Grant slipped one into his mouth and immediately Lana got a strange sense that maybe he shouldn’t be allowed to eat them. Surely they weren’t enchanted, but she had felt odd after eating them. Not only feverish and ravenous, but the red blotch on her face had flared up, and despite the cold, she had spent the rest of the afternoon in a sleeveless top.
“Dang, that’s good,” he said, chewing with his eyes closed.
Why was watching him eat the cookie such a sensual experience? When he was done, he ate another one, chewing slowly and deliberately. This time his eyes were open and he watched her watching him.
“I can see why you ate half the batch,” he finally said.
“With Christmas coming up, I thought we better start baking. We have to watch our butter and flour, but the—” Wagners almost came out “—my father had several large sacks in his pantry in Hilo. The shelves are almost empty in Kano Store.”
“I give him credit for such foresight. Stocking up on things like that,” he said, coming closer and looking directly at her cheek. “What happened to your face?”
Lana felt her cheek. Now it was raised slightly. “I must have burned it in the kitchen earlier. My skin is sensitive.”
All untrue.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but it looks like you got branded,” he said.
“Why, thank you, just what a girl wants to hear.”
He tipped his hat. “What I want to know is by what?”
She could only imagine what the spot looked like now and wondered if he was just toying with her or being serious. Someone could have taken tracing paper to his lips and then transferred it to her cheek. “What do you think?”
He jumped off. “Come down here. Let me have a better look.”
Lana did as she was told. They stood there between the two horses. Her heart thumped uncontrollably. Grant took off his hat. His hand went to her chin, turning her cheek toward the muted light.
“Hmm” was all he said.
Lana could feel his warmth travel across her skin, down her throat, through her dress and all the way to the ground. He moved so his face was two inches away from hers. She could see the bleached tips of his lashes and the moss flecks in his iris. She stopped breathing. No one had ever looked at her this way.
Bottled-up longing made her weak in the knees, but she managed to step back. “Are you okay?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked several times. Lines of perspiration beaded on his upper lip, and he turned to the side. Then he unbuttoned his shirt. All the way to the last button. “I’m not sure,” he said.
Her eyes automatically ran down to where his stomach met his jeans. “What are you doing?” she said.
The look on his face said he was just as surprised as she was. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but I don’t feel like myself. I don’t think I should be here right now. Do you think you and Lady can find your way back?”
Something was very off. “You can’t be serious. What about ‘Ohelo? And this fog?” she said.
He jumped on Boss, who pranced around in a circle, nostrils flaring.
“What do I do with Lady?” she pressed.
“I’ll get her tomorrow.”
And just like that, he was gone.
THE CRATER
What a failure the venture had been. No helping ‘Ohelo, no more information gathered about the Wagners, and Lana and the girls had poisoned Grant with cinnamon and chocolate cookies. Maybe the coconut was somehow tainted, or there was a bug that was catching, but Lana had her doubts.
At least he had been right about one thing. Lady had a great sense of direction. At one point Lana was sure to veer left, but Lady stopped in the middle of the trail and refused to budge. Lana kicked her heels in but Lady stood firm. When she finally let the reins up, the horse took her own route through the unfiltered fog. Fifteen minutes later, they were back at the house.
She found Marie and Benji layered in sweaters and wearing their boots, about to head out and search for her. Apparently Grant had flown past the house in a blur. Everyone wanted to know what happened.
“Major Bailey fell suddenly ill,” Lana said, unsure of how else to explain his odd behavior and rapid undressing.
“And he just left you out there?” Benji said.
“I told him I could find my way back.”
Coco lit up. “Does that mean we get to keep Lady?”
“For the night, we do.”
Mochi remained quiet, but she could tell he had questions. So did she.
* * *
With a steaming mug of coffee in hand, Lana stepped outside to check on Lady. Sunlight shone through the treetops, spreading the scent of honey and pine needles through the morning. The sky was wide-open. Bleary-eyed from a night of vivid dreams involving Grant, it took her a moment to register that Lady was no longer tied to the tree. The rope was still there and Lana ran over to check it. Untied. Her saddle was hanging from a low branch. She tiptoed through the house to see if Coco was still asleep, and sure enough, her bed was empty.
Lana laced up her boots and set out toward the pasture. The dew-covered grass wet everything below her knees, and pretty soon her boots were soaked. They weren’t at the pasture, and Lana was in no mood to go trudging through the forest and across the lava fields. Nor was she dressed for it. But worry strained her heart. The thought of Coco thrown from Lady, or fallen through a crack, was enough to keep her going. She’d ridden bareback only once, but once was enough to know how hard it was.
She passed the barn and crossed the field, looking for evidence of hoofprints. None of the grass had been trampled and the fine layer of water droplets remained undisturbed. Lana stopped. She was out of breath and on the verge of panic. On horseback, Coco could be miles away by now. She thought about what lay beyond the immediate area. Pit craters and desert, and below that the rift zone, a sudden drop of land that spanned the whole coastline. It was futile to keep going.
