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 him about The Warnings. Looking back, I suspect that was because we were having fun, and I was reluctant to let the pain of my real experiences intrude on our frivolous little world.

But it did anyway. Ty was very serious about becoming a psychic, because Ty was a passionate soul, and although he never stuck with any one thing for very long, when he was on it, he was on it. He developed a whole schedule of psychic training exercises for us to do together, even making up his own pack of Zener cards that he drew himself. We were both equally bad at the telepathy tests, where one of us would draw a card with a circle or a square, think hard about that image, and then try to transmit it to the other person. We also did no better than random chance at the intuitive tests, where we guessed the identity of cards that were dealt face down. We were supposed to stare at them for two full minutes, and I always got bored and either kept changing my answers or just let my mind wander. Either way, I was usually wrong. Ty always made up his mind immediately and then never wavered. But whenever he found out he was wrong, he would get upset and claim that he’d actually seen wavy lines, but decided to go with a plus sign instead because blah-blah-blah. He did not take failure well.

That’s why, the day we did the speed tests, my unexpected success brought the whole experiment to a crashing halt. With this setup, four cards were laid face down in a row. Then each second for four seconds, Ty would flip over one card for me to see. As soon as he flipped the first card, I was supposed to guess what the other three were going to be, shouting them out one by one right before he revealed them.

I killed it. I got all three cards. Twice. I don’t have any idea how it happened. It just seemed obvious to me what was coming next. I tried to explain that to him, but he didn’t want to hear it. All he wanted was to be able to do it himself. So we switched it around and he tried. And tried. And tried. Until finally, when he was near tears of frustration, we quit. And that was the end of the psychic experiments.

In all the years Ty and I were together after that, he never brought up the subject again. But naturally, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That particular experiment was billed as a test of “premonition.” Did I have that? Was it something bigger than just The Death Warning? Was there something useful I could do with it? Or was I making something out of nothing, at least where the stack of cards was concerned?

Little things did keep happening that made me suspicious. Thinking that the phone was about to ring seconds before it actually rang. Having a bad feeling about something that did, indeed, turn out to be a bad idea. But I knew that those things could happen to anyone, and there were plenty of other times when my hunches were wrong. I was terribly conflicted, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to believe there was anything special about me. As cool as it would be to have some inkling of the future, I did not want to get another Warning… EVER. And since everything Ty and I had read about psychic abilities claimed they could be developed with practice, “practicing” premonition of any sort seemed like playing with fire.

So I wondered, yes. But I decided not to mess with it.

The Warning came again anyway.

Fast-forward a couple years, to the beginning of our freshman year of high school. Ty and I had gone from being middle-school buddies who called ourselves a couple (because it sounded cool) to being a real couple (because that was cool). He’d hit a growth spurt in the eighth grade, and by that fall he was already more than a foot taller than me. His hair was darker blond and a bit shorter, and he was less into fantasy novels and more into singing and playing guitar. He was still a sensitive soul, particularly when we were alone together, and we shared the same interests and the same friends, so it was all still good.

I met Matt for the first time a few days before school started, but he and Ty already knew each other. Their fathers had worked together at an Air Force base on the mainland, and the boys had been in the same elementary school. Now that Matt’s father had also gotten transferred to Honolulu, Ty was excited to see his old pal again. I have to admit, I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of sharing my boyfriend’s attentions with some unknown guy. But I got over that thirty seconds after I met Matt.

A bunch of people from school had gotten together on the last weekday of summer to do the town, and the first thing on our list, at Ty’s suggestion, was a hike up to Manoa Falls. Hiking to the falls is an iconic thing for tourists to do in Honolulu, since it’s a relatively short and easy trail that winds through a rain forest and a bamboo jungle. We didn’t expect there’d be much, if any, water coming over the falls in August, but it’s a neat hike anyway. A stream gurgles through the rocks, the plant life is lush and green, and you never know when a wild boar might pop out of the brush and scare the crap out of you. A group of us were gathered in the parking area at the bottom when Matt and Ty arrived, and I liked the way Ty threw his arm around me as he introduced me to his friend. “And this is my girlfriend, Lacey,” he said proudly.

The instant Matt’s blue eyes twinkled into mine, I knew that he and I would get along just fine. “Wow,” he said, grinning at me flirtatiously. “What’s a girl like you doing going out with this loser?”

I grinned back. Guys didn’t usually flirt with me. Particularly not hotties like Matt who played football and looked like they worked out with free weights. But aside from the flirty compliment, I sensed kindness — and a certain earnestness — in his greeting. He genuinely wanted us to be friends. And of course, I was happy to oblige. We chatted about the usual nonsense as we headed up the trail, and it became obvious pretty quickly that the trio was a hit. In fact, we got so wrapped up with talking about water polo — which we all wanted to play in the spring — that we almost forgot to notice how spectacular the scenery was. Specifically, I failed to notice where a particular rocky step ended, and the next thing I knew, I’d twisted an ankle. I blew it off at first and kept on climbing to the waterfall, which ended up being bone dry. But by the time everyone had admired the view of the quiet, boulder-strewn pool below and decided to head back down, my ankle had started to swell.

