Racing the Dark (25 page)

"I was hoping you'd come back today," she said. "I bought all your favorite foods. Lana ... you look so much older, somehow."

Lana laughed and tugged on her braid. "What are you talking about, Mama? I'm still as short as I was five years ago."

"Still, you look older." Leilani shook her head and smiled. "Come say hello to your father. He's in back working on his instruments."

Leilani watched Lana hug her father and wondered if she herself was getting old. She felt the same as always, though she had lately come down with these inexplicable illnesses that kept her bedridden and worried Kapa into spending more of their money than he should. The bouts of illness had been getting worse recently, but she had never told Lana about them. She was determined to stay healthy so long as her daughter was here. Reflexively, Leilani reached for the necklace that she had worn since the day the witchwoman gave it to her four years ago. The symbolism of the key had never been lost on her-she knew that the woman dealt with death, and that by accepting the trinket Leilani had brought some kind of sacrifice upon herself. Could the necklace somehow be responsible for her illnesses? The thought made her terrified for Lana. It was too late now for self-recrimination, but she still wondered whether she had done the right thing by acquiescing to the one-armed woman's request without ever really knowing what she intended.

Her face must have betrayed some of her worry, because Lana and Kapa were staring at her concernedly.

"Lei, are you all right? Is it-" Kapa cut himself off and glanced at Lana.

Leilani shook her head firmly. "I'm fine, don't worry. I'll go up and start cooking."

Lana hesitated for a moment and then followed Leilani up the stairs.

There was a certain strain around her mother's eyes that hadn't been there before, Lana thought. She had been cheerful enough when they made dinner together-a process that had taken hours because of the absurd amount of food her mother had bought-but Lana still detected a sadness in Leilani's eyes that she hadn't seen since their days in Okika. She wondered what her parents were keeping from her, in their guarded looks and abrupt changes of conversation.

Despite her concern over her mother, Lana ate until she had to loosen the drawstring on her pants. Leilani had prepared some traditional Essel solstice food like a pottage of roasted chestnuts and raisins, a drink made with yogurt and pomegranate seeds, jellied oranges, as well as foods from their island-Lana's favorite grouper sprinkled with dried seaweed, and yucca root roasted with ginger and sugarcane. When she couldn't eat anymore, Lana leaned back in her chair and groaned.

"I can't move," she said, still sipping the pomegranate yogurt.

Her mother laughed, a little too brightly. "I'm glad. You're looking too thin. What's that woman been putting you through, lately?"

The red mandagah jewel suddenly seemed to burn under Lana's shirt and she shrugged uncomfortably. "You know, charms and things. It's pretty mundane, really-I spend most of the time memorizing herbs and potions for medicines. It's not hard."

Her father suddenly put down his drink. "So, you know a lot about illnesses now?" he asked, looking at her intently. "Like a healer?"

Her mother glanced at him and frowned, but kept silent. Lana bit her lip-the tension in the room was making her uncomfortable. "Sure," she said. "Probably more than most-Akua's a good teacher."

"Lana," her father said, avoiding Leilani's eyes. "Do you think you could make something to help your mother?"

"Kapa! We agreed-"

"I know, I know, we promised, but you're sick, Lei, and Lana can help."

"I am not-"

Lana leaned over and pounded on the table. "What are you two talking about?"

Leilani and Kapa exchanged glances. Finally Leilani sighed, as though all the energy had left her body. "Fine, then. You tell her, since you had to ruin the meal."

Her father looked like he wanted to apologize, but then just shook his head and turned to Lana. "Lei's had six fevers this past year, three just in the hot season. She doesn't know what's wrong, and she won't let me pay for a doctor to help her."

"It's too much, Kapa! Especially since I always get better on my own.

"But what if you don't next time? You don't see yourself, Lei..."

Lana felt like she had been plunged into some strange fantasy, where suddenly her parents actually discussed their problems with her, and even expected her to moderate them. She had never so acutely felt the line she had crossed between childhood and adulthood. She had supposedly crossed it five years ago, after her initiation, but she had still felt like a child. Until now.

