Chapter 13
Iwoke as my father set a cup of tea on the wood floor beside me.
It was bright outside, though clouds loomed overhead. Birds chirped in the trees just outside my window. My father blew air over his own tea, backing down to sit on the mat next to me.
“Good morning, little leaf,” he said, his tone indicating anything but. Dark patches sagged under his eyes.
I sat up, testing my strength, and leaned against the wall opposite from him. With relief, I noted my feet responded. My throat was dry, and my muscles a bit weak, but otherwise, I seemed fine. I gazed down to watch my toes wiggle.
“Good morning, Makua.”
“I made you tea.”
Usually, I was the one who made us tea. My fingers curled around the clay cup. “Thank you.”
His eyes fixed on the door flap, tied open to invite the morning breeze, and he didn”t answer. The scent of sandalwood flowed in, warm and spicy. I wondered how his night had been, how angry he was—I’d destroyed two canoes in less than a week.
“I sent the boy away about an hour ago,” my father said, watching the light flash as my abalone wind chimes turned. “He had to check in with the dockmaster, anyway. He’s been waiting for a letter from home.”
Kye had finally saved up enough for the ships to deliver a message for him. I paused before taking a slow sip. “He stayed here?”
“Not at first. He brought you in unconscious, dropped you, and took off for Akamai’s house.”
Cup poised at my mouth, I let the steam caress my nose and cheeks.
“Akamai came to tend me?”
My father opened his mouth and closed it, his jaw tight. It occurred to me, as he stared out the door, that he avoided looking me in the eyes.
Ah. Kye had called Akamai for help, but she’d left me for dead.
Shame curled around my shoulders, licking heat over my skin. I stared remotely at my father’s feet.
The village doctor, who passionately healed everyone from merchant strangers to pirate cabin boys, had left me for dead.
My head throbbed. The night before had muddled in my memory. Viscid. Slippery. Like trying to see the pattern of stone through spilled blood. Try as I might, I couldn’t wipe it clean. It felt as if I’d floated forever underwater, staring at the individual drops of moisture, but I could hardly remember a thing.
Except silver eyes. I’d thought they’d belonged to Nori. But Nori’s eyes were dark, coppery red. And Olinne’s were blue.
Something else had been with me under the waves.
Someone else.
An image flashed in my head—a hoard of Naiads floating together underwater, their faces aimed up at Kye, watching with predatory stillness as he swam down. Like they’d laid a trap, using me to bait him. And he’d followed, right into their grasp.
The Naiads took the sailors.
The thought hit me like a bolt of lightning. It flashed through my center and out to my fingertips, roiling under my skin and stealing my breath. I choked on hot kava tea, thrusting the cup away, staring in horror at the dark liquid as it sloshed over the rim.
The Naiads killed the missing sailors. And let me take the blame.
A lump hardened in my stomach like a bite of festered meat.
There was no doubt in my mind, as I recounted the way they gazed up at Kye with wicked smiles, that they’d been the reason sailors had disappeared from Leihaniian shores.
But they’d let me take the blame. They’d convinced me I was a Steward of the Land while they killed the very sailors I was shunned for killing. They’d arranged my isolation from my own people, had driven a wedge disguised as flowers and birds and herbs between me and Leihani, and then had pretended to be my friends.
And I had fallen for it.
Deep down, had I always known? Had I turned a blind eye, too absorbed in the desire to belong, to see what was right in front of me? How desperate had I become, between the day I’d met them at nine years old and now, that I’d never seen it before?
You wish us to find him? A human man? An ugly, filthy, slimy traitor?
“Maren.” My father heaveda deep sigh, finally looking into my eyes. “What happened? How did my va’a end up underwater?”
I stared at my father. Words evaded me. I could only think of the weight in my center, hard and fetid. The throbbing in my head returned—I was going to be sick.
“You know how to get back in your canoe if you fall in,” my father continued, his voice too soft.
My stomach heaved. It was too hard to focus on what he was saying. I placed my head back in my hands, closing my eyes.
Ano sighed. “Did he push you in?”
“Who?”
“Kye.”
