Fire Maiden

by Terri Farley

  Darby stopped listening and turned back. She broke into a jog as she spotted her own pack.

  An explosion knocked her off her feet. The earth beneath her pitched. Was it an earthquake? Gas igniting? Magma churning up and overflowing the volcano’s top?

  Navigator reared, and it was a good thing he did.

  A boulder the size of a beach ball whizzed through the night to land right where Darby had been standing, right where Navigator’s front hooves had been, and fire flew behind it. Flames sprung up like golden dancers, following as the boulder rolled downhill.

  The flames between Darby and Ann were only a foot high. Darby started to go around, but downhill, there was no path through, so she turned up the slope and ran, trying to reach the ground above the boulder’s landing.

  Clapping her heels to the frantic Navigator’s ribs, Ann rode to meet her.

  More quickly than the horse, fire fanned out between them, wide as a car, and Navigator shied away, with sparks burning in his mane.

  “Your hair!” Ann screamed.

  For an instant, Darby could only see the firefly orange in Navigator’s black mane, but then she heard sizzling. She clapped her hands to her own head. The spark only burned for an instant. And then she heard a neigh—not Navigator’s—and the earth rumbled beneath her again, but not from the volcano.

  A horse galloped through the smoke on her side of the fire, coming toward her.

  Ann was screaming again, but Darby couldn’t hear what she said.

  Oh, no! Darby grabbed her stomach as if she’d been punched.

  “Hoku!” The name burst from her before she could stop it.

  Copper and cream, the filly ran toward her and then faltered as a wave of either smoke or ash swirled between them. She reared, trying to see over, and the tangerine-and-white lead rope dangled between her forelegs.

  Why had Hoku come back to her? Safety lay downhill, away from this inferno.

  “—tube!” Ann cried out.

  At last Darby understood. They were divided by a widening wall of flame, but there were escape routes on each side. Ann and Navigator could make it to the road at the foot of the volcanic slope. With luck, that’s what Megan had done.

  Darby and Hoku, if they were very lucky, might make it through the lava tube, down to the beach near Sun House.

  “Got it!” Darby shrieked, and she gulped back a laugh that became a cough.

  Ann raised her hand, leaned low on Navigator’s neck, and rode him down the slope.

  Hoku circled Darby at a trot. The filly’s eyes rolled white, staring at the fire, then focused on Darby as she tightened her bedraggled ponytail.

  Hoku stopped. She nudged Darby’s shoulder where the spark had burned through her hair. The mustang stared with confused intensity at her human.

  “C’mon, girl.” Darby tried to sound chipper, but she coughed again. Her asthma-scarred lungs fought the volcanic vapors. “Hoku, I’m just ripping off a piece of my T-shirt for a mask. Shh, girl,” Darby soothed. “I’m no mouthless monster, just me. You know if I don’t do it now, later might be too late.”

  Darby knotted the cloth over her nose and mouth. Her eyes never left her horse.

  From ears to nostrils, the filly vibrated with fear. She looked down the slope, knowing that Navigator, Biscuit, and Sugarfoot were down there, though she couldn’t possibly see the other horses. And then she walked to Darby.

  Darby caught the lead rope, thankful beyond words that it was still there; that her horse was, for the moment, safe; and for the lava tube. She was pretty sure she could find it. There was a path, after all, and the fire cast plenty of light. She wouldn’t get the flashlight from her pack until she needed it. Otherwise there was a chance she’d drop it, and she might not find her way through the lava tube in sheer darkness.

  Lava. Squinting through the smoke, she saw it. A bright brass-colored snake of the burbling, hot liquid, edged in black, crawled toward them.

  Mr. Silva had said that when lava cascaded down, the crater walls caved in and the lava flow slowed, then actually helped seal walls from outside with its overflow. She’d seen something like that once today. Maybe it was happening again.

  Or maybe not. She couldn’t assume that the brass-colored snake, which had broadened into a searing rope streaked with orange, would stop before it got to her. If it didn’t, it would cut off her path to the lava tube, her last chance of escape.

  Darby jogged as fast as she could. Even with her cloth mask, the air was like a hot, wet washcloth held against her face. She could barely breathe.

