Islands of Fire Read online

  “This is something I thought I’d never see in my life,” she says.

  “I wish I could share your enthusiasm. Look how high up those birds are. How are we going to climb there in our weak state?”

  Kina holds her hand out under one of the steady streams of water dribbling from above, and holds her palm to her tongue. “Well, at least the water is fresh.”

  They refill their dried-out coconut shells with water and press on, looking for a place to shelter.

  For some time they pass between ever-taller pillars of rock. The tiny islands start to grow closer together and, in some cases, are still fused together at the top to form arches.

  The sun finally sets and Kina and Motua have found no way up. Frustrated, they pull up a stone from the sandy sea floor and tie one of the sennit ropes around it to make an anchor, then guide the canoe under one of the towering arches. As night descends upon them, Kina gazes at the dozens of strange-shaped islands around them and begins to fantasize that they are ancient giants turned to stone while wading across the ocean.

  That night she dreams of moaning ghosts that move along the empty shore of an unknown island, looking forever out to sea as if they might be able to see someone on the far horizon. She snaps awake in fear, only to hear the sound still echoing, her dreams come to life.

  She nudges Motua awake and they sit still, listening to the haunting sound for some time. Overhead, the moons race against the glitterdome of stars, and the Teeth are dark silhouettes looming around them. When no threat materializes from the night, Kina and Motua allow sleep to overtake them again.

  Come dawn, Kina is surprised to find the sound still continuing. Motua looks at her. “What kind of lapu can still haunt during the day?”

  “I don’t know,” she replies. “Maybe it isn’t a ghost at all?”

  They pull up their crude anchor and drift onward through the Teeth, pursuing the sound. It grows louder, and soon they can tell the strange noise is coming from high on one of the larger islands.

  “Look!” Motua hisses. He points up toward the top of a rock column they are passing.

  Kina looks up and catches her breath. Despite being shrouded in riotous growth, stones clearly cut by human hands can be seen. There are great square blocks stacked one atop the other, weathered by rain and wind but nonetheless identifiable as a structure.

  They see no way up, though, so they continue, pressing onward toward the strange sound. “It comes and goes,” Kina says. “Do you think it’s the wind?”

  “Perhaps,” Motua replies.

  As they round the base of one of the columns, Kina clutches Motua’s arm. “There!” she says. “A wharf!”

  A long line of stones, carefully fitted one to the next, juts out from the base of one of the islets. The waves break against it. Motua guides the canoe over to it, and as they grow closer, Kina can see an opening in the rock.

  Without a word, they pull the canoe up against the short jetty and hop out. Motua tethers the end of the anchor line to a huge stone on the jetty with a groove running around the waist, carved apparently for just such a purpose.

  “Someone lives here,” Motua says.

  Kina shushes him. “Yes, and they may be close, so we should whisper. Why is there no canoe here?”

  “Perhaps someone is out fishing?”

  “Or,” Kina says, “maybe we’re wrong and nobody lives here anymore, and just the jetty remains.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Let’s look at this opening.”

  They sneak down the jetty until they approach the wall of rock forming the base of the column. Now in the shade, the air grows cooler around them. Kina can hear the dripping of water coming from deep within stone.

  Time has eroded an archway in the stone surface that leads into a small cavern. Motua follows Kina into the chamber. Waves slap against the walls, echoing in the enclosed space. On the far side Kina can see another opening, and they have to wade through ankle-deep water to reach it. They re-emerge on a natural sand ledge that extends out into the water. Hanging down from above is a ladder made of rope.

  “Someone does live here!”

  “Careful,” Motua says. “Stay against the wall.” He ducks back through the small cavern and comes back a minute later with the pahi in hand. Kina catches her breath at seeing it unwrapped once more. Even in the broad daylight it looks like a thing of night.

  The symbols cut into the sides are still glowing, though more faintly.

  “What are you doing with that thing?” Kina asks. “We should have pitched into the deep ocean while we had the chance.”

