The blinding sun, the blazing fire, the gibbering hungry creatures at his heels—his senses were overwhelmed, all ability to navigate lost. Some Hawaiian-born instinct screamed inside him: run from the mountains, from the haunted inland, run to the safety of the sea. All he could do was put one foot in front of the other. A twinge of shame, that he’d lost the line to Kalani so easily, but now he knew this was a fool’s quest and had been all along. He should have just let Kalani die. Why couldn’t he just let him die?
A stream ran down the slope, but instead of leaping over it, Ori veered left to follow its path. A vision of his pursuit flashed in the corner of his eye as he turned his head. The maggot man had grown to giant size, running slowly but with ground-eating paces, and his tongue lolled at his knees. The stream. The sea. There is safety in the sea.
He ran along the stream, ran into a bamboo grove, and burst through the other side. Not the sea, a pond, large and deep with symmetry that suggested artificial design. Ori heard the heaving and splitting of massive bamboo stalks and knew he didn’t have much time. Dive into the pool, or turn and fight?
Whatever he decided became entirely irrelevant when a lizard the size of a freight train lunged out of the pool.
Too much. Way too much. The extravagant hostility of this world had reached the tipping point where there was nothing left to do but laugh at his own death. All these fucked-up monsters would have to fight over his bones, he supposed. He closed his eyes and hoped it wouldn’t last long.
The stink of rot and the sound of howling filled the air. He steeled his body in anticipation for pain that never came. Water rushed up to his ankles, bringing a new smell: clean rain and fresh flowers. Ori took a long shivering breath through clenched teeth and opened his eyes.
A woman stood in front of him, the goddess of this place; he knew somehow that the lizard was her other form, but when she smiled, her perfect white teeth flashing against dark bronze skin, the tip of a normal pink tongue showed.
“I just saved you from Ku-Waha-Ilo, the ghastliest god in all Hawai’i,” she said. “Don’t you have any offerings for me? No, of course you don’t.” Her exasperated sigh was as comfortingly human as her tongue. “Why are you here?” Her figure flickered and reappeared even closer, right inside his personal space. She stared into him, her eyes like the depths of the pool she came from, and her palm reached up to cup the side of his face. “You were born here, but your ancestors lie far to the west, far away on other islands. You have no ‘aumakua to guard you. Lucky for you, I’m not the xenophobic type, so I won’t kill you. But I amcurious.”
“Whatever you want…to know. Anything,” Ori gasped out before he had a chance to stop himself. Anxiety and desperation had quickly rushed into the adrenaline-addled place his fear had fled from. “Look, I’m—I’m looking for someone. Kalani. My friend. I killed him. I need to bring him back.”
“Oh! A hero on a quest for redemption!” She jumped back and clapped her hands and smiled even wider. Ori realized she was naked from the waist up except for an ornate shell necklace, and stunningly beautiful, her sensuality hitting him with a strangely maternal force. He wanted to fall into her arms and be rocked to sleep. “I will most definitely aid you. Do you know your friend’s ’aumakua or the name of his spirit’s home?”
“No,” said Ori. The misery in his voice was clear. “Wait—the last time I saw him, he said his home was in the clouds. But there were things chasing him…”
“Kuewa,” she said, solemn like a schoolteacher. She leaned her head to one side, cocked her hip, and adjusted a complicated headdress of cords, beads, and flowers. “They’re the souls that never found their home, condemned to feed on moths and crawling things, forever hungry.”
The sad creatures who’d fallen so ravenously on the maggots. They were people, once. Kalani— “Could my friend, could he become one of them?” He pictured Kalani emaciated and empty-eyed and lost, starving but already dead.
“It happens more and more these days. People keep forgetting the chants, and many ‘aumakua are terrible legalists. Fumble a few syllables, and they’ll drop right you on Ku-Waha-Ilo’s doorstep. I always lead my descendants home, but I can’t speak for your friend. He’s not one of mine. He’s likely gone to Ka’ena Point, but he won’t get through without help. There’s a guardian set there.” She raised her hand above her head, and Ori flinched instinctively. A white spear burst out of the lake and fell into her palm in a graceful arc. “Take this fishing spear. The shark people will know to stay clear of you, and it’s a good weapon on land, as well.”
