by K. D. Keenan
“It’s either that or no deal,” Sierra told him.
So Fred had stealthily returned to the Menehunes’ remote home—keeping a wary eye out for Kanaloa the entire time—and confirmed with Ailani and his people that they needed the Menehunes’ help with the tower bases. The Menehune were delighted. They adored stonework, and it had been centuries since anyone had asked them to build something.
• • •
“So it’s either three percent to the Moloka‘ians—at no charge to them—or the deal is off and the bases go away overnight,” Sierra explained to Huff, who was now sitting in the soft grass of Jack Kane’s field and leaning against the side of one of the bases. Roberts, like Clancy, had to accept the evidence of his own eyes and experience. He was still reeling from the barrage of strangeness but trying to cope.
“Well, yeah. I mean, that’s only fair,” he replied. “But how do I explain all this to the authorities? I can’t just say we’re moving the installation overnight to a new location. And what about the Moloka‘ians? Won’t they notice that all the bases popped up in a single night? Won’t they be asking a lot of questions?”
“Trust me,” Sierra said, “they won’t be asking questions. They’ve lived with the Menehune since forever, and they know a Menehune-built construction when they see one. Auntie and Jack will take care of the Moloka‘ians. As far as the regulations and legislators go, you can take your time. If you agree to the terms, the bases aren’t going anywhere.”
Huff shook his head. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he said. Then he looked at Chaco. Still in coyote form, Chaco was lying in the long grass enjoying the sun, all four paws in the air in an undignified sprawl.
“Chaco, would mind giving me and Sierra a little privacy?”
Chaco rose, stretched fore and aft, and cocked a bright amber eye at Huff. “No problem,” he said, showing just a flash of fang in a grin before he trotted off across the field. He was soon lost to sight among the tall grasses.
Huff turned to Sierra, sitting next to him. Her black hair shone in the sun like obsidian, and her hazel eyes gazed at him steadily. She had a sprinkle of freckles across her nose.
“When do you go home, Sierra?”
Sierra drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Soon as possible. I have one more thing I have to do, then Chaco and Fred and Rose and I—you haven’t met Rose or Fred yet—have to leave. We kind of got some people, um—Entities? Gods?—really upset with us, and it’s too dangerous to stay here.”
He looked at her, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Sierra was quiet for a few moments. If she told him why Kanaloa was angry—and Kauhuhu too, no doubt—she would have to confess her role in the disasters at WestWind. She looked into Huff’s gray-blue eyes, now filled only with concern for her. She did some mental girding of loins, took a deep breath, and told Huff the entire story.
“So it was really my fault all along. I truly didn’t mean for Kanaloa and Kauhuhu to go as far as they did, and I’m deeply sorry. I was hoping maybe this”—she gestured at the stone bases dotting the field—“would make up for it, at least a little.” She peered into his eyes again and found thunderclouds.
Chapter 34
They propped Sierra’s cell phone against a stack of books in Keikilani’s living room so they could all see the screen. On that screen, a miniature Kaylee and Mama Labadie arranged cornmeal, bananas, rum, and flowers around Mama’s living room in Silicon Valley. Again, drums, rattles, and ‘ili‘ili provided rhythm while Fred played the flute. Again, Mama Labadie began a sinuous rhythmic movement that blossomed into a joyous celebration, Mama flashing a brilliant smile around the room and dancing with abandon. After three or four tours of the room, eating fruit and bananas and drinking generous swigs of rum, she stopped, swaying, in front of Kaylee. She seemed to be inviting Kaylee to dance with her, but Kaylee spoke instead.
“Where is Clancy? Is he alive?”
Mama stood swaying for several long moments, as though considering the questions. Then she beamed another wide, gleaming grin at Kaylee. She whirled around, white robes flying around her. She spoke again, this time somberly, without a trace of a smile, “Time is not your friend.”
She whirled around again, picking up a bowl of cornmeal. Carefully, she pinched the coarse meal between her slender, dark fingers and began to draw on the dark red carpet with the pale meal. Sierra winced.
