The Kikiloa Chronicles

Tag: love

  • Sample of Love and Entropy – The Kikiloa Chronicles Book One

    At The End Of Time


    Prelude: I am Kikiloa


    I was enslaved after the fire.

    I birthed only daughters, more than I could track on my fingers and toes, so I remembered them by the dark freckles scattered across the backs of my hands. I’ve since learned to count and know they were twenty-nine daughters by twenty-nine men. They resembled their fathers, with luminous golden-brown skin, lean limbs, and thick black hair that swept back from perfect round faces.

    None of my daughters resembled me until my thirtieth and last. She was the child of my only lover, the forbidden lover my father killed too late to preserve our tribe’s harmony. She was stillborn in my forty-second year, a speckled blue baby strangled by her umbilicus. The weight of her lifeless body broke the scales of my grief and freed me.

    With age, my freckles multiplied, darkening my skin into a mottled tapestry. Despite time’s weathering, I can still find each daughter in those scattered marks, an alphabet of memory. 

    But my life has since multiplied beyond reckoning.

    I am Kikiloa.

    I am the harbinger of humanity, ancient yet not atavistic. I forespoke your future, and you echo my past. We share our genes. We share our deepest dreams. With a flicker, I can find you in any moment. And perhaps I found the girl who can save everything.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself.

    Let me tell you what I’ve seen.

    Five Hundred Years Ago


    Chapter One: Dropped into paradise

    We dropped into paradise just outside the brilliant crescent bay. Pahapaha piloted us beneath a rainbow-striped sail, the koa wood of our outrigger canoe gleaming in the afternoon sun. We rounded the rugged lava headlands, gliding over an endless procession of cobalt swells.

    Our long tack across the trade winds gave me time to dissolve in awe.

    A verdant valley, miles deep, unfurled from the beach, cradled by soaring ridges of ribboned black lava. From its head, Nāmolokama mountain shouldered up into billowing white clouds, its crags laced with a dozen mile-high waterfalls cascading from the sky. It was a landscape of transformation, of cooled lava flows, fracturing cliffs, rushing water, swirling wind, rioting plants. Yet the vastness stilled the scene. Peaceful and quiet. Eternal.

    With a tack of our canoe, movement returned to my world. Even after a thousand visits, that place still steals my breath. But that first time? That one most of all.

    I saw a burst of activity near the bay’s eastern point break. A group of ali’i, Hawaiian royalty, were surfing the reef, surrounded by garland-draped sailing canoes. They’d sighted us.

    Dozens of surfers paddled hard back to their canoes and set their russet triangular sails to intercept. The small fleet charged toward us on the wind, a massive man braced at the prow of the lead canoe. He pointed a vicious war club at us, and his entourage roared a challenge.

     Paha adjusted our course to avoid the oncoming ali’i, and we drew nearer to shore.

    Hundreds of grass huts dotted the valley, nestled in the shade of tropical trees, outlining a patchwork of red mud taro fields. The fields lay empty while the shore teemed with life: wise kupuna weaving and talking story in the shade, little keiki splashing under the watchful eyes of their makuahine, and crowds of humble makaʻāinana bobbing in the surf between the dark lines of their wooden boards.

    I whooped with excitement as a wave crested. The entire lineup of surfers rode lying prone on their boards, sliding together down the wave toward the beach.

    Paha had brought me here to witness a turning point, the dramatic transformation of surfing from prone to standing, when an extra-large swell arrived at sunset.

    “Aloha, and welcome to Hanalei on the birthday of big wave surfing,” Paha said, standing in the canoe behind me. “Remember, let me handle the king.”

    The royal canoes closed in fast, their collision course bringing them within earshot. They fanned out, shouting threats, maneuvering to surround us.

    Paha tacked hard into the wind, aiming for an ominous ‘X’ of crossed kapu sticks, sacred markers at the taboo edge of the royal beach. The sticks resembled tall unlit torches, their tops wrapped in rough pounded bark cloth, a stark warning. 

    Our sail luffed, snapping in the wind, and for a moment, we stalled. Then, with a smirk, Paha goosed the electric jet hidden in our hull. We rocketed forward on a rooster tail of water. The canoe lifted on submerged hydrofoils to the astonished shouts of the Hawaiians.

    Their flotilla fell behind rapidly, no match for our outlandish vessel. The leader scowled, and with a sharp gesture sent them veering toward the river mouth, where they beached their canoes and disembarked.

    I waved as our canoe sliced past two adolescents frolicking in the waves, and my eye caught the smooth, speckled skin of my hand, the skin of a young woman in her prime. I ran my hands over my taut belly, felt the plump skin of my cheeks, and tugged on the thick rope of kinky hair at the nape of my neck. I laughed.

    “I could get used to this!” I exclaimed. This was my first experience time surfing as my younger self. It was the end of my apprenticeship to Paha, and given what was to come, he insisted we choose vigorous bodies for this trip. But glancing down at my lean curves, I suspected he might have other motives.

    As I admired myself, he nodded, the sea-cured muscles of his arms straining at the steering paddle. “You can’t fully appreciate your body until you return to your youth,” he said archly.

    “Hardly,” I shot back. “The last time I was this age, I was pregnant with my twelfth child and appreciated everything my body gave us.” He ignored me, confident in his observation. And, irritatingly, he was right. Pouring my ancient self into a young body was an invigorating return to youth’s pleasures.

    “Retracting the foils,” he announced, and we leapt from the canoe as it slid up the beach. We pushed it further ashore until it rested above the tide line, brazenly on the royal side of the beach. Paha pulled his own kapu sticks from the hull and planted two pairs in an ‘X’ on either side of our landing spot. Fashioned from aluminum tent poles and topped with silver foil balls, his were flashier than their Hawaiian counterparts.

    The taboo message was clear. Our canoe was off-limits. Ali’i included.

    Nearby, the Hawaiian canoes emptied onto the beach, and a procession formed. A detachment of lesser ali’i hustled forth from the tree line. They carried a rich red and yellow feathered cape and matching helmet, raiment for the massive man still brandishing his war club. He was the ali’i nui, the king of Kaua’i, here to surf the spring waves of Hanalei and now confronting the gods who’d landed on his beach.

    While Paha unloaded boxes from our canoe, I watched the king finish his preparations and stride toward us. A Polynesian prodigy worthy of his role, the king stood nearly seven feet tall, his fierce eyes betraying no fear as he faced two unknown gods. His war club bristled with rows of wickedly hooked tiger shark teeth lashed tight to the hard-worn wood. In his other hand, he held his own kapu stick, the ceremonial staff a symbol of his rank and the solemnity of our divine arrival. 

    When his entourage reached our shiny anachronistic markers, he halted and raised both club and staff high. His magnificent feathered cape fell back, revealing a hulking chest inked with a geometric tattoo of shark teeth, interrupted here and there by scars of past battles. Then he drove the stick into the sand with a grunt, twisting it deep.

    Stone-faced, the ali’i nui surveyed our canoe, the cargo stacked neatly on the beach, and our strange appearance. To his eyes, I resembled a diminutive Hawaiian woman, though my speckled skin, eerily pale sea-green eyes and kinky rope of black hair streaked with red told a different story. Paha was more alien, with ruddy skin, a narrow nose, feathery blonde hair, and amber eyes, his face aloof with the bearing of a god.

    But it was the canoe’s apparent magic, and our strange clothes, that marked us as gods in the king’s eyes. My aqua bikini and his red-orange board shorts were too pure in hue and too precise in fit to be mortal craftwork.

    The ali’i nui gave us a stern nod before speaking.

    “Why are you here, gods?” he asked.

    Paha sauntered up to the towering leader, casually tilting his head back to meet the king’s gaze. The warriors tensed, ready.

    “I bring three gifts.”

    Thrilled whispers rippled through the Hawaiians at the promise of divine gifts. But their leader remained stoic. Godlike himself, he took nothing for granted, wary of godly caprice.

    “What price will these unwanted gifts demand?” he asked, suspicion sharpening his voice as he raised his war club. At his gesture, the whispers ceased, and several warriors fanned out, faces grim.

    The kahuna nui, the high priest, stepped forward hurriedly, raising his hands and addressing Paha in a reverent chant. “Kāne, you brought light from darkness and life from the clay, shaping our world. Your sister ‘Ānuenue drew rainbows from the clouds, linking us to the divine. What more could we need?”

    The king blanched at the priest’s words and lowered his weapon. God or not, he was no match for Kāne, the great creator. In one motion, the king swept off his feathered helmet and lowered to one knee, head bowed in respect. His warriors and priests dropped prostrate before us on the sand.

    “I’m preparing the gifts now,” Paha said calmly, turning away. “You’ll see.”

    The kahuna nui cast me a surreptitious glance. I gave the clever priest a knowing wink for saving his ruler from transgressing divine kapu.

    He surprised me by winking back.

    The king rose, replaced his helmet and gave a final nod, uneasy but without recourse. The gods would do as they willed. With a sweep of his magnificent cape, he turned and led the warriors and priests back across the sand.

    The high priest lingered a moment longer, studying me with curious intensity, then followed his king.


    Chapter Two: The ocean goes away

    “You’re seriously announcing it like a sporting event?” I laughed at Paha’s plan. “Not everything’s about you. Let’s just watch them surf. They don’t need an emcee. They invented surfing, after all.” I didn’t expect humility, but this was over the top, even for Paha.

    He brushed my critique aside with his usual confidence.

    “It’s a pivotal moment in the universe, the biggest event of their lives, and of many more to come. We’re here to give it a fitting ceremony.”

    So smug.

    Paha busied himself for several hours, climbing swaying coconut trees along the beach and mounting wireless speakers high beneath their fronds. He marked each palm trunk with shining kapu sticks as a clear “no trespassing” sign to keep the curious Hawaiians at bay. He recruited a swarm of young men to help cart his gear to the farther trees, their raucous laughter muscling through the rhythmic surf.

    While he prepped for his color commentary, I played in the waves with the children, my thousand-times great-grandchildren, laughing and squealing together. The grandparents joined us, washing away their years in the tumbling surf.

    The setting was fantastic, drawing my gaze across the beach and up the valley. My imagination recast the island mountains as a goddess rising proudly from the sea. The clouds sketched her profile. Jagged Hīhīmanu ridge became her right hand turned sideways in playful welcome. Pyramidal Māmalahoa peak was buttressed by the fingers of her left hand, clenched in the earth’s crust.

    Then the wind drew a veil of rain across the valley. A rainbow bridged the darkened ridges, mirroring the curve of the golden beach below. The island goddess vanished in the mist and light, and I returned to the children.

    As Paha packed the last of our gear into the canoe, the kahuna nui strode down the beach toward me with easy confidence, carrying a bamboo cup of cool coconut milk.

