Afterglow

by Karsten Knight

  As you walk in the shallows, you’re so busy watching the morning light play over the bay to the south that you don’t see the corpse until you trip over it.

  You nearly drop knees-first down onto the man’s back, but catch your balance. He floats facedown in the shallows. He wears no shirt, and his waterlogged trousers are in tatters. Curiosity seizes you, so you bend down and roll the man over.

  The first thing that you notice: He’s not of your people. The deep tan of his skin leads you to believe that he’s lived under a sun just as strong as the one that kisses these islands, but he is by no means an islander.

  The second thing that you notice: He is beautiful.

  It’s an otherworldly beauty. You’ve long thought that Tangaroa, the sea god on the Council, was the summit of attractiveness, among gods and mortals alike. And he’s shown no subtlety in the way that he looks at you.

  But this dead man is something else altogether. His hair is cropped close to his head and bristly. Unlike Tangaroa and the others, his skin remains untouched by tattoos. He’s muscular, from his thick neck down to his tapered torso. You can learn a lot from a man’s skin, but this corpse’s flesh is a blank canvas. No scars at all to suggest he’d ever been to war; no calluses on his open palms to suggest that he was a fisherman or, for that matter, had ever worked a day in his life.

  It’s not unusual for dead men to occasionally wash up on these shores, but their bodies are usually bloated, or rotting, or covered in sores from where they’ve been nibbled away by fish.

  This stranger, however, must be newly dead, because he shows no sign of decay, or of being fish food. On a whim you lean over and press your ear to his bare chest.

  You hear the beat of his heart at the same time he springs back to life.

  The stranger bolts upright and throws up a mouthful of briny vomit that you barely dodge in time. His eyes are wild, and he flounders in the water, frantically patting around his body to make sure that he still has all his limbs and all his flesh. His crazed, wide pupils finally focus on you, crouched in a defensive position on a lava rock, and one word escapes his mouth, a word you’ve heard the missionaries use before:

  “Angel?” he mutters.

  Then his eyes roll back into his head. He collapses back onto the lava rocks and loses consciousness once more.

  For a few moments you gaze down at him, expecting him to stir again. He remains unmoving, but his chest moves up and down with labored breaths.

  You glance around the beach, as though you might not be truly alone. There is only the wind and the lapping tide. The Council has a strict rule when it comes to outsiders: They are not welcome here. Many foreign explorers have sailed past these shores, tried to give their own new names to things that have had names for many years. Missionaries visit your islands to bring word of their god . . . without realizing that there are many gods already walking these shores, down among their people, where they belong. You’ve used your storm powers yourself to send lightning bolts down on unwelcome ships, ruffled the ocean with swells to ward off foreigners.

  There’s something magical about this one though. He’d somehow survived the elements, possibly drifted for days or weeks, from somewhere far beyond the horizon, and still arrived here unscathed.

  So you make up your mind: You must hide him from the Council until you’ve had a chance to speak with him, to learn of his past.

  You know just the place too. You scoop him up in your arms; he may be larger and heavier than you, but your strength is unparalleled on these islands. Then you carry him down the shore to the sea cave.

  You often come to this cave to reflect. It’s concealed under the shadow of a magnificent sea arch—a monument of stone carved away by the ocean that protrudes from the cliff face above like a sea giant’s elbow. You’ve always loved the sound of the tide as it echoes down the tunnel; it’s almost like a poem whispered to you by Tangaroa, the sea god . . . although Tangaroa is just a fleeting thought right now, with a strange man cradled in your arms.

  You wade through the waist-high water until the tunnel ground rises up to a patch of sand that’s safe even from high tide. You place the stranger down on the smoothest area you can find, far enough from the water that he won’t accidentally roll in and drown while he’s still unconscious.

  His eyes flicker half-open for a few seconds. He looks delirious and as if slumber will drag him down again any moment, but there’s a brief flash when he gazes up at your face with complete clarity. His hand touches the side of your cheek, and while instinct tells you to pull away, you let his smooth fingers cup your skin. A deep warmth flushes your face where his palm lingers.

