The Girl at the Center of the World

by Austin Aslan

  “Want a bite?” I show him my crispy Spam. I’ve been savoring every nibble.

  He shakes his head. “It’s all yours, Lei. Thanks.” He accepts a few slices of passion fruit, `uala, and a fried egg.

  “Almost time for a pig,” Grandpa thinks aloud, staring at our plates. Wild boars roam the Big Island, but they’re getting hard to track down. Everyone is after them. And, with no ice, keeping the pork fresh is a challenge.

  Grandpa, our kahuna, our family spirit guide, is guiding our return to the way Hawai`i was before machines. The islands supported thousands of native Islanders before European explorers arrived. We can learn about our old ahupua`a ways. Caring for the land at every level from coast to mountaintop was the business of everyone.

  Dad, Keali`i, and I hop into our old red truck and roll down the hill in neutral. Dad turns on the engine once we’re past the gate and heading up the road to the farm plots. We’ve stored up nearly two hundred gallons of gas among our families. Dad and Uncle Hank were smart to hoard it early. Gas is scarce and valuable. Two hundred gallons sounds like a lot, but it will have to last. Buzz gave us a drum of stabilizer and showed us how to add it to the gas to keep it from turning to sludge. When he told us that gasoline is only good for six months to a year before the additives gum it up, we just stared at him. Every car, ATV, and tractor on the island will be useless this time next year.

  It’s okay, I remind myself. The Orchids will be long gone by then.

  Grandpa follows us to the gate riding `Imiloa, our horse. He’ll stand guard under the shade of a big albizia tree, a shotgun over one shoulder and a rifle over the other, until his shift ends later in the afternoon. He won’t be too lonely down here; our dogs happily surround him. Mindy, Mork, Centaur, and Pele. Pele’s all white, and my favorite. I’m not a big fan of dogs but these four troopers make us feel safe and will eventually help Grandpa with hunting.

  We don’t talk much during the morning; we’re fencing off the plots to keep wild pigs from ruining the crops. It rains as I dig holes every several feet. Keali`i uses a pickax to finish what I’ve started, gouging through the crumbling lava beneath the dirt. We set makeshift poles in the holes, pack in dirt, and prop up the posts with lava rocks. The barbed wire is wrapped tightly, low to the ground and closely spaced—the pigs are getting smaller and smaller as the adults are overhunted.

  We travel up to the Millers’ home midmorning to replenish supplies. Hank Miller is a Midwestern haole who’s lived here for decades. His giant hands are as tough as leather gloves. He knows how to build anything. He and his wife, Nora, live a couple miles from us. We saw them infrequently before the Orchid came, but now we’re a team. Now they’re Uncle Hank and Auntie Nora.

  “When’s the last time you surfed?” Keali`i asks me on our way back to the plots. We’re riding in the bed of the truck, catching some breeze to dry the sweat. My stomach is upset for some reason; the fresh air helps.

  “Two weeks ago at Honoli`i with Tami. You know her?” Tami Simpson is my best friend. She lives down in Hilo.

  “Yeah! Tami’s good. We should all go sometime. Honoli`i’s full of tsunami rubbish. Ever been to Isaac Hale?” That’s a hot surfing spot on Big Island, about an hour south of Hilo along the Puna coast.

  “That’d be cool,” I say, though I know it’s too far—too much gas, and the waves are big enough that Mom and Dad would say no. Besides, the Puna district is way too dangerous these days. Turf wars. Puna was full of weirdos and outlaws long before the Arrival, people who lived off the grid and wanted to be left alone. Tons of drugs and guns out there. Now big bands of gangs are forming—they call themselves Tribes—and fighting for control of Puna and Hilo. We hear a lot about racial fighting, but the Tribes are different; they’re about controlling stuff. Whatever people need and want. The sheriff of Hana from Maui and his “Hanamen” have the upper hand in Puna. He moved his people in there early and controls most of the plantations and agriculture.

  I shudder as I see the sheriff putting that gun to Dad’s head. The only reason Dad’s alive is because the sheriff and Grandpa were cops together on Maui. Partners.

  Don’t think about any of that. I breathe deep, try to relax. Then I ask Keali`i, “You don’t worry about Tribes?”

