Whare Potae (The House of Mourning)

Chapter Six

Author's Note: There is ice everywhere. I can't actually leave the house; it's too slippery. My poor uncle apparently fell on the ice this morning and broke his hip, it's so bad out there.

I needed to go grocery shopping today, and I am very, very hungry. I apologize in advance for any typos. There is no food in my house, and the hunger is getting the better of me...

Chapter Six

"-aaaaaaaah!"

Moana landed in her most graceful attempt at a heap behind a large patch of brightly-colored coral. She squatted down and hid herself, just in time to avoid being seen by the five women walking by from the other direction, each of them dressed in vivid woven robes and sporting elaborate tattoos all over their faces, necks, hands, and arms. They were all carrying sacks over their shoulders and bowls overflowing with what looked like seaweed and ocean plants. The one closest to Moana looked even younger than her, no more than fourteen or fifteen. She had tightly curled ringlets of fair hair, and robes that were splattered with bits of rusty red, which for a terrifying second made her clothes look as though they were drenched in blood.

Moana shivered and flattened herself against the coral, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

Okay, she thought. So, we made it to Rarohenga, probably. Now what?

The tattooed women were all making their way procession-style towards something on the horizon, a sort of palace-like structure made out of the same beautiful bright coral that Moana could see was growing all over the nearby landscape. As they passed, the woman at the end of the procession stumbled, shook her head, muttered something to herself, and then straightened up again. She was moving more slowly than the others, and although Moana couldn't quite see her face, there was something intimately familiar about the way she held her shoulders and about that little mutter.

Carefully, Moana crept out from her hiding place and hazarded a few steps closer to the parade of women. Almost immediately, however a terrible shriek emanated from the direction of the palace, and Moana had to cover her ears to block out the terrible sound, falling to her knees in the sand. It was a cry of agony and rage, but not a human cry. No human lungs could have that much breath control.

The tattooed women all stopped, stood perfectly still for a moment, and then stared at each other. The scream rang out again, and this time they all threw up their hands and went running in the direction of the sound, gathering up their robes and leaving the seaweed and sacks lying in a jumble on the ground.

Finally, when the screams had died away, Moana got slowly to her feet again. When she looked up, she found one of the women standing over her, smiling and shaking her head.

"Moana," murmured the woman, chuckling a little bit under her breath. "I should have known. As soon as I heard Hine-nui-te-po's scream, I thought, 'who could have made the goddess that angry?' You had that effect on your father, too, if I remember rightly. Even after all these years, you're still our Moana; always making waves."

Moana stared.

Her Grandmother, Tala, stood before her, wearing a quiet white robe and with beautiful new tattoos of happy children and rejoicing villagers encircling her shoulders and traveling up what was visible of her chest. On the undersides of her arms were the faces of the terrible monsters she'd once told stories about during Moana's youth, and on her chin were chiseled the leaves from a coconut tree.

"G-Grandma?" Moana blinked, startled by the tears that had begun to well unbidden at the back of her eyes. "Is...is that really you?"

"Oh yes...well, what's left of me, anyway," sighed Grandma, winking. "But, hey, look; no more cane!" She waved her empty hands around for a moment to demonstrate, then grinned. "Never liked that thing much anyway...it only slowed me down."