by Wesley Stein
“I was asleep,” she cried.
“Okay,” Tuahine replied softly. “It’s okay, sweetie.”
Tuahine was not certain that anything would be okay for these three girls. But surely their parents would return. If they didn’t, the only upside was their wealth. Their father had been a successful attorney back in Los Angeles. But Tuahine also wondered if that was the downside too. Was this all about money? She knew Robbins would look into that.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Jacey asked solemnly. Tuahine smiled as warmly as possible and mustered all her sympathy.
“You’re going to come to stay in a hotel with me and Tua,” she answered. “We’re going to get through this, one day at a time. Today Consular Agent Robbins is going to keep searching for your parents and I’m going to track down your relatives. Can you tell me about them?”
“We don’t have any relatives,” Joanna said. “Our grandparents on our father’s side are dead. We don't have any aunts or uncles.”
“What about your mother’s family?”
“Mom’s family disowned her,” Joanna answered with a guff. “When she was young. We don’t know anything about them, never met them.”
“Okay,” Tuahine nodded. “Let’s get some food.”
Joanna tried to smile. She let out a breath that seemed pent up inside her. She patted her two sisters on their respective shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said to Tuahine. She appreciated the woman’s warmth.
Tuahine felt horribly for all the girls, but mostly Jacey. She had witnessed something and had suffered a trauma, Tuahine thought. She’d seen something in Jacey’s eyes that made her uncomfortable. She’d seen something familiar.
Tuahine recalled when she was thirteen years old and her father broke the news that her mother had been killed.
“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he had said, trying to explain the freak accident that had taken her.
Tuahine’s mother had been killed by drunk joyriders, who’d driven their automobile wildly down a public beach.
Tuahine needed to hear the rest of Jacey’s story. She asked Joanna and Jennifer if she could speak with their sister alone. They agreed and waited outside the door with Tua.
Tua stared at them in childish fascination. He was trying to act grown up and needed to make sure they were noticing. Joanna didn’t mind, but it started to bother Jennifer.
“Take a picture,” she said. The expression was lost on the boy. He tilted his head and smiled wider.
“Do you have a picture?” He asked finally, as he scratched his nose. Joanna burst into laughter.
“He wants a picture of you, Jenn!”
Jennifer was embarrassed. Joanna began singing a familiar tune about her sister and young Tua sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
“Shut up!” Jennifer admonished her sister. Tua was now blushing too.
After a few minutes, the doors to the office opened. Tuahine emerged with a forced smile on her face. Jacey was wiping her eyes.
Tuahine was not a social worker for a hospital or an agent of the Consulate. She’d found herself in a position to help and so she did. As a junior-high-school counselor, she might have been the only person in the islands qualified to deal with these girls.
After her mother’s death, Tuahine had been sent to live with cousins in the United States. She finished high school and went to a local college for a few months. But the islands called to her and she knew she would return home.
Living with her father while she finished her education was tough. He was not a good communicator and often made Tuahine feel unwanted and unloved. She found love elsewhere, eventually falling for a man who gave her a child but abandoned her soon after.
Tuahine’s life was changed by the birth of her son. She decided that Tua would be the only man to whom she would give her heart and vowed her life to his care. But after her father passed away, Tuahine took a job at the school and found a passion for helping others.
Consular Agent Robbins had sent his small plane for her and her son, who was always at her side. After her initial visit with the sisters, Tuahine was to provide her insight for Agent Robbins.
When the girls were comfortably resting in the hotel room, Tuahine and Robbins met for a casual debriefing in the lobby.
The hotel was positioned just down the coastline from the huts where Mark and Rachel were last seen. The lobby was an open-air courtyard surrounded by Bahama shutters, opened to the ocean breeze.
“She didn’t want to tell me much at first,” Tuahine said. “But then she opened up. She told me about a bedtime story her mom and dad recited to her occasionally.”
“What about it?”
“It’s about an island.”
Robbins leaned forward in his chair.
“Go on.”
“In the story, the island is a magical place where some people get to live if they do enough good things. She told me that’s where they went.”
“And you believed her?”
“I believe that’s what she thinks,” Tuahine said. “There’s always some truth behind the fib of a child. She saw them.”
“She saw them?”
“After the others went to sleep,” Tuahine nodded. “She told me about a dream.”
“What happened?” Robbins was already writing, scribbling down notes as the olive-skinned woman spoke.
“She heard a noise on the deck,” Tuahine answered. “And when she awoke she saw her parents outside the cabin, on the over-water walkway. They were headed toward the jungle.”
“So they were leaving?”
“It seems so,” Tuahine said. “Jacey said they turned and saw her and the mom put a finger over her mouth- the sign to keep quiet.”
“Whoa,” Robbins sighed. “This is important testimony.”
Tuahine nodded.
“I know,” she continued. “The girl thought she was dreaming.”
“I see,” Robbins said. “Well, it sounds like Mom and Dad might have been up to no good. They knowingly left their children for the night.”
“Drugs?”
