Stars

When Lei composed herself enough to rejoin the group, Makani was still kicking up sand in a massive construction zone, Kaipo was building another castle with a frown on his face, and Ilikea was tracing circles in the sand with a stick. Kaukahi’s words bothered her. Did the girl honestly think it wasn’t a two-way street? Didn’t she know Ilikea had never been Lei’s bodyguard? She had her own mission, her own family. As for Kaipo? It was way too easy to make the decision that he wasn’t worth saving when he acted a grump like this, but Lei was convinced that the years of togetherness went way beyond any job description, regardless of what Kaukahi said, not to mention that Tūtū took care of him, too.

“Hey, Ili, I never thanked you for helping us with the kukui tree and guiding us to this realm this morning.”

Ilikea gave her smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Welcome, Lei.”

Kaukahi pursed her lips, then said, “Pretty cool you knew that stuff. These designs are gonna be next level when I get them finished.”

The way Ilikea beamed under the simple praise, Lei wouldn’t have been surprised if she started thanking the Academy and all the ʻaumākua who helped her along the way.

“Yeah, no problem,” the bat-girl said while Kaukahi searched her bag for something else.

Finally, Kaukahi pulled out a toothbrush and toothpaste and began brushing. Lei’s mouth fell open.

“What?” Kaukahi said, pausing brushing.

“You packed a toothbrush?”

“Yeah…”

“Did your mom tell you to?”

“No.” Kaukahi looked confused.

“Your dad?”

“No.”

“Ilikea?”

“No. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

Kaukahi stared at Lei for a beat more, then shrugged and went back to brushing. Lei ran her tongue over her own teeth, which suddenly felt a lot dirtier than they had a second ago. It never even crossed her mind to grab a toothbrush. And now she’d be stuck with fishy breath. She rinsed with water, hoping for the best. She’d thought to bring her water bottle. And her blanket. She’d stay alive. And she’d brush extra well when she got home.

As night deepened and the fire died, Kaukahi pulled out her ʻukulele again, strumming chords while singing in Hawaiian. By the third time through, Lei was humming along, too. The gentle breeze kept away any bugs. Lei got her headlamp on, ready to use it but didn’t turn it on yet. She was content to sit in the darkness, letting her eyes follow the glowing white caps of the ocean in the moonlight.

“You want to try?” Kaukahi offered Lei her ʻukulele.

“Me? Oh, no.” Lei shook her head and waved her hand. “I never learned.” Zero need to look even less Hawaiian than she already did, especially in front of Kaukahi, who would use it as ammunition for sure.

“I can teach you. The main part of ʻNā Aliʻi’ only uses four chords.”

Lei searched the girl’s face. There was no ulterior motive, no trace of her usual smug smirk. Lei sat up straight and dusted sand off her hands, fully aware that she’d be opening herself up for ridicule again. If she failed at this, there was a solid chance Kaukahi would question her Hawaiian-ness. Fortunately for her, she no longer felt the need to prove herself.

“Sure, show me what to do.”

Kaukahi scooted closer and helped position her fingers, contorting them in ways that would have impressed even the most professional shadow puppeteers. Even though Lei wasn’t all that great, Kaukahi shockingly didn’t mock her. By the time Lei’s tender fingertips begged her to stop, lines from the strings indenting her untried skin, the skies had cleared and the stars were putting on a show. Kaukahi wrapped up her ʻukulele and organized the remaining towels into a bedding area. Makani came and swirled around them, tugging Lei’s hair till she turned on her headlamp and went with them in the direction of the construction area, only to be stopped short by the Eiffel Tower.

“What in the world?”

Makani had really outdone themself. Lei’s light shone on the world’s most iconic landmarks re-created out of sand in impressive detail—the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Pyramid of Giza. Makani bounced around Lei, eager for her to walk the narrow pathway between all the replicas. The others followed and even Kaipo dropped to his knees to inspect a massive Ferris wheel.

Kaukahi joined them and Ilikea fidgeted with her necklace.

“More like ‘where in the world,’ ” Ili corrected Lei. “Your tūtū went to Vegas once. Apparently, Kaipo asked Makani to tag along. Makani was inspired, but they weren’t even the real monuments. When you’ve seen as much of the world as I have, you know these things.”

