Telesa - The Covenant Keeper (43 page)

Still somewhat bemused, Jason followed me to the red truck. A board glistened in the back cab. “So your mom just lets you go wherever? Whenever? I don’t know much about Samoa but I’m pretty sure that’s kinda unusual for a Samoan parent?”

I smiled at him in the dark interior of the truck as we drove down the long flame tree-lined drive. “Nafanua’s not a regular Samoan mother. And I’m not a regular Samoan daughter. Remember we didn’t even know each other until a little while ago. Besides, I’m eighteen and used to doing my own thing. Even when my dad was alive, I was on my own a lot while he travelled for work.” I didn’t want to dwell on the sadness of the past, not on this most thrilling of moonlit nights. “So how long does it take to get to Siumu?”

“About half an hour.” Jason was still unwilling to let my mother-daughter relationship go. “So how come you two didn’t know each other anyway?”

Quickly, I briefed him on the bare necessities of information about Nafanua and I, leaving out, of course, the bits about
telesa
and the small detail of my propensity to burst into flame when I got mad. Or when a boy kissed me.

The drive to Siumu was fun. I pestered Jason for details about his volcano work and about his background. He was one of six children in his family and I was intrigued by his stories about what life was like when you were never alone. Always squabbling. Sharing a room. A car. Sharing clothes. Sharing a mom and a dad. It sounded heavenly and I sighed the sigh of an only child when they compare the cheerful madness of a crowded household with their own solitary upbringing.

It was 11:30 when we got to the beach, bumping down a rough sandy track through breathing forest. We came out to sand painted white in the moonlight and an ocean shimmering with black diamonds. Jason tugged his shirt over his head before lifting the surfboard out of the truck. His toned physique didn’t fit my stereotypical image of a scientist and I tried not to let my surprised eyes linger on the rugged arms with their tan line, or the way the contours of his chest looked in the moonlight. Suddenly I was self-conscious. Up to this point I had seen him just as a funny, easy-to-be-with boy, kind of the way I imagined an older brother would be. But, as I watched him walk easily down to the water’s edge and into the gentle swells, I saw him for what he really was. A twenty-five-year-old man, Professor of Tectonic Science, leader of a team expedition, and disturbingly striking to look at in the ocean light.

I gritted my teeth.
Ugh.
This feeling was not one I wanted. I liked being relaxed and laid back with Jason. I wanted him to stay locked in the ‘big-brother’ zone.
Relax Leila – so he’s kinda cute and sporting a rather hot body, so what. He can be your super-hot big brother
. Determinedly, I pulled off my t-shirt and ran to join him in the water. It was surprisingly cool, “Yikes! It’s cold.”

Jason laughed as he began swimming through the deeper water. “No it’s not. Don’t be a wuss. Okay, get over here and let’s get you started with your first lesson.”

An hour later I had learned several things I didn’t know before. Surfing was really hard. Standing up on a board that is determined to slip away from under you is kind of scary. And falling down in water starts to hurt when you get to the twentieth time. Oh, and having a surf tutor who insists on laughing at you every time you fall over is
really
annoying.

“Would you quit it?”

“Quit what?” Artificial innocence.

“That! Laughing. Teasing me. I’m sure I would do heaps better if you weren’t making fun of me the whole time. ” I was getting more sour by the minute. “You know, if a student totally sucks then they usually hold the teacher responsible.”

He paused beside me in the black water and regarded me speculatively, as if gauging the magnitude of my mood. I scowled while he grinned hugely and nudged my shoulder. “Come on Leila, don’t be so grumpy, everybody falls off on their first try and I can’t help laughing. You should see yourself up there. You get this psycho serious look on your face and then it changes to complete panic just before you fall off. And when you come up out of the water, you’re so mad. It’s really cute. Come on, relax, why do you have to be so intense about everything? Can’t you just have fun with it?”

I fought to stay mad and failed. “Cute huh?”

Jason smiled and his brilliant blue eyes demanded a response. “Yeah. In a freakishly psycho sort of way.”

I relented and let an answering smile break free. “Okay, let’s do it again.”

The lesson continued and after another ten minutes and three more faulty, wavering tries, I was able to stay standing up long enough for the board to actually move along with a small wave for a few feet. I let out a shout. “Yes! Woohoo!”

