by Beth Cato
Pele gripped Ingrid by the shoulder to anchor her upright. In her eyes, Ingrid saw compassion and sorrow.
“Your body will never be as it was, but that does not mean that you are not strong.” The raspy words embodied centuries of experience, but Ingrid still wanted to find a way to argue otherwise. Pele smiled and shook her head as she released her hold on Ingrid’s shoulder. “Remember what I said about using the physical form that is best for your needs? This is your best form now. Even if the fox cut off your leg, the ward would hold. It’s part of your breath and flesh.”
“But I . . .”
“We destroy.” Pele crushed the stub of her cigarette against a steel flange. “That’s what our blood is known for. I traveled across the Pacific. I visited each island in turn. I dug in my Pā’oa, and I stayed here. But our kind of destruction is not wanton. When you walked across Kilauea, you saw the bushes, yes?” Ingrid nodded. “Plants begin to grow soon after the lava cools. In a few more decades, centuries, the forest will return. Along the shore, I create land where there was nothing. Out there.” She pointed down the slope. “I cultivate an island that won’t emerge for centuries yet.”
She finished wrapping a new cigarette and lit it with a spark sent from her lips. “Of course, you’re human. You don’t think on the scale of centuries. You’re impatient after mere minutes of listening to me speak.” She grinned, taking a puff. “You said yourself that the energy flow in San Francisco almost killed you, yet you placed yourself in similar circumstances in Seattle. This was your choice. Yes, yes.” Pele sliced her hand through the air, a warning gesture. “Blame the fox as the instigator, but you made your own choices. You live with the results.”
Every word seemed to weigh on Ingrid like a ton of rocks. She took several long, deep breaths. She had done this damage to herself. She had known that all along, but now it felt real. Now she knew there would be no true recovery. And as much as she wanted to cry and scream and beg and rage, she knew it was pointless.
“Our fight against the ambassador is far from over. I need to be able to do more,” Ingrid said. But as the words hung between them, she immediately wished she could take them back. They seemed petty—and none of this was Pele’s fault or burden.
Pele exhaled smoke, an eyebrow arched. “Do you? You’re not stupid, most of the time. You’ll figure out a way.” Her tone was matter-of-fact.
“Grandmother, you speak in riddles like the qilin.”
“No, I don’t.” Her voice grew harsh. “I’m saying words you don’t want to hear. That does not mean I am speaking in riddles. Listen. Listen well.” The terrible heat swelled, causing Ingrid to gasp in shock as Pele leaned toward her. “You came to me saying that you want information. In truth, you want a miracle. You’re not the first person, nor will you be the last. Your father came here with high expectations, too.”
“My father?” Ingrid’s mind raced over what she knew. Papa had lived under a false identity for twenty years, but he had finally been captured by the Unified Pacific in January—in the Hawaiian Vassal States.
“He’d had something of an awakening, it seems. After years of idleness, he decided to return to the land of his childhood. But what he saw didn’t match his idyllic memories. He was horrified at how foreigners outnumbered his people, at how they are bound into callous labor on sugar and fruit plantations or in other servile roles. He said we could fight back. We could free them. He said all this, but I had not revealed myself to him. I merely listened. Therefore, he shot himself in the foot to try to provoke me to appear.” Pele’s eyes were glimmering midnights. Her breath reeked of sulfur. “That wasn’t wise of him.”
“No. No it was not.” Ingrid felt the need to say something agreeable, reminded yet again that she was in the presence of a goddess.
Pele considered Ingrid for a moment. “You mentioned that the fox treats humans as game pieces.” She spoke in a low voice. “After centuries, after one realizes that immortality means endless boredom, it’s easy to use tedium as an excuse to toy with people. Treat them as objects of amusement. I don’t. I see the suffering around me. It has always existed. The Menehune warred among themselves, then the Tahitians came, and the Hawaiian people grew and changed. They knew my ways, and I knew theirs.
