When she had finished her tea she went back inside again, showered and got dressed. She would drive into Hanalei this morning, she'd decided, and buy herself some fresh food from the little market there; along with some cigarettes.
It was an easy and picturesque journey, which took her at one point across a narrow bridge which spanned a valley of Edenic perfection: a river meandering through lush green shrubbery, from the bouquets of which elegant palms rose and erupted.
Hanalei was quiet. She took her time making her purchases, and by the time she arrived back at Anahola, laden with bags of supplies, she found she had a visitor. Niolopua was sitting on the step, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. He got up and relieved her of her cargo, then followed her inside.
"How did you know I was here?" she asked him once the bags had been set down in the kitchen.
"I saw the lights on last night."
"Why didn't you come and say hello?"
"I wanted to get back and tell Mrs. Geary."
"I don't understand."
"Your mother-in-law."
"Loretta?"
"Yes. The old one, right? Loretta. She called me to find out whether you were here or not."
"When was this?"
"Last night."
"So, you came round to look for me?"
"YCS. And I saw the lights. So I Called her back and I told her you'd got here safely." It was clear from the expression on Niolopua's face that he was aware there was something odd in all of this.
"What did she say to you?" Rachel asked him.
"Not much. She told me not to bother you. In fact, she said not even to tell you I'd seen you here."
"So why are you telling me?"
He looked profoundly uncomfortable. "I don't know. I guess I wanted you to hear what the other Mrs. Geary had said."
"I'm not Mrs. Geary anymore, Niolopua. Please, just call me Rachel."
He made a nervous smile. "Right," he said. "Rachel."
"Thank you for being so honest."
"She didn't know you'd come, did she?"
"No, she didn't."
"Shit. I'm sorry. I should have talked to you first. I didn't think."
"You weren't to know," Rachel said. "You did what you thought was best." He looked thorpughly irritated with himself, despite her words. "Do you want to stay and have something to eat?"
"I'd like to, but should go do some work on my house before the storm." He glanced out of the window toward the beach. "I've only got a few hours before that comes in." He pointed to the dark blisters of cloud along the horizon. "It blew up out of nowhere." He kept staring out at the clouds as he talked. "And it's coming this way."
"Well it's nice to know you're on my side, Niolopua. I don't have a lot of friends right now."
He tore his gaze from the clouds and looked at her. "I'm sorry I screwed up. If I'd known you wanted to be here on your own-"
"I'm not here to get a tan," Rachel said. "I'm here because…" now it was she who glanced seaward "… because I have reason to think he may be coming back."
"Who told you that?"
"It's a long story, and I'm not sure I know how to tell it right now. I need to get some things sorted out in my head first."
"What about Loretta?"
"What about her?"
"Does she know why you're here?"
"It wouldn't be hard for her to guess."
"You know if you want to you could move up into the hills with me for a few days. Then if she sends someone looking for you-"
"I don't want to leave this house," Rachel said. "This is where Galilee expects to find me. And this is where I'm going to be waiting."
A cording to the literature on the subject-which is sparse-the raising of storms is at best an uncertain craft. These things have a life of their own; they swell unpredictably, feeding off their own power, like dictators. They veer, they devour, they transform. Though they're subject to behavioral rules based on sound science, there are so many variables in the mix that any computation is at best tentative. The storm is a law unto itself; nobody, not even a power of Cesaria's prescience, may control or predict it once it's in motion.
All of which is to explain how it came about that the ^disturbance she'd created, stirring the air into life as she had, grew into the tempest that it did.
An hour after the departure from the deck of The Samarkand the boat was in dire trouble. The hull, which had resolutely endured some of the worst seas in the world-the Cape of Good Hope, the icy waters of the Arctic-finally cracked, and the vessel began to take on water. Galilee hand-bailed as fast as he was able, having incapacitated the pumps when he'd decided on suicide, but quickly realized he was fighting a losing battle. The question was not whether The Samarkand was doomed or not, but rather which of the death-sentences would fall first? Would it be smashed to pieces by the fury of the seas, or spring so many leaks that it sank?
And yet, even as the storm undid the vessel-board by board, nail by nail-it carried him closer to the islands. Sometimes the boat ascended a steep wave from the summit of which he thought he glimpsed land. But in the tumult it was impossible to be sure.
Then, quite suddenly, the winds dropped, and the rain they'd brought mellowed to a drizzle. There was a brief respite-perhaps ten minutes-when The Samarkand ceased to roll quite so violently, and Galilee was able to survey the extent of the damage to the vessel. The news was not good. There were three large cracks on the starboard side, and another two on the port; the ruins of the mast, along with the shreds of sails, had been washed overboard but were still attached to the boat by a gnarled umbilical of rope and tackle, which gave the vessel a permanent list.
Nor, of course, had the storm blown itself out. Galilee had experienced this kind of hiatus before: a little window of calm, as though the tempest was gathering its strength for one final cataclysmic assault.
So it proved. After a short time the wind began to rise again, and the ocean to churn and spasm, pushing the boat up ever steeper inches of furious water then dropping it into ever deeper chasms. Resolute as The Samarkand had been, it couldn't survive such treatment for long. It began to shudder as though wracked by death tremors, then all at once came asunder. Galilee heard a terrible splintering sound below, as the boards capitulated to the pressure, and the cabin housing cracked and split as great pillows of foamy white water erupted and summarily swept it away.
The water didn't come to take Galilee until the very last. He didn't let it. He clung to the side of the boat while it came undone around him, watching with a kind of wonder the power of the element he'd sailed so carelessly for so long. How it labored, coming back wave upon wave to break what it had already broken, and break it again, the boards becoming tinder, the tinder becoming splinters, and all finally sucked away into the deep.