Has he texted?”
She flashed a brilliant smile at me. “Not a peep!”
The back door of the car popped open and Tara jumped inside. “Well?” she asked eagerly. “What’s happening?”
“Did you get a text?” I begged.
She shook her head.
My body went rubbery with relief. He was trying that time. He told me he would. And he hadn’t texted. Which meant he hadn’t seen it!
Was I safe? For real?
Kylee explained the experiment to Tara, then looked at me proudly. “See there, Kali! You can do it!”
“Very promising,” Tara agreed. “But let’s verify. Kali, what if I drive you down the road a ways where you’re more comfortable, and then you can drop your defenses? Then we’ll have him try again. Kylee, you should check out the Pali while we’re doing it. Shame to miss that view, particularly since we just fed the meter.”
“Check!” Kylee agreed. She hopped out of the driver’s seat to let Tara in. “Good luck, Kali!” she chirped, moving off to take her turn at the view.
Tara wrote a third message for Zane, then started up the car. “Why don’t you text him?” she instructed. “Tell him to try again in exactly five minutes. But keep your defenses up until then.”
I nodded. She didn’t have to tell me the last part. I was close enough to an emotional wreck without feeling the shadows. She drove down the narrow road away from the Pali until a dirt pullout appeared. She turned in, splashed through a leftover rain puddle, and stopped again.
“Okay here?” she asked.
I checked the time and looked around. I couldn’t lower my walls for twenty more seconds, so couldn’t say for sure, but since I could only see a few shadows scattered about, their emotions couldn’t be too bad. Tara propped up the notebook in front of me again and as our time target struck I let my mummy-bandages fall away.
Ouch. So exposed!
“How do you feel?” Tara asked.
“Like one of those dreams where you walk into elementary school and realize you’re in your underwear,” I said honestly.
Tara chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
I stared at the sign. Zane — If you see this, Text Tara now. I felt open to sensations from around me, but the few shadows made little impression, I saw no living people other than Tara, and I could never “feel” my closest friends anyway. So I was not surprised to be unbothered by external emotions. Within myself, however, the fuses on all hell’s firecrackers sizzled away.
Tara’s phone buzzed.
Her eyes met mine. She scooped her phone off the dash and looked at the screen with a smile. “It’s him,” she announced. Then she held it out towards me.
As you wish.
I grabbed my phone and dialed his number. “Zane!” I gushed, as soon as he answered and before he could even speak. “Do you know where I am right now? Tell me exactly what you’ve been seeing ever since we left the blowhole.”
“Oo-kay,” he said, his voice tentative. “I told you I would try not to see anything. I started to get a few flashes, but I mainly jus
t saw the inside of your car.”
“Could you tell where we were?” I demanded. I knew I sounded harsh, but I couldn’t help it. Once I got my questions answered, everything would be all right again.
I hoped.
“I wasn’t trying to,” he answered, sounding slightly hurt. “But if I had to guess, I’d say you were headed up the windward side, because I think I saw the ocean to your right once.”
“I know you weren’t trying to,” I said, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry. What about in the twenty minutes or so right before I texted you? Anything then?” My heart was thudding. I had kept my defenses up ever since we’d turned off the Pali Highway onto the access road. If my block was effective, he shouldn’t have seen any of the “jungle” part of the drive.
“I saw mountains once,” he admitted, sounding miserable again.
I could barely ask the next question. “And what about after I called? When I told you to try hard in exactly three minutes? What did you see then?”
Please, please, please!
“Well, that was kind of weird,” he explained. “It was the first time I’d tried to connect with you, so I’m not sure what should have happened. But I got nothing.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. Thank you, God! All was now officially right with the world. “Nothing?” I repeated weakly.
“No. It was like I was trying to see in a tunnel or something. There was just nowhere to go. Totally weird. So I thought maybe it only worked when I wasn’t thinking about it, like the other visions.”
I had a tiny moment of panic again. “But that wasn’t it?”
“No,” he agreed. “Because when you texted and told me to try it again, I did the exact same thing, and right away, I saw the dashboard of your car, clear as day. That sign really freaked me out, by the way. Nice touch. Was that Tara’s idea?”
“Yes,” I replied, beginning to feel wonderfully warm again, even without my glowing platinum.
“But, Kali,” he continued, sounding miserable again. “I have to tell you, when I tried to think about you, and connect with you like that — well, it was more than just a flash. It still wasn’t anything like the other visions. But I don’t think I should be practicing it like that anymore. Because, well—”
“It’s okay, Zane,” I interrupted swiftly, feeling bad about the self-reproach in his voice. “It’s going to be okay. Tara figured it out.” I smiled across the car at her. “I can block you. Just like I can block the shadows. That’s what I was doing the first time I texted. That’s why you got nothing. In fact, I’ve been at the Pali this whole time,” I finished proudly. “Blocking the whole irritating lot of you.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You can block me?” he repeated quietly. “Then, you can control it? Even if I can’t?”
“Deal with it, Svenson,” I said smugly.
The deep rumble of his laughter did that electrical thing to my spine again.
“Kali,” he said warmly. “That is the best thing you could possibly say to me right now. Do you have any idea how impossible it is not to try to think about you, ever?”
I grinned. “Particularly when you know that the three of us are running around beach-hopping in sexy swimsuits?”
I could tell he was grinning back. “Yes. Particularly then. But you’re in control. This is fabulous! I’m totally off the hook, now!”
That worried me a bit. “Off the hook?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said mischievously. “From now on, whatever fun stuff I get to see, it’ll totally be your fault!”
Chapter 11
Tara pulled up her phone again, looked at it, and sighed.
