Na Akua

by Clayton Smith

  “Ah.” She nodded sagely. “And is it customary for the groom to leave his bride so he can go drink alone by the ocean?”

  Gray’s head drooped even further. He pressed his forehead against the cool metal. The world was starting to spin, and he wanted to get off the ride. “I don’t have a bride,” he said quietly.

  The woman nodded thoughtfully. “We may have different definitions of ‘honeymoon,’” she decided.

  Gray rocked his head from side to side, rolling it along the banister. “No,” he said, “we probably don’t.” He stood straight up, gave his head a brisk shake, and turned to face the woman, and the truth of his new reality. “I was supposed to get married yesterday. To Lucy. Her name was Lucy. I guess it still is Lucy. Technically. Isn’t that a nice name?”

  “It is…a beautiful name,” the woman said carefully, her voice stilted, hesitant.

  “Almost 200 people showed up to the ceremony,” Gray continued. “I was one of them. She…was not. Change of heart. I guess.” He shook his glass, though the clinking of the ice was barely audible over the crashing surf below. “That’s what her text said. ‘Change of heart.’ Two hundred people at the church, but not one Lucy. I was supposed to have a bride, but now I don’t.” He raised his shoulder and rubbed it against his eye. His shirt came away splotched with water and salt. “But this was booked,” he said, gesturing toward the hotel, “it was paid for. Most of it, anyway. So here I am. On my honeymoon. But no honey. It’s a…a solo-moon? Or just a moon, maybe.” He let out another sigh as his eyes focused on nothing. “Yes. I’m alone like the moon. I am just a la luna,” he decided. “A sad la luna.”

  They stood quietly on the deck, the cool pineapple breeze blowing between them. Finally, the woman cleared her throat and spoke. “You know, in Hawai’i, we have a saying: ‘Kö aloha lä ‘ea, kö aloha lä ‘ea.’”

  “Does it mean, ‘Throw yourself in the ocean, for all is lost’?”

  The woman laughed her wind chime laugh. “The opposite, I think. It means, ‘Keep your love, keep your love.’ Sometimes life grows very difficult. There are many obstacles, and our hearts are easily injured. But you must keep your love, keep your aloha, because if that can persevere, life will always be worth living. Kö aloha lä ‘ea, kö aloha lä ‘ea.”

  Gray felt his lips curl up into a little smirk. “So many vowels can’t possibly be wrong.”

  “Nor can so many Hawai’ians,” she smiled. “We are a very wise and introspective people.”

  Gray peeled himself off the patio railing and extended his free hand toward the woman. “I’m Grayson. Grayson Park.”

  Now it was the woman’s turn to smirk. “Your name sounds like a beach,” she said.

  “And what does your name sound like?”

  She took his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It sounds like Hi’iaka. It is very good to meet you, Grayson Park.”

  He felt a strange heat emanate from her palm and warm his fingers. It traveled up through his elbow, past his shoulder, until his entire arm began to melt and his chest began to glow with sunlight. The woman’s eyes were pools of the richest Kona coffee; her cascading hair glistened like onyx, and the curve of her lips pulled on the pieces of his struggling heart and molded them back together into a sweet, sloping shape that was completely and utterly her own. “Call me Gray,” he said weakly.

  “I will,” she smiled, holding his gaze. “Gray.”

  He let go of her hand, and the warmth of his arm began to evaporate like rain.

  “Do you, um…can I—can I get you a drink?” he stammered. He leaned over and waved at the bartender below, who suddenly became extremely rapt in the drying of glasses and not at all in the recognition of the drunken guest on the patio above. “This guy…” Gray grumbled to himself.

  But Hi’iaka shook her head and laid a hand on his arm. “No, thank you. We have another saying in Hawai’i: he akuahanai ka rama.”

  “‘We only drink Mai Tais made with lime’?” he guessed with a grin.

  “No. ‘Rum is a poisonous god.’”

  Gray coughed. “Well that one gets straight to the point.”