  “They don’t have any beef with surfers.” He has a beautiful tattoo coiled around his upper arm, the roots gripping his shoulder and chest, with intricate branches extending to his wrist. It’s one of my favorite tattoos ever. “So you and Tami are tight?”

  I nod. “I stay with her in Hilo a couple days every few weeks. She comes up here, too. She’s kind of on her own. Her mom ditched to Pahoa with a crowd of junkies awhile back.”

  “Ah, well, at least she’s got a mom.”

  I shrink back, hot in the ears. “I’m sorry.”

  He laughs. “I didn’t mean to…Forget I brought it up. Why does she stay by herself down there?”

  “I don’t know, same as you? She wants to keep her place, so she has to squat there. She wants to be independent. That, and there’s a half-feral cat she likes to feed.”

  “Yeah, I know how it goes.” He pivots. “Hey, do me a favor, eh? Next time you’re staying with Tami and the wildcats down in Hilo, let me know. Bring a wet suit. I’ll show both of you something cool.” He winks.

  We reach the plots and unload the barbed wire and posts. “Pau,” Dad says. “Let’s break for lunch.” Mercifully, we head home. “Take a nap,” he tells me. “I’ll get you up around four with a new list of chores.”

  “Okay.” I’m exhausted, and my stomach feels weird. Tightness. Like a runner’s cramp, maybe. But right in my gut. A nap sounds perfect; I’ll sleep it off.

  * * *

  Earth is far below me, nothing but a curved halo of ocean blue, centered by a few tiny blotches of land. I drift in turn with the islands, remaining above them.

  The sun is behind me, its radiation like warm shower water on my tired shoulders. Energy charges through me. Then—lead in my gut. Pain like a fist, squeezing.

  I am strong on the sweetness. It is ready to come out.

  What’s ready to come out?

  Fastness. But I do not leave. I give the fastness to you.

  CHAPTER 2

  I’m nudged awake. I open my eyes to see Kai. I study his smile as his face comes into focus.

  He’s much more Hawaiian-looking than I am. He has Grandpa’s nose and jaw. Maybe that’s why he seems so much wiser than his years.

  “Time to get up.”

  I stretch. Fastness? What does that mean?

  The shadows have changed. Mynas scamper on the aluminum roof. Japanese white-eyes whistle from the palm fronds level with my bedroom window. A few coqui frogs are already singing their one question.

  Kai is twirling an old charm bracelet of mine. He loves to take things off my jewelry tree. I used to find them left all over the house and get mad, but that was when little things mattered.

  He skips out of the room. I smile after him, sit up, stare at nothing, trying to boot my brain. Fastness. I can’t figure it out. The Orchid doesn’t speak to me in words. My brain translates her thoughts into familiar concepts. But it doesn’t always work.

  My stomach still aches. I might need to take something for it.

  I run a cold shower and dry off. I glance at the mirror. My oval face is thin but not gaunt. The scar on my forehead is fading. I like my shoulder-length black hair. My complexion: not one zit. Not even a mosquito bite. I smile at my reflection and head downstairs.

  “Surprise!”

  I freeze between steps. The living room is festooned with streamers and ribbons and old birthday decorations that Mom never throws away. A few presents are wrapped in newspaper. Mom, Dad, Kai, Grandpa. Tami is on the couch. Keali`i stands behind her.

  Buzz smiles up at me from the entryway to the kitchen. He’s almost as short as Grandpa. He has bright blue eyes and a brown beard.

  The lead in my stomach lightens for a moment. My eyes dart from one person to
the next, confused. They settle on Mom and Dad. A wild laugh escapes me. “My birthday’s the sixth!” Two more days.

  “Today’s the sixth,” Dad says.

  “No.” I shake my head, but now I’m not sure. I don’t have a phone anymore. No computer or TV to keep my dates straight. I bet half the people on this island have no idea what day it is.

  I hold my face in my hands, and to my surprise, tears come. “It’s my birthday,” I say. I laugh, incredulous. “Yeah! Okay!”

  I laugh again, even though it hurts. I’m all-out crying now. I made it this far. Seventeen. Such pain and suffering everywhere. Bodies burning on pyres. Ash on the breeze. Gunshots. Drownings. So many people simply starve to death out there. I’m still here. My family’s still here.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” My parents bring me down the steps, keeping me close. Grandpa holds me.

