Racing the Dark

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Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson
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too dangerous here and our way of life is dying. Without the mandagah fish, he says, there's no point in staying. And now poor Kali ... it just seemed to make him want to leave even more."
    "And how do you feel?" Okilani was staring up at the moon, sipping her tea.
    "I know I can't leave. I'm a diver and I have a duty to this island. Leaving now would just be running away, wouldn't it?"
    Okilani sighed. "Lei, I know this may be a hard thing for you to hear-and it's a hard thing for me to say-but I think it might actually be a good idea for you to leave. When these waters recede, I'm afraid we're going to discover that the only mandagah left are the ones we saved in the lake. There won't be any diving. Even the regular fish trade will be slow. Things are changing, and in a way, you may be safer on Essel. I can't leave-my soul as an elder is bound to this place. But you can leave, Lei. Let Kapa follow his dream, and let Lana put some distance between herself and what happened today."

    Leilani stared into her cup, her hands trembling. "But ... but this is my home. I love this island."
    "If you can stand to stay here and watch as it's slowly destroyed, stay. But something is happening to the spirits, and those things always affect the outer islands first. You're usually the rational one, Lei, but this time Kapa may be thinking more clearly."
    They sat in near silence for an hour afterwards, while Leilani sipped lukewarm tea and thought of what Okilani had said. Leaving would be the most painful thing she had ever done, but perhaps there really was nothing left for her and Kapa to do but move on. And Lana ... she didn't even want to think of what had happened to her daughter today. She was terrified that the haunted expression would never leave her face.
    Finally, Leilani stood up, and the elder looked at her calmly.
    "What have you decided?" Okilani asked.
    "Since the binding, my mother's mothers have lived here. But I think ... I must be the one who leaves."
    Okilani stood up and embraced her. "I wish you luck, my daughter. If we never meet again, perhaps your soul will find its way back here and find mine, still tied to the land."
    Leilani bit her tongue to keep back the tears.
    "Goodbye, earth-mother," she said, using the elder's formal title.
    "Goodbye, Leilani."
    As Leilani walked down the stairs, she was overcome with the saddest sensation that she would never hear Okilani's voice again.

    When her parents told Lana the next morning that they would be leaving the island, she could hardly summon the energy to feel anything at all. Without Kali or the mandagah, what was there to stay for, anyway? Of course, she loved the great trees in the grove and the smell of her island after a rainstorm, but none of those memories made her fight to stay. She would be traveling, then. Keeping her side of the pact with Kali. And seeing Essel, after all. She knew that she wouldn't seek out Kohaku. Her dreams of him seemed so childish and impossible, now. As though he had ever seen her as anything but a native of above-average intelligence. The only person besides her parents who had ever loved her had just died. What was a childish crush beside that?
    They packed all day, and the smell of the waterproof resin they had spread on the heavy canvas to protect their belongings made the house reek. It was a silent, somber affair. Even Kapa didn't seem very enthusiastic. That evening he left them to exchange his fishing boat for a barge roomy enough for the three of them and their belongings. Her mother packed everything with a look of fierce determination, as though she refused to doubt her decision. Lana stared at her mother and wondered what had made her change her mind.
    That night, after most of the packing was finished, she and her parents went to Eala's, so that they could give some kind of goodbye to the people they had grown up with and known so long. Everyone stared at Lana as she came in. Some people gave her tentative smiles; others

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