  “It does,” she agreed.

  The insurance agents on the pool deck began to gather themselves up and shamble back into the lobby, slapping each other on the back and fidgeting with their waistbands. The bar was closing, and the other vacationers were shuffling off to their rooms. Gray looked down at the half-empty drink in his hand. Then he set it down on the ground, away from his feet. “I’ll get that later,” he promised.

  “I’m sure you will,” she teased.

  “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

  “Mm,” she nodded.

  “I don’t think it’s an inappropriate question, but judgment is hard right now, so I apologize if it sounds weird or offensive, but…can I ask what you’re doing here?”

  Hi’iaka closed her eyes and smiled into the night. She leaned against the railing. Watching her dress shift against her curves, Gray thought his knees might actually turn to water. “I’m standing on a lanai enjoying the breath of Maui and a surprisingly intimate conversation with a kind yet drunk stranger,” she said.

  “No, I mean—” Gray stopped, and he laughed. “I am kind and drunk, and kind of drunk. That’s funny.” She smiled a very genuine, if placating, smile. “But I mean…you’re a local. Right? You’re Hawai’ian. You have a lot of sayings to back that particular assumption up. So why are you here? At a vacation resort filled with 800 happy couples, a group of badly-dressed insurance salesmen, and one sad drunk?”

  “Ah. That is a good question.”

  “And not offensive,” he pointed out.

  “And not offensive,” she agreed. Then she leaned in closer and whispered conspiratorially, “I’m here because I am hiding from someone.”

  “Oh!” he said, startled. “Intrigue!”

  Hi’iaka nodded. “Yes. Of the highest order.”

  “And who is this dastardly someone?”

  Hi’iaka shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  Gray frowned. “You’re not sure.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But you are hiding from someone…”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Someone who’s looking for you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you don’t know who that someone is.”

  “That is also right.”

  “But you’re sure that someone is actually looking for you, and you want to hide from said someone.”

  She nodded. “Very sure.”

  Gray squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will himself to sobriety. He had a suspicion that perhaps he would understand things a little better if he’d skipped the last two or three cocktails. “Okay, I’ll bite,” he said, giving up. “How do you know someone is looking for you if you don’t know who that someone is?”

  Hi’iaka filled her lungs with the pineapple-plumeria wind. “Because I saw it in a dream,” she said.

  Gray’s eyebrows pinched together. “A dream?”

  “Mm. Each of the last twelve nights, a man has pursued me across the islands, his face and shoulders hidden by a long, black veil. The first night, he chased me through the lehua forest, running hard, his shoulders snapping off limbs and blossoms in his path. The second night, I fled across the orange lava flows of Kīlauea, and he followed me, the ground hissing under his feet. The third night, he almost caught me in the coffee fields of Kona, and if not for an untended root in the earth that snagged his ankle, he would have had me. Every night it has been like this, to Kaho’olawe, and Lāna’i, and now here, to Maui. In the evenings, he chases me; when I wake up, I run. I do not know who he is, but he is coming for me…I can feel him getting closer even now. Tomorrow, I’ll run away to Moloka’i and see if he finds me the
re.”

  She stopped and gave Gray a shy, sideways glance. He became acutely aware of the fact that his eyes had peeled themselves open wider than he thought human eyes could go. He shook his head to push some air to his brain and forced himself to blink. “All I ever dream about is standing naked in front of a roomful of people,” he said.

  Hi’iaka smiled. “Perhaps you should follow your dreams to literal ends,” she said, tilting her head wryly and nudging him in the arm with her shoulder.

  Gray’s face grew hot, the air was suddenly ten degrees warmer, and he wished he hadn’t set his glass down so he’d have something to fidget with. His hands were suddenly three times their normal size and too clumsy to just hang there like coconuts, so he tried holding them in different positions: on his hips, in his pockets, crossed, folded, behind his back, on his head, and, as a desperately last-ditch effort, tented in front of his chest.

