“Pretty pathetic, huh?” I rolled over on my back. “Rafael’s tried to help me learn to swim after the surgery, but I don’t know… I just freak out. I don’t understand the water anymore.”
“Yes, Rafael told me. You are afraid to risk your life after what it cost to save it. After all, your mom paid an arm and a leg in some ways, too.” Jinho took a step closer to the poster, thoughtful.
Abruptly, he flung open the curtains. Sunset outlined him with lustrous pink light. Baring his teeth against the cascade of brilliance, he seized the bottom of his rash-guard and peeled it off to reveal a lean, muscular back rigid with scars.
“Look at my back, Tica. What do you see?”
Stunned, I stared at his protruding shoulders against which his bones strained, as if struggling to break free. Suddenly, my room exploded in a blizzard of black feathers. I clawed my way through the plume flurries to see a large set of scraggly wings, the deep bluish-black of midnight, beating softly against Jinho’s back. Every time they opened, I could a thin red line engrained in the boy’s skin, a red line that appeared to be breathing. Its bottom lip dropped open, panting, and I realized I could see teeth.
“You’re an angel,” I whispered, “…with a giant mouth on your back.”
The wings ducked over the mouth as if ashamed, and Jinho turned to face me.
“I believe you know him,” he said grimly. “You can understand how I am cursed, Tica. During a wrestling match two years ago, the shark god’s son Nanaue and I became infused. The longer we stay merged as one, the more I feel his…hunger.”
“You can’t eat meat or else you’ll go ape-shit on everyone,” I said automatically. I stopped and thought. “Dear God—did my mom feed you ahi?” I stopped and thought some more. “Dear God—the Hawaiian gods are real?”
Jinho burst out laughing, a melodious sound that lifted the scowling shadows from his eyes. “Yes, the Hawaiian gods exist, as do many others,” he said in amusement. “Oftentimes they have grown into a shape or a complex set of ideas we do not recognize. If they do come to you in a form you comprehend, then...do not feel lucky. It means the situation is dire.”
“So you’re not a god?” I exclaimed, pulling my covers up to my chest. I felt like a little girl again, as if all of the folklore in my childhood fairytales had climbed off their pages and begun dancing around my room.
His face hardened. “No. I am something that does not belong to the world of the living or the dead. You can see me in my true shape in that time between waking and sleeping, when the veil between your world and mine is at its thinnest.” He paused. “In the world of Eve.”
Eve. It sounded like a magical twilight kingdom, a place both marvelous and deadly at the same time. “What is Eve?” I asked.
“It is the spirit world of all things in-between.” He took a step closer to me, his ragged wings fluttering behind his back. Although I shut my eyes tight, when I opened them he was still there, like some wonderfully bizarre dream. Jinho hesitated, and then lifted my chin with a pale finger.
“For some reason, Tica, you do not see as other mortals do. You can see the spirit world while awake, whether the spirits inhabiting it want you to or not. You saw what those Dark Spirits did to Laney. You could feel Nanaue on my back when we kissed.”
“I saw the same type of wings you have on the CEO of Kalani Resorts!” I blurted, excitement bubbling.
Jinho didn’t seem nearly as thrilled. “Yes. That fat sanctimonious fuck is my brother.”
I blinked. “Erm—you don’t seem much alike.”
A faint smile hovered on his lips. “Thank you. We’re not.”
“So how can I help you break your curse?”
He shook his head, dark hair falling in his face. “No. First I help you.”
I watched him move around the room, picking up one of my scented sea breeze candles. “What are you doing?”
“Do you have another candle? Ah. Perfect.” Jinho selected a large purple one. He glanced toward my door. “Do you mind if I lock this? Trust me, you don’t want your mother or brother to stumble in on us.”
“Uh…you do know what the normal assumption is about the locked door of a teenage girl’s room when male company is over…”
“They were arguing about Rafael’s room full of surfboards when I left. That should give us some time.”
I slipped out of the covers, shivering beside him in my green tank top and black spandex while he lit the candles. “Time for what exactly?”
