by Matt Larkin
“When you were attacked, the kahuna first tended to your wounds, didn’t he?”
Her mother nodded. “Of course. I might have died, otherwise.”
And that left no one to perform an immediate sending. Maybe an entire night had passed, one in which Hoalani’s lost soul wandered, its torment unrelieved.
“Kāne-Hoalani?” Pele asked. “Are you here?”
Her mother blanched. “What are you …?”
Pele’s gaze silenced the woman. Maybe she began to understand. Certainly it was possible Milohai was merely delirious. The spirit could have been anyone. But it had appeared right after Ku-Aha-Ilo’s attack on the village. She had thought he had brought the ghost with him intentionally, turned it loose on Puako out of pure malevolence. But no, he knew nothing of that. Because he hadn’t summoned the ghost—he had unintentionally created one.
“Hoalani?” she asked again.
A fell whisper seeped in through the walls, permeating the house with otherworldly anger.
Pele’s mother gripped her hand. “Are you … are you certain that …?”
“There’s never any certainty with the Ghost World.” The old kahuna had tried to teach her that with his inane analogy between the pool and the Worldsea. She hadn’t wanted to listen, had demanded he push his limits. Oh, and he had done so.
“What do we do?”
She had no idea. Even if the ghost was Hoalani, as he gave in, became a Nightmarcher, he would lose more and more of his human self. Maybe he didn’t remember his family at all. He knew them as if in a dream, had been drawn here. And worse … as her brother weakened, he became a perfect vessel for the ghost to possess.
And what was she to do about such a thing? She would not allow her brother to be taken.
Pele swallowed. She was powerless to stop it. She pulled her mother down to the ground, the both of them kneeling. “Pray to the aumakuas.”
That was all she could think of. A desperate plea to their ancestors. And fire. Fire kept away the spirits of the Dark.
Pele released her mother’s hand and lit both of her own aflame. She would have to keep those torches burning all night long.
Dawn was still several hours off when someone pushed the kapa aside. Fire-Keeper slipped inside, obvious concern on his face. Pele’s legs ached from sitting so long, keeping vigil with torches to ward against the ghost of Hoalani. And she could feel it, lingering on the edges of the light, clinging to the shadows. Waiting for the chance to possess his own son.
The swell of frustration, grief, and regret finally broke on seeing her teacher and she rose. For a moment she hesitated, then extinguished one of her flames and threw that arm around Fire-Keeper. The other flame she kept lit to ward off the ghost. “Thank the aumakuas you got my signal.”
“It was hard to miss.” The kahuna turned his gaze to Milohai and mumbled some prayer or invocation under his breath. He knelt by the boy’s side, put a hand on her brother’s head.
“Can you do anything for him?”
The kahuna frowned. “I don’t know.”
Pele scowled. As the kahuna tended to her brother, she recounted her suspicions about the ghost. Fire-Keeper nodded as she spoke, but didn’t take his eyes off Milohai. The tension in his shoulders told her he couldn’t do much. Of course he couldn’t. Why would he be able to do what every other kahuna had failed to? She had not forgotten her lesson yesterday. Even kahuna didn’t know everything and if they tried too hard to learn the unknowable, they paid for it.
“Damn it,” she mumbled. Heat coursed through her face as her hair lit with flame. She didn’t bother to extinguish it, though her mother and Fire-Keeper both turned to stare, her mother with fear and Fire-Keeper with an unreadable expression. “Damn it!” Why couldn’t things ever work out properly? Why were so many people suffering and she, their Princess, helpless to aid them?
The fires from her hair caught in the grass roof, sparking it aflame in an instant. Pele extinguished those fires with a wave of her hand and stormed outside. She wanted to unleash the great volcano. Wanted to bury her problems in immeasurable tons of molten rock. The mental image set her chest trembling, a rumble that surged through her legs and into the Earth, bringing up another quake.
The village would be terrified, just as her mother was. Let them fear. She, daughter of a demon kupua, was not their savior. Oh, she had tried. But she had nothing to give these people. Nothing but fire and destruction.