"Stop it," she said quietly, staring at the table. "Papa's right. It's not good to get sick so many times in one year-it could be something more serious. I'll make something. But if it doesn't work, promise me that you'll see a doctor."

Her mother stared at her for a long time, and then finally nodded. "I'm sorry. It wasn't right of me to keep this from you. You're not a child anymore." She smiled, a little bitterly. "It's really true, isn't it?"

Leilani stood slowly and began clearing away the dishes. Her father gave some half-mumbled excuse and disappeared into his workshop. Lana stayed and helped in the kitchen, wondering why she felt so scared.

Lana prepared the potion that night after making a sunset dash to all of the apothecary shops southside of Nui'ahi. She had found, to her surprise, everything she needed, and even some things she hadn't been aware existed. She sat in the small lot outside the shop until well after the moon had risen, using the outdoor fire pit to make the slow-cooking potion. She made a mixture that one of Akua's books had said cured most fevers. Briefly, she considered using the necklace for the cooling geas, but then, in a quick spasm of guilt, slashed her palm more deeply than necessary to makeup for thinking it. She didn't know which was stronger, her guilt or her curiosity, but she refused to give in to temptation. She might admire much about Akua, but she was afraid of what she might turn into if she followed her mentor's approach to sacrifice. When she finished she hauled the cauldron off the coals and poured water over them. She covered the cauldron and left the draught on the dirt right outside the door and then trudged wearily up the stairs. Her mother was sitting in the kitchen, reading by flickering lamplight. She looked up when Lana walked in and smiled wearily.

"I finished it," Lana said, pulling out another chair. "If you get sick again, drink a glass every five hours until the fever goes down."

"Thank you," she said. "I'm sorry I put you through the trouble."

"Mama ... never think I could forget how much I owe you."

Her mother squeezed her hand. "Somebody must have blessed me to have a daughter like you."

Lana left on the day after the spirit solstice, when the charms and house-luck dolls all around the city were still ablaze. The inferno at the top of the fire temple in the heart of Essel would burn for the next eight days as officiates and residents said their devotionals to the bound spirit. From the vantage of her boat, it looked as though the city was covered in smoke and flames, with the belching sentinel of Nui'ahi as its omnipresent backdrop. It looked ominous, like a picture of carnage, and not the aftermath of days of celebrations and carousing. Her ship had been sitting at the docks for more than an hour because of the unusual number of ships leaving Essel this morning. This new year marked the transition to a new Mo'i, and the number of supplicants was far greater than normal. From what Lana could tell by peering at the official ships in the harbor, at least a hundred people were all leaving today to travel to the inner fire shrine. Only one would return-the new Mo'i. She had often wondered what would compel a person to take such a risk-could so many people be so sure they would be chosen? No one knew why the fire spirit picked some over others. But as she looked at the line of supplicants-some in their teens and some who looked old enough to be great-grandparents-she wondered if desperation, not overweening self-confidence, led most of them to this decision. And was she so different? But even if life sometimes overwhelmed her, at least she hadn't yet been crushed by its weight.

Several of the supplicants looked as though they had not bathed in recent memory. She saw woman draped in ragged coats, despite the warm weather, smoothing her matted hair. Her fingers came away smeared with grease. A younger man, standing toward the back of the line, had the same kind of hollow-eyed, desperate expression, but his clothes-navy pantaloons with a white shirt and an embroidered, knee-length vest-looked respectably lived-in, as though he had not quite yet surrendered to the street. His light brown-red hair, though thinning, reminded her unexpectedly of Kohaku. She had not thought of her childhood crush in a long time, and the memories that had once been so painful now made her smile softly. The supplicant even looked like Kohaku, although his face had blurred in her memory and she could hardly trust it. It made her sad to think that this man who so resembled her first love would probably, along with all the others, be sacrificed to the fire spirit within a month. Just as her boat was finally ready to leave the harbor, the man turned around and briefly caught her eye. She thought she felt a moment of startled recognition-could that possibly be Kohaku?-before his eyes hardened and he looked away.

