“My dad promised this would be over soon,” Coco said, in a very small voice.
Out of nowhere, an ‘alalā—a Hawaiian crow—landed on a branch not ten feet in front of them, on the other side of the fence. The soot-black bird watched them intently, ducking and nodding its head. Lana had never seen one this close or at the volcano. They tended to be seen down south. Coco seemed unfazed and greeted the bird with a nod of her own head.
“He meant that with every bone in his body, but right now it’s not up to him,” Lana said.
“But my dad is always the one in charge.”
“Right now the government is in charge.”
Coco jumped off the fence and moved toward the crow. “Well, I hate the government.”
Lana thought the bird would fly away, but it merely fluffed its feathers and settled onto the branch.
“I can see why you’d feel that way, but things will work out, you’ll see,” Lana said, silently praying her words to be true.
Coco walked right up to the crow on the branch and said, “What’s your name?”
Lana half expected the crow to answer. “These crows are quite rare. Did you know that?” she said.
“I’ve never seen one before.”
“They don’t live in Hilo. Seeing one is a good sign.”
Coco went quiet for a few breaths. “Not this one,” she finally said.
A chill ran down Lana’s neck. “What makes you say that?”
“I just have a feeling.”
* * *
By the time Lana, Coco and Sailor returned to the house, Benji and Marie had made great progress on the wall. Some pieces were nailed on crooked, but no one cared. When it got to the last nail, they still had a one-foot space to fill. They all scrounged around for nails or screws or anything to plug the hole with, and it was Marie who found a narrow piece of corrugated roofing that they managed to wedge in for the time being.
“My father would be proud, and so would yours,” Lana told her.
It was hard to know whether to talk about the Wagners. Sometimes when she brought up their names, the girls perked up and wanted to talk about them, while other times, mentioning them seemed like rubbing grit in a wound.
After a dinner of meat loaf, steamed sweet potato and rice dripping in butter, they huddled by the fireplace and stared into the flames. No one said a word. The wood spit and crackled. Just to be sure the wooden shutters worked, Lana slipped out the front door and walked into the yard, looking back at the house. Only on one side, a thin sliver of light escaped. This far out in the boondocks, she’d risk it. Anything for a warm night’s sleep.
Nearby, the bushes rustled. Something big was out there with her. She turned and bolted back into the house, skipping all the steps and slamming the door behind her. Everyone in the room turned to stare, eyes wide.
Lana waved it off. “Probably just some pigs. They startled me.”
“It was ‘Ohelo,” Coco said.
“‘Ohelo?”
“The horse.”
“I wasn’t going to wait to find out. And what makes you so sure it was ‘Ohelo?” Lana asked.
Coco just shrugged.
“In Japan, people believe there are places that have a very sacred spirit about them. Places where you are closer to the great Mystery. And there are animals, too, protectors and holders of the divine that have influence over us. There is a strong sense of that here. Any of you felt it?” Mochi said, looking directly at Coco.
“Like an aumakua?” Marie said.
Mochi nodded, and for a moment, Lana was surprised that a German girl would know about Hawaiian animal guardians, but then she remembered that the girls had been born and raised in Hilo; they were kama‘āina. Hawaii would have rubbed off on them by now.
“There’s a crack in the sky down that way, that’s why,” Coco said, pointing south.
Lana tried not to act surprised, though half the things that came out of Coco’s mouth surprised her. “I’ve always been drawn to the volcano, even when I was young. So that makes perfect sense. Though I haven’t noticed a crack in the sky. How do you know about it?”
“I saw it today.”
Mochi glanced at Lana, a thin smile forming.
“Maybe tomorrow you can show us,” Lana said.
Marie put her arm around her sister. “There’s that overactive imagination again. Remember what Daddy said about talking like this, Mausi.”
Coco’s shoulders wilted.
“What did he say?” Mochi asked.
“That the crazy talk—as he calls it—makes her sound crackers. The kids at school started calling her names, and my parents got called in every few days because of one squabble or another. She’s supposed to keep the crazy talk to herself.”
Lana could feel the shame radiating off Coco in thick layers. “That’s plain wrong. I think what you have is a gift. When people don’t understand something, they sometimes get frightened and react badly.”
Marie looked taken aback.
Mochi spoke softly. “This war is a good example of that.”
“Exactly. Your parents and all our neighbors being rounded up like cattle... The whole thing is about fear and people not stopping to try to understand,” Lana said.
Coco’s lower lip trembled, and she bolted from the room. Sailor, who had been lying on the warm planks next to the fire, followed Coco with her eyes, then got up and slowly trotted after her. Thank goodness for this dog.
At every turn, Lana felt inadequate to help this poor child, but she felt she had to try. When she moved to stand, Mochi held her arm. “Let me,” he said, and went.
Lana stretched and said to Benji and Marie, “Lord only knows how long we’re going to be up here together, so let’s make the most of it. Whatever quirks we all may have, get used to them, I say.” They both just stared at her, mute. This whole kid and teenager situation was going to take a lot of practice. “Come on, let’s get ready for bed.”
