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Lei, Kaipo, Ilikea, and Hauwahine stood there a beat longer, just staring at one another, till Hauwahine rolled her eyes. “Uh, try turning around, yeah? A little privacy while a girl changes?”

Kaipo turned bright red and stammered out, “O-o-oh, s-s-sure,” and spun on his heel.

Lei bit her lip to keep from laughing at seeing his feathers so flustered. Not so cool, calm, and collected now, are you? Apparently all it took was a girl as old as time. She turned, too, and looked toward the Koʻolau mountain range, the jagged green cliffs reaching into the clouds. How had they changed under Hauwahine’s eye? Had she noticed them wear down over the centuries, like the erosion of Hawaiian culture and language?

“Has it been hard, watching everything…change?” Lei asked, thinking about her ride out west with Aunty.

Hauwahine said, “You can look, I’m ready.”

Lei turned and faced a moʻo with scales shimmering in bright shades of emerald and jade on her head and back, darkening to a moss color on her belly and toes.

“To answer your question, yes and no.” Her voice was the same as it was when she was in the shape of a human, and it took Lei a second to adjust. “There was a time when I worried if everything would be forgotten, but now there are more kānaka remembering who they are and what is important. I think it is going in the right direction. Now, shh, I need to focus.”

Hauwahine didn’t hold a scale in front of her the way the moʻo in the cave had. She looked more like one of those people who walks down the street talking to themselves until you notice that they have a Bluetooth earpiece on and are (probably) on the phone. She kind of stared into the middle distance, lizard eyes a little unfocused, and spoke in Hawaiian.

Lei shifted from foot to foot. Would she hear the response, or would it just be in the moʻo’s head? Makani blew her hair over her shoulder, as if they sensed her restlessness. Finally, the moʻo sighed.

“Ah, I think I may have found her.”

Lei’s chin jerked up. “What’d she say?”

Kaipo gave her a scolding glance. “Patience, Lei. She probably hasn’t had a chance to even ask yet.”

And so they waited some more. And some more. Lei checked her phone. Five minutes till three. Tūtū was going to be back at the trailhead to pick them up soon.

The clouds parted and a ray of sun shone down on the mountain. A fragrance of gardenias wafted over and Lei inhaled deeply, then searched for the source. There were no bushes in sight. Hauwahine exhaled and settled down on the path like she was sunning herself.

“Got the message sent,” she said, stretching her legs. “Turn around again so I can switch back and I’ll fill you in.”

---

Half an hour later, it was Lei’s turn to fill in Tūtū on the plan as they headed back to Aunty Lori’s house in Kaimuki.

“Hauwahine says the Menehune will be here tonight!” The great news tumbled out of Lei’s mouth as soon as they got in the car. “They were pleased that we’d taken their lesson about learning from the kūpuna to heart, so they are willing to help if we at least put in a solid effort and show that we aren’t just relying on them. So the next step is to head out to the beach and start building a wall. Wait. Kaipo, where are we gonna get stones?”

“Let’s focus on the birds first. We need to find pāpala kēpau and ʻulu kēpau—the sticky saps—to spread on stuff and try to trap them.”

Lei frowned. “Where are we going to get that much sap?” She pulled out her phone and ran a quick search. “Could we use glue? I just found one that says it is tacky with one of the quickest-drying fastest-grabbing adhesives available. That sounds promising. Plus it’s non-toxic. I totally understand that it stinks we’re not being purists about this but the bird-catchers back then weren’t trying to mass catch evil spirits, either, so I think this calls for a little bit of creativity on our part.”

Kaipo rubbed his chin, considering. “I mean, it does make sense.”

Ilikea’s hand shot in the air. “I’m all for it. Does it come with a nozzle? That’d make it way easier to spread.”

“You’re familiar with glue? I thought you’ve just been a bat till recently?” Lei asked.

“Well, yeah, but Kaukahi’s been crafty forever and I can attest to her never getting too sick from eating glue. She had a bad habit of putting her fingers in her mouth as a kid and would just whack my wings when I tried to prevent it.”

Lei could totally picture a single-minded three-year-old Kaukahi being annoyed at Ilikea for trying to prevent whatever she was set on doing. “Makes sense. I’ll text Kaukahi this link and see if her aunty can take her to get glue and meet us in Waikīkī.”

“Tell ’um meet us by da Duke statue. Dats where da announcers going have a booth dis year,” Tūtū said. “Going be one huge crowd dea to hear what dey say.”

