The Offering

Journal Entry 1- A Haunting

“He ʻuhane maikaʻi, ʻaʻole e hoʻohaunaele ʻia,” Tutu always says. Good people don’t get haunted.

So what does that make me? Coming home to Hilo for spring break is a mistake. Something watches me. Not a ghost, or spirit: a goddess.

My dreams lie beneath Pele’s feet, scattered in the cracks of Kīlauea. She moves like smoke, hips swaying over scorched stone, humming an old chant.

“Where will we find peace? Peace for my people? For my land? Burn it down and start again.”

She turns to me, eyes glowing red. The dream ends. I’m not scared. I never feel anything—not since Dad died. Pele’s hot, but I’m cold.

Journal Entry 2- The Timeshares

The dreams shift now, but her words stay.

Tonight, she points to the timeshares on Honomu Street. The ones built over burial grounds, even after the whole town protested. They paved over our kupuna’s bones anyway—like concrete could quiet the dead. Gods don't forget so easily.

“Burn it down,” Pele says.

Her skin glows like glossy copper, eyes flicking from red to gold. Ti leaves coil around her wrists and ankles.

The crater behind her surges. Kīlauea rumbles toward Hilo. Lava froths back and forth from the crater’s mouth, flames licking dark clouds. I hear it—the rumble, the groan, like the island itself wails.

Journal Entry 3- Stress or Spirits?

Mom says Pele’s just a story. That I’ve got Dad’s imagination and a sugar addiction that summons spirits.

But Tutu? She says Pele speaks.

And she’s angry.

Journal Entry 4- My Pua

Tonight isn’t a nightmare, but a memory from two years ago.

Mom had Pua—my favorite pig—slaughtered for a traditional dinner. Said her boss’s son was visiting and wanted a real luau. Wanted kalua pork.

“We gotta show them aloha,” she said. “Make them feel welcome.”

I nodded but my gut twisted. Why do we have to keep giving up what’s sacred to us to please someone else? To make them feel welcome?

I found him in the pit. My Pua. His flesh hissed over lava rock, wrapped in banana leaves. Hot stones burst from his belly.

Tears burned my cheeks, but I wiped them quick. Mom told me not to cry. I forced a smile and brought out their plates.

While the haole man laughed and washed down Pua’s body with guava juice, Pele’s voice whispers through the smoke, through the memory:

“Burn it all down.”

I wake up and run to the window. The mountain looms behind town like a sleeping god—one that might be waking.

Journal Entry 5- She Chooses Wrong

Today I tell Tutu about the dreams.

We stand at the kitchen window. The breeze, heavy with sea salt and gardenia, flips my hair behind my shoulders. My fingers tremble. I fold my hands together tight so she won't see.

“Tutu,” I say, “something bad is coming. We should leave.”

She sighs, her bare feet smacking against tile as she shuffles past. Her muʻumuʻu brushes my leg, its hem streaked with dust.

“This is our home,” she says. “We ain’t going nowhere.”

I don’t say a word. Tutu stares at me.

“It’s okay to feel,” she says. “You never show emotion. But that’s how they want us, eh? Too afraid to scream, to fight. They tell us a good Hawaiian woman is quiet.”

Her words hit harder than I expect. Because deep down, I know she’s right. I’ve always been too quiet. Cool-headed. A fake. Trying to be like Mom and Tutu. Pretending this land is mine when most days it feels like I’m trespassing.

Wishing I could feel again. Wishing I wasn’t so cold.

And I know exactly who she means—who wants us quiet.

The ones who took from us.

The ones still taking.

I tell Tutu everything—Pele’s voice, the dreams, the memories.

“Am I losing it?” I whisper.

Tutu shakes her head. “Pele chose you. When the land hurts, the gods cry out. You hear her? Good. Better listen fo she scream.”

I want to laugh. Pele chose the wrong girl. I don’t start fires. Whatever she wants me to burn down, I won’t. I’m not a prophet. I’m a girl with finals, a cracked phone screen, and who passes as a Hawaiian like I pass my classes—barely.

