by K. D. Keenan
“Yes. You’re right. But telling him what’s really been going on won’t help anything. He’ll just write us off as lunatics, and who could blame him?”
Clancy shrugged. There wasn’t much else to say about Roberts. He phoned Rose and offered to pick her up at the hotel.
Before long, Auntie’s little living room was overflowing with Sierra and friends. Auntie passed out iced tea and cookies. Clancy caught everyone up on the latest events at the jack ship.
“So all we know is that Kama and Pele aren’t involved—not yet, anyway—and Kauhuhu and Kanaloa are still attacking the installation, deliberately putting the workers at risk. The question is, what do we do about it?”
Silence prevailed. Then Chaco said, “What can we do about it? Sierra and I played the Kama card, and that’s the only card we had.”
“Then we have to do it ourselves,” said Sierra firmly. “I need to go out to the WestWind installation and talk to Kauhuhu and Kanaloa directly. I need to ask them personally. After all, I’m the one that begged them to stop the installation.”
Everyone turned to stare at her. “You can’t do that!” exclaimed Clancy. “You’ll be killed. You remember the sharks in the water. And when those towers get knocked down—it’s too dangerous, Sierra!”
“I have to agree,” put in Auntie. “I asked you for help, but I didn’t expect you to risk your life, Sierra.”
Everyone began to talk at once, but Sierra held up a hand. They all stopped.
“I realize this is a very poor plan—if you can even call it a plan,” she said, “and I realize it’s dangerous. But I feel responsible for what’s happening. I set something in motion that had unintended consequences, and none of them are good. It’s bad for the whales. It’s bad for the Menehune. It’s sure not good for Moloka‘i. And it’s terrible for Ahi Moana and Huff Roberts. I wanted to hate him, but he’s actually a pretty good person, and this is causing him a world of trouble. I have to try to set this thing right. I just wish I had some assurance it might work.”
Then the buzz of talk broke out again. A few minutes later, Rose said, “Why don’t we ask the loa about this?” Silence reigned as everyone thought about this.
“I guess we’d better call Mama Labadie,” Sierra said.
• • •
“You wanna do what?” asked Mama’s querulous voice on the cell phone speaker.
“A long-distance ceremony. You and Rose do the ceremony, and we watch via cell phone. Clancy can tell you how to set up the call.”
“I believe I am quite capable of setting it up on my own,” came the sharp reply without a trace of an accent. Sierra remembered a little too late that Mama was an engineer by profession who could probably design a telephone network, much less set up a conference call. “I’ll call back when we’re ready.”
An hour later, the phone call came from Kaylee. On Clancy’s phone screen, they saw a small altar laid with ritual objects as well as a bowl of cornmeal, bananas, and a bottle of rum.
In California, Kaylee began to play drums, setting up a slow rhythm that gradually built in pace and intensity. Auntie followed along in Moloka‘i with her ‘ili‘ili, four polished black stones that she clicked together in her fingers like castanets, producing a crisp clacking sound. Rose began to chant.
Mama Labadie busied herself with arranging bananas, cornmeal, rum, and other items on the altar. Those not playing an instrument or chanting watched in silence. Clancy squirmed uneasily. Sierra recognized Clancy’s usual response to anything supernatural, and wondered for the umpteenth time why he put up with her when he was so obviously uncomfortable with the weirdness that was her life.
Finally, Mama was satisfied with her preparations. As the odd accompaniment continued, she sat on the floor, head bent. Then she began to chant, melding her voice with Rose’s. She rose to her full height of six feet and began to sway gracefully from side to side, still chanting. Her expression, normally rather stern, softened, and she spun in place, flashing a luminous smile around the room like a beacon. In fact, thought Sierra, she looked nothing like her everyday self. In place of the rather intimidating Mama Labadie, there now danced a stranger, lithe, beautiful, sensuous—and rudely cheerful. This stranger swigged a quarter of the bottle of rum—Mama never drank—ate some fruit, and danced. She danced flirtatiously, though there were no men in the room at her end, grinding her hips suggestively. Sierra could not imagine any behavior less like that of her sedate, serious, and sometimes caustic friend.