“I thought this place was hell,” he said as he accepted the spear from her hands. “Then you came along and you just… Thank you. Will you show me how to get there?”
“I’ll do better than that, my hero from the western islands. I hope you can swim!”
* * * *
She wasn’t kidding. Even seasoned surfers gave Yokohama Bay, underneath Ka’ena Point, respect. Here the waves were frequent and choppy, rolling out as thick, frothy soup and drawing back in deadly fast rip currents. Ori stood watching the furious churning sea, leaning on his spear. What had Kalani said? Like trying to surf in a washing machine. Looking at it now, he could see the comparison was spot-on. Flip the horizon on its side, and he could be looking through the glass front door of a rickety old large-capacity at the Aloha Wash-and-Go.
He thought it would make more sense to travel overland, but from here he could see why he had to swim, Even in the distance he could see the shapes of thousands, millions of kuewa, shifting aimlessly like something out of a zombie movie, crowding the entire overland path to Ka’ena Point. There was no way he could fight his way through them, although his odds of swimming safely weren’t much better. He’d rather drown than be eaten alive, anyway.
That kind of decision summed up his life. His passive, fatalistic, sleepwalking life. Years and years of standing by, waiting, resolving over and over again to let Kalani go, but it was never a resolution at all. It was inertia, fear, cowardice, disguised as sacrifice.
Even as he lashed out against himself, he scanned the ocean, guided by islandborn instincts. There, a rip current running between the two most violent zones—a deceptively calm corridor that would suck him straight out to sea. Its force would diminish past the breakers, and then maybe he could swim behind them.
He tore a strip from his malo—he hadn’t even noticed he’d been wearing one, before—and tied the spear to his arm. The rest of the fabric, he threw aside, not looking behind as he waded in naked.
As the cold crept up his ankles to his thighs and the needles of salt spray shocked his face, something almost like hope rose up in his chest. The ‘aumakua… She’d called him a hero. Nobody’d ever called him that before—at least not when they were looking at him, not just his uniform—and he certainly hadn’t ever felt like one. Even in the Octagon after winning a fight, fist held high, cheered on, he’d known he was hollow inside. But now? Now he was fighting for something real. For Kalani. The one thing in his life worth fighting for, and now this late in the game, he’d finally got the guts to do it.
A ten-footer roared across the rip current and knocked him off his feet. He saw it coming and didn’t waste time struggling for footing; instead he straightened his body, offering no resistance to the water’s grasp. It clawed him under and consumed him. He let it pull him outward into the vastness of the western ocean.
A shift in angle and a flurry of kicks earned him a sip of air. Then under again to travel along this fast, cold road. Growling thunder sounded through the water, a noise louder and wilder than he’d ever heard before, although it struck a familiar chord. The rainmaker clatter of the stones—the music that swelled as Kalani came to him. When he opened his eyes to peer downward through the sting of salt, he saw with terrifying clarity that the thunder came from boulders the size of cars being dragged back and forth across the rocky ocean floor. If he broke away from the rip current, he’d face the full fury of those waves.
The thunder died as the floor dropped away. When he surfaced fully again, he was already far from shore. A mile, maybe, which meant he was halfway there. The waves had calmed into high rolling swells, out here in deep water, and he rode them floating on his back or treading water as he tried to get his bearings. A curving-outward course to Ka’ena Point seemed the best route. He kicked out for the Point and swam, slipping into a mental state of frozen efficiency, adrenaline present but suppressed: body memories of the long nights he’d spent patrolling IED-strewn Iraqi roads.
Then he saw the shark fin.
He’d never had a run-in with sharks before, not like Kalani, anyway, but he knew that most would pass humans by, even when they were big enough to—how big was this one? He ducked his head down, opened his eyes, noticed that the sting hurt less and yes, he could see through the dim blue, through the shimmering curtains of sunlight and Jesus it was fucking monstrous. Bigger than Jaws. Way bigger. Bigger than that B-movie Shark Attack 3 they’d watched when they got high sometimes. Staring into the water, hypnotized by the undulating movements of the shark’s body, he remembered Kalani on the couch, whooping out big bellows of smoke as he repeated over and over again “I’m wired—I’m w-wired—”
Ori never should have let him go. Well, this time he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Never again.