On the way back to the house, she ran through a dozen horrific scenarios before some of Mochi’s words came to mind. Live in the here and now—that means choosing faith over worry. When she thought about it rationally, Coco was on Lady, Sailor was with them and both animals had strong instincts for self-preservation. Coco had a tendency to wander, and she always came back. Right away, her mood flipped. Numb toes and a cold and dripping nose. These were real. As were the faraway call of a hawk and the spiderweb between two ‘ohi‘a trees.
Back at the house, the others were awake. Coco had not returned, so they made breakfast of fried rice and egg with chopped wild spinach, which grew in abundance around the house. Coco hated spinach. Lana kept reminding herself not to worry, and Marie seemed unconcerned, which helped.
After eating, Benji and Marie went outside to check the garden beds, which had begun to sprout. The sweet potato was especially fast-growing, sending shoots in all directions.
Mochi seemed settled in at the table. He had more color today. “What’s going on with that Major Grant? First you run off in a huff, and then he leaves you in the fog with his horse,” he said.
To admit having feelings for Grant would complicate their neatly constructed sanctuary. But how could she hide it? Mochi saw through falsehoods and pretenses as clearly as he saw through glassy seas to the fish below.
“You’ll think I’m crazy, but since our paths first crossed, there’s been this invisible pull. The worst part is I just found out the girls’ parents are now being held in the camp up here. And Grant is in charge,” she said.
He looked at her without judgment. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
She sighed. “This will sound even odder, but I think the cookies had some kind of effect on us—Grant in particular.”
He nodded. “The more we expect the unexplainable, the more we draw it in. Especially up here.”
The word
s reminded her of what Coco had said the other day. You have to believe. The two had more in common than one might assume. Both seemed to have an extra helping of faith in the unseen world. One was young and one was old, but kids and old people cared little about what others thought. This was their blessing.
“I used to feel the difference in the air every time I came up here, as though everything was dusted in a strange kind of electricity. But being away for so long, I started thinking it was just a figment of my young imagination.”
“It wasn’t your imagination.”
Hooves thundering down the road caused a jump in her heart. Lana stood to look out the window. Coco and Lady were trotting down the driveway side by side with Grant and Boss. Coco was barefoot and she had a blanket wrapped around her. Grant showing up unannounced was risky for them. As a precaution, Mochi disappeared into the bedroom. It was late enough in the day that having Benji here made sense.
Lana rushed out to meet them. All her plans to scold Coco evaporated when she saw the look on her face—bliss and freedom and a contented heart. Lana knew it well because, as a girl, riding horses or running wild picking berries or combing the beach for shells had had the same effect on her. The secret back door to happiness opened in small moments like these.
“Where have you been, young lady?” she had to ask.
“Not too far. We stayed on the driveway and walked to warm up. It was Lady’s idea.”
“I’m sure it was.”
Grant waved. He would hardly make eye contact with Lana. “Coco’s a natural, I’ll give her that. It’s like she’s been riding her whole life, bareback.”
“How did you get on?” Lana asked.
“The stump,” Coco said, pointing to the remains of a Norfolk pine to the right of the lanai.
Grant slid off and held his hand up to help Coco down. “I’d love to stay and chat but I need to get going. We’re dropping boulders today to block Boles Field and that old airstrip right next to the crater.”
“Has something happened?” Lana asked.
“Just precautionary.”
Lana remembered the old landing strip he was referring to, which had been built by the military on volcanic sand just south of Halema‘uma‘u crater. Whose bright idea that had been, she wasn’t sure, but not long after it was completed, the volcano spewed out thousands of fiery boulders and a towering cloud of ash. Needless to say, they moved the airstrip.
Coco came over and for a moment Lana thought she was going to hug her, which would have been a first, but Coco said quietly, “Want to know a secret?”
“I’d love to.”
“I wished for a horse yesterday, on top of—”
Lana knew what was coming next and loudly interrupted. “—well isn’t that something! First you got a wooden horse and then a real one, at least for a bit.”
“Can’t she stay with us?” Coco asked Grant.
“Lady is borrowed, so she’s not mine to give. But I’m hoping soon we’ll have ‘Ohelo and the others rounded up. Then you can have your pick. Hey, would you mind running along, Coco? I need a moment with your mom.”
Your mom. The words dropped like lead between them. Coco froze in shock for a moment, then tore off like a frightened rabbit.
Grant looked confused. “I hope that didn’t upset her too much. If it were up to me, I would leave Lady here no problem.”
“It’s fine. She’s a sensitive child.”
“I want to talk to you about yesterday.” He cleared his throat, looked beyond her and kicked at a tuft of grass before continuing. “Taking off like that was a rotten thing to do. I can’t explain what happened other than I ate the cookies and my whole body started burning from the inside out. I remember feeling out of control, like I might do something I’d regret. Leaving seemed the only option.”
Seeing the concern in his eyes made her want to reach out and take him into her arms. “Don’t worry about it. I made it home and no one’s the worse for it.”