After a half hour of dancing and drinking, the woman abruptly stopped and faced the cell phone screen, giving the watchers in Moloka‘i a clear view. Her eyes rolled back into her head, leaving blank white orbs in her eye sockets. Sierra shivered at the sight.
“Fred is in danger. Go! Hurry!” cried the stranger with Mama Labadie’s face. Then she collapsed gently onto the floor, eyes closed and face streaming with sweat. Kaylee immediately knelt by her friend’s side.
“Is she all right?” Rose asked anxiously.
Mama’s face was as shuttered and still as it had been wild and open only a moment before. Rose brought a bowl of water and bathed Mama’s face with a soft cloth, sponging away the sweat. After a few long minutes, Mama’s eyes slitted open a crack, creating white crescent moons in her dark face. She turned her head, frowned and opened her eyes all the way, looking up into Kaylee’s worried face.
“Did I pass out again?” she said crossly. “What’d I say?”
Kaylee sat back, regarding her friend with serious eyes. “You said, ‘Fred is in danger. Go! Hurry!’ The loa seem remarkably straightforward today.”
Mama sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Could I have some iced tea, please, Kaylee? I can still taste the rum. Lord, but I hate that stuff.” She gratefully accepted a tall glass of tea, drinking half the glass in one go.
“If you hate rum so much, why do you drink it?” asked Auntie Keikilani with interest.
“That’s not me,” responded the houngán, still seated on the floor. “That’s Madame Èzilee. She loves it.” She hiccupped slightly, still looking annoyed.
“I still don’t quite understand,” the Hawai‘ian woman persisted.
Mama Labadie picked up the phone, rose gracefully and seated herself, still talking to Auntie Keikilani. “The loa are the gods of Voudún. We invite them to visit us, for healing or spiritual purposes. When I invoke the loa, I offer myself as a horse for the god to ride. Madame Èzilee is the one most likely to ride me. She’s the goddess of beauty, love, sex, dancing—that kind of thing. Sort of our black Aphrodite.” Mama stopped speaking for a beat and shook her head, dreadlocks shivering down her back. “I don’ know why Èzilee likes me so much. But she does. Anyway, while Èzilee rides me, I am the goddess. I speak with her voice.”
“Ah,” said Keikilani. “Now I understand. Thank you.”
“I should go look for Fred,” said Clancy, frowning. “And I’d like to point out that the loa didn’t say anything about WestWind. We still don’t know whether Kama and his girlfriend are going to help.”
“Where would you look for Fred?” asked Sierra. “You don’t know your way around the island. It would be dangerous to just go wandering off into the back country.”
“If Fred is in danger, of course I’m going,” Clancy stated flatly.
Chaco cleared his throat. “I think I should be the one to look for Fred. As a coyote, I can get around better than any of you permanent humans. I have powers that may be useful. And I can’t be hurt or killed—at least, there’s not much that can do me in. So I’m the logical choice.”
Clancy looked annoyed. “You don’t know your way around here any better than I do, Chaco.”
“True,” was Chaco’s serene response. “But you can’t turn yourself into a coyote. And you can die. I rest my case.”
Chapter 29
Chaco spent a long time with Auntie, planning his expedition. “Clancy is right about me not knowing my way around,” he explained. “But you can tell me where to
find the Menehune. I can negotiate almost any terrain when I’m in coyote form.” The two spent hours with their heads together over a map of the island.
“I think you should take the Wailu Trail,” she said, tracing something on the map with her forefinger. “It goes right past the Ili‘iliopae Heiau, but if you give the heiau a wide berth, you should be okay. Then you continue…”
“What’s the Ili‘iliopae Heiau? Why should I avoid it?”
“The heiau is a place of great mana—but it’s a dark and evil power. Too many people—hundreds of people, maybe thousands—were sacrificed there.”
“Really?” Chaco slitted his bright amber eyes.
