Little Island Tales - Part 7

    The children spent a good twenty minutes staring at the boot-print in the sand. While there had been some initial awe over the size of the clawmark from the aka-akua that the print rested within, they quickly abandoned it in favor of, what they considered, a greater myster. Trying to figure out who had made the boot-prints, where they were going, and where they had come from.
    Ka'lani had seen aka-akua tracks before and Diego and Tamah simply accepted their clawmarks as just being 'one of those things'. Monsters were real. They knew it and they knew they'd be back in a month anyway if they really wanted to examine the things.
    The oddity was in some unknown person being on their island.
    Initially, there was some fascination as to why this stranger was going to the mountains. After all, they knew it had to be a stranger. The tracks weren't coming from the village, they were coming from the beach front. And, while they had passed nearby the village...well...near the fireline anyway; there was no sign they'd ever entered it. Just passed on by, moving smoothly in and out the clawed out holes that the aka-akua had left from the night prior. However, they quickly abandoned that train of thought in favor of the more obvious.
    So the question began: how'd they come from the beach?
    While boats were uncommon they were hardly unheard of. The village fishermen had a 'fleet' of a half dozen little two man boats that they would paddle out in order to set traps or fish the reef. The only real rule was that they didn't go further than than the reef and they needed to get back before the sun set.
    Diego wasn't sure about that last rule, but felt it undoubtedly had to do with the aka-akua. He'd always thought that maybe they hid in the dark at the bottom of the sea when the moon was out. It's not like any of them truly knew where the shadow demons hid or even if they existed outside of the darkness of night.
    But there was no boat. There was no sign of how or where the booted person had come from. It was like they had simply walked out of the surf and onto dry land. Like the ocean had just spit them out.
    The trio had followed the prints as far as they could and, while most of the tracks had been washed out in the surf or blown away in the soft sand, they couldn't figure out where the tracks had led from. Everything pointed that they came from the ocean.
    "They'll figure it out." Tamah finally offered reassuringly.
    "I suppose." Diego said with a shrug.
    "No." she retorted, seemingly rejecting his insincerity. "They will. We'll get the trackers and find whoever it is out in the mountains."
    Diego gave a little nod.
    "Yea. And then we'll drag them back here and demand to know how they got on the island and..."
    TUNK
    Ka'lani gave him a sideways glance but Diego was too focused on rubbing the knot on his head from where she'd just hit him with her flute.
    "What was that for?!" he demanded.
    "No reason." she admitted. "Just felt you deserved it."
    Diego glowered at her, but she continued before he could get a word in.
    "Still, we can't just presume that anyone who's on the island needs to be dragged anywhere."
    "But who are they?"
    Ka'lani shrugged, but seemed distracted. Thoughtful.
    "We won't know until we find them. Just because we don't know who they are doesn't mean they deserve violence."
    Diego, a fire burning in his belly from getting smacked with a flute, turned on her.
    "Yea?! And what if they're here to do something bad? What if they want to hurt us? Or hurt you?! Huh?!"
    "Yea!" added Tamah, building on Diego's energy. "What if they're working with the aka-akua?"
    "The aka-akua don't work with humans, Tamah." Ka'lani said evenly, addressing her sister. "They're demons."
    "What if they aren't human?!" Tamah retorted.
    "Demons don't wear boots, Tamah." her sister replied again, poking Tamah in the head with her half finished flute. "Even weird ones."
    "Weird demons or weird boots?" Tamah asked.
    "Yes." Ka'lani said with a reassuring smile.
    "That doesn't stop them from being a threat." Diego said sternly as thoughts of evil men sneaking into huts at night peppered his thoughts. "I won't let them hurt you."
    Tunk
    "Ow! And what was THAT one for?"
    "For getting my little sister excited." Ka'lani responded coolly. " Now both of you. Enough. You're getting way too worked up over this."
    "How aren't you?" Diego demanded, rubbing the second, albeit smaller lump on his head.
    "Because I trust that we'll find them and figure out why they're here. It's not like we live on a big island. Not only that, they can only stay in hiding for a month at most."
    While Diego thought to respond to that, the rather disturbing point Ka'lani had made stuck the words in his throat like a glue. Depending on the state of the moon, there was always a chance their would be an aka-akua wandering about in the darkness. If their visitor lasted an entire month, there was zero chance they'd make it through a moonless night.
    The children exchanged a knowing, albeit sickened glance with each other but said nothing more on the subject.
    "I guess you're right." Diego admitted.
    Ka'lani smiled in agreement.
    "Either way, I need to go work on this." she said, waving the half-finished flute. "Wanna come?"
    "Oh!" Tamah said in surprise, as if only just noticing the flute despite having watching Diego get hit with it several times. "Is that the one you're making for-"
    Ka'lani cut her off sharply with a hard poke to her forehead and a threatening glare. Tamah knew better than to proceed.
    "Who's it for?" Diego asked again, continuing the same line of questioning he'd given up on a couple days prior.
    Ka'lani shrugged and started walking away.
    To Diego's surprise, he felt his guts twist into a knot. It must have been obvious on his face because Tamah glanced up at him.
    "Are you ok, Diego?"
    "Yea." he said with a little nod. "Just gonna go do some stuff."
    "Can I come with you?" she asked with a smile.
    "Not right now. Why don't you hang out with your sister?" he said and turned to walk back into the village.
    Diego left Tamah standing there. She watched as her sister walked away towards a small thicket of coconut trees and as Diego walked back past the fireline towards the village center. Beneath her feet, the remains of one of the tracks that had so thoroughly enraptured them a matter of moments earlier, began to fade away with the bubbling, incoming tide.