Primitive Flame

by Lakes, Lynde

  Lani’s throat constricted. He was wrong. It changed everything. She wasn’t part of his family. This was much worse than she could ever imagine. Her world ignited into a raging fire. After it ran its course, there would be nothing left of her precious heritage but ashes. “Who am I?” No one should ever have to ask that question.

  “Pono and Lei said they found you lying naked among the hot coals of volcanic ash at the edge of the lava flow, protected in a shallow pool of water and encircled by a film of rain mist falling close to your tiny body, as if its only purpose was to keep you cool.”

  A sword cut through Lani’s heart. “They just found me there? Discarded like garbage?” She’d been abandoned—a baby someone didn’t want. No wonder she’d never felt good enough and worked hard at being an obedient daughter, excelling at school, at work. She’d even tried to love the wrong man to please Mom and Dad, the foster parents she loved dearly.

  “Pono and Lei claimed it was magical, spiritual,” Grandfather said.

  Lani shook off the self-pity she loathed so much. “Their words, I suppose?” She didn’t try to hide her bitterness or skepticism. “It’s quite a tall tale—surely no one believed it?”

  Grandfather shrugged. “They stuck to their story. No one understood, yet no one dared to doubt it.”

  “Why? What was it about the family’s beliefs that made them accept this?”

  “Perhaps years of living with the ravages of Pele.”

  “It’s too bizarre.”

  Grandfather held her gaze. “Like the things happening to you now?”

  She winced. He was right. How could she, of all people, doubt anything after what had been happening to her?

  “Legend and truth are often entwined here,” he said. “The mysterious circumstances of your birth and your flame-like beauty caused most family members to believe you were indeed the daughter of Goddess Pele.”

  “Pele’s daughter!” No. No. This couldn’t be true.

  The serious set of Grandfather’s jaw sent shivers down Lani’s spine.

  “Pele’s a myth, isn’t she?” Lani asked. Yet, how could she explain what she’d seen with her own eyes?

  “You know how it is here,” Grandfather said. “Many people, our family among them, believe Pele is as real as you or me. Lani rubbed her arms with trembling hands. Could she believe in the Goddess—a deity who lived in Volcano Kilauea? How could she not? She’d seen her face in the boiling cauldron. And now tonight…

  She’d read meles depicting the superstitions that gripped the people of old Hawai’i. In some of the tales, mischievous fairies and gnomes controlled the forests, and nymphs and monsters guarded the streams. Many of the legends claimed that spirits of the dead haunted the air, and gods and goddesses bent everyone, weak and strong, to their will. But the meles were simply stories, weren’t they? She didn’t want to believe only a misty veil divided the living from the dead and mortals were merely the helpless playthings of the gods. “What about you, Grandfather? What do you believe?”

  A shadow of uncertainty darkened his eyes. “God help me, I don’t know.”

  Earlier, Pele’s eyes had flashed with rage as she’d hurled flames. Lani shuddered. “There wasn’t any mother’s love in that face. Pele can’t be my mother.” Lani’s stomach knotted as her world careened out of control. It was time to ground herself in reality. “There has to be another answer, one that makes sense.”

  “A few of us suspected Pono and Lei might be your parents—that they made up the bizarre story to cover some kissin’ cousin hanky panky.”

  “Lei was pregnant?” Lani grasped the small hope like a lifeline.

  Grandfather shrugged. “She was a hefty girl with a big belly.”

  As winds of unproven rumors raged about Lani, she teetered on the edge of a cliff of doubt, clinging to a fragile vine of hope. “If I were Pono’s and Lei’s child, I’d still be a member of the family.”

  “Lei denied it,” Grandfather said with sadness in his voice. “She was never known to lie.”

  Lani’s fleeting hope died.

  “The important thing is Kama and Kalihi took you into their home and hearts as their own child.”

  Lani shook her head. Although she called Ray and Anna Ward Dad and Mom, she’d always known they were her foster parents and believed that Grandfather’s son, Kama Keaulana, and his wife, Kalihi, were her birth papa and mama. She’d loved them all, would always love them. But who were her real birth parents?

