Racing the Dark (8 page)

Okilani raised her hands and pounded her staff three times on the platform.

"Tonight, we gather for the sending of Kali bei'Maiu. By rights, today should have been a celebration of her year beginning, but circumstances have proved otherwise. The changes that have affected us all have now taken one of us away. If there are any words of comfort I can offer tonight, it is that Kali, whose gentle spirit we all loved, will be in a place far away from the great changes I sense coming. Changes that may alter our way of life forever."

Lana stared at Kali's face. What would she think of this? Would she find it funny, that everyone was according her such respect? She didn't really look dead. She looked like she would get up at any minute and sneak away with Lana, to go off and giggle in one of the tall trees while they ate oranges and threw away the peels. Could it really all be over?

The elders moved around Kali's body so that Okilani stood by her head. The high elder took off her necklace and unstrung one of her jewels-the orange one, Lana saw. She placed it in the center of one of the palm fronds that covered Kali's body. Aya was next. She pulled a beautifully colored white jewel from her necklace and placed it on the second leaf. Lai'i, another elder, placed a blue one on the third leaf.

Lana had only seen one of these rituals before in her life, when she was much younger. She stared, fascinated despite herself. When the jewels had been placed, the elders held hands and bowed their heads over her body. They chanted in unison, but Lana couldn't understand what they were saying. It sounded like her language, but some ancient, unfamiliar version of it. Lana felt a strange sense of a presence gathering as they chanted, and the air smelled thick, like it was about to rain. When she glanced at the sky, however, it was clear-the wisps of clouds she could see above the tree branches hardly looked like they could threaten any rain. She looked back at the elders. Their chanting grew more intense, and now Lana was sure she sensed something. It was a strange kind of power-it smelled like the sea, but also like the earth. If she had revealed the red jewel and they had initiated her into these rites, she may have known what they were doing. But as it was she could only sit and watch. It felt, though ... it felt as though they were calling an earth spirit. Maybe even the spirit of this tree. Earth spirits were one of the wild ones-the ones that humans had never tried to capture and control.

With a shout, Okilani broke the circle, picked up her staff and pointed it at Kali's body. The air began to shimmer-like it does when you stare through the heat of a fire-and then Kali's body burst into flames.

The flames were pure white, and they didn't spread to the wooden platform although there was nothing separating it from her body. Lana's fingers tightened around the branch she was holding. Kali was dead.

"It's not your fault, Lana."

Lana felt tears spring to her eyes. "It is. If I moved a little faster, I could have saved you." Then Lana realized who she was talking to. Kali was bathed in the crackling white light from the fire, but she still wore the clothes Lana had last seen her in.

"You're ..." her voice came out in little more than a whisper.

"I'm leaving soon. It wasn't your fault, Lana. The house had half-crushed me. I wouldn't have survived. I knew that."

Tears were streaming down Lana's face, and she wiped them away furiously. "Is that why ... you ..."

Kali smiled. "You're special, Lana. The mandagah see it, and now I've seen it too. There's something about you. Something that eases death."

Lana was pretty sure that this was a quality she didn't need, but she just nodded.

"You're marked," Kali said. She seemed to be fading. "I can see that now. It will be true for the rest of your life-but watch out for those who can see it. They'll want to find out why. They'll want to use you for it." Her voice even sounded distant.

"K-Kali, please don't go!"

Kali looked sad, but shook her head. "I have to. There's nowhere else."

"What about our pact?"

"Keep it for me, Lana."

Kali waved, and then floated up the tree until she was in the highest branches. The sun sank below the horizon and she disappeared.

Lana looked back at the fire. It had gone out. There weren't even ashes to indicate that Kali's body had been there-only the three mandagah jewels, untouched.

People stared at Lana as she and her parents made their way down the tree. They knew she had been visited by Kali's spirit-they had heard her side of the conversation, after all. Lana tried not to look at Kali's parents, but she felt their accusing stares anyway. Why had Kali visited Lana and not her own parents? She didn't really know, but she felt guilty all the same. Kapa had tethered the canoe to the bottom of the tree. The three of them climbed inside and Kapa began to paddle home.

