Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“I’ll go.” Kiki's voice shook, and fear paled her face, but her courage impressed me.
Mother had no say, frail and exhausted as she was on the bed. At this late hour, and only a few days after Kiki told me about the rumors around town, mother had slipped into her sickness again.
“It’s too dangerous.” I shook my head, putting on my boots and lacing them up to my ankles.
Kiki gasped. “Oli, you can’t go!” She looked like she wanted to say more, but no words escaped her mouth. Ever since she found out I’d seen the night marchers and ignored them, she was wise to keep it only between us. Mother’s health was waning, and we didn’t need to worry or burden her.
“She needs medicine.” My voice came out raspier than I wanted it to. “Now.”
Kiki pulled on her boots and began lacing them too.
“Kiki–”
“I will accompany you.”
“You must stay with mother,” I said, but Kiki shook her head.
“She’ll be fine, Oli.”
Before I could reply, Kiki spoke with the firmest voice I’d ever heard her use. “I’m. Coming. With. You.”
We both looked towards our mother, who nodded her head, though she probably hadn’t heard much of our conversation anyway.
I hesitated. Did I stay with mother, who was not feeling well? What if she passed away here, and I stayed so she wouldn’t be alone? But I couldn’t let Kiki go out alone. It was too dangerous, and she wouldn’t take the shortcuts like I did because she didn’t know them. I had to go.
We both had to go.
I sighed in frustration. “Fine. But keep up.”
“You know I will,” she replied with confidence, but we knew better.
Kiki was rather clumsy, the type of person who sprained her ankle while walking along a flat sandy beach or cut her finger on a soft leaf.
I had a bad feeling that something might happen to her that would slow us down, but I had no choice.
We made sure mother was as comfortable as she could be, though her sickness made that nearly impossible. We left ginger tea and other comforts by mother’s bedside, then closed the door to our little one-room shack behind us and sprinted down the path.
I don’t know how long we followed the moonlit path, cutting through the forest here and there, sweat pouring down our foreheads. I held the lantern to keep the path lit, hoping that the firelight would deter, well… them.
But I knew better. They were carrying their own lights the last time I saw them. How could I expect them to stay away from my light?
Everything seemed to go smoothly… too smoothly. Kiki did not miss a beat as she ran behind me when, normally, she lagged. She had never been the outdoors type, and even when father tried to teach her how to spearfish, she nearly drowned only a few feet from shore.
Kiki spent her days at home. She would make a great homemaker and mother; there was no doubt in my mind about it.
But homemaking was the farthest thing from my mind at the moment. All I could think about was getting to the kahuna’s shack for medicine as fast as possible. As we reached the path where I had encountered the night marchers the first time, my hair stood on end.
They’re not coming for you, I told myself over and over, though this road was an ala hele. People would come and go down this path all the time. Surely we’d bump into another human soul, and we would laugh to ourselves at the fear pulsing through our veins.
But it was night. People weren’t out at night…
“Oli?” Kiki froze behind me, grabbing my arm. I gasped as my momentum almost made me trip.
I turned to chastise her when I realized why she stood still. In the distance, the pounding of a drum sounded.
It’s just my heartbeat, I thought. I was breathless from our sprint, realizing it wasn’t my heart. There really was a noise in the night.
The sound of the conch shell filled the air.
“We have to run–” I said, when Kiki’s fingers dug into my arm.
“Oli… too… late…” Her voice was hoarse as she pointed to the path behind me.
I looked back and all the blood drained from my face. It left my body, for all I knew.
Something–no, someone–was approaching us. Unlike the last time, when there were multiple lights bobbing in the distance and a group of specters marching towards me, there was only one person coming forward.
My hair stood on end. My toes curled. Every inch of my skin prickled, as if I were getting poked by a hundred sea urchins.
But before I could take a step, uprooting us from our place, a voice sounded. “Don’t move!”
Frozen and speechless, I stood there. The voice was confident, deep, and intimidating all at the same time. My legs were shaking like leaves in the wind beneath my dress as I held up the lantern, revealing the specter.
“You must be Oliana.” The night marcher stopped several feet in front of me, and iciness seeped into every muscle of my body, causing my bones to feel as though they were rattling against one another.
How did he know my name? This solidified the truth that the night marchers, indeed, had been looking for me.