Ili side-eyed Kaukahi, but the girl was studying a big sphere.

Lei sighed. “Real or not, that’s amazing, Makani,” she said, watching as a gondola-shaped leaf passed under a bridge in a little water-filled canal.

“I could do better,” Ilikea said casually, leaning down to inspect a sunken-in area.

Suddenly water spurted up from the holes in the base like a fountain, hitting Ili in the face. She fell on her butt and Makani whipped around her, driving Ili’s plumeria petals into a tizzy with their joy.

Shocked laughter erupted from Kaukahi.

Ilikea grinned. “Fine, fine! I give. It’s good. You’re the sandcastle master.”

Makani helped Ili up and dried her face in a whirl.

“This is boring,” Kaipo announced, oblivious to the potential progress being made between relatives. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

Kaukahi’s smile faded faster than last bits of daylight. The group followed Kaipo to the towels.

“Kaukahi?” Lei called, once she was all cozy and wrapped up in her emergency blanket on the warm sand. Ilikea’s words weighed on her and she needed to hold up her end of the bargain. The trick was trying to find a way to connect. Looking up at the brightest stars she’d ever seen, Lei was inspired.

“Mmm?”

“Do you know the star houses? How to navigate?”

“No, I never learned. It’d be cool, though, to know that if my boat ever got swept out to sea, I’d know where I was.”

“Yeah,” Lei agreed. She didn’t know anything about them, either, so she racked her tired brain to try and think of something else to say, when Ilikea broke the quiet.

“I got pretty good at reading them when I flew around at night,” Ilikea offered quietly. “If you ever want to…” She let her offer drift off, as if so afraid to take another rejection, she couldn’t even bring herself to put it out there completely.

“No way! Yeah. That’d be cool,” Kaukahi said sleepily.

“Cool,” Ili replied, little bits of sunbeams cracking through her attempt at being chill.

“Cool,” Lei echoed, smiling a bit herself.

“Could you all be quiet? I’m trying to sleep,” said the grump.

---

Lei shot awake, a scream from her nightmare on her lips. Kaipo had been tied to a stick, slowly being rotated over a fire. Right before she reached him, the stick snapped and he had fallen into the flames.

Rolling to her back, she blinked away the terror. The stars were still bright overhead as the light on her watch glowed 4:45 in the morning. Kaukahi’s gentle snores floated lightly, while Kaipo’s deep breaths even managed to sound petulant in his sleep. Ilikea was quiet on the other side of the firepit. Lei started searching for patterns in the sky to calm her mind.

Then she heard it.

A low chanting coming from the trees. Lei pulled her blanket up to her cheeks and held her breath, listening closely. The voices were too far away to make out words. She exhaled as quietly as possible, trying to determine what direction they were heading. They grew fainter, like they were drifting in the opposite direction. Maybe she and the group were safe on the beach.

Or maybe those voices belonged to whoever made the pathway from the jungle to the shore. Lei gripped her emergency blanket even tighter.

“Ili?” she whispered.

No answer. Lei turned her head, looking for her friend’s form. Her towel was empty.

“Ili?” she hissed again.

“You rang?” Ili flapped down over Lei’s face.

Lei shoved her blanket over her mouth to muffle her screech.

“Good gravy, you can’t do that to me!” Lei panted. “Why are you batting around, anyways? You’re gonna be tired tomorrow.”

The bat shrugged. “Thought I’d heard something, so I was gonna check it out.”

“Chanting?” Lei asked.

The bat bobbed a nod.

“I heard it, too,” Lei said. “Who was it?”

“Well, I don’t know, do I? Because someone called my name and now here I am talking to you instead of finding out.”

“Right, fine. Go look, but be safe!”

“Right on, flight on.”

As the tiny bat melted into the ancient sky, the chanting stopped. Lei closed her eyes, straining to hear anything, but the voices were definitely gone.

A few minutes later, Ilikea circled back. “I couldn’t find anything. They disappeared before I could track them down.”

Lei shivered and sat up. “In the morning, we get the pendant, and then we get out of here.”

