by Edie Claire
“Any sign of Makani?” Kylee chirped, scoping out the area.
Zane shook his head as he released me. “Not yet.” He grinned down at me, but after studying my traitorous face for a second, his enthusiasm dimmed a little. “You okay?”
I smiled back. He still had one arm around my shoulders. “Better now.”
Tara looked up from her phone and back toward the parking lot. “He says he just got here.”
“Listen, Zane,” I said dutifully, trying to sound upbeat. “When we met him at my house, everything was a little more complicated than it looked. I was getting some really weird vibes that I couldn’t explain by text, and I can’t explain it all in sixty seconds, either. But we’ll talk about it later, okay?”
“I see him,” Tara announced.
Zane’s gaze snapped from me to the figure striding toward us, then back to me again. The conflict was clearly painful. He was worried about whatever it was I had to tell him and he saw right through my fake happy face. Then again… the next world champion of professional surfing! O.M.G!
I laughed out loud. “I’m fine!” I insisted, meaning it.
He looked back at me skeptically, then turned his full attention to Makani. The disappointment on his face at his first sight of the Hawaiian icon made me laugh all over again.
The surfer looked even geekier than the last time we’d seen him. He was wearing neon orange sneakers, some seriously ugly dress pants, a baggy rain jacket, and a long-brimmed hunter’s cap that was covered with guns and moose antlers.
Moose antlers?
Tara and Kylee chuckled along with me as he approached. “Very nice,” Tara teased. “You go moose hunting often after a hard day’s work at the office? And a run?”
He grinned and shrugged one shoulder. “I improvise. It helps to have a cousin who works at the airport and gets kicks out of raiding the lost and found.” He looked at Zane, and I stepped forward to make introductions. But when I got closer to the famous surfer the same dismal pall of depression I’d felt before began to assault my senses all over again, even with my blind in full force. “Makani,” I said quietly, careful not to be overheard. “This is Zane Svenson. Zane, Makani Marro.”
The guys shook hands. I watched Zane closely to savor his reaction. To his credit as an actor, if I hadn’t been watching him closely I probably wouldn’t have noticed the shudder that passed through his legs and his back, or the way he braced himself as he fought the urge to recoil. I would only have seen what everyone else saw: a goofy, starstruck guy who was really, really happy to see his idol face to face.
“Awesome to meet you,” Zane said with what was almost his normal voice. But the Zane I knew wasn’t present — either in the voice or in his eyes. The response was given on autopilot… Zane was somewhere else.
My heart began to pound. I put an arm tentatively behind his back.
Makani nodded, and the guys dropped hands. Zane stiffened briefly, then relaxed again.
“I swear I don’t normally dress like this,” Makani said.
Zane’s face showed disappointment. “No? I’ve got a hat just like that, man.”
Makani snickered, and Zane smirked back.
Before anyone else could say anything, Makani had moved to the ticket window and paid for five admissions. He waved off our surprised thanks, gestured for us to follow, then led us through the building and out the other side to a large circular lawn area.
“I wasn’t lying to you,” Makani told Tara. “I love this museum. I’ve been looking forward to showing it off all day. First stop, Hawaiian Hall! Or as my brothers used to call it, ‘the whale room.’ Follow me.”
I pulled on Zane’s arm to get him to hang back as the others started walking toward the main building. “What happened to you back there?” I whispered.
He had the nerve to look at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about.
I gave him a disgusted expression. “Don’t even start! Yes, your acting was superb, but I know you. Now, what happened when you shook his hand? Are you all right?”
He threaded his fingers through mine and started walking after the others. “I’m fine. Can we talk about it later?”
I blew out a breath. Of course he was fine. Zane might be highly “evolved,” as Lacey put it, but he was still a guy. He was also sharp enough to know when to quote my own words back at me.