“Did I do anything offensive? My memory is pretty hazy, as if I drank a whole gallon of whiskey or something.”
An image of Grant without his shirt came to mind. “Not at all.”
Lana felt a blush coming on. She looked away and caught sight of his long shadow on the grass, crossing into hers.
“There’s something I need to ask you,” he said, biting his lower lip.
“Okay.”
“I know it’s a crazy time, but would you consider meeting me away from here, just the two of us?”
If only he hadn’t been so good-looking, maybe she wouldn’t have this churning in her stomach. And knowing she should say no made her want to say yes. The strange conundrum of wanting what you should not have.
“It’s probably not a good idea,” she said, forcing the words out.
He just stood there. Leave! she wanted to say. It would be far easier to never get involved than to fall for him and deal with the consequences. She was damaged goods and a liar—who wanted that?
“Come on, Lana, give me another shot. Just for a couple of hours,” he said.
It wasn’t as though he was asking for something huge. Just a bit of her time. And she knew she had a tendency to think too far into the future.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
“How about you just trust me? As long as nothing new develops, I can sneak off Thursday afternoon and pick you up at seventeen hundred,” he said.
Say no.
“I’ll meet you at the end of the driveway. Will that work?”
He broke into a smile. “Absolutely.”
* * *
The ferns along the trail down to the floor of Kīlauea dripped moisture even though the skies were clear. Lana and the girls passed through groves of ginger, towering ferns and stunted ‘ohi‘a trees. The newer the flow, the smaller the foliage. Ever since lunch at Volcano House, Coco had been pestering Lana to take them in, and Lana figured it would be a nice outing for the day, a welcome diversion.
In many places, the switchback was only a narrow pathway carved into the cliff, providing for a spectacular view of the caldera; in other spots, trees and bushes engulfed you. Coco ran ahead but stopped to wait for them at a lookout along the way. “The ground is smoking. Does that mean it’s going to erupt?” she said.
“It’s always like that. Groundwater meets hot rock and causes steam to rise from the cracks,” Lana said.
“Like our breath when it’s freezing?”
“Something like that.”
They continued on and Coco took off running.
“I still can’t believe your parents never brought you here,” Lana said to Marie.
“Dad was always working and Mom was not the adventurous type. Just going to the beach was a big deal for her. She was happiest at home baking or sewing or doing household stuff.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Look how wonderful you two turned out,” Lana said, feeling bad for implying anything negative about the Wagners.
“She always worried about Coco and wanted to give her the most normal upbringing. And now this happened. It’s so unfair,” Marie said, folding her arms.
“Life has an interesting way of choosing our paths for us. We can plan all we want and then, just like that, the world turns sideways.” Lana threw up her hands. “But you know what?”
She wanted to tell Marie her parents were right down the road but forced herself to wait.
“What?”
“I’m beginning to see that the more we dig our heels in and fight, the harder it becomes. We can’t always change what’s happening in the world, but we can change how we react to it. Does that make any sense?”
Marie stared at the ground as they covered the final downhill stretch. She gave a weak shrug. Lana reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I guess what I’m trying to say is have faith that ever
ything will turn out. It may not seem that way now, but one day you’ll look back and see the lessons you learned.”
Lana was only digging herself deeper. Marie was too young to understand. Her parents were locked up in Kīlauea Military Camp, and she was hiding away with a near stranger. Better to shut up.
On the crater floor, shimmering black fields of lava stretched out for several miles. Lana thought back to her final trip to the volcano with Jack in 1924. News had spread quickly that Halema‘uma‘u was erupting again after years of quiet. Along with half of Hilo town, they rushed up to see the action. She had witnessed previous eruptions, but nothing compared to the brilliant fountains of lava and the molten web on the crater floor. Hot wind and gas made the air almost unbearable, but people still flocked as close as they could get. Jack and Lana were no exception. Lava hissed and gurgled and screeched. Lana was smitten.
When they’d checked in at the Volcano House later that night, word was going around that Uncle Theo and a local guide had gone out the previous evening to see if they could stir up Pele with prayers and rituals. Business had been slow, and Theo was on the verge of bankruptcy. They tossed an ‘o¯helo berry lei and a bottle of gin—Pele was thought to love gin—into the crater for good measure. A few hours later the volcano roared to life. Since then over ten years had passed and no one knew when the next eruption would come.
Coco crouched down at the edge of a crack, peering in. “Does the crater go to the center of the earth?”
“I doubt it,” Marie said.
“What’s under here, then?” Coco said.
“A whole lot of hardened lava and most likely some lava tubes that branch out from the crater. That’s how the lava comes and goes,” Lana said. An ‘o¯helo berry bush grew out of another crack nearby. “Let’s pick a few to toss to Pele.”
The air was still and hot and waves of heat distorted the pathway, which was already hard to see. They walked in silence mostly, Coco darting ahead and peering into cracks and Marie falling behind and seeming hot and bored. When they finally reached the edge of Halema‘uma‘u, Lana’s blouse was matted onto her back.
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