The Girl from Everywhere (10 page)

In for a penny, in for a pound. I passed over my black Victorian boots in favor of shapeless leather flats, comfortable and hideous. They still had yellow mud from India in the seams. Then I scrutinized my reflection in the big mirror tacked to the wall. Everything was a little off.

I was more tan than the fashion for the era, but being out on the water, that was unavoidable. My hair—coffee streaked with copper and whipped into waves by the wind and the salt—was never properly Victorian, but in this era, my mixed heritage stood out more than anything else. Although perhaps less so in Hawaii. Whenever we visited nineteenth-century England, though, I got sideways looks when I was out with Slate. Then again, so did he.

However, there was much I had inherited that I couldn’t change. Nothing gave me away outright, and I was fairly comfortable in the vernacular of the era; that was another rule, of course, one should never speak to the franca
unless you used their lingua. I did, however, throw a shawl around my shoulders, which didn’t match, but it hid the open back of my pinafore. I slapped a brooch on it in a futile attempt to pull the outfit together. Then I gave up. It would have to do.

The caladrius had flown the ship. I was about to do the same when a voice stopped me.

“Nice shoes.
Tres belle.
”

“Dammit, Kash.” He was in my hammock, grinning like a rake. I narrowed my eyes. “You aren’t looking too flash yourself. Is that the same shirt you were wearing last night?”

“God, I hope so.” He extended his foot lazily to push off against the rail. The hammock rocked gently. “Where are you going?”

“Out. Like you.”

He raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t press for more information. “One should always make one’s own mistakes, instead of the mistakes of others,
amira
.”

“Out like me, then.”

“Dressed like that?”

“And what’s wrong with it?”

“It looks like you chose the pieces by throwing darts. Besides, it’s much too short.” He pointed vaguely toward my ankles and winked. “The whole world can see the top of your foot. You look like a hussy.”

I grabbed my skirt and flashed him my knees. He pretended to swoon. “Don’t worry. This is late Victorian, not early. More permissive.”

“If you say so. Just try to steer clear of the saloons and the dens of iniquity. I can tell you where they all are if you
want to plan your route.”

I laughed. “More fun to find them myself.”

He called me back as I was halfway down the gangplank.

“Amira!”

“What?” I turned to face him; something was coming at me. I grabbed for it and wobbled on the slender board, only barely catching my balance as my fingers closed around the leather bag. It clinked, and I swore.

“Khahesh mikonam,”
he said, giving me a little salute.

“I didn’t say thank you.”

“Bad manners. You’re welcome anyway.”

“Didn’t we just have this argument?”

“I won that money fair and square. Or do you disapprove of gambling too?”

I weighed the purse in my hand. “Yes . . . but not enough to give it back.”

His laughter followed me onto the wooden timbers of the dock. The streets ahead were empty in the thin light of morning. I stood there on the wharf between ship and shore; the mermaid at the prow leaned in like a conspirator, encouraging me.

This was old Honolulu, before tourism began in earnest, before skyscrapers and seaside hotels. There would still be
locals speaking the native tongue, telling native stories; their culture was fading but not yet gone. Waikiki would still be a swamp, and there was nothing taller than three stories downtown, except, here and there, the steeples of churches, rising above the bars and brothels.

This is where I would have lived, if my mother hadn’t died.

I stepped off the dock and onto the packed earthen road.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

O
nly halfway up the short street between the dock and the town proper, the smell of fish and coal was overpowered by the scent of “spirituous liquors,” both new and used. Nu’uanu Avenue, or
FID STREET
, as some sailor had scratched into a wooden signpost, was aptly lined with grog shops. There were puddles in the street, although it hadn’t rained yesterday, and the rats barely bothered to get out of my way. I made a face as I stepped over a pile of manure. Paradise indeed.

Still, I kept my eyes wide open, waiting, hoping to find . . . something. Anything. Although I’d never walked this path, the memory of the map was clear in my mind’s eye, and the story my father had told me echoed between my temples. These were the streets where my parents had walked, arm in arm; perhaps even now I was passing by
the front door of their flat. When I reached King Street, the wide avenue running past the palace along the curve of the harbor, I took a left into Chinatown without even making the decision.

A mere block from the stately stone and stucco of downtown Honolulu, it was as though I’d wandered into another city. Here, a multitude of shops and shanties lined the street, mostly wooden and roughly built, each one squeezed against the next, with additional stories and extensions built out from the original structures, as tightly packed as a colony of oysters. It was very clear why the fire coming in 1886 would destroy it so completely.

The streets weren’t empty here. On a corner, a woman sat on blanket along with her wares: a dozen coconut half shells filled with fresh butter. A skinny boy walked by, carrying an impossibly large basket of greens down an alley, right past a pile of rotting wood from under which a mother cat glared at me, nursing her kittens. I stepped carefully over a foul gutter, already red with blood; halfway up the block I heard the shocked mutter of chickens as the butchers did their work. Farther down the street, two men in battered straw caps were unloading bags of flour from a mule cart and in through a doorway. The hand-painted sign above the
wide street-front counter featured beautiful Chinese calligraphy, and, unsteadily, in English,
MR. YOUNG’S BAKERY
.

I dodged around the delivery men and pressed against the counter, breathing deep the smell of sugar glaze and butter. Steamed buns marked with lucky red dye sat warm and plump in baskets next to rows of moon cakes stamped with the symbol for fortune. The baker was old and his eyes were kind; had he ever smiled at my mother as she stood in his shop, inhaling? I opened the purse and was careful not to gasp in front of Mr. Young; Kashmir had given me much more than I’d expected.