  Keali`i offers me a loose hug. “Happy birthday.”

  Tami rushes in and squeezes me tight. “You rock.” We hold each other. My tears return, and I hide in her beautiful curly locks that smell like coconut shampoo.

  “So glad you’re here.”

  “Rode my bike.” She pulls back. “Dang hills. I got here before your nap.”

  Buzz embraces me, his brown-and-gray beard brushing roughly against my wet checks. “Happy birthday! Seventeen!”

  My stomach explodes with pain. I double over. “Lei?” Mom asks. The feeling rises up my chest. I wonder for a moment if I’ll tear open, but then the agony fades. I relax, straighten.

  It pulls. It is ready.

  I feel clammy, a little weak, but much better. I wave Mom off. “Not sure. Just—this sharp, heavy pain. But it’s gone.”

  “Sounds like a burst appendix,” Kai declares.

  “Oh, my God. Don’t even joke about that,” scolds Dad. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s nothing.”

  “Mike. A burst appendix?” Mom says, a shade paler.

  “No,” Dad says. “Give her some space.”

  I try to look normal. “Seriously, I’m fine.” I march to the table, forcing a bright smile.

  Mom has baked a cake. More of a bread loaf, actually, with rambutan and strawberry guava jam on top instead of frosting. I’m so grateful, but my first thought is—this cake forced my family to go with fewer eggs today.

  Grandpa arranges oily kukui nuts along the top in the shape of the number 17. He lights the nuts with a match, and everyone sings to me. I have to smile at Grandpa’s “birthday candles.” Nuts.

  “Make a wish!” Kai tells me.

  I close my eyes and wish: Make our lives work again.

  Our lives are purposeful.

  Not you, I tell the eavesdropping Orchid.

  I quickly blow out the kukui nuts.

  With the “cake” divided and everyone gathered around, I open presents. Grandpa places a jewelry box in my palm. “Your grandmother wanted you to have this on your eighteenth birthday,” he tells me, “but you’re old enough now. You are a Great One, Leilani. You make us both proud.” He takes a step back, his eyes red.

  Inside I find a silver necklace and a heart pendant.

  “Open it,” Grandpa says.

  My trembling fingers find the latch, and I click it open. Inside are two small black-and-white portraits, one of my young grandfather in a spotless white navy uniform, the other of Grandma Lili`u. Both photos are from their wedding day. Grandpa looks no older than Keali`i, and just as handsome. My grandmother passed away from cancer when I was six. So beautiful, so confident, in her stunning white dress, her veil folded back. She could be a member of the Hawaiian royal family. She has a large white hibiscus flower pinned above her ear. I see my mother so clearly in her. And, for the first time, I see myself in her proud eyes.

  “Put it on.” Grandpa helps me place it around my neck. It rests against my breastbone. I touch it gently. I can feel her in the room with us.

  “We are your `aumākua, my dear mo`opuna. Your family guardians, your spirit guides. We’ll always be that close to you. Always have been.”

  I wipe away tears in silent thanks. Grandpa steps back.

  “My turn,” Mom says. She hands me a book-shaped gift, wrapped in old Sunday comics. I smile at her and peel away the wrapping. It’s my Hawaiiana book—the precious book I had with me on my journey home from O`ahu. But this copy looks brand-new.

  “I wanted you to have a copy that you could use,” she explains. “I know that other copy is your true treasure; it was with you through everything. Now you can return to these stories without worrying about further damage to it.”

  My original copy is on my bookshelf, in a plastic bag. She’s right that I don’t touch it anymore. It’s so fragile, and so important to me. I beam at Mom. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Market. Traded off some of my old Louis L’Amours.”

  “Okay, me!” Kai thrusts a wrapped box at me.

  I open Kai’s gift. It’s homemade. A large stick bent into a ring. String runs back and forth across the hoop, reminding me vaguely of a spiderweb. “It’s a dreamcatcher!” he shouts.

  “Oh, wow,” I say.

  “He worked on that for days,” Mom says.

  I hug him close. “Oh, Kai, thank you! It’s beautiful. The best present you’ve ever given me.”

