Wraith (24 page)

My heart beat fast. Zane's form was as transparent
as I had ever seen it. Even his voice wavered from clear to faint as he talked.

"Things got really bad, then. I didn't realize
she was using at first. But I saw the kind of men she was bringing home, and it
made me angry. My room smelled like cigarettes; there was trash everywhere. She
never cooked anymore; half the time, I had no idea where she was. I got a
part-time job and fed myself. I stayed away as much as I could."

He paused, and his voice caught. "That was
selfish of me, I know. If only I'd paid a little more attention to what was
happening with her—"

"Stop it!" I commanded, my cheeks flushed
with heat. "Don't even bother blaming yourself—I won't listen to it. It's
completely ridiculous. Now, go on."

His eyes turned misty. They avoided mine. His body
remained disturbingly faint.

"Eventually, I caught her using," he
continued, his voice steadied. "But she shrugged it off. Told me she was
stressed out and needed something to help her relax. I didn't buy it, of
course, but I didn't know what to do about it, either. She wasn't the kind of
parent to lean on her kid; despite the fact that I was old enough to drive and
work, she treated me like I needed protection—she would never tell me her
problems, or admit how bad things really were. Whenever I tried to talk to her
she would tell me that everything would be fine—that she'd just had a fabulous
job interview and that she was sure
this
would be the one. I had no idea
how much trouble we were in until I started noticing the bills.

"Everything was overdue. Her credit cards were
maxed. The money from my father's estate had been disappearing as quickly as it
came in. We were behind in the rent; the only food in the house was what I
bought. I gave up delivering pizzas and took a job in a warehouse that paid
better—but between school and work, I was hardly ever home, and mom got worse.
I begged her to drop the guys. I begged her to go into rehab. She wouldn't
listen to me. She
just wouldn't
."

The pain in his voice was so deep, I could feel it
in my own gut. Hot liquid swelled behind my eyes. "You did everything you
could," I said inadequately. "She put you in an impossible situation.
You know that."

He made no response. "I tried to get someone
else to talk to her. Someone whose opinion she would respect more than mine.
And a few of her longtime girlfriends did try. But they'd been telling her the
same things for months already; my mother wouldn’t listen to anybody. We didn't
have any family to turn to. My father was dead, my grandparents had been dead a
long time, and I never had any aunts or uncles or cousins. The more desperate I
got, I kept coming back to the same conclusion—that she wasn't going to get
help on her own. And that if she didn't get help, she was going to end up
killing herself."

His voice turned deadpan.

"I started thinking about talking to the
guidance counselors at my school. I'd put it off because I knew that talking to
anyone in authority could get her into legal trouble, but I figured at least
she would get court-ordered rehab—which was the only thing likely to save
her."

"That was a good idea," I affirmed.

"Was it?" he asked dryly. "I was
still only seventeen. I had no other family. What do you think happens to kids
in that situation when their legal guardian is declared unfit?"

I drew in a breath, disbelieving. "Not… foster
care?"

He smiled at me, weakly. "Yes, foster care. I
wasn't stupid; I knew it would happen. But I was less than a year away from my
eighteenth birthday. I figured all I had to do was stick it out. The bulk of my
father's estate money was tied up in trust till I turned twenty one; but I knew
that once I turned eighteen, I'd at least have access to enough to support
myself. I wasn't worried about being a prisoner in the system forever, and I
knew I could manage just fine when I got out. It seemed a reasonable price to
pay for getting my mother healthy again."

"You did a very selfless thing, then," I
assured. His words seemed to be leading to a happy conclusion, but his
expression told otherwise, and my stomach twisted with anxiety. "What
happened?"

He was quiet a long while. Very little of his body
was solid now; and the mere sight of him, pale and nebulous, frightened me. It
was all I could do not to shout at him, as I had before, to release him from
his reverie. I wasn't sure what the transparency meant, but clearly, its timing
was no coincidence. Whenever his thoughts took him to his past, they carried a
chunk of his substance with them.

