House of Many Gods by Kiana Davenport

missionary gods. All they tell is holes. Lies. I prayed for our sister, Emma, they let her die. They let Anahola run away. Now we going lose Ana. Why she need to go so far? Good nurses’ training school right here in Wai‘anae.”
    Ana had talked of wanting to heal, of maybe becoming a nurse. Now Rosie got to her feet, looking somewhat formidable.
    “Ana’s going to be more than a nurse. That’s what university’s for, find out what she wants to do. She could even become a doctor …”
    She saw she was over their heads and slowed down. “Aunty Pua, you talk about Emma. She had the healing gift. Have you forgotten whathappened when she died? She gave that girl all of her mana in the Ritual of
Hā
.”
    They fell silent, remembering. In her last moments, their sister Emma had called young Ana to her bedside. With great effort she had put her hand against the back of Ana’s head, pressing the girl’s face to hers. Whispering hoarsely, she had forced Ana’s mouth to her mouth and, inhaling deeply, had expulsed all the air inside her body into Ana’s. The girl seemed to swoon on the verge of collapse. The family had rushed forward, holding her.
    Through wracking pain and morphine, Emma had whispered, “Child. This is my last will and testament. Through this
Hā
, you have received my mana.”
    In the moment of her passing, Ana had touched her great-aunt’s face and seemed to wipe it clean. All pain dispelled, she had reflected peace.
    “Emma gave that girl special gifts,” Rosie said. “She’s got to go out in the world and use them. You stop her from getting education, Emma’s going come back and
scoop out your eyes
.”
    Pua hobbled out to the yard and gathered ti leaves. “Let her go then. Let her educate. No more drippings from my bitter mouth.”
    All night she walked through the house slapping ti leaves for protection, draping several leaves over the sleeping form of Ana.
    And she prayed to her dead sister. “Emma,
Ē ‘olu ‘olu!
” Please. “Don’t let those gripping cuttlefish of Honolulu get our girl.”
    Next morning, Ana started down Keola Road. Their house sat on a rise half a mile up from the highway, in the distance, the leaping morning sea. As she descended, she passed a yellow house that looked blown sideways, socks stuck in rusty window screens. Outside the house, a heavily tattooed man in a purple sarong sat polishing his rifle, then tilted the barrels up to the light so that they glittered blue and became an extension of his tattooed arms. Seeing Ana, he jumped up, aimed his rifle at the sky and shot off a round, giving her the Shaka sign. “Ey, Ana! … Geev’um at dat university!”
    She smiled and waved. Just past the blue’s man yellow house, from atop a Quonset hut, a goat magisterially surveyed his domain, observing her passage from her old life.
    At the bottom of the road, even the intersection looked condemned—abandoned cars, a malfunctioning stoplight that seemed to hang by a single thread. Tow trucks screeched to a stop as ragged kids shot into traffic on skateboards. Then life, the highway, waiting to consume her. Near the shopping strip, surfers and druggers crawled half-awake from their pickups,draping themselves across the fenders. The young muscled turks of Nanakuli.
    They called out as she passed by. “Ey, Ana! Hear you going university. Going hang out wit all dem … homolectuals.”
    “What you trying prove wit all dem books? No fo’get, you one Nanakuli girl. Only good fo’ do one t’ing.”
    She turned and lashed out with a country mouth. “Suck rocks, you
mokes!
Don’t fuck wit’ me. My uncles going broke yo’ ugly faces.”
    Yet they were not ugly; most of them were beautiful, with the beauty of mixed “chop suey” blood. Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Scotch, Irish, Filipino. Half a dozen other bloods. Their skin tones ran the gamut from sun-tinted white to gold to deep dark brown, their almond-shaped eyes sometimes blue, or green.