He stood up to his full height and smiled down at the flickering candles, their soft glow flecking his eyes with silver. “To teach you how to swim again.”
Chapter 8: The Spirit Sea
~Tica~
I was lost in the sea-salty scent of candles, as if the ocean had gathered itself up and come rushing into my bedroom, sweeping me away to a new and dangerous place. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I became aware of was Jinho’s hands resting on my waist. Shyly, I extended my right hand down and covered his. He grinned, leaning his head against mine so his breath played across my neck. “Look behind you.”
There was nothing behind us except for a wall. But when I turned, I saw that the wood was moving. My bedroom wall had turned into a blanket of live, rustling geckoes. They slipped over and under one other with crackles and hisses, like a heap of moving leaves. Every now and again, one let out its famous click-click laugh.
“They are Mo’o,” Jinho said.
I recognized the word. The mo’o were lizard-like spirits who inhabited the ‘aina in pools, in forests; some were said to be inscribed in the sides of the mountains themselves. They could be benevolent—my mind flew back to that gecko on the beach that had tried to warn me—or they could be tricksters. They could also get big…like dragon-big.
“Do they mean us good will or harm?” I asked nervously.
“For me, harm,” Jinho said grimly. “For you, I suppose you shall have to look closer.”
I did so, and saw that every tail was interfused with another’s, so that the mo’o produced one long, inextricable chain. Some even had overlapping vertebrae, to create two-and-three lizards and many rustling shadows.
“They represent a lineage,” Jinho said, by way of cryptic explanations.
“How am I seeing this?” I asked in wonder.
Jinho grinned again and extended a hand. “Come. You must cross through the candle doorway. Then your spirit can depart from its slumbering body and wander a different earth than you have ever known.”
I hesitated on the safe side of the flickering candles. Yet this was the first time I’d seen the years of reticence peel away from Jinho’s face. On the cusp of exploring this strange spirit world, Eve, he finally felt like the young man he embodied: eager, full of energy, and pulsating with the will to fly. Smiling, I seized his hand. Together we dashed between the twin candles, pausing only for an instant on the windowsill. I held fast to his neck as he spread his black wings and jumped.
“Do not worry. The candles will guide us back to our earthly bodies,” he whispered, his pale lips pressed against my ear.
“So we’re in spirit form now?” I clung tighter as we rose above the swaying palms creating a dark sea beneath us. An infinity of stars danced within a fingertip’s touch. Abruptly, they formed the shape of a wa’a kaulua that shot toward the moon with a dip of its oars. I thought I saw ghostly people wave at me from its twin hulls, and I shook my head in disbelief.
“Yes. Why? Do you feel invincible?” Jinho’s teeth clicked oddly, and he abruptly withdrew his head from my neck.
I shivered in the absence of his presence, but moved forward as far as I dared from his steel-corded grip, extending my torso out so I could feel the wind swirl around me like an unseen stream. “I feel free.”
Indeed, all of the pain that had been so tightly coiled in my left shoulder was gone. My muscles moved and nothing hindered them. And as we passed beneath the gaze of the moon, I could almost see a faint, star-covered arm extendi
ng down from my left shoulder, as if it had never left. It had only changed its form.
I was so overcome, I turned to look back the way we’d come, blinking away tears. The wa’a kaulua still hovered there, ghostly crew members watching. They waved again, and this time, I raised a hand in return.
However, my greeting only seemed to agitate them. And I realized, as I watched their hands gesture with increasing urgency, that they weren’t waving in welcome. They were trying to warn me.
I retreated back into my angel’s arms, heart pounding. No one else was around. There was only me…and Jinho.
I called Jinho an angel because I had no other word for him. That didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
The wa’a kaulua made no move to follow us, but I felt the shadows crossing the ghosts’ faces long after they had disappeared.
