'Tempest'

Andrie POV

While you are letting your guard down
I will be letting myself go
While you keep running your ship aground
I will be setting myself alight


A burning piece of what used to be a polished white deck, snapped and came down violently on the floating plank I had managed to crawl on. It bashed my head against the hard wood. I felt blood rush down my temple, hot and sickly. I was dizzy and all of a sudden my vision was impaired. My thoughts we're not coherent but I knew I had to fight against the weakness settling in my veins. But for what reason? The flames were inescapable. Enclosing me in a circle of heat and panic, the water was freezing and chunks of what remained of the ship were floating around me, lit with fire that the rain could not douse no matter how hard it fell from the stormy heavens. My pulse was thudding in my ears, teeth slamming together in the cold water but I was sweating from the torched wreckage that floated around me, like burning ghosts. My limbs were screaming in protest as I swam through an ocean of fire and despair. Someone was shouting but the sound was drowned out by thunder erupting across the sky like a volcano.

Nothing made any sense in this disoriented state. My ears weren't working, fatigue was
wearing me down.  

It felt like hours of pushing myself, screaming for someone to find me, to help me. But no one heard. It wasn't long before my screams became broken whispers. Before I gave up hope of being found, there weren't any lifeboats coming for me or any of the other floating bodies. I couldn't bring myself to look at their pale unresponding faces. I didn't recognize any of them. Who were these people? All I could do was watch the cruise sink, the dark water swallowing it whole. Exhausted and no longer able to keep my head up any longer, I let it fall under the crashing waves. Let darkness wrap her cool arms around me, cradling me to her silken embrace. Sand scraped my heels and for a moment I thought I had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, up or down made no sense to me. But I could smell the salty air. I must have been floating for some time.

Dull sunlight turned my closed eyelids red, I focused on breathing. Not moving. Slowly my ears unclogged and I heard the sounds of waves crashing against rocks. I could feel vibrations through the sand. Someone was running towards me. Without thinking, I turned my head and gagged up all seawater that I had swallowed. Choking on air that had been forced down my throat, I managed to open my eyes which stung as the breeze whipped at them.
I was alive.
Someone else who was much closer than I would have thought, thrust something hard and wet and slimy glass into my left hand, I felt movement inside it when I rolled the object back and forth.
Then I heard a splash, that someone was gone. A heavy dizziness swept across my body again. When it passed I managed to lift myself up, ignoring the protest my arms and legs screamed at me. In my hand was an oyster shell, I rattled it. Something was definitely inside so I wasn't imagining things or still disoriented. I managed to pry open the oyster with sand caked fingernails. Inside was a small, round, pink pearl. Beautiful and shiny. So pretty. I marvelled at it. I did not notice the man until he knelt down beside me. His surfboard cast aside, a concerned panic in his vast brown eyes. His features were distinctly Hawaiian. Laugh lines were deeply etched into his tanned cheeks.

"Are you alright little girl? He asked.

I forced myself to focus on forming words. "Yes?" it came out as a question.

"Where did you come from aye?"

I locked eyes with his brown ones, squeezing the oyster closed in my hand. "I don't know. I-I can't remember. I can't remember anything"

The middle-aged man helped pull me onto unsteady feet. "It's alright. Easy now. I won't let you go. I won't leave you."

I may have still been dizzy, because at that moment I actually believed his words.

                                                            *
Four years later

Kimi cried the most. Tears made small tracks down her chubby cheeks and hung on either side of her chin before falling into the sand. Four and a half years old, she hardly knew her daddy. I held one of her hands and balanced two year old Kona on my hip. Out of the eleven residents at Laie Children's Home, Kona was the youngest and strange enough, the quietest. Which was why I loved him the most. Of course I would never admit it out loud around anyone but Leilani. One of the 'graduated' kids who worked at Greene's Convenience Store and cooked at the house most nights. Seven year-old Akela brushed Kimi's coffee coloured curls from her wet face and searched the pockets of her cornflower blue dress for a handkerchief. When I had asked about her choice of dress beforehand she had said, "Papa Mahi wouldn't want a sad funeral. He'd want sunshine."

