Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Stephenie Meyer is the author and owner of the Twilight Saga. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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A/N: Some of you are worried that I'm going to kill off Carlisle or that something bad will happen to Edward. All I will say is that I'm not planning on killing-off any characters. Thanks to everyone who sent me an unsigned review.
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Chapter 10 – The Temple
It had been three weeks since we'd liberated the piglets from their mother and caught the two hens.
I immediately set about building the hens a nice, safe chicken coop with a run so they wouldn't escape and they'd settled in well. Ten days after we brought them back to camp, they laid their first eggs – one per day each for five days. The hens weren't very happy when Mom and Bella stole the eggs out from under them, squawking loudly in objection and rewarding Mom and Bella with pecked fingers.
Mom and Bella named the hens Prissy and Chrissy.
Every day, they chatted to the hens as they collected the eggs and cleaned their coop. I thought they were mad, but Mom insisted that happy hens laid more eggs. It was unfortunate that two wild hens wouldn't lay enough eggs to meet our demands. We'd either have to enjoy the eggs when the hens laid during breeding season and do without the rest of the time, or find a way to get more chickens, and a rooster.
The piglets were a little harder to domesticate. We had three females and one male. They called for their mother constantly that first week, and they weren't above taking a nip out of anyone who got too close to them – their teeth were lethal. We'd been feeding them table scraps and peelings as well as any overripe fruit we had on hand. Jasper and Emmett built them a pen using the sail rigging as a fence so they wouldn't chew through it, and they dug the piglets a shallow pond where they could wallow in the mud.
Emmett named them Bacon, Pork Chop, Cutlet and Pork Belly.
He called them by their names constantly until I swear they started to respond. I somehow thought they'd grow up knowing that one day, very soon, they'd be dinner and breakfast and very possibly lunch as well.
Mom and Bella's garden was thriving. The plants were growing like weeds in the rich soil, warm climate and abundant rain. We were all praying that the plants would flower and be pollinated by the native bees so we'd having something green to eat other than water lily leaves.
Speaking of green food, Mom and Bella were walking along the beach collecting Purslane, a beach plant which could be eaten cooked or raw as a salad leave. They'd also collected a delicate seaweed from the rock pools called Limu that could be boiled.
I watched them gathering wild food, while Dad, Jasper, Emmett and I stripped Victory of her railings, built-in fittings and furniture and her deck timbers – they'd make a lovely floor for the house which was progressing nicely – the walls for both floors had been framed using a combination of driftwood, mature bamboo culms and timber from Victory. The roof was well on its way to being considered 'dry'. We'd used five of the largest sails to cover the roof, covering them with palm fronds and closely placed bamboo poles.
I planned on stripping Victory's hull of timber as well, but the strip-out was slow going – Victory was very well put together and she wasn't easy to take apart without specialist power tools. It was back-breaking, sweaty work. I'd pulled the small refrigerator out of the galley-kitchen as well as the burner grates off the stove and the racks from the oven. The appliance wasn't much good to us without gas anyway.
I'd asked Rosalie to have another go at repairing the emergency beacon, but the pirates had pretty much done a number on it, and when we'd checked the life raft-dinghies following our hostage ordeal, they were missing, presumably thrown overboard or stolen like all of the other navigational and telecommunications equipment. Rosalie told me it was useless – she'd already tried countless times over the past two months, but she humored me and got out her tools anyway.
I'd pulled the marine TV antenna off the broken mast – the casing was cracked and it rattled ominously, suggesting loose or broken components. I was dubious about whether Rosalie could even fix it, but I asked her to have a go at it anyway. She was also working on the 32 inch digital TV from Victory's lounge and the FM/AM stereo, both of which had salt-water corrosion damage to their internal electronics.
If we could get TV and radio – even some of the stations transmitting throughout the Pacific – then perhaps we wouldn't feel quite so alone here on Isabella Island. We wouldn't be able to use the antenna to transmit because it was only a receiver, not that we had a radio we could use to send a message anyway. TV or radio would be welcome relief from the monotony of island life when work stopped for the day. If we couldn't pick up any stations, we at least had the entertainment value of the numerous DVDs and CDs we'd had on board.
I called time at 12.30 and we broke for lunch for an hour and a half. We needed to eat, rest and drink plenty of water to replenish what we were losing from our physical labor. The humidity was increasing as the wet season progressed making us all perspire much more than we otherwise would have.
