Lei and the Fire Goddess, page 8
“Oh my GOODNESS,” she said, sucking in deep breaths of fresh-ish air while standing on her tiptoes and stretching her arms over her head. “That sucked! Forget this plan. No way am I going to last underground all the way. I need to get back up aboveground, out of Pele’s veins.” She pushed her toes into the ground, flexing the shoe through the sole of her foot in an attempt to squeeze the water out that had soaked in while lying in the tunnel.
The jeans might dry, but these shoes? Never. Ridiculous five bazillion percent humidity. She shuddered, remembering her old purple bathing suit with the black polka dots. After swimming at the beach, she forgot it in her bag for a couple of days, and by the time she found it, it had grown some moldy plant life from the fungi kingdom and smelled like a swamp.
“Yeah, how you gonna do that, kuewa?” Ilikea drifted closer, offering the banana.
“It’s Anna.” Some of her hair had come out of her ponytail, and short tendrils stuck to her cheek and forehead. She tucked them behind her ears before taking and peeling the fruit while she looked around her new space. It was an apple banana, her favorite kind. They were smaller than the usual ones they’d get at the store in Colorado. The tart bite tasted almost like a regular banana that wasn’t quite fully ripe yet, but oh so much better. Anna found herself drawn to slightly green bananas back home in a poor attempt to replicate the taste.
The ground in the room was relatively smooth, with sporadic puddles and cracks. The light was coming from a small hole in the ceiling about the size of an extra-large pizza. Anna stopped directly underneath and looked up. The good news was that the rain had stopped and the weak filtered light that passed for sunshine in Volcano was attempting to break through the clouds. The bad news was that the ceiling was out of reach. Anna finished the banana, put the peel in her pack, and tried to reach the rim. She stretched her arms up and jumped, but the lip of the hole remained stubbornly beyond her grasp. Anna turned off her headlamp and stuffed it in her bag, then backed up to get a running start. Grinding her foot down, she crouched, then sprang into a run.
Step . . . step . . . LEAP!
The feeling of flying was pathetically short-lived, and her fingertips only grazed some of the wet roots hanging from the ceiling before she crashed back to the ground. Her knees and palms hit the floor, absorbing the sharp impact, and she rolled quickly to her side with a grunt the way her kung fu instructor had taught her. She pressed her scraped palms against her thighs.
Anna rose to her feet and winced at the fresh pain in her knees. Practicing the moves on a padded floor in the studio was way more comfortable. Ilikea continued to flutter above her head. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been down here, but surely time was ticking.
“Hey, Ilikea? So, if we assume that this whole Pele moʻolelo is legit and what we’re working with, is there, like, a time limit or something on how long I have to find Kaipo? I mean, in all the other stories, there’s some big mean person saying, ‘When the sun sets in three days, a plague upon your houses’ or something like that. Three is typically kind of the magic number, right?” She backed up and got ready for another jump. “Genies gave three wishes, Rumpelstiltskin gave the queen three tries to guess his name.” Anna leaped and missed again. This time she rolled a bit more gracefully. That lip was just too high. She put her hands on her hips and scanned the room. “Oh! And then there’s the whole Three Little Pigs, Three Blind Mice, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the Three Billy Goats Gruff thing. So, is Pele giving me three days to find Kaipo?”
Ilikea stared at her. “What are you even going on about right now? Fairy tales? This isn’t a fairy tale. We’re trying to rescue Kaipo and have to do it ASAP. You want me to predict how much time Pele is giving you? You might as well try to predict the weather.”
Anna cocked her head. “Um, meteorologists do that. It’s a thing.”
Ilikea blinked at her for a second, like she was shocked by the news before shrugging her bat wings. “Whatever. Point is, Pele’s unpredictable and can change her mind whenever she feels like it, so maybe we have three days, maybe we have three minutes. Heck, maybe you’ll meet three strange helpers before finally encountering the goddess herself in this part of the jungle. Fairy tales. Pfft. Come on, kuewa. We have to keep going and quickly.”