“Mama’s gonna be so pissed when she finds out Madame Èzilee’s smeared cornmeal all over her priceless Bokhara rug,” she whispered into Chaco’s ear.
Mama completed her drawing, studied it carefully, took a long, thoughtful swig of the rum bottle she held in her left hand—and as her eyes rolled back in her head, she crumpled to the floor next to her creation. Kaylee bent over Mama and wiped her streaming face with a cloth.
“It’s no good askin’ me,” Mama Labadie said crossly, a quarter of an hour later. “Madame Èzilee didn’t tell me any more than she told you. So quit buggin’ me! I need something to get this rum taste out of my mouth.” Kaylee handed her a tall glass of water, which Mama gulped eagerly.
Rose made a request at the Moloka‘i end. “Could you please position the phone so we could see the drawing Mama just made?” Kaylee picked up the phone at her end and the image on the screen swung dizzily for a few moments until it hovered over the design on the rug.
“How’s that?”
“Good,” said Chaco, and they all leaned forward to try to discern the minuscule image on the screen.
“I think I know what it is,” said Rose after several minutes of squinting at the little picture. “It’s Mexico. Look, there’s a glyph right over the Yucatan Peninsula. It’s hard to make out…”
Sierra peered over Rose’s shoulder at Madame Èzilee’s drawing on the small screen. It looked like nothing to her at first, but gradually an image emerged from the imprecise lines formed by the spilled cornmeal.
“What is it?” she asked Rose.
“I’m almost sure…hang on…yes! It’s the glyph for Kulkulcan! It’s the spirit snake glyph, like the amulet I kept in my medicine bag. It’s the symbol for Kukulcan, imposed on the map of the Yucatan Peninsula. That makes sense!”
“It does?” asked Fred dubiously.
“Yes. The amulet came from the Yucatan. When it saved Clancy, it must have returned to its native land.” Rose looked up, smiling. “Clancy must be in Mexico. The Yucatan, more precisely.”
Sierra stared at the awkward drawing on the screen. “You’re sure about this? Madame Èzilee didn’t actually say Clancy is still alive.”
Rose nodded. “As sure as I can be. Given the circumstances. The loa aren’t usually this clear, really.”
The image on the screen lurched and disappeared, to be replaced by the faces of Kaylee and Mama.
“Well, that pinpoints it,” snorted Mama Labadie. “I’m no expert, but that’s only about 76,000 square miles we gotta search.”
“But if Clancy were in the Yucatan, wouldn’t he have gotten in touch by now? He’d have contacted local authorities and gone to the U.S. Consul or whoever it is that Americans are supposed to see when they get into problems in foreign countries,” Sierra said.
“Um, yes, under normal conditions,” said Rose.
“What do you mean?” asked Sierra, hairs on the back of her neck rising with apprehension.
“Clearly, the circumstances that took Clancy from Moloka‘i to the Yucatan weren’t normal,” Rose explained. “He could’ve landed anywhere—maybe miles away from civilization. And there are other possibilities. I hate to mention it, but Madame told us that ‘Time is not your friend.’ We don’t know if Clancy is even still in the twenty-first century. Given the age of the amulet, he could be back at the time the amulet was created, when its mana was first charged.”
“Ladies and gentleman,” said Chaco. “I think it’s time to go home.”
• • •
Parting from Auntie was an emotional expe
rience for everyone. “You’ve been so kind and so generous, Auntie,” said Sierra, hugging the older woman. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.” She turned to Jack and hugged him.
“Jack, you’re a hero! Thanks for everything, and I hope it all goes smoothly from here on out. I’ll miss you. I can never repay either one of you. It doesn’t look like I’ll ever be able to come back to Hawai‘i,” she said with deep regret, and thought briefly of Midway Island and its albatross chicks. “But if you ever come to California, there will always be a place for you to stay with me.”
Fred tucked himself into a carry-on bag before they left for the airport. Chaco carried the bag, and this time he was careful to avoid banging the bag against handy obstacles. The tiny airport in Kaunakakai was uncrowded and trade winds swept gently through the open building, carrying the scent of flowers. And jet fuel.
