Go Jump Off a Bridge

When Lei, Kaipo, Kaukahi, Ilikea, and Makani got to the beach, the moon was still shining on the ocean, crawling slowly toward the sea’s surface.

“There!” Ilikea pointed to waves crashing against a rock, sending up sea spray that glittered in the moon’s silver beams. As the heavier droplets fell back into the water, a night rainbow gleamed in the remaining mist.

“It doesn’t exactly look sturdy enough to get us all the way to Oʻahu,” Lei said, skeptical. She watched as the rainbow faded to nothing before the next wave crashed.

“Or long enough,” Kaukahi added.

Another wave collided with the rock and the resulting shower of water ended in the appearance and disappearance of another rainbow.

Kaipo spoke. “The way I see it, we don’t have much of a choice. Either we believe what Lopaka said or we try to find Kamohoaliʻi to swim us back. I’d rather not be dragged through the water behind a shark if there’s a dryer alternative.”

“Kaipo.” Lei looked at him, waiting for him to realize what he just said. He waited back. “You don’t need to get wet. You can turn into an owl. You have wings.”

His mouth opened in a little o. “I keep forgetting you know that now. This is going to take time to get used to.”

Lei smiled and rolled her eyes. “Kaukahi, we’re the ones that’d be getting wet. What do you want to try?”

Kaukahi cocked her head and narrowed her eyes as another wave came in. “Well, if the bridge option doesn’t work out, we’ll get wet one way or the other. So we might as well go up on the cliff and check it out.”

Lei held tight to the return of Kaukahi’s logic, glad the girl was back on board. The dark lava rocks had cooled in the mist during the night. They were gray farther inland and glistening ebony where the rock had been slickened by the waves. Black ʻaʻama crabs bigger than fists scuttled away like living shadows at their approach.

The rhythmic sound of water pulling away and rushing back again had followed Lei through her nightmares last night, threatening to drown her. Standing on this peninsula with the ocean pushing toward the shore on her right and calmly curling into the bay on her left, Lei didn’t feel any lingering horror. Instead, she felt the connection that Lopaka’s friend had spoken of. It was easy to feel it out here, away from the judgment of people who might contradict her and say she wasn’t enough.

She didn’t have to worry about that now, though. All she had to focus on was getting home and making sure all those local strangers didn’t get visits from very ticked-off ancestors.

“Okay.” She swallowed, timing the sets the way Kaipo had taught her to when boogie boarding. “So, I’ll go first. Looks like the rainbow stays for about four seconds after the wave crashes.” Another wave broke against the rock, and she heard Kaukahi counting it out. Lei counted it again herself, just to make sure. “Yeah, that’s about right. So it’s like jumping in on double Dutch? All about timing and just going for it,” Lei said.

“Never tried double Dutch, so I’ll take your word on that,” Kaukahi retorted.

“Never?” Lei was surprised.

“Nah, needed two people to spin the ropes.” Kaukahi shrugged like it didn’t bother her, but she wouldn’t meet Lei’s eyes. “Never had the time to put into finding them.” This time she risked a glance up, and Lei met it with a smile. Another small truce. Maybe one of these days their truce would stick.

“Well, when we survive crossing rainbows and capturing wayward spirits, we’ll have to find some jump ropes and do something that doesn’t involve saving humanity,” Lei said.

“I can hold one end!” Ilikea said.

“Of course, I’ll have the other,” Kaipo added, like it’d be an insult to his character to ever assume otherwise.

Lei grinned and then returned to the task at hand. “I’ll go first, and I’ll go fast so you can follow right behind,” she instructed. “I don’t know if we’ll end up on different rainbows if we wait for two different wave creations. I mean, who knows where they could send us. What if different rainbows lead to different islands, or different continents all together? Who’s to say we haven’t already missed—”

“LEI,” Kaipo cut in, breaking her off mid-ramble. “Quit stalling, you’re up.”

Her mouth hung open for a second, trying to reconcile these peeks of no-nonsense Kaipo with her old friend.

“Right.”

Lei squared her shoulders and watched the waves wash in and recede. When the next set rolled toward her, she pushed off with her feet. As she crossed the wet rock, she squinted—she really wanted to close her eyes, but didn’t want to accidentally step off the rainbow if it was like a bridge without a railing. She felt the spray all around her, then the mist hovering in the air. Lei hopped across the slight gap from rock to color, holding her breath.

It held!

She moved in quickly, making room for Kaukahi, who came barreling in full speed, shouting, “CHEEEEhoooooo,” like she had when she jumped from the kukui tree. Lei caught her, stumbling back a few steps. Was the only time Kaukahi could relax and enjoy herself when she was going so fast she didn’t have time to hold back? Lei gritted her teeth, hoping her feet would still find solid ground as they backstepped, and was relieved when they did.