“Wait. Do you think she already k-k— . . . hurt him?” Anna couldn’t bring herself to say killed. A lump in her throat the size of Lānaʻi prevented it.
“Nah, not yet.”
Anna rubbed the inside of her elbow. “Why not? Why would she even give me the chance to get him?”
“Have you never even tried to think like a goddess before? I mean, come on. You go around just killing subjects willy-nilly, and then what? Who you gonna hang out with next?”
Anna winced at the casual use of the k word.
“Fine, so assuming he’s alive, that’s good. We can just go, apologize somehow—”
“Apologize with hula—” Ilikea interrupted.
“Somehow—”
“Hula.”
“Maybe with hula, and get him back,” Anna finished.
Ilikea did a somersault. “Oh my goodness, you really have no idea, do you, kuewa.”
“Well, at least I’m trying to think of something, Ilikea,” Anna mumbled, emphasizing her name since she’d apparently never use hers. “Where would I even learn a hula, anyway?”
Ilikea shrugged. “You realize at some point you’re gonna have to start figuring these things out yourself, right? I can’t help you with everything. Wings would get lost in translation.” She mimicked a couple of moves pathetically and almost fell to the ground before swooping back up and perching on some roots. “Don’t go breaking your brain again trying to do too much at once. Focus on getting out for now.”
As much as she’d hate to admit it, that was decent advice. Anna examined the ladder-and-staircase-free walls of the space. There were a couple of holes ranging in size at various intervals, suggesting other tunnels. Anna definitely wanted out of there. No more earthworming for her. But where would she go aboveground?
“Here’s an easier question: Do you know where we’re going once we’re out of this cave?”
Sweat began to pool at the base of her spine. This was not looking good.
“Do I know where we’re going? Ha! Pssh! Fssnnn! Snuh!” the bat continued before falling silent. Anna waited a beat.
“Well, do you?” Anna’s voice squeaked at the end of the question.
“Hmmm? Oh yeah. For sure. Definitely. But if I revealed all my brilliance to you at once, you’d be stunned and just fall over weeping in gratitude, and we’d never get anywhere.”
Anna raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“Hey, look, a moth!” Ilikea zoomed over to the far side of the cave to catch some bug that was invisible to Anna’s eye. Right.
She cleared her throat and tried to do what her mom always said: focus on what she could control, which right then was getting out of there and finding Kaipo. With or without this bat. Letting herself spiral into a pit of despair while actually stuck in a pit, though tempting, would be completely unproductive. Right? Right. Focus.
“Well,” Anna said, snapping her hair band and deciding to keep it basic, “I’m going to get out of here and just keep heading ma uka till I get to the top of the mountain and look down into Pele’s home. Maybe find a doorbell or something to ring to let her know I’m there. Seems realistic.”
Ilikea stayed quiet.
Fine. Silence it is.
Anna moved to one wall and placed her hand on the cool stone, feeling its ropy surface for any sort of handhold. The flow of lava polished this cave generations ago. There was no way Anna could scale the wall and maneuver across the ceiling on her own. Overhead, some of the roots that were poking through the ceiling were wider than others. If I could make it up to there, I’d be able to do it. She put her hands on the surface again. Come on, there has to be an old gas pocket or something I could grab onto . . . aha!
Anna’s fingers sunk into a small indent way above her head. She held on tightly and attempted to pull herself up. In all her years of hiking and backpacking, she’d only gone rock climbing a few times. She was okay at it, but the heights freaked her out. Two feet on the ground was definitely more her jam.
There is no way I can pull myself up with this tiny handhold.
“Gah! I could really use some HELP!” Anna shouted up to the void, frustrated at coming so far, being so close, and not being able to get there.
A strong wind blew through the tunnel and abruptly stopped. Ilikea looked at her expectantly.
“What?” Anna asked.
“Well, did you call Makani here or not?”
“Makani? Oh, the wind that told you what happened? Wait, they’re here?”