  Hoku followed with total obedience, head bobbing as she trotted behind. Every now and then her hooves clipped the back of Darby’s thick-soled boots, but she made no move to outpace the girl.

  She wants to stay near me. She trusts me, but oh, she has no reason to—I have no idea what I’m doing, Darby thought.

  “We’ve got to beat that river,” Darby told her horse, because that’s what the orange-red lava stream had turned into. It spread thicker by the minute. Sparse grass and ohia trees ignited all around it, and it roared as it came.

  Roaring. Lions’ paws.

  When Darby stopped to make the biggest decision of her life, Hoku moved alongside her, nudged her, and blew grainy breath down her neck.

  Was Hoku telling her a secret, saying it was okay to ride her, to gallop from the lions’ paws to the lava tube, outrunning Pele’s fire?

  Darby didn’t turn to face her horse. She just reached up and touched the cheek alongside her own.

  Can I do it?

  In Nevada, she’d lain in the snow with the wild filly and talked her back from the brink of death. Instead of closing her dulled eyes and tumbling into darkness, Hoku had listened.

  And tried.

  And won.

  Darby turned now and looked into her filly’s golden face.

  “Can you do it, girl? Can you carry me on your back?”

  She led Hoku alongside the lions’ paws. If the horse bolted while facing this direction, she’d be headed toward the mouth of the lava tube.

  Holding the lead rope, Darby looked up to see lava smoking and crawling toward her. It was fire-edged now, an orange-red ribbon with flashes of gold and black. And hot. She and Hoku both dripped with sweat.

  “It’s time, baby girl,” Darby said, and then she took a long step, climbing up onto the lava-rock lions’ paws. Holding her breath, Darby eased her left leg slowly, inch by inch, over the filly’s back.

  Yes, the first time she got on her horse she did it backward, mounting from the right side. Just like the first time she’d mounted Navigator. If she told Jonah, she knew what he’d say. Who told you it was wrong, the horse?

  Hoku’s sleek, golden back hummed with energy. Darby felt the filly pondering this sudden change. It was familiar, but different. This time it didn’t hurt. This time, it was comfort, not fear, which flowed into her from her rider.

  Darby would have given her filly another minute to get used to carrying her, but Hoku’s ribs flared beneath Darby’s knees and a cough shook the horse. With a nervous glance at the lava, Hoku struck out, pawing with one forefoot.

  “Let’s get out of here, girl,” Darby whispered, and leaned forward.

  The filly took a tentative step, and then another and another. Each move was more sure, until she swung into a trot.

  Please don’t let me fall, Darby begged the stars overhead. Please let me find the lava tunnel. Please let us get home safely.

  A cool breeze swept over them as they ran out of the lava’s path and Hoku celebrated with a lope. Her hooves pelted grass and stone. Her legs swung strong and golden, forward and back, head level, belly almost skimming the ground, as if she knew exactly where she was going.

  In the volcano’s glare, Darby could barely make out Hoku’s ears, hidden in the mane that rose and fell like creamy wave crests.

  We can do this, Darby thought. Body balanced, hands wrapped in Hoku’s mane, face pressed to her filly’s neck, she felt
like a centaur, half girl and half horse.

  Just then, Darby heard tinkling beneath Hoku’s hooves. The path was black among strands of silver. Tinkling, crackling, shattering. Pele’s hair?

  The filly slowed to a trot, then a walk. They were at the entrance to the lava tube, home free, if only she could get the flashlight from her backpack. Safe, if Hoku would go inside.

  The filly neighed into the lava tube. The sound echoed. Hoku pawed at the hardened lava, trusting wild instincts that told her to keep going.

  But why? It was unnatural for a wild horse to go into a dark, confined place. Counterintuitive, that was the word, Darby thought.

  She felt dizzy and her mind spun. She was more at home in a world of words than here, trapped between a dangerous channel to the sea and blazing death.

  Maybe wild horses had hidden here before and Hoku could smell them. Maybe Pele ran as a golden spirit within her filly. Maybe stars were the eyes of heaven, of ancestors who wanted Darby and Hoku to survive.

  Darby fought for the advice of her logical mind. Should she ride in, or risk climbing off, get the flashlight from her backpack and walk? Get the flashlight and ride in?