  Then he says five words to you, four of them in the language of the missionaries, but one of which is all too familiar and sucks the warmth right out of your cheeks.

  “Thank you,” he whispers, blinking twice. “Thank you, Pele . . .”

  Before he can explain how he knew your name or that you were the legendary volcano goddess, he’s dragged down into the murky dark of a feverish sleep.

  You want so badly to wait beside him until he wakes again. However, it is the morning before the new moon, which means the monthly Council meeting will start shortly. You must not arouse the suspicion of the others if you’re to keep this a secret for now.

  So you reluctantly wade back down the tunnel. You cast a final look at the sleeping stranger before you tear open the air and step through a portal into a forest not too far from this sea cave.

  But suddenly, everything seems too far from the cave and the human heart beating within it.

  You hate when you’re not the last one to arrive. Life on the islands has bred patience in the other gods that you distinctly lack, and so you make a point of being a little late so you don’t have to wait for anyone else to lazily straggle in. This time, though, everyone seems to be tardy—and there’s no real excuse, since there are no clouds to block the sun’s progress across the sky, marking the time of day.

  You’d know because they’re your clouds to put there.

  Instead, when you emerge from the portal into the bamboo forest on the eastern end of Maui, at the base of Haleakalā, only Rangi—Father Sky—and Papa—Mother Earth—await you. Rangi and Papa are both older than you and the others. You call them the elders, even though they’ve only seen five more years than you have. Still, there’s a sternness in the couple that the other three lack.

  The bamboo shoots in the clearing rustle as the portal seals closed behind you. Both Rangi and Papa offer you a nod and an “Aloha kakahiaka.” You nod back to Rangi, who has his arms crossed, and say, “Ka makani ‘olu‘olu,” to thank him for the delicate wind that’s threading through the trees. It’s a refreshing breeze that certainly didn’t come from you. He shrugs off the compliment and mutters, “He mea iki ia,” as though anyone could change the fervor of the wind with a flick of their hand.

  Tu, the god of war, is the next to arrive, on foot instead of through a portal like you. Just about every inch of his body is covered with intricately patterned tattoos. Strangely, no needle has ever touched his skin. He was born this way.

  Soon after, the stealthy Tane slips out from between the bamboo shoots, which didn’t even tremble as he moved through them like a wraith. He spends so much time among the leaves that his bare chest and arms always maintain a greenish stain, and his legs remain powdered with soil. Today he has an even wider smirk than usual on his face when he arrives, and he’s chuckling the way he always does. You’ve never seen him in a bad mood.

  “New missionaries came ashore on O‘ahu,” he explains without so much as an “aloha” first. “I found the highest branch that I could and perched there, making terrifying sounds. Then I woke all the bats to attack them from above. They thought I was some sort of forest spirit haunting them and warning them to turn back.”

  You snort. “But you are a forest spirit.”

  “Yes, but spirits to them are evil red creatures, enemies of their god.” Tane reaches u
nder his kapa loincloth and pulls out a green fruit with a furry coating. You don’t want to know where in his malo he was storing that.

  “Do those even grow here?” you ask.

  He takes a big bite out of the fruit, and the juice dribbles down his chin. “They do now. I ask the trees, and the trees listen.”

  “With some help from the earth,” Papa adds.

  At the edge of the clearing, where the bamboo forest gives way to a short cliff and the ocean pools below, something hisses like water turning to steam. Tangaroa rises up from the pool below, supported by a geyser that carries him to the cliff top. Once he steps off, the plume collapses behind him.

  His eyes usually regard you with warmth and affection, but there’s something wrathful in them today. He didn’t even look this furious when you out-wrestled him a year ago. “Who is he?” he barks at you the moment his feet hit solid ground.

  You frown. So your secret, secluded beach isn’t quite so secluded after all. “Have you been following me, Tangaroa? Have you been . . . watching me?”