    “Aloha, ‘Ānuenue. This drink is kapu for women, but surely not for a goddess who bridges mortal and divine,” he said, his eyes lingering in admiration as he bowed.

    A daring gesture, flirtation wrapped in ritual, a calculated risk before the liminal goddess of rainbows and keeper of such sacred taboos.

    I met him with a measured look as he offered me the cup. He was handsome, if a bit sly. I took a swig of the sweet, creamy drink, then burped.

    He bowed his head with a suppressed smile. “Ah, the blessing of rainbow’s thunder.” 

    “What do you seek, oh high priest?” I teased.

    The priest stepped back, folding his hands in respect, the smile still playing at his lips. “Only to serve, goddess,” he said, his reverence belied by a confident dimple. “And perhaps to learn.”

    He was fun. “I’m here to learn too,” I said, and gave him another wink. But as Paha drew near, I let my face harden, my voice shifting to matriarchal command. “But what is it you think I’ll teach you?”

    His eyes widened at my sudden shift, regretting the risk he’d taken. He recovered quickly, bowed his head, and chanted, “Oh, ‘Ānuenue, whatever I may learn from your wise messages that brighten our skies.”

    “You’ll see soon enough,” I said, letting silence settle. Paha had been clear that the spectacle was a big surprise for the Hawaiians. I wasn’t going to spoil it.

    The kahuna nui shifted uneasily while I drained the cup. With a thoughtful glance, he turned and slipped away when Paha returned.

    Paha nodded down the beach toward two young teenagers with surfboards in their arms. The beautiful girl and lithe boy sprinted into the waves and paddled out through the break. Their blackened boards were much shorter than those used by the other Hawaiians, barely longer than they were tall. 

    “That’s them,” he said, reverence lifting his voice. “He’s Kainalu. She’s Leilani. It’s almost time.”

    A few minutes later, I heard a disturbed murmur rise along the beach. At first, I barely noticed. Then, the young child I was playing with pointed behind me in surprise. She piped, “The ocean goes away!”

    I turned, dreading what I would see. The bay was emptying, the beach widening fast as the sea pulled back in a whispering withdrawal. A thick coral pinnacle, hidden moments ago, jutted up from the sinking water near the middle of the basin. The two teenage surfers wedged their boards onto it and clung tight as the water churned and receded around them.

    A tsunami was coming, a big one.

    This wasn’t a surprise. This wasn’t a spectacle. This was sacrifice.

    Clenching my fists, I looked back at Paha in disbelief. He stood calmly by our canoe, wrapping a wireless microphone around his ear. He’d failed to mention this part of his plan.


    ~~~


    Kainalu and Leilani had planned for weeks to debut their new surfboards in the afternoon session. The untraditional boards were half the length of royal longboards, ali’i olo, which were unwieldy in steep surf. Shaped to Kainalu’s design from lightweight wiliwili wood, the shorter boards had upturned noses, rounded side rails, and narrow tails. “Like ahi tuna!” Kainalu crowed. To finish the design, they lashed curved tuna fins to the back of each sleek board.

    Kainalu had salvaged the wood after his father, the ali’i nui, snapped his ali’i olo in half on a steep reef wave. Longboards like that often broke in big surf, but Kainalu hoped a lighter, shorter board could carve down steeper faces without the nose purling under. That same night, he scoured the shoreline and found the broken board’s pieces wedged in the black puka lava rocks at the river mouth, just what he needed.

    Leilani, bold and curious, had jumped into the experiment without hesitation. For several weeks, they met in secret to shape the boards by moonlight. Kainalu knew what his father hoped was happening. Leilani was not only beautiful, she was also the kahuna nui’s eldest daughter. A marriage would greatly increase their fathers’ mana, their spiritual power. But their fathers’ hopes were not their concern. The two kids were focused on surfing big waves like no one had before.

    So, when our golden rainbow-sailed canoe raced past them onto the beach on the day of their planned first session, Leilani smacked Kainalu’s shoulder, her eyes wide at their luck.

    “That’s Kāne and ‘Ānuenue!” she exclaimed, leaping to the same conclusion as her father, the kahuna nui.

    “Yeah, and they’re here to watch us,” Kainalu joked, grinning at the luck of the gods’ visit. “Let’s show ‘em what we can do.” 

    Leilani laughed and raced Kainalu to the dunes where they’d stashed their new surfboards in the shade just back from the beach. They rubbed the boards with extra coats of black kukui oil and fine sand, eager to impress the gods.

    “All right, I think I’m ready,” Kainalu said, admiring the sleek surfboard in his arms.

    Leilani cocked her head, then playfully wiped the tip of his nose with a black smudge of oil and sand. “Now you’re ready,” she said, grinning.

    Kainalu stilled, thrilled by her touch.

    She raised an eyebrow, acknowledging his reaction, then sprinted away. He ran after her down the beach and past the gods. They splashed through the shorebreak, hooting with excitement.

    “Did you see that?” Leilani asked after they’d paddled out through the breaking waves. “Kāne and ‘Ānuenue were watching us.”

     “Won’t be the last time!” Kainalu laughed, unaware how right he was.

    At first, it was hard to paddle a straight line on the shorter boards. They felt slow, dragging deeper in the water than they were used to. But then, as if the gods gave them a push, they began to accelerate away from the beach. Kainalu looked up and saw turbulence in the water ahead. A wide gray shape emerged from the surface. The newly revealed reef pinnacle resembled the fluke of a great humpback whale, koholā, rising from the bay’s depths.

    “The tide is rushing out!” Leilani shouted. “Follow that honu to the reef!”

    A giant honu, green sea turtle, swam ahead of them. As children, they’d learned to swim in the dangerous surf of rocky shores by watching gentle honu navigate the churning water. This one was heading straight for the exposed reef. They followed.

    The outrushing water pressed them against the richly encrusted surface of the exposed reef. They propped their boards in crevices, gripping tight with hands and feet as the ocean drained away. Beneath them, the turtle surfed the rock’s bow wave, gliding down until it rested on the sand at the base of the stony outcrop. It shuffled under a dripping coral ledge, a sleeping place from countless past visits now open to the air. The turtle closed its eyes, patiently awaiting the ocean’s return.

    The teens climbed to the top of the reef outcrop and scanned the draining bay. Everywhere they looked, fish flapped on wet sand and stone, marooned by the receding waters. Several more large green turtles dotted the newly exposed bay bottom, all turning to face the sea. Near the river mouth, a school of small hammerhead manō thrashed on the freshly exposed sandbar.

    A resounding voice rang across the bay. “This is my first gift, the greatest hukilau.” With amazed shouts, hundreds of people ran from the beach into the emptied bay to scoop up the stranded fish. Others milled in confusion or pulled back, remembering the old stories.

    “Wow, I want to go see those hammerheads!” Kainalu said, clambering down the short coral cliff. The sight defied his wildest imagining.

    “Hold on!” Leilani called. “Look at the honu. They’re digging in. The ocean’s coming back.”

    “Of course it’s coming back,” Kainalu replied, still descending. But Leilani’s serious tone stopped him.

    “This is like the story of kai a Pele,” Leilani said. “My grandmother told us of the time of her great-grandmother’s great-grandmother, when the sea emptied before surging back. What if Pele is jealous of ‘Ānuenue with Kāne and throws the ocean at them to show who’s boss? The bay is emptying, kai mimiki,” she said, turning to the still-receding sea, “and then it’ll return, kai e’e, and the rising wave will come back far higher. It will wash up the whole valley, all the way to the mountains.”

    She glanced down at their boards, then back across the drained bay to the deep valley beyond. The moment felt unreal, her world wobbling as she struggled to absorb the tsunami’s scale. Then she closed her eyes and pictured a smoothly rolling wall of water, tall as a dream. Slowly, her face lit with a brilliant smile, alive with the challenge the returning ocean would bring.

    Kainalu caught her thought and scrambled back up beside her, his smile blazing even as he glanced jealously at the crowds heaping up helpless fish across the bay bottom. “Then I guess we’ll surf past the gods on our way to the mountains!”


    Chapter Three: To surf like the gods

    I slapped Paha hard, sending his microphone headset flying. “What are you doing? These people are going to die!” My blood roared.

    “No. Right now they’re preparing the greatest hukilau this universe has ever seen.” Calmly replacing the microphone, he gestured toward the crowds gathering fish. Already, dozens of banked fires were smoking to life along the beach. Large groups milled in the smoke, marveling at the emptied bay even as a growing trickle of villagers sang chants of supplication and pulled back from the shore, mirroring the ocean’s retreat.

    “Don’t twist words,” I spat. “They may drown with full bellies, but they’ll still drown.” I scanned the beach for the high priest, but he didn’t need my warning. He stood with his back to the sea, singing the ancient warnings of kai mimiki and kai e’e, urging the elders and commoners to carry their precious young keiki inland before the returning ocean claimed their fragile bodies. The king stood motionless amidst the tumult, great arms crossed, flanked by his greatest warriors, his face hard as he stared at the ocean waters beginning to refill the bay.

    My shoulders tensed with frustration. “They know what’s coming. Why aren’t they running?”

    Paha’s face softened, his voice low. “They have stories, but a tsunami like this comes once every thousand years, if that. They have no living memory of its power. The visceral fear has drained away. They have only their myths of the ocean as giver and destroyer.”

    He surveyed the scene grimly. “Remember how the king almost brained me, before the priest convinced him I was the top dog? He’s willing to take on the gods, especially if he thinks it’s a fair fight. He figures they stand a chance, so they may as well enjoy the feast and fill their stomachs before the worst arrives. ”

    He nodded thoughtfully. “And he’s right. Most will live,” he said, nudging me toward the canoe. “More than you think. They’ve all lived with the ocean since birth. They’re the greatest waterpeople the world has ever known. This tsunami won’t wipe them out. It will be a great source of mana, birthing even greater stories.”

    He shoved the canoe hard, spinning the prow to face the empty bay. “You should get in. The first surge is arriving, and we want to be out in open water when the second wave hits.”

    “I’m not going anywhere with you!” I snapped in disgust, arms crossed, lancing him with a glare.

    He leaned back in the canoe’s stern, pressing the steering paddle to his forehead, eyes on the horizon. Then he nodded toward the two teenagers poised on the exposed reef. “Okay. We can’t save everyone, but we can save those kids. So get in.”

    The ali’i nui watched as I boarded the canoe. I gestured urgently toward the waves, but he didn’t flinch, just gave a slow nod of his feathered helmet, then hefted his heavy surfboard and strode toward the sea. The ocean poured in, a thin sheet at first, rapidly swelling. To my surprise, dozens of surfers, mostly men, some women, sprinted toward the onrushing tide, diving into the deluge and paddling hard for deeper water and greater mana.

    Tears of frustration blurred my vision. I wiped them away and stepped into the canoe as seawater swirled past my ankles and up the beach. In seconds, we were afloat.