I shook my head, my tangled hair whispering against the tapa cloth wrapped around my chest. “No, Makua. There was a hole in your canoe—”
“Did he hit you?”
I looked at him, horrified. “No, Makua–”
“Did he do something you didn”t like? Or did you…reject him somehow?”
Swallowing, I put slow emphasis on my words. “No, Makua.”
He waited, his eyes challenging me, demanding answers.
The Naiads killed the sailors.
I let out a rough sob, resting my brow on my knees. My chest pressed tight against my thighs, but I wrapped my arms around myself anyway, as if I could bend into something so small I’d become nothing more than shadow and sound and the tiny shreds of water that hid in the air.
Beside me, my father released a deep exhale.
“Maren, when he brought you back, he was more terrified than I’ve ever seen another man. He said that you’d capsized. But if you only capsized, why were you unconscious? If you don”t tell me exactly what happened, I”ll go to the dockmaster to have him arrested.”
As if the dockmaster would care if Kye had attacked me. What a stupid thought. Even so, I tore my hands away to glare at him, incensed by the idea. Shame licked my insides, as if the pit of morbid decay had been set aflame, a slow burning seed of rot. “Makua, no. Your va’a sank, and I fell in.”
“How? Tell me. Because I don’t believe you.” He clenched his jaw, his knuckles white. They popped as he curled them, one at a time. His eyes flashed, and heat seeped from him like a dark vapor. I couldn’t help but stare at my father, a rigid mass of smooth island skin over muscle. Always smiling; always joking. I’d never seen my father angry.
“There was a leak.”” My mouth twisted, and I looked pleadingly at my father.
He’d never believed I’d killed anyone. He’d always thought the best of me, even if he’d done so quietly, privately. Hedidn’t believe I was a witch.
“I capsized in the tide. Kye pulled me out of the water. He didn’t attackme, Makua.”
My father licked his lips, covering his jaw with one hand, rubbing his chin hard enough to create indents in his cheeks. “Why did he bring you back unconscious?”
“I don’t know... I think I was unconscious before he pulled me out, and then I blacked out again in his boat. Why? What happened when he brought me home?” If Akamai had been called, half the island likely already knew I’d been ill, and the other half would find out today.
Ano inhaled, holding the air in his chest and gazing out the door, unwilling to say. We fell into silence, each contemplating the missing pieces of a puzzle the other was unwilling to complete.
“I need to ask you a question.” His voice was ragged. He seemed to deflate onto the floor, feet drooped out ahead of him, hesitating as he scratched the back of his neck. I waited, hugging my legs as I watched the birds out the open door.
“Do you make people do things?”
My brows tightened. “Do things?”
“Can you lure people?”
For a moment, stunned silence sat heavily between us. I turned my cheek, the soft skin under my eye dragging against my knee as I sent my gaze boring into him. “What do you mean, lure people?”
“Do you tempt people?”
My mouth went dry. I swallowed and murmured, “Who would I tempt, Makua?”
“I don”t know. People. Boys, other islanders. Sailors.”
“And how would I tempt sailors,” I whispered through my teeth.
“So, the answer is no?”
I glared at him, my throat raw with disbelief. “No. I do not lure people. I cannot make people do things.”
“Okay,” he whispered, looking out the window. “Okay.”
“Happy to put your fears to rest,” I spat.
He nodded to himself, as though he’d anticipated my venom and already accepted it as a necessary consequence for the question he’d been forced to ask. I wondered for how long it had plagued him. If he’d asked my mother the same thing.
Rolling onto his feet, knees popping, he stopped, waiting for me to meet his eyes.
I did so begrudgingly, glaring at him.
“I’m sorry, little leaf,” he said softly. His hand twitched, and I thought he might muss my hair, like he used to do when I was a child. But he didn’t. “I don’t want you rowing out to that island at night again.”
And then he left.
I stared down at the teacup on the floor, unsure which part of our conversation his apology had been for. Sucking in my bottom lip with a quivering breath, I lashed at the cup, sending it flying across the floor. It shattered on the opposite wall. Warm liquid pooled over the floor mat, its bitter, earthen scent bleeding into the hau bark.
The pit in my stomach burned, hot and hollow.
The Naiads killed the sailors.