  Grandfather looked down into Lani’s eyes. “You remember some of the good times, don’t you?”

  Like a movie playing across a screen, she saw a mule pulling a rickety wagon loaded with new-mown hay and happy riders. She gave a small smile. “There was a family hay ride. Mama wove some tangled tales about Pele and the sacred rocks we passed along the way. Papa held me on his lap so I wouldn’t be scared. Later, Cousin Pono played his ukulele while we all sang.”

  Lani remembered that Pono had bought her a soft drink at a country store on the way home. It was her first soda ever, and Pono had strutted around like a peacock for buying it. It was the only kindness he’d ever shown her. He usually avoided her as he would the task of weeding the garden.

  “You missed the fun that night, Grandfather,” Lani said, wanting to cling to their lighter mood. Afterwards, even thinking about the merriment had made her go around smiling for hours and hours, as though enchanted menehune’s dust had been sprinkled on her face.

  Grandfather sighed. “Mid-term week. I couldn’t get away.”

  She patted his chest in understanding. He’d been there for most of the other celebrations, singing the loudest in his deep baritone voice.

  “We had such fun in the old house, family and friends gathered together, playing ukuleles and drums, singing the old Hawaiian songs.”

  Grandfather laughed, his eyes twinkling.

  Lani caught a whiff of ginger and glanced at the mixed flowers she’d placed in the big crystal vase earlier that morning and remembered how Mama used to gather flowers like those daily. Suddenly, she was taken off guard by an image of a coffin covered with a mountain of flowers with the same heady scent. The family stood around it weeping, some wailing. In spite of Lani’s effort to rein in her emotions, they spiraled up and down like a yo-yo. Tears pooled in her eyes.

  “What is it, Lani?” Grandfather’s smile faded.

  “Papa’s funeral.” She’d thought she’d buried the memory, but the pain rushed back.

  “I’d hoped you were spared that memory.” Worry lines furrowed Grandfather’s forehead.

  Lani pressed her face against his chest and in a wavering voice she couldn’t seem to control said, “After that day there was lots of crying, sadness and loud arguments. After the whispering among the old folks, I was sent away.”

  “Hang on to the good times with all your might, honey.” His fervor startled Lani. He held her away, searching her face with his gaze. “You brought joy back into the old house. Kama and Kalihi loved having a new baby around. They never loved anyone more.”

  Before Lani could stop it, her anger shot to the surface. “Then why did Mama give me away?”

  Chapter Eight

  Tense silence hummed in the air between Lani and her grandfather as she waited on pins and needles for his answer. Finally he sighed and said, “Overwhelming fear.” Then, as if riding his own roller coaster of emotions, he went silent again and looked at Lani with anguish in his intense eyes.

  “Don’t stop now! Fear of what?”

  Grandfather’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed in defeat. “It’s hard to explain.” He raked his silver-streaked hair with trembling fingers. “You were a bright, curious little handful, into everything.”

  He told her how family members noticed that every time someone disciplined her, a fire-related mishap happened to the one who’d dealt out the punishment—simple things at first, a burn from holding a match too long, singed hairs when lighting a hibachi.

  Lani clutched Grandfa
ther’s shoulders. “What are you saying?”

  He met her gaze, and uncertainty glinted in his dark eyes. “The two fire-related deaths that followed proved to most of the family that you were indeed Pele’s daughter.”

  Bile rose in Lani’s throat. “You mean I had something to do with people dying?”

  Grandfather grasped her hands. “Whatever the truth is, you had no part in the trouble. You have to believe that.”

  Lani withdrew a hand and rubbed her forehead to ease the throbbing. “I want to believe it, but how can I?” She couldn’t keep her voice from trembling. Everything had happened such a long time ago, yet guilt strangled her like icy fingers closing around her neck.

  “Everyone’s fear was too great,” Grandfather said. “The final straw was when a tree fell on your papa.”

  Bewilderment swirled in her mind. “That’s not fire related.”

