Ocean: The Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page B

hair, cut stylishly. He wore a blue and white Hawaiian shirt with a designer label, and favored expensive jewelry, such as the gold watch he had on now, and the gold chain around his neck.
    As a helicopter tour pilot for the hotel, Jeff took guests out over the lovely waterfalls, jungle valleys, and other vistas of the island, and provided them with information about the area. The craft was amphibious, and could be landed on the water for combination air and scuba-diving excursions. Having learned his flying skills in the military, he was a good pilot and the quality of his work seemed passable to Alicia—except for his tendency to strut around the hotel grounds and give commands to the help with his feisty, officious personality, which did not endear them to him.
    Jeff’s comment had been disingenuous, and this was obvious to her, because she knew her brother well, having heard him complain to her that he wished he had his inheritance now, so that he could sell the land and businesses, get his share of the money, and leave Hawaii forever. She wondered if her grandfather knew how Jeff really felt about him or Hawaii, but she did not consider it her place to inform him. The old man was sharp, and probably knew anyway. There had been indications that he did know, and now he scowled at Jeff.
    As Alicia looked inside one of the Portuguese ovens, she noticed a piece of rusted, badly deteriorated metal on the ground. It was difficult to say what the object had once been, but she thought it might have been left there fairly recently, in the past ten years or so. Metal objects were particularly susceptible to weathering in the Wanaao area; they rusted quickly in the salty air, so that anyone trying to operate machinery had to take extra precautions to protect it and keep it running.
    In this regard it was much worse outside, but even inside houses and other buildings, care had to be taken to preserve metal objects, lest they decay in the corrosive air and become useless. Wealthy people had atmospheric-controlled rooms for such purposes, and constantly maintained and garaged their machines. Poor people did the best they could, avoiding the use of metal as much as possible and doing things in the old fashioned ways of their ancestors.
    Ideally, machines should not even be allowed in this paradise. It was a place for natural things, for enhancing life and making it more meaningful. She felt the strong presence of spirits on this side of the island, but not in a bad way.
    Finally she met the gaze of her grandfather and said, “It is incredibly beautiful here, isn’t it?”
    ***

Chapter 6
    Emerging from a light sleep, Kimo heard strange sounds, spread across his awareness without a discernible source. He assumed they were the remnants of a dream, and as if confirming this, the sounds began to fade away whenever he focused on them. He turned over on his bed mat. Something troubled him, and he found himself unable to return to sleep, no matter how tired he was from a busy day at the roadside fruit stand.
    Now as he lay awake, Kimo smelled mustiness in the air. Sometimes the drainage ditch around the little house failed and rainwater ran onto the dirt interior floors. The ditch might have leaves or other debris plugging it up, inhibiting the flow of water into a nearby gully. He would deal with it in the morning.
    But something else had his attention, and would not go away. Gradually the strange sounds returned, growing louder until they were an unpleasant wailing in his ears. He thought it was a combined noise, a blend from many sources. It reached a crescendo just as he sat up and swung his feet onto a palm fiber carpet. He slipped on his sandals and a pair of shorts.
    The sea , he thought. Sea creatures are calling to me !
    This had never happened to him in this way, but he realized that the sounds were very similar to those he’d heard from injured fish and other marine animals, though he’d only noticed such noises previously when