The Warning: Hawaiian Shadows, #4

By Edie Claire

Fourth in the HAWAIIAN SHADOWS series by USA-Today bestselling author Edie Claire!

Knowing things you shouldn't can make you powerful.
It can also rip your heart out.

Lacey Chambliss should be on top of the world, even if a hurricane is headed straight for her hometown of Honolulu. She's being praised as a hero for saving a surfer's life; her senior year of high school is about to begin; and after three long years of looking at her as a sister, her favorite guy in the world has finally asked her out. But Lacey has a painful secret. Several times in her life she has seen a strange visual phenomenon associated with a particular person. And every time she sees it, that person dies.

Lacey has always tried her best to warn people, even when she was a child. But her best has never been good enough. So when, to her horror, the dreaded specter strikes the guy she most adores, she vows to do whatever it takes to change his fate. Even if it means taking some serious risks, beginning with confessing her own freakishness. Because what she needs most now are some allies. And by turning to her new friends Kali and Zane, she has stumbled upon two powerful allies indeed...

Reviews of Wraith from the bloggers:

"WOW! Is all I can say... I loved every minute of it. It has to be one of the best YA paranormal reads I have read to date. This book is filled with heart and soul... I don't think I have actually cried over a book since I was in the 7th grade and read Where the Red Fern Grows... Really Edie... I'm begging, write more Zane and Kali!"-- Melissa Hardy, Smardy Pants Book Blog

"This book is so incredibly awesome!! I loved absolutely every minute that I spent reading this!! It was a book that kept me up long into the early hours of the morning...I simply couldn't put it down!!...I loved Kali and Zane. Kali's spunk and Zane's enthusiasm, sense of humour and energy were infectious!!...Without a doubt a massive 5/5."-- Young Adult Book Addict

"Despite my inclination to listen to stories intended for a more mature audience, I found myself lost and totally engrossed in Kali and Zane's story. I listened to this audiobook straight through enjoying every minute of it. Wraith is the impressive first book in the YA series Hawaiian Shadows... The writing style is very vivid -- the author not only puts you there emotionally, but also physically in a way that makes you feel the warm ocean breeze of a Hawaiian spring... A fantastic YA listen." -- Loupe Duffy, Hot Listens [From the audio version, narrated by the award-winning Tavia Gilbert]

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stackhouse Press
• Release date: Aug 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386059943

Edie Claire

No matter the genre, USA Today bestselling novelist and playwright Edie Claire strives to infuse all her writing with both warmth and humor. Her family-friendly Leigh Koslow cozy mystery series, a favorite of animal lovers that was originally published in 1999, was reborn in 2012 to become a USA-Today bestseller. Her romantic novels range from women’s fiction with romantic elements to a blend of romance and mystery, beginning with her traditionally published contemporaries, the award-winning Long Time Coming and Meant To Be, and continuing with her exciting new series of interconnected romantic novels, Pacific Horizons, whose characters follow the migration of the humpback whales to some of the most gorgeous locations on earth. In any Edie Claire work, the reader may be assured that intrigue will beckon and tensions will rise – but love will triumph and happy endings will abound! Edie has worked as a veterinarian, a childbirth educator, and a scientific/technical writer. A mother of three, she lives in Pennsylvania and aspires to become a snowbird.  

Book preview

Dedication

For all the not-skinny-but-still-perfectly-healthy girls out there who love their curves.

Rock on.

Prologue

I was so incredibly, ridiculously anxious that my hands were shaking, and the fact that I was anxious made me mad, which made the shaking worse. If Matt noticed that my hands were shaking and misinterpreted it — if he thought I was nervous just because we were technically on our first date — I might very well break down and scream. Not that he wouldn’t be right. But he would assume there was some simple, obvious explanation for my angst, and nothing about my raging, tangled, hot mess of feelings for him was in the least bit simple.

He had parked his car on the street, and we were walking toward the side gate that led to my door. The house where my mom and I rented two small rooms was perched near the top of a sweeping suburban Honolulu mountainside, and in the dark of evening we could see lights twinkling all the way down to Pearl Harbor. I’d seen the same view countless times before, but tonight it looked different. Tonight everything seemed different.