The shark turned its massive head—Ori was beyond all fear now, armored in memory—and drew the flesh of its snout away from its teeth so that they flashed longer and whiter. Bone-clean white like the short spear lashed to his arm. Kahalaopuna’s exhusband waited years to deny her resurrection. Stories swirled, unceasing. Was this Jonathan? Then it dived, still grinning, down to where the sunlight died, shrinking into a little toy version of itself until Ori broke the surface to gasp for air and curse. No. His story meant nothing to that creature, and he was glad of it.
He slowed his breathing, slowed his heartbeat, slowed the bleed of precious body warmth. Kept his strokes even despite the weight of the spear. Ka’ena Point rose higher from the horizon. He couldn’t stop himself from looking down into the water one more time and thought he saw something glimmering far below. Hints of coral spires. The light of other sapphire suns shining over an underwater afterworld. Not Kalani’s land— his home was in the clouds. Keep swimming.
The waves rose higher. Faster. The lip of a swell lifted into the air and curled in on itself, a little whitecap that warned of death. These waves were too fast to bodysurf and too massive to swim under and it was too late to turn back, but that was all right, because Ori felt fresh and forgiven and cleansed by the water of his home and he wasn’t far from Kalani. He could die here, die there, die a million times and nothing would change what he felt right now, nothing, not even the geologic ages that wore down islands and birthed them anew out of fire.
Halfway up the next wave, he found himself stroking almost vertically, clinging to a wall of water. He looked upward to the sun, grasped at it— The wave broke and hurled him down a hard thirty feet. He struck the water like a rag doll, like raw meat, every limb mangled and singing with pain. His fading strength fled him.
He sank down, down uncountable body lengths, was hammered down and down by the weight of the water until he lost all sense of direction. Everything lit up like fireworks. A million suns. Where was the sun? He opened his mouth to breathe and inhaled horrible burning salt water. Please, just let him wash ashore.
No, he’d rather the shark have him than the poor kuewa.
Oh Kalani.
Chapter Eleven
2001 All around him, ghosts moaned in their eternal sadness. No. It’s just the wind in the caves. Ori balled his hands into fists and lifted his chin. The low mouth of the sea cave was craggy and littered with equal parts flower offerings and graffiti.
“Kalani!” he called, afraid to yell too loud. They weren’t supposed to go in farther than where the offerings stopped, that was what Auntie Anela said. It was dangerous. The whole thing could fall in on your head, maybe, or be flooded with water, or you could get lost, or there could be…other things.
Ori wasn’t sure if he believed the stories of the hungry shark-man, but some of the other kids did, and he wasn’t about to make a bet on his disbelief.
“Kalani!” Echoes of dripping water called back to him. Kalani could be anywhere. He knew by hearsay that there were miles of small tunnels all branching out, not all of them passable. Like a network of veins under Oahu’s surface, and Kaneana cave itself was its heart. Kalani could have strayed into one and gotten too scared to move. Or he could be wedged into a tight space, trapped. Or he could be lost in the dark, wandering around the same corridors over and over again, always taking the wrong turn.
Ori toed out of his rubber slippers, put his head down, and barreled in. Inside it was damp and cold, and the light quickly dwindled to the point that Ori had to feel along the lichen-slick wall for guidance. He should have gone back for a flashlight, but then Anela would know where Kalani had gone, and he’d be in more trouble than he already was, or the older kids would tease Ori for being scared, or in the time it took to return to the house, Kalani could be lost, or crushed, or drowned, or eaten, and he’d lose his best friend in the whole world and it would all be his fault.
Silence. He’d lost the sound of the sea. Where was he? “Help,” he tried to shout, but the fear rose up in his throat, and the word was a choked whisper, too quiet to even echo. Instead, it was like the cave turned his voice into that droning hum of trapped wind, like the deeper he went, the more he turned into a ghost of this place. Maybe Kalani had already transformed; maybe his answering calls were now the rhythmic sourceless dripping sounds.