  “Aside from your leiomano, it’s the only weapon we have. I don’t like this thing, either, but I feel better being armed since we don’t know what lives here.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘who?’”

  Motua looks at her. “I hope you’re right.”

  They step out onto the sandbar to check out the rope ladder and Motua stops Kina with his hand. “Look up there!”

  Above them, a walkway made of ropes and old wood stretches from the top of the tiny islet over to another. As they venture farther out, they can see similar bridges between a couple more islets.

  “There might be a village up there,” Kina says, hopefully.

  “Let me go first.” Motua returns to the canoe one more time and brings back a short length of rope.

  “Are you able to climb? You look so weak.”

  “I am,” Motua answers. “But what other option do we have?”

  He ties the rope around the pahi and then around his own torso so that it hangs on his back. Now that the weapon is secured, he tugs at the ladder to test it and, satisfied, begins to climb it.

  Kina watches for a while, biting her lip. She feels exposed and conspicuous, aware that anyone could be watching her from one of the high columns. That strange moaning sound can still be heard, though it has died off a bit.

  Motua reaches the top and vanishes. Several tense moments pass as Kina watches for him to reappear. At last he does, and waves her up.

  The ladder wobbles under her and pitches back and forth across the wall in a disconcerting manner, but Kina doesn’t fear heights so she simply focuses on each rung until she makes it up the wall. Motua is waiting for her, crouched behind a tangle of ferns. He helps her up and she kneels beside him.

  “There,” he says, pointing across the bridge.

  Two islands over, a crude hut thatched with palm fronds can be seen poking out of dense brush. The wind is still blowing, and now it sounds like the moaning is coming from that direction.

  “Why would a ghost need a hut?” she asks Motua. He shrugs.

  “That’s not all,” he says, and directs her gaze through the bushes. Dangling nearby on a bamboo stake are several wicker traps. They look to Kina like lobster traps, though smaller. They dangle on cords, blowing in the wind. For a moment she gazes at them, not sure what she’s looking at, but then she notices something moving inside them. A little flutter, like a bird, though only half-seen. She stares, intently, and still cannot distinctly see anything other than a shadow that flaps around in the cage in an agitated manner.

  “What is that?” she says in a soft whisper.

  “Lapu,” Motua says. “Trapped ghosts.”

  Chapter 4: A Hidden Man

  Kina looks at the cages dangling on the bamboo pole in disbelief. Surely Motua is wrong. How can anyone trap ghosts, especially in such little cages? There had to be a better explanation. Perhaps there were birds in the cages, but a trick of the light made them hard to see…

  She leaves the brush and steps out onto a small trail that has been cut into the rounded top of the island. Up here, she can see out across the ocean to a great distance. The Shallow Sea extends all the way to the horizon, broken only by these strange pillar-like islands and lonely sand bars the wind across the flat expanse.

  But her attention returns to the cages. She approaches cautiously, k
eeping her eye on the little wicker objects. Their cords creak in the wind. With each nearly-silent flutter, the cages dance on the end of their lines.

  “Kina, come back!” Motua calls, but she ignores him.

  Approaching the bamboo pole, Kina kneels and squints. The wicker cages have been expertly-woven, and don’t seem old. Now that she is closer, she can tell they contain no live birds. But, just as she thought, there is a dark, transparent shadow inside most of them. The shadows are about the size of a human hand, and beat themselves against the wicker walls like small, trapped animals.

  Kina finds she is breathing rapidly, her heart racing. So this is what a ghost looks like! She wonders how they came to be trapped like this, hanging from a pole high on this pillar of rock out at sea.

  She reaches out with shaking fingers to touch one of the cages.

  “Kina!” Motua shouts.

  Coming to her senses, Kina backs away from the cages and returns to Motua.

  “They really are lapu,” she says. He nods. “What happened here?”