The girls looked down. The deep blue night sea speckled with caps of white was still visible through a semitransparent walkway. Rainbows far away in the sky always stratified the colors from red down to violet. This walkway was no different, but it seemed to somehow have more colors. As though this close, the human eye couldn’t help but be more perceptive, open to more wavelengths. Lei was sure her science teacher would have a field day with the implications, but she was more concerned about not falling off. She swung her foot along the edge of the walkway, searching for some kind of guardrail. Thankfully, her foot hit something, and when she patted the air above it gingerly, she discovered a totally transparent wall that came up to about her hip. “Kaipo? Ili?” Lei called out.

“Here!”

A pueo and a bat appeared over her shoulder, both turning human as they landed delicately on the multicolored walkway, arms outstretched as if they were ready to take off again in a heartbeat if they sank through.

“Look, when I take a step forward, the rainbow moves in that direction, too, like one of those moving sidewalks at the airport, but it goes the other direction when I step that way.” They all jerked back and forth a couple times as she changed directions, then settled in to walking beside her as they headed away from Kuaihelani, their gaze toward where they hoped Oʻahu would be.

It turned out that once the novelty of walking on a legit rainbow of light and colors wore off, the rainbow was just a very, very long moving sidewalk. Over a lot of water. The monotony was broken up by the occasional sightings of animal life: some shark fins, some fish that looked bigger than they were, lots of ʻiwa cruising on drafts up near the clouds.

They discussed which kupuna might hold the knowledge of how to catch the kuewa. Kaukahi thought her aunty might have good ideas and connections to elders who remembered these traditions. She pulled out her ʻukulele to practice for Saturday’s performance while Ilikea chimed in, trying to harmonize.

“Go lower at that part, yeah, that’s how Dad’s gonna sing it,” Kaukahi instructed.

Kaipo tried to join in but ended up messing with their harmonies, so he stuck to just doing the hula motions with his hands, spinning when it was called for. Kaukahi would hand the instrument to Lei every so often to give her own fingers a rest, and Lei would work on the chords while the others sang along. When they got tired of “Nā Aliʻi,” Kaukahi taught Lei the other three chords to Iz’s rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and they sang and played that until Lei’s fingers ached. Eventually Kaukahi put the ʻukulele away and they walked in silence. They kept looking back, watching the invisible island fade in the distance. As soon as it disappeared from sight, a new speck began to grow on the horizon ahead of them. The sun was cresting the Koʻolau mountains by the time the concrete towers of Waikīkī were identifiable.

“At least we got the right island.” Lei tried to make it a joke, but exhaustion soaked her tone and it fell flat.

This was the longest non-vacation of her life. The beach-chair-lounging, fruity-drink-sipping dreams she had held when she’d stepped off the plane last week felt as impossible as having Ridley call to profess that she was having “a horrid time in Paris and regretted anything I’ve ever done to cause you pain.” For some reason this vision had Ridley in an old-timey, flowy dress atop the Eiffel Tower, with the back of her hand pressed to her forehead as she looked morosely out over the city.

“Whoo,” was all Kaukahi could muster.

If she was as much of a loner as both she and Ilikea suggested, her tank was probably running as empty as Lei’s. They’d already had two whole days with zero solitude to recharge. The thought of having to “people” some more—go find kūpuna to help them figure out how to save children? Ugh. Ilikea and Kaipo walked along silently, their last words of encouragement dried up long ago. Even ʻaumākua had a finite amount of peppiness. It seemed like the rainbow would take them right to the beach in front of the coral-pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Perfect. They could just walk into Waikīkī from there and figure out next steps. Or find some food. Food would be great. Lei’s stomach growled.

Kaukahi’s phone started blowing up with pings and dings. “Guess we have signal again.” She pulled it out of the plastic waterproof case it was in and started scrolling. Her frown deepened the longer she stared at her phone.

“Ah, Kaukahi, maybe put that away for now. Make sure it’s sealed up tight,” Ilikea said.

Lei glanced ahead. They should have had about two pool lengths of rainbow left to go before reaching sand. But the sun’s first rays glinted off the skyscrapers, and the rainbow began to disintegrate. It had already pulled back from the beach they were walking toward and was crumbling into spectacular glitter before dissolving into nothingness, like someone had snagged a loose thread and was unraveling the colors with a firm tug. Lei’s fingers tingled with urgency.

“Run!”

They took off, racing to meet the end as fast as the end was coming toward them. They weren’t going to make it to the beach. The rainbow had already pulled away too quickly. They were over the ocean, clear turquoise darkened with the threat of shallow reefs.

“We’re going to have to jump for it!” Lei yelled.

Kaipo and Ilikea turned into fliers. Kaukahi sighed and pulled down her goggles and pinched her nose.

“Let’s get this over with,” she said through hard breaths.

Lei pumped her legs. “Makani, help us get to that lighter, sandy spot over there.”

And then she launched herself off the end of the rainbow.