I watched Bella as she bent over to pick some more of the tender Purslane leaves off the bushes lining the beach. Mom was cutting bunches of sea-grapes that were sweet and juicy, but contained a large seed.
Stripping down to my swim-shorts, I ran into the water of the lagoon to rinse off and cool down. My dad and my brothers followed me in and we spoke of nothing in particular as we paddled in the warm water. Jasper dove down after a few minutes to check his pots, coming up with two containing a large rock lobster, four crabs and a selection of prawns.
"What's for dinner, Jazz?" asked Emmett, always thinking of his stomach.
"Seafood, Em. What else would it be?"
Emmett made a face. He was fed up with fish and seafood. We all were. If we were back in Hawaii or living on the mainland, we'd be eating beef, pork and chicken a lot of the time, so eating seafood of the quality available around this island, would have been a luxury to revere.
"I'm going to take this seafood back to camp and rest for awhile," Jasper said and he tumbled it all into a large basket he'd brought for just that purpose. He clamped a lid on it and scooped up his shorts and t-shirt to dress. "I'll see you all later," he told us as he picked up the basket and strode off into the trees.
"I think I'll check on Rose," Emmett told us. "She's been feeling a little off these last few days."
"What's wrong with her, Emmett?" asked Dad, instantly concerned.
"She says it's nothing but she's tired and a little nauseated."
"Tell her I want to examine her later. Her arm healed nicely from the piglet's bite but there could be something else wrong with her."
Emmett looked relieved. I imagine he'd been arguing with Rose for some time about whether or not to confess her symptoms to Dad. He swam to shore, picking up his clothes, but electing not to dress as he pushed his feet into deck shoes and jogged off toward camp.
"I think I'll help Bella and Mom." I wanted to spend some more time with Bella. She seemed to know a great deal about the plants and fruits that were native to the region and I was interested enough in her to find out why.
"I'll join you. It will be nice to spend some time with your mother that doesn't involve hard labor," Dad joked.
We swam into shore and slipped into our own clothes before picking up a water bottle each and loping up the beach toward our targets.
"Well, hello gentlemen," greeted Mom as she lifted her face toward Dad for his kiss.
"Hello, my beautiful wife. What have you been collecting?"
"Purslane, Limu and Sea-grapes."
"Limu?"
"Seaweed," Bella told him. "It will make a delicious vegetable once it's boiled and dressed with lime juice and oil.
"How do you know so much about native plants, Bella?" asked Dad before I had a chance to.
"From my grandmother. She believes in living off the land, using what the environment provides to us. She taught me all about which plants are edible as well as those that aren't, but which have alternate uses such as for building, tools or medicine. She taught me how to make soap and candles and how to extract oil from plants."
"Did you grow up in the islands?" Mom asked her as we walked inland along a natural pathway. I marked the trail, just in case we became lost.
"Yes. I was born on Oahu, but I spent most of my childhood and teenage years on Maui. My dad was a police officer. He met my mom at a law enforcement seminar in Seattle – she worked for the event organizers. They had a whirlwind romance before going their separate ways, until Mom rang him with the news that I was on the way. She flew out to Hawaii and they got married. To say that their marriage was a rocky one is an understatement. Mom liked Hawaii as a holiday destination, but she didn't want to live there and she left when I was two," Bella told us.
"That must have been hard for you, Bella, not having a mother around?"
"Not really, Esme. I don't remember my mother. When she left, Dad moved us to Maui where his mother lived so she could look after me while he worked. I had a wonderful childhood. My grandmother became my mother."
"Are your Dad and Grandmother still living on Maui?" I asked her.
"My grandmother is, but my father died when I was sixteen. He was on his boat fishing, when it capsized for some reason. He hit his head and drowned."
"Your grandmother must be worried about you," I commented. At least my entire family was together – but Bella was alone and so was her grandmother.
"Yes," she sighed. "I imagine she is, but she knows I know how to take care of myself, so she will refuse to believe that I'm dead until someone brings her my body."
Dad grimaced, then said, "My brother Eleazar is the same way. He is a great believer of the 'glass half-full' rather than the 'glass half-empty' concept. He will be holding out for our safe return, as will his wife Carmen and their daughters Tanya, Irina and Kate."
"Yeah, Uncle Ely is probably on the phone to the Coast Guard every day asking them what they're doing about finding us," I said. Mom and Dad laughed but we all knew that any government sponsored search and rescue was long over.
"Is he the eldest, Carlisle?" Bella asked curiously as she picked some more leaves and collected what looked like large brown nuts about the size of a large golf ball. We were quite deep into the jungle now, but I noticed we were heading in an arc in the general direction of the camp, so I wasn't overly worried.