Earlier they had set up the girls in their own room with the queen mattress from Volcano House and given Mochi and Benji the twins, and Lana kept the master bedroom with the mattress on the floor. Heat from the fireplace had made it into the far reaches of the house, but there was no light. She ran her hands along the walls in the hallway, hearing whispers from Mochi and Coco as she passed. In her room she shuffled along until her foot hit the side of the mattress. Weariness pulled her down. And then a sound. Someone was snoring in her bed.
Sailor.
THE LUNCH
The following morning, as they drove toward Volcano House, the air was still clear and full of winter light and tiny white puffy clouds. No sign of Japanese invasion, but in just two days’ time, a string of ‘o¯helo berry bushes on the lava had turned red and purple, heavy with ripe berries.
Lana remembered how the old Hawaiian woman who lived on the lodge grounds used to tell her and Rose not to pluck the berries on the way to Kīlauea or rain and fog would engulf them. You can pick once you get to the crater, but you must offer the first to Pele. None of the kids had known her name; everyone just called her Auntie. One of her eyes was pale blue, which gave her a haunted look.
The first time Lana had seen her, she felt her skin itch. The woman had interrupted them as they played on the wall outside of Volcano House. Her words scratched at the back of Lana’s mind. “We finally meet,” she had said, even though there were no introductions made.
Once she had left, Rose whispered, “What if she’s Pele?”
Coco and Marie were piled in the truck beside her, with Sailor in the back, howling for no apparent reason each time they came across a patch of open sky.
“She misses home,” Coco informed them.
“We all do, and that is perfectly understandable. But is there anything she likes about it here?” Lana asked.
From the side, Coco’s li
ttle nose turned up slightly and a peppering of pale freckles dotted her cheeks. Lana could almost hear her unique little mind ticking. “She likes the warm fireplace and the pasture with wild horses. Sailor has always wished she was a horse, so now she can get to know a few and pretend.”
Lana laughed. “Maybe we can make her some saddlebags.”
“She would love that!”
Lana felt herself wanting to do anything to keep Coco happy and hear that sweet tone in her voice. Maybe joy was catching, and all it required was a well-meaning heart and plenty of friendship. Maybe it was something that couldn’t be stamped out, even in the worst of times.
“When we go out to pick berries or gather honey, she can help transport,” Lana said.
“We’re going to do that?” Coco said, looking up at her with wide eyes.
“We have to keep ourselves busy somehow, don’t we?”
Marie added, “What about helping out with the war? On the radio last night, I heard they need volunteers to knit sweaters and socks and scarves or make bandages or to help spot Japanese submarines or ships.”
“You ladies know how to knit?” Lana said.
Both girls shook their heads. “Our mama said all good German girls should know how to knit, but then she taught us how to bake instead,” Marie said.
“Hilo is too hot for knitting,” Coco said.
Boy, was that the truth. “Jack never taught me, either.”
“What about your mama—how come she didn’t teach you?” Marie asked.
“My mother died when I was born, so Jack was my mom and dad all wrapped into one.” No matter how many times Lana had spoken those words, her heart iced over.
Coco turned. “What happened?”
I happened.
“There were complications with my birth, and they couldn’t stop the bleeding. She died a few hours later.”
“You mean you never knew her at all, like you were motherless?” Coco asked.
“I lived inside of her for nine months. I did know her, and I can still hear her when I close my eyes. I remember that after I came out, the nurses put me on her chest. My ear was over her heart and she was humming ‘The Queen’s Prayer’ in the most beautiful voice you’ve ever heard. When I first learned the song in school and came home and told Jack it was the same song Mama was humming before she died, he went white as a ghost.”
“How is that possible?” Marie said.
“For a long time, my father tried to convince himself that I had overheard him talking about the morning she died, even though he never shared it with anyone. But I had one other piece of proof.”
By now, Coco was sitting facing Lana with her mouth agape. “What was it?”
“I knew her final words.”
These were not the kinds of things Lana normally shared with people, but the girls deserved to know. They had lost their own mother, after all, if only for the moment.
Coco could not contain her curiosity. “Can you tell us what she said?”
“She whispered to my father, ‘She is my ha,’” Lana told them.
“What is ha?” Marie asked.
“It’s Hawaiian for life or breath.” The rattle of the truck got louder as they all sat quiet for a bit, Lana thinking about how she had managed all those years. “I know it might feel different right now, but there really is no such thing as being motherless. Whether they’re gone from this world or still alive, with you or not with you, it doesn’t mean they stop being your mother. It’s not something that is reversible. They are always right here.” She placed her hand over her heart and patted it a few times. A few beats later, Coco did the same.
They pulled onto the main road. Heading south, Lana questioned her choice in bringing the girls and passing them off as her own, adopted or not. Hawaii was a small place, and although no one up here knew her business, word had a way of traveling from one town to the next faster than you could say Halema‘uma‘u. But if they were going to stay for any length of time, she couldn’t leave them locked away in the house all day.
