Downstairs, she found another food tray by the front door. She groaned inwardly when she saw that rock bread had been included again. Judging from the number of slices on the plate, Auntie Kate must have decided that Angie actually liked the stuff.
“Thank you, Katie,” she said to the empty room. There was a slight movement behind the louvers to the pantry. “The house looks beautiful. You've done a good job taking care of it. Mrs. Pukui would be pleased.” The movement stopped, but the louvers did not snap closed as they had when she had looked that way the previous day.
After establishing that the cleanup and disposal of the destroyed algae was under way, and that there was nothing she could do to assist, Angie carried the food outside. Sure that Katie would be watching, she forced down a slice of rock bread, then stuffed mountain apples into her pockets to eat while she explored the grounds around the house.
It was amazingly comfortable, this home compound of the Pukui family. Pua's parents had obviously cared a great deal about it, for it was designed for beauty and comfort as well as for convenience. Even the farm control shed, which was not a shed at all, but a modern, fully equipped laboratory and office, was aesthetically pleasing. It sat adjacent to the main house overlooking the lagoon and was constructed from the same multicolored local woods.
The lawn surrounding the house and its various outbuildings was a perfect two-inch-deep mat. She could see no signs of recent mowing, but it couldn't have been done too long before her arrival. Pua had told her that things regenerated fast on Lasaat, and after examining the fine tips of the neatly cut grass, she believed it.
A garden at the back of the house held both flowers and food plants—in some cases, Angie wasn't sure which was which—and fruit and flower trees were scattered across the back lawn. A waist-high hedge of brilliant scarlet leaves separated the compound from the surrounding jungle.
After a time, Angie turned her look toward Mauna Kea Iki's distant summit. She peeled and ate a pair of mountain apples, then pushed through the hedge and began to climb.
It was much more difficult than she expected. The slope was gradual enough, but the terrain was tortuous. Deep cracks and abrupt outcroppings of stone appeared as if from nowhere. The ground and trees and bushes were thickly tangled with vines. One kind, in particular, seemed to cling to Angie's boots whenever she paused.
Slick, wet leaves, some of them as large as she was, slid along her arms and legs as she pushed through the thick foliage. She ducked under ferns as high as trees. She had been in jungles before, but none quite so voracious as this. She kicked a clinging vine from her boot and doggedly climbed on.
“Like being in a bloody time machine,” she muttered as she tripped over the rotting corpse of some long-dead tree. At least, it appeared to have been a tree. She shuddered at the twisting, hairlike growth that undulated slowly across the fallen log. It reminded her of Pua's door mat. A featherlike plant, which for the want of better classification she labeled a fern, stiffened and turned away as she spoke.
“A broken time machine,” Angie added, and was astonished when the fern turned quickly back. She bent down to examine it.
“Do you speak as well as you hear?” she asked. The plant shivered and exuded a fine spray of orange pollen. Angie jumped back quickly. An orange stain spread over the toes of her boots.
“Well, spit on you, too,” she said and moved cautiously away. The plant reminded her of Crawley.
Near the top of a steep rise—which must, she assured herself, be near the top of this fireloving hill—she stopped to wipe her arm across her forehead. “Perspiration,” Nori had always called it. “Sweat,” she said decisively as she caught a whiff of her shirt. Her sleeve was already soaked and did little to dry her face. She wished she had Yoshida here now. She'd show him a thing or two about perspiration.
The climb directly ahead was almost vertical, one of the few almost-bare rocky spots she had encountered. The stone was wet, as everything in the jungle was, and it was patched with glistening gray splotches that Angie did not trust at all. She reached for a low-hanging branch and pulled herself into a nearby tree.
Her fingers wrapped easily around the broad, smooth branches. Their slight suction created a surprisingly firm grip, and Angie pulled herself up quickly—faster than she ever could have with her old hands. She pushed the thought away angrily. She was using these hands because she had to, but she'd be damned if she was going to start liking them.
