My latest novel, RAIN SHELTERS and GHOST GODS, got off TO a rocky start with a case of books arriving battered and torn, after a delay message from the shipper saying there had been a mechanical malfunction. Okay, that accounted for part of the cover being torn off of one book and possibly for some of the damaged spines and bent corners. The other part of the damage was due to books being tossed, not packed, into a large box with crumbled-paper packing inadequate to the job of shifting during shipping.

Then I wasted two months trying to get someone to accept financial responsibility for the damage.

That’s behind me. Here’s the opening that sends Eve Sorenson from her Pacific Northwest mainland home to Windward O`ahu to care for her aunt, Megan Sorenson Kirsch. As Eve warns, it’s her journey, but Aunt Meg will be meddling all the way.

O’ahu, Hawai’i – 2000
Dawn of a New Day

A soft silver moment crosses the sand on Kailua Beach as sun burns through clouds at the horizon. Turquoise swaths slash the azure sea, a rose blush dusts the sky. I’m running at water’s edge, aware of sharp sand and chilly water, and a sense of Dad beside me, reassuring me that leaving my mainland home, moving to Kailua to care for Aunt Meg, is the right choice for this tangled time in my life.

My head turns, as though by Dad’s hand, to view the Ko`olau Mountains, veiled in morning haze, where he’s conjured an image of the Rain Shelter in Lyon Arboretum. Dad’s never been to these islands, never seen that shelter, but there it hovers as he says, in my head, Go there, Eve. Go now.

Off I dash, from beach to Meg’s bungalow, from Windward to Leeward, over the Pali that cuts through the Ko`olaus toward Honolulu, away from Aunt Meg, who will be waiting for me to bring her some good Sorenson Swedish coffee. She established that expectation yesterday afternoon when I arrived and found my way to the independent living facility where she moved on New Year’s Day.

She told me to settle in the bungalow next to her Kailua home, to do her bidding from there. I intend to do just that, but there’s urgency in Dad’s voice, reason enough to leave Meg waiting.

She will be angry; I will be contrite. She will keep at me until I tell her about Dad communicating with me from beyond. She’ll remind me that she’s always believed in spirits getting messages to those of us willing to hear. I will tell her she’s right and try to leave it at that, but Dad has something else planned. A journey to discovery, he says, or maybe that’s just me remembering what he said to me at least once every day we had time together.

This journey will be different, more challenging than searching for mushrooms in the woods or geoducks on Puget Sound’s minus tides. This will be a complex journey with Meg front and center, meddling all the way.