Journal Entry 6- I See Her in Daylight

I meet an old woman at the beach today. Her hair is white as sea foam, steps slow and sure through hot sand. She stops in front of me and points toward the glossy sea.

It looks too still, like something darker hides beneath the gloss—something deeper than shipwrecks and tiger sharks. Even the palms bend like backs breaking under too much weight.

“I’m hungry,” she says. Tears fill her eyes.

I pull a few crumpled dollars from my pocket and hand them over. She smiles, but it doesn’t feel like kindness. More like recognition. Or warning.

Tutu always says Pele appears as an old woman, or a white dog. She tests you. Appears hungry, tired. If you ignore her, the gods remember.

It’s her. I know it.

She vanishes like smoke, right in front of me. But I still feel her.

Journal Entry 7- Just Another Quake?

The earth shakes this morning. Wind chimes rattle. Mina birds don't sing.

Mom and Tutu say it’s nothing. “Happens all the time,” they say. “Crater town life.”

But I can’t breathe.

Smoke and ash drift down—soft at first, then smothering. It slips through windows and doors, filling our lungs, choking light.

Journal Entry 8-Arrival

I hope to wake up.

But the sirens won’t stop.

The smoke won’t fade.

The sky is on fire—not a dream.

My phone buzzes with a text:

EMERGENCY ALERT: LAVA FLOW WARNING – Evacuate immediately. Kīlauea activity increasing. Flow expected to reach Honomu by 1:45 PM.

Suitcases spill open: shirts, photo albums, old bras tossed like debris. Mom and Tutu buzz around, barking orders at me like I should panic, too.

The news says lava will reach the edge of town within the hour.

I should tremble. But I’m steady. She’s in my blood now. Her grief. Her fury.

For the language forced to die.

For the Queen they locked away.

For every koa tree uprooted.

Every shoreline sold—to hotels, to the military.

Every bulldozer that tore through sacred ground.

For every Hawaiian priced out.

Every local pushed to the mainland—or into a shelter.

For every desecrated grave.

Through the window, fire sweeps down the mountain, burning the trees, ready to swallow the timeshares down the street. I see blood in the breeze.

I don't hear her anymore. Living things don't haunt.

Maybe Pele is alive.

“Burn it down,” I whisper, pressing my hand to the red-lit glass.

Journal Entry 9- I’m the Crack

Tutu stomps into my room. “Aye! What you doing? We gotta go!”

“I want to watch,” I say, eyes locked on the window. “I want to see the timeshares burn.”

She exhales hard and steps beside me. Smoke drifts past the glass.

“Let’s go,” she says, reaching for my arm.

I yank it back.

“Stubborn girl.” Tutu’s voice softens. “You gonna die out here? Fo what?”

I don’t answer.

Outside, the sky turns black. Noon becomes midnight.

Tutu says it, quiet, but firm.

“Your fada was one of them.”

Her words gut me.

“What?”

Tutu’s face is as still as stone. “Your Mom neva told you. He was one of the architects. Worked for Hughes Homes. Guess who designed the timeshare?”

The weight of her words settles like ash in my lungs.

“No.” My chest tightens. “No way.”

But there it is, the truth, creeping up my throat like bile.

I want to scream, to deny it, but I can’t.

My father’s name, carved in concrete, laid over our kupuna’s bones. The building, the destruction—his work.

I stumble back, the room spinning, smoke pressing against my skin. The foundation of everything I believed crumbles.

Tutu wouldn’t lie. Not about this.

And now I’m standing here, watching the thing I prayed would burn—and I’m a part of it.

My knees go soft. My ribs ache, each breath like banyan roots wrapping tighter as the timeshares go up in smoke. If my father’s sins are in the concrete, I’m the crack.

Maybe fire didn't just come for town. It came for me. All this time, I wasn’t Pele’s witness, but her reckoning—an offering.

But if my home's a funeral pyre, at least I'll go down feeling. No longer cold. No longer pretending.