The tree's wide leaves hid her view of the upper slope, but when she had climbed as high as the ridge, she spied a level open ledge covered in what looked like gray-green grass. She climbed slightly higher, then crawled as far as she could onto a thick branch, and jumped. The ground covering lay over firm ground, and she landed with only a slight stumble.
“What're you doing, anyway?”
Angie jumped. She spun around to see Pua near the edge of the ledge, sitting cross-legged on a velvety black lump that might or might not have been a stone. She had a woven band around her forehead, and fringes of moss around her wrists and ankles. A strand of golden yellow shells glinted at her neck.
“Where did you come from?” Angie gasped.
“I was on the path. I heard somebody crashing around over here and came to see what was happening. What are you doing?”
Angie stared. She wiped her uselessly wet sleeve over her face again. “There's a path up this jungle-eaten hill?”
Pua's expression changed from curious to incredulous. She giggled.
Angie groaned. Every muscle in her body ached. She couldn't remember a time when she had felt stickier. She dropped to the ground and lay on her back, spread-eagled on the spongelike ground covering. “Why didn't you tell me there was a path?”
“You never asked,” Pua said, laughing even harder. “There are paths all over the island. How did you think we got around?”
Angie had been away from the land too long. She had needed to touch the earth, even if it was an alien earth. She had needed a physical and emotional time-out from the chaos of her recent human interactions. I didn't think at all, she thought. The mountain was here, so I climbed it. The moss, or whatever it was beneath her, was so soft it felt as if it were massaging her back. She sighed, and relaxed into its cool caress.
“Your hands were working pretty good there in the tree,” Pua said. Her voice was still filled with laughter. Angie was amazed at the difference in the girl since her arrival back at Pukui. It was as if the place itself was slowly filling that terrible emptiness she had tried so hard to hide back at the recon station.
Angie took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “This is one of the damnedest mountains I've ever climbed,” she said. “Are we anywhere near the top?”
“I hope so,” Pua said very softly.
Angie rolled over. Pua's expression had grown serious, but at Angie's questioning look, her good humor returned.
“Oh, you mean this mountain! We're already at the top of Mauna Kea Iki. See the snow?” She pointed over Angie's shoulder, and Angie noticed for the first time that she was no longer completely surrounded by jungle. The ledge they were on ran in both directions around the curve of the hill, providing a break between the tops of the jungle foliage and a stand of brilliant white trees.
She sat up, staring. The shimmering, translucent foliage, reflecting the bright sunlight, had a startling resemblance to snow. “It's amazing,” she said. “If it wasn't so hot, it would almost seem real.”
“It gets cold up here at night,” Pua said.
Angie laughed. “You don't know cold, girl.” She pushed herself to her feet, twisted her neck to relieve a kink in her shoulder, and walked toward the white trees. Small circular leaves—like aspen, she thought, only not really—shifted and whispered as they turned in the steady breeze. The trunks, thick and smooth, entirely unlike aspen, stretched well over twenty meters.
Angie ducked under a wide branch. The temperature dropped by at least ten degrees. Strangely, the shade was bright a
nd welcoming, totally unlike the ebony shadows of the jungle below. There was no brush, only the smooth, glassy tree trunks rising from the gray-green grass. In places, the soft ground covering had grown up half a meter or more around the broad bases of the trees.
Angie stared around in wonder. “Your mother did this?” she asked.
Pua nodded. “The trees were smaller before. Fatu told me they were scattered all around the island. They got big like this after Mama moved them up here. They like the sun.”
“How do you keep the rest of the jungle from taking them over?”
Pua ran her palms over one of the tree trunks. After a moment, she paused and began picking at the shining wood. Angie laid her own hands on the tree. The bark was warm and moist. She could almost feel the sap moving beneath the smooth bark. A meter above her, the trunk split into three wide branches.
If I were alone, she told the tree silently, I would climb right up there into your heart and stay for about three years. The bark was smooth and welcoming under her hands.