  “Great!” he says. “Put it above your bed. It’s for—you know—your space-outs.” Dad glares at him—Tami and Keali`i don’t know my secret. “I’ll do it right now,” he offers. I hand him the dreamcatcher, and he races away.

  “You ready?” Dad asks me. He hovers over his gift. The box on the table sits three feet tall. He motions for Buzz to join us. “We fixed this together. I found it, he tinkered.”

  Curious, I gently lift the cardboard box. “A projector?”

  “Eight millimeter,” Dad says. “Vintage.”

  “Really?” It’s metal. Sturdy. Lots of intricate parts. I like it. “Does it work?”

  “It will,” says Buzz. “That’s my gift. I’ve got some ideas for how to get it spinning in the next few weeks—”

  “Here,” Dad interrupts, presenting me with two more wrapped gifts.

  “More?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Two movies on 8mm film reels. They look ancient. The Day the Earth Stood Still and Planet of the Apes. I’ve never seen either film. “Will these play?” I ask Dad.

  “Of course!”

  “Sound, too?”

  “Not great, but, yeah.”

  “They’re good?” I ask.

  He stares at me, aghast. Dad’s always trying to teach us about old movies he loves. Mom raps him on the shoulder. I laugh.

  Planet of the Apes? I think. But I can’t hold back a smile. He’s always right, with his movies. I squeeze him tight. “You’re amazing! You and Buzz! Thank you.”

  I remember my wish: Make our lives work again.

  I dare to wonder: Is it coming true?

  It is coming.

  The pain rushes back, searing. My vision flickers, and without warning I spiral into fiery darkness.

  —

  It is coming.

  I feel the muscle. Near the Orchid’s core. Nothing to do with the wispy tentacles. It’s right at the center, in the gut.

  Contract. Clench.

  An egg? No. I understand now. It’s a normal process for her. She’s done it before. But it’s not an egg.

  A meteor.

  It comes to you.

  No, I tell her, holding back panic. It will harm us. Aim it away. The first days of the Orchid’s arrival were full of meteoric activity; the meteorites did great damage wherever they hit. In Hawai`i tsunami waves devastated Hilo and many other coastal areas throughout the islands.

  It comes now. But I can send it to the blue.

  Not the ocean! Tsunami. No. There’s only one place that’s safe.

  Closer. Come closer, I think.

  We descend. I must draw it in tightly.

  The twilit islands are dangerously large
. The Big Island is cast in green, as bright as if bathed in full goblin moonlight.

  I feel the muscle compress. This is how she thrusts through space. A ventricle pulses, the shrinking chambers fill with plasma. There’s a churning. Hot—burning—but not alarming.

  Compression. The plasma hardens. Coal crushed into diamond—but smooth as a pearl. It’s solid now. So dense. I feel the gravity of it pulling her inward. I feel it pulling at the Earth, prying at its fault lines like a child peeling up chips of sunbaked clay.

  She’ll discharge the pearl. Push it out.

  Aim it at the mountain, I tell her.

  —

  I’m on the floor. Dad and Tami hold me steady. Grandpa and Mom lean over me, quietly singing a chant of protection in Hawaiian. Together their voices are heavenly.

  Buzz is at the living room window, glancing feverishly back and forth between me and the twilit sky. “Is she okay?”

  “Coming around,” Dad says. “You all right, there, Lei?”

  “She did something.” Buzz’s voice is deliberately level.

  Tami watches Buzz, follows his eyes, looks at me, and frowns. “You did what?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Sleepy. Headache.”

  “You’re doing okay, sweetheart,” says Mom. “Small, shaky seizure. Nothing like your bad ones. Bit more intense than your space-outs. Couple minutes. That’s it.”

  Tami holds my hand. Keali`i is watching me closely, quiet, uncertain. I know his look; I’ve seen it many times. He’s never seen a seizure before. He wants to look strong, but he’s scared. I wish he weren’t here.

  “Stay awake,” Dad says. “I know your body wants to rest, but stick with us.”

  “It’s rushing closer,” says Buzz.

  “What’s rushing closer?” Tami asks, frustrated.

  “The Orchid!”

  “Cool, Lei!” Kai hurries outside the front door to the lanai. Keali`i follows him, torn between me and whatever spectacle is unfolding outside.