"Yes he is. He inherited 51% ownership of the family agriculture business; I got the other 49%. Our primary crop is pineapples, but we grow other tropical fruits and vegetables as well. I wanted to study medicine, so I never took an interest in the family business, but he did and he's done very well for himself and the entire family."
"What's your brand?" Bella asked.
"Sunshine Fruits," Dad answered.
She laughed. "I should have known," she said. "Every single fruit can in the supplies has the Sunshine Fruits label on it."
"We're just keeping it in the family, Bella," I told her, grinning. "Hey, how come you didn't know what a Malay apple was, if your grandmother taught you about plants?" I asked her.
She blushed and bit her lip.
"Um, well, I did know what it was, but sometimes people get annoyed with me when I'm always telling them what something is, doing something better than them or correcting them," she said quietly.
"Ah," I said. "You mean you're smart – you have a high IQ – and less intelligent people call you a 'know-it-all' and your boss who is an idiot, tells you to keep your opinions to yourself," I said and was rewarded with the flicker of her eyes telling me that I'd hit the nail on the head.
"Yes, except my boss isn't an idiot; he's just a chauvinist pig who believes that women should be seen and not heard unless it's to ask him what he wants for dinner. I thought it was better to let Jasper lead the way on the collection of fruit and plants. He knows a lot about foraging and survival and I didn't want him to think I was showing off, or give the others the impression that I had no confidence in him."
"Bella!" admonished Dad. "Bella, enough of that. We all need to use our skills and knowledge to survive. If you know something, then say so, because what you know may one day mean the difference between life and death, health and sickness, or happiness and sadness for all of us. That goes for the rest of the family as well. I'll make it clear to everyone over dinner tonight that full disclosure is not an option; it's a necessity."
"What do you think is wrong with Rosalie?" I asked, my memory prompted by Dad's edict.
Mom gasped. "Something's wrong with Rose?"
"Not really, Mom. Emmett said she's just feeling a little off," I reassured her.
"What do you think is wrong with her, Carlisle?" Mom asked.
"I don't know, Maisy, but I have my suspicions," he replied.
So did I.
"Where are we?" Mom asked suddenly, as she looked around at the thick jungle surrounding us.
"We're parallel to the camp," I told her, "about a mile and a half east of it."
"How can you tell?" she said.
"I've been marking our trail and keeping track of our position with my compass," I told her pulling it from my shirt pocket.
"We'd better head back," said Dad. "Which is the best way to go?"
"Why don't we walk west at a right angle," Bella suggested. "That way we can explore more of the area."
Dad looked interested in exploring a bit, and Mom nodded her agreement, so we followed the natural pathway a few more yards until we came upon a small clearing, sparsely planted with trees, palms and undergrowth.
"Let's rest for a few minutes," Mom said as she brushed moss off a rock ledge and sat down.
Bella put her basket down on the ground and wandered around the clearing. I left Dad with Mom and followed her. She was standing with her head on a slight angle, studying something intently. I watched her pick up a rock with a sharp edge and scrape at the moss on the rocks. I certainly hoped she wasn't collecting moss for our dinner!
"What are you doing?"
"Agh!" she gasped, holding her hand with the sharp rock to her chest. "Don't do that, Edward!"
"Sorry," I said, chagrined. "What are you doing?" I asked her again.
"Look at these rocks, Edward. They're not random. They're actually laid out in a precise pattern like a road or a pathway and some of them are stacked in a type of platform," she pointed out.
"Let's take a look," I suggested, offering her my hand to help her onto the platform.
We walked over to a stack of stones that appeared random until you got closer to it, when it was quite clearly a monument or a statue of some type. Bella knelt down to trace some carvings on the stone platform with her fingers.
"Pele," she breathed reverently.
"What?"
"This ruin. I think it's a temple – a monument to Pele, the Hawaiian Goddess of fire, lightning, wind and volcanoes. I didn't realize that the ancient Hawaiians had colonized an island so far from Hawaii, but they must have because these carvings – these images – are thought to represent Pele."
I stepped closer to look at the petroglyphs carved into the rocks. There was what appeared to be a carving of the human form – the torso triangular, representing the female, surrounded by a number of swirls.
"What does this site mean?" I asked her.
"This would have a been a temple – a place of worship and ceremony, and perhaps sacrifice."
"Human sacrifice?" I asked with an involuntary shudder.