  “They were caught by somebody,” Motua replies. “An uhai lapu, we call them. A ghost hunter.”

  Kina looks to the hut. “Maybe that’s who lives there.”

  Motua studies the hut. “It’s possible,” he says. “Although, from what I know of ghost hunters, they don’t usually live so isolated. They sell their services to those who need to rid their families of angry ancestors, who have mischievous ghosts destroying their fish ponds, that sort of thing.”

  “Let’s get closer,” Kina says.

  The two of them make their way over to the rope bridge. Unlike with the ladder, Kina suddenly finds herself concerned about the strength of the ropes. She peers down at the shallow water far below. At this distance, a fall will be fatal. Were the water deeper, she might be able to twist into a dive and minimize the damage, but no one could survive a fall from this height into waist-deep water.

  “You sure you want to cross?” Motua asks her.

  “We’ve come this far. Why stop now? And we need food. If there’s someone over there, perhaps they have some.”

  “I hope they’re in the mood to share it,” Motua says.

  Kina decides to go first. “I’m lighter,” she says. Motua nods in assent, so she places her foot on the crude planking. It holds.

  She takes a few more steps. The wood lashed to the sennit ropes is strong enough, but the whole length of the bridge shimmies in a terrifying way with each movement.

  “Kina, come back,” Motua says, but she ignores him. She takes a few more steps, then a few more, and before long she is in the middle of the bridge. She tries not to look down at the shallow, lapping water far below. Instead, she locks her gaze on the far side and lets her bare feet seek out solid footing. She has to suppress the urge to run the last few paces of the bridge.

  Once more on solid ground, she turns and looks back across the gap to Motua.

  “It isn’t hard. Just take your time,” she says.

  Motua looks down for a while, then edges out into the bridge. Whoever built it also stretched twin guide ropes at waist-height, and Motua clings to them tightly. The whole thing creaks in a way it didn’t do under Kina’s weight, but it holds just fine, and before long he has joined her on the top of the second island.

  The path continues here, wending between rocks and trees up and over the hillock that forms the island’s head. At the top they discover two more bamboo poles with cages. Many of these also hold flitting dark shapes.

  “Why are there so many ghosts?” Kina asks.

  “Perhaps Lohoke`a is haunted,” Motua says.

  They reach the next bridge and cross it in the same manner—slowly and cautiously, with Kina going first. Once they are both on the island near the the hut, they drop low and find a place to hide.

  “Do you hear anything? Motua whispers.

  Kina shakes her head. Other than the moaning sound, which is loud and very close now, she hears nothing. There are no signs of life.

  The hut is made of woven thatched walls stretched between posts of what look like palm boles. All around the edge of the roof hang dozens more wicker cages, and many of them also seem to have tiny occupants. A strange collection of fish bones has been hung from a tree branch and clatters in the wind.

  “I’m going in closer,” Motua says. He leaves Kina’s side and silently pads through the dense growth behind the hut. Kina watches as he approaches.

  Motua spends several minutes near the wall of the hut, then creeps back to Kina.

  “There’s someone inside. I can hear them muttering.”

  “Maybe we should call out to them,” she says. “They might be friendly.”

  Motua looks doubtful. “We risk letting them get the upper hand.”

  “We’re out of our element here,” Kina says. “We’re exhausted, hungry, and about to collapse. I don’t think we have a fight in us, do you?”

  “No,” Motua says, after considering for a moment. “You’re right.”

  “Let me do the talking.”

  Kina rises and walks around the edge of the island’s top until she can see the front of the hut. It rests under two tall palms and a thick shade tree, and the bushes grow right up to the sides, though now she can also see a tiny garden in front. All around the garden are more of the bamboo poles and wicker traps.

  “Hello!” she calls out. After a moment, she adds, “I approach in peace!”

  From inside the hut comes the sound of someone hastily moving about. The door, made of woven pandanus leaves, is thrust aside and an aging man bursts out, holding one of the wicker cages on the end of a pole.