    “We’re not gods,” I said, gripping the canoe.

    Paha engaged the motor, and we jetted across the churning water toward the kids paddling out to meet the second, looming wave.

    ~~~


    At the time, I didn’t know that was just the first in a stacked series of three waves racing across the planet, launched by a shattering earthquake five hours earlier and two thousand miles away. The Aleutian seabed had convulsed, the earthquake releasing the long string of islands that had strained seaward for hundreds of years like massive linemen awaiting the snap. The rupture plowed up mountainous waves that raced across the ocean with blinding speed.

    A vast trough raced ahead, eventually emptying Hanalei Bay. Behind it came an ocean-spanning trio of giants, each wave stacked higher than the last. The first wave rolled up Kaua’i’s coastal shelf, slowed and lifted by the island’s gentle slope, until it sloshed past the high tide line. It doused the hukilau fires, forcing villagers to snatch their fish half-cooked. Minutes later came the second wave, the one the kids now faced, bulldozing the sea before it and piling even higher as it swept into the bay.

    “Here it comes!” Kainalu shouted, stroking smoothly across the troubled ocean. He and Leilani had leapt into the first wave’s inrushing waters, riding the rock’s bow wave as the bay refilled. When the currents paused with the approach of the second wave, they paddled hard for deeper water. Leilani, now half a head taller from her recent growth spurt, was the stronger paddler. Quickly a dozen board lengths ahead, she pulled away with every stroke.

    Kainalu saw the colossal wave rising higher and higher as it bore down on them. His instincts told him Leilani’s timing was perfect, but he was too late, too slow. The wave’s heavy slab would bury him before he could get into position.

    My shout split the wind. He gaped as our canoe skipped toward him, me as Ānuenue standing amidships, spinning a long rope overhead.

    “Grab this! Hold tight!” I shouted, the line hurling toward him as we passed.

    He caught the loop at the end of the line, and I yelled to Paha, “He’s got it, go!”

    The rope thrummed taut, and lying on his board, Kainalu skimmed headfirst behind the canoe, racing toward the threatening wave. Seconds later, he was he’e nalu, sliding down the face as it steepened beneath him. He squinted through the spray whipping off the rope and saw Leilani rocketing down the wave ahead of him.

    ~~~


    Leilani felt in control, paddling a quick arc ahead of the threatening wave. Then, with a decisive stroke of both arms, she launched down the looming face, lying prone, hands gripping the rails, feet skimming the surface behind. Thrilled, she slid faster than ever before, tilting the short board side to side, carving turns just as Kainalu had imagined.

    But even with all her speed and agility, she knew she wasn’t quick enough. The enormous wave was still building, threatening to close out on her if she held course. And, in blurred glimpses through the lashing spray, she saw another problem ahead. In seconds, she’d be blasting across the paths of dozens of surfers paddling out through the churning waters. The thought of slamming into someone at that speed chilled her.

    And where was Kainalu?

    Heart pounding, she searched for him, but her world was speed and spray, and he was nowhere in sight.

    In her mind’s eye, she saw him standing on the beach in the sun, replaying past sessions with dexterous hands, dreaming of something new. With a whoop of inspiration, she sprang to her feet, rising above the spray, hair streaming, arms wide. She rocketed faster, dug in her heels, and carved hard left, no longer dropping straight but slicing the wave’s face in a deep arc.

    Steering with her feet, she veered away from the tangling trees and vulnerable villagers, angling toward the river mouth. Then, over her shoulder, she caught sight of Kainalu.

    ~~~


    With a final whip, the rope went slack in Kainalu’s hands. He flung it aside and dropped in, accelerating down the face of the lumbering wave. Our canoe slewed with a frothing wake, riding back over the wave’s crest.

    Kainalu caught the awe on my face as I pointed down the wave. He turned, blinking through the spray, and saw Leilani rise to her feet, riding the face with breathtaking grace. His mouth gaped. Then, with a thrilled shout, he, too, sprang up, carving to match her line.

    Together, they raced down the wave toward the river, streaking over the sea like twin arrows loosed by the gods. Amid roaring wind and crashing water, they heard the god’s booming voice from the palms, and the wild cheers of the surfers as they ripped past.

    ~~~


    “This is my second gift to you,” Paha intoned, his voice echoing from the speakers high in the palms. “Surfing like the gods.”

    I would’ve been disgusted by his showmanship, but the monstrous wave swamped all thought. I held my breath, hands fused to the gunwales, as Paha trailed Leilani and Kainalu. I exhaled when scattered heads popped up behind the wave, the surfers swimming hard against the incoming ocean. Maybe they had a chance, if they could avoid shore debris and cling to a tree as they were swept inland.

    My breathing steadied. In the space cleared by my terror, a strange feeling stirred. Surging potential emanated from every detail, as if myth were rising from the living sea around us.

    “Do you feel that?” I shouted.

    “Yes, that’s the mana, the wave of meaning rising,” Pahapaha called over the chaos. “You’re feeling the birth of countless universes of big wave surfing.”

    “And since we saved the boy, it’s a co-ed version this time, with a big bonus for the first tow-in ride,” he added, eyes focused on the two surfers racing ahead.


    Chapter Four: The third gift

    We followed the surfers upriver, our canoe riding the tide rushing in behind the wave. Unlike a normal swell, the water barely dropped as the crest passed, as if the entire ocean followed. We raced after them, ten feet above the river’s usual level.

    “We’ve got to help them!” I bellowed, taking in the flooding valley village and imagining the poor people being tumbled in the inexorable water.

    “I already said we would!” he shouted, misunderstanding me and pointing ahead to where the two young surfers preceded us upriver. “That’s why I’m still following. Look.”


    ~~~


    The river narrowed, giving Kainalu and Leilani less room to cut back and forth ahead of the relentless wave. Even worse, the wave, darkened with river mud, was gathering sticks, logs, and even entire uprooted trees within it. They could feel the thumps of massive limbs cracking and grinding in the water beneath their boards. If they wiped out now, they were dead.

    Kainalu shouted when a lone palm log breached the tumult and surfed unstably between them. They peeled away when it speared downward, bounced violently off the riverbed, and shot back through the churning wave into the calmer waters behind.

    Leilani glanced at him, eyes wide at the danger of the river debris, jaw set. She sliced a sharp u-turn with her hand, miming a dolphin’s leap. He pumped his fist in agreement.

    As if they’d done it many times before, they carved deep turns in perfect synchrony, curling their momentum around to kick out over the back of the wave. At the crest, they launched from their boards, soared above the churning debris, and dove cleanly into the dark water beyond.

    ~~~


    I watched the teenagers dive like dolphins into the black water beside us. Paha spun the canoe on its axis, scanning the floodwaters. They surfaced sputtering, struggling to stay afloat in the turbulent current. With a practiced sweep, Paha swung the outrigger ama within reach, keeping station as the exhausted surfers latched on, arms and legs hooked tight. Dodging debris, he brought us to the knee-deep riverbank shallows, holding the canoe steady against the surge.

    “Get off. Now,” he ordered, eyes darting across the flood-swollen water. He nodded at me. “You too. I’ll be right back.”

    I splashed ashore, grabbing a submerged tree branch to drag myself out. The two teens collapsed into each other against a thick tree trunk, chests heaving, stunned by their feat and the black water churning past.

    We watched Paha’s canoe weave upriver with the tide, deftly avoiding floating debris. Twice, he leaned over to retrieve their surfboards from the muddy water and tossed them into the hull. Then he raced back, ramming the canoe onto the rocky riverbank at full speed. The violent impact tore the outrigger loose and split the wooden hull lengthwise. Unfazed, he leapt out, their surfboards gripped in his iron-hard hands. The teens received them with reverence.

    “Hold onto those,” he said, flashing his usual self-assured smile. I gave him a curt nod. This time, his arrogance fit the occasion. He shrugged, then reached into the canoe, hoisting an awkward bundle onto his shoulder as he glanced toward the bay.

    “We need to get higher. The last wave’s almost here, and it’s a bomb,” he said. Before I could object, he was already springing away up the steep slope, the kids scrambling close behind.

    I glimpsed the ocean through a gap in the riverside trees. The sight of a third dark wave rolling in beneath the setting sun transfixed me. Twice as high as the last, it overtopped the ironwood trees on the black lava headland at the bay’s far side. It would be here in minutes.

    I scrambled over the lava crags, pulled myself through thick vegetation, and slipped on slick red clay, emerging on a rocky prominence a hundred feet above the river after a frantic two-minute climb.

    By the time I arrived, Paha had unwrapped his bundle and was quickly assembling his equipment — a blade-shaped, red-orange surfboard with padded foot straps and a sleek black hydrofoil wing mounted on a long strut.

    The kids were nearby with a cluster of bedraggled Hawaiians whose alacrity had gotten them across the river before it rose past flood stage. Now they stared in shock at the unfolding disaster.

    We were on the highest point within a mile. The flat valley floor was already inundated waist deep or deeper from the first two waves. Thousands of people were struggling away from the still-rising ocean or climbing trees. Some of the brave surfers had found their boards, and their indecision was etched in their diverging wakes as most turned away from the terrifying wave in a futile attempt to escape, while a few paddled harder towards it, hoping to make it over the wave before it broke.

    I tore my eyes away and dashed to Paha. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

    “I’m giving them the third gift,” he replied calmly. He moved away, climbing onto a tree branch that jutted far out over the river.

    “You call surfing that wave a gift!? For whom? We’ve got to do something. You should be saving these people, not showing off.”

    Then Paha stopped and strapped his feet to the board, letting it dangle over the churning water far below. He turned his gaze across the flooding valley to the waterfall-laced mountains rising impassively above the incoming wave. His voice took on a pained mix of wonder and sadness, “You felt it, too. That wave wasn’t just water. When those kids chose to face that monster, they set in motion a wave of meaning that builds beyond their dreams.” He looked back at me. “At least until it crashes into chaos. Like everything else.”

    He held my eyes, wonder dawning in his. “But this time, they both lived. Usually, Kainalu misses the wave and survives, and Leilani catches it and dies. Blaming himself, he burns his board, and when he becomes ali’i nui, he declares kapu all short boards like the ones they rode today. It takes hundreds of years before shortboards are rediscovered, usually in Northern California, sometimes in Hawai’i, and sometimes, never, anywhere.”

    Out in the bay, the final apocalyptic wave began to curl, erasing all hope for the intrepid surfers and anyone else who hadn’t made it to high ground. The small group of Hawaiians cried out as one, “Auē! Auē! Auē!” Some collapsed, others turned away from the horror. Trembling, the kids clung to each other, transfixed. The final wave’s seismic rumble made the tree shiver, dislodging a cascade of pebbles that skittered into the rushing river below.

