Telesa - The Covenant Keeper (48 page)

A flush of celebratory pride made me rash, rush to utter words I would regret a thousand times over in the days to come. “That’s where you’re wrong, Nafanua. You’re not the only ones with answers about my powers, my genetic aberration. Jason’s going to help me. He’s going to find the answers with Western science, and I’m going to be that ‘pathetic regular girl’ you so despise. You’ll see, I don’t need you. Or your murderous
telesa
insanity.”

She recoiled as if my words had drawn blood, leaving her white faced with eyes flashing. “Jason? You revealed your powers to Jason? You shared your gifts with a man? A
palagi
man?!” Shock and horror painted welts in the setting sun. “Leila, it is forbidden. How could you? Do you realize what you have done? What will happen now?”

I threw my reply at her with impetuous abandon. “Yes I do. Jason is going to do everything possible to help me cure this. To be rid of it. He’s going to get the best scientific minds working on the problem and I’m going to be okay. You thought you could control me and make me do whatever you wanted, just because I was afraid of what these powers could do, but you were wrong. I don’t need you. I don’t need to become a
telesa
like you, I have a choice here. And I choose to be cured of this. I
will
be normal. And if that means I’m less like you, all the better. My father was right to take me away from you. I hate you and everything you stand for, Nafanua.”

I turned and took two steps towards the veranda stairs before Nafanua screamed my name and lightning ripped the sky, striking the ground so close to me that my hair singed. I caught a ragged breath at the suddenness of it and spun around. For a moment we stood there, rigid in the green and blue day, hostility rippling like waves of fire in the deepening twilight. Nafanua spoke and her words dripped with the poison of the stonefish.

“How dare you walk away from me? You are nothing. A child. I am Nafanua, the greatest
telesa
who has walked this land in over two hundred years. You will not defy me. You cannot walk away from your destiny, from a legacy of over a thousand combined years of
telesa
guardianship.”

My reply was swift. A single thought and a ripple of heat and flames burst from my core, extinguishing a weak girl made of flesh and bone, replacing her with one of lava and fire. “And just how will you stop me, Nafanua? You and I both know that your lightning is no match for my volcano. I may be just a child, but foolish children can have deadly temper tantrums.” The outrage that had started burning when I first saw the footage of Satumea village flared and I gathered a fireball and threw it with all my pent-up anger – straight at Nafanua’s black land cruiser. I was regretting my actions, even before the car exploded in an incendiary mass of flames, sparks, and billowing black smoke.

KABOOM!

Dammit!
I gritted my teeth as I stared at the inferno. I didn’t want to be this person. Someone who blew up cars when they got mad. No. I forgot Nafanua for a moment as I focused on containing the flames, subduing them. There was nothing I could do to save the car but at least I could prevent the fire from running wild through the garden. I sighed at the sight of the twisted remains of steel and wire and spoke over my shoulder to Nafanua. “I’m sorry. About the car. I shouldn’t have done that. I won’t let you threaten me or the people I care about, Nafanua, but I really shouldn’t have blown up your car. That’s not who I am.” I appealed to her. “Can’t you get it, Nafanua?
Telesa
like you, is not who I am.”

Nafanua’s voice was pleading as she took several steps closer. “Leila, you have never been an ordinary woman. You have a gift and it’s been given to you for a purpose.
Fanua
needs you and the fire you hold. Can’t you feel her suffering? Surely you can see it? Hear her cries for help? Join us. You can help us, you can make sure that man listens, that he changes. The earth is sick, dying, and you can do something about it. Are you going to walk away from that?”

I shook my head in angry bewilderment. “I have no idea what you’re talking about Nafanua. I’m just a messed-up teenager trying to find her way through life. Truly, I’m so tired of it all. The lies, the secrecy, the powers. I don’t want it. Can’t you get it?”

She came up and stood as close to me as she dared, shading her eyes against the spitting flames. “Leila, listen to me. My sisters and I, we have a plan. A plan that can change everything. That can fix everything once and for all and restore the natural order, the natural balance of things. But we need you. Join us. Embrace who you really are and you could be earth’s last chance. Our plans just include our islands of Samoa, but there is no reason why we could not look further afield.”

