WILD GIRL: Chapter 4

THEN, Koa

THEN, Koa

On the way out of the shack, Koa picked up her fishing pole in case she ended up going all the way to the beach. She attached the two pieces of it, already broken down, to her backpack with an old bungee cord. She put her plastic tackle box and reel into the backpack, along with the sweet potatoes. She picked a few guavas from among nearby trees and added dried coconut from her kitchen stash, along with a bottle of water. 

Ready, Koa slung on the pack and set off down the twisty route through the kukui nut forest. Her bare feet were tough as leather and silent as those of a forest animal on the dirt padded by leaves and duff. No paths led to their place, and that was all part of staying out of reach. 

Once out of the grove of kukui and guava trees and past the stand of dense bamboo that seemed impenetrable and screened their grove, Koa picked her way carefully to a path others had made that led to a waterfall at the back of a finger of this part of the immense valley. It was okay to use the paths others had created once she reached them; but no one must ever find their place.

Overhead and behind her, the massive bamboo forest rattled and creaked in the wind, masking any sound she might make.

“Someone will come looking for you someday,” Mama had told her many times as she grew up. “Your father wants to steal you away and he’s a bad man with terrible friends.” Her hands had trembled with fear as she braided Koa’s hair. “They must never find us here.”

With the sun shining on the top of Koa’s head, the weight of the backpack bouncing against her strong back, and her knife in its sheath on her belt, the warnings Mama had given her seemed exaggerated. Maybe just stories, like the vampires she loved to read about—though for all Koa knew, those might be real, too.

A trickle of sweat formed on Koa’s spine and trickled down into her battered shorts as she picked up her pace to a trot and ran along the red dirt path, slick with mud here and there from the frequent nighttime showers. Her small breasts bounced inside a bathing suit top she wore under the shirt dyed a mottled brown with the same concoction she used on her skin. “We have to dye all of our clothes,” Mama had insisted. “We’re less visible that way.”

Was Mama right? Was it so dangerous to be seen, known? She was as strong as many of the men she’d seen in the Valley, and better with her blade, too. She could bring down a boar by herself with a bow and the knife. No one was taking her anywhere she didn’t want to go.

Maybe there were places she did want to go. Ella liked to show her pictures of enormous buildings made of fake materials Koa had never seen. They were contained in the flimsy books she enjoyed called “magazines.” Ella hadn’t been anywhere either, other than outside the valley to go to school, but that was enough for her to help Koa with her reading and even some math. 

She had told Koa about the town of Hilo, where there were stores filled with every kind of food and beautiful clothes. There were even buildings called libraries, filled top to bottom with books. 

“And there are cars everywhere,” she said. “And ones that fly with wings, called airplanes. They can take you to these faraway places.”

Koa had seen the airplanes overhead like white birds. She liked Ella’s stories. Maybe her friend would have some new ones this time; possibly a new magazine from outside. 

Mama wasn’t always right. What if what Koa had been told about the world outside, and people being bad, wasn’t true? 

The same sick, guilty feeling that deciding not to use the dye had given her tightened her stomach. She lost Mama a little more every time she let these thoughts settle on her mind, floating there like pollen on water and eventually sinking in to change its color.

“Shoo,” Koa said aloud. She brushed her face, fluttering her fingers like butterfly wings, dispelling the thoughts. She increased her speed so that she couldn’t think anymore. 

Skipping the dye was enough defiance for one day.