“Our blood is the blood of the earth, Ingrid.” Pele stood, and a stick appeared in her hands. It didn’t look that different from the one that Ingrid had propped beside her, but this new stick crackled with holy energy, not unlike the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. “I’m ancient, but the earth is older yet.”
Pele tapped the bare ground between the mast’s base and the dry lava flow. Ingrid felt the shudder through her bones.
“I was drawn to Hawaii because of this well of magma that reaches deep into the core of our planet. I can direct this energy, but I don’t create it.”
“Auxiliary textbooks often say that geomancers are conduits between the earth and kermanite,” Ingrid murmured.
Pele nodded. “Conduits. Yes. Each of us with limitations. I can direct lava at my whim, but not even I can completely prevent the earth here from shaking. It needs to move and grow. Nor can I change how an earthquake flows, rippling outward and into the ocean. Nor can my brothers and sisters in dominion over water contain a mighty wave that grows as it stretches across half the world.”
“A tsunami,” Ingrid said to herself.
“Abram was foolhardy. The way he injured himself would have provoked a baser being—like that double-headed snake you mentioned—to shift and destroy the land above. By trying to provoke me in that way, he could have killed many of the people he professed hope to save. And yet he continued to rail against me. He thought he could convince me to go to Japan, to awaken Fuji.” Pele barked out a laugh.
Ingrid felt sick at the thought. “I hadn’t even considered that I could choose to attack in such a way.”
“Does that appeal to you?” asked Pele, her smile amused.
“No! It’s horrible!”
“You’ve seen the destruction caused by your father in San Francisco. Imagine, then, what I could do, if I chose to do so.” She gestured around her. “I don’t want to wander anymore. I don’t want to meddle in human affairs. Not much, anyway. I want to stay here, in my beautiful home. I want to guide the lava’s flow and build this land, then seed it with new plants, new life. Maybe, in time, I’ll move to my new island that still grows below the waves. But even by my perception of time, that’s a long way off.”
Ingrid remained quiet for a moment. “Tacoma mentioned that I should find my own mountain. I see the appeal in that. A month ago, I never would have considered living anywhere but San Francisco. Now I’m not sure where to find a permanent home.”
“You’ll find a place that offers the peace and balance that you seek. I wish that Abram might have had the presence of mind to do that.” Grief weighed on Pele’s beautiful face, her eyes downcast. She mourned her son. The depth of Pele’s sadness surprised Ingrid—and made her feel ashamed. She knew from the old stories that gods like Pele loved and hated and acted all too human, but even so, she had expected more . . . divinity than humanity. Perhaps that expectation arose from Ingrid’s own selfish desire to be healed.
“Abram stayed for days to persist in his argument. His injured foot became infected, and he was very ill as he left Kilauea. He blamed me for that, too, of course. As if I owed him miracles.” Pele shook her head and sighed, then tilted an ear toward the ground. “We cannot talk much longer. The earth needs to move soon. You’ll be safest at a high elevation through the night.”
Ingrid had come a long way for such a short conversation, but there was no arguing with the needs of the earth. “You’re right. I came here with hopes for a miracle. I wasn’t any better than my father, really.” Shame weighed on her. “I thought . . . I thought the extent of my problems called for the aid of a goddess. I was wrong.” She blinked back tears. “What I needed most of all was a grandmother.”
“Ah, Ingrid.” Her gaze was fond a
s she motioned for Ingrid to stand. She did, relying on her new walking stick, and quickly found herself enfolded by two powerful arms. Ingrid stiffened, overwhelmed by the need to flee the intense heat. Pele’s tendrils of hair felt like flickering sparks against her face, while the goddess’s stick crackled as it almost pressed against Ingrid’s back.
Despite Grandmother’s incredible presence, after a few moments, the heat became oddly soothing since it wasn’t accompanied by pain. Her hand rubbed a comforting circle over Ingrid’s back. The gesture was not reminiscent of Mama—she had never been much for physical affection—but felt all the more profound for that very reason. This was a kind of tenderness Ingrid had never known from the women in her life.