My eyes narrowed. “Plans? What plans? What are you talking about?”

There was excitement in her reply. “There is a reason why Pele is called the creator and destroyer of lands. If you unleash her, tap into the core, she could do away with all this, all of man’s attempts to civilize her, to control and abuse her. And then, with Pele’s creative power, the land could start anew, afresh.”

Horror dawned with understanding. “You’re insane. You’re talking about triggering a major volcanic eruption, aren’t you? One that would wipe out just about everything? And the people? What about them? The children? The families? Homes, villages, everything? You would just have them all wiped out – for what – so you could go back to the ‘old ways’?”

Nafanua waved her hand impatiently. “No, we wouldn’t erase everyone and everything. Just the main town and the industrial zones. The commercial leaders and main government sector, freeing up a power vacuum. Those in the rural areas will be more likely to turn to their traditional leadership then. Which would of course involve a return to their spiritual healers and
fanua
worship. It would bring about a greater closeness with their earth mother. And we
telesa
would be honored as the intermediaries with that earth.”

As swiftly as I had summoned it, I switched off my flames. Standing there naked in the afternoon, I shook my head at the woman who – I realized with dreadful certainty now – was a complete stranger to me. “So this was your plan all along? This is why you came and got me from Aunty Matile’s home? This is why you wanted your daughter back? Why you’ve been teaching me how to use my powers, getting me to buy into all this
telesa
sister crap? Nafanua, I don’t know you. And you really don’t know anything about me. What makes you think that, for a single moment, I would even consider the possibility of doing what you’re asking? Hear me now, I will never use this ‘gift’ this ‘curse’ – whatever it is – I will never take part in your insane plan.”

I turned and walked up the steps of the veranda, daring her with my back to strike me. To cut me down. Anything. I didn’t care. “I’m leaving. There’s nothing left for me here.”

There was no response. In the house, I quickly dressed, packed my things, and, within minutes, was heading out to the car. Nafanua was sitting on the veranda sipping tea as I threw my bags in the back of the jeep. She spoke, “We are not done here, Leila.”

I did not answer, simply climbed into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. Over the roar, I thought I heard her say, “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you, daughter.”

I did not look back as I drove off down the driveway, my eyes on the road but my thoughts on the future. What is a
telesa
without her sisters? Where does she belong?

* * * *

Terminator ran up eagerly as I alighted from the Wrangler. I knelt to hug his scruffy self, a huge grin of relief on my face. At least someone was happy to see me! At the door, I took a huge breath before knocking.
What would Matile say? Would there be a place for me here?
I wouldn’t blame them if they told me to get lost.

It was Uncle Tuala who opened the door and his smile chased away all my doubts. He turned to hastily call over his shoulder, “Matile, look who’s here?!” He took my bag from me and beckoned me in eagerly as Matile came from the kitchen, wiping her floury hands on a tea towel. Another smile of greeting. This one somewhat tearful.

“Ah Leila. Come in. I knew you would come back” she corrected herself, “well, I hoped you would come back.” A frown of concern. “Are you alright? Your … mother, she is alright?”

I smiled weakly, the warmth of their greeting was making me emotional. “Yes, Nafanua is fine.” I took a deep breath before plunging in, “I was hoping I could stay with you. Just for a little while. It’s no longer possible for me to stay at Nafanua’s. We’ve kind of had a disagreement and I’m going to go back to the States. Not right away though. I’m waiting for a few things to get settled first. So I wondered if I could stay here until I go back. Please?”

I needn’t have worried. Both of them rushed to assuage any misgivings I may have had about my reception. My room was exactly as I had left it and Matile immediately set to work in the kitchen preparing a huge meal for dinner. As she bustled about, Uncle Tuala regarded me with pensive eyes.

“So. What really happened with you and your mother? Are you alright? Did she hurt you?”