    Paha finished cinching his straps tight, making a final adjustment to his board before gazing back at me. His face was drawn with deep sadness and resolve, all the artifice gone.

    “I’ve been right here, right now, billions of times in billions of parallel universes, Kikiloa. And I’ll be here again. I’ve tried to save these people many, many times, but they don’t want to leave this glorious place.” He held his arms out, embracing the valley’s paradise. “Can you blame them?”

    He let his arms fall and raised his voice above the growing roar. “This is just how it is. We all die. I’m here to honor their deaths and ease the meaninglessness, if only for a time.”

    His voice saddened. “You know, hundreds of years from now, my great-grandfather will build his house right about there,” he said, pointing just upriver. “He knows nothing of this moment. It’s better that way.”

    “We can’t give up,” I insisted, horrified by his cold assessment. “We’ve got to do something. There is always something.”

    “Yes, that’s your way,” he said, “and this is mine. I have stayed to see those who live today eventually die, and their lives never top the significance of this moment. Few lives do. At least this way, I can be sure they know how glorious their last day was. Get ready. It’s almost time for you to go.”

    With that, he flipped a switch, and his entire surfboard shone with thousands of blinding lights embedded beneath its skin. He swung the board with his legs, casting its radiance across the valley, bright enough to rival the glorious setting sun. Across the flooded valley, hundreds of brown heads turned towards the light, bobbing like coconuts in the dark water.

    “Last, I give you the third gift,” his voice echoed from the treetop speakers, just before the wave wiped them away. “The biggest wave that men, women or gods will ever surf.”

    The wave rumbled beneath us. Paha gave me a quick wink and timed his drop perfectly, falling from the branch to gun down the sloping face and into the pit of the wave, his board rising on its black foiling wing. His surfboard’s lights cast a brilliant orange halo in the raging sea spray as he dodged floating debris, wove between treetops, and carved towards the mountains beyond, trailed by the relentless ocean. The teenagers stared, the image seared into their memories.

    And then, with a flicker, I vanished.

    Present Day


    Chapter Five: I’ll be quick!

    Hazel sat on the swing set, looking out from the park as the midday sun burned back the roiling wall of fog looming a thousand feet over San Francisco. She felt the cold Pacific reaching out, breezes curling over the cliff behind her, winding through swaying pillars of cypress and pine, then brushing past her as she waited for her best friend, me, Kiki.

    Her blue eyes beamed above cheeks still rounded with adolescence. She wondered about the thousands of people watching the fog’s daily spectacle from kitchens, bedrooms, and offices scattered across the city below. She pictured herself sketched beneath the curtain of fog, like a conductor before her orchestra.

    She tucked a ribbon of honeyed hair behind one ear and pulled her phone from her backpack.

    “ru coming?” she texted.

    Since we’d met at this park two years ago, Hazel had grown familiar with how I played with time. I was late today, but I was just as often early. I once showed up at eight in the morning for a movie that didn’t start until seven that night. She’d been raised to believe that being on time showed respect for others, so she made a habit of sending me helpful reminders. I didn’t mind the prompts. I still showed up when it suited me. “I mean, think about it. Wherever I could have been, whenever I could have come, I’m here. Right day, right place, right beside you!”

    “Hey!” I shouted as I emerged from the steep path leading down from the dog park.

    I bounced across the grass, my young teenage body buzzing with energy. Hazel experienced me as a living spark, my every antic jolting with startling electricity. She had a point. I talked in flowing bursts, and my tightly crimped cocoa and red curls arced out from my head in every direction. I grinned every few seconds, and my signature turquoise earrings glowed against my dark-speckled skin like the eerie bioluminescence Hazel remembered from a fateful trip years ago.

    “Sorry I’m late. I didn’t want to seem like an uptight wacko,” I deadpanned.

    “No one would ever call you uptight,” Hazel replied.

    “Yeah,” I laughed, flashing another smile, my body fizzing with youthful energy. “Your parents aren’t home, right? Want to go up to The Penthouse?”

    “Sure. My brother’s at a lacrosse game. They won’t be back for an hour.”

    “Let’s go!” I cheered, bounding away.

    We scrambled up the dark gray rocks behind the play structure, angling toward a hidden ledge cut into the cliff forty feet above.

    ~~~

    The ledge wasn’t visible from the park below. Hazel didn’t know it existed until breakfast the day after her twelfth birthday, when her dad pointed out a small orange tent that had bloomed on the cliff overnight. A man stood outside it, brushing his teeth. “Wow, that guy picked a million-dollar penthouse view,” her dad said. And so, the hidden ledge became The Penthouse.

    The man stayed a topic of family conversation for several days until her mom called the police when he relieved himself over the ledge in full view of the park.

    It took hours for the police and firefighters to get the man down. No one was willing to climb up after him, so everyone watched and waited as he calmly packed up his belongings and then scaled smoothly down the cliff as if he’d done it a thousand times before. His burnt-orange windbreaker caught Hazel’s eye. His face was deeply tanned, clean-shaven. Paha gave her a lion-yellow wink as the cops escorted him from the park.

    “Don’t you two climb up there,” her mom warned at dinner that night. “Who knows what he left behind, needles, and, you know, stuff.”

    Intrigued, Hazel’s brother, Lee, looked out the dining room window and across the street at the cliff.

    “And poop,” her dad added, noticing Lee’s interest. “He was up there for days. There’s gotta be man poop up there. That’s the ‘stuff’ your mom means.”

    Lee cringed in disgust, almost gagging.

    Hazel doubted the poop story. The man was the most clean-cut urban camper she’d ever seen. The day before, she’d secretly set out some leftover soup near the path up to his ledge. That morning, she’d found the spoon and insulated container on their front steps, carefully washed and neatly wrapped in orange-red craft paper. That didn’t seem like something a man who pooped everywhere would do.

    A few days after the man decamped, Hazel met me for the first time. She spotted me climbing down the rocks below the ledge. Curious, she called out.

    “Were you up on that ledge? Is there poop up there?”

    “Poop? Ummmm, nope! Just a great view and an old circle of sitting stones where the Ohlone wise ones talked story back in the day,” I said with a bright smile. “I’m Kiki.” 

    She smiled back, a little shy. “I’m Hazel.”

    ~~~

    Hazel clambered over the exposed roots of a large cypress jutting from the cliff and hauled herself onto the ledge beside me.

    Stretched below us, the San Francisco Bay gleamed in the bright sun. To the north, the burnt-orange tops of the Golden Gate Bridge soared above a tongue of fog jetting in from the ocean, the dark green slopes of Mount Tam rising in the background. Alcatraz faded in and out of view at the fog jet’s tattered end, the surrounding dark blue water flecked with white caps. Below, the city marked out intersecting diagonal grids of pastel neighborhoods backed by reflective skyscrapers. The silvery Bay Bridge spanned toward Oakland, and cargo ships dotted the bay, which disappeared into the bright haze of Silicon Valley.

    We sat at a semicircle of ancient, sun-warmed stones, sheltered from the fog-chilled breeze by cliff and trees. We played our version of I-spy and shared a bag of roasted seaweed from Hazel’s backpack.

    “I spy a sun-burned bald head,” I said, looking to the east.

    Hazel scanned the park below, but it was unusually empty for this time of day. I held my gaze steady until she spied the red hump of Bernal Peak poking through the street grid.

    “I spy silver rainbows,” Hazel said, leaning back until the city hung upside-down behind her.

    I quickly spied the shining spans of the Bay Bridge.

    I loved our games, but I was stalling. I turned to her, mock serious, one eyebrow raised high. “I spy someone I need to talk to.” I tapped Hazel’s backpack with my toe. “Got any water in there?”

    Hazel raised an eyebrow in response and pulled out her water bottle.

    I flashed a smile. “I’ll be quick.” I unscrewed the cap, took a sip, and said with a straight face, “Let’s start with this. I’m not here.”

    Hazel watched me expectantly, curious and patient with my conversational oddities as always.

    Suddenly, a sharp crack sounded deep in the rock ledge beneath Hazel. The colossal cypress shuddered as its roots ripped free from the cliff face, its cantilevered weight dragging a car-sized section of the ledge loose. A fracture ratcheted toward us across the rock shelf, discharging sharp flakes and puffs of dust.

    I leapt up and yanked her away from the growing fissure, rolling her over me in a fluid somersault that ended with Hazel sliding to a stop on the solid rock just beyond the sitting stones.

    “Whoa. That’s a big one!” I called out, my eyes unfocusing as I registered the rushing feeling emanating from every detail of the scene. 

    With Hazel safe, I sprang forward to balance on the edge of the ledge near the doomed tree, my knees bent and arms out in a surf stance as the ledge tilted further beneath my feet. I squinted uphill and flickered. “Good. It isn’t going to break,” I said grimly, raising an angry fist.

    Hazel followed my gaze and saw a flash of orange, the jacket of a middle-aged man, vaguely familiar to her, standing in the dark trees above the cliff with a pickaxe in hand. Paha gave a perfunctory wave before turning into the shadows with a glint of his sunglasses.

    The tree groaned, tilting further until its trunk stuck straight out from the cliff. Wood and rock popped and squealed under the strain. Several large stones broke free from above the ledge and crashed past us, sparking a hot, sulfurous smell.

    “Asshole,” I muttered to myself, shuffling to keep my balance. “What’s he playing at? He’s probably done. He won’t attack directly. Not his style. But maybe another ‘accident’…”

    I turned to Hazel. “You gotta get out of here.” I flickered again. “Don’t worry, you’ll definitely survive.” I paused. “Probably.”

    “Kiki, get back from there!” Hazel scrambled forward, swinging her backpack toward me like a lifeline. “Grab this!”

    I flashed a final smile, swaying slightly. “Really, don’t worry. I’ll find you later and explain everything. Just go. Go home. Oh, and maybe lock the door.” I crouched and flickered one last time. “Yeah. This’ll do.”

    The ledge crumbled beneath my feet. I spun, threw Hazel a Hawaiian double shaka, both pinkies and thumbs out, then fell backward off the cliff, vanishing as if the air had swallowed me whole.

    The empty park echoed with the crash of the falling tree.

    ~~~

    Cautiously, Hazel inched across the truncated rock shelf and leaned over the edge, searching for me. 

    The heavy rock slab that had dropped from beneath me was now lodged at the base of the slope, still grasped in the fallen tree’s roots. The tree lay upended, its broken branches speared into the blackberry brambles bordering the playground lawn. A final cascade of pebbles spilled below her. A dust cloud drifted outward, twisting into the wind. There was no sign of me.

    Hazel scanned the park below, praying no kids had been hurt. The empty playground was a miracle. One of the stone seats from the shattered semicircle had landed near the swing set, the square boulder embedded deep in the soft grass, with a few broken branches from the unfortunate fallen tree scattered nearby. The park lay eerily quiet.