“I’ve been so scared.” The confession blurted out. “About my legs, about the fox, about Lee, and Mr. Sakaguchi—”
“And your Fenris and Cy, too, yes. You’ve gone through a lot, Ingrid. You should be scared. It’s smart to be scared. Fear will keep you alive, eh?”
Ingrid half laughed, half sobbed. “That is a very grandmotherly thing to say.”
“Well, you are not my first grandchild. I have some experience in these things.”
Wind whistled through the steel tower above. “Do you ever feel lonely out here?” Ingrid asked, then immediately regretted her nosiness. To her relief, the arms around her didn’t relinquish their loving hold.
“I might lack human company, but I am never alone. I can speak with birds, bushes, bugs, the earth itself.” Grandmother hesitated, seeming to realize she had missed the heart of Ingrid’s question. “But sometimes, yes, I know loneliness.”
Ingrid nodded against her grandmother’s shoulder, taking comfort in her profound humanity, even amid the searing heat. “I’ve only known you for a few minutes, but I hope I can see you again. You’re family. I . . . I need my family.”
Grandmother pulled back to look Ingrid in the eye. “I do not know if we’ll see each other again either. I look downward more than I look outward. But know this, Granddaughter.” The wind paused, adding gravitas to her words. “You are mine, and you are loved.”
She stepped back, leaving Ingrid to stand on her own. “Aloha, a hui hou.” She uplifted a hand in good-bye.
Ingrid didn’t understand all of the words, but the tenderness in the farewell required no translation.
Chapter 8
Ingrid could not sleep. Her brain repeated her conversation with Madam Pele in an endless loop.
Stories about Pele fixated on her chaotic nature, that she was an impulsive and violent woman. In reality, though, Pele had not tried to manipulate Ingrid—a stark contrast to Blum, the qilin, and even humans like Mr. Sakaguchi and Mr. Roosevelt. Pele had left Ingrid empowered by her words, not by lava or some show of godly power.
Ingrid laughed quietly to herself. All the male storytellers over the years had every right to foment fear of Pele. She was a woman who would never submit. She would spit lava at the concept of fate.
And Ingrid adored her. She wanted to be her, in so many ways. Mama would have loved her, too.
She smiled up at the ceiling. She had a grandmother. A grandmother who loved and accepted her.
Her leg muscles twitched as if zapped by electricity. Her good mood sobered in an instant. She rolled to her side and scooted to the edge of her cot. The worst of the pain subsided with the change of position, dwindling to a burning sensation in her toes. She stared down at her legs.
They would never truly heal. She’d never again be able to take walking or climbing or other basic ambulatory functions for granted.
For years, Ingrid had ached for respect as a geomancer, as a woman, as a human being, only to have that repeatedly denied. And now, injured as she was, some people treated her as even less. That struck at her own deepest fears: that she was a burden. That in their current circumstances, her inability to act or to help or to simply walk could prove fatal to those she loved.
But what was it Grandmother had said? Your body will never be as it was, but that does not mean that you are not strong.
She stood with a muffled groan and glanced down the hall to where Cy piloted the Bug. The window still showed darkness. Fenris lay in the rack behind and above her. He was a twitchy sleeper, constantly shifting and muttering, busy even as he dreamed.
She stepped forward and gripped the rungs of the ladder across the way. The sylphs responded to her proximity, stirring for the first time since Pele-as-a-dog came aboard. They fluttered down in a gray cascade.
help? pastry? The sylphs flashed her an image of when they caught her when she last climbed the ladder.
“Yes, but stay quiet,” she whispered, a finger to her lips.
The sylphs lowered their susurrus.
Ingrid climbed slowly, steadily, the sylphs at her back as a precaution. By the time she sat at the top, both legs quivered and twitched. The sylphs returned to their nest and watched her in a fluttery mass.
She leaned toward the back wall to touch the carving of the qilin.
She didn’t plead with words this time. Instead, she opened herself as if in Zen meditation. She focused on her breaths, in and out, and tried to dwell in mu. Nothingness. Receptive to whatever news came her way.
