The Island Of Voices

 Chapter 1 – The Sorcerer’s Secret

 Chapter 2 – A Jealous Heart
 Chapter 3 – Back to the Island
 Chapter 4 – The Island of Voices
 Chapter 5 – Keola’s Decision
 Chapter 6 – Back home in Molokai

Chapter 1 – The Sorcerer’s Secret

A long time ago, when the time of magic was being replaced by the time of inventions, there was a man
living on the island of Hawaii named Keola. Keola was married to a woman named Lehua who had a
strange father. More than strange, her father was one of the last of a line of sorcerers and her father’s name
was Kalamake. They all lived together in a very large house in the city of Molokai, near the ocean of
Hawaii.

Kalamake could use the old and evil magic. Kalamake could read the future in the stars, he could trap the
souls of the dead and he could change his body into the size and shape of a giant. He used this magic to
make himself powerful and feared by all the people of Hawaii. He was often consulted when people wanted
to know their future and even the king of Hawaii often called on him to get his advice and counsel.

Kalamake grew to have an evil look. His skin became pale and you could see the blood moving through his
skin. His eyes slowly turned blood red and then, one day, his eyes turned pure white and he could no longer
see, but he was led around by his evil magic, more powerful than his former sight.

Kalamake was slowly being changed by the evil spirits and he became more and more angry and
unpredictable. At times, villagers would speak against Kalamake and his evil magic. Kalamake considered
those people his enemies and they would end up with horrible sicknesses, evil curses, dead or even just
disappear. The villagers more and more avoided the part of the island where Kalamake lived as his fame
and their fear grew.

Kalamake’s daughter Lehua and her husband Keola tried to keep themselves from her fathers ways and live
a simple life. They lived in Kalamake’s big and comfortable home and didn’t ask too many questions or get
in his way. They heard of Kalamake’s evil reputation but simply stayed away from the rumors.

There was one thing that more and more bothered Keola though; Kalamake was very, very rich. More and
more often Kalamake would buy nice things from the many ships from foreign lands that were visiting
Hawaii. There was nothing that Kalamake would want and not buy. Expensive clothes, trinkets, foods and
other luxuries, Kalamake could buy them all and he always paid for his purchases in bright, shiny gold
coins. Keola was perplexed. Kalamake didn’t work, or plant anything and even his consultations with the
king of Hawaii would not have been enough to explain all the shiny gold coins that Kalamake had to spend.

As time went on, Keola spent more and more of his time laying in his bed at night wondering at the source
of Kalamake’s riches. Finally, he started sneaking around the house, quietly following Kalamake in the
dark, trying to find where Kalamake kept his gold coins, and hoping to see where he got them from. His
wife Leuha caught him one night and warned him, “You know that my father has a sharp temper. Be careful
and don’t be curious!”. But Keola was a lazy man. He didn’t want to work. During the day he would sit
and watch the birds fly in the blue sky and enjoy the sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline.
“Why should I have to work so hard just for a little bit of money from fishing when my father-in-law
Kalamake has so many gold coins?”

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Finally, late one night, Keola heard the sound of rattling gold coins as he followed Kalamake through the big
house and into the library. He peeked in slowly in the dark and saw Kalamake move a secret drawer from
behind a desk under a picture of Queen Elizabeth. Barely breathing, Keola slowly crept back to his
bedroom, now knowing the secret of where Kalamake kept his treasure.

Over the next few weeks, Keola practiced opening the secret drawer himself and looking at the large purple
colored cloth bag filled with gold coins. His heart would race as he counted them and then put them back,
never brave enough to actually become a thief. “If only I could find out where he gets these coins from,
then I could be as rich as him!” As time went on, Keola noticed that the bag became more and more empty.
Finally, it was the day before the huge steam ships would come from far away lands bringing exotic foods,
liquor, clothes and other luxuries. After his wife went away to visit a town on the far side of the island,
Keola crept to the secret place and opened the drawer to look at the gold coins and once again dream of what
things he would buy with those coins.

As he opened the bag to peek inside, to his surprise, it was completely empty! Keola thought to himself, “If
tomorrow morning Kalamake has filled this bag with gold coins, I will know that he is working his sorcery
with evil spirits to get this gold!” Keola quickly and quietly put the bag back in it’s hiding place and as he
turned to go back outside, standing right in front of him was Kalamake, staring at Keola with his pure white
eyes, with an evil and angry look on his face.

“Well”, said Kalamake, “now I must either dispose of you or tell you one of my many secrets. For lack of
anyone better and now that I am older I can use your help. But,”, Kalamake said, leaning in closer so that
Keola could feel Kalamake’s breath on his face, “I will warn you that I only have helpers with short
memories and you would be wise to keep my secrets”. Scared, Keola followed Kalamake into their large
comfortable living room. There was a shelf of books with a large family Bible sitting at the end of the shelf.