"My memory isn't perfect yet," he said
ruefully. "I have no idea how much time has passed between the last thing
I remember and now, so I'm not sure what I'm missing. I know that I did end up
in foster care. My mother was horrified at having 'lost' me to the department;
it shook her up enough that she agreed to go to rehab right away."

I let out a pent-up breath. "That's good."

"It was a voluntary commitment," Zane
continued. "She walked out three days later. Two days after that, she
overdosed and died."

My hand clapped over my mouth. It was unfair. So
horribly, brutally unfair. "Oh, Zane," I cried, having no idea what
to say.

He sprang up and walked to edge of the bunker. His
form took on a more solid shape as he moved. "You don't have to say
anything," he responded, not facing me. "There's nothing to say.
Except that I guess now you can understand why I didn't want to get into
it."

He looked out over the open ocean, which was hosting
an impressive display of pent-up power at the moment—a series of ridges that
rose seemingly simultaneously out in the open water, swelling higher and
higher, rolling in toward the break zone in almost military formation. The sun
seemed to be shining again, though I couldn't feel its warmth.

I wanted, more than anything, to jump up behind him,
wrap my arms around his waist and hold him, comforting without words. But my
limbs seemed too cold and heavy to move, and my mind knew better than to try.

"Awesome set!" he said more brightly, a
welcome splash of color returning to his semitranslucent skin. "I think
I'll go for a dip."

He dove off the bunker into thin air, but instead of
landing on the sand below, his form blurred and disappeared. He rematerialized
just off shore, and I watched as he swam freestyle out toward the approaching
giants, heedless of their pulverizing strength.

The waves broke right through him, easily as mist.

I sat on the bunker, alone, for a long time.

Zane worked out his grief on the water. I used the
time to process my own.

In my heart, I knew it was a good thing. Zane was
regaining his memory, and his ghostly form was… well… fading. It was what we
had both wanted. His leaving Oahu—and me—could only mean that he was moving
closer to the light, whatever and wherever that might be. It would be a good
place, because he was a good person. He would be reunited with both his
parents, perhaps other family as well.

It was the best thing I could hope for him. Wishing
anything else was pure selfishness.

I felt a buzz at my side. My phone was ringing. I
pulled it out of my bag and saw that it was my mother, who would have texted if
it wasn't urgent. I hit the button and put the phone to my ear.

"Hi, mom," I said distractedly.
"What's up?"

"What's up is dinner," she responded, her
voice agitated. "We're supposed to leave in half an hour. Where are
you?"

Crap. The time.
I hadn't checked in ages.
First, we were having too much fun. And then…

"Sorry, mom," I apologized. "We're up
at Turtle Bay. I'll be right home."

"We who?"

Double crap.

I thought fast. "Just some guy I met."
Should I say he was teaching me to snorkel? No way… it was too unbelievable.
And why hadn't I said it was a girl?

Triple crap!

"I decided to check out the resort, and there
are a bunch of high schoolers here," I improvised. There had to be some
here somewhere, didn't there? "They're just tourists, though. I'm heading
home now, okay?"

My mother was silent a moment. "Kali, when we
get home tonight, you and I are going to talk."

I groaned inwardly. Though I was proud to have her
genes, there were times when I could really use a mother who wasn't so
irritatingly intuitive. "No problem, Mom," I answered with pretend
lightheartedness. "What do you think we'll have for dinner?" Food
distraction… it was always worth a try.

"Nothing if you don't get here in the next
fifteen minutes."

Swing and a miss
. "I will. Promise.
Bye."

We hung up.

I rose and waved my arms in Zane's direction.
"I have to go!" I shouted, my voice hardly carrying to my own ears
over the roiling sounds of the ocean.

He saw me, though, and appeared instantly at my
side. "What's up?" he asked. Both his body and his hair were dripping
wet again, as appropriate. But my breath caught nevertheless. The solidness of
form that had always separated him from the shadows was gone. He was visible,
and he was whole. But whereas before he had been solid with occasional
see-through ripples, his body was now mostly semitransparent, with only patches
of solid.

"What's wrong?" he asked, alarmed.

I stammered, trying to get a hold of myself. I could
not let him see my distress. This was supposed to be a good thing.  