“You must have sincerely asked for help and opened up a bit. Are you ready?”
“Ready for wha—oooohhhhhh!” Makani formed a strong burst of air, lifting Anna off the ground.
Slimy Monkey Bars
Anna instinctively crouched and bent at the waist, putting her hands back down on the ground. “Ilikea! I’m not doing a wheelbarrow race right now!”
“Makani is only trying to help. Do you want to get up that wall or have you decided Kaipo isn’t worth it?” Ilikea snarked.
Anna twisted her neck so she could look up at her. “Okay, so my feet are up. Now what?”
“If you’re going to face Pele, you’ve gotta start getting creative.”
Okay, so the bat was a “tough love” kind of coach. Or maybe she didn’t know, either. That was a scary thought. Remembering the burpees her snowboarding coach made the team do to “maintain overall fitness,” Anna attempted to kick her legs back into a plank position with her feet in the air. Her nose stung as a memory of her and Ridley hit her. A couple of years ago at training, they both did burpees faster and faster till they were barely even straightening up at all on the jumps. Coach was not pleased. They both had to do a five-minute plank hold at the end of class for goofing around, and her abs were like jelly for days after that.
A drip of snot fell from Anna’s nose onto the damp floor of the cave. She quickly sniffled in the next drop and put one hand in front of the other, over and over. Her triceps trembled and palms stung from her earlier fall. Makani provided a light pushing from behind, helping her move across the tunnel floor.
When she got to the wall, she scooted her hands back toward her feet that were still hovering above the ground in Makani’s grasp. Wobbling slightly on the uneven wind, Anna slowly stood, using the wall to brace herself, holding her breath. Finally upright, she exhaled and looked up at the curve of the ceiling.
As soon as she redirected her attention, she felt the wind give her a little nudge toward the ceiling of the tube, and Anna grabbed onto the roots that were dangling. It’s just like when I was little and Dad supported my feet as I struggled across the monkey bars. I’ll focus on that and maybe get out of this tube before I freak out that I’m currently being held up by nothing more than a helpful weather phenomenon!
Anna hadn’t factored in how slippery the roots would be. It made sense: all the water dripping off of them for days, months, years; of course they’d be slick. Anna clutched onto a particularly slimy root, and it slipped right out of her hand.
“Oop! Yeah, those are usually a little slick,” Ilikea said, watching the slow progress while hanging on a root.
“Thanks for the warning,” Anna said through gritted teeth. Her hand slipped off the next root, and she fell again, slowly, buffered by the wind. Her arms pinwheeled, finding no purchase until she was back on the ground. Ilikea spoke from her perch.
“You can’t have Makani do all the work. They aren’t that powerful. You’ve got to pull your own weight. Or are those puny little arms not able to?”
Anna wiped the root slime onto her jeans, adding one more smudge to all the filth. Smug flying flier.
“My arms are just fine, thank you very much. Makani and I were just getting to know each other again. It’s been a while.” Time to remeet an old acquaintance for the first time. “Um, hi, Makani.” The breeze blew her hair back off her face, cooling her. Anna closed her eyes and smiled. “All right, you and me. We got this. Let’s show that bat.”
A deep inhale through her nose—not quite down to her naʻau—prepared her for the next climbing attempt. There was a slight tremble to her step, which she hoped Ilikea wouldn’t notice, as she approached the wall. She talked to the wind. Mm-hmm, no big deal. Just an old friend about to help her out of a lava tube. Cool, cool.
When she felt Makani swirl around her legs, she braced herself on the wall and looked up. Anticipating the rise this time, Anna focused on finding the largest, most gnarled roots that would provide the best handholds. She grabbed one root, holding strongly while testing the slipperiness of the next, transferring her weight only when she was sure she had a solid grip. She took shallow breaths and flinched when water dripped onto her face from the ceiling. Trying to keep her flailing legs under control resulted in twinges and tweaks as Anna tried to make Makani’s job of supporting her easier.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were grabbing onto live wires and getting shocked with every root,” Ilikea said. Anna bit her lip and reached for the next hold.