“Say, can you still see the crack in the sky?” she asked Coco.
Over the tops of the trees, an expanse of blue filled the windshield. Coco looked from left to right. “Not right now. I think you see it when you look up accidentally.”
“What exactly does it look like?” Lana asked.
Coco shrugged. “Hard to explain.”
Marie folded her arms and grunted. “That’s because there is no such thing as a crack in the sky, silly.”
“Let her finish. If she saw it, I believe her,” Lana said.
Marie mumbled something that Lana couldn’t hear.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
After that, Coco refused to speak until they pulled up to Volcano House. A thin trail of smoke rose from the chimney. Sailor jumped down as soon as they climbed out and ran a big figure eight in the parking area. There were several army vehicles in the lot, and Lana felt herself tense.
“Let’s go around,” she said, ushering them around the side of the building and down a rocky trail to the side that overlooked the massive crater.
As soon as Coco caught sight of Kīlauea, she started running to the overlook, ringlets bouncing like coiled springs. “Will we see an eruption?” she called back.
“She’s been quiet for a while, but you never know.”
“Why do you call it a she?” Marie asked.
“Everyone does. Probably because Kīlauea is the home of Madame Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire.”
“You don’t really believe in Pele, do you?”
This was something Lana had grappled with as a young girl. “I respect the ancient Hawaiian myths as stories to make sense of the world around them. As I see it, Pele represents Mother Nature herself. Volcanoes are awfully powerful. Remember what Mochi was saying last night?”
Marie looked skeptical. “About the spirit in places and things?”
“Exactly.”
“It seems to go against God.”
A pair of tiny ‘apapane swooped low, wings humming as they did a flyby. “God is nature, Marie. You can’t separate the two.”
Lana was no religious expert, but one thing she was sure of was that being in the salt water of the ocean or the warm green of the rain forest was as close to heaven as she’d ever felt.
When they caught up to Coco at the overlook, she asked, “Can we go down into the crater?”
“Not right now, but maybe one of these days.” They were all in their fine dresses, Lana in newly washed white, Coco in pink seersucker and Marie in a sea-blue number that matched her eyes.
The sound of a door closing behind them had all three swinging around. Uncle Theo walked down the steps. “Not just one beauty, but three today. Who do we have here?”
Lana introduced the girls. Marie greeted him with a smile, and Coco hardly noticed him; she was too busy trying to locate a route to the crater floor. “Does this trail lead to the bottom?” she asked, pointing to a narrow break in the uluhe fern.
“That’s for pigs and menehune,” Uncle Theo said. “The one we use is over there toward the steam vents, and it takes you on the World’s Weirdest Walk.”
Coco looked intrigued. “Why is it called that? And are there really menehune here?”
He winked at Lana. “You’ll have to see for yourself, my dear.”
Coco bounced up and down on her tippy toes, and Lana had the thought that she might tear off on her own and follow the switchback to the crater floor in search of miniature Hawaiian men and molten lava. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”
Sailor was allowed in, too, and promptly made herself comfortable in front of the fireplace. All stretched out, she was longer than the hearth itself. Given the chance, Uncle Theo would never stop talking, and he explained to the girls about the fire that h
ad never gone out and which famous people had visited in recent years. Lana stared into the flames, happy that someone else was there to answer the endless questions.
“What about now that the war is here and we have blackout?” Marie asked.
“We can close off this great room.”
Coco piped in. “Like our house. We almost froze to death two nights ago. Especially—”
Lana swore the next word out of her mouth would be Mochi, and so she cut her off. “Poor Coco, her lips were blue in the morning. Even with Sailor for warmth. She hasn’t a lick of body fat to keep her warm.”
“We can help with that. Do you like macaroni and cheese?” Uncle Theo said, bushy mustache covering up a smile.
“Yes!”
“And pie?”
“Yes!” both girls said in unison.
Men’s voices drifted out of the dining area, and Lana caught herself listening for one in particular. Theo led them all in, and when they reached the entryway, Lana spotted a group of uniformed men circled around a table at the far end of the room. All conversation ceased when Lana and the girls walked in. Heat pricked the back of her neck, and she made a point not to look their way again.
At the nearest window table, Lana stopped. “Can we sit here?”
Every other table was empty.
“Make yourselves at home. I’ll let the kitchen know you’re here. Obviously we aren’t doing a regular menu, but I bribed a few ranger wives to come in and cook for us. And I might be able to sneak a scrap or two for the big fella,” said Uncle Theo.
“Sailor is a girl,” Coco said.
Theo smacked his forehead. “Ah, forgive me.”
The chairs were plush and the view magnificent, but the giant room felt oddly empty and quiet. She imagined it bustling with visitors from all corners of the earth. Coco sat quietly with her hands in her lap. Instead of looking out at the view, her eyes were on the door.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Lana asked.
Coco appeared not to hear.
“Mausi?” Marie said.
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