Chapter Five

 

Somehow, the pilot maneuvered us through the storm and landed safely at Hilo’s airport. I wanted to apologize to him for incurring the wrath of Skye aboard his flight, but settled with a simple, “Thank you.” Words alone could not express the gratitude I experienced to place my feet upon solid ground.

I stepped from the Jetway, allowing myself a deep breath before focusing on my next task of locating Pele. When I asked the gate attendant where I could find the goddess, he rolled his eyes at me and walked away, muttering something about crazy tourists. Undeterred, I continued down the open-air hall, asking everyone I saw. I questioned travelers dragging their luggage on wheels, an airport security officer, an ice cream cart vendor, a tour guide bearing armfuls of purple flowered leis, a cashier at the airport gift shop, and a couple of kids about half my age who waited for their mom outside the women’s bathroom.

By the time I reached the baggage claim area, my optimism faded. Everyone I spoke to—everyone—dismissed me for a fool. Now I was stuck here on some wild goose chase, no closer to reaching my goal than I’d been before setting a foot on the plane. You’d think if Pele had gone out of her way to contact me multiple times in my dreams, then she’d at least seek me out once I’d reached her homeland. At this rate, I would’ve been better off staying back in California with Sully, rather than stuck on an exotic island where I didn’t know a soul.

Heaving a huge sign of frustration, I flopped down into a chair and dumped my backpack on the ground, clueless of my next step. I slid down in my seat, exhausted, and pressed my fingers against my temples to ease the tension of the flight. From my slouched spot, my eyes drifted to the bright photographs decorating the covers of a nearby rack of travel brochures and welcome guides. I wonder, I thought and picked a guide off the rack. Thumbing through a few pages, I searched for anything containing a picture of a volcano or Pele. After skimming past a bunch of advertisements for shopping, art galleries, and dining options on the island, I reached the section on Volcanoes National Park, located not far from Hilo.

I only made it through the first three paragraphs about the park when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to face a shriveled old woman with yellowed teeth and a spine bent from age. Her dark brown eyes were deeply set into her wrinkled, tanned face and she wore her gray hair twisted into a bun on the back of her head. To hide the folds of her soft body, she wore a long floral dress with no waist—like the muumuus I saw in the shopping section of the welcome guide.

“You looking for Pele?” the old woman asked in a weathered voice.

I sat straighter in my chair. “Excuse me?” I whispered, my eyes wide with surprise.

“The goddess Pele?” she repeated. “You wish to see her?”

I nodded, afraid to trust my voice to words. How did she know? Unless she overheard me asking one of the dozens of strangers I’d met since I got off the plane. In fact, everyone in the entire airport probably knew I was looking for Pele.

A smile graced her thick lips and pushed up her broad cheekbones. “My sister lives near the volcano, Kilauea. Some people believe the goddess can be found there,” the old woman explained. “If you’d like, I can take you along the next time I go for a visit.”

I almost fell out of my seat. “Are you serious? That would be wonderful!” I exclaimed. I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulders. I didn’t care if she sounded crazier than me, I couldn’t pass up this chance. “My name’s Jordan,” I said and stuck out my hand.

She shook it with surprising strength for an old woman. “And you can call me Auntie Lulu.”

Grateful she not only offered me a ride but gave a sense of family in this unfamiliar land, I followed the old woman out of the airport and into the parking lot. Outside, varying shades of gray clouded the sky and a warm light rain misted my clothes, hair, and skin. Everything about me felt damp by the time she led me across the entire parking lot. She eventually stopped in front of an old orange Pontiac Firebird with lines of rust around the wheel wells. The car seemed almost as aged as Lulu herself, making me think the mild climate here in Hawaii allowed cars to live well beyond their intended life spans.

I climbed in the passenger side, set my bag on my lap, and closed the door. Auntie Lulu turned the key in the ignition and the engine slowly chugged to life. “Have you ever met Pele?” I asked.

“Yes,” she admitted in a voice so soft I barely heard it over the noisy car.

I spun my head to face her, my eager ears trained on her response. “What was she like?” I asked excitedly.

“It was a long time ago,” Auntie Lulu said with a look that dismissed further discussion on the topic. Without another word, she threw the transmission into drive and slowly pulled out of the lot. The car sputtered a bunch of times, making me wonder if I might have better luck walking to her place.

We drove away from the airport and down the wet road in silence. She kept her eyes trained on the road, forgetting me entirely. Certain I’d angered her with my comment, I gazed out the window, the sights of my new location breezing past. Tree limbs stretched high into the air, grappling for the scant amount of sunlight that graced this rainy landscape. Decaying fallen leaves carpeted the ground while bright orange flowers dotted the canopy.