For three solid years now, Matt had been my brother-friend, my rock, my teddy bear. His hugs were like a drug to me. They were chocolate. But since he had always been my boyfriend’s best friend, I had tried not to notice how gorgeous he was. Tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, and athletic, with light brown hair and clear blue eyes. He played football and water polo and wanted to go to the Air Force Academy to be a fighter pilot, and if it weren’t for his warm nature and baby-faced smile, you could picture him starring in a commando movie. I used to tell myself I wasn’t attracted to the ripped, macho type.

Yeah. Right.

I needed to believe that, you see, because my boyfriend Ty was lanky, pretty-faced, and a born weakling. And heaven forbid I should ever consider breaking up with Ty. We’d been a couple since the seventh grade and made it all the way through our junior year of high school. So it must be true love, right?

Yes, you do detect sarcasm.

Ty and I broke up at the beginning of this summer. Now summer was over. Senior year would start in a matter of days.

You sure do have an awesome place here, Matt praised. He stopped walking suddenly and pivoted. I love this view.

I stopped also, studying him. So far, on this date, Matt hadn’t acted much differently than he did any other time we were together. Dinner was burgers at a local grill, and our entertainment was a round of mini-golf followed by a movie at his house with his family hanging around. We’d sat close on his couch and kind of cuddled, but that meant nothing — the guy was like a giant plush toy with all his female friends. Walking me to my door, however, meant making a decision. If he really wanted to take the plunge and be more than friends, he would kiss me goodnight.

I had to wonder, as I hid my still-trembling hands behind my back, if he was stalling. Was he having second thoughts?

A flash of raw fear cut me to the bone. I got the irony, considering my own angst, but his hesitation hurt me just the same. After so many years of being physically invisible to the guy, being dismissed as some sexless sister-friend, I could swear that in the last two days he’d been looking at me as if I were an actual female human person.

Now, all he wanted to look at was a bunch of lights. Had I been deluding myself?

When he’d asked me out tonight, he had used those words: a date. Of course, he’d also joked right afterward that it was time I went out with a real man. So maybe the whole thing had been a joke. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to me after all.

Not that I’m knocking my own appearance. My boyfriend Ty had certainly been attracted to me — the scumbag! — and so had Austin, my rebound guy. The fact that they were attracted to other girls simultaneously says more about their lack of discernment than my appeal.

I know my assets and my flaws. I’m naturally blond with big blue eyes, and with the right makeup I can look awesome in a headshot. I’m also short and let’s say not skinny, so I’ll never be gracing the cover of Cosmo. But I’m a long way from obese and I know how to carry myself, so you’re not going to find me sticking a finger down my throat, either. I’m good with me. And I’d always gotten the feeling that Matt was cool with me, too.

Perhaps his standards were higher for girlfriends than for friends.

My angst was getting worse. He still wasn’t looking at me. He was just standing there, staring out over the city.

It’s the same view we’ve always had, I said. Then I cringed. My mom and I had lived here for a year already, ever since my dad moved out and my brother went away to college. But Matt’s time-wasting comment about the view was not what made my voice crackle with an undercurrent of anger. That frustrating phenomenon was caused by something else. I’d been trying to forgive him for his part in Ty’s betrayal, but frankly, I was having a hard time. He kept saying he was sorry and I kept saying it was okay, but even months later, a part of me was still mad as hell.

The rest of me just hurt like it.

I still can’t believe you’re famous! Matt burst out with a grin, glancing back at me. Either he hadn’t heard my snarky comment, or he was pretending he hadn’t. He didn’t know how to deal with my continuing anger either, so we sidestepped it. "I keep checking my phone to see how far the story’s gone. Did I tell you I found it in the Florida Sun Sentinel? Add that to the list. But the Sydney Morning Herald! Wow. That’s the coolest."

I tried to smile back at him, but my thoughts weren’t happy. Yes, my fifteen minutes — or two days and counting — of fame had been terribly exciting, I won’t lie. It wasn’t every day a girl saved a professional surfer from drowning, particularly Hawaii’s favorite son who was on track to win the world championship in December. But I’d been trained as a lifeguard, so it wasn’t like I’d performed brain surgery with a spoon, and besides, Matt and I had been over this topic before.