Lei typed out the message, then hesitated before turning to Ili. “I talked to Kaukahi earlier, by the way,” she said slowly. “I think she thinks you’re only hanging with her ’cause it’s your job and now that you’ve graduated, you’re…well…dying to get away.”

“What? How could she think that?”

“Have you spent time with her since Poliʻahu changed you?”

“Only every single minute,” Ilikea answered too quickly.

“Really? Because you were with me over at Tūtū’s quite a bit,” Lei said softly.

“But that was for Kaukahi! I had to figure out how to get her to need me, you know that.”

“I think Kaukahi’s been trying hard to not need you. Feeling needed for a job is the last thing she’d want you to feel since that might be how her parents are making her feel. She just wants a friend.”

Ilikea’s brow furrowed as she took a moment to piece together that confusing sentence.

Lei continued. “I know you can’t tell her what you need, but just supporting her in what she wants to do, instead of trying to help her with it, might be the way to go.” Lei patted the girl’s leg but really wasn’t sure how to help an ʻaumakua whose descendant didn’t want helping. “And for what it’s worth, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Maybe that will help in the grand scheme of things?”

Ilikea’s frown made it clear she wasn’t convinced. Kaipo met Lei’s eyes in the rearview mirror from where he was in the passenger seat. How long did they actually have until Ilikea started to rot? That wasn’t really something any of them wanted to know the answer to.

Tūtū drove them straight to Kalākaua Avenue, the main route where the majority of tourists and locals would gather to watch the parade in the morning. It was close to five o’clock and people were everywhere.

Once they passed the Moana and approached the police station, it was slightly less crowded. Lei spotted Kaukahi waving at them by the Duke statue. She had a Longs Drugs plastic bag in one hand.

“Looks like she got the glue,” Lei said. “It is really busy already. What if the kuewa don’t have to wait till the full moon tomorrow?”

Kaipo was staring above her. “I think some are getting a head start.”

Lei whipped around. There, in a coconut tree above Kaukahi, were two of the most vibrant red birds Lei had ever seen. They were no bigger than her hand, and were perched on a palm frond, pecking at the base. Around their necks were black cords. Lei couldn’t see if there were pendants attached, but at this point she’d be a fool to assume otherwise.

“What are they doing?” she asked in horror.

“I’m not sure. But their beaks are…”

Lei put it together before Kaipo could. She saw the way the frond swayed precariously in the air. The birds’ intensity.

“Tūtū, stop the car!” Lei screeched.

Ilikea was on the passenger side and jumped out as Tūtū pulled over.

“Look out!” Ilikea shouted, shoving Kaukahi out of the way as a giant palm frond fell from twenty feet above them. Ili and Kaukahi lay on the pavement for a second as Lei and Kaipo ran over to join them.

“Is everyone okay?” Tūtū hollered from the car.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Lei called out.

As Lei helped Kaukahi stand, a police officer came over to tell Tūtū she couldn’t park there. Tūtū looked ready to put her foot down about staying, which probably wouldn’t fly as well here as it did in some parts of sleepy little Volcano Village, so Lei shouted: “We’ll see you later!”

Tūtū frowned but nodded and drove off.

Ilikea dusted sand off her shorts. Kaipo’s smile was shaky.

“You’re getting good at the ʻaumākua thing, Ili.”

A few people glanced their way, but most of the crowd just parted and went around them, like a school of fish swimming around a disturbance. Nothing to see here, folks, just keep moving. The birds in the tree had hopped to another branch and eyed their damage.

“Definitely need to glue those trees,” Lei said, wiping nervous sweat off her forehead. “I think this is going to be a job for some fliers…if you catch my drift.”

“On it,” Kaipo replied. Lei grabbed his arm before he did something rash, like change into an owl right in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

“Not. Here.” Lei jerked her head toward a group of children playing nearby.

“Oh, yeah. Ili, c’mon.”

Kaipo jerked his head to a narrow beach-access alley between the police station and the Moana. Lei and Kaukahi followed behind them. The ʻaumākua ducked behind some bushes and no more than a second later flew up over the roof of the police station. A couple standing nearby dropped their cameras at the flurry of wings.

“Whoa, where’d those birds come from?” Lei asked, trying out her best acting skills.

“That was wild!” Kaukahi exclaimed as the pair searched the sky for their friends.

The couple offered tight smiles before continuing toward the beach.

As soon as they rounded the corner, Lei hissed, “Where are you?”

Kaipo and Ilikea flapped down quietly, perching on and hanging from the gutter. Kaukahi reached into the plastic bag for bottles of glue, unscrewed two of them, and passed them to Lei before grabbing two more.

