Racing the Dark (2 page)

1

HE WET SAND BETWEEN HER LEGS was stained dark red.

The insides of her thighs were sticky with it, but she resisted the urge to rub the blood away. It was her first, and it must remain there until cleansed by the ocean itself. Lana curled her toes in the sand and shivered as the wind lashed the early-morning drizzle against her naked body. It was a sun shower-half the sky was dark and cloudy while dawn brightened the rest. A good omen, Lana supposed, although to be certain she would have to ask Okilani later.

It seemed as though everyone on the whole island had turned out for her trial of womanhood, although common sense told her it was only half as many. The elders were there, of course, dressed in sea-green robes and leibo, the traditional diving pants that Lana too would earn this day if she could harvest her own mandagah jewel. At their head stood Okilani. She was more than sixty years old, but her beauty had always dazzled Lana. Her long, bone-white hair blew around her shoulders, brushing against her necklace of the finest mandagah jewels. At their center was a jewel of bright orange-the color of the sunset, and the rarest of all because it could only be taken from a dying fish. Its harvest years ago, at Okilani's own first blood, had marked her for life.

Lana bit her lip as a particularly harsh gust splashed the cold water against her body. Her stomach was churning so badly that she was afraid she might vomit if they didn't let her into the water soon. The elders looked as though they were waiting for something, but she couldn't imagine what. Lana squinted in the rain and looked out at the horizon. The wisps of clouds that surrounded the dawn sun looked as though they had been streaked with blood. The color surprised Lana-it was unusual for a sunrise on her island to be so unrelentingly red. And stranger still that she would have her first blood during such a dawn. She had awakened two hours earlier with a terrible stomachache and a strange wet sensation between her legs. For all she had been expecting it, she had taken nearly ten minutes to realize what had happened. She had rolled off of her pallet and onto the cold wooden floor and stared at the worn ceiling beams. It crossed her mind to keep her first blood secret until the next month-she didn't feel at all ready for her first solo dive. She could barely hold her breath for a minute and a half, let alone the four and even five minutes her mother and Okilani could accomplish. How could she possibly complete her dive? And coming up without a mandagah jewel would be a terrible shame for both her and her family. Now that she was thirteen, Lana was too old for her age to be an excuse. She had lain on the floor in a state of terrible indecision until her mother entered the room and solved the problem for her. She knew her mother would not consider even the idea of spurning tradition and hiding her daughter's first blood until the next month. So Lana had stood up and tried to pretend that she was ready for her rite of passage.

As she waited on the sand, she was still attempting to convince herself.

"Iolana bei'Leilani."

The sound of Okilani's powerful voice booming above the surf made Lana's head snap up as though it had been tied to a puppet string. Okilani was using her formal name. The trial was starting. Lana hadn't thought it possible, but her heart started beating faster, and her stomach gave another lurch.

"Today it will be decided whether you will attain womanhood or remain a child. You have your first blood-what remains to be seen is whether you can pass the test that all who wish to harvest the sacred mandagah jewels must face. Are you ready, Iolana?"

Lana swallowed. She wanted to shake her head and run straight back home, but she felt her mother's eyes on her back and knew that was not an option. She took a deep breath, raised her head, and stared straight into Okilani's wide brown eyes.

"I'm ready," she said.

The elders stood behind her as she walked alone towards the surf. Lana wished that she could have been initiated at sunset instead-the tide always made diving at dawn more difficult than in the evening. She bit her lip. No time for regrets now. She had never entered the water for a dive alone before-her mother or one of the other experienced divers had always accompanied her, to show her how to breathe properly on the surface and how to maintain her air supply under the waves, how to find the mandagah fish and then carefully harvest the jewels hidden in the tiny pouches inside their mouths. It was a delicate process, and one that could only be accomplished in early morning and late evening, which is when the mandagah schools would move from one shoal to another. Lana stared at the blood-red sunrise and balled her hands into fists. She couldn't fail. Despite the steady rain, she was startled to see the silhouette of one of the sacred outer islands-the death shrine. She shivered. It was rarely visible from the shore, even on clear days.

Feeling the anticipation of the crowd waiting behind her, she stepped far enough into the surf that the waves came up to her waist. With a holler that was as much a cry for strength as it was the traditional diver's prayer to the water spirit, she bent her knees and sucked in air until it hurt. Before fear could force it from her lungs, she dove.

She pushed herself against the undercurrent with powerful strokes, plunging as deep as she could. The water around all of these small islands was fresh, not salty. This allowed the mandagah fish to flourish, which in turn made it possible for Lana's people to harvest the jewels and trade them on the main islands. The mandagah, and the fish trade in general, sustained the islanders in these remote regions. Lana felt her ears beginning to hurt and used a small amount of her air to ease their pressure. She opened her eyes.