The bat flapped up higher. “I am all in. Tonight, I’ll keep an ear open for anything different. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Lei couldn’t imagine going to sleep after that. But she lay back down to study the road map of stars…

…And blinked and it was daylight. They were in the shade again but Kaipo was already standing and heading for the cliff.

“Wait!” Lei croaked. She swallowed and tried again. “Wait. We have to stick together today.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Kaipo, I swear, I’m gonna tie you to a tree if you can’t swallow down your suckiness.” Well, that was what Lei wanted to say. But she didn’t. Even though Kaipo’s attitude was sourer than Uncle Kurt’s dried lemon peel, it was all her fault, not Kaipo’s. “Look, today we’re going to find your necklace and you’ll feel way better.”

“Your hair looks like a wounded animal,” Kaipo grumbled. “You smell like one, too.”

That did it. Guilt only went so far.

“I’ll make you a wounded animal!” Lei rolled to her feet and ran after him, only to stop at Makani’s Vegas creation.

Or what used to be Vegas.

Kaipo stopped, too, as if frozen in shock by the senseless destruction. Ilikea came up behind Lei.

“What, is it even better in the daylight or something?” Ilikea asked. Lei elbowed her in the stomach. “Oh.”

Makani was a chill on the back of Lei’s arms, as if they didn’t want to face the truth. Their work of art had been reduced to nothingness, returned to the sand from which it came. If it wasn’t for the darker, damp sand from deeper down mixed in with the pale, powdery surface stuff, they might not have known that this was the site of the most magnificent sand town ever in the history of sand towns.

“Sorry, Makani,” Lei offered, wishing she could put a hand on their shoulder or something.

“You really had outdone yourself,” Ilikea murmured, removing the flower from behind her ear and holding it at her chest. “It was too gorgeous to last. Really. It was going to give me a complex ’cause I could never make anything so amazing. It’s probably a good thing it’s gone and I don’t have to see it clearly because then I’d just be depressed and feel like I could never be worthy of hanging around yet another incredible artist in my life.”

“Another?” Kaukahi piped up, emerging from the water, putting her goggles back on top of her head.

She was in a completely different outfit today. A thin white high-necked billowy-sleeved shirt was clinging to her arms, with a navy vest laced up the front over it—soaked as well, but it looked like it was swimsuit material and might dry fast. Her netted skirt didn’t have the buoys in it anymore and fell to her knees. And underneath all that peeked out a bathing suit.

“How in the world did you swim in that?” Lei asked, distracted.

“Mmm?” Kaukahi looked down. “I was just getting sand off me. I left my exercise swimsuit at home. Figured I needed to be more practical in what to pack. No room for extras.”

“You were…huh. Okay. Awesome. I love the vest.” Lei definitely had a different idea of practical but wanted to keep their tentatively forged truce going. Plus, she had to admit a change of clothes would be pretty great right about now. Kaipo wasn’t wrong about her smell. Hopefully they’d be getting the pendant today and then she could head home for a shower.

“Thanks. Made it from a life jacket I found on the beach. Recycled fashion, you know?”

“Definitely.” Lei definitely didn’t know. “Very cool.”

Ilikea used the opportunity to change the subject: “Coolio bajoolio!”

Lei, Kaipo, and Kaukahi all looked at Ilikea as she smiled, pink climbing her neck. Memories of nighttime voices jogged Lei’s brain and she pulled Ilikea aside. “What happened when I went back to sleep?”

“You’ll never believe it! The wall? Well, it—”

“What are you two talking about?” asked Kaukahi. She scooped up her bag and looked at Ilikea again, who quickly shut her mouth.

Did Ilikea not want Kaukahi to know what she saw last night? Lei grabbed her own backpack. Heart pounding, she turned to the jungle. Its big leaves hid who-knows-what and the shadows looked even more ominous than they had yesterday. She’d have to get Ilikea alone again to ask. For now, they needed to get to work.

With a sharp yank on the dangling backpack straps, Lei cinched her still slightly soggy pack tight against her. “We go.”

And if anyone noticed the way her words shook, they were good enough not to bring it up.