  The man begins to utter an incantation then stops. His eyes grow wide and he drops the pole to duck back into the hut. Kina stays put. In moments, the man re-emerges with a spear. He rushes out of the hut onto the weedy path in front of it, thrusting the whittled point toward her.

  “Trespasser! Get back or I’ll kill you!”

  Kina holds out her hands. “Wait, I don’t mean to intrude. My companion and I are lost at sea and found your wharf. We are starving. We ask only for food and water.”

  “Your companion?” the man asks, and swings the spear around as though expecting to be flanked. “I see no one!”

  Kina calls out to Motua. There is a rustle of bushes, and Motua steps out to join Kina.

  “The woman is telling you the truth. There’s no need to point that thing at us. Can’t you see we’re about to fall over with hunger?”

  The man points with the spear toward Kina’s leiomano, which is tucked in the waist of her tapa skirt. “Do you always carry a battle weapon when you are lost at sea?”

  “This?” Kina pulls it from her skirt. The man crouches, as though expecting an attack. Kina tosses it onto the ground before him. “Please, we mean no harm.”

  The man looks to Motua. After a moment, Motua unties the pahi from his back and lets it drop.

  Upon seeing the long, black knife, the man gasps and steps back.

  “You are both liars,” he hisses. “You carry the pahi of the Ebon Flame. You’re both burning warriors!”

  “No!” Kina cries. “We have stolen it from them.”

  The man takes quick glances over the lip of the island, scanning the horizon while trying not to let Kina and Motua out of his sight. “Where are the rest of your warriors?” he spits. “Have you surrounded me? You’ll never take my skin for your cursed drums. I’ll sooner throw myself over the side than be taken for your evil god.”

  “This was a mistake, Kina,” Motua says.

  “Wait,” Kina says to Motua, and turns back to the man. “Several days ago we escaped the pits of the burning warriors. Before fleeing from Toko-Mua we stole this pahi, the one they use in their ceremonies. They pursued us but we lost them in a storm at sea. It’s the truth!”

  The man stares at them, unsure.

  “Look at my skin,” Kina says, suddenly thinking of a stra
tegy. “I have no tattoos!”

  “He does,” the man says, gesturing to Motua.

  “Yes, but are those the markings of the burning warriors? Their kind have a pattern that extends across their chests and down their arms. Surely you can see this is different.”

  For a long time, the man continues to stare at them, spear out. Then he lowers the point to the ground.

  “Fine, I’ll help you,” he says, “but you can’t stay here. If there are too many of us, I might be detected.”

  Kina wonders what he means, but decides not to ask. She is too grateful and doesn’t want to press her luck.

  “Thank you,” Motua says.

  The man gestures for them to follow him. He leads them through the flap into the crude hot. Inside, the heat of the day makes the air feel oppressive. Kina can tell by the smell that the man has lived here a long time.

  “Please,” the man says, crouching before several gourds. “Please sit. Here is some water.”

  He hands them leathery skins full of water. Kina and Motua drink greedily, and when they are done, the man gives them dried meat and some cooked breadfruit.

  “My name is Puponawai Toatu`ome Huma`o,” the man says. “I go by Pupo most of the time.”

  Between bites, Motua says, “We’re happy to meet you, Pupo.”

  “It’s been a long time,” Pupo says, settling onto the floor, “since I saw any living humans out here in Lohoke`a.”

  “Living humans?” Kina asks.

  Pupo nods. “Dead ones arrive every night.”

  “We saw the traps,” Motua says. “Did you set them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this place haunted?” Kina asks. “Why so many ghosts?”

  “They aren’t from here,” Pupo replies. “They have been sent.”

  Though Kina is hungry, she lowers the steamed breadfruit and looks at Pupo. “Sent? Sent by whom?”

  Pupo says, “You would be better asking what sent them. It’s name is `Imu`imu.”