“Ho brah, what boddah you?” A warm yellow circle of light enfolded him. “You should have brought a flashlight like me.” Kalani’s voice. Ori’s terror turned instantly to annoyance. He curled his toes, gripping the rocky floor, and peered down the beam of light to where Kalani sat half sprawled on a flat-topped boulder. Completely unharmed, smiling without a care in the world.
He suddenly felt ashamed of worrying so much. This was Kalani’s home turf. Of course he could navigate these tunnels fearlessly, shark-man or no. “I was just… I…” He shifted his toes, digging them into crevices. He noticed the redness of Kalani’s eyes, the tiny tremble at the corner of his big dopey smile. “You okay, brah?”
“I was looking for them. I never got to say good-bye to my mom. There’s nothing here. It’s all dark. They say this place is full of spirits, but they won’t talk to me. I’m stupid for trying.” Kalani hugged himself. The light wavered and left Ori in shadow.
“Hey, I’m the stupid one who ran in here without a flashlight. Help me out?” “Yeah,” said Kalani. “I guess you’re a dumb-ass too. Mahalo. Mahalo for coming after me.”
Kalani lit their way back to the sea and sunlight.
* * * *
2011 Ori awoke to the hypnotizing sensation of warm water lapping gently against his body. The pain followed quick on its heels. He was in the shallows, somewhere. Driftwood, beach glass. His forehead had cratered into the sand.
He tried to pull himself up, but screaming pain shot up and down his arms, and his elbows wobbled like a garden hose. He crashed back down, grateful that at least the beach wasn’t quite all rock where he’d landed.
He was alive.
Dead.
Alive.
Alive-dead.
He didn’t even know anymore. Closer to Kalani, hopefully. That was all that mattered. He tried his shoulders again. He felt like a sponge soaked through with pain, but at least he could move.
He’d washed up on the tip of a lowland triangle, bounded by ocean on two sides and a steep cliff on the other. A strangely peaceful landscape, all rolling dunes and patches of lush, low green. The sounds of a violent ocean echoed all around. No kuewa that he could see. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Seaward, a monk seal flashed shy brown eyes at Ori, then slipped between two rocks and back into the roiling wa
ter.
He’d been to Ka’ena Point before, and this supernatural version didn’t seem too different. He staggered to his knees and tried to orient himself. Over there was the sacred rock, the jumping-off point for the spirits. Legend was, the god Maui, the one who fished up the islands from the bottom of the ocean, had pulled the rock all the way from Kauai with his magic fishhook. There was another odd rock formation not far away, a rough pillar thrust up diagonally into the sky, about thirty feet high, maybe sixty feet long. Now that one he didn’t remember.
The strips of cloth lashing the spear to his arm had held, but they were cutting into him now as they dried in the sun. He untied them with shaking fingers and used the spear to help lever himself to his feet. There was nothing to fight, after all. This land was empty.
“Kalani!”
He cupped his hands in front of his mouth, drew a deep breath, and roared over the crash of waves. “Kalani!” God, don’t let him have passed on already. No, that was selfish. Let him have passed on, rather than be lost somewhere on this dreamworld island, his body torn to shreds by the cannibal-hungry kuewa. Maybe there hadn’t been an ‘aumakua to help him. No. He had to still be on his way. Fighting through the waves, maybe, or slugging through the wilderness overland.
“Ori! Get the fuck down!” Kalani’s voice. Kalani’s face—half of it—at least, peering out from a behind a jagged volcanic boulder.
He wanted to call Kalani’s name, but instead he just yelled, “What? Wh—”
“Get down and crawl over here or we’re both gonna die. Ori, come on, come on, please.” Ori twisted, searching. Behind him, the huge stone pillar that stood rigid before, a sentinel to the sacred rock, suddenly undulated and reared up, splaying stunted—but still massive—legs. Survival instincts kicked in, maybe too late, but he didn’t waste time trying to make sense of the impossible geometry, just threw himself to the ground and executed a drill-perfect low crawl over the stretch of rocky sand that separated him from Kalani’s boulder, clenching his spear in one hand as he went.
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