  “I’m sorry; I have embarrassed you,” Hi’iaka said, and she blushed a bit then, too. There was no mistaking it this time.

  “No, no,” Gray said quickly, “it’s just...hands.” He held them up so she could see the backs of them. “Where do they go, right?”

  “Mm. Right.”

  Gray swallowed hard. “Um. So.” He gripped the railing so hard his knuckles went white, which finally solved the problem of the awkward hands. “How long do you think you can do that? Run from some dream weirdo? What if you never stop having those dreams?”

  Hi’iaka shrugged. “Then I suppose I will never stop running,” she said. “But I think they will come to an end soon.”

  “Yeah? Why is that?”

  “In my dreams, I am not just running away from a man...I am also running toward the full moon. I think whoever is chasing me, he must capture me before the full moon, and if I can evade him until then, I will be safe.”

  “Huh.” Gray had never known anyone to take dreams so seriously, and he’d dated a tarot reader in grad school. He glanced up at the brilliant white moon, shimmering down on the ocean waves. “Looks pretty close,” he observed.

  “It will be full in three nights. Then the chase will be over, no matter what happens.”

  “Huh. Well. All right, then.”

  “All right, then,” she agreed.

  Gray realized something then, something that made his heart sink a little, though he really had no right to be so affected by her. “So you probably won’t be here tomorrow.”

  She tilted her head toward the ocean and closed her eyes, as if listening for some secret confirmation from the waves. “No,” she said finally, swaying like the palm trees above, “I probably won’t.”

  “Well. That’s...too bad,” he said. It was lame, and it was inadequate, but it was the truth. What else could he say?

  Hi’iaka opened her eyes, and they softened as she held him in her gaze. “It is too bad,” she decided. “I’m enjoying our conversation very much, Grayson Park.”

  “So am I, Hi’iaka...” He searched his brain for her last name and realized she hadn’t given one. “Which is weird, because I distinctly remember waking up this morning and swearing off all conversations with all women for the rest of my life.” He thought for a second. “Or...maybe it’s not weird. Maybe it’s actually pretty typical.”

  “Perhaps it is. Do you often go back on the vows you make?”

  Gray inhaled sharply. “Don’t use the V-word, please,” he said, wincing.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And no, it’s not that. It’s just...impossible things.”

  “Impossible things?”

  “Yeah. My sister’s always telling me I have a love affair with impossible things.”

  “Ah. And is it true?”

  Gray shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not not true, I guess. I went to med school, even though I was terrible at biology, and sometimes I faint at the sight of blood. But I liked the challenge of it.”

  “So you’re a doctor?”

  “Ha! No. I dropped out after one semester.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Turns out it was a little too impossible.”

  “What do you do, then?”

  “I’m an English teacher. Pretty much the total opposite of a doctor.”

  Hi’iaka leaned forward and propped her chin on her arms. “And what other impossible things did you love?”

  Gray considered this. “Lucy. Lucy was pretty impossible.”

  “Oh?”

  “She was the girl who always seems higher than you, even though she’s almost a foot shorter. Like she’s always floating. You know? I loved her so much...but she was always other than me. If that makes sense.”

  “Other than you how?”

  “Well...she was the one everybody wanted. I was the one nobody expected. I think that’s why I proposed after six months. Tried to seal her in before she realized she belonged with someone a little...sharper. You know?” He gave Hi’iaka a wan smile and held his finger and thumb a sliver apart from each other. “Almost made it.”

  Hi’iaka blinked back the film that was threatening to form into full tears in her eyes. “Kö aloha lä ‘ea, kö aloha lä ‘ea,” she said.

  “Ko aloha lie, ko aloha lie,” Gray agreed. He reached down and picked up his watery Mai Tai. “Do you mind?” he asked.

  “Not at all.”

  Gray took another sip as they stood quietly, awash in the soft sounds of Kā’anapali. A slow beat of drums pounded through the air, and Gray tilted his head to listen closer. “What is that?” he asked.

