Daniel catches sight of the unusual shape that blurs in the nearest ravine, shifting and rolling in the rippling lava flow. Hope sparks. Can it be?
The water obeys his bidding. Fluid and supple, carrying him over enflamed earth as he races to catch up with the dark shape carried by the fast-flowing tide of lava. He reaches his quarry just as the ravine ends at the cliff side. Just as it falls far, far below. Arms out-flung, hair flowing, body limp as a ragdoll. It’s a woman. A woman on fire. A falling star, a burnt out meteorite.
Leila?
The body splashes into the ocean. Daniel doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t think. He launches himself from the cliff-top, executing a dive of perfect grace. The water is hot. Boiling hot. Steam obscures his vision. But he does not need to look for her. He can sense her. With every melded molecule of hydrogen and oxygen he can feel her. And she is not breathing. Her heart is not beating.
He swims to her. Finds her. Swathed in grey silk water. All flames extinguished. Leila. It is an easy task to raise her up, raise them both up on a whitewater bed of foam that eases them towards the nearby shoreline. Black sand is the bed on which he gently lays her. She is what he never thought she could be. Burnt. Barely recognizable. Her skin is blistered and peeling. Flesh bloodied and lacerated, grimy with speckled black rock. He tries CPR, the long ago Boy Scout first aid course coming to startling life as he covers her mouth with his, as he counts and pumps with precision on her chest. Again and again he tries to breathe life into the one who has stolen all of his forevers. There are no tears. Only single-minded intensity. She cannot be dead because they are fatu-ma-le-ele-ele. Heart and earth. We can handle anything as long as we are together.
Dimly he is aware of the tide washing in around them. And in the far-off distance, the flash of silver. Dolphins. He ignores them. So intent on his task that he does not see the woman until she is almost upon him.
“Daniel.” Her voice is lyrical. The lilting caress of a feather-soft sea breeze. Again. More insistent. “Daniel.”
This time he looks. Pausing to raise his face up to the silver light. It is too bright. He flinches, shields his eyes. Gradually makes out the dim outline. It is a woman coming up out of the ocean. Hauntingly familiar and yet unknown. Her form mists at the edges, hazy and blurred like a holographic image, colors and promises unrealized. She stands in the shallows, long hair trailing in the soft waves. Draped only in seaweed, her skin gleams with an eerie blue-green glow, catching starlight in a mélange of color, billowing clouds from burning water at her back. Is she real? What does she want? Daniel is wary. He stands, moving to shield Leila’s inert form behind him and water responds to his apprehension, automatic coils of water whips clenched tightly in his hands. Fists ready.
She speaks again. “Bring her here. Into the water.”
He ignores her command. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want to help you. Help the girl you love. Bring her into the water. Quickly, we don’t have much time.”
“Why do you want to help me?” His eyes narrow in suspicion. “Why should I trust you?”
The woman smiles, but there is only sadness in her eyes. “Because I saved your life a year ago. When Sarona and her sisters stabbed you and left you for dead in the ocean, I healed you.” She hesitated. “More precisely, our ocean mother vasa loloa healed you.”
Stunned, Daniel asks again. “Why? Who are you?”
“Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was your mother. My name was Moanasina.”
Daniel reels. A tsunami of shock rages over him. “No, that can’t be. My mother died. She drowned.”
“Yes, she did. Moanasina chose to blend her Gift with the ocean that gave it to her. Without the man she loved, without her child, she returned to that which gave her happiness. The wild child gave herself to the ocean. Her body died but her spirit embraced vasa loloa.I am the embodiment of earth’s water element.”
He struggles to understand. “So you’re not my mother?”
“No. Moanasina died all those many years ago.”
“So why are you helping me? Why do you care what happens to us?”
The woman looks mystified. “Moanasina’s love for you is strong. It … moves me.” She shakes her head at him impatiently. “Now hurry, bring the girl to me.”