    She reached into her backpack and found her phone smashed and unusable. She glanced at the street beside the park. It was deserted, too. She took a deep breath, scanning the rubble below. My strange disappearance left her stunned, unsure what she’d seen.

    Hazel scrambled off the broken ledge, picking her way down the dusty scree, searching, suppressing gruesome visions of me flattened like the Wicked Witch beneath Dorothy’s house. Finding nothing, she pushed through the blackberry brambles, snagging on thorns again and again until she accepted that, incredibly, I’d vanished into thin air. She slumped in disbelief, “Kiki, what the heck!”

    Then my last comment hit her, and she remembered the threatening man atop the cliff. A prickling chill crawled up her neck.

    She sprinted across the quiet street and into her house, slamming the deadbolt and wedging the front bench against the door. She started to check the window locks but froze. What good were window locks against a man with a pickaxe? She considered running to a neighbor’s house, but couldn’t shake the feeling he was watching, waiting for her to do just that.

    Their small yellow Marina-style house sat on the corner across from the park. Anyone could see straight into the dining room, the simple table, spindle-backed chairs and arched flower arrangement etched in sharp relief. To her adrenaline-heightened senses, the room felt starkly exposed. Family dinners had always felt cozy and safe, but now the windows gaped wide, unsparing.

    She ran to the kitchen computer and pulled up the family chat.

    Hazel: mom, dad, call 911! there was a man in the park he had a pig ace

    Hazel: *pickaxe

    Hazel: my phone is smashed, pls call them

    Mom: What? Is this Kiki? This is not funny.

    The video call opened, and Hazel’s mom looked out from the screen. She was in the car, and Lee was visible in the back seat, mockingly twirling his finger by his temple.

    “Hazel, what are you talking about? Is Kiki there?” her mom demanded, suspicious of a prank.

    “No, Mom, it’s just me,” Hazel said, then paused, wondering how to explain what had happened and still be believed. For the first time in her life, she was reluctant to tell her mom everything. Had I been there, I would’ve blamed Paha, but looking back, I see the painful truth that my vanishing act forced her to take a step away from her mother, perhaps too soon. But it is always too soon.

    “I was waiting for Kiki in the park…” She paused, then followed my lead and cut me out of the story, “…and a tree and part of the Penthouse ledge fell down the cliff and almost hit the swing set. There was a man up there, and he had a pickaxe.” She swallowed, struggling for a story as close to the truth as possible without mentioning my impossible vanishing act. “He shook his fist and started to come down after me. I locked myself in the house. I don’t see him anymore, but I’m afraid he’s still out there.”

    The car whooshed in the background audio as her dad careened through the streets to her aid. He told Hazel to hide in their bedroom closet. Her mom called the police, and since it was a slow day for crises, the operator said a cruiser would arrive in minutes. Hazel gave them a brief description of the man, emphasizing the sunglasses, the orange jacket and the pickaxe.

    “We should have her get the gun,” she heard her father say.

    “Wait, what?” Lee exclaimed. “What gun?”

    “Dad!” Hazel scolded, “You guys have a gun in the house? Don’t you know that guns kill way more family members than criminals?”

    “Guns don’t kill people,” Lee deadpanned. “People do.”

    “Lee, not funny. Honey, forget the gun,” her mother cut in. “Hazel, stay calm. Get in the closet. Now. The police are on their way.”

    When her family arrived, four officers were questioning a man in sunglasses and an orange jacket out on the street. The man stood with his back to the park fence, gesturing calmly toward the cliff and Hazel’s house as he explained himself. Hazel slipped outside and stood behind her father on their front steps, white-knuckled fingers clutching his shirt. Paha was unfazed, perfectly composed, of course. At last, he walked off with a stout walking stick in hand, and two police officers peeled away to speak with Hazel’s father.

    “Well, sir, that guy says he was hiking above the park and heard the rockfall start. When he saw the girl, he shouted to make sure she’d gotten out of the way and then headed down to check if she was okay. He didn’t have an ax,” the officer said with a slight smile. “Just his walking stick. His ID checks out, and he has no priors. With the landslide and everything, it must have been a scary situation for your daughter.”

    The officer nodded reassuringly at Hazel over her father’s shoulder. “It’s good that you called, young lady. It’s better to be safe than sorry.” He waved toward the park, where the other officers stretched caution tape around the fallen tree. “You’re lucky you weren’t hurt. That big stone near the swings is in there pretty deep.”

    Sometimes luck is more than it seems.


    Chapter Six: Sneezing into a bowl of glitter

    Propped up in her pillows that night, bathed in the warm glow of her bedside lamp, Hazel wrote steadily, words unspooling across the pages of her journal.

    Her bedroom sat tucked into a corner of the garage below her parents’ room. On foggy nights, it was dark and a little cold. She’d swapped rooms with her fraternal twin Lee several years ago, after his complaints about the dark, and made it her own with a wall of maps and pictures cut from airline magazines her parents brought home. When it rained, she opened her window to breathe in petrichor, her favorite scent, the sharp living breath of wet rock.

    She hovered over the final word, then set her pen down with a sigh, closed her journal, and shook out her cramped fingers. She’d recounted the day as best she could, recording what I’d said and done, matter-of-factly accepting that I’d been about to reveal something important before vanishing. Strangely, she wasn’t worried about me. My disappearance and her trust in my return felt oddly familiar, like it had happened before. Maybe it was just another oddity in a long list of peculiar “that’s just Kiki” moments.

    Hazel flipped back through her journal, hunting for past zingers. My best quotes inspired doodles, so they were easy to spot.

    There was an inscrutable gem about my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe: “I spent a wide time to get these cookies right. They are almost perfectly average!” Beneath it, a cookie-shaped doodle of my Cheshire-cat grin stretched extra wide. My quote about our mistimed movie playdate was illuminated by a looming watch face sticking out its tongue. Many more doodles culminated with my quotes from the ledge, “I’m not here,” and “Don’t worry, you’ll definitely survive. Probably.” There were no doodles for those, at least not yet. She’d started a sketch of the man with the pickaxe but scribbled it out.

    She yawned, setting her journal aside and lying back on her bed, letting her thoughts wander through her memories of me.

    We spent most of our time walking the neighborhood together. In a switch for her, Hazel did most of the talking. I was a fun, nearly perfect audience, the playful patience of a grandmother wrapped in the vibrant body of a teenage girl. I was genuinely interested in what she had to say and appreciated the wisdom in her simple advice, even when I didn’t follow it. And I kept my interruptions to a barely disruptive minimum, mostly. 

    Unlike with other people, with me, Hazel let her train of thought run freely. She didn’t feel the need to turn the conversation away from herself and back to me. She didn’t feel guilty when her mind wandered.

    So she always felt comfortable. Energized. We never fizzled. Our thoughts evolved together, always flowing.

    Hazel recalled a conversation we’d had a few weeks earlier, walking down to the neighborhood’s main street for bagels.

    “I love that house,” Hazel said, pointing at a dark gray Victorian with pink trim and gilt garlands of carved flowers on panels bracketing the bay windows.

    “Yeah,” I said, drifting a few steps behind her, my slight flickering unnoticed. “It’s one of the best versions,” I confirmed. “What do you like about it?”

    “I love that circular attic window. I imagine the sun like a spotlight, shining on dust motes in the shadowy room. The slanted ceiling would be warm in the early afternoon.”

    I nodded with a quick smile. “What do they do up there?”

    “Mostly art and scientific experiments,” Hazel said, sliding further into fantasy. “An eclectic young woman lives up there. Her desk is right by the window, so she can look down past her notebook at the tops of our heads while she writes. It’s her favorite spot. Other people spark her imagination.”

    “That’s what she thinks until she knows better,” I added. “Eventually, she learns she’s got it backward. Our imagination makes people sparkle.”

    Those playful twists and turns were her favorite part of our conversations. I did it with everyone, but she saw that most people, especially adults, politely ignored me, pointing out what they saw as mistakes or exaggerations or suggesting I be more sensible. Hazel was different, a natural improvisationalist. She loved to embrace the ‘and.’

    “Do you think it will hit her all at once?” Hazel asked. “A real eureka moment?”

    “Yeah, like sneezing in a bowl of glitter,” I joked. “It’ll happen all at once and then take years to clean up, if ever.”

    “Oh my gosh, look at that dog over there!”

    Hazel had no time to react before I darted across the street to a giant golden retriever thoughtfully considering a fire hydrant. She knew I lamented not having a dog of my own. I asked the owner if I could say hi, then planted a big kiss on the dog’s wet nose and got a happy lick in return.

    Laughing, I dashed back across the street, wiping away the slobber.

    “That’s so gross, Kiki.”

    “He was thinking the same thing,” I replied. “He loved it.”

    Leaning back in her pillows with another yawn, Hazel smiled at the memory. She began doodling the dog sneezing into a bowl of glitter, the two of us dancing in the sparkling shower. Her pen trailed off the page as she slipped into sleep.


    ~~~


    Hazel jolted awake in the dark, her t-shirt clinging with sweat, her mouth parched. She’d fallen asleep fully dressed. She peeled back the covers and padded upstairs to get water from the kitchen.

    The blue glow of a computer shone beneath her brother’s door, accompanied by his murmured video game chatter. The microwave clock read 11:11. She could hear my wisecrack in her head, “It’s an arbitrary time, make a wish!”

    Water in hand, Hazel stepped to the window and looked across the street. The full moon bathed the park in pale light, revealing the heavy, dark line of the newly fallen tree driven into the grass.

    She poked her head into Lee’s room, then slipped inside and sat on his bed. He pulled his gaming headset off one ear in acknowledgement.

    “Any axe murderers out there?” he teased with a half-smile.

    They hadn’t talked about it one-on-one. At dinner, Hazel had been vague about the cliff’s collapse, still unsure how to navigate the unreality of what I’d said and done, and unsettled by her reluctance to share more.

    “Looking for an excuse to give that gun a try?” Hazel quipped back.

    Lee turned from his computer, setting the headset aside. “Yeah, can you believe it? I think it’s a nine-millimeter. I was joking with Dad about his Glock, and he didn’t deny it.”

    She mimed firing it sideways, gangster-style. “Hey, I need your help. I want to go up to the Penthouse to look around.”

    “Back to the scene of the crime. Classic move. It’s best at night. Gives the bad guy more sneaking-up-on-you chances.”

    “Right,” Haze shot back. “That, plus tomorrow everyone will be strict about keeping kids away from the cliff, and I’m sure the city will clear the tree soon. I want to see if that guy did try to make it fall on us. And I need backup from my big brother in case he’s still sneaking around.” Technically, Lee was five minutes older, as he liked to remind her. She gave him her best puppy-dog look.

