Racing the Dark (4 page)

"It isn't poisoned, dear," said an old woman Lana thought she recognized.

"Oh ... I'm sorry..."

"You haven't eaten all day, have you?"

Lana shook her head mutely.

The old lady clucked, revealing a sturdy tongue in a mouth lacking about half its teeth. "You're all the same, poor dears. After you come up with your first jewels. Too stunned to even enjoy the food."

Lana visibly shook herself and then smiled. "You're right, I should eat. Enjoy myself."

The lady nodded. "And if you're still feeling nervous, you ought to smoke some of that." The lady gestured to the pipe filled with amant weed that was being passed around the circle. Lana had never tried it before. It hadn't even occurred to her that she would be allowed to, now.

"Maybe ... maybe I will."

"Well then, eat up."

Lana picked up a spoon and put some food in her mouth. She stared at the old woman again. She seemed familiar, but Lana couldn't figure where she might have seen her before.

"It's good. Thank you."

The lady chuckled and waved her hand in he air. "It's nothing, nothing. So long as you're enjoying yourself, Lana, that's all I care about."

Lana smiled nervously. Why was this woman addressing her so familiarly?

"Those leibo, they're too big on you, you know. You're a bit shorter than the rest of the family, I suppose. They fit me perfectly."

"Um ... do I know-"

"That was some discovery of yours, this morning, wasn't it? I don't blame you for keeping it a secret. There aren't many of us who would be willingly marked like that. But that color ... and given to you so freely by a dying mandagah. You may be marked despite what you've done, dear. There may be nothing you can do about it. Perhaps you might have been better off hiding your first blood after all. Too late now, of course ..."

Lana's hands were shaking so badly that she heard her spoon rattling on the wooden plate.

"Who ... are you? How did you know that? Please don't tell anyone ...

The lady smiled. Was it Lana's imagination, or had the gaps in her teeth disappeared? "Oh, don't worry about me, Lana. I'm just here to wish you luck. And you may need it, at that. You may need it."

Lana looked around frantically to see if anyone else had heard their conversation.

"Listen-" She turned back and stopped short.

The old woman had disappeared.

The hand she then felt on her shoulder nearly made Lana drop her food altogether.

"Oh ... Okilani. It's you."

Lana didn't dare ask if Okilani had seen the old woman. Instead, she tried to smooth her features into some semblance of a normal expression. Okilani sat down beside her on the reed mat and gave her a penetrating gaze before she spoke.

"It was just a spirit, Lana," she said quietly. "A benign one. No need to be so afraid."

Lana put the food down. She felt like throwing up the spoonful she had eaten.

"You ... you heard, Okilani?" She could barely keep the terror from her voice.

The elder turned to her and patted her hand. "No. I only sensed its presence. It came for you, after all-I wasn't meant to see it, or hear what it said."

"Oh" Lana's voice was a reedy whisper.

Okilani narrowed her eyes and Lana looked away quickly.

"A spirit?" she asked falteringly. "How is that possible?"

"We're especially close to the outer death shrine. I'm sure you noticed that it was visible today. Sometimes spirits with particularly strong wills can come back for a short time on special occasions. Did you recognize it?"

Lana considered for a second. "She seemed familiar, but I don't remember ever seeing her before. But she commented on my leibo ... they were too big, she said. Said that I was short for my family. They had fit her perfectly."

"Why, it was your grandmother, then. Your mother told me those leibo had been hers."

"My grandmother?"

"You never met her, after all. She died before you were born. She probably came to wish you luck."

"That's ... that's what she said."

Okilani stood up and looked back at Lana. "Then you probably need it."

As her grandmother's spirit had predicted, Lana felt much better once she smoked some of the amant weed. It made her cough painfully at first, but the other adults just laughed and gave her something to drink. She didn't even realize at first that it was palm wine they placed in her hands. Between the wine and the amant, she felt little more than a slight twinge of anxiety when she thought of the strange encounter with the spirit.

That amant weed was wonderful, Lana decided as she reclined on a mat by the fire. It made everything seem clearer, somehow. She looked at the moon, so bright and massive in the sky it drowned the light of all but the brightest stars. Something flickered in the corner of her eye and she turned to it. For a second she caught a faint glimpse of her grandmother, her form insubstantial and wavering by the fire. She looked younger this time, but still recognizable. The spirit winked at Lana and then raised her hand in a farewell.