"Perhaps, but probably an animal – a pig maybe. This island was volcanic I think, so this figure of the female form and these swirls, might represent Pele, although she's generally believed to live on the big island of Hawaii."
"Edward, Bella, it's time to go," called Dad.
"Just a minute, Dad. Bella thinks she's found an ancient ruin. Come look!"
Mom and Dad hurried over, Dad helping Mom up onto the rock platform. They both looked down at the ancient petroglyphs carved into the rocks. There appeared to be turtles and groups of stick figures, possibly representing a family as well as the swirls and Pele images. Some of the other carvings were impossible to interpret.
"This site is obviously very old, Bella," began Dad, "your discovery certainly confirms that this island was once inhabited, even if it was a thousand years ago," he completed dryly.
Bella chuckled. "Yes, but if this ruin is a temple to the Goddess Pele, then it is possible that the Hawaiians visited this island until recently."
"Recently?" Mom queried.
"Well, two or three hundred years ago perhaps," Bella clarified.
"So, not yesterday or last week?" Mom asked sarcastically.
"Ah, no," confirmed Bella with a grin, "but it does explain some of the plants, trees and fruits growing on this island. Some of them are known as 'canoe plants', brought to the region by the ancient Polynesians. There are many more plants, which are thought to have been imported from South America, but they're unverified. The scientists, anthropologists and archeologists are uncertain, argumentative and intolerant when it comes to the possibility that the Polynesians ventured much farther than is currently credited."
She seemed pissed at the scholars inability to cooperate in order to form a cohesive hypothesis rather than disregarding any claim or idea that couldn't be proven without a doubt.
"Like what other types of plants?" asked Mom.
"Well, it's possible that a small type of pineapple made its way to Polynesia from South America, although it's generally thought to be an introduced species following Captain Cook's arrival in Polynesia in the late 1700s. It has also been hypothesized that other plants were brought from South America by the ancient Polynesians such as coffee, tobacco, cotton, chilli, cocoa, the vanilla orchid, cashew and possibly maize and sunflowers."
"Did they propagate all of the Pacific islands?" I asked interestedly. Her knowledge of the ancient Polynesians was surprising – I thought she was a librarian.
"Most of them, but it doesn't mean that all plants can or do grow on all islands. We may find some of them, or none of them."
"It's getting late, we'd better go," reminded Dad.
Bella's face showed her disappointment.
"We can come back tomorrow," I offered and her expression brightened. "It's Sunday, so we won't be working on the house." We'd been taking two days off per week from working on the house – Sundays and Wednesdays. The salvage and building work was exhausting and we needed to rest our bodies, not run them into the ground.
"Thank you, Edward, I'd like that," she said softly, smiling happily at me.
I felt my heart go thump, thump and I blinked. My attraction to her was growing every day. Perhaps tomorrow, I could find out how she felt about me.
We walked back to the collection baskets where Mom and Bella had left them. They looked heavy, filled as they were with sea-grapes, those nut looking things, leaves, the Purslane and other items they'd collected.
"Let me carry that for you, Bella," I offered, taking the basket from her before she could object.
She smiled at me. "Thank you, Edward."
Dad took Mom's basket from her and took her hand in his free one, leading her along another natural pathway in a westerly direction toward the camp. I wish I could do the same, but taking Bella's hand in mine would have been too soon since I wasn't positive how she felt about me. We'd been walking about ten minutes when we came into another clearing.
We all stopped and looked.
There was a wide set of stone steps, covered with moss, leading to another platform. In the center of the platform was a stone monument (Bella said it looked something like Pele's Chair, whatever that was?) but what lay beyond it was more exciting to me.
"It's a cave," said Dad.
"No, it's a lava tube," I corrected him.
I'd seen them on the big island of Hawaii when I visited the Volcanoes National Park one summer when I was still at school. We might have just discovered a way for Jasper and I to get to the other side of the island without trekking overland or taking a dinghy by sea for days or weeks.
Tomorrows planned return to the ruins couldn't come soon enough for me.
"Bella, do you mind if Jasper tags along tomorrow? I want to explore that tube!"
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A/N: Reviews are sweet.
Some photos for the chapter are on my blog.
Because of my renovation, I can't promise another chapter before the end of the month – I have to get this flat finished so it can list on the date I've agreed with the real estate agent! I also need to work on another chapter of Once Upon a Starry Night. Please bear with me for a couple of weeks, while I sort out my flat and get it listed, and then I'll have more time for writing.