    He rolled his eyes and reached for his jacket. “‘On us,’ huh? So you had company at the scene of the crime. Sure, I’d love to help you and Kiki find your axe murderer. No need to tell Mom and Dad, or her parents, either. Does she even have parents? Anyway, it’s a great plan. I’m sure they’ll all be fine with it. Let’s go.”

    They crept downstairs and grabbed two headlamps from the camping gear, Lee selecting a spade from the gardening tools. As they slipped under the slightly open garage door, the metal shovel blade scraped harshly against the sidewalk. They froze. Hazel glared at him silently.

    “Hey, in the right hands, a shovel is as deadly as an axe and much better for burying the body afterward,” he whispered.

    They scrambled up the cliff on the dusty scree beside the fallen tree. There was no need for headlamps in the bright moonlight of the ledge. Lee stayed vigilant at first, but soon leaned on his shovel, scrolling through videos on his phone while Hazel climbed over the tree’s upended root ball. Her meticulous search uncovered several thick, severed roots, the stark white wood showing clean chop marks. Looking up, she spotted matching root stubs protruding from the scarred cliff above.

    “Lee, look at this!”

    He started toward her, then froze mid-step. “Shhhhh!” he hissed.

    “No one can hear us up here,” Hazel whispered back.

    Limned by moonlight, Lee turned toward the far end of the ledge, shovel gripped like a spear. When my shadowy figure dropped nimbly onto the stone ten feet away, he sprang forward with a surprisingly deep roar. My phone’s flashlight flicked on, catching the shovel blade as it sliced toward my grinning face.

    Recognizing me, Lee flung the spade aside and threw his arms wide, tackling me full force in an ungainly collision that drove us both to the ground.

    Hazel approached through the haze of our collision, her headlamp illuminating Lee draped over me, groaning.

    “Our hero’s not feeling so great,” I said, switching off my light. Lee sat up slowly. I gave his shoulders a patronizing rub. “Not bad, big guy. You been working out?”

    “Shut up, Kiki,” he grunted, pulling his knees to his chest.

    I sat up and dusted myself off. Then, sotto voce to Hazel, “I kneed him in the you-know-whats.” I gave him a consoling pat on the back.

    “Yeah, why’djadothat?” Lee winced away.

    “Shovels are surprisingly dangerous, and I like my face the way it is,” I joked. “Sorry about any collateral damage. Phew, I’m thirsty.”

    The truth was, the arc of his stabbing shovel had flung me into a dark memory from the distant past. It seized my body, reflexively driving my knee into his groin. But that was another time. I shook it off.

    Hazel knelt beside Lee, her surprise at my appearance dissipating quickly.

    “Where did you go, Kiki? I mean, when the ledge fell, what happened? It was like…uh…” She threw a glance at Lee, uncertain.

    “You’re wondering how to explain my vanishing act?” I shrugged. “We may as well fill him in, considering he almost killed me.”

    I turned to Lee with a mocking bow. “Earlier today, I fell off this cliff and vanished right in front of Hazel.” I snapped my fingers. “Like, gone. Ceased to exist. She didn’t tell you because it sounds insane.”  

    “But ignorance of the facts is no excuse for charging off with her to hunt down a grumpy axe murderer,” I scolded. “Especially since you can’t even kill me most of the time.”

    “Whatever, Kiki,” Lee muttered, rolling gingerly onto his back.

    Hazel grimaced at the conflict. “Maybe we can talk about it?”

    “That sounds great. But I’m parched,” I declared eagerly. “Hey, Lee. Watch this.” And with a flicker, I vanished. Again.


    Chapter Seven: A billion best friends

    I flickered back into existence on the cliff ledge, struggling with a beat-up orange water cooler and a bag of plastic cups.

    “Whoa!” Lee staggered back.

    “I know, I hate the color orange, too,” I declared.

    He squinted at me. “WTF, Kiki. How’d you do that?”

    I wrestled the cooler onto one of the remaining sitting stones in the broken semi-circle, waved them over, and filled a cup.  Lee held back, arms crossed, while Hazel stepped forward to help, her eyes roaming over me and the newly materialized cooler.

    I knew that look, Hazel’s keen watchfulness when she was uncertain, outwardly alert but inwardly tuned to the uneasy babble of her thoughts. It was open, expectant, like she was gathering evidence for a decision still forming. A prelude to action. And that gave me hope.

    I looked softly at her. “You’re a great friend. And some of this will be hard to take.” She lifted her head, meeting my gaze. “I know this is weird. And it’s going to get weirder. A lot weirder. Probably more dangerous, too. I’m sorry for that.”

    Hazel frowned.

    In my peripheral vision, I saw Lee swell protectively, like a baby silverback. I turned to him and offered a cup of water.

    “Don’t worry, bro. I’m not a supervillain monologuing my evil plan. And even if I was, there’s no chance you could stop me.”

    I mimicked his stance and gruff expression, then licked my finger and stuck it in his ear. “See what I mean?”

    “Ugh, cut it out, Kiki!”

    Irritated, Lee took the water and sat on one of the stones, rubbing his ear.

    “Come on, Kiki,” Hazel said. She never liked it when I teased Lee, especially when I went too far. I’d tried to explain that boys expressed confusing feelings through insults and roughhousing, a kind of emotional Morse code. Coming from a girl, it was a relief, less disorienting for them than the riptides of femininity. Besides, it was fun. I once suggested she try it. She just shook her head.

    I raised my eyebrows, asking for forbearance, but she refused, just as before. I reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. “Hazel, obviously I’ve been hiding things. I wish I could say it was for your own good, but that’s only partly true.”

    I paused. Even if she couldn’t grasp the weight of what was coming, she could feel it. She’d been quiet so far, but I could see her wheels turning. Her eyes met mine. Their corners tightened with fear.

    I fidgeted to distract myself. Even after so many lifetimes, I found it hard to wait and let her feelings emerge. I was a proselytizer. My instinct was to follow the still surprising joy of sharing, to lay it all out there. Preach.

    I knew my well-intentioned words often went unheard in any meaningful way, even by Hazel. Moving speeches may seem to reshape people through the power of their messages. But the most convincing people don’t instill new ideas. Our best words speak to the fallow truths in others, meeting listeners where they are to reveal the transformation waiting within.

    This time, I couldn’t force it. I had to wait until Hazel was ready.

    As the pause stretched on, I grew more uncomfortable. Was my silence condescending, just delaying the conversation because I doubted she could handle the truth? Was it manipulative, a trick to gain consent before she knew the stakes? Or was I just impatient with the slow pace of everyone else’s lives?

    For a moment, I felt lonely, as I’d been most of my life, at least until my children grew into adults old and wise enough to share their feelings with me. And that unearthed a deeper fear. What if, this time, Hazel turned away?

    We sat beside each other as I silently contemplated my fears. I knew Hazel sensed my struggles, and her sympathy was near its tipping point. With that, I felt another twinge of self-suspicion. Was I a benevolent trickster or a friend giving her space? I was both.

    And then, there it was. I’d seen it many times: the slight widening of her eyes, a quiet exhale, her hand pressed to the center of her chest.

    “OK, Kiki, I think you just need to say it. Whatever it is. We can handle it,” Hazel said, punctuating with a final nod.

    She was with me. I held my breath as I felt a broad wave of meaning rise gently around me. Then I sighed, nodding in return, and began.

    “When I told you, ‘I’m not here,’ I really meant that I’m not only here. At this moment, I am connected to one trillion me’s across a trillion branches of the multiverse. So, in a way, you’re only seeing one trillionth of me. In single-universe physics, that’s kinda like talking to a microscopic speck of my dandruff.”

    I held up a hand to stop Lee’s inevitable quips.

    Hazel hesitated, then began to flow with me. “You’re from the multiverse,” she said simply.

    “Well, we’re all ‘from the multiverse,’” I said. “It’s just that you’re from this universe, and I’m from a trillion universes all at once — including this one.”

    “And a trillion of you are connected across all these universes,” Hazel repeated, embracing the improvisational ‘and.’ “A trillion of you are talking to a trillion of me right now.”

    “No, not a trillion, more like ninety million. I spread myself around,” I shrugged, cringing at breaking the ‘and’ rule to correct her. “But there are a lot of us talking. And this version of the conversation is going well so far. The few where Lee butchered me with his shovel, not so much. It’s tough to have a heart-to-heart conversation with half my face peeled off.”

    Lee shifted uncomfortably. Hazel frowned, brushing away my comment with a shake of her head. Then she leaned in, took my hand and held my gaze. “Where did you go when you disappeared?”

    “I was still with you. Sorta,” I said, squeezing back, excited to share. “Not this you, but I was observing, in a way. I wasn’t in this universe, but I was in a few thousand universes right next door, so I could see a good approximation of what was happening.”

    I led her to a sitting stone and sat in the dirt at her feet, facing her, still squeezing her warm hand in mine. Love filled my heart. “At least a billion of us are best friends,” I confessed. And then, incredibly, I blushed! The body remembers, and my teenage body remembered the electric awareness of sharing tender feelings for the first time.

    Hazel focused, taking in the touch of my hands, my speckled rosy cheeks and softly downturned mouth.

    “Come on, Kiki,” Lee said with terrible timing. “Tell us how you really did your disappearing trick. Did you use some kind of laser hologram to distract us while you hid somewhere?” He circled the ledge, waving his shovel in the air, searching for laser beams and hiding spots. “Is there a green screen and a projector around here?”

    I love Hazel, but however wise her dislike of teasing, Lee was begging for it. Who am I to deny a young man in desperate need?

    “‘Laser hologram? Green screen?’ Are you a secret AV kid?” I mocked, turning his speculation into a nerdy query. “No audio-visual expertise required, Lee. This is reality.”

    I turned back to Hazel. My cheeks still warm, I saw my confession had landed like a pebble in a pond, her smile small but real. Her hands fluttered in mine, comforting me. She saw I wasn’t pranking. It was impossible nonsense, but I meant every word. More than that, she intuited I was reaching out for her help.

    “I believe you,” Hazel said with a tiny, unbelieving headshake.

    With a sudden release of tension, I felt warmth radiating from deep inside my chest. My face lit with a smile.

    “Whoa, slow down,” Lee objected, turning to Hazel. “All this whacky sci-fi stuff is fun, but that’s all it takes, ‘let’s be friends times a trillion,’ and you’re in? She could be besties with that axe-murderer.” Lee stood up, momentum building, “What the heck! If this multiverse stuff is real, she could be the axe guy! Like a multiverse-catfish-slash-axe-murderer situation.”

    Just then, a fist-sized rock tumbled from the cliff above and thudded off the water cooler. Like lightning, Lee leaped sideways, brandishing the shovel and shining his headlamp up the cliff, nostrils flared. “Who’s there?” he shouted from deep in his throat.