I shook my head, grateful for his concern. “No. There’s nothing she could do to hurt me. I’m fine. Honestly. We just disagree about what path I should take. She has plans for me that I don’t agree with and so I thought it best to move out. If it’s alright with you and Matile, I’d like to finish up the last three weeks of the school term and then go back home to the US.”

“Of course. You know you’re always welcome here. But Leila, are you sure that you’re alright? Is there anything else that we should know?”

For a moment, I thought about telling him everything. About pouring out the whole story of who Nafanua really was, what she had done and what I really was. But one look at his worried face and I knew that I couldn’t. Not when I kept seeing the image in my mind of Nafanua’s lightning rage and hearing her threaten to harm the people I cared about. No, I could not tell Tuala and Matile what had happened. I shook my head again and plastered a smile on my face. “No Uncle, that’s it. I rushed into the whole idea of having a mother and it didn’t quite turn out to be the happy family that I thought it would be. I’m disappointed but I’m okay. I’ll finish up with school and then head back home.”

Tuala patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’m sorry that it didn’t work out for you. I know how important it was for you to know your mother.” He smiled. “But we are certainly happy to have you back with us. Matile has missed having you to cook for! Now come, let’s go eat.”

Chapter Fourteen

It was almost as if I had never left. And so it was all too easy for me to push my deadlock with Nafanua into the darkest closets of my mind. Matile shook her head sadly at my tattoo as she muttered about the sacrilege of desecrating one’s body, the holy temple of the spirit. But she was thrilled to find that I was the
taupou
for Culture Night. She was a woman with a mission as she worked to make me the “most amazing, most authentic, most beautiful
taupou
in the history of the school.” (her words, not mine) A piece of
siapo
was acquired, which she reverently cut and sewed into a strapless shift, one that ended mid-thigh. Again, I despaired of ever understanding this culture where mini-skirts were frowned upon but a
taupou
with a
malu
was SUPPOSED to not only wear the shortest skirt possible but also hitch it up even further during her dance and slap at her tattoo to better accentuate its beauty. (Never mind that her butt would be peeking out the back at the same time.) There were coconut wood bracelets that would sit like arm cuffs, shell anklets that would help announce my arrival, a ruffle of fuchsia-dyed feathers that would belt at my waist, and a glorious jutting necklace made of boar tusks. (Mental note to self, don’t trip over and accidentally stab self in the eye on pointy pig tusks). Pride of place, however, belonged to the
tuiga
– the elaborately ornate headdress I would balance precariously and try not to topple as I gracefully dipped my head during the dance. Matile explained that, in olden times, light-coloured hair was prized as it bespoke of the progeny of the gods (who were supposedly white skinned and bringers of light). Women with light-coloured hair were made to donate their locks via regular haircuts and the pieces were woven together to make tuiga. I had never dressed up for a school ball like other girls, nor had a mother to help me get ready for such an event, so it was a novel experience. One that was beginning to be a little tiresome though, as every day that week I came home from school to find Matile waiting for me to try on the outfit “just one more time” to check if another alteration and additional enhancement worked or not. But then it seemed as if everyone at school was just as hyped up for Culture Night as my aunt.

Simone was aflutter with designs for his
puletasi
. He was dancing with the other girls and deviously planning 101 ways to make sure that his requisite uniform would still manage to outshine the others. A slit up to the thigh, a handful of sequins artfully sewn on the green
elei
fabric “to catch the light,” and, of course, a full self-applied manicure and pedicure the day of the event. He was envious of my upcoming role, but preened with satisfaction that my performance would make Mele choke with envy. He even came over to the house twice after school to check that my costume would be suitably impressive and he and Matile hit it off surprisingly well, like fashion cohorts and schemers.

I was beginning to get frustrated with all the time and effort that was getting sucked up into this
taupou
thing. It kept getting in the way of my meetings with Jason as he made good on his promise to help me. I did not want to have to explain Jason to Matile and so I arranged to meet him after school while she and Tuala were at work. Three times now he had picked me up in the red truck. Simone’s eyebrows had danced suggestively the first time he had seen my tanned, blonde visitor, but I had waved away his teasing by explaining that Jason was a scientist working on a project with my mother and he had to be content with that.