Page 9 of Ghosts and Ginger Tea

“How do you get back to…” I hesitated. To where? How did he get back to being alive? By what means could he make his way back home?

“How did you become a night marcher?” I asked instead, not believing I was talking to a ghost. This was, by far, the most insane thing I’d ever done.

But he was real. And he was carrying me to my death. If I didn’t act now, I would have no chance at survival. Kiki and mother would be left all alone.

I can’t think like that, I told myself.

“How did I become a night marcher?” The man glanced at the moon in the sky, and an owl hovered nearby. A chill ran down my spine. Was that the same owl that lingered the night I met the other night marcher? “If you can answer this, then you will learn how I became one of the marchers,” he said.

“Hānau i ke koko, he lāhui aliʻi,

Make i ka pō, ua ʻā ke ahi.

ʻO ke ola ke lawelawe, akā ua hoʻopalai i nā akua,

I kēia manawa, hele lākou i kahi o nā aka.”

“A riddle,” I whispered, reviewing it in my head:

Born of blood, a royal line,

Slain by fate, in death they shine.

Life to serve, yet gods defied,

Now they march where shadows bide.

“A night marcher must be of royal descent,” I started. “Fate killed them. This ruler defied the gods, so becoming a spirit of the dead is their punishment. Those are the conditions that Kāne uses when choosing who becomes one of the shadowy figures, and who enters his rest.” I couldn’t see the young man’s face, but he froze on the path and put me down. It was so sudden, I fell.

“Oof! Why so–”

“How did you answer that riddle so quickly?” He asked. His eyes were glowing again, angry or curious, I couldn’t tell. Would he kill me now?

“It was easy–”

“Easy?” He blinked, his attention so focused on me that I felt like I was shrinking. It was as if he were studying me–really studying me. Then the man shook his head, shocked, before saying in haste, “Answer this riddle, if you wish to bargain with a night marcher.”

I gaped. Was he… going to help me get out of this? I listened carefully.

“I ka mea pāpā ʻia, e hāʻawi aku i kou mau lā,

Hoʻokahi mahina e wāwahi i ka ʻaha uliuli.

Inā pau ka pāpā, e hoʻi mai ke ola,

Akā inā pōʻino, e ʻike ʻia kou inoa i ka pō.”

Why was he staring at me with such intensity? I reviewed the riddle in my head:

To the cursed one, your days you lend,

A month to break the darkened thread.

If the curse is gone, life you reclaim,

But fail, and night shall know your name.

I thought it through, analyzing each word, feeling as if I were a fish swimming through twisted coral and trying to find its way out.