“I guess so,” Robbins said. “It doesn't feel right though. Maybe the kid was wrong.”
“What then, a kidnapping? Pirates?”
“Not too common in these waters,” Robbins said. “Too much tourism money is flowing in and out of here, right?”
“The locals rely on it,” Tuahine confirmed. “They wouldn’t risk their bread-and-butter to make a few extra bucks from pirates.”
“But there have been a few instances in the past,” Robbins urged. “I’ll look into it.”
“So, what do I do?”
“I want you to concentrate on getting the girls back home to the States,” Robbins said. “I’ll find their parents if it’s the last thing I do.”
We ran into the night, away from our fire, and into the darkness. We ran as fast as our legs would carry us, until we arrived at the beach and could see no one behind us. We only spent a moment catching our breath and frantically discussing our next steps.
Jacey said nothing. Her face had been drained of color, her body in some kind of shock. Joanna pulled her close.
“What happened?”
There were no words. No crying. Jacey was silent.
We continued along the wet sand, up the shore toward the flat crest. We didn’t look back until we’d reached the top. We still saw no sign of our pursuers, though we could faintly make out the light of our campfire dancing amidst the trees in the distance.
“Let’s get as high as possible,” Joanna suggested. “We’ll be able to see them coming.”
“Who are they?” I asked. “What do they want?” Joanna didn’t answer and neither did Jacey.
“We should keep moving,” Joanna finally suggested.
At the top of the hill we again turned and looked down upon the waterline. There was still no sign of the robed chasers but the small glow of our fire was now gone.
We kept moving and
topped the crest, following it inland until it dead-ended into the dense jungle at the foot of the mountain.
It was dark outside the canopy of trees, but beneath them it was pitch black. We had no choice but to keep going. We followed the rocky path as best we could, into the inky black undergrowth.
We hiked for fifteen minutes before we stopped again to catch our breath and have another look around. We couldn’t see much of the island from inside the jungle, but we knew that soon we’d be above the trees and nearer to the island’s rocky midsection. We pressed forward.
We never sensed anything behind us after that, yet up we went as if we were still being chased. When the trees began to thin and we could see the sudden steep rise of the mountain before us, we finally slowed our pace and walked.
We reached the edge of the jungle and could feel the change in humidity. It was suddenly airy and a breeze rippled across the mountain. But the breeze eventually gave way to wind gusts. And though it still didn’t rain, a light mist blew in the wind.
We couldn’t see far in the mist. We kept walking uphill to the north, hoping to spy the other half of the island. But the terrain proved too steep, too rocky. Even if we made it to the top, there was no guarantee we’d be able to see anything.
“This is the same outcropping with the waterfall,” Joanna said. “We’re East of there.”
“We need to climb it somehow,” I said. “We need to find drinking water.”
Joanna nodded and wiped sweat and mist from her eyes.
“If we stand out here long enough, we’ll be able to wring the moisture out of our clothes.”
“Those freaks could be on top of us by then,” I said quietly. “We need to find a way up.”
We walked back and forth in front of the wall, looking for a path to climb, a line of footholds. At one point, Joanna had made it up about halfway but couldn’t go any further. She had trouble getting down and was almost stuck on the cliff face. There was no way up except down.
We considered going back. Perhaps the creepy campers had gone now? Maybe our camp was safe again.
“Stop,” Joanna said. I turned my head around to see her crouching. “There.”
She was pointing to a place in the base of the mountain’s face where some bushes framed a black spot in the darkness.
It was a cave.
“Come on.”
“Jacey’s not a fan of the cave,” I said. My sister was behind me, squeezing my hand. Joanna darted ahead of us, at once ducking into the dark opening.
I followed her a moment. I crouched at the mouth of the cave then turned around for Jacey.
“You coming?” I asked. She looked at me, but said nothing.
Joanna was already moving behind me, further down.
“Come on,” She called after us.
“Wait,” I said, then turned back to Jacey. She had definitely just been traumatized.
“Come with us,” I said to her quietly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
A lightning bolt illuminated the sky and silhouetted the vast ocean horizon behind her. Thunder pounded behind the flash, as loud as a dynamite blast and we both jumped. The mist threatened to shift to a harder rain, but after a moment, the wind passed and we were left with only thick air. The night was wet and warm.
“Come on,” I said to her as I backed myself down into the mouth of the cave. “This could be our chance to find some water.”
There wasn’t much room above me and the entrance was steep. I went in backward until my toes found a place to rest.
Jacey came closer but still wouldn’t join us under the hideout. She stood clutching herself, grinding her teeth. Her eyes were wide in the darkness.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “We’re gonna sit right here until the sun comes up.”
Jacey seemed to like that idea. After a moment she took a step forward.
Then I saw a flash of white again. Something moved behind Jacey. In the distance, down the slope from which we’d come, the two ghostly figures were coming. They hadn’t spotted us yet, but it was clear they were searching.
“Get in here!” I ordered Jacey in the loudest whisper. She turned and saw the robed strangers and gasped. She jumped toward me and into the cave.
