Only Human

Kaipo was sitting, propped up with pillows against the headboard of the bed, when Lei peeked in on him the next morning. After another night of bad dreams, Lei needed to reassure herself that he wasn’t actually a decaying zombie. Makani kept a steady breeze coming in through the window, and the room smelled fresher than it had in days.

“Spying on me?”

His voice was back to a more normal volume but sounded raw from all the yelling. Makani blew the curtain over his face, taking offense at the tone. It’s hard to give the stink eye to the wind, but Kaipo gave it a solid effort through the sheer fabric, looking like a mad bride. A week ago, they might have shared a laugh over how absurd he looked, but now, as Lei shifted to move into the room, he turned to focus his glare on her. Lei shrank back.

There was no way she could tell him about her nightmares and her constant need to make sure he wasn’t rotting. Her throat got tight imagining his “Well, you deserve the nightmares and the worry, it’s all your fault” response.

Instead, Lei pointed to white tufts poking out of his ears. “What’s going on?”

“Hmm? Oh…nothing. My eardrums were cold.”

Kaipo reached up and pulled what looked like bits of tissue out of both of his ears, tossing them in the rubbish can under the end table. He winced and his eyes darted to the wall before coming back to Lei.

“Your eardrums were cold?” Lei repeated.

“What, are you an echo now?” His voice was louder again, eyes tight. “Yes, my eardrums were cold. And you know what, they’re still cold.”

He pushed up off the bed and headed to the bathroom, brushing by Lei.

She followed, watching as he tore off pieces of toilet paper, wadded them up, and stuffed them into his ears like he was trying to silence a sound only he could hear. If he’s hearing something loud, it’d explain his yelling. Lei snapped her hair band, thinking. Could it be connected to the missing pendant?

With a big sigh, Kaipo faced her again. “What did you want, other than to come stare at me?”

“I just wanted to see if you needed anything.” Lei hunched, protecting herself from the sting of his words.

All signs that they used to be best friends seemed to be fading fast, but she was desperate and stubborn—if she had to spend the rest of her time at Tūtū’s coming up with excuses to spend time with him, she would. She needed to fix this.

“We could go for a walk, stretch your legs, get you some sunshine and fresh air,” Lei suggested.

Makani ruffled Kaipo’s hair, letting some of it flop into his eyes, as if trying to remind him what fresh air was like. Kaipo didn’t bother pushing it away from his glower.

Lei changed tactics. “I wanted to tell you, Ili came by for dinner last night.” She followed him as he stomped back to his room. “She seemed…” Saying his mentee was acting like a surly sailor probably wasn’t the way to go about cheering him up. “…good. She seemed good.”

“Really? Because when she stopped in to see me it sounded like she was ready to toss you and your ideas to the sharks.” He pulled the cover back up to his waist and crossed his arms.

Lei’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know why she thought my ideas were so bad.”

“Because they were.”

Lei sucked in a breath through her teeth.

Kaipo kept going. “You’ve already done enough. We need to face it. I’m human.”

Lei averted her eyes. He doesn’t know he might turn into a kuewa. Makani swirled in a figure eight around Lei’s ankles. Kaipo thought that the downside of not having his pendant was just that he’d be human. He’d, what, start growing up like a real boy, go to school, live out a life among people? Her chest felt like she was buried in sand—tight and heavy. She needed fresh air, pronto.

“Sorry, boss. I can’t accept that. Come on, let’s get you moving. You’ll feel better when you’re outside again.”

Lei yanked on the pillow behind him and he groaned. She felt bad, but Tūtū had said he needed to get his feet back in touch with the earth. Making sure that she didn’t touch any of his healing wounds, Lei slowly helped him stand upright. One step at a time, they made it out of the room. Kaipo leaned on her and grumbled the whole way to the front door.

As soon as the sunlight hit his face he quieted, tilting to feel it more fully on his skin. Lei slid on her slippers (mentally patting herself on the back for thinking of them as slippers, never as flip-flops, here) and worked to get him down the porch steps with as little jostling as possible. They crossed over the gravel walk and onto the soft, damp grass, Kaipo leading them straight toward the trees. Then he stiffened and turned, purposely heading in the opposite direction. When they reached the other side of the house, he slowed, humming as his toes curled in the long blades. The low sound loosened the pressure on Lei’s chest. They made their way around back, keeping to the cleared, sunny part of the yard, not quite ready to venture into the forest again. Lei peered into the shadows, half expecting to see her friend Kamapuaʻa’s snout, but if the part-pig, part-boy kupua was there, he never showed himself.

Kaipo seemed to be in a better mood out here. Maybe being out of the house silenced whatever had been bothering him. As they approached the laundry line, Lei chewed over how best to bring up the pendant. Old Kaipo appreciated the direct approach, so she seized the moment and jumped right in.