The man held up his torch to illuminate my face. I knew I shouldn’t be looking at him, but I couldn’t stop staring.
Every part of him was terrifying and so unearthly.
He truly was something not of this world.
With a surprisingly young face and toned physique, he was tall, much taller than me.
Also probably not more than a couple of years older than me.
His dark hair was effortlessly tousled, and he wore a lavalava around his waist, leaving his chest bare.
A strap fastened around his waist, and a leiomano hung from it.
The shark teeth surrounding the long wooden weapon looked unnaturally sharp.
A traditional feathered cape sat on his shoulders, tied at the front with a whale's tooth. Tribal tattoos covered his muscled chest and arms, signifying what tribe and ancestry he came from, though I knew nothing about symbols or any of that.
If I had been born into royalty, I would have been able to recognize his tattoos and identify exactly who this man was, what island and kingdom he came from, and from what generation he hailed. Was he hundreds of years old? I would never know. I was not royalty. But did it matter?
I was just a drunken fisherman’s daughter. And I was terrified.
His transparency spooked me most. His entire body was a grayish color and somewhat see-through, as if I could put my hand through him and it would go through thin air. A faint light illuminated his body too, as if there were a dim luminescence about him.
But even more unsettling were his eyes. His eyes glowed as golden as the sun during a deliciously ripe sunset. Not that I was admiring them while also feeling absolutely petrified.
“You’re coming with me.” He smiled a dazzling smile, then reached forward. Just as he was about to grab my wrist, my instincts kicked in. I stumbled back, realizing that Kiki had prostrated herself on the ground with her eyes shut tight.
“Oli!” she screamed, hearing my boots crunch on the path and a gasp escaping my mouth.
The man frowned. “We don’t have all night.” He stepped again towards me.
“You can’t touch me!” I exclaimed, swinging my lantern. The marcher stood close, so close I could see his eyes even better now. They were the lightest colored eyes I’d ever seen, reminding me of the eyes of a pueo, an owl.
“Your companion has the wisdom to prostrate herself and avoid my eyes,” he said, his eyebrows still furrowed in… anger? Annoyance?
He had the most handsome face I’d ever seen, as strange as it was to admit that, especially when I was reeling in terror. I’d seen the chief of my people before, and while all chiefs and royalty somehow had exceptional looks, this young man before me truly was something else.
The surrounding air was chilly, as if his very presence was turning the air into solid ice. As if to prove my theory, my breath appeared in the air.
“Kiki…” I said, a lump in my throat. “Run–”
“Nobody is running,” the man said. “She’s going to stay there, prostrated, just like any normal, wise person would do. And you’re coming with me. We’ve wasted enough time already—” He reached his hand out to grab me, and some words screamed from my mouth, something like, “Youcannottouchme!”
But it was pointless. My blood must’ve turned to frost as his hand grabbed my wrist. It seemed neither he nor I had expected his seemingly transparent body to touch mine.
Our eyes met, and the corner of his lip twitched.
He’s a ghost, but he can touch me… I thought ghosts were see-through! And he looked see-through!
I’m going to die… I swung the lantern onto his arm, but it went right through.
“What in the islands–”
“Don’t put up a fight, young lady,” said the night marcher. “Come on. You’ve been summoned for your disrespect towards Kāne. If you’re lucky, you’ll be forgiven and released. If not…”
“Oli!” Kiki’s voice was desperate. “Oli, you can’t leave mother and me! Please!” She now begged the night marcher, though she didn’t dare look at him.
“Come on.” He pulled me forward, but I resisted, putting up a fight to get him to release me.
“I’m not going anywhere!”
“You’re wasting time–” With those words, he scooped me up and threw me over his shoulder.
“Put me down!” I screamed, pounding on his back and kicking my legs against his chest, though it had no effect. Every single one of my hairs stood on end, and my body felt like it was pressed against a solid piece of ice.
“Listen, Oliana!” he said, and hearing my name on his lips felt like a death sentence. “My order is to take you to the night marchers. You have disrespected one, and you must be punished. I will not waste one more minute speaking to you—”
“Because you have somewhere else to be?” I interrupted, knowing I was playing with death.
The man stood there, looked around at the empty night, and huffed. “Actually, yes. It took me half the night to find you, and I do have other things to tend to.” He glanced at Kiki, still on the ground with her face in the gravel road. Then he turned and began walking along the path.