No, she thought, walking to the other side of the deck. Of course not.

Akua wasn't home. She had left a note for Lana on the table by the fireplace.

Lana,

I'm out making preparations for tonight, when I will show you the final stage of your new power. Bring the necklace. I've instructed Ino to take you to a special place in the center of the lake-don't be alarmed by anything you see there, I promise it won't hurt you.

Her name was a barely legible scrawl at the bottom of the paper. Akua's handwriting was generally indecipherable, with awkward characters squashed next to one another as they rambled across the page. Lana looked out the open door and saw Ino sitting serenely on a lotus leaf made of rippling water. He must have emerged from the lake while she was reading the letter. His liquid eyes looked somehow wary as she approached him, but she knew that there was no real way to read a water sprite's face. They simply weren't human enough.

"The witch wants me to take you to the center," he said, his voice sounding more alien than ever.

"I suppose we should go, then," she said.

Ino stared at her silently for such a long time that she began to feel uncomfortable. "Do you listen to everything she says?" he said finally. "Will you follow her blindly down the path of death? You are a diver-would you turn your back to the water?"

His words and his weird, alien anger made Lana's stomach knot. She looked at the air around him expectantly, but it remained stable. Why wasn't Akua's geas attacking him for his words? To her shame, part of her wanted it to.

"What choice do I have? The fish are gone! Akua's my teacher now. All this ... it maybe sacrifice, but it's not death." She paused. "I know she's keeping things from me, Ino, but it's just ... I have to, I want to learn."

"You know nothing, little diver. The witch is far more than you think-you should resist her."

Lana's body tensed with anger. "So says one who has been bound by her geas for decades! Why don't you resist her?"

His opaque eyes seemed to soften. "At least I know I'm bound, Lana."

It was the first time he had ever used her name. Why did that simple fact undo all her anger?

"Why doesn't the geas attack you for saying this, Ino?"

"The witch decides," he said.

Lana stared at him-could he possibly be implying that Akua wanted him to say these things to her?

"If you refuse to leave," he said, "I am bound to take you to the center. Do you insist?"

Though she knew the idea of leaving was ludicrous, the strangeness of Ino's behavior almost made her consider it. Was Akua planning something dangerous? Probably. Was that reason enough to make her leave? No. Whatever this was, it was too powerful to ignore. She'd wanted Akua to teach her more powerful geas for years-she could hardly run away now that she finally had the chance.

"You should take me, Ino," she said.

The water surrounding him began to dissolve back into the lake. He held out his hand and after a moment Lana put her own inside his pale, spindly fingers.

"Then let's dive," he said, and pulled her under the water.

They were under for a long time, but the water sprite kept a bubble of air around her mouth and nose so she could breathe. He led her to the deepest parts of the lake, but curiously she never felt any pressure on her ears. The world he showed her was ethereal and terrifying, a surreal waterscape where hideously laughing faces appeared in the most unlikely locations. Even the swaying algae seemed to have glinting fish eyes and mocking coral grins. This far below, Ino's pale skin was translucent, but instead of veins she thought she saw tiny creatures, like minnows or baby fish, squirming beneath his skin. He must have sensed her sudden tension, because he turned around and smiled briefly, a sardonic grimace that made her feel even more disquieted. Still looking at her, he blew offhandedly into her face, releasing a stream of hundreds of tiny, dazzlingly bright red and gold fish. They swirled around her face and her hair for a moment before gathering together and swimming away. Lana stared at Ino, desperately trying to control her breathing and facial expression. She didn't know why he was trying to scare her, but she was determined not to let him. Seeing her frown, the smile left his face and he nodded briefly before leading her onward.

The things she saw after that were mildly unsettling, but she got the impression that the creatures of the lake were no longer putting on some kind of show for her. Perhaps ten or fifteen minutes later, he began angling upwards and Lana once again entered the more familiar parts of the lake. They emerged in an area with crystal clear water, but oddly shielded from direct sunlight by a heavy mist. In fact, even though they were mere feet away from the tiny island, she couldn't pick it out of the fog until Ino led her to a set of steps.