I waited a long while before I chanced another question. “When do you plan to visit your sister?”

“Maybe tomorrow or the next day,” she said in a casual tone. Her eyes never left the road.

“Oh.” I sighed, disappointed I’d have to wait that long. “Well, I guess I can come back then,” I added, figuring I could probably last a day or two on the beach camped out under a tree, even with the rain and my anxiety about the sea.

“Or you can stay with me,” she offered. “I have an extra room.”

“Are you sure?” I snuck another peek at the woman. Maybe she wasn’t mad at me after all. “That is very sweet, very generous of you. Is there anything I can do to pay you back for this favor?”

“Perhaps I can think of something,” she said with a gleam in her yellowed eyes.

I heaved a huge sigh of relief, ready to do whatever it took to have her bring me to the volcano so I could finish my training quickly. I could still get back to Pacifica and spend the summer with Sully.

A few miles further down the road, we passed a black sand beach and turned up a short concrete driveway lined with cracks. At the end stood a faded pink house built upon shortened stilts and capped in a corrugated tin roof. A white lattice fence sealed the space under the porch to keep out unwanted animals. The yard grew thick with all sorts of unkempt vegetation—hedges, ornamental flowers, bushes, and ferns with unfurling fiddleheads. Beautiful pale gold flowers, shaped like trumpets of angels, dangled from one tree in her front yard. I guessed ages had passed since anyone had completed the slightest bit of maintenance on the place. Still, it definitely beat a few nights alone on the beach.

She parked under a rickety shelter alongside the house that she called the carport. “Is this your home?” I asked, surprised by its neglected state. But Auntie Lulu didn’t reply. Really, Jordan, what else would she do? Borrow someone’s house?

I gave a nervous smile, knowing that was how I survived in the past, skipping from one unoccupied vacation villa to another in Pompeii, praying the Roman guard wouldn’t catch onto my plan…until Gaia found me and buried the town in Mount Vesuvius’s massive eruption.

I shook my head, certain a simpler explanation existed. Maybe she’d grown weary of keeping up with all the work in her old age.

Auntie Lulu shut off the car and climbed out the door, her weight shifting from one foot to the other as she staggered up the steps. “Auntie Lulu?” I called and hurriedly followed her inside.

Her voice flowed down the hall. “Make yourself at home. It’s the second door on the left.”

Following her instructions, I deposited my backpack on the bed and cracked open the windows to air out the spare room. Brushing away a few cobwebs, I surveyed the room, noticing a thin single bed with a worn hand-stitched quilt, an old wicker chair, a small dresser with three narrow drawers, and a pair of white lacey curtains that fluttered like a pair of restless ghosts in the incoming sea breeze. Way better than the beach, I thought. My lips drew into a relaxed smile, grateful for her offer to help find Pele.

Before I had a chance to unpack, I heard Auntie Lulu’s footsteps outside my door. “It’s time,” she said in a gravelly voice.

I spun my head, a chill of familiarity in those words. “What did you say?”

She leaned against the doorframe. “I decided to take you up on your offer. So it’s time to begin.”

“Oh. Okay. What did you have in mind?”

She waved a soft arm, gesturing for me to follow her through the house to the backyard and handed me a rake. “How about here?” she suggested and pointed to the open space in the backyard where the grass should’ve been. Instead, a thick carpet of soggy leaves, decaying husks, fallen seedpods, and rotting fruits covered the entire area. So many leaves littered the ground, not a single blade of grass could grow.

“No problem,” I said with false confidence. A little voice inside my head reminded me this wouldn’t take long and tomorrow she’d take me to see Pele.

It took the better part of half an hour just to uncover the sidewalk that led to her front yard. When I paused for a rest, a curious creature took advantage of the cleared walkway. Toting a pointed brown and gold shell the length of my thumb, a land snail slid across the concrete sidewalk, leaving a shiny slime trail to denote its path. It craned its long neck, searching for food. I bent down and touched its patterned shell gently, but the snail instantly recoiled, tucking its eyes and tentacles inside. I understood how it felt, thinking of all the times I had narrowly avoided danger as well. Instead of having a home in which to hide, I sped across time to another place altogether, leaving forever the memories of my past.

A small part of me feared I might grow too relaxed here in the safety of Auntie Lulu’s house, just like I’d done at the Trudeau’s in Pacifica. But I had no other options. I needed to learn more about my foes and my powers. And so far, Pele was the only one who might provide answers to the knowledge I sought. I had to meet her.