He doesn’t question it anymore. What is there to lose after all? Without Leila, he is nothing, has nothing. He kneels beside her, places a single kiss on her forehead. And remembers that first kiss so long ago. In the whispering shade of a mango tree when Leila was in his arms, soft, vulnerable, and trusting. When he had wished he could kiss her lips even though hundreds of curious eyes watched them from the block of classrooms. He remembers and he weeps. There is so much of her now that is bloodied flesh and cruelly raw that he barely dares touch her. With tender care, he carries her in his arms, tears glistening shards of glass on his cheek. He walks with sure strides into the ocean, her body hanging limply in his embrace, her fingers trailing in the white surf. He walks until the water is waist deep and he stands directly in front of the silver-tressed woman. Closer, and now he can see that her silver skin is tattooed boldly. Strident patterns down her arms, legs, and even her neck. And all of them smolder with that same blue luminosity as his pe’a, so much so that the ocean floor is lit up. The woman who was once Moanasina radiates with embered blue energy and Daniel’s breath catches in his chest. What is this woman?
As if she can read his mind, she speaks. “Mermaid, water nymph, siren, naiad – history has given us many names.”
She gazes at his face. Curious. Impassive. Detached. She reaches with a silver-scaled hand to caress his cheek. Her touch is cold, and Daniel flinches. The movement startles her and she takes a step backwards.
His voice is harsh. “What are you going to do with her? I don’t want you to hurt her.”
“This will hurt no one. Release her.”
The woman guides his hands to lower Leila into the water, pressing firmly so that she is captive and completely submerged in the glowing ocean.
“Hold her underwater.” Her command is abrupt.
“But she can’t breathe.” Even as he protests, the words die on his lips. She’s not breathing anyway, you fool. He obeys, kneeling on the pebbled sand so he can cradle Leila in his arms in the water.
The woman begins to sing. Daniel does not understand her words, but he can feel their haunting beauty. The song begins soft and low at first and then builds to a piercing intensity. The melody tugs at the emotions. There is pain. Sadness. A hollow emptiness that then begins to fill with happiness. A joy that threatens to drown you. The water churns and spins about them. And then Leila is raised up into the air and suspended in a sphere of water that radiates blue light so bright that Daniel cannot look at it. And still the woman sings.
Just when Daniel decides that this is madness – the song stops. There is silence. An impossible silence, as if the ocean itself had just ceased to breathe. No waves, no roar of crashing surf on the reef, no gentle hum of patterned waves. Nothing. Just a silver-edged woman emanating cobalt energy, arms outstretched, head thrown back, face to the sky, and Leila’s body suspended under the full-globed moon.
And then the sphere gently, gently lowers Leila back to the ocean, back to Daniel’s waiting arms. She coughs, struggles to open her eyes, and then sinks back into her darkness. Daniel stares at her, disbelieving. Her body is bathed in moonlight and it is beautiful. The savage burns are gone. Her skin is smooth and gleams with newness. Her head rests on his shoulder, she is soft and pliable in his arms, still not conscious but she is breathing.
The description of joy eludes him. Relief. Happiness. Lightness. Joy. Gratitude. He asks, “I don’t understand. How did you do that?”
“Water is life. It always has been. Vasa loloa are healers, and the ocean’s gift is magnified a thousand fold when the moon is full.” A frown. “But there are some wounds that vasa loloa cannot cure. Her body is restored but I can do nothing for her spirit, her mind, o
r her heart. You may lose her still.”
Fear is a knife that cuts deep. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with her?”
“She has not yet won her battle. She fights even now. And none can say when she will wake. I’m sorry.”
“What should I do to help her? Tell me what I should do?”
“There is nothing you can do, nothing anyone can do. Except wait. Love her. And hope she returns.”The woman turns and begins to walk away from them, deeper into the ocean. She takes the light with her. “No, wait. Come back. I want …” I have so many questions I want to ask you. So much I want to tell you. Please. Don’t leave me. Again. “I want to say thank you.”