  “That could be one of two things. Maybe it is the drums from the luau down the beach.”

  “Ah.” Gray had seen the signs for the hotel’s luau plastered all over the property. “Makes sense.”

  “Or it could be the huaka’i pō, in which case,” she said with a smile, “we are all doomed.”

  Gray tipped his head back and raised an eyebrow. “The huaka’i pō?”

  “Mm. Very serious.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means the Night Marchers.”

  “Ah. Of course. And what, pray tell, are the Night Marchers?”

  Hi’iaka lowered her voice and leaned in close, as if she were about to impart a dark and terrible secret. “The Night Marchers are an army of ghost warriors. They died in the battles to unify Hawai’i. They beat their drums and follow their torches, looking for the path to the underworld. But they will never find it. They will simply roam the islands for all eternity, forever looking.”

  “That sounds very serious.”

  “Oh, it is,” she agreed. “If you look the Marchers in the eye, they will capture you and drag you into their army, and you will be doomed to march with them for the rest of time.”

  Gray paused. The drums continued to beat as he strained his ears to determine whether or not the sound was coming closer. “Well,” he decided. “Let’s hope it’s the luau.”

  Hi’iaka laughed. “Do not worry. If it is the Night Marchers, just lie on your belly and close your eyes until they pass.”

  Gray inspected the floor of the deck. “Doesn’t look very comfortable down there,” he said.

  Hi’iaka shrugged. “More comfortable than being a ghost walker.”

  “Ha. I guess that’s probably true.”

  Hi’iaka smiled. Then she glanced up at the moon, and her luminous face fell.

  Gray noticed the change. “Uh-oh,” he said, sipping his rum-and-pineapple-flavored water. He frowned. “This is it, huh?”

  “I am afraid so.” Hi’iaka straightened up and smoothed her dress. “I really enjoyed meeting you, Grayson—er, Gray. I hope we will meet again.”

  Some strange fire kindled to life in Gray’s chest, and before he could stop it, the sparks popped out of his throat as words:
“Maybe you shouldn’t run tomorrow. Maybe...maybe you should stay. And see what happens.”

  She gave him a sad smile and clasped her hands between her hips, kneading her fingers nervously. “You may not believe in dreams...but believe me when I tell you, the risk would be great.”

  He nodded sadly. “Yeah. I figured.”

  She hesitated, then reached out and laid her hand over his arm. He felt the intense heat of her touch again, and his elbow began to tingle. “Maybe we’ll just wait and see what tomorrow brings,” she said, her dark eyes shining. “If the day still finds me on Maui, I’ll meet you here, on this lanai, tomorrow at midnight.”

  Gray melted into a smile. “I’d like that,” he said. “And if you don’t show?”

  She gave him a squeeze. “Then maybe our paths will cross again beneath a whole new moon.” Then, as suddenly as the breeze, she let go of his arm, spun around, and disappeared into the hotel.

  Gray watched her go, his head swirling with rum and with the wonder of this woman. “See you under la luna,” he whispered to the wind. The palm trees rustled in response, and the moon crawled closer to the horizon of Lāna’i. Gray took a deep breath, finished his overpriced drink, set the glass on the patio, and headed in to try to sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Grayson welcomed death.

  His mouth was as dry as bleached bone, his throat rasped and rattled for water, his stomach was slowly turning itself inside-out, and the sunlight streaming in through the balcony doors sliced deeply into the field of his brain and uprooted a chorus of mandrakes until their screams rang out through his ears and little red spots exploded through his vision.

  He was seriously hung-over.

  “Rum is a poisonous god,” he mumbled to the ceiling. Then he yelled it, so the Hawai’ian Deity of the Cursed Morning After would hear and know his pain: “Rum is a poisonous goooood!” The people staying above him pounded on their floor. He tried to stick his tongue out at the ceiling, but it was thick and pasted to the roof of his mouth. So instead, he just glared.