  “In a way it was. Your papa paddled you for playing with matches. The next day as he walked under the flame tree, lightning hit it, and it fell on him. To the family, his death was Pele’s work.”

  Lani’s heart pounded. She didn’t want Pele’s vengeful protection. Please, don’t let any of this be true.

  “It was a tragic accident,” Grandfather said, obviously forcing conviction into his tone. “Nothing more. Don’t you dare think anything else.”

  Myriad emotions gripped Lani: sadness, fear—even gratitude. She might have been involved in Papa’s death, yet Grandfather had brought her into his home and given her his love.

  “With Kama dead,” Grandfather went on, “it was easier for the rest of the family to bring pressure against Kalihi to send you away. Your Mama tried to stand up against the family. It took months of talk, unrelenting coercion and many tears to force her to allow you to be adopted.”

  “Still, she gave in.” Lani would never send her child away for any reason. With Grandfather and Great Grandfather there to back her up, why had she bent to the pressure?

  “Don’t harden your heart against your mama. She’d lost her husband and didn’t want something to happen to you, too.”

  Grandfather explained that Uncle Reri used Mama’s love for her as a weapon, convincing Mama it would be better, not only for the family, but also for her child. Lani was beginning to understand. Mama had had a hard choice to make. It must have taken great courage to go through with something as painful as giving her child away.

  “Reri, like most of the family,” Grandfather said, “believed once you were gone the string of bad luck would end. Fear makes people act irrationally.”

  “Why weren’t you afraid?”

  “I was too mad at Reri to be scared,” Grandfather growled.

  Lani wanted to scream that this was all too weird to believe, but it fit with her childhood memories. In view of all that had happened, she couldn’t disregard Grandfather’s story. “Kalihi picked wonderful parents for me.”

  “Ray and Anna desperately wanted a child and couldn’t have one of their own.”

  In spite of all that love, Lani had always felt confused, abandoned. Her throat ached.

  “What happened to Mama?” She knew only that Mama had died shortly after she was adopted.

  “After you were sent away, everyone thought the family would be safe. But a few weeks later, Kilauea erupted and the lava flow destroyed the family home, killing everyone in it.”

  Lani’s stomach knotted. She hadn’t been given the chance to say good-bye or mourn Mama’s death. Now her heart bled from a loss she’d never completely get over.

  Grandfather’s sad eyes searched hers, and then he pulled her close again. “Great grandfather Maiau wasn’t at home the day of the tragedy. But he’d lost his family and you, and he died a few months later of a broken heart. The community believed he was spared the fiery death because he did try. Perhaps it was the same for me because somehow I’m still here. Hard to believe it was only an unexpected stay in an O’ahu hospital and a gall stone surgery that saved me.”

  Lani touched his hand. “Thank God.”

  “At the time, I didn’t feel blessed losing everyone like that…” His voice cracked. “Anyway, when I returned to the Big Island, I stayed with neighbors. It was whispered in the community that Pele had punished the family for sending you away.”

  Lani stopped breathing for several heartbeats. “Then I’m to blame for that too—for Mama’s death, the whole family’s death.”

  “Not you. Pele. I was warned by people in the community to bring you back at once, or I’d be killed too. But once you were adopted and settled into a new life, it wouldn’t have been fair to you or to Raymond and Anna to bring you back.”

  “Who cares about fair when your life’s at stake?”

  Grandfather studied his hands. “I didn’t believe I was in any danger.”

  “But you left the Big Island.”

  “Not out of fear. I couldn’t stand all the gossip and well-meaning advice, so I moved here to O’ahu. The talk about you being Pele’s daughter seemed ridiculous. Now, with all that has happened to you, I don’t know.”

  Lani cleared her throat. “Kupuna kane, are you afraid to have me here?”

  “Not at all.” He snorted. “If we give credence to past disasters, my safety depends upon you staying. Besides, now it’s right. You’re with me where you belong.”

  She was glad he wanted her to stay. It would hurt to leave this brave, wise man now that she’d found him. Besides, how could she go away without the answers to her questions? “I can’t go on like this. I need answers.”