  Tangaroa purses his lips. That’s never bothered you before, his eyes say. “I didn’t need to follow you. Do you think an outlander could drift through my seas to my shores without me knowing about it? When it comes to the waters around these islands, my eyes see all.”

  The others are watching silently, but Tane lets out a giggle. “If that’s the case,” he says between bites of his fruit, “I hope you’ve looked the other way when I’ve gone swimming with a few certain girls on O‘ahu.”

  Tangaroa growls at Tane to silence him. Before he can launch more accusations at you, Rangi speaks, his voice as deep and tremulous as thunder. “There is an elder on Kaua‘i, a blind man who has achieved such stillness in body and soul that he can stand out in the water and snatch a fish from a passing school with his hands. He is also a seer. He has told me many stories, not all of which have come true . . . but there was one a few years ago that I never forgot: a prophecy about a Driftwood Stranger, a man from another land who would come and bring ruin to us all.”

  You tilt your head back to the sky in frustration. A cloud rolls in front of the sun. “I have met that blind man before. He also tells stories of a man-eating tortoise and a sea lion that steals babies from the arms of their sleeping mothers. And this Driftwood Stranger? He’s probably thinking of that white man who tried to kidnap the king years ago—you know, the one they stabbed to death in the water? Some dangerous visitor he was.”

  “No,” Rangi says, unmoved by your argument. “That man, Cook, came on a ship with many others. The Driftwood Stranger, the elder foretells, will come alone . . . and he’ll come without a ship.”

  This makes even Tane pause mid-bite. You can’t deny that the circumstances of the stranger’s arrival make you uneasy. No shipwreck. No signs of starvation on his filled-out body. Not even a sunburn.

  And he knew your name.

  “He is my prisoner,” you say sternly. Your eyes burn red when your gaze finds Tangaroa’s again. “No one touches him until I find out who he is and why he’s here.”

  “And if he proves dangerous?” Tu, who had remained silent until now, asks. “How will you handle him then?”

  “Then I’ll drop him into a lava pool on Kilauea,” you reply, “and find out if the Driftwood Stranger burns like driftwood.”

  “And for those among us who don’t spend our days lighting fires, Pele,” Tane says, “how does driftwood burn?”

  You try to sound as merciless and uncaring as possible when you say the next word, so that they’ll trust you to handle the stranger on your own:

  “Slowly.”

  The cove where you left the stranger isn’t far from the bamboo forest, and ordinarily you’d run back after the Council meeting, drawing strength and energy from Haleakalā, the quiet volcano. But Tangaroa could be traveling by sea to “visit” the stranger himself, so you explosively gouge out a section of the air and pass through the narrow portal.

  Only, when you step into the cave, the stranger is gone.

  It hasn’t been more than an hour since you left him for the tense meeting with the other gods, so he couldn’t have gone far. You try not to panic, and you let your eyes take in the heat within the cave. As you concentrate, the color fades from the world around you until the cave and the light filtering through its opening have muted to mostly shades of gray and sepia.

  However, the hollow depression in the stone glows a soft orange, where the stranger’s body heat lingers on the pebbles. Unfortunately, the water cooled any heat trail he might have left on his way out, so you return to the mouth of the cave.

  As you stand beneath the magnificent sea arch, you worry that you may have lost him for good. The sea and stone together are just a cool variety of grays, with only the sun lighting up in vivid red.

  But when you turn around, back to the cliff, you catch just the slightest hint of color among the rocks. In fact there’s a staggered trail of fading embers leading up the cliff face, where hands and bare feet have recently touched.

  He must have scaled the nearly vertical stone wall.

  You don’t have the patience to climb it yourself, so you carve a new rift in the air and step out onto the top of the cliff above.

  He’s sitting close to the edge, with his knees bunched up against his chest. He flinches, momentarily startled, when you appear next to him and the sea water that leaked through the portal splashes into the grass, but he doesn’t appear afraid of you. “Aloha,” he greets you.

  You skip the pleasantries. “Who are you, and where have you come from?” you ask him in his own language.