Tears slid out of Lana's eyes and she couldn't seem to stop them. To her shame, some of the tears were for herself. Even if she had doubted it before, now she knew she was marked, and in a way she had never wanted. Something about her "eased death?" The very idea terrified her. How had this happened? All she had ever wanted to do was dive for mandagah fish and then travel with Kali. She had planned to find the Kulanui when she was older and learn all the magnificent useless things Kohaku so prized. How had all of her dreams been so ruined?

Her father broke the silence. "I think we should leave," he said in a quiet but clear voice.

Lana stared at his back through her tears. She felt her mother's hands tighten on her shoulders. Although she knew that she should still be supporting her mother on this issue, she found that she couldn't summon the energy. Suddenly, she realized that she didn't care anymore if they left or stayed.

"I already told you," her mother said, "I won't leave. It's too much like running away."

Her father turned around angrily. "Kali is dead. Do you want to wait for Lana's turn? Life on this island is dying, Lei. Even Okilani sees it. The skies might have parted now, but who knows what this terrible flooding has done to the island? It's not safe to be here anymore, and without the mandagah fish, I don't know why we would."

"But this is my home ..." her mother sounded desperate.

"Then make another home, with me in Essel. Don't you love me enough to do that, Lei?"

When her mother just buried her head in her hands without replying, Lana was shocked enough to stop crying herself. What was happening to her family?

Kapa said nothing more as they slowly made their way home.

Leilani left an hour after they had returned home. Kapa refused to stop arguing that they should leave the island, and finally she had stormed out in disgust. It was a beautiful warm and clear night anyway, and she was relieved to be away from her frustrated husband. At first she was simply paddling aimlessly, but eventually she realized that she had made her way near Okilani's house. She smiled a little, despite everything. Somehow she always ended up here when her life started to overwhelm her. She pulled up to the base of the tree, tethered the boat, and climbed up the ladder. As she knocked on the door, she thought of traveling to a place where there weren't any ancient kukui trees with houses built into them and felt her chest constrict. How could Kapa ever consider leaving this place?

Okilani opened the door.

"Oh, Leilani. I thought I had heard someone in a boat. Come in."

Leilani walked into the familiar house. She had been here countless times before to drink tea and talk with her mentor. She had always loved those moments.

"It's a beautiful night, isn't it," Okilani said as they walked through the house. "Why don't we sit on the roof?"

Leilani smiled and nodded. Okilani first went to the kitchen and took a pot of simmering tea off the fire and brought it up the stairs with two clay teacups. Okilani insisted on pouring them each a cup and settling into the chairs before she let Leilani speak.

"So, what brings you here tonight? You look too worried for a social call."

Leilani laughed. "You know me well."

"I've known you since you were born, Lei. And tonight you look the way you did when your mother died. What's wrong?"

Leilani took a long sip of the tea, ignoring the way it burned her tongue.

"It's Kapa. He says he wants to leave the island and sell his instruments on Essel. He says that things have gotten too dangerous here and our way of life is dying. Without the mandagah fish, he says, there's no point in staying. And now poor Kali ... it just seemed to make him want to leave even more."

"And how do you feel?" Okilani was staring up at the moon, sipping her tea.

"I know I can't leave. I'm a diver and I have a duty to this island. Leaving now would just be running away, wouldn't it?"

Okilani sighed. "Lei, I know this may be a hard thing for you to hear-and it's a hard thing for me to say-but I think it might actually be a good idea for you to leave. When these waters recede, I'm afraid we're going to discover that the only mandagah left are the ones we saved in the lake. There won't be any diving. Even the regular fish trade will be slow. Things are changing, and in a way, you may be safer on Essel. I can't leave-my soul as an elder is bound to this place. But you can leave, Lei. Let Kapa follow his dream, and let Lana put some distance between herself and what happened today."

Leilani stared into her cup, her hands trembling. "But ... but this is my home. I love this island."

"If you can stand to stay here and watch as it's slowly destroyed, stay. But something is happening to the spirits, and those things always affect the outer islands first. You're usually the rational one, Lei, but this time Kapa may be thinking more clearly."