He was stalling, wasn’t he?

We had been together at Ali'i Beach on Wednesday when the tragedy occurred. Matt had lost track of me in the chaos, and because of some flying rumors he’d believed briefly that I had drowned while attempting the rescue. When he found me I was coughing up a lung and looked like a sewer rodent, but he’d swept me up and crushed me in his arms anyway. He’d carried me all the way to his car and drove me to the hospital and stayed with me for hours in the ER. Ever since, I could swear he had been looking at me differently.

Can we see Kali’s house from here, you think? he asked, gazing off in another direction.

Moist heat welled up behind my eyes. He wouldn’t look at me at all, now.

I took in a deep breath and tried to regroup. I must have read something wrong. Matt went out with a lot of girls, and I knew most of them. The guy had a typical date MO. Getting shy at the point of departure was not in his playbook.

He’s not into you after all, Lacey. Deal with it. Isn’t that what you wanted?

I tried to be relieved. If he didn’t want more, I could save myself the grief, right? All these gut-gnawing, heart-wrenching fears I’d been suffering… they would just go away. Matt and I could go back to the way we’d always been. Good friends, best buddies, old chums, old pals. He could go back to telling me I was selling myself short with guys, and I could go back to telling him he needed to date smarter, more enlightened girls who could keep his machismo in check. We could even set each other up for dates.

He turned then and met my gaze full on. Something in his blue eyes twinkled sadly, and a bolt of sorrow shot straight through my chest.

We had a connection, he and I. It was strong, warm, and solid. If he really did want me that way… If we had a chance, even a small one…

What’s wrong, Lace? he asked softly.

My heart began to pound. The guy was killing me. The look in his eyes now was so caring, so… affectionate. And yet, so very sad.

Why sad? What was wrong with him?

I was about to ask you the same thing, I answered, my voice barely above a whisper.

We were standing several feet apart. Our gazes locked, and for a long moment we seemed to be trading silent questions with no answers. Then his lips tugged into a half smile. He held out an arm and gestured to me. Come here.

A warm rush of hope flooded through me, and I returned his smile. I had just lifted a foot, just made the slightest shift of position to close the space between us, when the horrible thing happened.

I got The Warning.

Chapter 1

I can’t begin to convey my horror — how I felt when the colors of Matt’s sweetly familiar face began to dim and fade before my eyes — without first taking my story back in time. What happened between us that night came only at the tail end of a semi-dreadful, semi-exhilarating summer that included a soul-crushing breakup, some great new friendships, and my near-drowning followed by international fame. But to grasp the full depth of my terror in that moment, you have to go back even further.

The first time I got The Warning, I was only six years old. My brother Peter and I had been allowed into the hospital to see our grandfather because the doctors were all convinced Grandpa wouldn’t survive the night. All I remember about Grandpa from that occasion was that he was lying in bed asleep, but I remember my grandmother vividly. She was wearing those fake jeans with a high elastic waistband and a bright pink shirt that made her skin look yellow. She was sitting in the chair by his window with her hands covering her face, and she was crying.

Everyone else was focusing on my grandfather, trying to give my grandmother some privacy, no doubt. But I’d never seen her cry before, and I couldn’t stop staring. Then right before my eyes, she changed colors. One second she was pink and blue and gray and yellowish, and the next she was all washed out, like an old tin-type photograph. And then the paler tones flashed dark, like a picture turning into its negative. It all happened in a second or two, and then she looked normal again.

At first, I thought something was wrong with my eyes. So I rubbed at them. But when it happened again a couple minutes later, I got upset. I started crying and pointing and asking everyone what was wrong with Grandma. Of course, no one saw what I saw, and I couldn’t explain it, and my tears were easy enough to explain away without anyone worrying about what I meant by funny colors. So no one did.

I didn’t either, honestly, once we left the hospital. But the next morning we received news that shocked everyone. My grandmother had suffered a massive coronary that night, sitting up in her chair. Even though she was right there in the hospital when it happened, they couldn’t save her. My grandfather had been only minimally aware of what was happening at the time. But he actually recovered and lived for seven more years.