I couldn’t shake a continued feeling of angst as we followed the threesome into the castle-like building ahead of us. The museum, which bore the date 1889 above its entrance, was made of rough-hewn grayish lava rock and was Romanesque in style, with lots of arches and tall, narrow windows. On another day, it might have been beautiful. Today, as the sun that had shone all morning picked this moment to slip behind the gathering clouds, the only adjective that came to mind was “gloomy.”
Or perhaps my blind was slipping somehow? The people shadows were certainly thick here, as thick as anywhere in Honolulu. Yet they were not unhappy as a group. For over a hundred years the museum grounds had been a site for school trips and family outings, weddings and galas. And I saw nothing among the scattered, fleeting shadows in the gardens to explain the strange, unsettled feeling that had come over me upon Makani’s arrival.
We walked through the stone archway and into the Hawaiian Hall.
“This has all been renovated in the last few years,” Makani explained, stopping to let us catch up with him in the entryway. “It was a huge effort. I haven’t seen it since it’s all gotten finished.”
I had to smile at the enthusiasm in his voice, even as the chill in the air around him continued to oppress me. He began walking backward, moving as comfortably as if he gave tours for a living. “The wooden beam and the railings you’ll see in here are all made of native koa wood. Later you’ll want to walk around and read all the exhibits, but when you first walk in, it’s cool just to stand back and enjoy the big picture for a second.” His dark eyes twinkled at Kylee. “And I don’t mean just stare up at the whale. It’s fake, by the way.”
Kylee giggled and widened her eyes. “Really?”
“Paper mache,” he confirmed with a smile. “But it’s still cool.”
We walked on into the hall together, and I understood immediately what Makani meant. The room was a huge oval, three stories tall with skylights at the top and two levels of balconies that circled the whole way around. The bannisters, ceiling beams, and wooden trim on the elaborate third floor arches were all made of the gleaming, red-brown koa wood, and the space in between was filled with delights for the eye. Aside from the giant sperm whale that hung from the ceiling, I could see a shark, a ray, a turtle, and some fish sharing the vertical space. What looked like an actual ancient fishing canoe was also suspended along one wall, and in the center of the floor stood several giant tiki-type carvings and a full-sized grass shack. Various themed exhibits and artifacts in koa-wood cases ringed the periphery of the first floor, then spiraled up and around each balcony.
“Wow,” I whispered to Zane. “This is neat.”
It was also crowded. More crowded than any of the living humans currently buzzing about it were aware of, that was for sure. The place was absolutely seething with shadows. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since any spot of ground that was highly trafficked by people tended to host more than its fair share of emotionally charged life moments. But this building being as old as it was, funneling so many people along the narrow balconies… Geez! How many parents had nearly had strokes trying to rescue their idiot children as they dangled off one balcony or another? I saw three such shadow scenes in a matter of seconds. I lowered my eyes, afraid of seeing one that did not end happily.
“Oh, wow. Where do we even start?” Tara asked with glee.
“The realm of the sea,” Makani answered dramatically, pitching his voice in a low, mysterious tone. “Pre-contact Hawaii. This way.”
He led Tara off and Kylee followed, although I noticed that Kylee seemed to stumb
le a bit. She hadn’t said a word since we walked in the hall, which was odd. She should have screeched or squealed. Or at the very least, oohed or aahed. “Did you notice—” I began to ask Zane. But I never finished the question. I took one look at his face and had a pretty good idea what was wrong with Kylee. “Zane?”
“Yeah?” he replied dryly. His eyes stared out at the room before us, not at one spot, but at the length and breadth of it. His gaze swept forward and back, stopping here and there at seemingly random places. His pupils were wide. His chest heaved up and down. He looked over at Makani and Tara, studying the area around them for several seconds as both worry lines and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his suntanned forehead.
“Let me guess,” I said, taking his hand into both of mine. “All these shadows I’m seeing are not alone, are they?”
Zane closed his eyes a second. Then he shook his head and shoulders and looked at me.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “What did you say?”
“You were somewhere else?” I asked, confused.