“I don't know how Mama did it in the beginning, when the trees were small,” Pua said. She had dug deep into the tree. “But now, all we have to do is keep the moat happy. That's what we call the open area around the summit.”
Angie looked back to the place where she had first found Pua. “What kind of plant is this ground covering, anyway? A grass of some sort?” She could still feel its spongy warmth caressing her tired back.
Pua leaned forward to peer at the tree trunk closely. She was digging deep into the wood with her sharp nails. “I think it's more of an animal.”
“What?”
“Well, Matt's always seemed more like an animal than a plant to me. He might be both, though. Dad said that was possible.”
“Who, or what, is Matt?”
Pua looked up at her. “The door mat. You know, the one you've been so careful not to step on? He's a piece of moat grass.”
A soft, splitting sound drew both their looks back to the tree. To Angie's astonishment, a deep crack had opened in the shining wood. Pua laughed, and poked one long finger into the upper end of the crack. A small white bead rolled into her waiting palm. She grinned and held it up to catch the light.
“What is that?” Angie asked. It looked like a natural pearl, irregularly round and iridescent.
“Dad said they were just gobs of hardened tree sap, but Mama called them snowballs,” Pua said. “They melt if they get too warm, just like the Earth kind.”
Angie held her hand very still as Pua placed the marble-sized gem in her palm. It felt like jade against her hot skin. It wasn't really cold enough to be mistaken for snow.
Pua began carefully rubbing the edges of the hole. The wood responded visibly, creaking slightly as it began to press closed. After a few moments, there was only a slight indentation at the place where the hole had been. Pua ran her fingers over the small roughness her digging had caused. It smoothed as easily as if it had been wet clay.
“The trees only open for people they like,” Pua said.
“How did you know where to start digging?” Angie asked. She had seen nothing unusual about the place where Pua had first started picking at the wood.
“I felt for it,” Pua said. “With my hands. My mama showed me how.” She glanced down at the snowball in Angie's hand. Angie handed it back to her.
“I used to have lots,” Pua said, “but Katie hid them while I was gone.” She smiled slightly. “She doesn't like snowballs in the house, ‘cause when they melt, they make a mess. If you don't find them in time, the sap eats right through whatever it's lying on, especially if it's plastic. Once I left a bunch of softened ones on Fatu's best fishing nets.” She giggled. “He made me tie him a whole new set.”
She motioned Angie back out from under the trees. Angie tried to walk lightly. She glanced behind at where their footsteps had disturbed the shivering grass. “It looks like water,” she said.
“That's why it's called moat grass,” Pua replied. She ran ahead, scuffing her feet across the ground to set the grass moving. “It likes to be tickled,” she called. The grass burped softly in several places. Angie was glad she was wearing boots.
“Do you ever climb the snow trees?” she asked when Pua rejoined her.
“No,” Pua said quickly.
Angie decided to let the lie pass. Lehua Pukui might not be on the mountain in person anymore, but she certainly was in spirit, most strongly here at the summit. If the girl didn't want her mother to know she climbed her special trees, Angie wasn't going to be the one to reveal her secret.
I'm thinking like a mountain woman again, she realized suddenly, talking to the trees and actually listening for answers. She laughed silently. It was good to feel strong and healthy again, not just in her altered body, but in her spirit.
“Why are you smiling?” Pua asked.
Angie blinked. “Sorry. This place makes me feel...” She shrugged. “I guess I just went back home there for a minute.”
Pua glanced toward the snow trees. “I used to do that sometimes, back at the recon station.”
They circled the hillock of snow trees until they reached a narrow but easily recognizable trail leading downhill. Angie shook her head in disbelief, took one last look at the magical summit, and started down.
The trip took a quarter of the time it had taken her to climb up. Even so, she was drenched again by the time they reached the edge of a freshwater pool not far from the main house. Angie could see the roofline through the trees.