I forced a smile. "I think it's working, Zane.
You remembering your past. Your form is fading. Look. Can you tell?"

He looked down; held out an arm and then a leg,
examining them. His expression was wooden. "Well, what do you know?"
he said with the same forced cheerfulness I had just used myself. "I do
feel a little different. Like I'm not… well… totally here."

His eyes turned toward mine. "Does that make
any sense?"

I blinked. His eyes were no longer solid either; I
couldn't read them as I once had. My insides lurched uncomfortably. "It
makes perfect sense," I answered. "You're doing what you're supposed
to do. You're moving toward the light."

His gaze left mine; his expression turned
thoughtful. "I don't see any light. But I definitely feel different."
He was silent a moment. "Kali?"

My heart pounded. I was frightened, and growing more
so. I knew I shouldn't be. But I couldn't seem to help it.

"Thank you," he continued softly.
"You're a genius."

I looked back into his face, and for a few,
beautiful seconds, one eye turned solid enough that I could make out the
familiar twinkle.

"I just want you to be happy," I replied.

He smiled at me. But he made no response.

I held his gaze another moment, then shook myself
roughly. "I have to get home fast," I explained, grabbing my bag and
jumping off the bunker. "I'm late, and the whole family's been invited
over to Matt's parents' house for dinner."

Zane had no response to that, either. He merely
appeared at my side a few yards down the beach and kept pace with me, silently,
as we made our way to my car.

We were off the resort grounds and back out on the
Kamehameha Highway before we spoke again. I didn't know what he was thinking,
but in my own mind, I was hearing his story over and over again.

"Zane," I said tentatively, breaking into
the awkwardness with a seemingly random thought. "You said your mother's
name was Bayne. You can't seriously be Zane Bayne?"

To my delight, he chuckled. It was a sound we both
needed to hear. "No," he answered. "I told you Zane was a
nickname. My mother used her name as my middle name—Zachary Bayne, ergo Zane. I
went by my father's last name."

"And what was that?" I asked quickly.
"Do you remember?"

He looked uncomfortable. "Yes, I do. I'm afraid
I owe you an apology about that. I've remembered my name for a while, but I
didn't want to tell you."

My brow creased. "Why not?"

"Because you would have looked me up
online," he answered simply. "And I wanted to remember for myself. I
didn't want you or anyone else knowing things about me that I didn't know
myself. Does that make sense?"

I nodded, feeling sheepish. He was right—I would
have looked him up. I wouldn't have been able to resist. "You don't have
to tell me if you don't want to," I agreed.

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter now. It's
Svenson. Zachary Bayne Svenson. My mother and I lived in Hackensack."

An unexpected smile escaped my lips. "New
Jersey? You grew up in
New Jersey?"

He offered a mock glare. "You have something
against the East Coast?"

"No," I said, laughing. "It's just… I
assumed your mother worked in LA and you grew up in California… you know…
surfing."

"Hey," he defended, "Manasquan's got
some decent waves in the fall. A kid has to start somewhere, you know."

I continued to chuckle. "Your mom worked in New
York City, then?"

He smiled with me. "Yeah. She thought
Hackensack was a better place to raise a kid, though, so she commuted. We had a
nice apartment, with a big playground complex to run around in, and there were
plenty of other kids."

He grew quiet, and I braved a glance in his
direction. Once again, his form was eerily faint.

"We had to move out of it at the end,
though," he said absently. "To someplace cheaper. The next
neighborhood wasn't so good."

I was at a loss. "I'm really sorry, Zane,"
I said softly.

He shrugged.

I drove on, conscious that my parents were waiting
anxiously for me at the condo, but also aware that my concentration for driving
was less than optimal. Driving was harder for me than most people. The shadows
drifted across the road just like anywhere else, which meant I was constantly
making snap judgments. I couldn't brake at every shadow—if I did, I'd cause a
multi-car pileup every time I hit the highway. But I couldn't take chances when
I wasn't sure, either, which resulted in a fair amount of "Sorry, I
thought I saw something in the road" explanations to confused passengers.
My father called me "brake happy." My mother just shook her head and
held on.