Joanna was somewhere behind us, exploring the twists and turns of the cavern. Joanna and I situated ourselves behind the mouth of the entrance and didn’t move. We sat and watched as the two figures approached in the dark.
We slipped backward as they came, hoping they didn’t possess some mystical power that would allow them to detect us. I stayed quiet and kept calm. Jacey and I waited for the people to pass.
But more, we were waiting for the rain to stop, waiting for the night to be over, waiting for answers to decades-old questions that burned in us both. After a few minutes, we heard Joanna hiss at us from below.
“Guys,” she said in a low voice. “There’s a light down here.” We thought we’d heard her wrong. I slid down a little.
“What?” I asked softly.
“There’s a light,” she said again. “It’s coming from far down in the cave. It’s… I think.”
We turned our heads toward the sound of Joanna’s voice, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. We knew she was close by. She’d gone around a corner, a jut in the rocks that hid a tunnel.
“This leads downhill, and toward the north,” we heard her say. “We should follow it toward the light.”
“Are you crazy?” I asked. “We have no idea where it leads.”
“We can find out,” Joanna offered. “This light isn’t from a fire. It’s coming from a light bulb, I think.”
These tunnels were carved by water. What if it leads us to the other side of the island? My mind was racing.
“I don’t know,” I said. I turned to gauge Jacey’s feelings. Her eyes were still glued to the cave entrance.
I could hear sounds below, Joanna’s footfalls as she descended. Then I heard her stumble, a grunt, and a gravely crash. She had tripped and fallen.
I rushed around the crook in the rocks and saw the white-yellow glow of the light below. Then I noticed what my sister had tripped over.
A narrow tube was stretched across the floor of the tunnel. It was not a vine, but a black rubber hose. Joanna had tripped and fallen further into the passage. I stepped closer and called out for her.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m okay.”
“Come on Jacey,” I whispered loudly. “You should come down here.”
“Come on Jace,” Joanna urged from deeper in the tunnel. She was unaware that the white-clad figures had all but found us.
Suddenly Jacey was reaching for my hand. I squeezed her palm and pulled her around the corner.
“Just get through the night,” I said when she was next to me.
She nodded, not with her head but with her eyes, and followed behind me. She could see the glow on the cave walls below us and her eyes sharpened a little.
Joanna’s silhouette was moving in front of us. I could feel Jacey’s hand grip mine more tightly.
“It’s okay,” I offered. “Look.” I pointed to the glow.
“It’s an industrial light,” Joanna said. “That’s a great sign. There’s electricity close by. Which means phones, radios. We could be saved.”
A mix of relief and apprehension washed over me as we arrived next to our sister at the bottom of the tunnel. A cavern opened before us, a wooden platform crossing and circling it. In the center of the ceiling was the industrial light, covered in a black metal grid.
On top of the platform that circled the room, we saw pipes and valves and complex electrical systems that connected one side of the cavern to the other. Pipes and hoses and conduit ran through small holes in the cavern walls.
We were standing in some type of power plant. My hopes lifted some. Maybe there was a civilized community here after all. I could see Jacey begin to lighten, just a little.
We paused in the middle of the platform. Along the
side of the wall was a wide clear tube with water flowing through it. Joanna circled the room and went to it.
“What the hell?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Dirty. It’s the same shit-water that’s out there,” Joanna answered. “They’re using it for non-potable purposes. Must be where the electricity is coming from.”
“Dammit,” I sighed.
We crossed the platform and were connected to the next passage, another tunnel, much wider and taller than the one down which we’d come. This one was level and short and opened to yet another cavern.
This large dome had also been illuminated with an industrial light. A network of passages crossed the cave with tunnels carved into the walls and a faint glow of varying colors emanating from some of them. Above most of the passages were stone placards with strange symbols.
I heard Joanna gasp in relief and I spun around to see what she had beheld. One of the passages was larger than the others and when Joanna stepped in front of it, she felt a thin breeze.
“I think it could be another cave mouth,” she said.
It was difficult to see from the torchlit room, but as we came nearer the dark opening we could see the moonlight. We stepped forward, hopefully.
It was an opening, an exit, a way out. I held Jacey’s hand as we moved toward it and through.
My eyes adjusted to the night sky and an enormous smile came over my face. I turned to Joanna and she had seen it too. It was a sandy beach, the hidden north shore of the island.
“Yes!” Joanna exclaimed from just ahead of us. “Look.”
At the edge of the cave-mouth was another wooden platform. We stepped out from under the mountain and onto the boardwalk. Once on top of it, we could see down the entire beach. The walkway where we stood connected the cave to a village ahead.
Crowding the beach from one side to the other were huts and cabins. Some were illuminated with torchlight and lanterns, while others seemed to be wired for electricity. We kept moving forward optimistically. The beach looked similar to the resort where we’d planned to go all along, a hidden lagoon with over-the-water lodging.
Joanna stopped, turned, and smiled. I smiled back at her and then regarded Jacey, offering her the same optimistic grin. But she was sad again, scared. She seemed to share none of our hope.