Lana frowned a little and then waved back. The spirit wouldn't tell anyone Lana's secret, but her warning worried her a bit, even past the amant weed and palm wine. Her grandmother disappeared. Lana stared at the place where she had been for a few moments and then lay back down on the mat.

"Lana?"

She sat bolt upright, looking around again for her grandmother again, but it was only Kali, who had snuck up to the adult area by the fire. Lana wondered if the others would make Kali leave, but it seemed that they were too preoccupied to notice or bother.

"What is it?" Lana asked. "Here, sit down. I don't think anyone will care."

Kali smiled and sat. "Wow, Lana. I can't believe that you get to sit here now. Do you feel like an adult?"

Lana shook her head. "Not really ... but it's nice to be close to the fire, I guess. And I like the amant."

Kali looked wistful. "That sounds great to me. I almost wish that I had been training as a diver, too. I'm a year older than you and I still have to sit with the babies!"

Lana smiled. "Better find yourself a husband quickly, then."

"Don't be ridiculous. Who would I marry now? Kohaku? But I couldn't do that, could I-you'd have to kill me for stealing your one true love." Kali looked at Lana's furious blush and started laughing.

"What ... what are you talking about? Kohaku is our teacher!"

"Don't tell me. I know that. You're the one who's always staring at him like a fish." "

I do not!"

"Well, you like him, don't you?"

Lana looked away without saying anything.

Kali put her arm around Lana's shoulders. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. But perhaps, just to make sure, you could let me try a little of that amant ..."

Lana smiled a little. "Sure. Just try not to be too obvious, okay?"

Actually, Kali coughed so much that Aya came over to see what was the matter. She didn't seem to mind that Lana had given Kali some amant. Afterward, they both sat in companionable silence as Kapa played a traditional song on one of his harps. Lana was almost moved to tears-her father was, in his own way, saying goodbye to the little girl he had raised.

Yaela, the very first mandagah diver, supposedly composed the song a thousand years ago, before humans had bound any of the three great spirits-death, fire, and water. When the capricious nature of the water spirit had threatened to destroy all of the mandagah fish, Yaela had left the island and offered herself as the sacrifice that allowed the water spirit to be bound-imprisoned and thus controlled. On the inner water shrine, the prison that still held the great spirit, officiates left offerings in her memory. "Yaela's Lament" was the song the legendary diver had written just before she left to be sacrificed-saying goodbye to the great ocean and mandagah fish that were her first love. Although a female traditionally sang the song, her father's light falsetto commanded it as well as any woman singer Lana had ever heard:

Lana walked back home slowly beside her parents. She felt a little dizzy, but she wasn't sure if it was because of the amant, the palm wine, or her excitement. Perhaps all three? She looked up at the sky and made her fingers form a circle right above her eye, so it looked as though she had captured the moon within her hands. Giddy laughter left her lips almost involuntarily. Her mother looked at her, opened her mouth, and then shook her head.

"Hurry up, Lana," she said. "You still have school tomorrow, remember."

That night, after her parents had gone to sleep, Lana snuck out of the house-as she had done many times before-to dance beneath the moon. She wasn't sure why she enjoyed doing this so much, except that it made her feel close to something both beautiful and intangible. She heard her father singing "Yaela's Lament" in her head as she twirled in the moonlight. At first she felt joyful-reveling in how marvelous the day had been, and how strange. But as she continued to dance, she felt almost sick with the knowledge that from now on her life would be irreversibly different. She felt tears come into her eyes and abruptly stopped dancing. What would happen tomorrow? She thought about the red mandagah jewel and more tears sprang to her eyes. Her grandmother might have been right-maybe she was marked despite herself. She couldn't know what it meant, but at this moment it felt like the worst of omens.

Lana fell to her knees in the sand and felt some of the water from the receding tide seep into her leibo.

"Great Kai," she whispered. "Please let everything be okay."

She looked out at the ocean to see if there would be any response to her prayer. The waves continued breaking gently on the shore. Nothing changed.

Then Lana realized that even now, in the moonlight, she could still see the outline of the death island.

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