The Black Sun

Chapter One

          Senna woke to the soft scent of the ocean. The jingle of the pots and pans clanging against one another, the wind chimes hanging outside of her hut rattle with the wind and for a moment, a fraction of second, Senna could pretend that Mauitoto was the same as it was four years ago. The same cerulean waves, the same gentle breeze, the same singing songbirds. 

Then she sat up, the small knitted quilt thrown to the side of the straw mattress. Senna was seventeen, but she didn't feel like it. The last months of her life had rushed by, each day a battle for her own life and for the others. She still felt like a child, she still felt like a giant Euro-American battleship would crash into the docks and take more precious gems, take more of their women, take more of their children. Senna throws open the wooden door, the presence of her parents and her brothers no more. She was alone, one of the last survivors. 

The island outside was only a mere husk of the grandiose world it was before; the brilliant reefs were now a chilling white, the ocean was rugged and brutal, tossing ships over and sending fisherman to their deaths. The waterfall dried up, only a small stream remained. The market had closed down; the merchants grew sickly. The men stopped going out to fish, the women couldn't harvest the fruit and half the island was starving to death.

The walk down to the square send shivers down Senna's spine. The island was deserted, people were either mourning or locked in their homes in fear that the diseases are contagious. Senna was one of the few to be lucky enough to be immune to the sicknesses, but watching your friends, your parents and your brothers dying all around you is a weight heavier than most people would suspect. 

The only people surveying the village are the warriors, a few of the fishermen and the Chief. Chief Koamalu pressed a finger to his forehead and his temple, rubbing profusely to chase away the headaches and the stress. It was a natural remedy known by every person in the village, but the Chief does it the most. 

"There's no more men to help us, chief!"

"We're going to starve, we're going to die. O Papa, O Rangi, save us from our deaths, my gods!"

"Relax men," Chief Koamalu assures, putting a strong, meaty hand on their shoulders. "It is only a small sickness. We are Mauitotian men, we do net let a mere disease kill us. I will not die to white men who cannot face me at the hour of my death. Do not fear, fishermen." He sighs, dismissing them before he breaks the discussion. 

"Chief! Chief Koamalu!" Senna dashes forward, her cocoa-hair billowing behind her and her amber eyes glint under the summer sun. "Chief! I can, I can do it. Give me a raft, give me some oars and a fishing net and I'll fish."

The Chief smiles softly, but the lines of his lips are thin and pursed. His eyes are tired, Senna can tell. His frizzy hair is pressed against the back of his neck, his face matted with beady sweat. He didn't have to speak, his eyes shouted words of encouragement, of gratitude, of admiration. 

"Chief," the men chime in, "you cannot be seriously considering this. She is only a girl, a mere little girl. She cannot fish the seas, she'll die. Women and girls are supposed to be on the field, supposed to harvest the fruits and the crops."

"Tahu and men," Chief Koamalu grimly states. "Senna Sinalei is entirely capable. She has lived through the diseases, she had helped during the construction of the rafts, she healed your mother, Ahulani, remember? Give the poor girl a chance and if she is to die, at least she'll return to the spirit realm with her brothers, her mother and father."

The men utter words of disapproval, of protest before the men succumb to the words of the chief. People emerge from their homes to watch; words spread like wildfire in Mautoto and the women clutch their babies close to their chests as they stare at her from the rolling hills. A woman who does something other than the jobs traditionally assigned to them is considered a heathen, an abomination to Mauitotian heritage. But all these women knew who Senna was. They knew she was the girl that had chased after the white men, screaming at them in cold blood and sometimes, they were even afraid of her. 

She had walked through the valley, facing the stares. She saw men scowling at her, women cowering back into their houses, children beaming at the first girl to ever sail. But Senna didn't give them the pleasure of their fear, didn't give them the satisfaction of her doubt. 

The fisherman boat was already awaiting her on the shore, complete with a wooden and steel outrigger and a metal underbelly. Fishing nets, with stones tied to the ends and harpoons were hooked onto the boat. Lines and ropes hung on the side, eager to hook onto some fish. The fishermen stood beside the boat, glaring at her when she boarded. She snarled back, before regaining her composure and breathed deeply. 

"Are you going to come with me?"

"No. You can perish by yourself."

"Then so be it. Might Pele curse you to burn," Senna growled before shoving the boat onto the waves, tossing her into the canoe as she sailed away into the line where the sky met the sea, and the titian clouds rolled into the sky.