They sat in near silence for an hour afterwards, while Leilani sipped lukewarm tea and thought of what Okilani had said. Leaving would be the most painful thing she had ever done, but perhaps there really was nothing left for her and Kapa to do but move on. And Lana ... she didn't even want to think of what had happened to her daughter today. She was terrified that the haunted expression would never leave her face.

Finally, Leilani stood up, and the elder looked at her calmly.

"What have you decided?" Okilani asked.

"Since the binding, my mother's mothers have lived here. But I think ... I must be the one who leaves."

Okilani stood up and embraced her. "I wish you luck, my daughter. If we never meet again, perhaps your soul will find its way back here and find mine, still tied to the land."

Leilani bit her tongue to keep back the tears.

"Goodbye, earth-mother," she said, using the elder's formal title.

"Goodbye, Leilani."

As Leilani walked down the stairs, she was overcome with the saddest sensation that she would never hear Okilani's voice again.

When her parents told Lana the next morning that they would be leaving the island, she could hardly summon the energy to feel anything at all. Without Kali or the mandagah, what was there to stay for, anyway? Of course, she loved the great trees in the grove and the smell of her island after a rainstorm, but none of those memories made her fight to stay. She would be traveling, then. Keeping her side of the pact with Kali. And seeing Essel, after all. She knew that she wouldn't seek out Kohaku. Her dreams of him seemed so childish and impossible, now. As though he had ever seen her as anything but a native of above-average intelligence. The only person besides her parents who had ever loved her had just died. What was a childish crush beside that?

They packed all day, and the smell of the waterproof resin they had spread on the heavy canvas to protect their belongings made the house reek. It was a silent, somber affair. Even Kapa didn't seem very enthusiastic. That evening he left them to exchange his fishing boat for a barge roomy enough for the three of them and their belongings. Her mother packed everything with a look of fierce determination, as though she refused to doubt her decision. Lana stared at her mother and wondered what had made her change her mind.

That night, after most of the packing was finished, she and her parents went to Eala's, so that they could give some kind of goodbye to the people they had grown up with and known so long. Everyone stared at Lana as she came in. Some people gave her tentative smiles; others turned away abruptly and stared at their drinks. Lana stared back at them, distanced from all the tension in the room. What did it matter, anyway? Tomorrow she and her parents would leave this place and she would probably never see any of them again-these people who knew what had happened to Kali, who knew that she had been visited by her ghost. Her father didn't seem to notice the tension. He was in his element here at Eala's. Today his grin was especially wide as he made his way to the center of the room, where he always sat to play his songs. He took requests that night, and a few others played with him. He looked happy there, and Lana could tell by the look in his eyes that he was dreaming of doing this every day in the city. Her mother looked vaguely ill and, after one last worried glance at her daughter, sat near Kapa and stared into space.

Some of the tension in the room seemed to penetrate Lana's gray haze of indifference. Suddenly feeling awkward and inexpressibly sad, she moved away from her parents and sat near the kitchen in the darkest corner of the room. There was a pitcher of palm wine at the table, nearly untouched by whoever had ordered it. Lana stared at it, vaguely registering the boisterous music her father and his friends were playing. It seemed incredibly inappropriate, somehow. Kali was dead. Lana hadn't been able to move the logs that crushed her friend. They would never be able to keep the pact. A tear seeped out of her eye and was soon absorbed by the wooden table.

She poured herself a glass of palm wine. In the smoky torchlight, its natural golden hue looked luminescent. It looked like liquid fire, something that could burn all thought and emotion from inside her. Though she had never enjoyed the taste of it before, she relished the burning sensation as she poured it down her throat, finishing the cup in nearly one gulp. It felt nice, sitting in her belly like that. She filled her glass again and drank it all. Everything seemed to be going a bit fuzzy around the edges. The light looked brighter and her father's happy music didn't bother her so much anymore. Kali would have loved this. They could have danced together after drinking too much palm wine and then gone running on the beach. Lana always loved doing things like that with Kali.