  “I can’t explain the forces affecting your life, but I think I know someone who can.” Grandfather took a slip of paper from the notepad on her nightstand and wrote down a name and number.

  “Who is this?” Lani asked.

  “A priestess and expert in Hawaiian mythology.”

  Lani stared at him, stunned.

  “Don’t look so skeptical. She’s a respected kahuna who might know how to get rid of your visions and nightmares.”

  “You mean, if anyone can?”

  “See her, please. When strange things happen here in the islands, it’s dangerous to ignore them.” Grandfather’s eerie tone turned her blood to ice.

  “I don’t know which I’d rather believe,” she said. “That I’m hallucinating, or being controlled by some spirit.”

  “Most people would run from this.”

  Lani’s mind whirled in turmoil. Maybe she should return to the Mainland so everything could go back to normal. But would anything ever be normal again anywhere?

  “Not me,” she said.

  For a moment, Grandfather looked at her with worry in his eyes, then he hugged her and began chanting an ancient Hawaiian song of courage.

  Lani straightened her shoulders. It might be risky to dig for the truth, but she would fight this, whatever or whomever it turned out to be.

  ****

  Before Cort knew what was happening, he realized he was halfway to Lani’s house. What the hell am I doing? He was supposed to be heading for the site to meet an early delivery, not calling on the troublesome woman. Besides, it was only 5:45. The sun wasn’t even up, and the birds were barely awake. What did a bundle of femininity like Lani wear to bed, with her flame hair all tousled and sexy? He’d bet it was something modest, maybe with a little lace around the neckline. He laughed. Maybe she was a T-shirt girl. Nah. Maybe her style was something long and sheer with slits in the side that showed a bit of thigh when she walked. Damn. I’m a mess. Cort wiped the sweat from his forehead. He needed a dip in the ocean—not here in the warm Hawaiian waters—somewhere in the iceberg-infested sea off the coast of Alaska.

  Keo would think he was nuts coming around so early to see his granddaughter. Cort frowned. Subconsciously, he must’ve had a logical reason to drive out here. He grabbed the only excuse he could come up with—he wanted to find out her game. But did he think he’d just march up to her door and ask her straight out if the Tanaka brothers had sent her to screw up his p
roject and his life? She would slam the door in his face, and then she’d know for sure she worried him. Bad move, buddy. You don’t win at poker by showing your hand.

  Cort forced himself to make a U-turn and head toward the site, away from the beautiful troublemaker’s door.

  ****

  Lani sat at a table in the garden alone, sipping hot mango tea. Daylight had brought a welcome relief from the long, restless night. She shuddered, unable to shake the memory of Pele hurling flames at her and the bizarre, unearthly story about her birth. Perhaps the deaths in the family were reason enough for everyone to fear her. Lani held her teacup up high in a toast. “I forgive you, Mama. I forgive everyone. Even you, Uncle Reri.”

  Letting go of the resentment made her feel better, and she calmly watched the rainbow shower trees bowing in the breeze. Wind rippled her loose pajama shirt and twisted her pants around her shins.

  Beyond the banana trees with their tattered leaves shading their purple flowers, shadows deepened the crevices of the towering, ragged Ko’olau Mountain chain. The beauty surrounding her made the haunting of the last few weeks seem unreal. This was where she belonged. “I won’t be driven away!” she called to the moaning breeze.

  She looked at her watch. She didn’t want to be late for her first day on the job. After days of combing the employment sections, she’d finally been hired as a real estate secretary. It would tide her over until she found a paralegal position. Then she would work on her goal—passing the bar exam.

  Grandfather had gone fishing with a friend and left the car for her. She would get one of her own—soon.

  She let out a deep breath when the yellow Toyota started without a hitch.

  Morning stop-and-go traffic on Kalanianaole highway allowed her plenty of time to think. She had four problems to conquer: end the visions, learn about her heritage, stop the construction, and find out how Cort Wayne fit into the puzzle. She must stay focused and use the skills she’d learned as a paralegal and the ones she was honing to be a lawyer.