She had reached perhaps thirty feet below the surface. All around her was the beautiful living coral that she had become so familiar with, growing up here and diving with her mother. She began to relax-this wouldn't be so difficult. At first, she simply swam around the reef, hoping to find something that caught her eye. The mandagah could be tricky to see because their colors blended so well with the ocean floor. She paused. Had something moved below her? As slowly as she dared, she swam closer to the sandy bottom and peered underneath a sharply jutting piece of coral.

She almost exhaled in relief, but caught herself. She had found one. But why was it alone? She hadn't seen any others near it moving together to another shoal. The large fish stared at her with its oddly human-like face, while she contemplated how to harvest its jewel. Usually she had to grasp and hold them to prevent them from getting away, but something was strange about this fish-its sunken eyes made her think it didn't have the energy to move at all. Unsure of what else to do, she gently moved her fingers towards its thick lips. She had barely touched it, let alone started the process of prying out the jewel, when its mouth sprang open of its own accord. Her mind went numb. Mandagah fish never willingly surrendered their jewels. Before she could even recover from that surprise, the fish moved its head slightly, and not one but two jewels fell from its mouth into her palm. Her heart pounded, and the churning in her stomach changed into some strange mixture of excitement and dread.

She had found a dying mandagah fish. Only the dying mandagah produced two jewels-and only on the rarest occasions were they of two different colors. This mandagah, still staring at her passively, had first produced a striking jewel of common blue. The other, however, was orange-red, like the color of the dawn above the surface of the water. The only other person Lana had ever heard of who'd recovered a jewel liked this was Okilani; it had been her discovery of that orange jewel that had marked Okilani for training as an elder. Lana's mind whirled. Even though she knew how proud her mother would be if Lana was marked with the distinction of becoming an elder, Lana herself didn't want that responsibility-she wanted the freedom to travel to other islands when she got older, and to marry, and make love to a man. For an instant Lana wanted nothing more than to toss the strange red jewel into the sand and pretend that she had never found it. But she had received a willing gift from a dying mandagah and she could not throw it away. She couldn't even leave it here and come back for it later, because by then the sea would have claimed it. Mandagah jewels, once yielded by the fish that had formed them, had to be cured right away-otherwise they dissolved within a day.

Lana felt herself growing light-headed, and she realized she would run out of air if she didn't surface soon. How long had she been under? Two minutes? Three? Certainly longer than she'd ever managed before. The red jewel felt like it was burning her hand. She made a decision. Whatever happened, she could not let anyone else know she had found it. She would keep it and cure it herself, but it would be her secret. No one-especially not Okilani-could know that she had been marked.

Lana looked at the mandagah. Its eyes were fluttering, and she realized it was dying even as she watched. Impulsively, she brushed its mouth with her finger and then touched it to her forehead. She had to leave. Taking one last look at the dying fish, she kicked off and swam with powerful strokes back to the surface.

Leilani had endured the first two minutes in silence, radiating an outward appearance of calm. Inwardly, she wondered if her daughter was at all prepared for this task. Lana could barely hold her breath for a minute, and only luck would allow her to harvest a mandagah jewel in such a short time. After two minutes had passed, she turned to her husband Kapa, panic in her eyes. He looked worried as well, but pressed her hand in a way that made her keep silent. She kept staring at the choppy water, hoping that any second her daughter would surface triumphantly, holding a mandagah jewel. Another minute passed. Was it possible that her daughter had actually chosen to drown rather than face the shame of surfacing without a jewel? Hot and cold chased each other across her skin. She should have let Lana hide her first blood and wait until she was ready. Had she killed her only child with her stubborn desire to follow tradition? Kapa looked at her again, this time with a similar sort of terror in his eyes. She stared at the waves breaking on the shore. Nothing. It had been nearly four minutes since Lana dove. Damning propriety, Leilani left her husband and strode forward to the line of elders. Okilani broke their ranks and turned to meet her.

"Could she have drowned herself?" Okilani asked.

Leilani felt as though she had been punched in the stomach. "I don't know. I can't imagine ... please, let me dive and save her. It's been too long."

Okilani's face was grim. "Not yet, Leilani. The rite cannot be considered failed yet. She has only been under four minutes. Your normal dive is at least that long and we've both done as long as six. We cannot break the rite until there is no possibility she has succeeded."

"But she's young! She's never managed for longer than two minutes. Do you want her to die?"

Leilani's shout echoed across the beach. Everyone was staring at the two of them, but Leilani didn't care how much they talked later.

"Lei," Okilani said softly. She had opened her mouth to say something else when they both heard Kapa yell. He was pointing to the water.