  “You . . . speak English?” He actually looks more surprised by this than when you stepped out of a hole in the air moments before.

  “It is the language of your missionaries,” you say indignantly, “who flock to our islands like bats to a nest of moths.”

  “They are not my missionaries.” He points toward the eastern horizon. “They came to my lands, unwelcome, the same way they did to yours . . . although,” he adds with a smile, “my lands are so vast it will be some time before they’ve conquered them all.”

  Against your better judgment you sit down beside him, although an arm’s length away, as though he might be rife with sickness. Out in the water a humpback whale surfaces, then another. They’ve always seemed just as fond of this bay as you have, though they never come close enough to admire the lava rocks.

  “My name is Colt,” he says.

  You open your mouth and laugh deeply. The gathering thunderclouds chuckle with you. “They named you,” you say once you’ve caught your breath, “after that strange four-legged creature that those haoles like to ride on?” You laugh some more.

  Colt doesn’t look offended. In fact, after a hesitation, he laughs along with you. “What? Colts are dependable, powerful, and fast, with an energetic, masculine spirit. They can travel for miles.”

  “As have you,” you say, spreading your arms out to the ocean. The laughter stops. Neither of you is watching the whales anymore. As he studies your face, you’re struggling with the sense of instant familiarity you feel with him. He just washed up on shore. You can tell he’s holding back something, like he doesn’t know how much to trust you, how much to share with you.

  “I wish I could tell you how I got here,” Colt says at last. “One moment I was falling asleep at the base of a dune, back on the mainland, letting the sound of the tide carry me into slumber. . . . When I woke up next the tide actually was carrying me away. I couldn’t even see the shores the waters were so choppy with storm waves. The current dragged me under a few times.” He shook his head. “I have no idea how long I was floating out at sea before I washed up here. Under the heavy sun, and without fresh water, I plunged into delirium for many days.”

  It was impossible. You know from the pesky missionaries who come here that the mainland is a long ways to the east. It’s a far journey even for a boat with sails. . . .

  It should be an
impossible journey to survive for a man who simply floated over.

  “What are you?” you ask him. “And how did you know my name?”

  “I can’t answer your first question,” he says. “But as for the second . . .” He swallows and runs a hand over his short, cropped hair. “Pele, I’ve been seeing you in my dreams. Every night . . . for the last twenty years. Only . . .” This time he summons the courage to look back into your eyes, and you see your reflection in them. “Only I don’t think they’re really dreams at all.”

  THE NIGHTMARE MISTRESS

  Thursday

  Ash knew that Modo was supposedly the Greek god of the forge, but he snored like a thunder god.

  After his near death by electrocution at the Renaissance fair, it had been pretty easy for Ash to convince him that her hotel room would prove a better safe haven than his frat house, since Colt and Eve probably knew where he lived. He had grumbled a little bit about how spending the night with a random girl in a Boston hotel room was going to be tough to explain to his girlfriend, but Ash just pinched him hard until he shut up.

  Now it was nearly noon, with the sunlight peeking through the hotel room blinds. While Ash did research on her laptop, Modo was out cold on the scratchy twin-size bed, lying on his back with his chest rising and falling in bellowing snores. Still, it was the memories of the dream—the vision—she’d experienced last night that dominated her thoughts.

  Memories from her previous lives had bled into her dreams before; it was a curse thrust upon her by Colt weeks ago. After nights spent dreaming of her last incarnation in the 1920s and 1930s, her restless brain had apparently moved on to the life before that one. It had been strange inhabiting the brain of Pele and knowing now that the volcano goddess wasn’t just her, but a composite of all three Wilde sisters.

  Still, the vision left Ash perplexed. Ash had trusted the Cloak, who insisted that they’d split Pele into three goddesses because she’d proven to be too volatile and dangerous as one entity . . . but the Pele in her dream didn’t seem so bad, did she? A bit impetuous, a bit quick to anger, but she’d mostly been concerned with protecting Colt.