Blooming in the Wild Page 0,15

the Ho’omalus are as surprised as you are, Nani. But nevertheless, you are manifesting. There is much for you to understand. I believe Homu can help you. He is also, ah…good with plants.”

“Oh,” she said faintly. David and Daniel’s good-natured, silver-haired father shared her strange connection with plants and trees? With the forest? She’d always been able to coax beauty from plants that none of her friends could match, but this was way beyond that. None of her houseplants had ever spoken to her, for heaven’s sake.

And did this mean that the voices were real? That she could actually manifest powers herself? Maybe she did want her mother.

She sighed, rubbing her neck. “There’s so much I don’t understand—but I don’t have time to try and sort it out right now. I’m in charge here.”

Daro was silent for a moment. “All right,” he said finally. “I won’t pester you about it now, Nani. I hope your photo shoot goes well. But if you need anything, anything at all, you call me. And your cousins. They’ll be there right away if you need them.”

Bella smiled, comforted by the thought of the big, solid Ho’omalu men, just miles away up the coast. “Nothing’s going to happen,” she said, reassuring herself as well as her father. “Frank’s here with the boat, and we’ve all got cell phones. If we need help, we can call emergency services.”

“I guess that’s right,” her father said. His voice softened. “Jason says aloha.”

“Aloha to him too.” Along with the shock of learning she had a father here had been the news that he was gay. His partner in life and music was Jason Mamaloa, one of Hawaii’s most successful musicians. His smooth, lilting voice was heard all over the world, backed up by her father’s harmonies.

She pictured the two men relaxing barefoot on the lanai of their big beach house, Jason, small and silver-haired, her father taller, his hair the same coffee hue as her own.

She was unused to having two middle-aged men fussing over her, but she liked it very much. She almost felt as if she’d gotten not one but two fathers. Or maybe uncles, because she still didn’t really know Daro very well, and it was hard to completely trust someone who’d left her alone her whole life until she showed up on his home island.

Because her mother had wanted him to. Grace had not dealt well with the news that the father of her child had used a weekend with her to try and deny his true sexuality, and had cut him out of her and her daughter’s lives. Bella swallowed those thoughts and the sour taste they left in her mouth. She couldn’t think about that now. Or the fact that if she did have powers, at some point she was going to have to explain them to Grace.

“Just promise me,” Daro said, “that when you’re back at Nawea you’ll tell the Ho’omalus about these dreams. They can counsel you.”

“I promise.”

“All right.Pô maika`i, good night, Nani. Aloha.”

“Aloha.” She clicked her phone off and pressed it to her heart, a painful pleasure swelling inside her. After a lifetime without a father to tuck her in, to hold and tease her as her friends’ fathers had, Daro’s presence and concern slipped through the cracks in the protective shell she’d built around her heart.

Bella turned back toward camp, but her footsteps lagged as a scent tantalized her again. Fruit, wild and sweet. It would satisfy her as the prepared food had not.

But where was it? She clambered up over the rocks toward the lava band that rose steeply above her. Shrubs and vines clung to the surface, and she could hear a stream trickling down through the rocks. It would pour out into the bay somewhere below, mixing with the salt water.

Then she saw them, high over her head. Round, golden balls glowing nearly fluorescent in the soft dusk against their sparse twigs and green leaves. A guava tree. Bella blinked. Wild birds must have dropped seeds here.

She looked up at the fruit and swallowed. She could almost taste the sweet, tangy inner pulp. But there was no way she could climb up the steep, wet rocks. She gazed longingly, her stomach growling again.

“E nonoi, kaikuahine. Ask, little sister.”

Slowly, feeling a little foolish, Bella held up her hands, palms up. A strange sensation flowed through her fingers, and she looked at them, startled, half expecting to see a visible current. But the tree overhead rustled as if