“Yes, really,” responded Auntie. “Moloka‘i was once known as the island of sorcery. There was even a school of sorcery here. All the other islands knew of Moloka‘i’s mana, and they could see from our many fishponds that our mana made us wealthy. The other islanders were jealous and sent many war parties to raid and plunder, especially from Maui, which is one of the closest islands to Moloka‘i. The old Moloka‘ians asked the Menehune for help, and the Menehune formed a chain along the Wailu Trail, passing stones from one hand to the next. The Menehune built this great heiau in a single night on the hillside facing Maui. Anyone in a war canoe could see it for miles. The sight reminded them of Moloka‘i’s great power, and discouraged war parties from landing. The priests sacrificed many people in this temple to Kanaloa. I’ve been there a few times.” She shuddered. “It was never a pleasant experience.”
Chaco didn’t take anything with him on his expedition except for his vest. He didn’t need to carry food or water because he could easily forage for these, nor did he require shelter. He planned to hike upcountry where he would be unlikely to be observed, change into a coyote, and quickly negotiate the upland crags and forests until he came to the area where Auntie said he would find the Menehune, living far from human habitation.
Auntie drove Chaco to the trailhead. The trip took them through now-familiar territory. They followed King Kamehameha V Highway east, along the coast. Long before the road began to rise up to the pali, Auntie stopped her car by the side of the highway in the shade of the vine-twined trees. She pointed across the highway to a tiny sign that read simply “Heiau.” “There’s the path,” she said. Chaco exited the car and walked around to the driver’s side. He leaned in and kissed Keikilani on the cheek.
“Aloha. Thanks for all your help, Auntie,” he said.
“May all the gods and your ‘aumakua bless you and keep you safe,” she replied. “I hope you find Fred. Aloha.”
The path led under sheltering trees as the trail began to climb upward. The trail here was steep and rather rugged, but he didn’t feel the need to shift into his coyote form yet. It was still light, and he was still too near civilization to risk being seen while transforming. Before long, Chaco left the trees and followed a dry streambed under the sun for a short distance. Finally, he emerged at a wide plain dominated by a mass of tumbled stones.
“It’s the size of a football field!” he breathed, and he was right. The foundations of the temple remained as an enormous, broad platform of stones. Before vegetation grew up around the heiau, it must have dominated the hillside, visible far out to sea. Many of the rocks used in the structure were as large as compact cars, and no mortar had been used; the heiau was held together by its own sheer mass and the skill of the ancient drywall builders—the Menehune, by Auntie’s account.
It was now seven in the evening. He and Auntie had spent most of the day planning, and he had gotten a late start. It hadn’t bothered Chaco to start his expedition late in the day; he could see in the dark as well as in the daytime. As the sun lowered to the west, it touched the great stone platform with golden light. Chaco stood and stared for a while. He thought that in his native environment the heiau would be a prime residence for snakes. But he had heard there were no snakes in Hawai‘i—not that snakes were any danger to him when he was in his full powers as an Avatar.
Many of the stones had come loose from their original positions and lay tumbled about on the ground around the platform. Chaco walked up to a large stone with a flat top that looked like a comfortable overstuffed ottoman inviting him to sit. The hike had not been difficult, and he never tired, but he wanted to take stock of his surroundings. Seating himself on the stone, he allowed his eyes to wander across the great raised plain of rocks before him. The rocks that had been sitting in the sun all day looked hot; he could see the shimmer of heat waves in the air above them. The ones on the sides were less exposed, and many were covered with a thick fur of bright-green mosses where they were shaded by the encroaching jungle. As he sat and took in the scene, he began to feel something reach up to him from the stone. He tensed. It was not a physical touch; the tickling probe of some unknown energy was taking a stroll around his psyche without bothering to ask for permission. He attempted to leap up from the stone, away from the repugnant intrusion, but found that he couldn’t rise. The tickling intrusion now seemed like a great fist, clenched somewhere in the middle of his body, holding him in place.
Chaco wasn’t prone to panic. Despite his youthful appearance, he was an ancient being, and there was little he hadn’t seen or experienced. This was outside of his experience, however. He focused his mana on whatever it was that held him to the stone, working fingers of power around the foreign force inside his body. As he did this, he scanned his surroundings. If there was a trap here, there must also be a trapper—every coyote knew that.