A firm grip on her arm stilled her. She turned to see Fire-Keeper shaking his head. “Are you giving up so easily?”
“Easily? I tried to force Ku-Aha-Ilo to help us. I tried to force the kahuna to help. I even tried to make new kahuna. Every time ended in disaster.”
A faraway look came over the kahuna then, a distress so profound it snuffed the fires in her hair and left her feeling a pang of guilt for her outburst. She couldn’t say exactly what it was she had done to so disappoint the man, but she’d have given almost anything to take it back. He was right—Puako Village had suffered enough without her further terrifying its people. At last he shook his head. “No matter how bad things get, you cannot give up, Pele.”
She shut her eyes and blew out a long breath. There was no giving up. Not while she lived. There was no surrender, no submitting to inevitability or defeat. Once, years and years ago, when she was small, she had tried to climb to the top of an ancient banyan tree. She had fallen, twisted her ankle so she could barely walk for a week.
After that, even after she healed, she’d avoided that tree. Looked on it with anger and fear and, though she wouldn’t have admitted it, shame. Until finally Fire-Keeper caught her watching it one day. “Are you going to let it beat you? Are you going to spend the rest of your life afraid of it?” He’d asked her that. Asked her, and watched her climb it again. Fall again, too. But she kept trying until she finally scaled it.
Ku-Aha-Ilo, Namaka, even this sickness was that tree. Taunting her, frightening her into inaction and undirected anger at the world and herself. She opened her eyes to see Fire-Keeper watching her. It was like he knew what she’d decided. Kahuna saw things even a Princess could not, she supposed.
Fire-Keeper released her arm, but put his hand on her shoulder. “I believe you are correct. This ghost suffered so much he forgot himself. He is drawn to your family, but he doesn’t know why, so consumed with his torment.”
“Can you banish him?” Pele asked, causing her mother to moan from the house’s threshold. How hard this must be for her, finding out the horror haunting them was the man she loved.
“Maybe. There are no guarantees with such things. But there might be another way—if you could find a way to make him remember himself, his life, to let go of the pain inflicted on him.”
Her mother stepped forward now. “How?”
“Only you can really answer that. You need some memory of special importance to shock him out of his agony.”
“I would think his wife and son would be enough,” Pele said.
“I can only assume that failed because it was too familiar to be a shock. Memory is a funny thing. The resurgence of a forgotten moment can bring a strong man to tears, if it is the right moment.”
So Hoalani needed something meaningful, but removed from his everyday life. Some reminder of joys sufficient to overcome the agony Ku-Aha-Ilo had visited upon him. She didn’t know her stepfather, could only guess at what he had valued. But the pain Milohai and her mother had felt at his loss shone through in their every word, every glance. They had loved the man dearly, so she had to assume he had felt the same, that that was why the ghost remained drawn to them even in death. So if the people themselves were not enough to remind him of that … Then what? An object? Something meaningful to the couple? Or a place.
“Mama? You said before you married him you and he came to Mount Hualali.”
“To find you, yes. We watched the sunrise and I cried and cried because I didn’t know where you were. And he told me we’d make a new life together.”
Pele glanced at Fire-Keeper, and he nodded.
“If we hurry, we can make it there by sunrise. But you’ll have to move fast, Mama. I know it’ll be hard on you.”
Hope and fear warred over her mother’s face, and finally she nodded.
Pele turned to Fire-Keeper. “You’ll watch over Milohai.”
He nodded. “You haven’t asked me what I found.”
“Huh?” Pele shook herself. Her mind was so overcome with the task at hand, she’d forgotten why he’d left in the first place. “What, uh, what did you find?”
“The Sea Princess descended into deep tunnels running beneath the island. I think I know what she seek in the darkness. A legend tells of magic Waters hidden in those deep places, Waters that can cure any ailment.”