Wandering north with two pork buns in my hands, I saw a sleepy little beagle who raised her head from the dirt as I approached. “I bet you’d like a bun.” The dog answered by giving the street a lazy thump with her tail, and I tossed her a pinch of dough that disappeared in a single sniff. I crouched down briefly beside the creature and patted the brown-and-white flank, raising a puff of dust into the air. When I stood, the beagle did too. “Rooooo!” she said. “Roooooooo!”

I threw down the rest of the bun and hurried away, and the beagle, mollified, declined to follow.

The watery sunlight crept along the tops of the buildings as I nibbled the second bun. It was delicious . . . but no more
or less than any other. What had I been expecting to find, or to feel? As I walked the streets of my birth, there was no sense of terroir, of groundedness. I didn’t belong here more than I belonged anywhere else.

Was that a relief or a disappointment? Perhaps it was still too early to tell.

Sweat began to prickle on the back of my neck; I lifted the shawl to get some air. Thank all the gods I hadn’t worn the wool.

“Excuse me?”

The voice came along with a soft touch on my shoulder; I whirled around, wrapping the shawl tight.

It was the young man I’d seen scribbling away yesterday, blond hair and straw hat with the black ribbon around the side band. His wide blue eyes gave him a startled appearance, or perhaps he really was startled; he stepped back abruptly, nearly treading on the hooves of the chocolate-brown mare he held by the reins. I’d never seen such fair skin in a tropical climate; it was pale as cream.

“Beg pardon,” he said. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, but you dropped this. Back by Billie. The dog.” He held out his hand; in it was the heavy purse of coins Kashmir had given me.

I slipped the half-eaten bun into my pocket and swallowed hard, the dough like glue in my mouth. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“A pleasure, miss.” He gave me a little bow, looking modestly down at his very shiny boots. “She’s a good dog, though she’s quite a beggar.”

“More of an extortionist.” My voice sounded odd in my ears as I tried to duplicate the rhythm of his speech; there was a hint of an unfamiliar accent, something musical in the cadence. “Is she yours?”

“Oh, no. Best I can tell, she spends most of her time near the harbor, watching the ships.”

“You two have that in common.”

“Well!” One corner of his mouth quirked up shyly. “I couldn’t very well miss the arrival of a pirate ship in Hawaii.”

I laughed. “We aren’t pirates.”

“Thank goodness,” he said with mock relief. “Though I suppose that’s why you’re lost in Chinatown rather than looting the palace.”

“I’m not lost.”

“Then you’re braver than most tourists. They find Chinatown too unsavory, so they hide in more salubrious environs.”

I couldn’t help but grin. The language of the Victorian era was quite charming. Or maybe it had just been a long time since I’d had a conversation with anyone but the crew. “If you think Chinatown is unsavory, you should try a port. Besides, I was born here.”

“Were you? But . . .” He tapped a finger against his chin. “Where have you been since then?”

I hesitated, then gave the simplest answer. “At sea.”

“Ah! That explains it.”

“Why we’ve never met?”

“Why you seem out of place.”

I pursed my lips as he stood there with his shiny shoes and his pressed linen suit in the middle of the ramshackle block between the bars of Fid Street and the open sewer of Nu’uanu Stream. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

He laughed and followed my eyes down to his boots. “Very fair. Though I might claim to be braver than most
haoles
—whites,” he explained at my quizzical look. “Chinatown can be as picturesque as the rest of the island, if you know how to look at it. Don’t laugh. There’s always at least one good sketch to be done here.” He put his hand over his heart—no, over the book in his breast pocket; the outline of it was visible under his linen jacket. His fingers were dark, smudged with ink.

“You’re an artist, then?”

“Only when my father isn’t watching.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “The best artists had family who disapproved.”

“That’s true. Then again, very likely so did the worst.”

I snorted, then covered my mouth; he grinned back at me. “Well, now of course I’m curious.”

It took a moment, but he reached into his jacket and pulled out the booklet. It was clearly homemade, a sheaf of paper folded in half and bound with ribbon. I opened it to the beginning. On one page, moonlight pooling on a secret bay, seen from under the feathery fronds of palm leaves; on the next, a village of grass houses huddled close in a clearing, and here—

“A map?”

“Ah, yes. On one of our rides through Ka’a’awa Valley, we discovered a trail leading to an ancient temple, back behind the abandoned sugar mill. I’ve sketched it on the next page. They say human sacrifices were made there. At the temple, not the sugar mill.”

It was gorgeous work, if gruesome—both art and cartography. The lines were thick and dramatic, with drips and drabs of ink like the spatter of blood. “You have other maps
here,” I said, turning the pages eagerly; the next one was bordered with delicate seashells.

“That one is a path to a hidden beach, and”—he reached over and flipped a few more pages—“that is a partial map of the tunnels in Kaneana Cave. No one has ever fully explored them. Yet.” He gave me that shy smile again, and for some reason I found myself blushing.

I dropped my eyes and turned another page; the image gave me pause. Black ink slashed the paper like the stroke of a cutlass: a ship as sleek as a shark, bound tightly to the pier. I could almost hear the creak of the rope as she strained at her bonds. At the prow, the mere suggestion of a solitary figure, as ephemeral as a wisp of smoke. It must have been me. “This is beautiful,” I said, but the word fell short. “It is . . . true.”

“You’re too kind,” he said, looking up at me through his lashes; they were long enough they nearly brushed his cheeks when he blinked. “She makes a lovely subject.”

I glanced up from the page, suspicious, but his expression was earnest. The next page was blank. I handed back the book with a sigh. “I can see why you’d call me a tourist.”

He laughed. “Should you need recommendations, there are few requests I cannot fill.” He tucked the book back in
his pocket and made a shallow bow, removing his hat to do so. “Blake Hart, at your service.”