***
I had never seen Waikiki Beach empty. Apartments and hotels towered above us, twinkling with millions of tiny lights as if daring the ocean to come get them. But the white sands below were smooth and undisturbed except for scuttling ghost crabs and mo’o laughing amongst the palm trees. Colorful umbrellas waved along the city line, under which smoke rose from untended grills. Chicken continued to turn on spits and pork lumpia wrapped themselves.
Jinho walked up to a beachside vending machine. Before I could ask what currency the spirit world took, he put out his hand and gave a simple command: “POG, come.”
Two cans of passionfruit-orange-guava juice zipped out of the slot, straight into our awaiting hands. I gasped.
“How’d you do that?”
He smiled mysteriously. “Objects have a funny way of listening to you here.”
I walked up to the vending machine and asked for two bags of sunflower seeds. Its emotionless glass face merely stared at me. Huffing, I hurried to catch up to my winged spirit world guide.
“Well, what do you think?” Jinho grinned and sauntered backwards down the beach, opening his arms to the vastness of it.
I followed him, a small smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “What, can you reserve beaches in Eve? Where is everyone?”
“Other spirits?” Jinho shrugged and plopped down on a waiting towel. “They’re around. Ghosts pass through Eve quickly in this part of the world. They follow the chant of the Nightmarchers on to their rest, in the Beyond.”
“The huaka’i pō are real, too?” I was delighted. When we were young, Aolani’s grandmother had enchanted us with tales of the ancient Hawaiian warriors. When night fell, the huaka’i pō marched forth from their burial sites to old battlegrounds and sacred places, blowing conch shells and playing drums to signal their approach. Tutu told us they came upon her on the highway in Waimanalo. She’d barely hid in time, for to behold the spirit army without a blood relative in their ranks was to die. We’d spent that night camping in her backyard. Aolani and Ryoko had fallen asleep quickly. I had fidgeted nervously in my sleeping bag until sun-up, my ears straining for a crackle of leaves, a snapping branch—any sound that the Nightmarchers were near.
Jinho cracked open his POG can. “Certainly. Their presence helps keep the Dark Spirits at bay. Trust me, in other parts of the world, Eve is not so peaceful. There, the Dark Spirits have amassed in great numbers, sickening Eve and stopping ghosts from moving on.”
“And now they’re here.” I shuddered, thinking again of that wasting, disease-ridden creature I’d seen gazing out at the sea. What had it been looking for?
“Two particular Dark Spirits are,” Jinho said grimly. “Most are spirits of anger and violence, but this pair…has purpose. They could not have come here without help.”
I sipped my POG until I was unable to hold back my fear— “They made me feel sick again.”
Jinho crushed his can, his eyes darkening to the color of deep ocean. “You must understand, Tica: I cannot speak their names here, or else they would find us. It has been a long time since that pair of Dark Spirits has walked the earth, and if they have awakened, then others of The Twelve have, as well. Those two are the Lords of Tumors and Jaundice. With your medical history, you will be of great interest to them. If you feel what you thought you did, then you should seek a doctor’s attention immediately.”
He added, “Laney was diagnosed with Cirrhosis this afternoon.”
“Oh, God.” I unconsciously rubbed my left shoulder. I remembered the Laney I had seen that fateful night of the beach party: pasty and bloated with tumors spilling out of her belly, while my brother had seen a normal, passed-out girl. I was suddenly highly detesting this “spirit sight.”
Jinho disposed of our cans in a recycling bin and cleared his throat. “So…swimming?”
I stared at him. “You obviously haven’t been on a date in a while.”
A slight smile crossed his shadowed face. “Discussing ancient demons of unspeakable evil hasn’t become an icebreaker these days?”
I laughed as he swept me up in his arms. “For some reason, it doesn’t seem to be catching on. I don’t even know what you are. How’d you end up with Nanaue on your back?”
I’d attempted to infuse the question with as much lightness as I dared, but nevertheless, I felt his muscles stiffen.
“I want to tell you,” the winged boy finally said slowly, “but I want to show you something first.”
“Why?”
“So you can trust me.” Jinho slid off his slippers so he stood only in boardshorts, the moon illuminating his pale torso. His eyes were weighed down by sorrow. “As you might have guessed, I’m not an angel.”