That froze her in place. Namaka had come to the Big Isle in search of a cure. The foreigner had told her that, though she hadn’t really cared at the time. And this Sea Princess really thought the legend true. She clucked her tongue. Did that change things for her? With the chaos here, punishing Namaka for bringing it had become almost an afterthought. But what if she could follow the other Princess to a cure?
“You told me the menehune guarded the hidden places. That people who venture into the deep jungles or the tunnels rarely return.”
Fire-Keeper nodded. “Yes.”
Then she supposed Namaka might not even be her problem anymore. Unless. If those legends were true, and Namaka returned with a cure …
“How much Water would there be?”
“Not much, most likely. If a source of immortality were plentiful, there would probably be immortals running around all over the archipelago.”
Then Pele would have to take it from Namaka. She owed her own people her allegiance, not those on the Valley Isle. The Sea Princess had beaten her once, but that was on the seashore. Pele had been brash to attack the woman at the site of her own power. This time, she’d face her on a battleground of her own choosing.
She could do nothing until she had dealt with Hoalani’s ghost. But after that … after that Milohai would still be in danger, still dying of this plague.
“Where, exactly, did the Sea Princess’s trail lead?”
Her mother’s breath had grown wheezy, her steps faltering as she climbed the volcano’s slope. But the woman never complained, never stopped. Not once. Pele held her hand, keeping a flame lit with the other.
The chill in the predawn air led her to suspect the ghost had followed. She prayed it had. This was her last, best chance to save her family. Ku-Aha-Ilo, Pele’s own father, had caused this. But neither her mother nor her brother had blamed her. That was a blessing, a love beyond words. And she would do anything to repay it.
Her mother stumbled, falling to her knees. The sudden drop caused her to skid down the slope, pulling Pele with her. They slid perhaps two paces before coming to a stop. Pele grunted, then pulled her mother back to her feet. The jagged rocks had torn open the poor woman’s knees. This trek was too hard for a woman her age, too far, taken too quickly. But they had no time and no options.
“It’s just a little farther.” Pele slipped her mother’s arm around her shoulder and half-carried the woman upward. They had to reach the summit.
On and on she pushed them, every so often sparing a glance at her mother, fearing the woman’s heart would give out. She couldn’t lose her mother. Not like this. But if they didn’t finish the climb before sunrise, this was all for nothing.
And then she glanced down. A shallow fog had surrounded their ankles, was flowing up the mountain, ahead of them.
“Aumakuas preserve us,” she whispered. Not long ago she’d cursed the ghost, challenged it, threatened it.
Now she only wanted to save him. And he had come to stop her from doing so.
The fog moved faster than she could have, even without the burden of her mother. It surged forward, chilling her shins and feet, welling above her in a semblance of a wall. But she would not let the ghost bar her path. Not this time.
“Hoalani!” she shouted. “Please, see us. See us!”
No response came, and Pele kept pushing forward. Right into the wall. The chill crept in, the vapors thick, threatening to suffocate her. Her mother gasped. And then the whispers started.
A voice, or many, distorted as if echoing across a great valley.
There were no words she could make out—only pain. Wailing. Anger. So much she gagged on it and fell to the ground. Her mother toppled over, then curled into a ball, hands over her head. Her form jerked, convulsed. Was the ghost trying to take her now?
“Kāne-Hoalani!” Pele shouted again.
She pulled herself to her feet, then ignited torches in both hands. The fog recoiled from the flames, bits of it burning away in wisps that she could have sworn hissed displeasure at her.
“Show yourself, spirit! Enough games! I know who you are.” Even if he no longer did.
All at once, the whispers began to fall silent.
Her mother had pushed herself up to her knees, panting, tears staining her face. “Please, my love …”
In the fog, the silhouette appeared. A shadow of a man, drifting ever closer.
Pele glanced up at the sky. Sunrise was moments away.
The ghost stepped from the fog, revealing itself as the man she’d seen in the volcano. His ruined throat, boiled and burst apart from the inside out. If Ku-Aha-Ilo lived, Pele would see him punished for this torture. No. Thoughts of revenge would only feed the ghost’s anger. This morning, they needed something else.