  The lava tube had a twelve-foot ceiling, isn’t that what Megan had said?

  Megan’s face bobbed up in her mind. And then Ann’s. And what if Jonah and the hands were out looking for her on the volcanic slope, amid all that fire and lava? No, Ann knew. She’d tell them Darby had gone through the lava tube. If Ann was okay.

  Please let them be safe.

  She left the flashlight in her backpack. If she dropped it, her horse could spook, whirl, and run the other way.

  And she stayed on Hoku’s back. Rather than risk falling from Hoku as she dismounted, she leaned forward and Hoku entered the lava tube as if she’d been there a million times before.

  It was wet inside the tube—wetter than before. Darby could smell the moisture, and when Hoku stopped to lick the water from the stone walls, she touched them.

  Shaking from the sudden change in temperature, she rode on.

  Hoku’s hoofbeats echoed all around her.

  Something crawled across her brow! Was it a spider? Darby struck at it. A plant. A little tendril of root had made its way through the stone ceiling, looking for water.

  The idea was only poignant for a second.

  If a root could come through, so could liquid rock. Lava could drip down and burn them both.

  Darby clucked, riding faster into the darkness.

  What was that? Darby heard something behind them.

  So did Hoku. The filly turned around of her own volition. She was either breathing hard or sucking in an unfamiliar scent.

  It was probably just water dripping, Darby told herself.

  “Back the other way, there’s a beach,” Darby murmured, trying to turn her horse with her knees. “You can run on the beach. You can swim. Keep going, girl.”

  Was lava oozing after her like a steady, red-hot boa constrictor?

  She heard something else. Not lava. It sounded like a hammer shattering china dishes. And then a snort. Like Navigator?

  At last, Darby knew she had to risk getting out her flashlight. Even if Hoku threw her here, they were safer than before.

  She grappled for her pack. As she did, she realized there was a comfort in darkness. When she couldn’t see, there were fewer things to fear.

  But now, everything happened at once. Her fingers closed around her flashlight. She heard a snick of sound like a flashlight clicking on, but she hadn’t done that yet. Darby lost her grip on her backpack. It hit the filly’s legs on the way down and Hoku bolted as Darby flicked on the flashlight.

  The beam surrounding her couldn’t have been warm, but Darby imagined it was.

  “Darby!” Ann’s voice was a celebration, and then a gasp. “Oh my gosh, you’re riding Hoku!”

  All at once, the lava tube was crowded with white horses.

  Ash, Darby thought. Ann’s red hair was gray with it and she rode a pale Navigator with white Sugarfoot charging alongside.

  Biscuit’s black mane was powdered white as he pushed past the other horses to reach Hoku.

  Biscuit was gliding his neck over Hoku’s when Megan leaned over to shake Darby’s shoulder. An ash cloud billowed off Darby’s clothes and surrounded them, but it really didn’t matter.

  “Sister!” Megan said. Her voice spiraled high in joy, then broke into laughter as she took in Darby, mounted on Hoku. “The trouble some people will go to, to keep a secret!”

  Chapter 19

  “It’s okay, girl!” Darby gasped.

  With the greetings over, Hoku suddenly felt cramped. She lashed out a hind hoof and it struck the lava tube’s wall.

  “You’re doing so well. No one means to scare you.”

  “Boy, this is a day to remember,” Ann said.

  Darby nodded.

  The first day she’d ridden Hoku….

  Darby knew she would never have forgotten it anyway, but she wished the volcano hadn’t made it quite so memorable.

  Hoku rocked backward in a half-rear and Darby ducked, holding tight to her horse’s neck.

  “I think I’ll get off and lead her,” Darby said as Hoku came back down to all four hooves.

  “I think that would get you trampled,” Megan said.

  In the crazy flashlight shadows, Darby realized the hammer she’d heard destroying china plates had actually been those twelve hooves clattering on the lava stone.

  “It’s not that far to the beach,” Ann said. “Listen.”

  Darby held her breath until she heard the same sound she’d listened to by holding a seashell to her ear. The beach was out there, and Jonah had said Sun House could be sighted from that beach.