    “Lee, calm down. It’s not the axe-murderer. I doubt he’s coming back for a while,” I soothed. I coaxed him to lower his shovel and return to the circle. Then I flickered, just briefly. “That was just a worm. It decided to burrow a bit, which loosened the rock, and down it fell.”

    Lee faltered, then quickly recovered his irritation. “So, how many universes did you shuffle through to blame a worm? It decides to dig a little deeper, and suddenly, bam, we’re in a new universe where a rock almost brains me?” Lee huffed.

    “It’s not like that, exactly,” I replied. “A worm’s decision doesn’t create a new universe. It’s not like a choose-your-own-adventure book, where our choices jump us to page 37 or 122.”

    “But you are onto something,” I continued. “Quantum particles interact, and, poof, universes flicker into existence. No worms required. But living things — worms, trees, people like us — are making choices at the same time. So, later, we can sort those universes into branches by what was decided,” I explained. “The worm’s ‘dig-a-little-deeper’ branch we’re in now, for example.”

    Lee kicked at the rock, shrugging, still jittery from adrenaline. “Not much to write home about.”

    “You’re right!” I said with mock amazement. “This worm branch probably won’t last long. Most worm decisions aren’t very consequential. I mean, that rock would’ve fallen soon, anyway. Randomness will quickly blur this branch of universes together until they’re indistinguishable in any meaningful way. Like you said, not worth putting pen to paper.” Sensing I was losing them, I took a different tack. “Here, I can show you! This might get queasy. Watch the rock.”

    The world wobbled around Hazel and Lee, like stepping onto dry land after a long day on a boat. Nothing else seemed different until I pointed out the rock brought down by the worm. It was shaking and darting about randomly on the ground, flashing up and down the arc of its fall, its rough surface shimmering like it was buzzing with miniature bees. Slowly, it stopped in the same place it had started, its texture still flickering slightly. Then, the rock was still.

    “What the fu…” Lee exclaimed, lurching back from me, then turning green and heaving his water and mostly digested dinner over the cliff.

    Hazel felt a twinge of nausea constrict her throat. “Kiki, what was… that was… ugh,” she grunted.

    I handed Lee another cup of water. 

    “Yeah, sorry about that. It takes some getting used to. I flipped you through a few thousand universes showing the consequences of that worm digging, but in the end, randomness blurred them all back together.”

    I stepped into the space of Lee’s sickened silence. “The point is, each time we make a decision, large or small, the consequences create a new branch. And most of the time, the distinctiveness of those branches quickly blurs into insignificance.”

    Hazel held her head in her hands, riding out the nausea. As her dizziness faded, she felt her mind straining to make sense of the experience, reaching for something it couldn’t grasp. A vision swirled in her head, endless tapestries of universes woven from multicolored ribbons stretching in every direction. Billions of people were bound tightly within the weaves. It was too much.

    “There’d be so many universes,” she gasped, wide-eyed. “Branches would keep blooming forever.”

    “Totally!” I enthused. “It’s an incomprehensible near-infinity. But not all branches are created equal. Most are inconsequential and blur together quickly, like the worm branch. But some decisions change everything. Those branches can stretch far into the future, widening as more universes are created, the meaning deepening with time.”

    I heard the manic echo of my own voice and realized the circle had gone quiet. I’d let my enthusiasm run away with me and risked leaving them behind.

    I paused for a drink, watching Hazel closely. I recognized that look from millions of these conversations with her. She was engaged, but still holding back. It wasn’t that I’d gone too far. No, I hadn’t gone far enough.

    “Hazel, listen. You’re not just special to me. You’re special across universes. I don’t know how, but I’ve seen it, over and over, across a big chunk of all reality. You matter in ways that make my brain explode. The meaning created…” I felt goosebumps wash across my body, amazed again by what I’d seen.

    Hazel squirmed self-consciously. “Come on, Kiki. I’m nothing special.” But like many teenage girls, she knew deep down she was. Even if she couldn’t admit it just yet.

    I grabbed a stick and drew a diagram in the dust, sketching a spray of lines radiating from a point.

    “Oh, you’re special,” I said, still sketching. “Lee’s opinions to the contrary, you’re a lot different from the worm that loosened the rock. Your branches don’t blend back together in a cloud of randomness. They last for a very, very long time.”

    I wanted her to understand me. I extended one line as far as I could reach, sending a spray of branches off it along the way. “And your branches? They spawn more branches. I’ve even traced some of them to the end of time. Or as close as I could get.” I sketched one line to the cliff’s edge, hoping that Hazel could help me reach beyond it.

    “You’re a catalyst,” I continued. “I don’t know how you do it, but I’ve been studying you in action long and wide enough to know you’re the real deal.” My body flickered like a sputtering candle as I shifted my connections across billions of points in time. “You already do it now. But in another forty years? Wow, just… wow. Girl, it’s no joke.”

    Hazel shifted uncomfortably, as if I’d named a secret she’d kept hidden, even from herself. She didn’t want attention. She wanted peace and harmony. She wanted other people to be happy. Yet deep beneath her calm, she also wanted them to feel her presence. To feel how much she cared. 

    Her…love?

    Her hope was tangled with confusion, but she felt a little lighter.

    I flickered again, but this time with dazzling intensity. A brilliant spotlight flared up from the street, sweeping over us. A woman’s harsh voice cut through the night from a police cruiser stopped at the park gate. “Hey! Get down from there! That tree’s dangerous, and the park is closed!”

    “Time to go,” I shrugged, hopping up and jogging toward the far end of the ledge to escape. “Come on, you guys. Let’s get out of here before she wakes your parents.”

    Lee and Hazel looked at each other and down at the blinding police light.

    A heavy car door slammed.

    They scrambled after me.

    Two Hundred Thousand Years Ago


    Chapter Eight: Excessive Little Squirt


    I met Paha two hundred thousand years ago, the day my first life came to an end. Drawn by the curl of a different kind of wave, he came to tell me of my importance, and to recruit me.

    I sat on a limestone bluff overlooking a white sand beach on Africa’s eastern coast, a birdlike old woman with a cloud of frizzled, steely hair, and smiling eyes deeply set in sun-baked wrinkles. Each morning, I climbed there to greet the sun and watch my two thousand children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren rouse our sprawling fishing camp. 

    Paha surfed out of the sunrise like a god, riding a reef break past hundreds gathering the morning catch. They clustered around him when he placed his board beyond the high tide mark, keeping a cautious distance from this pale-haired giant, fully a head taller and half-again the bulk of my largest grandson. Then they joined him as he danced our dance of grateful return, remarkably graceful despite his size. His greeting song reached me softly on the ocean breeze.

    My children shadowed him as he strode uphill toward me. I waved them back, holding his gaze as he approached.

    He stopped directly below me, offering a flawless smile and a sweeping bow. Broad, muscled shoulders, hawk-beak nose, lion eyes. Arrogant. 

    Looking down from my simple seat carved into the soft stone, I grinned back with my broken but equally bright smile, unmoved, acknowledging his bow with a mocking tilt of my head, turquoise earrings swinging.

    I openly surveyed his physique, greeting him with a speculative hum and wide, curious eyes.

    “Aren’t you proud of yourself?” I teased, using my children’s quick pidgin. I admit he had reason for pride. But I’d lost too many grandsons to be fooled by muscle, and too many husbands to be charmed by a smile.

    He surprised me by replying fluidly in the circular melody of my childhood language. “Ah, Mother, you see only another of your children. My pride is yours.” Then he winked.

    I snapped my gaping mouth shut, squinting thoughtfully at him. I liked games, too. I pulled at the loose skin of my belly as if to look inside, then surveyed my arms, ticking off freckles here and there.

    “Well, child, my womb has long been empty, home only to girls, and my skin is free of your mark,” I lilted back, scratching my head. “And my memory holds no echoes of your name’s melody. How can that be?”

    “I would never question the echoes in your empty head, Mother,” he sang innocently, his voice a pleasing, raspy tenor.

    I burst into laughter. He held his benign expression until my exuberant cackle broke through, prompting another huge smile.

    My laughter trailed off with a sigh. “No, nor do I often question them, though that may only be because we both have more to learn.”

    He nodded, letting the silence linger. Then he spoke, his voice serious and direct. “Mother, I am Pahapaha, the child of a tree of mothers too great for even your freckles to count, all born of you, the Mother of us all. I am here to tell you our story, and to give you a challenge greater than all you have faced.”

    He opened his hands, eyes expectant, but reluctance nagged at me. We were thriving, despite the hard road behind us. I had brought us here, brought all this into being. I had nothing to prove, no need for a challenge. I raised my hands with a dismissive wave, shooing him back onto his magical board and into the chaos of the sea.

    He did not leave. Instead, he stood firm, singing of his journey from the distant future to invite me to join him as a traveler across time and distance, surfing the waves of the cosmos as he had surfed the sea. I was proud when he described my unique place in history as the mother of the human race, the woman you may know as Mitochondrial Eve. But I struggled to grasp my family’s scale. I leaned forward impatiently, cutting him off.

    “You say we populate all the land, traveling beyond the sea and even beyond the clouds above. But how many are we?”

    The harsh arithmetic of my years of enslavement, now fifty years past, clamped my shoulders tight. I looked down at my daughters sprinkled amongst their families across the slope below, their heads thatched with gray and black, each with a platoon of grandchildren milling at their feet. I still feared the suffocating return of dust, plague and fire, fears kept fresh by nightly dreams of patchwork leather and cracked-bone corpses carpeting the dead valleys of my youth.

    Paha knew of my suffering. He’d spent countless lifetimes with me across parallel universes, not just learning my language and my children’s, but witnessing my pain and sacrifice, my resolve and triumph. Through sharing my experiences, he knew me, in some ways,  better than I knew myself. He understood the many layers of my question.

    He spoke softly, his eyes glistening with unspilled tears. “We are many, Mother.”

    He had no time to teach me math, so he stepped closer, turning instead to my body.

    “Imagine each freckle marks out one of your family below, not just your most beautiful freckles for your daughters, but every child and grandchild, down to the smallest dot on the inside of your ankle.” He touched me there lightly with an electric tingle. “That is thousands.”

    He stepped back, opening his arms wide to the camp. “Now imagine that each of your freckles marks out this entire camp. Thousands of camps. Millions of people.”

    He turned back to me, dropping to one knee, willing me to understand. “Now imagine your family’s skin not golden but blessed with your freckles, each freckle also marking a camp. Thousands of millions. That is billions. That is how many of your family were alive on the day I was born, thousands of lifetimes from now, but a time I now see is not so very long at all.”

    I gazed at my arms, my mind swelling with his vision, freckles blooming like seeds, tendrils curling out to my daughters and theirs, branches thickening as they reached for the bright sky. I was the great trunk of the tree. I felt my family’s weight anchoring me even as my heart raced, alight with wonder.

