That Which Feeds Us: Chapters 14–19

She and Melia hadn’t exactly bothered with subterfuge.

“But there was no treaty of annexation,” her grandpa used to say, his dark brown eyes shining with tears.

She looked resigned, striding toward the terrace.

Lehua took a petulant bite out of her lunch—a platter of striped mullet and roasted vegetables—then asked, “Can’t you heal a broken heart somewhere else?”

Of course, she’d been so cavalier about it that Lehua hadn’t quite believed her.

“Nothing goes to waste on Kōpaʻa,” Chiyo said, reciting the words like they were her own personal tenet.

“Do you prepare bodies the traditional way or,” he paused, and looked toward his guests, his eyes darkening with strange mirth, “do you follow the Kānaka method?”

“Do you think moral or ethical scruples matter to them? Ever since I married my husband, I’ve been swimming with these sharks and, you know, you stay here long enough and—” Jennifer shook her head, exhaling a long sigh.

Dense steam obfuscated the bathroom and wet the walls.

“You said it, not me,” Lehua said, trying for levity, despite her worry.

Melia smiled, but it was empty, her grief palpable.

Their earlier camaraderie was gone and their partnership felt tentative.

Overgrown weeds wreathed the derelict doorway, climbing the mill’s peeling paint.

“Chiyo said Horace instructed that his island be kept in perpetuity. To preserve history.”

She was convulsing on the walkway, twisting beneath the man’s grasp, when the staircase rattled behind her.