She half turns her head to frown back at him. “Don’t thank me yet, Daniel, son of the ocean. One day all of earth’s telesā may live to bitterly regret this healing. Even you, Daniel. Especially you.”And with that enigmatic statement, she shimmers, fades, and dives. There is a blinding flash of ocean light and she is gone.
Hospitals. Daniel hated them. They were so removed from what he had always associated with healing. Medicine for him was his grandmother’s garden. Lush greenery and rich color. Gathering baskets of white ginger flowers beside a sparkling mountain stream. Salamasina grinding koko bean and ginger root. Her laughter as he made a face at the taste of her concoctions, “Fine, I’ll put some more honey in it. You’re such a big baby.” The compassion in her touch as she massaged his dislocated collar bone with fragranced coconut oil. Healing was love. Touch. Comfort. Closeness.
Not this. The sour-faced nurse standing sentry at the ward entrance. The thick odor of disinfectant blanketing a sterile room. The constant drone and beep of monitors and the slow drip of an IV. The hushed tones of doctors as they held their clipboards close and their jealously guarded knowledge even closer. The needles, tubing, and wires.
And Leila. Lying so still on the bed. Unresponsive. Pale and lifeless. It had been three days since the volcano, three days since she had been in a coma – but already she seemed thinner. She was wasting away right there in front of him and there was nothing he could do about it. Frustration warred with guilt as Daniel clenched his fists tightly on the side railings of Leila’s bed. If only he had moved faster, if only he had stopped her from doing her usual dumb-ass sacrifice move. Maybe he shouldn’t have trusted that woman. What did he know about vasa loloa anyway? What if the ocean spirit woman had lied to him? What if this was her doing? Dammit, Leila please wake up. Please come back to me.
He had promised not to leave her side. To walk with her always. Especially when she walked through valleys shadowed with danger. A difficult covenant to keep, especially with Matile giving him evil looks as if she held him personally responsible for Leila’s condition. And rightly so. He was the one who had failed to keep her safe. Tiredness threatened to drag him under. Salamasina brought him food and clothes. Words of comfort that did little to numb the fear that knifed at him.
Others visited daily and waited for Leila to awaken as well. Teuila, wracked with guilt, “It’s all my fault. She was only trying to help me.” A subdued Simone who wrung his hands and cried. “She was trying to say goodbye to me and I told her that if she didn’t come back, I wanted to have her Louboutin shoes. I’m such a heartless, cold witch.” Maleko and Sinalei, Rihanna, and Mariah came every day and brought flowers. Exuberant, hopeful bunches of color that Daniel knew Leila would smile for. If she would only come back from whatever distant shore she walked upon. Lesina came too. She brought the Bone with her.
“I got this from Sarona’s campsite. She never told me why she wanted it. Something about a legend and Pele the volcano goddess. All I know for sure is that she was going to have us search for two more pieces.” An awkward shrug. “This belongs to Leila. She should have it back.” Lesina didn’t stay long. She was busy making arrangements with Jason’s parents for his body to be returned to America.
Keahi tried to visit Leila. But Daniel leapt to his feet as soon as he saw him enter. An angry whisper. “What are you doing here? You’re part of the reason she’s in here.” At the other end of the room, a jug of water shattered with a thought. The silver liquid merged with glass shards, coiling into a garrote wire that twisted with lightning speed around Keahi’s neck.
Keahi winced against the razor-sharp vice at his throat, but made no resistance against the attack. The two stared at each other for a long taut moment. As blood seeped. Keahi held up his hands appeasingly, “I’ll leave then.”
The days dragged into a week and still Leila showed no signs of improvement. Time was running out. Matile had finally been able to reach Leila’s Uncle Thomas in America. He was sending a private plane to transport Leila back to a medical facility in the United States, as soon as the doctors cleared her to travel. Daniel was sure there was no way they would allow some unknown Samoan boy to hitch a ride with the patient. Even if he was the vasa loloa ocean complement to her fanua afi earth self.
“You’ve got to wake up. I need you here. Not in faraway America. You promised me remember? You promised that we wouldn’t be apart like that again. Skype just doesn’t do it for me.”