    The weight grew heavy on my chest, pressing me into the stone and shortening my breath. Dizzy, I slumped to my side.

    He sprang up beside me and gently lifted my head, cradling me against his chest. 

    The morning light dimmed, as if a cloud had passed before the sun, though the sky was clear from horizon to horizon. He placed a pill in my hand. It seemed a small red berry to me, its surface shiny and perfect.

    “Take this and swallow it. Your body is failing. You will die soon, perhaps tonight. But this will restore your strength for today.”

    I did as he asked, my mouth salivating around the hard, sweet berry. Soon, the day brightened, and my heart eased as if the great weight of my family tree lifted from my chest.

    Paha watched my color return, the drug coaxing my sluggish blood to life. He eased me up, his strong hand at my waist. I shifted against it with a teasing shimmy.

    He winked back at me, slipping into my children’s pidgin. “Hey, anytin’s possible, auntie, but doan get goin’ ahead of yourself.”

    I steadied myself on his shoulder, gazing out across the ocean. “Well, let’s see if that’s so. Teach me to surf the sea,” I said coquettishly, then sharpened my tone. “That seems challenge enough for today. If I survive, perhaps we can talk of your challenge later.”

    He nodded with a smile. He’d been through a million variations of this conversation, some lasting for weeks or even months. All convinced him I was the one, but none convinced me to join him.

    But this time I spoke the simple word “if.” He saw the telltale sign. I was considering a tomorrow without myself in it, and he knew that wouldn’t last long.

    My family spent the day learning to surf. After a morning meal, Paha shooed everyone away from the lean-to where we smoked our fish, promising a surprise. Then he stepped inside and began passing out dozens of boards from what seemed an endless quiver, each one shaped by what I’d come to recognize as Kainalu’s hand.

    Paha arrayed hundreds of adults and older children across the beach, lining them up as if for calisthenics. He drilled them on the motions, urging, “Paddle, paddle, paddle, up!” They lay down, windmilling their arms like swimmers, then sprang from bellies to feet in one quick motion. He adjusted them here and there, then sent them into the surf. “That’s all I can teach. The rest you’ll learn from the ocean.”

    At first, it seemed he’d taught them nothing, with wave after wave rolling under or over them. But as the hours passed, first one, then a handful, then a dozen caught each wave, some even carving turns along the face as they’d seen Paha do that morning.

    Meanwhile, Paha gathered my youngest great-grandchildren and me in the shallows, enlisting a score of adults to help. Again and again, the adults shoved the children forward into the waves, and the kids popped up like sleek little otters, balancing gleefully.

    Then Paha urged me onto a board and launched me into a wave. Everyone shrieked with delight as I teetered to my feet, grinning.

    It was, as I would later say, an epic day.

    At the day’s end, I sat watching my children play in surf burnished by the lowering sun, my chest growing heavy again. I knew I was witnessing my last sunset. I would die tonight. My body was strong, and with the help of Paha’s berry, my heart had given me one last day with my family. That was all I could ask.

    But something in me stirred. There was still more to do.

    Paha stepped from the ocean and sat beside me, his skin beaded with jeweled drops glowing orange in the last light.

    “Thank you,” I sang in my language. “We will not forget.”

    His expression faltered, and he sighed. “Ah, yes. Thank you for your words,” he sang. “But you will die. And in time, without the right wood or tools to shape it, surfing will fade from this beach.” He looked out past my family still surfing in the dwindling light, far beyond the horizon, and suddenly I, the oldest of all humans, felt like a child beside him.

    He shook himself, switching to pidgin, “But doan worry, auntie. It’ll come back. You’ll see it so.”

    I sat quietly as the sunset faded into twilight. Above us, the clouds still glowed brilliant pink and orange, defiant as the sun disappeared. I remembered a more terrible sunset from my childhood long ago. My breath shortened, heart stuttering. Then I squared my shoulders and turned to him.

    “We would not forget to surf if I were here,” I sang clearly, knowing I was right.

    “No, not if you were here. Not if.”

    I spoke my truth. “I’m not done yet.”

    “That is why I am here, Mother. Of all people, you embody hope. Even in the darkest days, you believed your persistence, your sacrifices, were worth it. And you were right. I came to ask you to become like me, a time surfer, and bring that hope to the dark times of a thousand billion lives. Will you?”

    My heart fluttered, this time with a rush of excitement. I nodded.

    “Yes.”

    And so I accepted his challenge.

    I waved my children in from the surf, gathering them around me. I began my last song, the song of my life, a song of dust and fire, betrayal and triumph, past, present and future, and my love for them all.

    ~~~

    I was Paha’s apprentice for a single year that spanned a trillion lives. After the tsunami in Hanalei, once I was ready to time surf alone, he christened me with a new name, by tradition drawn from the Hawaiian language.

    “Kikiloa means ‘far distant in time,’” he said solemnly.

    He continued with a self-satisfied smile, “It also means ‘excessive little squirt.’”


    Chapter Nine: Three Sacred Charges

    My apprenticeship taught me more than how to navigate a trillion points of awareness. It also bestowed three charges. Be open to serendipity. Respect the toll. And, most challenging of all, remember that experience is illusion.

    The first charge came easily. Paha’s surfing ethos depends on the luck of timing, while Akamai, our fellow time surfer and the oldest of us, had studied synchronicities long before he began time surfing. For me, serendipity is instinctive. I am the luckiest of accidents, the serendipitous mother of humanity. Time surfing itself was a lucky accident, like Fleming stumbling on penicillin in a moldy petri dish. As far and wide as we’ve searched, we’ve found no other time surfers. It’s humbling, only deepening the mystery. All we can do is stay open.

    As for the toll taken, consider this.

    During my apprenticeship, my consciousness was connected first to two, then thousands, millions, billions and finally a trillion parallel selves across a trillion parallel universes. Now, my every second holds thirty thousand years of living. I’d been a wise old woman who’d lived a long and momentous life, but that was a single raindrop in the towering thunderstorm of my new perspective. 

    Linking my trillion selves exacts a staggering cost. It consumes the power of two hundred billion suns, as if harnessing every star in the Milky Way to my service. It hastened the end of the universe by a trillionth of a percent. And the crushing weight only grows, as I witness endless human tragedies across a family tree whose every branch traces back to me. I understand the toll.

    But experience is illusion… that one slips by me like smoke.

    The third charge reminds us that our experiences are not truth but illusions crafted by our limitless imaginations in the face of our limited perceptions. We aren’t just storytellers. We live in stories.

    We tell stories to share experiences. But telling a story is not telling the truth, certainly not the whole truth. Stories edit out digressions and dead ends.

    We discard the pips and peels to concentrate the fruit. What remains is piquant but incomplete. Half-true.

     We don’t edit to deceive. Every moment is beyond description, and convincing half-truths are the closest we can get. We create instinctive illusions.

    Reality is not an illusion. But our stories are.

    I could fill a thousand pages about Kainalu and Leilani’s first kiss and still miss the truth.

    The shape of her lips. The softness of his eyes. Their attraction and friendship. Their anticipation and fear. It would all fall short.

    So, outside this digression, I left the kiss unwritten.

    By doing so, I was more honest.

    Any mention distorts their love into something familiar. Something you and I have experienced before. But their resonance was unique and spiritual.

    Words cheapen it.

    And yet, I’m a jester.

    Imagine their lips meeting. Say these two words, then close your eyes.

    They kiss.

    Telling the story of their kiss in two words is almost magic. That an unglimpsed act evokes a richly imagined world reveals how well-adapted we are to perception’s half-truths. 

    From nearly nothing, we create everything.

    Our illusions are all-encompassing.

    And they are tenacious. Leilani and Kainalu never kissed as you imagined. Yet your memory will persist. Our minds prefer fiction to empty space.

    I spent a trillion parallel years as Paha’s apprentice. I knew him more deeply than anyone reading this can know another. And still, I missed the gaps in his stories. My busy mind filled them without asking.

    He hid a tsunami by simply saying nothing.

    By forgetting the illusion, I became complicit.

    My arrival in Hanalei was a story I told myself, a beautiful illusion.

    Yet Hanalei is an exposed bay on an isolated island, a volcano left behind by its magma plume to sink beneath the sea. It has been crumbling since the beginning, helpless as the relentless ocean drags it back to the deep.

    Had I remembered that, the tsunami would not have surprised me. Tsunamis are inevitable. How can one be a surprise?

    The third charge is a call to wake, an alarm piercing a dream. To remember that our stories are like shadows at sea, dancing and distorted as they refract through the shifting surface, while reality’s true currents, sparkling with serendipity, pass unseen beneath.

    I still wrestle with the third charge. My experiences feel visceral and real. However false, my stories of hope lifted me when others would have fallen.

    I still tell stories, mindlessly forgetting they’re fictions. 

    And I am the mother of humanity. What terrible tendencies have I passed on to my beloved children?

    Paha would ask, are they so terrible?

    He embraces our illusions, using them as tools. He would point out that Kainalu and Leilani should have been terrified of the tsunami, but they weren’t. They projected their bold imaginings onto the biggest wave their people had ever seen. Thus blinded to the risks, that illusion made them fearless. And in doing this, they found big wave surfing, serendipity in action.

    So I struggle. Do our illusions conceal serendipity, or do they call it forth?

    How did I miss the truth behind my illusions?

    And how could I have confused my hopes and fears with my love of young Hazel?

    To be continued…

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  • A trillion lifetimes. One lyrical voice.

    A trillion lifetimes. One lyrical voice.

    The Kikiloa Chronicles

    By Erik Larson

    An epic story with the fun and metaphysical heft of a grown-up A Wrinkle in Time, the contemplative mythos of Circe, and the literary ambition of Cloud Atlas.

    Read the serialized version for free on Substack!

    https://kikiloachronicles.substack.com/

    I am Kikiloa.

    I am Mitochondrial Eve, the grandmother of us all, a trillion-year-old girl who learned to time surf, riding the currents of meaning across uncounted branching realities. My quest: to stop entropy—the chaos that unravels existence and silences every story ever told.

    Now, inhabiting my exuberant teenage body, I believe I’ve found the key to my long war in Hazel, a thoughtful San Francisco fourteen-year-old who may hold the inexplicable power to mend the fabric of reality. But my attempt to guide her puts us both in the crosshairs of Paha, a dangerously charismatic former mentor and fellow time surfer who believes that only a beautiful ending—the final, perfect death of a timeline—gives life its deepest meaning.

    As the wave of cosmic consequence builds toward its breaking point, I must counter Paha’s philosophy of transcendent destruction… and confront the truth I’ve been running from across the millennia.

    The Kikiloa Chronicles is the first book in a profound, genre-defying trilogy that weaves together humanity’s prehistoric birth, speculative Hawaiian mythology, and modern-day coming-of-age, asking what it means to live, and perhaps to love, at the end of time.

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