  “The mask’s a good idea,” Megan interrupted. “Don’t take it off. When two-thousand-degree lava hits the ocean, it dissolves the salt and makes hydrochloric acid.”

  “Not good for someone with asthma,” Ann tried to joke.

  “Not good for anyone,” Megan said, and the next time she spoke, they were all masked with ripped pieces of clothing.

  It was a relief, and Megan’s voice cut into the waves’ purling, “Will you tell Jonah?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it yet,” Darby said. “I was just thinking we’d better check the horses over as soon as we get out of here. I mean, sparks sizzled my hair and burned a hole in my shirt….”

  Darby stopped chattering, seeing Jonah’s face in smoke just as she’d seen Pele’s.

  “Well, you better think about it,” Megan said. “I don’t mean to sound mean,” she added as Ann whipped around to look at her. “It’s just, I’m sure they’re all out looking for us, and it just makes sense that he’d be the one to come down here.”

  “I don’t think I should tell him yet, or let him see me riding Hoku, until she’s perfect,” Darby said.

  “So, you think you’ll still be riding when you’re ninety?” Ann teased. “Darby, no horse is perfect. Neither are riders.”

  “I know, but he doesn’t think much of mustangs, and she’s not that good around men….”

  “You can count on me to keep your secret, if that’s what you want to do,” Megan said, “but don’t forget he already thought, last week, that she was ready to carry a rider.”

  “Yeah,” Darby said, but Megan hadn’t been there when Jonah had barked I wash my hands of you, just because she’d fallen off Navigator.

  His words had sliced through her like knives.

  If Hoku acted up in front of him…

  Ann clucked and the horses moved forward in the lava tube.

  Darby tried not to think about what would happen if Hoku threw her as Jonah watched. They’d have to prove themselves all over again, and though her filly had the spirit for another test, Darby wasn’t sure she did.

  It somehow felt like forever, but also felt like she’d just ducked into the lava tube when the three girls and four horses emerged from the darkness into a moonlit night of wave
s, stars, and steam hissing and rising into the air.

  Lava flowed into the ocean no more than a quarter mile up the coast from them, and Darby could hear the sea boiling.

  “The wind’s with us,” Megan said, pointing at a huge steam cloud blowing over the sea, not ashore.

  But the horses were staring at the ocean right in front of them. They showed no inclination to gallop into the water.

  “That fizzing and hissing doesn’t belong in the ocean, and they know it,” Ann said as she slid off Navigator’s bare back.

  Darby gave a short laugh as she remembered Jonah saying that he and Kit had determined that Darby shouldn’t waste Hoku’s curiosity. The filly had learned a year’s worth of information about wild Hawaii today.

  Darby’s knees buckled as she slid off her horse, and she ended up holding the rope, sitting in the sand, looking up at Hoku.

  Moonlight painted the star on the filly’s chest, making it brighter than usual. Beyond Hoku, a black shoulder of land showed. Bright lava went gliding into the sea as if Pele had let it flow from her open hand, across her palm, over her fingertips, into the water.

  Pele wasn’t a woman in a red convertible, Darby thought. Pele was nature, both fierce and gentle. We escaped because we didn’t intrude. If we’d been gazing into the crater, it wouldn’t have been like looking into the flames of a campfire. When the eruption came, we would have gone up in flames.

  A sea bird sailed overhead, crying a night song. Despite her morbid thoughts, Darby wanted time to stop. She could stay on the black velvet beach forever, unless the wind shifted.

  Holding each other’s mounts, the girls took off their masks, then rushed through the job of checking the horses for injuries. All of the horses’ manes and the girls’ hair had crispy places where sparks had burned them, and Sugarfoot had a skinned knee.

  “He did that when he made his split-second decision to come back,” Ann guessed.

  Ann’s remark set off a question in Darby’s mind, but she didn’t circle back to it until they’d remounted, ponying Hoku, and they were on their way down the beach, toward the barely visible lights of Sun House.

  “Why did you guys come back uphill? Did you get cut off by fire before you reached the road?” Darby forked her fingers through Navigator’s mane. “Was the road covered with lava or something?” She was straightening the gelding’s reins, trying not to think about the bumps of his backbone, when she noticed the silence.