“No,” he replied absently, “I was here.” He looked back up into the room again and blinked. “Just having childhood flashbacks of Disneyland.”
Now he was really confusing me. “Disneyland?”
He nodded slowly. “The Haunted Mansion.”
Chapter 18
We moved around the first floor exhibits in a loose clump, with Zane and me staying a pace or two behind my friends and Makani. For someone who claimed he hadn’t been to the museum in a couple years, Makani knew a surprising amount about the renovations and the older exhibits, and he easily answered every question Tara came up with about Hawaiian cultural history. He obviously enjoyed the topic as much as she enjoyed asking about it, and he was interesting to listen to. Unfortunately for me, he seemed not to want to speak too loudly, which meant I couldn’t understand everything he said unless I also stood close enough to him to feel wretchedly depressed. Which was disturbing for several reasons, not the least of which was that unlike this morning in my front yard, my blind was now in place and fully functional.
It just wasn’t working. At least not where Makani was concerned.
Zane was quiet. He spoke to me in monosyllables and watched the open air around us like a tail gunner spotting enemy planes. When he grabbed my hand suddenly by the miniature replica of the heiau, or sacred temple, my first thought was to duck. But he only wanted to pull me to the side so we could talk without being overheard.
“Kali,” he whispered earnestly. “When you met Makani at your house earlier, did you shake his hand?”
I thought about it. Sometimes I shook people’s hands and sometimes I didn’t. It depended on the circumstances. I remembered the scene as Makani walked toward us… “No,” I answered. “He was holding the suitcase when we introduced ourselves.”
“Have you ever touched him?” Zane pressed. “Think hard. It’s important.”
I replayed both of our brief meetings in my head. “No. I don’t think so.” Standing close enough to him that I felt like I wanted to cry was plenty. “Why?”
Zane blew out a long, slow breath. “I need to think about it.” His eyes darted across the room to rest on an older Asian man who walked with a cane. I had noticed before that the man seemed to be staring at us, or at least at Makani. Evidently, Zane had noticed too.
“Zane, something has obviously got you worried, and I’m warning you, you have exactly five minutes to tell me what it is and then ‘later’ officially expires,” I demanded, refusing to be put off again. “I don’t need to be protected. What is it that you’re thinking?”
The old man took a step toward us, then wavered as if reconsidering. He was definitely focused on Makani. Did he recognize the surfer through his disguise?
“I’m thinking I have four and a half minutes left to stall,” Zane quipped. Then he stepped away from me and up to Makani. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m afraid your cover may be blown. The man at three o’clock has been staring at you and it looks like he’s making his move.”
Makani lifted his head with a sigh. But the instant his gaze connected with that of the elderly man, his face broke into a beaming smile. “Um… sorry,” he said to Tara. “I’ll be back.”
He crossed the center of the room in a few hurried strides, then stretched out his arms and greeted the elderly man with a hearty embrace. When he drew back, the two began talking in hushed tones, all smiles. They didn’t speak in English, but in Hawaiian Pidgin, a dialect that’s a mixture of broken English and words from other local languages, like Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino. I’d lived in Honolulu for months now, and I still couldn’t understand a word of it. But the two men were obviously quite close.
My heart warmed. “Do you think they’re related?”
“Maybe. That’s so nice,” Kylee said approvingly, although her voice sounded a little off. “A lot of guys wouldn’t hug their grandfather like that in public, you know?”
I took my first good look at her since we entered the hall, and realized that her voice wasn’t the only part of her that was off. Her eyes were just as dazed and glassy as Zane’s.
“He’s a nice guy, period,” Tara declared, leaving us to go back to the display she’d been reading. The normally observant Tara was so far off in museum geek la-la land she didn’t even notice that half our party was losing it.
Kylee moved to Zane’s side and threw him a beseeching look. “Please tell me this is freaking you out as much as it’s freaking me out,” she whispered.
