Wraith

Inc.

Sometimes I wonder

how things would have turned out if I hadn’t. If I’d kept my nose buried in that menu in search of a dish I couldn’t pronounce. But I didn’t. I looked up and saw Annie, hanging onto the banister as she descended the stairs that led to the Michaels’ apartment. She clung to the hand of a girl I guessed was her babysitter as the two of them made their way across the room toward the kitchen. Annie wore a pink fleece footie sleeper and her auburn hair hung loose around her face. I think that’s what pushed me over the edge. She looked so damn innocent.

I pushed my chair back from the table and grabbed the wolf hat out of my jacket pocket.

Hunter’s eyes darkened. What are you doing?

Be right back.

Kira, don’t.

I have to. I’m sorry.

Before I could stop myself, I stood up and set off after Annie and the babysitter. They were waiting outside the kitchen doors. Annie was staring at the doors as if she were waiting for her mom to breeze through them, like she always did. The babysitter’s eyes flitted across the restaurant, looking for people she recognized. Then she turned back toward Annie and smiled down at her.

Liv appeared just as I reached Annie and the sitter. Her eyes locked onto mine and even Annie could read the warning there. Stay away from my child.

Praise for Wraith

Hauntingly Suspenseful.

~Stephanie Lasley, The Kindle Book Review (4.8 Stars)

~*~

This was an exciting and suspenseful read with paranormal mystery and a bit of romance too.

~Kitty Smith

Wraith

by

Gwenan Haines

Shadow World Series

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Wraith

COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Gwenan Haines

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Fantasy Rose Edition, 2017

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1732-8

Shadow World Series

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

For the seers among us…

Chapter 1

Amarok, Alaska

There are two kinds of dreams. Dreams that come true and dreams that don’t. When I say that to most people they think I’m talking about wishes. What I want out of life, like going to college or getting married or having kids. They think I’m wondering about the future or maybe reflecting on things that happened in the past. They don’t say it to my face but I know they’re thinking about my brother. I know they’re thinking of the dream of our family that died when he disappeared.

That’s not what I mean. Because when I dream at night some of my dreams are just like everybody else’s. The kind where you’re taking a final you didn’t study for or you have to recite the lines to a play you didn’t know you were cast in. Or the senseless dreams everybody has where your mother turns into a stranger but you know it’s really your mother and you’re at your house and it’s definitely your house even though it looks completely different. Then you wake up and try to sort it all out and sometimes you can but more often you can’t so you just forget about it.

I have dreams like that all the time. In fact, most of my dreams are dull as white rice. Or maybe just plain weird. But none of those dreams ever come true.

Sometimes I have the other kind of dream though. When I was four I dreamt of my father floating beneath the water surrounded by cool green light. It closed over him as he sank farther and farther from the surface until at last he stopped struggling and disappeared inside the darkness.

I woke in the night, his bright eyes still before me, and cried out. My mother came running and smoothed my hair back from my forehead. It’s just a nightmare, Kira, she whispered. Your father will return in the morning. Go back to sleep.

I told her it was more than that, but she didn’t believe me. Not that I blame her. She couldn’t imagine the Great Spirit would take her husband from her after he had already called back her only son. When the fishermen found my father’s boat drifting on the ocean the next day my mother refused to believe it. He’ll be back, she told them, even after two weeks had passed with no sign of him. Wait and see.

After two months went by and the ice began to freeze up for the winter she finally held a funeral for him. That was sixteen years ago and some nights she sits out on her porch with her eyes fixed on the sea as if he’ll still sail back to her.

I never waited for my father. I knew my dream of him was the kind that comes true.

My brother is a different story. I’m the one waiting for him to come back to us someday. I’m the one who knows he’s not really dead, whatever my mother says. The dreams tell me so and I believe them. Unlike most of the people I know, they haven’t lied to me yet.

Lately I hadn’t been dreaming about my brother, I’d been dreaming about Annie. Annie was the four-year-old daughter of Liv and Gavin Michaels, the couple who ran the Blue Moon Café in town. It was more of a restaurant than a café but the Michaels had relocated to Alaska from New York City and I guess they missed the whole urban mood. Or maybe they were trying to recreate it in Amarok.

Yeah, good luck with that guys.

Not that they had done a bad job with the place. Before they moved into town five years ago the restaurant had been a complete dive, the kind of place that served greasy food and lousy coffee. Liv and Gavin had been sous chefs in the lower 48, which meant they could actually cook. They added a lot of frou-frou items to their menu after they bought out the former owners but they serve the standard fare too. Their buttermilk pancakes are epically good and their fried chicken is amazing. Best of all, they brew really good coffee.

Add a couple of comfy couches and a bunch of mismatched chairs and voila, you’ve got a pretty cool place to hang out. As eclectic as the décor is, the Michaels haven’t been able to completely shake the small town mentality. There’s a big-ass moose head over the fireplace, a pool table in the bar, and a wolf hide hanging on the far wall. But somehow even that stuff seems cool and not tacky like it did before they took over. Anyway, the town name—Amarok—means wolf so it makes sense to keep the hide up. At night you can hear the wolves howling and sometimes a few of them will appear at the edge of the pond I use for a landing strip for my plane. But they don’t bother me and I don’t bother them, so it’s a pretty low-maintenance relationship.

In a town where there were only three restaurants counting The Donut Hole, it didn’t take long for The Blue Moon to become the local hotspot. Just about everybody stops in at some point during the week and some of the regulars practically live there. I got into the habit of popping in after I got back from my deliveries. To state the obvious, it can get pretty cold flying supplies to the bush villages north of Amarok and it’s nice to warm up in front of a roaring fire while sipping a gingerbread latte. If it’s not too busy Liv and I gossip about life in town or she’ll ask how business is going.

I’ve been flying planes longer than I’ve been driving my car but I didn’t start my own business until the year before, not too long after I graduated from high school. To say I love it would be the understatement of the century. Flying is my life. Maybe I should want more and maybe someday I will. But for now I have everything I need. There’s no better feeling than being up in the air, flying through blue sky as the sun sinks below the mountains. It’s like swimming in beauty.

But I can’t live in the sky. There’s still reality to deal with. Lugging supplies out into the middle of nowhere is hard work, really hard work. So after I land on the ice I rush off to the Blue Moon for my latte. Annie’s always there, playing with her toys on the bearskin rug or following Liv around in the kitchen. At first I worried she’d get hurt or just be in the way but she’s a smart kid and knows how to stay out of trouble.

Which is why when I started having the dream I didn’t take it seriously right away. At first I pegged it as one of the other dreams, the kind that don’t come true and are just weird without being scary. But then I kept having it, night after night, like somebody was trying really hard to get my attention.

I wish I understood more about what happens to me. Wait, edit that. I wish I understood more about me, about who I am or maybe what I am. Because unless everybody’s been holding out on me I’m pretty sure most people don’t dream the future. Maybe they say they do