Before Pele could think of any words, her mother stepped forward, shaking her head. “Oh, my sweet husband. You’re really here.”
The ghost’s form flickered, appearing a pace closer to her mother, hand outstretched toward her throat.
Pele jerked her arm up, every instinct demanding she summon flame and scare off the ghost. But if she did so now their effort would mean nothing.
Her mother held out a hand to forestall Pele and stepped forward to face her dead husband. It reached closer. Fingertips brushed her throat.
Her mother convulsed.
And still, still she held out that hand begging Pele not to interfere.
“I’ve … missed … you.” Her mother’s voice had become a rasp. “Do … know … where we …”
For an instant confusion crossed his face, masked the rage in his eyes. He looked around, first at Pele, then at the volcano. And finally, at his wife. The hand relaxed, trembled, and moved from her throat to her cheek.
The first rays of dawn broke over Pele’s shoulder. The ghost flickered, but didn’t vanish. He turned toward the light, closing his eyes, as if basking in the sun.
Pele’s heart was pounding, but she dropped her hands to her side.
The boiled flaps of Hoalani’s throat began to fold back into place, sealing themselves with coruscating light as bright as the sun. So bright Pele had to blink. And when she looked again, the ghost had become whole. The man he had been in life.
Her mother sobbed and tried to throw her arms around him. She passed right through Hoalani and fell into the dirt.
He smiled sadly and ran a hand through her hair. It didn’t catch the strands, but passed through them completely.
“I’m sorry I never got to know you,” Pele said.
The ghost nodded at her.
As the sun continued to rise, his form grew more and more translucent.
Her mother wept, staring up at him. He pressed a finger to his lips, then touched it to hers.
And then he was gone.
Pele helped her mother down the volcano. She kept mumbling under her breath almost the whole time.
“It’s him,” she said at last, as they stood beneath the mountain. “I can feel him.”
Pele nodded and embraced her mother. “You saved him.” And now … now she had to save her brother. Namaka held the key to that. Fire-Keeper had explained where she could find the tunnels, but it meant a long walk and another day without slee
p.
She’d manage. Being atop Mount Hualali had energized her, at least temporarily.
“You can make it back to the village from here?”
Her mother nodded and pressed a palm against Pele’s cheek. “Mahalo.”
Pele flushed. Gratitude was rarely an emotion anyone greeted her with. “I have to go. I have to try to find the Waters of Life and save Milohai.”
“I know you will.”
Her mother turned and began to trek back to Puako. Pele watched her a moment. But only a moment. She had places to be.
22
“Follow this tunnel straight for maybe half a league,” Molowa said. “You’ll find the Place of Darkness.”
Kana snorted. “What? This is as far as you go? Don’t you want to protect your investment?”
The menehune chuckled. “Not even I could protect you from what lies in the Place.” With that, the spirit turned away and slunk back the way they had come.
Namaka watched him disappear into the shadows, not quite able to still the shudder building in her gut. The way he had spoken of the Place left her queasy and wanting to turn back. That was impossible, of course. No, she had come too far to give up now. Lives hung in the balance. She just had to keep telling herself that.
Besides, considering Kana’s candlenut torch only managed to illuminate a handful of paces in any direction, how much darker could the Place of Darkness really be? The shadows down here grew so thick one could almost choke on them.
“You shouldn’t have made that pact,” she whispered.
“It’s all right. I like rocks.”
Jokes. He was making jokes. Trying to comfort her. With a grin, he pressed forward, forcing her to follow or be left in total darkness. Mo-O-Inanea had told her one of the Princesses controlled the powers of darkness. What did that even mean? Controlling ocean or fire made sense, those were real things. One Princess could call up storms and lightning. Over on the Friendly Isle, the local Princess could control snow and mist. But darkness? Was that not just the absence of light? Or maybe it too represented a primal force of creation, living, writhing, watching them. Such thoughts left her mouth dry. Were not Nightmarchers spirits of the Dark? Some part of her knew that …