At first, Chaco was aware only of the expected paranormal activity around him. Small spirits darted among the trees like birds. There were a few slow, dark minds wandering about beneath the earth. None of these were a threat. As his mana worked against the grip of the power constraining him, Chaco sent his senses farther afield. Ah, there. Approaching.
• • •
Earlier, while Chaco and Auntie Keikilani had hunched over maps, discussing Chaco’s rescue mission, Clancy had paced around and around the small living room until Auntie lost her patience and shooed him out.
“Go to the beach. Or go out to lunch. Or take a hike. You’re making us nervous,” she had said, making shooing motions with her hands at Sierra and Clancy. They left, but with no destination in mind, walked downtown.
“How about some ice cream?” Sierra suggested. Clancy shrugged. They began looking for ice cream. Downtown Kaunakakai consisted of two main streets off the highway with a number of smaller residential streets branching off. Grocery stores, tourist traps, galleries, a liquor store, some fast food restaurants, a dry goods store—there it was: an ice cream shop. Initially, Sierra was fascinated by the brilliant purple sweet potato ice cream, but settled for Hawai‘ian mud pie instead. Clancy had the same, and neither was sorry about their choice.
As they sat outside the store under the shade of the eaves, Clancy’s phone rang. He handed his cone to Sierra, who licked at hers to keep the delicious treat from melting into her lap, and patiently allowed Clancy’s ice cream to drip over her hand and onto the sidewalk as he talked.
“Okay. Thanks for calling,” Clancy concluded, and ended the call. Rose’s medicine bag had escaped from its hiding place under his shirt. He tucked the bag away impatiently and retrieved his dripping cone.
“Who was that?”
“Roberts.”
“Really? I’m surprised. What did he want?”
“He promised to call me to let me know what, if anything, they’ve found out at Jack of Hearts that made the tower fall. As before, they found nothing.”
“We know what made the tower fall. Why did you want him to call?”
“I just wanted to know if they found anything. Also, it seemed like a normal thing to ask.”
“So what are they going to do about it?”
“I gathered from what he said that they’re continuing with the installation.”
Sierra dropped her cone. It splatted at her feet, spraying melted ice cream over her bare toes, but she barely
noticed. “They can’t! Clancy, they can’t go ahead. You know what will happen!”
• • •
Sam shook his head at Sierra, Clancy, and Rose, who were crowded into his tiny charter office. If Auntie Keikilani hadn’t opted out of this trip, there would have been too many people to fit.
“I can’t help you there,” Sam said. “I don’t want to go out there and get in the way of the construction crew.”
“Yes, but,” began Clancy, but he caught a sharp look from Sierra, and cut himself off.
Now is the time to start using mana, Sierra said to herself, and reached inside for those glowing ribbons. She spoke in a low, gentle voice. “I think going out to the wind farm would be a wonderful idea. It will be beautiful. You’ll see how they are building the turbines. You want to see that, don’t you?”
To everyone’s astonishment, Sam began nodding his head. “Yes, I see that now. You’re right, of course. I’ll be ready to go in one hour. Meet me at the wharf.” He bustled out, presumably to prepare for the trip. Sierra, Clancy, and Rose trickled out into the hot sunshine, everyone looking puzzled except for Sierra.
“Did you do that?” whispered Clancy. “Did you do a ‘Star Wars’ number on him?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, ‘These are not the droids you are looking for?’” He made a cryptic gesture with one hand.
“Well yes, I put a little spin on things to move him along,” Sierra admitted. She couldn’t help grinning just a little at the success of her attempt to influence Sam.
“You have to teach me how to do that,” Rose whispered to her friend. But Clancy looked uneasy.
They gathered at the Kaunakakai Wharf an hour later and found Sam and Mike on board Polupolu, ready for their passengers. They churned away from the dock and out of the harbor, turning to the west this time instead of east. Rose turned to Clancy.