As they approached the security station, Sierra gasped. “What happens when they X-ray Fred? They’ll see there’s something, um, organic in the bag.”
“No worries,” Chaco said. “He’ll disappear. X-ray machines are no match for a mannegishi.”
Sierra, Rose, and Chaco checked in, then sat to wait for their flight to Honolulu and from Honolulu, home. They sat quietly on the plastic seats, each lost in his or her thoughts.
“Sierra?” said a familiar voice.
She looked up. Roberts stood in front of her. She flushed. Their parting after her revelations about her role in the WestWind disaster had been awkward and miserable on her part, angry on his. She could hardly blame him. She peered up at him silently.
“I didn’t want to let you leave without saying goodbye,” he said. He no longer looked angry, just tired. “I was a bit…upset when we last spoke.”
Rose excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. Chaco rose gracefully from his seat and wandered into the minuscule gift store nearby. He picked up a coconut painted with a tiki face and turned it over critically as though examining a miniature sculpture by Degas. Huff took his seat beside Sierra, who could hardly bear to look at him.
“Look, Huff, there’s absolutely nothing I can say or do that would begin to express how sorry I am,” she said.
“I know.” He sat quietly, looking at her downcast face. “I was really angry at first. But I remembered how passionate you are about the environment. All the things you wanted to do to protect the albatross chicks at Midway. You’re kind of a nut, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied. “Clancy thought so, too. It was a problem for us, sometimes.”
Huff was quiet for several minutes. Chaco was now appraising a bobble-head hula dancer. “I realize this is too soon, but I’m going to ask anyway. Can I come to see you in California sometimes? I visit on business frequently. I’d like to see you again.”
Oh. I didn’t realize. Oh, dear.
“I would love to see you again, Huff. But one thing I didn’t mention during our last discussion”—Huff’s eyebrows rose in alarm—“is that Clancy isn’t dead. At least we think he’s not dead.”
“That’s not possible. He fell in, I mean…”
“The Menehune building a wind farm site overnight wasn’t possible either, Huff. You’re going to have to trust me on this. I don’t have a lot to go on right now, but I do think Clancy is alive, and I’m going to go look for him.”
Huff sat silent for several more minutes. “Well, we can still be friends, as the saying goes, right?”
Sierra nodded.
“Where is Clancy, exactly?” Chaco was draping plastic flower leis around his neck and admiring the effect in a small mirror the shopkeeper held.
Sierra decided to skip over the implications of “Time is not your friend,” and said, “We think he may be in the Yucatan Peninsula. I’m afraid that’s as exact as we can get.”
Huff exhaled sharply. “How do you plan to find him?”
“I have no idea,” she confessed, struggling not to give way to despair at the thought.
He stood up. “If you need help—any kind of help—you know how to get in touch,” he said, then bent down and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Best of luck, Sierra. And thanks. Thanks for Jack Kane’s field. Thanks for the Menehunes’ help. Thanks for the tower bases.” He waved at Chaco, who was sniffing fragrance samplers, and strode out of the airport as Rose emerged from the restroom.
Chaco rejoined the women. After a brief silence, the carry-on bag remarked, “You smell like Auntie Keikilani’s garden.” Nobly, Chaco refrained from kicking the bag as Sierra shushed Fred.
“What’d he want?” Rose asked. She had heard from Sierra about her last meeting with Huff and its unhappy ending.
“I think he was extending the olive branch. Well, not exactly,” Sierra considered what to say for a second. “Actually, I think he was asking me if I wanted a relationship with him.”
Chaco cocked his dark head, golden eyes alert. “What do you mean? You already have a relationship with him.”
“I do have a relationship with him, but I think he’s interested in a romantic relationship.”
“Oh. Wouldn’t that be kind of awkward? With Clancy being alive? Sort of alive. Alive as far as we know. Besides, he’s going to have to take a number,” said Chaco. Rose stood up abruptly and walked into the little gift store.