I hesitated for a moment, but in that silence, the comforting roar of the sea filled my mind. It had been a long time since I’d felt calm enough to face my fears of the ocean. I accepted his hand, and he led me out into the shallows of Kuhio Beach, farther, and farther, until the sand dropped away and we had to swim.
I remembered the one-arm freestyle drills Rafael had taught me post-surgery. I gazed down into the darkness stretching far beneath me, where my feet couldn’t touch the bottom. This was no swimming pool. This was a silvery spirit sea which could very easily hold enormous ghost sharks or jellyfish. Yet the ocean’s embrace felt silky and enchanting, urging my mind to relax. I was a spirit here. My real body was safe in the waking world. So I launched off into the darkness.
I twisted my body to the side until I was perpendicular to the ocean floor. My legs pumped furiously while I extended my right arm up and over my head and then plunged it vertically into the water. As before, my body balked under the unfamiliar movement, and I began to sink.
Someone splashed me and I coughed, salt water stinging my throat. I glared over to see Jinho gliding along on his back, black wings fully extended like two tattered lily pads.
“Wow, you’re so slow,” he said, smirking. His wings sent another wave tumbling toward me. My eyes narrowed, and I tensed up my waist in order to remain buoyant above the oncoming tide. I’d been swimming my entire life. Although I was afraid of how my strokes would have to change, of how I would have to change, swimming was still a part of me. I didn’t care how old or powerful Jinho was. This was the second time he’d criticized my swimming technique, and there would not be a third.
I shot forward, shoulder muscles bulging, and I diced through the waves like a knife. I made sure to kick extra hard in Jinho’s direction and was rewarded with a spluttering cough. Grinning, I duck-dived under an incoming wave. My legs fused together until I was a single force from my fingers down to my toes. Then I propelled forward like an eel, unstoppable and free. I heard a slow round of applause behind and turned to see Jinho’s head bobbing amongst the sparkly foam, his black hair stuck to his face. I smiled and waved.
Suddenly the shimmering spirit sea grew cold and hostile. I watched silver waves freeze in mid-motion. My breath blew out in frosty wisps, and I lost my concentration. My body seized up, trapped in a fist of ice.
“Poli’ahu!”
Jinho crouched on top of a magical iceberg nearby, teeth bared as he glared at an u
nseen foe. My mind flooded with panic as the cold approached my brain with dark purpose. Suddenly it let go—but I sank like a stone.
Underwater, I frantically pumped my legs and arm to break the last of the ice encaging me. The moon bore down upon me with little warmth, my only light in utter darkness.
Except for a flash of technicolor scales. The humuhumu darted off into the shadows of a reef.
I narrowed my eyes at the challenge. I remembered my missing arm made of starlight. Parts of us came and went; memories remained. I remembered when I was a little girl who saw the ocean and laughed for the first time. That little girl was surfing Sandy’s by the time she was twelve. When her brother drove her out to see the North Shore in winter, she beheld it as a goal, not an impossibility. The ocean promised no mercy, but it did leave clues in its currents for those who knew where to look. So I gathered up my legs and kicked.
I broke the surface, and Jinho was waiting. He hoisted me up onto his iceberg and held me close. We had company.
The towering ice maiden was majestic, dark-skinned, and radiated luminescence that froze the sea foam for her to stand upon. A single moonflower was tucked behind her left ear. Her shoulder cape blew out with the strength of a blizzard, showering us with snowflakes. No matter which angle I assessed her, her true form slid from my mind like water. And I recalled what Jinho had named her.
“You’re real.” I fell to my knees. This was incredible. I’d always been a fan of Pele folklore. Poli’ahu, one of four sisters to inhabit snowy Mauna Kea on the Big Island, was often the volcano goddess’s foe. My smile felt strained. Poli’ahu didn’t know about my preferences…did she?
“As real as that ice you felt around your neck,” Jinho growled. “What are you doing here, Poli’ahu?”
Year of the Boar- Tica Page 5