My chest ached guiltily. I never expected the whole community of Hukilau Beach to attend Mahikai's funeral. It was as if every person in Laie had picked a vibrant Plumeria blossom to lay in the boat with his body; a body that had been strong, dependable and thought to be indestructible. I clutched a pink frangipani in my free hand. Kona's tiny hands stroked the petals softly, knowing he had to be gentle. Mahikai always said he wanted a Viking Funeral. His face was weathered but happy with big laugh lines. From where they were standing it was nearly impossible to make out his face from under the overflowing canvas of petals and bright colours in the small boat. A soft sea breeze blew my shoulder sun-lightened red hair across my face, a few strands getting caught between my lips on the gloss I'd applied half an hour before. With my hands full I was unable to brush away those annoying stands. My hands were full and now they always would be, with the children. It was that realisation that forced the salty tears to sting my eyes and finally fall.

Mahikai wouldn't be there to relieve me of Kimi and her wild kicking and screaming tantrums, or to explain quadratic equations for Xamie, who was a hard enough student already without skipping class to smoke pot or surf. His approval-laugh wouldn't be heard in Leilani's kitchen over a pot of steaming food. Kona's squeal of delight at the funny faces Mahikai's mouth made when he stuck an orange slice between his lips. Nine year-old Lei would become even more withdrawn from the family without Mahikai to piggy back him from his tree of solitude to the seven bedroom house. Who would be there to patch up Maleko, that thrill-seeking boy whenever he hurt himself base-jumping? A cork of emotion had plugged up my throat and I had to swallow to keep from choking.

He said he wouldn't let me go. He said he wouldn't leave me.

My eyes were cast to the men holding the boat steady, getting ready to send Mahikai off when the word was given. There were only two, his always-happy-chubby bestfriend Iokia, whose smile was nonexistent as silent tears slid off his nose that was downcast. The second was Mahikai's eldest son, Kai. His dark brown eyes were steady, looking everywhere but his father laying a hands breadth away. His face was dry but those eyes were shining with unshed drops of emotion that he refused to let escape. Kai held it all. The kids cried enough for him as well. Malie held onto Leilani's hand, seeking her calming touch. Akela had dug herself a little pit in the sand. She clutched a shell and watched the water lap the shoreline while Lei kept a watchful eye on her. His own hands were bawled into fists at his side. Sand clung to his chin length curls. Maleko leaned his shaggy head against his older sister's shoulder. Malie was fourteen and had blossomed early. Her highlighted hair was tied back in knots at the top of her head. Her pretty brown skin matched her brother who was but a head shorter than her. Apart from Mahiko's own children, Kai Xamie and Kimi. Malie and Maleko were the only other blood related kids in this big family. The rest were orphans or homeless kids who had been wandering the beach or the town when they had been found by Officer Halina and brought to the Laie Children's Home. Kona's mother had been a teenage girl that had come to us in the middle of the night and taken off to another island as soon as she'd recovered. My heart broke, trying to comprehend how someone could leave such a beautiful well-behaved baby with strangers. We loved him all the same.

I scanned the crowd of people watching the service with sombre expressions. Someone was missing. I caught Leilani's eye and mouthed "Where's Xamie?"

She shook her head and knocked it towards the direction of the dense palm tree jungle up the beach. Leilani was one of those rare girls, rare shells that was as pretty on the inside as the outside. She was all light brown hair alive with pink hibiscus flowers and melted chocolate brown eyes, brown lips and a healthy tan that most tourists failed to achieve. I would admit that I was always jealous of Leilani's attention pulling body, curves and boobs proud to be displayed in revealing bikinis, whereas my bikinis were always flat and restricting, trying their best not to show off what I didn't have; seventeen-years old and flat-chested. Every girls dream.   

Kona looked up at me with his big questioning brown eyes, his tiny fingers still clutched the flower. I kissed his forehead and sniffled, wishing I could wipe my nose but knowing I couldn't let go of Kimi's hand.       
She was there too. That girl. Long pale blonde hair, eyes bright but expressionless - a luminous blue. She had a long figure in a peach and yellow beach dress reaching mid thigh. A beaded periwinkle shell necklace rested in her collarbone. Her feet were always bare and showing off an array of anklets of all different colours. She looked like an ordinary girl you might see on the shoreline. But those eyes, no one had eyes that blue around Laie. I originally thought the girl was a tourist but if that was the case wouldn't she have companions? Brothers or sisters? Friends or parents? She was always alone and always watching me until I looked away, uncomfortable by her scrutiny. Whenever I looked back, the girl was simply not there. Gone. Moved on. But she always came back.

I always waited for her to come back.

She was there that night too. My seventeenth birthday and the morning afterwards . . .