A minute passed. Two. Terrible thoughts barged into her attempt at mindlessness. Was Lee dead? Was that why the qilin couldn’t act as a bridge? She forced away the dark possibilities by imagining Mr. Sakaguchi’s peaceful expression as he sat at their old household shrine. She tried to channel that solace herself.
If not for the pervasive pain in her legs, she might have fallen asleep at last. Instead, she stared at the carving, her attempt at nothingness filled by melancholy.
“I just want to know if he’s alive. Can I learn that much?” she whispered.
She heard nothing but the roar of the engines, smelled nothing but the indescribable odor of sylph dander and the sour funk of bodies and bedding after a prolonged time aloft.
Her thoughts flicked this way and that as she descended the ladder. Was it worthwhile at all to continue her attempts to initiate communication? Or was she merely irritating the being?
Was she acting like Papa?
Her feet slipped. Her hands alone couldn’t support her weight. The sylphs caught her almost immediately, their close contact like being pricked by a hundred pins at once.
The fairies released their hold as soon as her soles met the floor. She crumpled forward, rendered limp in agony. The pain from their contact dissipated within seconds, but she still found herself unwilling to move.
“That wasn’t particularly fun,” she whispered.
“Falling from heights and hurting yourself isn’t recommended, even when we’re aloft.” Fenris’s voice was soft and raspy from the other high bunk. “Nor will it ever be fun.”
“Noted,” she said.
“Are you actually injured? Because if Cy finds out how it happened, you know he’ll gripe like a molting harpy.”
Ingrid couldn’t help a quiet laugh at that as she sat up. Fenris peered down through a gap in the curtains. “How long have you been awake?”
“Long enough to observe you climbing your own private eight-foot-high Matterhorn, conversing with the qilin, and engaging in a catch-me game with the sylphs that could have easily left you with a broken spine or skull. Was it worth the effort?”
“No. The conversation was one-sided. I keep trying to connect with Lee, but . . .”
“You tried this before?”
“I first reached out to the qilin on our way to Kilauea, for all the good it did.” She couldn’t keep despair from her voice.
“You’ve climbed that ladder twice, then?” He scowled at her nod. “Damn. Why can’t that heavenly being just show up in the hallway like it did before? For that matter, why are you climbing the ladder at all? You didn’t even know that carving was there the last time the qilin showed up.”
“I’ve always been rotten at meditation. When I’m touching the carving, connecting with something Lee
made, it makes it easier to focus.” She shrugged. Her excuse sounded silly when said aloud.
“Like using rosary beads, huh? Well, unless you truly want to risk life and limb on the ladder again, I could actually remove that portion of wall so you could keep it in the safety of your rack.”
“You could?”
“Sure. I’d need to wait until we were docked so I could patch that section immediately. If the sylphs worked their way into the walls . . .” He violently shuddered.
“Even if I’d thought of removing that bit of wall, I wouldn’t have dared to suggest that kind of desecration to you.”
“Good.” He haughtily gazed down. “You shouldn’t be thinking of ways to maul my ship.”
“I’ll leave all the mauling to you.”
“It’s only mauling when someone else does it. I know what I’m doing. Now, why don’t you utilize that auxiliary secretary training of yours and start coffee on the burner? Two hours of sleep is enough for me.” He pushed the curtains back the rest of the way.
“I can start some of that god-awful brew for you, but only because I like you. And the sylphs seem to like you, too.” The fairies’ low, polite buzz rose to a motorlike roar as they swirled around Fenris in greeting. “They don’t greet Cy like that. I suppose there’s a reason we’re working through pastries at such a fast rate?”
Fenris’s expression was of mock offense as he hopped down the ladder to the floor. “They were starved and poisoned when you first staggered in with them. I think they are finally looking healthy. That’s nothing to complain about.”
She stifled a yawn. “You’re right.”
“Try to sleep. Use some of the beeswax stashed in the nook and you might sleep through our docking. And, Ingrid?”