“I need to find your necklace.” She carefully lowered Kaipo onto one of the cinder blocks by the laundry-line pole so she could pace. “Where do you think Pele would have put it?”

If she hadn’t been watching him so carefully, she would have missed the flicker of something across his face.

“I have no clue,” Kaipo replied. He picked at the edge of the bandage on his arm.

“You’re lying.”

Lei was sure of it. What possible reason would he have to lie about this? She squatted in front of him to meet his eyes.

“Kaipo. I know something’s bothering you. You’ve been hearing stuff, haven’t you?”

There. Lei caught his eyes darting back to the direction he’d led them in when they’d first left the house. Out toward the ocean.

“Is it your pendant? You have to tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know anything other than the fact that you’re a major pain in my—”

“Give it a rest. How long have you known me?” Lei raised her brow at him. “Do you know what I did to get you back? Know how many chances there are that I’ll give up on this? Zero. Zero chances, Kaipo.”

He stayed silent as Lei continued.

“We have been through too much together. Remember when you saved me from that wild boar? Or when you defended me at Uncle Shorty’s loʻi in Waipiʻo in front of that mean guy who didn’t think I belonged there? Or do you remember that time last summer…at the farmer’s market…”

Lei’s cheeks got hot at the memory. Kaipo’s own cheeks darkened, and she knew he remembered. It took an awesome friend to hurry to KTA and buy feminine hygiene products in an emergency. He was her hero.

“You’ve been there for me my whole life.”

It was Kaipo’s turn to raise his brow.

“Oh, give me a break.” Lei threw her hands in the air. “Fine. My whole life that I’ve spent in Hawaiʻi. Happy?”

He smirked.

“It’s still a lot,” she insisted. “You know what that also means? I have all day to hang out with you. And if you’re gonna stay silent…I guess…I’ll just have to…”

Lei paused, trying to think what she might do. She glanced at Kaipo’s eyes, filled with curiosity, even with the frown stretched across his lips. For Lei, it was hope. Hope that he was still her best friend under all that scowling. Lei began intently searching the part of the yard that was closer to the generator shed.

Then she spotted glistening, so-deep-red-they-were-practically-purple berries. She picked them and turned back to Kaipo. He quickly pulled back from leaning forward to see what she’d been doing and pasted a bored look on his face. But he couldn’t fool her.

“I found your favorite.”

“That’s nice.”

“Really, you don’t care?”

“Nope.”

Lei opened her hand, showing the small Hawaiian raspberries. “I know you love ʻākala.”

“I’m full.”

Lei laughed. “Full? They’re berries, not spaghetti.”

Kaipo bit his lip.

“All I want is information,” she insisted. “I’m trying to help.”

Finally, Kaipo’s mask of indifference cracked. He sounded like her former friend as he pleaded, “I can’t have Pele do to you what she did to me. You need to let it go.”

His words pounded her like shore break, but Lei stood firm.

“You might as well take the ʻākala. I’m going to figure this out one way or another.” She let out a big, melodramatic sigh and looked ma uka, toward the crater. “I’d rather not go back up the volcano, but if I need to narrow it down somehow…”

“Stop with the martyrdom!” Kaipo swiped the ʻākala from her hand and popped them in his mouth before she could change her mind.

Mask in place again, he narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t really know much,” Kaipo insisted.

Lei raised a brow.

“Really. I just know that there were times when I was with…her”—his jaw ticked at whatever he was remembering—“when ʻIo would leave. To keep my mind off the pain, I’d count the heartbeats till he returned.”

A fresh wave of guilt sliced through Lei and she clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. The nightmares would be rough tonight. She’d never stop trying to make this right.

“Most often he was gone for mere minutes, usually under five hundred heartbeats, but there was one time…” He frowned.

“Yeah?”

Kaipo swallowed. “Pele didn’t think I was listening. ʻIo had messed me up pretty good the night before and I think they thought I was sleeping or unconscious or something. But I heard her say that another ʻaumakua had been forgotten, and she told ʻIo to handle it. ʻIo was gone so long, I lost count.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I think ʻIo took the ʻaumakua’s pendant, the way he took mine.”

Lei got excited. “That’s good, right? If ʻIo’s done this before, it’ll be easier to find a bunch of necklaces rather than just yours. Maybe he stuffed them in a hollowed-out tree or something.”

“You’re being purposely ignorant. It won’t be that easy.”

“I mean, I didn’t say it’d be easy. There are still a million places on the island to hide a bunch of necklaces.”

She was determined to look everywhere. She could be analytical about it, create a chart and spreadsheets, and Tūtū could drive where they needed to go.

Kaipo sighed and rubbed his temples. “That’s just it.”

“What’s it?”

“I don’t think it’s on this island.”