“We’re all annoyed that Tim Jones still hasn’t called you back,” Kylee lectured lazily as she adjusted the straps of her bikini. “But to sigh in a place like this is just wrong.”
I had to agree. The sun had finally won an edge over the clouds and had been shining for a good twenty minutes straight now. The bright sky had turned the waters of Kailua Bay to a soothing shade of sapphire, contrasting with the green peaks encircling its sides and the dark chain of rock islands that rose out of the ocean in the distance, sheltering the beach from the strongest of the swells beyond. We had backtracked to the windward side because I knew this would be the ideal spot for some low-stress, late afternoon R&R. Close to the light tan, powdery sand of the beach, the calm, shallow waters of the bay were great for swimming and splashing. Farther out, the deeper waters were enjoyed by standup paddleboarders, kitesurfers, kayakers, and windsurfers. For the three of us on a lazy summer afternoon, the possibilities were endless.
“You’re right,” Tara agreed, dropping her phone back in her beach bag. “I should let it go. The man’s obviously in no hurry. He’s got other clothes.”
“We all know you look better in Kali’s things anyway,” Kylee said unsympathetically, her eyes trained down the beach. We had parked the car and walked to a spot where we could see the water, at which point the two of them had stopped in awed wonder, basically unsure where to start.
“Should we go for a dip?” Tara suggested, ignoring the dig at her wardrobe.
“I want to pick up guys,” Kylee said matter of factly.
“You’re wearing that bikini aren’t you?” Tara snapped back. “Just let nature take its course. Come on, Kali. That water looks so gorgeous! Too bad I won’t be able to see it from now on,” she lamented as she took off her glasses and stashed them in her bag. Then she kicked off her flip-flops and headed for the aqua-white froth.
“I want to stay dry for now,” Kylee said absently, her eyes surveying the various groups of locals and tourists milling about the beach. “You two go ahead.”
We went ahead. Aside from Tara’s introduction to Waikiki yesterday, she had never been in the ocean before, and I was glad I had started her out someplace tame, because the jagged, wild beaches of the North Shore could be pretty intimidating, even when the surf was flat. And as much as I hated to admit it, I still couldn’t completely shake the images the vile ghost had foisted upon me in the carport. Whatever I had seen or imagined in those few seconds had definitely taken place in the ocean. But, I consoled myself as we frolicked, it hadn’t happened in water this clear — or this shallow. And fortunately, Tara’s joy at the novelty of the sea was contagious. We had a great time joking and splashing around — until she stopped suddenly and stared at me like I was some kind of alien.
“Crap, Kali!” she protested. “I totally forgot about Zane! Are you blocking him right now?”
I had to laugh at the look of horror on her face. “I think so,” I assured. “I’m working on it, anyway. I’ve been doing this thing where I make my normal blind stronger. I’m hoping it will work like the regular one, where I don’t have to concentrate on it every second. I won’t know for sure until I quiz Zane about it later. But Tara,” I chuckled again, “you do realize we’re in a public place and anyone can see you, right?”
She made a face and pulled up the plunging neckline of her swimsuit. “Yeah, but they don’t know me.”
I stifled another laugh and shook my head. Tara was so amazingly not self-aware. She saw herself as an intellectual that no guy could possibly be interested in, unless, of course, he was smart enough to appreciate her mind. And although it was true that she hadn’t attracted much lasting interest from the guys we knew in Cheyenne, it was also true that (1) half of them had known her since kindergarten when she had a reputation for biting people and (2) she actively discouraged them on a daily basis. What Tara couldn’t seem to grasp was that if she was going to ditch those hideous frames of hers on a public beach and go splashing around in the ocean wearing a swimsuit that was perfectly suited to her coloring and figure, Zane’s spy-vision was the least of her concerns.
A flying disc skipped over the water and nearly collided with Tara’s thigh.
“Oh, no!” a male voice exclaimed. “Sorry about that!”
We looked up to see a guy in bright green boardshorts splashing through the wat
er to retrieve the disc, which had landed a few feet away. He looked around our age, maybe a little older, and he spoke with a southern accent. Tara and I exchanged a quick glance. He walked over to us with a sheepish smile and gave his shaggy dark hair a shake.
He was pretty cute.
“Hi, I’m Curtis,” he introduced, his manner friendly. “It didn’t hit you, did it?”
“No,” Tara said shortly.
Curtis blinked at her as if he was wounded. He looked at me. “I’d blame my brother for a bad throw, but really, I should have caught it. Sorry again.”
“That’s okay,” I answered with a smile, taking pity on him. Tara really was awfully good at the discouragement thing.
He smiled back at me, gave a nod, and moved away again. He drew back the disc and flicked it to another guy standing knee-high in the ocean about forty yards away. That guy, who was taller, looked a little older, and was even cuter, made an impressive leap in the air to catch it.
Tara was unmoved. “I tried to look up Tim Jones on your laptop while you were in the shower this morning,” she said as if the guys didn’t exist. “I thought it would be hopeless, and it was. I did trace the flight number on the luggage tag, not that that was any help either. He wasn’t on our flight from Denver. His bag came all the way from Tahiti. You believe that?”
“Tahiti?” I said with a gasp. “As in the Billabong Pro Tahiti?”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Say what?”
Tim Jones had been there himself? For real? “This is too cool, Tara!” I gushed as I tried to explain about the contest jersey, which I was sure now was genuine. “I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but Zane will flip when I tell him. Tim Jones must be a major surf fan with major bucks to make a trip like that! He must know people!”
Tara was not impressed. “Whatever,” she replied. “I just wish he was a little more considerate. He might be rich enough not to need his stuff, but is it so much to ask that he give me a chance to pick up mine? No offense, but a girl likes to wear her own underwear, you know?”