Chapter One
The Lure of Ghosts and Gods
Hawai'i, 1958
Millions of stars surrounded the cliff like a river of iridescent sand across the skies and spilled down to the sea hundreds of feet below. Alex coasted to the edge, to where we could hear the surf pound against the lava rocks beneath us.
I turned to study his face, to see how he had changed. He had traveled six thousand miles away and lived where seasons changed from icy snow to dripping heat. He returned from his first year of college taller, broader in the shoulders, with an East Coast polish to his speech. Since I had never left the Islands, I wanted to know what he had seen, what he had felt.
Alex gripped the steering wheel of his ’47 wood-paneled Olds and stared into the darkness as if memorizing the position and brilliance of each star. “Hawai'i is a galaxy apart, a whole different world,” he said with his old charm and confidence. This old Woody was Alex’s pride, one of the things he missed the most while he was away. Its wood sides, stripped by the sea air, worn to a patina by the sun, were smooth to the touch. Even its interior scent, of wood and worn leather, reminded us of the days we had spent as salty-haired teens.
The wind whistled in through the side windows that had never closed properly after we pried them open. It became our private joke, a reminder of our first date when he locked the keys in the car fifteen minutes before my ten o’clock curfew. Frantic, we had jimmied the lock with a coat hanger. Alex pronounced our success a good omen, despite our families’ legendary rivalry. But his year away had been a year of silence.
Alex leaned forward and pulled me close. “Let me teach you what I learned on the East Coast,” he said. His voice was throaty and his hands were smooth, hot, and silky against my throat when he kissed me. His shirt, a Hawaiian print that smelled like a sunny afternoon under salty skies, was soft against my bare arms.
I was breathless. I no longer heard the sea or the wind. The air was sweet with ocean spray and resonant with the boom of the waves
But when his hands slid up my bare legs, my fists were faster. His head flew back and splashed against the window with a resounding Thwack!
“Miki,” he yelped. He clutched the left side of his face and winced.
My fist and open palm were poised in front of me in the Crane position, ready to strike again. The Alex I knew was a gentleman; we had gone no further than passionate kisses in high school. He knew I was a fighter, the result of growing up in a clan of brawny male cousins. I took a deep breath, ready to bolt. Since we were students, I could forgive him for not calling. It was expensive—five dollars a minute. But to not write for a year, to not even call when he got back a month ago, then to drive straight to this lookout on our first date…the heat of his fingers burned my thighs.
Alex’s lips twisted in a scowl. He huffed angrily. He started up the car and screeched into reverse. “This is 1958, Miki Ai’Lee. Girls on the East Coast know how to have fun. Stay an island peasant the rest of your life.”
I swore at him in Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, and everything else I knew.
His cheek showed no evidence of my bruising punch, yet. But I had hurt something greater than his handsome face.
His eyes turned red as fire bolts when he floored the accelerator. Seconds later, his precious Olds Woody flew off the cliff and exploded into a sparkling shower of confetti that joined the millions of stars stretching from the sky to the sea. Alex opened his arms and shot across the Pacific like a meteor.
“Alex,” I screamed. I tumbled end over end through the dark sky, hands outstretched. I felt the air suck from my lungs as he disappeared over the horizon. I rocketed through the darkness of night. Then I grabbed a moonbeam and slid back to earth in a shower of silver tears.
*.*.*.*.*
San Francisco, 1970
It was dawn. The fog had crept in overnight and smothered the hills of San Francisco while the winds off the bay howled like banshees. When I woke, I yearned to breathe the misty clouds that wrapped the peaks of Nu'uanu where at night, when the wind howled through the tree tunnels of the Old Pali Road, ghosts shapes loomed in the darkness with outstretched hands.
My grandmother said that dreams were doorways to yesterday and tomorrow, that yesterdays became tomorrows, that dreams never lied. Alex Demming was my yesterday, a door slammed shut and bolted a dozen years ago, a friendship doomed a hundred years before when a Demming and an Ai’Lee ignited a saga of mysterious deaths and deceit.
I had never dreamt of Alex before. It had been twelve years since I slugged him, twelve years since he stormed out of my life. Alex, tall and gangly, his brown hair rebelliously tousled, would have returned after college to run the Demming ranch on Kaua'i.
Twelve years ago I was a skinny eighteen year-old with creamy skin that refused to tan. In those carefree days, my hair fell to my waist like an ebony waterfall or streamed behind me when I ran in the wind.
Now I am a professor of art history, thirty and unmarried. I wear sleek suits and carry a briefcase. While I was built a career in San Francisco, Hawai'i became the nation’s fiftieth state, a magnet for federal and international investments in tourism and business. Alex’s family—the Demmings—tracks four generations upon the land that had once belonged to the Ai’Lees and is one of Hawai'i’s most powerful landowners.
But in my dreams, I heard the voice of ancient legends call my name from across the Pacific. Miki Ai’Lee! Miki Ai’Lee! Their chants reminded me of ritual incense spiraling in neighborhood temples and coconut fronds rustling on a warm Hawaiian breeze.
Goosebumps prickled up my back and down my arms. Chicken skin, Hawaiians called it, when the hair on your neck tinges and shivers run up your spine. Chicken skin. Someone, somewhere, was holding me in his thoughts, remembering, pondering, reaching for me.
I dug in the darkness for the phone.
My father, Kam Ai’Lee, was already up, slicing a Portuguese sausage for his breakfast omelet. He didn’t sound surprised that I had called before dawn. Hawaiians rise as soon as the night rains have stopped, before the morning has steamed the dew off the grass. Over the transpacific phone lines he sounded like he was sitting on the ocean floor, his words bubbling up one by one. He tried so hard to avoid the exorbitant per-minute charges that he usually hung up after three terse minutes.
“Miki! Good thing you called. Your grandmother fell and hit her head. Another dizzy spell. I found her lying on the kitchen floor yesterday. No broken bones but she has a huge lump on the back of her head. Dr. Lee is worried, considering she’s ninety-one and with all those stairs! But she insists on living alone.” He held his voice calm and steady, but I heard tears in his eyes. I imagined him standing barefoot on the green-flecked linoleum in the kitchen, the phone in his right hand, a dishrag in his left. He was a head taller than I was, with sinewy muscles and not an ounce of fat. At seventy, he had thick salt-and-pepper hair, angular cheekbones, and sharp, bright eyes. Since it was summer, he would be wearing shorts and a collared polo shirt softened by many washes.
I sat up and turned on a light. My grandmother was my kindred spirit, my surrogate mother. She hid her frailties with stubborn independence, a trait we shared. “I’m coming home, Dad,” I said quickly. I grappled for a pen and paper and started clearing my calendar. I had three months before my university students returned for the fall. I could be on a plane tomorrow.
He was quiet, taken aback by my sudden offer, and obviously happy. “Thanks, Miki. You know how independent your grandmother is. She says she’ll die in her own house when she’s ready. But you’re her favorite and she’ll listen to you.”
I imagined my father replacing the receiver, thin worry lines creasing his handsome forehead. He’d turn back to the wooden cutting board at the sink and pick up his knife, all the while, all the while counting the minutes until I returned.
*.*.*.*.*