I realize that one anecdote like that, as told by a six-year-old, wouldn’t convince anyone of anything. It didn’t convince me of anything either. As much as the whole episode upset me as a child, I didn’t understand it and I didn’t want to think about it. Why should I, when it only made me sad? But two years later, when I was in the third grade, I got The Warning again.

I was over at my friend Amy’s house. We were playing outside in her driveway and her dad was mowing the lawn. I don’t remember what he was wearing exactly, but he had dark hair and a beard. He was walking along, pushing the mower, and then his hair faded out to what I remember as an orangey color. Now I would describe it as sepia tones. I stood up and yelled at Amy that her dad’s hair had turned orange, and she thought I’d lost my mind. He never flashed light and dark like my grandmother had, but the colors of his face and clothing kept changing, for a few seconds each time. Then he’d go back to normal again.

I remembered what had happened to my grandmother, and like an idiot, I told Amy all about it. Lucky for me, she wasn’t the sensitive type. She laughed in my face and told me that her dad was healthy as a horse and that I was a crazy liar, and we went back to drawing unicorns and rainbows with sidewalk chalk. I didn’t see her dad again after that, but several weeks afterwards he collapsed in the middle of a marathon and died in the hospital the next day.

I was pretty shaken up by that news, and I remember sitting both my parents down and explaining to them that — clearly — their second-born child had been given the gift of prophesy. I was underwhelmed when Steven and Kate Chambliss (who for the record are not and never have been in the slightest bit religious) responded with a tolerant smile, a pat on the head, and the suggestion of an earlier bedtime.

Amy herself seemed not to remember that I’d ever said anything about her dad. And believe it or not, I was smart enough not to remind her.

The idea that I might be able to predict when people were about to die both frightened and secretly excited me, because at that age I could fantasize about being a superhero without the negative consequences of such knowledge (like, say, the agony of feeling helpless) ever occurring to me. Nor did they anytime soon, because for about four years after that, nothing else happened. I knew people who died, but there was no Warning. Since my thinking was pretty black and white at that point, I found myself confused. Either I could predict when anyone and everyone in the world was going to die, or I couldn’t. So when years passed with nothing else happening, I decided that I couldn’t. I must have been imagining things.

Then one day in the middle of seventh grade, I was sitting in my fourth period math class staring at Mr. Levin’s tie. Mr. Levin had exactly three ties, which he wore in rotation. This was the blue one with the gray fleur-de-lis pattern and the red stain at the bottom. (Legend had it that the stain was blood from his murdered mother, but most people agreed it was either cherry pie or General Tso’s.) As I sat there musing over whether the man had ever even tried to get the stain out, the red color turned dark and the blue and gray tones paled.

I remember not being able to draw a breath. I felt like my lungs were frozen as I sat there watching first the tie, then his shirt, drain of all normal color. In the next instant his always-ruddy face went sepia as well and his thin gray hair became tinged with a sickly orange. The colors swirled and morphed and changed, and while a nauseating feeling of dread crept over me, he continued to drone on about one-step equations like nothing was wrong.

But my world was collapsing in on me. I hadn’t been imagining things. It was real!

I got sick to my stomach and bolted for the restroom. I was hanging over a toilet bowl when another girl came in saying that Mr. Levin had sent her to check on me. I insisted I felt better, but I wouldn’t go back to class with her. I stayed in the bathroom until the bell rang and then walked through the rest of my day like a zombie. How was it possible I’d seen nothing all these years, only to have it happen again with somebody like Mr. Levin?

You have to understand, Mr. Levin was not your everyday, ordinary teacher. He wasn’t a bad teacher, as math instructors go, but he wasn’t a very likeable person. He didn’t talk much, always seemed to be in a bad mood, had no detectable sense of humor, and showed no interest in getting to know anybody he worked with on a personal basis — either his students or the other teachers. Although he was somewhere in his forties or fifties he had never married and had apparently lived at home with his mother until she’d died a few years before. (His mother actually had passed away under somewhat sketchy circumstances — hence the unkind rumors about his tie.) In short, I had no real relationship with the man.

So what could I possibly do about The Warning?

