Chapter 2

Usually Benny was silly and playful, like a good-natured boy. Even when he appeared tense, his eyes beamed a brilliant light, as if happiness was his baseline. But when he told me about Maui, he looked like his brother, Manoa, whose baseline was worry. 

"Elaine, you know nothing about Maui, not even his name. Over the years, we've all tried researching his origins, but no records exist before he was adopted by the Andersons, who gave him the name of Peter. Yeah, the first name he remembers is Peter Anderson. The abuse he suffered is unspeakable, and therefore he doesn't speak of it, but it was so bad that by the time he entered high school, he prayed morning, noon, and night that one of Mr. Anderson's beatings would kill him. But Mr. Anderson knew the line between torture and murder, having adopted and accidentally beat to death four other boys. 

Can you imagine the horrible existence that leads to your last hope being a lethal beating? But this hope, too, disappeared, forcing him to take matters into his own hands. He had to hatch a fail-proof plan because if the Andersons caught him in the ultimate act of self-will, they would ensure Peter suffered an endless life filled with torture so miserable there would be nothing left to fear. He didn't have much of a plan, but he knew he had to run far away from the mansion and insist on death. 

The Andersons valued self-sufficiency, but this estate is massive, too big to keep for two people, especially the gardens. Most days, a team of gardeners came to manicure the trees, bushes, and plants. Peter was under direct orders never to talk to the workers, but he watched them from afar, memorizing their routine, especially at the end of their workday, when they packed their tools and drove out into the world. 

After months of watching, he finally imagined stowing away in a work truck. His best opportunity was weekday afternoons, when Mr. Anderson worked at his office in Hilo and Mrs. Anderson was busy cooking dinner. It was then that Mr. Miata, the head gardener, loaded his truck, jumped into the cabin, and turned on the ignition. 

Peter needed less than five minutes to sneak under the tarp. Once, Mr. Miata, distracted by another gardener, left his truck unattended for over ten minutes, but Peter was too afraid to make his move. He screamed 'Coward' to himself, vowing to act at the next opportunity, but a ten-minute window was rare. He had all but given up when the day arrived one sticky afternoon in April. Mr. Miata loaded the truck, straightened his hair, and vanished towards the back entrance. Peter didn't miss a beat, springing into the metal bed, crawling under the tarp next to the garden tools. He kept his breath low, like he practiced. After an endless wait, the truck coughed out a start then creeped along the estate road, Mr. Miata whistling a cheerful escape tune, accelerating the work truck after reaching the open street, rattling the tools. 

The shears that worried Peter never even broke skin. The ride was uneventful, though long, and after the odor of the Pacific punched his nose, the engine stopped. He flew off, his long spindly legs sprinting away from his ride to an uncertain destination. Following the ocean smell, he ended up at the docks, unoccupied fishing boats sparkling in the setting sun, welcoming him aboard. He picked one with a dark tarp and snuck under its cover, sweating from heat, fear, and adrenaline. 

The boat's motion woke him in the black night. His heart pounded over the sound of the commercial motor. He took deep breaths to steady himself, but the plastic tarp held limited oxygen. When the boat came to a standstill somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, he crawled out, inhaled the fresh air, and leaped into the cold water. He reached such depths that no oxygen remained for his return. Still, he went deeper. His body drifted away. He had almost totally separated, hanging on only by a single thread. It was then that the spirit of the earth entered his almost lifeless body and, pulling his soul inside, forced the entire package up to the boat. 

He was barely alive, his eyes unable to focus, his ears muffling sound to a muted, otherworldly tone. The earth had saved him and now held him hostage, forcing him to listen to the reason for his life. 'You must survive and have offspring because I, the earth, am in constant danger of destruction, evil lurking around every corner. For each attempt at my life, a good human will appear to stop them. You will have a grandchild, only one, a girl. She is my savior, a good human who must find and eliminate the devil, the evilest, the most powerful of the destroyers. His name is David Goddard. She must kill Goddard to save me.'" 

Benny finished, his eyes pleading with me to believe him.

"How did this make Maui rich?"

"Maui killed the Andersons and inherited their fortune."

What? Oh, shit. These people are insane. Why was he telling me this now? He recited the story in a rehearsed tone, a long piece of fiction, a grim allegory, too fantastic to be true. But the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson felt like stone-cold fact, not worthy of even one detail. If I were into research, I would have found the newspaper articles reporting the couple's mysterious death, their murderer never found. Fact and fiction were both beyond my comprehension. 

I went through my mother's words, searching for a pearl of wisdom that can navigate me through. But the only lessons my mother taught me involved poverty—we were too poor for education, dignity, morality, too poor even for hope. Too poor for religion because, although poor, we weren't dumb enough to believe a god was on our side. We were also too poor to be insane.

My education didn't cover rich people, certainly not the crazy kind. 

"Okay, Benny. We'll make sure we raise our kid to save the earth," I said.

"This is no joke. Listen carefully. Our whole family has been waiting for a girl to come. The vision was clear. Only one grandchild will be born to Maui, a girl."

"I'm carrying the child in my womb. I'm not sure what else you want me to do."

"Make sure it's a girl."

"One superhero girl, coming right up."

Benny rubbed his face in frustration and despair.

"Benny, I heard you. I'll do my best to have a girl, but nobody can change the gender. We're checking the sex tomorrow, aren't we? We'll know soon enough."

"You don't understand. You must give birth to a girl."

Sweat was pouring from his forehead onto his cheeks and then rolling off on the sheets. I was afraid he believed all this, and despite my upbringing of solid cynicism, I wondered if the vision could be true.

"What happens if I have a boy?"

"I have no idea, but at a minimum, you will lose the baby. Only one child must be born, and it must be female."

"What else?"

"I don't know, Elaine. I just… I just worry what they'll do if you're not the mother of the Kahale girl."

Chills ran up my spine, coldness spreading through my chest, my veins injected with ice, my mind meandering through one dark thought after another. I had no place to go, and although I had expected death, homelessness, loneliness, I didn't imagine my unborn child would also be forced to suffer. Unfortunately, I had sown the seed of hope living in the mansion, and it now prevented me from giving up as I had always done. Instead, fear struck me, a terror that only came with having something to lose. Benny sensed it and comforted me with a cheerful note.

"Have a girl, and the Kahale fortune is yours. Our baby, that's all my family cares about. You can have anything your heart desires—cars, one in every color; travel, anywhere you want, first-class."

He paced along the bed, selling me the prize, as if it was all up to me now. His desperation was contagious. A panic originating from my stomach shot up to my heart, which pulsed and thumped against my chest, as if attempting to escape. 

"Do you know how I can make a girl?" I said, my voice quivering and pathetic.

"You just have to concentrate. People can achieve extraordinary things through focus."

This made me feel much worse. I had done nothing extraordinary in my life, and I couldn't believe when it mattered the most, I'd be able to do it on demand.