Three more roots to go.
Two. Bah, that was a big drip, gah don’t let it be a spider. Nope, just a waterdrop.
One. And . . . I’m . . . THERE!
Anna gripped the edges of the opening, her legs and body dangling in the tube below. She felt Makani swirling around her as she ran her fingers along the ground searching for purchase. The ledge was paper thin in areas and crumbled under her touch. A cascade of dirt and rock fell onto Anna’s face, into her eyes and open mouth. Anna looked down, blinking and sputtering furiously, trying not to lose her grip. Her hair swirled around her head, a side effect of Makani’s efforts.
“Come on, kuewa, don’t lose it now,” Ilikea said from somewhere nearby. Blindly, Anna worked her hands around the hole, the wind helping her rotate, and finally found some holds that remained firm under her weight. Using all her strength, she pulled herself up, first getting one elbow up onto the ledge, then the other, and pushing herself upward while Makani heaved her legs up from below.
As soon as Anna was high enough to get her knees on the wet, mossy ground, she scrambled quickly away from the opening on all fours, not able to see where she was going. Ilikea flew up out of the hole behind her, and Makani brushed the wisps of hair that escaped her ponytail back from her face, letting her know they were still there. Anna wiped her filthy hands on her equally filthy jeans, then carefully tended to her eyes, pulling their corners out to the sides to form tears that washed away the dirt and grime.
There was no way her brain, clamoring for a logical explanation, could dispute the fact that she was almost buried alive by Pele’s lava tube. Or that Makani had definitely helped her get out of the cave. What would Tūtū say if she could see her now? Blinking the cleansing tears away, she surveyed the jungle in front of her. Whoa.
Well, click her heels and call her Dorothy, she certainly wasn’t in Volcano anymore.
Or at least not the Volcano she knew.
This jungle was somehow wilder looking than it was around Tūtū’s. An ancient-looking hāpuʻu fern grew five feet sideways before taking off toward the sky. The coils of the young ferns emerging from the trunk looked part octopus—strange tentacles about to unfurl and grab you with their suction-cupped appendages. Anna felt Makani whisper to her the way they used to when she was little. She remembered standing on the lower soggy trunk just a little off the ground while holding on to the tall, lacy ferns erupting from the top of the L-shaped tree and pretending she rode an alien beast while Kaipo would gallop around, over, and through the trees nearby.
It was so dense there she couldn’t tell which way was ma uka.
“I’ll head up and take a look to figure out which way to go,” Ilikea said, as if sensing her indecision.
Anna waited while Ilikea ascended. Looking back toward the hole in the ground, she pulled out her phone, wiped the dirt off the lens, and took a quick selfie with the opening in the background and her mouth in a grimace. Makani caught the vibe she was going for and blew the hair in her ponytail up, so it looked like she was falling and freaked. Laughter bubbled out of her at how ridiculous the picture looked. It’d be perfect to show Ridley. “Nice. Thanks, Makani!” They swirled around her.
“Oh yeah, by all means, let’s stop and do a photo shoot,” Ilikea cut in. “Ma uka is that way, FYI.” Her batty wing thrust indignantly to the right.
Anna’s cheeks heated, and she bristled at the implication she was wasting time. “Hey, you were checking on direction. I had time. I’m already done.” Anna stuffed her phone away with more force than necessary.
Makani swirled away from her. As Ilikea grumbled to Makani about loyalty and missions, Anna looked where Ilikea had pointed. Some of the weblike tendrils of the uluhe fern undergrowth had been cleared away between giant trees, leaving space to walk without being caught in their tangle. Someone or something must walk this path frequently to keep the area so clear.
“Hey, you two.” Anna tried to interrupt Ilikea’s lecture. Makani was getting their two cents in by spinning the bat around in a mini hurricane. Anna knew laughing at Ilikea’s frustrated exclamations of not getting proper respect would be treasonous, so she struggled to keep a straight face as she asked, “What do you think made this path?”