Right before the damn thing slipped out from under me and I was down, only, this time as I went under the water, something hard slammed the side of my head. I tried to say ‘ouch,’ only to suck in a huge gulp of seawater. Flailing and spluttering, there was an instant of panic before Jason’s hands gripped my arms and pulled me up. Through my coughing, I could hear the worry in his voice, “Hey, are you okay? Leila?”

I wiped the salt out of my eyes and looked at him ruefully. “Yeah, but my head doesn’t feel so good. I think the board may have hit me when I went down.” I gingerly reached up to feel my temple. “Ow.”

Jason still had a firm hold on me and, without hesitation, he started towing me back in to shore, pulling the board. “Come on, let’s get you up to the beach, I think that’s enough surfing for one night.”

We sank onto the sand and my wobbly legs were feeling the effects of an hour of trying to balance on the board. Jason sat beside me and together we caught our breath. He turned to peer closely at my forehead. “Let me see, hmm yeah you have a bump there but it doesn’t look too bad. It didn’t break the skin or anything. You’ll be fine.”

Our shoulders were touching, his fingers were gentle on my head and I could taste the closeness of him in the slight breeze. Droplets of ocean beaded his chest, catching fire in the moonlight. He glistened with silver wetness and I had to force my gaze somewhere else. “Oh, so you’re a doctor now are you?”

He laughed his ever-present laugh and dusted sand from his hands. “Well hello, I do have a PhD, which basically qualifies me to have a super intelligent opinion on everything. Seriously though, are you feeling okay?”

I hastened to reassure him. “Yeah, I’m fine. But I’m tired; I had no idea surfing was so much work, well, trying to surf anyway!”

“Hey you didn’t do too badly. Next time I bet you’ll only fall down fifty times.”

I slugged him lightly on the shoulder as we slowly made our way back to the truck. I was tired but it was a good tiredness. Every muscle ached but, for the last two hours, I had been more relaxed and free than I had felt in a long time. I struggled to keep my eyes open on the drive home and was startled awake when the truck growled to a stop outside the big white house. Lights still gleamed in the living room. Jason walked me up to the door.

“Thanks, I had a good time.”

“Even with a tormenting, teasing teacher?”

I gave him an answering grin, pausing in the doorway. “Yeah. I don’t know if I would nominate you as instructor of the year, but I guess you’ll do.”

“So do you want another lesson tomorrow night?”

I smiled, “Don’t you have to go back to Matavanu tomorrow?”

A shrug, “Yeah, but I can come back on the last boat. And you can feed me some more of Netta’s amazing leftovers and then have your second lesson.”

“Okay, I’d like that. Let’s do it.”

He ran lightly down the steps to the car, pausing to turn back once more. “Hey, don’t forget to put some ice on that bump, just in case.” And with that final reminder, he was in the truck and taking off down the drive.

* * * *

The weekend turned out to be one of the best I’d had since moving to Samoa. In the morning, Nafanua and the sisterhood took me with them to a massive forest fire that was raging out of control on the other side of the island. Every fire-fighting team on the island was there, struggling to contain the blaze that had consumed over a hundred acres of forest. We drove to a section of the fire where there were no witnesses and took a two-pronged approach to the battle. Nafanua and Sarona summoned rain while Manuia and the others used wind to try and redirect the movement of the flames. There was no way I could control such a huge mass of energy but slowly and steadily I worked alongside the others to channel and subdue various sections of the fire. It took most of the day before the fire was under control and we could slip away and leave the rest to the fire-fighters. I was exhausted but exultant. It had felt amazing to use my gift to help. For good. As we celebrated back at the house with chilled lemonade and sandwiches, I looked around at the other
telesa
and felt happy to be one with them. Today was a good day to be a
telesa
.

That night, Jason took me for another surf lesson and, this time, I was almost able to understand the thrill of it as I spent more time standing up then falling down. We didn’t get back to the house until two in the morning and both of us were buzzed with my progress.

“That was awesome, Leila. Pretty soon you’re going to be able to tackle the serious surf with me.”

I gave him a huge smile, even as I disagreed with him, “No way, I think I’ll be needing quite a few more lessons, thank you very much.”

