Page 2 of Talk Story

But the ring was on my right hand, and I wasn’t living with Keone anymore, either.

I had . . . reasons. Official reasons and unofficial ones. The fact that I was still separating them in my head was probably its own kind of data.

The official reason was Aunt Fae. My fit, no-nonsense aunt from Maine, who had moved to New Ohia to share the state park caretaker position with me, who had become indispensable to the Pahinuis at the store and now one of our most active Red Hat Society members—had taken a tumble a few weeks ago. One misjudged step in the dark, a broken lava stone edging, and she’d ended up with a fracture and a walking cast that ran from below her knee to the arch of her foot. The doctor said she’d have to wear it six to eight weeks, minimum.

She needed someone nearby. The New Ohia model home had two floors, and the stairs were steep. That much was true.

The unofficial reason was that every time I pictured moving the ring to my left hand, having the wedding date conversation, saying that yes aloud in front of everyone . . . something in me went very quiet. And small. And scared.

Not unhappy with Keone in any way—but frightened of something I couldn’t name. This was the same reflex that had made me keep people at arm’s length for most of my adult life, one I thought I’d finally gotten a handle on.

Apparently it wasn’t entirely handled.

Keone hadn’t confronted me about it. That patience of his was, in equal measure, one of the things I loved most about him and the thing that was currently making me feel like the world’s worst person.

Through the window, I smelled the Pahinuis’ fresh baked banana bread drifting from the general store next door, trying, and mostly failing, to compete with the hot-asphalt smell of the new parking lot. The result wasn’t savory.

“Did anyone see anything?” I asked, picking up the scattered envelopes and trying to sound merely curious.

“That’s the strange part.” Pua dropped her voice to the confidential register she reserved for significant coconut wireless transmissions. “Uncle Kalani says he felt something was wrong days ago. The birds stopped singing near that section of the valley. His dog wouldn’t go near the cave.” She glanced at the wall to her right, as if she could see straight through to the mountains. “And the hula halau that performs up there is in an uproar. Those carvings aren’t just pretty pictures, they’re sacred records.”

“I bet. I wonder if Josie knows anything,” I said, thinking of our Red Hat Society friend who’d taken it upon herself to educate me about Hawaiian traditions. Josie Maluhia knew things about the Valley I hadn’t yet thought to ask about.

Someone knocked irritably on the glass doors out front; Mrs. Namura had likely used up her extremely limited allotment of patience.

“You better go let ’em in, Pua.”

“You always give me the fun parts.” She click-clacked to the front in her kitten heels.

I stacked the last of Tiki’s scattered envelopes. “On your way out, my furry friend, maybe you can show me how you got in here,” I told the cat.

Tiki ignored me. She’d arranged herself in my office chair and was now deeply asleep in a way that conveyed she’d done her job and the rest was my problem.

The bell over the door chimed, and the morning crowd filed in with the pent-up energy of people who’d been waiting three minutes longer than usual to retrieve their mail—but the person who entered first, ahead of the rest and full of dignity, was Uncle Kalani Opuna.

Uncle Kalani was a fixture around town (everyone in Ohia was, to some degree, once you knew them). He’d recently nabbed his own post office box after years on our notoriously long waitlist and had become a regular presence.

Today his thick white hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore an aloha shirt faded to a softness that spoke of decades of wear and washing, the original colors somewhere between terra-cotta and rust. Around his neck hung an elaborately braided ti leaf lei, both humble and ceremonial. His rubber slippers made soft shushing sounds on the linoleum.

“Aloha, Uncle,” I said, coming to the counter. The customers behind him had gone quiet, as if sensing something might be said that’s important. “I heard about the petroglyphs. I’m so sorry.”

Uncle Kalani’s weathered face was etched in lines from a lifetime of sun, wind, and holding things steady. Those lines were pronounced today, deeper in the flat fluorescent light. His dark eyes moved to the open door of my office, where Tiki had elected to stop sleeping and was now watching him with the focused, unblinking attention she usually reserved for geckos and suspicious packages.

“There’s more than that going on,” he said. And to Tiki: “Your cat has been busy this morning.”

My cheeks warmed. It was one thing to know your cat was conducting an independent investigation of the town’s sacred sites. It was another to have the town’s senior kahu confirm it while six people were pretending not to listen.

“She did bring something in,” I admitted. “I wasn’t sure what to do about it.”

“The old ones say cats walk between worlds,” Uncle Kalani said. “They know things we forget.” He stepped closer to the counter, his attention still on Tiki. “May I see what she found?”

“Of course.”

I grabbed a tissue and retrieved the stone from the desk drawer, realizing I shouldn’t be getting skin oils on it. The hush behind me deepened. Even the fan seemed to pause as I held it out to the elder on my open palm.

Uncle Kalani didn’t reach for it immediately. He studied the carving where it lay: the spear-carrier, the zigzag shape. “This is the wing of an ‘Iwa bird,” he said, pointing to the zigzag. The great frigatebird was a large, graceful black seabird that soars on thermals over the bay; Josie had once called it a navigator of both sky and spirit. “In the old way of carving, the ‘Iwa marked places of prophecy. Places where sky and earth touched.” His voice had dropped to the register that made the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up in a way that had nothing to do with cold. “This piece was part of a larger story carved into the rock face of Awawakapu. It tells of a time when the people used the valley for ceremony and guidance, as well as home.” He looked up at me. “Now that story has been broken. Stolen.”

“Should we call Detective Texeira?” Pua asked from behind me, crystal-embellished phone in hand. “Or the Hana PD?”