“That would be a yes,” Zane answered mechanically, his eyes glued on Makani and the elderly man. “What the—”
“Oooh, this is so weird,” Kylee lamented, her eyes fixed on the same spot as Zane’s. Her chin quivered a little and she leaned into his side. Then she sucked in a sudden breath. “Oh!”
Both she and Zane cringed.
“What is it?” I demanded, only just managing not to stamp my feet and scream. “Close your eyes for a second and tell me!”
“There are ghosts everywhere,” Kylee moaned, keeping one eye half open as she hid the rest of her face behind Zane’s shoulder. She was cuddling a little too close to my boyfriend, but I could see that she was genuinely afraid. “I wouldn’t think they would bother me, but these… I mean…”
“They want something,” Zane offered. “The one just now knew we could see her and she practically made a run at us. But…” He lifted his hands in helplessness. “I don’t know what they want. How could we? Maybe they just want us out of here.”
“But there are other people here!” Kylee complained. “This is a museum! People are supposed to be here!”
“What are the ghosts doing exactly?” I asked.
“Right now, they’re hovering around Makani and that man,” Zane answered. “But their expressions… I can’t even tell if they’re happy or sad!”
“I know,” Kylee agreed. “It’s so bizarre!”
Makani talked to the man for a few minutes, then rejoined us. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “Old friend of the family. Haven’t seen him in a while. Where did Tara get to?”
Anguish. Torment.
Wordlessly, all three of us pointed to where Tara stood staring at the explanatory sign for the grass hale, or hut. She was completely absorbed, ignoring all of us. Makani rushed back to her side.
I breathed out with relief as the stifling aura surrounding him released its hold on me. “Describe what you’re seeing to me. All the ghosts. Please!”
Zane and Kylee took turns filling me in as we made our way up and around the second floor. They spoke of ghosts from the semi-solid to the wispy, walking and floating, congregating on the hull of the airborne canoe and flitting about the banisters. Men and women, young and old. Some made sounds, but none of them could speak. And although several of the ghosts seemed to recognize the awareness in Zane’s and Kylee’s eyes, neither of my friends felt like their own presence mattered. The ghosts’ f
ocus was on one living person, and that person only.
Makani.
“Kali,” Kylee admitted, her chin still trembling slightly, “I really don’t like to admit this, because you know I’ve always thought of ghosts as normal people. Whether they come back to help a loved one or whether they’re stuck here because of issues that need to be resolved, they’re still just ordinary souls. But these people… there’s something just not right with them!”
“I know what you mean,” Zane agreed. “There’s a vibe here that isn’t healthy. I don’t want to say it’s evil, but I don’t know what else to call it. Looking at their faces, they’re just so…” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know.”
“Hostile?” I supplied, feeling slightly sick again as I thought of Jabba the Hutt laying into my boyfriend’s face.
But Zane shook his head. “No, not exactly.”
“We can’t tell,” Kylee said firmly, catching my gaze. “But you could.”
I tensed. Please, no. “It’s too crowded in here. It wouldn’t work,” I defended. “There’s no telling what kind of a jumble I’d get! I’d have no way of knowing what was coming from the ghosts.”
“You’ll know,” Kylee said confidently. We had all been talking low, both to avoid being overheard in general, and to avoid Makani’s hearing us in particular. But gradually he and Tara had not only pulled farther ahead, they’d retreated into their own little world, too.
“There’s a vibe in this place,” Kylee continued. “And there’s a vibe around Makani himself. You told us you’d felt it.”
“Felt what?” Zane asked quickly.
I tried to explain to him about the sadness. The pall of depression that came over me whenever I stepped within a foot or two of the would-be world champion. “My blind doesn’t seem to work on it, either,” I finished.
“Nor did your blind stop the drowning attacks from the boardshorts or the jersey,” Kylee reminded. “Those visions rolled right on in, like what was happening was a totally different mechanism from your picking up on other people’s emotions.”