He paused on the veranda and replied, “No problem. I’ll give you as many lessons as you like.” He gave me a brief hug before running lightly back down to the truck. I hated to see him go. He was like a piece of ‘home’ – the America that used to be when my dad was alive in it. And no matter how much time I spent with the
telesa
, I could never shake the slight edge of unease that I felt with them. On the outside they smiled and told me I was one of them, one of their ‘sisters’ but I couldn’t deny that deep inside, I was still afraid of them.

I called out to him, “Hey Jase, you wanna hang out tomorrow?”

He smiled back, “Sure. Hey, how about I give you a tour, a drive round the island? I bet there’re lots of places in your Samoa that you’ve never even heard of.”

“I can’t argue with that, seeing as how I’ve been like, nowhere. You’re on.”

And just like that, a glorious Sunday out with Jason was guaranteed. We visited three different waterfalls, stopped for lunch at a gorgeous little restaurant at a place called Taufua Beach Fales at Lalomanu, and then went snorkeling at a marine reserve close to town, Palolo Deep. I spent a whole day without remembering once that I was an (often unwilling) member of a
telesa
Covenant. That I couldn’t be with a boy called Daniel, who I loved as much as I needed air. It was a perfect day, which ended with Jason’s invitation to Matavanu. Monday was a public holiday and so it was an invitation I accepted eagerly.

I was still smiling when I went in the house and Nafanua remarked, “Well, I guess I don’t need to ask how your day went. Looks like you had a lot of fun.”

I nodded, “Yeah, and tomorrow Jason’s taking me back to Matavanu. He’s promised me that this time he’ll take me down into the cone for a closer look, so it should be awesome.”

Nafanua looked concerned. “Leila, you will be careful? Pele is unpredictable at best and in that close proximity, your control could be sorely tested. Especially if you and Jason engage in physical intimacy.”

I blanched at her matter-of-fact reference to the possibility of ‘physical intimacy’. “Excuse me? You’ve got it all wrong. Me and Jase aren’t like that. We’re friends. There’s nothing like that going on.”

She looked taken aback. “And why not?”

“What do you mean?”

“ He’s a very attractive man. And he does seem to be quite entranced with you.”

No adult had ever discussed my ‘love life’ with me before. (Which wasn’t surprising since I’d never had the remotest possibility of having one.) Embarrassment squirmed inside me like red hot millipedes and I rushed to escape it. “Because, like I said, we’re just friends. Besides, he’s old.”

Nafanua had to laugh at that one. “Leila, you’re talking to a woman who’s over one hundred years old. A twenty-five-year-old man is nothing but a child.”

I grimaced at the unwanted reminder of her
telesa
-induced longevity. “Okay, if you put it like that. Look, the point is that I don’t like him that way and he doesn’t like me that way and we’re cool just the way we are. So there’s no big deal here. Now, I’m going to bed.”

She did not reply until I was almost to the door of my bedroom. “Whatever you say, Leila. Just remember to be careful around Matavanu.”

Chapter Twelve

It was an overcast day the next morning and rain was threatening as Jason and I took to the sky in the chopper. The rest of the team were in town for the long weekend so it would be just the two of us at the camp. I remembered Nafanua’s warning and did an internal ‘sweep’ to check on my heat levels before we got off the helicopter. Rain was lashing at us as the pilot took off again, leaving me and Jason to make a wild dash for the tents some distance away.

“Whew! What a day to visit. I hope the wind doesn’t pick up or else the chopper won’t be able to come back for us.” Jason looked worriedly out at the boiling sky but I was more interested in our excursion.

The rain had stopped by the time we started ascent. The hike to the peak was a demanding one. The terrain was steep and the loose soil kept sliding in places. But the climb was well worth it. Standing at the brim of Matavanu was like looking down over a massive steaming cauldron of fiery energy that had been covered in a flimsy sheet of grey rock. Here and there were cracks in the ground through which seams of red peered. Behind us, the horizon beckoned in the distance and a tugging wind had my hair blowing in every direction. It was breath-taking.

 I turned to Jason, “Can we get any closer?”

“Well, we could, but it’s kind of a tricky descent.” He was hesitant.