“There's a soap bush over there by the side.” Pua pointed to a low bush hanging over the water. Coal-black berries grew in small clusters at the ends of leafless boughs. She pulled off her shirt, grabbed a handful of berries, and walked into the water. “It's kind of cold.”
“Where does the water come from?” Angie asked. This was not exactly the carefree bathtub she'd had in mind. She crossed her arms.
“Underground,” Pua said. “It seeps up through the sandy bottom. There's lots of fresh water trapped in caves and tunnels under the island. The rain up on the mountain keeps them full, and the pressure pushes the water up here.”
She turned back. Angie saw awareness touch her eyes. “It's not deep. You can stand up everyplace but in the middle, and the overflow stream stays on the surface from here down to the lagoon.”
I have to do it sometime, Angie thought. She pulled off her boots and trousers, but left her shirt on as she followed Pua into the pool. The water was not nearly as cold as the glacier-spawned waters of the last such pool she had been in. Still, it was not warm. Goose bumps lifted along her arms.
“It feels wonderful,” she said. She sank to her shoulders, shivering the whole way. She pulled off her shirt, scrubbed it for a moment in the clear water, then let it drift beside her.
Pua handed her the berries.
At Angie's puzzled look, she took them back, pierced each one with a nail, then rubbed the released juice into a bloody-red froth. A pungent, fruity smell stung Angie's nostrils. The underlying fragrance was familiar.
Pua handed the froth to Angie. “Just rub it on,” she said. “It should be enough. But you can use more if you need it.”
Angie considered Pua's offering dubiously, but decided nothing could be worse than the current slimy feel of her skin. She rubbed the soap along her arms. It acted more like a sponge than a handful of bubbles. It held roughly together even under the water.
“There's a bush like this in your folks’ bedroom,” Angie said. “Is it the same thing?”
Pua tensed, but recovered quickly. She obviously did not want Angie snooping around in her parents’ room. She shook her head. “That's a candleberry bush.”
“They look alike. What's the difference?” Angie asked. She scrubbed what was left of the slowly disintegrating soap over her face and hair.
“This one tastes like soap,” Pua said. The moss around her wrists had coiled tightly against her skin.
“Ugh,” Angie agreed. She quickly rinsed her
face clean. As she leaned back to dunk her hair, her fingers brushed across feathery protuberances on each side of her neck. She caught her breath and jerked her hands away.
“It's just your gills,” Pua said. “They were starting to open.”
Angie closed her eyes and counted. For an instant she found it impossible to breathe. Then she reached up again to run her fingers down the slick edges of the gills. They had closed again, sealed tight to her skin. That touch, she could tolerate. She had practiced it over and over again on the ship. This was the first time she'd had more than a shower to get the gills wet.
“They only flare fully when they're completely submerged,” Pua went on. “Your lungs won't close until your face is in the water.”
Angie took a deep breath.
“What happened to you, anyway? What made you afraid of the water?” Pua asked.
“I'm not afraid,” Angie said. “I'm just—” Pua's lifted brows stopped her. “Oh, all right. I'm terrified. Not of the water itself, but of being caught underneath it.”
Again Pua said nothing. She remained motionless in the gently moving water. By training or by nature? Angie wondered. How does she know so well how to broadcast calm? A small yellow insect landed on Pua's cheek. She lifted it off with her fingertips, inspected it casually, then put it into her mouth. Angie shivered.
“I was leading a white-water rafting tour,” she said. “About a year ago. One of my passengers went overboard and panicked. I went in after him. I got him out, but I got caught in a deepwater current and was sucked into an underground channel.”
Pua remained still, entirely noncommittal.
“I didn't have gills then, Pua.”
Abruptly, Pua's eyes widened. Her lips parted, and her hands lifted to her neck. “What happened?” Her voice mirrored Angie's own inner horror at remembering the dark suffocation. “How did you get out?”
“The channel surfaced about a quarter of a mile downriver. The search crew found me there. They managed to get my heart going and get me breathing again.”
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