Lei went over the plan one more time. “If those red birds are still there, try to just grab them and take their necklaces. If they already took off, spread the glue on the fronds to catch and hold them if they come back.”

She and Kaukahi held the bottles up over their heads, but when Kaipo reached out with his razor-sharp-looking talons, Lei drew back her hand.

“You gonna be able to carry this without punching a bunch of holes in it?”

“How about a bit of faith, huh?” Kaipo said, twisting his head practically all the way around in that weird owly way. Lei took it to be the equivalent of an eye roll.

“Fine. But gently.”

She held out the glue again and Kaipo made a show of being oh-so-dainty, grasping the bottle between his talons and swooshing his wings in her face as he took off. Ilikea grabbed the bottles from Kaukahi in both feet and fluttered up after him. Lei and Kaukahi skip-hustled behind.

“Be sure to not look up at them too much,” Lei whispered to Kaukahi. They didn’t want to attract attention to an owl and bat carrying glue bottles overhead.

“There.” Kaukahi pointed.

The red birds were still in the coconut tree. It looked like they were working on another frond over a family admiring the Duke Kahanamoku statue.

“Kaipo?” Lei said under her breath.

“Already on it,” he whispered as he flew back around quickly to a big banyan tree and dropped his bottle of glue in the branches.

Ilikea followed his lead. Lei and Kaukahi hung out behind the statue to see what his plan was and to shield the family if necessary. Using his owly stealth, Kaipo glided out of the banyan, making his way silently to the coconut tree. Lei held her breath and Ilikea hung back, waiting to see what would happen. There was no big screech or hoot or anything to warn the spirits. It was amazing, like watching one of those animal documentaries in real life. The only bummer was it all happened so stinking fast that Lei could barely follow it all. Kaipo dashed for the birds, and soon, they were off the tree. Aside from a few black-and-red feathers drifting slowly to the ground that Kaukahi collected in her plastic bag, the small birds appeared ruffled but unharmed, and they took off with indignant squawks. Kaipo circled one more time, releasing something from his talons as he flew over Lei.

Two necklaces fell, and she caught them. The small, ivory-colored pendants on the black cords showed little birds with long, curved beaks. Lei zipped them into her backpack and gave a thumbs-up sign while facing the other direction, hoping no one would catch on that she was communicating to an owl.

Kaipo flew back to the banyan to grab the glue, then back to the coconut trees surrounding the statue. How in the world were they going to handle all of these trees?

“Hey, Kaukahi,” she called loudly enough for Ili and Kaipo to hear.

“Yeah?”

“Remember last time we were at the beach?”

“Um…yeah?”

“We were running out of sunscreen,” Lei said.

“We were?”

“We were. And you had the great idea to be selective about which trees…I mean limbs…we’d spread the white goop on. Does that make sense?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ilikea shrugging her batty shoulders at Kaipo, who snapped his beak at her. Maybe he was sticking up for Lei even though she probably sounded completely absurd.

“Oh!” Kaukahi must have caught on. “Yeah, it definitely makes the most sense to center the white goop where the majority of people…I mean sun’s rays…hit. Lots of danger at those hot spots”—Kaukahi gestured to the Duke statue—“so let’s be sure to spread the goop most thickly there. We need them to stay sticky overnight.”

Wait, that made zero sense.

Lei looked and it seemed like the fliers understood. She and Kaukahi paced back and forth in front of the statue between the banyan and the police station, winding along the flagstone paths and through the sand, keeping a subtle eye on their friends as they squeezed the bottles of glue along the tops of all the palm fronds. They coated the tops of the old-timey-looking streetlamps, too. A couple drops fell on some people’s shoulders, but only one man noticed. He was carrying a surfboard and didn’t have a shirt on, and when the white goop hit his skin, he immediately looked up and saw Kaipo’s poofy butt hanging off the edge of the branch above him.

“Aww, gross!” he yelped, and took off through the sand to the ocean to wash it off.

Lei couldn’t help but giggle. Long shadows from the high-rise hotels stretched to the ocean by the time they used up all the glue. They had done a decent job on the trees, lights, and surfaces within a football-field distance of the statue before running out.

As soon as Kaipo and Ilikea changed and came out from behind the bush, Lei said, “I was thinking, I don’t like this. Those birds that were sawing definitely started getting more organized and dangerous since we saw the confused rats.” Then she noticed they were carrying their slippers.

“What’s up?” Lei asked.

“Feet are sticky. We need to go wash.”

“We’ll look for stones for a fishpond,” Lei said. She and Kaukahi walked down the shoreline. They’d prepared for the threat from the skies. Now it was time to focus on the sea.