While I raked, I considered my future training sessions with the goddess, wondering what skills and techniques she might teach me. My initial enthusiasm eventually waned. I raked the debris into an enormous pile in the middle of the yard, loathing the dank smell that filled my nostrils and the burn in my arms from the fatigue of each pull. Why hadn’t Auntie Lulu bothered to hire someone to periodically clean up this mess? Why wait until the entire backyard had reached this decrepit state?

Hours passed before I completed my task. Maybe Lulu wasn’t as sweet and generous as I’d initially thought. Maybe she was just a lonely old woman who needed some help with her yard. I provided free labor in exchange for a place to stay and the promise of a ride to the volcano. I assured myself it wouldn’t be long before I met Pele and completed my training so I could go back to the life I missed.

My arms hung limply by my sides when I lumbered up the steps and knocked on the back door. Auntie Lulu appeared, a trace of satisfaction lining her mouth. In a weary voice, I asked, “So what would you like me to do with everything now?”

With a shrug of her shoulders, she suggested, “Burn it.”

My exhaustion quickly faded as my mind drove into a state of full alert. I blinked, alarmed by her statement. Was that a typical method of removing unwanted yard waste? Or did her words insinuate she secretly knew my true identity? For a long moment, I stared at her, trying to unravel her intent. “Do you have any matches?” I finally asked in an innocent tone, calling her bluff.

The expression on her face registered slight disappointment. “There are some inside the kitchen. If you need them,” she said and closed the door behind her.

I stood alone on the back step, wondering if I should bother searching the kitchen drawers for a pack of matches to keep my cover. Or start the fire with a snap of my fingers when Lulu wasn’t watching.

After deciding that preserving my cover ruled over my eagerness to finish the job, I found a pack of matches in one of the kitchen drawers and an open bag of marshmallows lying on the counter. She told me to make myself at home, didn’t she? I grabbed the matches and marshmallows, and headed back outside, ready for my bonfire.

It took me a frustratingly long time to start the fire with matches, but once I finally got it going, it crackled and sputtered, the glowing cinders shifting under the weight of the pieces above. Sparks flew while the red-hot coals from beneath appeared to wage a war against the cooling black embers from above. I pierced a stick through a marshmallow and propped it over the fire while I waited.

But the marshmallow slid off my stick and dropped into the fire. “Darn it,” I muttered and watched it quickly catch flame. Only it didn’t shrivel into a wrinkled black mass. Instead, hot bluish tongues of fire lapped its outside, causing it to swell and take on a frightening form. My eyes grew wide as the marshmallow’s charred outer layer enlarged until it resembled a human’s face. Sections of its surface caved inward, resembling sunken eye sockets and a mouth wailing in pain, devoured in flames. Suddenly, I no longer saw a white stubby cylinder of fluffy, marshmallowy sugar, but the recognizable face of Hydros seeking revenge.

Frightened, I stepped backward, stumbling over my feet. Reaching for the hose, I aimed the nozzle at the middle of the fire. “Go away!” I screamed at the image and turned the hose to maximum. The fire hissed in protest, sizzling upon contact with the shockingly cold water. The ground remained so hot that puddles of mud formed, instantly bubbling over in raging boils. Clouds of gray smoke choked the air, making me cough and gasp for a breath of reprieve. Luckily, the marshmallow disappeared, consumed in the flickering light. Yet the damage was done. The gruesome image had etched itself permanently in my mind.

I turned off the hose and plopped onto the ground, letting the smoking remains dwindle as I pondered the past, haunted by visions of her. She did terrible things. She posed a threat to the lives of millions of innocent people.

Was I any different? Had my act of destroying her sealed my fate to become cruel and heartless like the other Elementals? A part of me questioned my motive, wondering if I’d made a huge mistake in taking her out by the San Francisco Bay.

Still, destroying Hydros didn’t solve my problem when two more threats remained at large. And until I removed them from this world, I would never be safe…nor would anyone I knew.

When the fire reduced to a pile of smoldering ash, I sprayed the hose across its surface once more, certain I had extinguished it fully, and then headed inside. I would deal with the rest tomorrow.

I went straight for the shower, letting the water run hot to wash away the reek of the bonfire and the horrors plaguing my mind. Meanwhile, a new wave of determination filled my soul, bringing new hope and encouragement. Tomorrow, Auntie Lulu would take me to see Pele. And I vowed to do whatever it took to master my powers so I could rid the world of the other Elementals forever.