“Huh? Oh, I see what you mean, but who’s next in line?” Sierra asked, wondering what sort of trinket made in China could possibly have attracted Rose’s attention.
“Me.” Chaco’s gaze never wavered. Sierra wrenched her gaze back to his.
“Oh, c’mon, Chaco! You keep saying that, but you also told me once that you were footloose, unreliable, and never settled down. You know that’s not what I want. Why do you keep saying that about me?”
“Because it’s true,” muttered Chaco as they stood up to stand in the security line. Rose set down a tube of tanning lotion in the store and hurried to rejoin them. There were no more than ten people in line. Fred’s bag went through without a hitch.
Once through security, there was another short wait, and then they boarded the small plane for Honolulu. During the time they had been in the airport, the wind had freshened, blowing strongly from the southwest, and clouds were gathering out to sea. As the little plane taxied down the runway, Sierra could feel it shudder with the force of the wind, but it took off without incident.
Once at cruising altitude, the captain’s voice came on the PA system. “Folks, we’re the last plane out of Moloka‘i this morning. Tropical Storm Afa, a class four or five cyclone, is headed in this direction. Please stay calm; we’re well ahead of the storm and we will land safely in Honolulu. However, there will be no more flights out of Honolulu until this situation is over. Those of you who have connecting flights must shelter in place at the airport to wait out the storm. Emergency personnel will be waiting to assist you at the airport…”
“That’s weird,” Sierra said, after the captain finished speaking. “Isn’t this the wrong season for hurricanes?”
“Is it?” Chaco responded. “I don’t really know. But I have been wondering if Kanaloa had something more in store for us.”
Sierra felt dread creep up her spine, raising goose bumps along her arms. “You think Kanaloa has something to do with this?”
“Kanaloa said he was coming for us, but it’s been pretty quiet the past couple of days. We’ve been careful, of course, and stayed as far as possible from the ocean or the heiau or any other place we might encounter him. But he is god of the ocean. And aren’t hurricanes caused by, um, oceanic water temperatures, or something? Anyway, he would be able to raise a storm without thinking twice, I bet.”
They passed the rest of the short flight in silence, glumly watching the turbulent ocean below through the thickening clouds.
By the time they reached Honolulu, there was no doubt that a massive storm was on the way. It hadn’t begun to rain, but the winds were high enough to send the tall palms bending like so many blades of grass. The sky to the sou
th was purple-black, and as they descended, they could see that the waves breaking on the beaches below were not the gentle summer combers of before, but towering gray-black cliffs, slashed with foam, dashing against the sands and running far up the beach and over seawalls in many places.
The airport itself was primarily open-air, funneling the wind through its corridors. Emergency workers met the passengers and urged them to take shelter on the ground floor of the airport.
But Sierra didn’t follow their suggestion. Instead, she ran in the opposite direction, toward an exit. Chaco shoved Fred’s duffle bag into Rose’s arms and ran in Sierra’s wake yelling, “Wait! Sierra! Where are you going?”
Sierra threw herself at an emergency exit door. An alarm sounded and lights flashed, but between the train-whistle shriek of the wind, the sirens wailing all over the city, and the frantic rushing of passengers within the airport, no one paid the slightest attention.
“Sierra, stop! If you go out in that you’ll be killed!” Chaco screamed over the wind, and she paused, looking at him as the rain began, driven horizontally by the storm.
“Stay inside with Fred and Rose, Chaco. Take care of them for me,” she said, and continued to run. Chaco hesitated by the blaring emergency door, torn between his impulse to protect her and her directive to stay with their friends. In the instant of his hesitation, Sierra disappeared into the darkness, wind, and rain.
• • •
She headed straight for the ocean. She knew from taking off and landing at Honolulu International that its runways directly bordered the bay. Running against the wind proved to be more difficult than she thought, and as the storm gathered its fury, she feared she might actually be blown away. She could dimly see objects flying in the wind, but she couldn’t see what they were—branches, perhaps roofing tiles torn away from their buildings.