The doctor had said that talking to coma patients was helpful. That it could be their voice in the darkness. The light that called them home. And so, every day, and into the nights, Daniel sat and talked to Leila. “I’ve got a deep, dark shameful secret to tell you. Now that you’re incapacitated and can’t attack me. Maybe it will make you mad enough that you’ll wake up?”
A hopeful pause in the deepening twilight. Nothing. No response. “Okay, here it goes. I kind of stalked you a bit when you first started at SamCo. After that debate in Ms. Sivani’s class, the one where you went nuclear on me for no good reason at all, remember? After that class when I tried to talk to you and you told me to get lost, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I don’t often get people hating me so viciously. So I asked Simone to go talk to you. You know, find out why you hated me so much and maybe try to put in a good word for me. The plan was for Simone to get me some inside info on the enemy, and for a while he was an excellent double agent, telling me everything I wanted to know about you and even stuff I never asked him! He kept telling me to ‘be a man’ and go talk to you myself but you gotta admit, you were kinda abrasive. A scary chick. Then Simone decided to be best friends with you and he stopped sharing info with me so I had to do my own stalking. That day you were on Hard Labor for skipping class? I wasn’t supposed to be on prefect duty. I only switched with Manuia when I recognized your name on the detention list.” A laugh, a smile, as memories ran away with him.
Massage was good for coma patients as well. Daniel asked Salamasina to bring a bottle of moso’oi fragranced coconut oil from home.
Late one evening, when the last stragglers were leaving after visiting hour, Daniel sat and massaged Leila’s arms, and the heady perfume disguised the disinfectant, if only for a little while. Delicately he traced the patterns of her taulima. “I wish I could take you to our special place, Leila. Our secret mountain pool. When you get better, we’re going to go there again. I’ve already decided that it’s the place where I’m going to ask you to marry me. That’s right. I said the M word. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, sitting here every day waiting for you to wake up and I realized that when you find the person who makes you want to believe in forever? Then you should hold on to them and never let them go. And yeah, you should even marry them. I think you and I are going to have to face a lot of storms because of what we are. We should face them together. And make every day our forever. Because we don’t know how many days we’re going to get.”
He didn’t see her eyes open. He didn’t know that she was listening to him. He didn’t see her tremulous smile. Or the single tear that ran down her cheek. But he did hear her say, “Daniel Tahi, are you proposing to a girl who’s asleep?”
“Leila?” He rose to his feet, careful joy on his face. “You’re awake. You’re back.”
She laughed weakly, “Did I go somewhere?”
>
He took her in his arms, breathed kisses on her forehead, her cheek, her lips. “I thought I had lost you.”
“What happened?”
“How much do you remember?”
“Not much.” She winced, “It hurts to try and think. I remember getting on a plane for Tonga with you and Jason.” A frown. “And that’s it.”
He held her hand. Maybe it was best that she not remember everything. At least not all at once. “Wait here.” He got up and went to the door.
She frowned, “Where are you going? I just woke up and you’re leaving?”
“I’m going to call the nurse. Tell them you’re awake so they can check you. Make sure everything is alright.”
The nurses came and bustled about with equipment and monitors. Said they couldn’t do much until the doctors came in to do their rounds the next day. “In the meantime, she needs to rest. No activity. No excitement,” they instructed severely. “Don’t tire her with too much information either. She may be disoriented. Don’t expect her to have complete memory recall right away. Take it slow.”
After they left, Daniel said, “Everyone will want to know that you’re awake. Shall I call them for you?”
“Not yet.” She pleaded. “Don’t call anyone yet. Come sit with me. Just let it be us for a little while longer.”
He went back to sit on the bed. She clutched his hand again and asked fearfully, “Did it work? Did we save Teuila? Is everyone alright?”
Daniel nodded. Smiled. Reassured her, “Yes. We saved Teuila. And everyone is alright.” He thought of Jason and tried not to show sorrow. There would be time in the days to come for Leila to remember Jason’s death. Time to grieve.
When Water Burns Page 35