I decided, again, to try to talk to my parents. I reminded them of the last conversation we’d had on the topic, and was annoyed — but not surprised — when neither of them appeared to remember it. In their defense, it was a busy time for the family. My dad was retiring from active duty and taking a civilian job in Honolulu, and we were moving in a matter of days. They were, as you might imagine, not particularly concerned with my new information.

But I couldn’t let it go. Whether what I suspected was real or not, I couldn’t live with myself if I did nothing. Mr. Levin did not change colors again in the next few days, but I had no way of knowing if that meant anything. So before my last day of class, I made a decision. I would give the man a fighting chance.

I approached his desk before class started and reminded him that it was my last day. Most teachers would strike up a conversation at that point, wish you well in your new school, maybe even tease you about your luck in getting to move from the middle of Ohio to someplace like Hawaii. Mr. Levin just looked at me like I was wasting his time. I’ve completed the necessary paperwork, he said.

Even that didn’t put me off. You’ve been looking a little pale lately, I lied in a pathetic, squeaky voice that sounded as terrified as I felt. He looked the same way he always looked. Have you been to a doctor recently?

It was lame, I know, but it was the only thing I could think of. If I told him the whole truth there was no way he would believe me. But I figured this approach might at least nudge him toward getting a checkup, particularly if he was having some symptoms he’d been ignoring. I still think it was a pretty good idea for a twelve-year-old.

Too bad it didn’t work. All I got from Mr. Levin was a cool glare, a reprimand for asking inappropriate questions, and an order to return to my seat. Whether he ever went to a doctor, I don’t know. I never saw him again. A month later, after we were settled in Honolulu, I heard the news from a friend back home.

Mr. Levin had committed suicide.

I never doubted The Warning after that. My parents were another matter.

Your eyes can play tricks on you, my mother kept repeating, even when I laid out all three occurrences, complete with timeline. Coincidences happen. My father’s response was even less helpful. People die every day, honey, he would say offhandedly. In his mind, that statement alone covered all the bases.

I couldn’t understand them. They didn’t understand me. But that’s the way we always rolled in my family. I can’t complain about my parents, because there are advantages to being raised by two of the most passive human beings on earth, and my brother and I have made the most of every one of them. At least we all get along.

Naturally, I felt wretched about Mr. Levin. But I didn’t feel nearly as bad as I would have if I’d been too scared to speak to him. And rationally, I knew that there probably wasn’t anything I could have said or done to change what happened. Maybe an adult could have convinced Mr. Levin to seek psychological help — and maybe not. But one fact about his death did make me stop and think.

Mr. Levin had taken his own life. Presumably that was his choice, by his own free will. So at the time I got The Warning, his future must not have been set in stone. He could have chosen another path, couldn’t he? And did that not confirm that The Warning wasn’t always a done deal? If not, was there something else I might have done that could have changed the fate of Amy’s dad? Or of my grandmother?

Those questions burned a hole in my tender adolescent guts, I can tell you. And it wasn’t a stress I needed while changing schools and trying to make all new friends in the middle of seventh grade. Back then I was on the shy side and hadn’t come to love all my sexy curves yet, so I spent a lot of time by myself, looking up stuff on premonitions and psychic warnings, trying to figure me out. Mostly I searched online, but I found some pretty funky books in the library, too.

And it was there, sprawled on the dingy carpet in the back corner of the first floor beneath where all the parapsychology books were shelved, that I met Ty.

Chapter 2

Ty was a real cutie back then. He was the same height as me, if you can believe it, and his hair was still a childish golden blond. When I see pictures of us now at that age, I swear we look like babies. He wore his hair long, right down to his shoulders, and his bangs were always hanging in his eyes. And those eyes! He had giant, deep brown, puppy-dog eyes that were so open and guileless and tender a girl could dive into them with her whole innocent, romantic soul. Which I did, of course. Practically immediately.

Ty was everything I wanted and needed in a bestie. He was sweet and fun-loving and endlessly creative. Back then, he was seriously into fantasy novels and role-playing games, and he was at the library researching parapsychology because he thought it would be cool to be a psychic. He wanted to see if he could learn to read other people’s minds. He thought he was pretty good at it already, and if he could get better, he’d be unbeatable in the gaming world. I was all over that project, of course, but I didn’t tell