I didn’t say anything. But I did start to limp and quickly fell behind. It took a couple minutes for the guys to notice I was lagging, but at least when they did, they were concerned. My swollen ankle was hard to miss by then. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Matt asked me, dumbfounded.

I shrugged. “I’ll be fine.” In truth, I wasn’t used to getting a lot of attention, or even much sympathy, for minor injuries. In my family, one learned at an early age that complaining accomplished nothing and relief came quicker if you set about solving the problem yourself. I knew that when we got back to the parking lot, I’d have to finagle an early ride home somehow. Until then, there was no point in fussing about it.

Matt looked at me like I was insane. “You can’t walk all the way down on that!” he argued. “You’ll only make it worse. Besides, it’s bound to hurt.”

He was right. It hurt a lot. And it was swelling more by the minute. “Well, I don’t have a lot of choice, do I?” I argued back. “I have to get back down somehow.”

Matt looked at Ty. Ty looked back at Matt. “What?” Ty asked, confused. I know he felt bad for me, too, but he was used to me taking care of myself.

“Well, can’t you carry her or something?” Matt demanded.

Ty appeared offended. “You can’t carry somebody down a trail like this! It’s too narrow.” Matt looked up and down the trail, and seemed to realize that his friend had a point. Even if Ty had been able to pick me up and carry me the whole way down in his skinny little arms — which I seriously doubt — either my head or my legs would slam into a tree trunk every five seconds. “Besides,” Ty continued. “I couldn’t see my own feet! We’d both fall down and break something. It’s better if she just leans on me and tries to keep the weight off it.”

Ty came over and stood close to me, and I tried to lean on him and use him like a crutch. If we’d been walking side-by-side on level ground, it might have worked, but coming down a steep trail in tandem was another matter. Our progress was painfully slow, and after a couple minutes Ty gave up. “Sheesh, Lace,” he said with frustration. “You were doing better without me. I can’t even see the others anymore! I hope they don’t leave without us.”

I apologized to him. I apologized a lot back then, whether I’d done anything wrong or not. (I still do, but I’ve been trying to cut back.) I knew that Ty liked to plan things out in advance, and he hated it when unexpected events screwed things up. “Matt,” he suggested, “Why don’t you run down and catch up with the others and make sure they wait?”

Matt stared at him. “And then what?”

Ty stared back. “And then we wait for her to hobble down, I guess. I don’t see any other way around it.”

I tried to keep moving by myself while they debated, but it wasn’t going well. My ankle was quickly approaching grapefruit size. I almost couldn’t bear to stand on it.

Matt watched me for a moment. He looked back at Ty. “You’re quicker than I am. Why don’t you go catch them and I’ll stay with her?”

Ty nodded. He threw me an encouraging smile and then took off down the trail. As soon as he was on his way, Matt crouched down with his back to me and reached around to pat one broad shoulder. “Okay, Lace. Hop on.”

“Hop on?” I asked dumbly.

“Piggy-back ride,” he explained. “Let’s go.”

I was skeptical. “Are you sure you—”

“Do I look like a weakling? Don’t insult me. Get on.”

So I did. Matt got to his feet with ease, and with my arms wrapped around his solid neck, he started off down the trail. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a piggy-back ride. Matt wasn’t quite as muscular then as he is now, of course, but even at fourteen he had no trouble carrying my not-so-feather-light weight. The first part of the trip wasn’t easy with all the rocks and roots, but he was cautious and sure-footed, and before long the trail flattened out and he began to move much faster.

“You can put me down now if you want. I can probably just lean on you from here on out,” I offered. But I didn’t want him to put me down. My ankle was throbbing and I was enjoying the ride. He’d been entertaining me the whole time by talking about dumb things he and Ty had done when they were younger, and despite talking, laughing, and carrying me, the guy wasn’t even out of breath.

We were near the end of the trail when we saw Ty coming back up toward us. He had to be pleasantly surprised at our progress, but by the time he reached us his face was a scowl. “Having fun?” he mocked, glaring at Matt.

The implied criticism rolled right off Matt’s back. “You can take over any time, bro,” he replied with a smile.

“Okay, I will,” Ty replied, amazing me.

Matt stopped and put me down, and Ty offered his own narrow back. I climbed on — good grief, my ankle hurt! — but felt a little silly. Ty seemed like a beanpole in comparison and I was worried he couldn’t get up again. But I wasn’t stupid enough to say that.

Ty did manage to get to his feet, but unfortunately he stumbled a bit in the process. His face turned beet red, and so did mine I’m sure, but Matt wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were focused up in the trees at the time. Luckily, Ty did not have far to carry me. Just two more twists in the trail and he was able to play the hero, triumphantly carrying me out to where everyone else waited. Never mind that by the time I slid off his back and into a friend’s car, he was panting like a dog.

That day at Manoa Falls turned out to be the first of many hikes for the three of us, once my sprain healed. But it was the last time I got treated to any shows of jealousy from Ty. I don’t know what went on between the guys that day. But although Matt was always super friendly to me, he was never flirty after that, like he was with every other girl he met. And I do mean every other girl. He became instantly popular when school started and had tons of other friends, but he always made time for Ty and me. I remember those hikes fondly because we had so much fun exploring the island together, and because they came at a time when life in general seemed so much less complicated. But I remember one hike particularly well. Because it was the fourth time I got The Warning.