First, Kalamake had Keola close all the windows and the blinds so no light could shine in the room. Then
Kalamake took the family Bible off the shelf and hid it under a cushion on the sofa so that it couldn’t be
seen at all. Kalamake then closed and locked the doors to the room, opened the writing desk near the
bookshelf and pulled out a pair of large necklaces made out of shells and strange looking charms, a large
bronze plate and a pile of dried leaves.

Off to the side of the rug on the floor was a large mat. Kalamake motioned to Keola to sit on one side of the
mat while he sat on the other side. “What I am about to do the old sorcerers only could do in the dark of
night, but I am far more powerful than they were and I can work my magic during the day”. Kalamake put
the leaves on the plate as both men sat facing each other. Kalamake pulled some crystal-looking sand from
a pouch in his jacket, lit the leaves on fire and began moving his hands back and forth over the burning
leaves to keep them burning slowly. Finally, after some long minutes had gone by Keola felt tired and
fearful. “It is time”, Kalamake said, “don’t be afraid”. Keola could feel something moving through his
body and then what felt like a burning sensation as the smoke began to swirl around and around, reaching
out from the plate until it made a swirl of smoke and dust. Keola’s head hurt and he began to feel dizzy.
Suddenly, there was a loud “pop!”, the room was gone and now, by sorcerers magic, they both were on a
beach sitting on the same mat, near a large body of water.

“What happened?” Keola said, trying to shake the pain from his head. “It felt like I would die”.

“No matter”, Kalamake replied, “It is done and we are here now. Quickly! We must move before we are
discovered. This is why I have brought you into my secret, I am getting too old for this trip. Over on the
other side of that sand dune you will find trees with the same leaves we used to get here. Go now and
collect as many as you can carry and bring them back here.”

Keola was dazed but also scared so he shook the pain from his head and began walking across the beach to
get the leaves.

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As Keola walked over the sand dunes he saw a grove of trees with the same long leaves Kalamake had
burned; the ones on the ground were long and dry but the ones still on the trees looked like long bird
feathers set in a fan shape. As Keola looked around he realized that he couldn’t see anything that he
recognized on the horizon toward the ocean or the land. None of the mountains of Hawaii that he was
familiar with nor any birds he recognized either.

As he got into the middle of the grove he began to collect the leaves from the ground and he suddenly was
aware that he wasn’t alone. A few trees away there was a young woman who was wearing nothing except a
belt made out of the same leaves that he was collecting from the grove. “I guess they are not shy people
who live here!”, he thought. So as not to scare her he hummed loudly and pushed through the leaves to
make noise so that she might see him. To his surprise, she jumped up at his noises and looked around,
looking right through him as if he wasn’t there at all. But her face twisted in real fear as she looked around,
seemingly not able to see Keola at all as her face turned to the color of ash out of fear.

Feeling badly about scaring her this way, Keola spoke out in a calm voice and with a smile, “Don’t worry, I
won’t eat you”. Rather than his joke calming her fears, she then began to cry out and run away through the
grove. Not thinking about what he was doing or where he was, he ran after her. She kept crying out in a
language that he didn’t understand and then they both came upon a group of others dressed similarly to her.
As they heard her screams her fellow villagers all called out a warning to each other in their strange
language and they ran away. At this Keola became frightened and he rushed back to the grove, finished
gathering the magic leaves and brought them to Kalamake.

After telling Kalamake what had happened, Kalamake said with a wry grin, “In fact they could not see you
thanks to the power of these magical necklaces. Next time you must try to be more quiet, the magic only
makes you invisible, it doesn’t protect you”.

With that, Kalamake got up and had Keola sit on his one side of the mat. Kalamake carefully took half of
the leaves and put them in a pouch then, using some sharp stones, he started some of the dry leaves burning
in the center of the mat on the plate. “Keep these leaves slowly burning.”, Kalamake told him. Now,
Kalamake had either regained his strength or was under some new spell because he moved fast down to the
seashore near the shells Keola had admired. Kalamake gathered the shells with a speed and grace that Keola
didn’t think his old father-in-law could have and as each shell was gathered into the old mans hand it began
to glitter as he fetched it and then put it into the large purple sack.

“Hurry back”, Keola cried out, “I am almost out of leaves!”. With that Kalamake ran like the wind back to
the mat and leapt on as the last of the leaves was burning. The old sorcerer took out his small pouch of
crystal sand and he gently sprinkled some on the burning leaves in the metal plate, the spinning sensation
flowed through the two men again and with another “pop!”, the beach disappeared and they were back in the
darkness of their home in Molokai. With an evil grin Kalamake stared at his son-in-law and opened the
purple bag between them. All the beautiful shells were gone and in their place was a bag full of solid gold
coins…

Chapter 2 – A Jealous Heart

That evening, after Kalamake had put his purple bag back into its hiding spot, he approached Keola and
gave him a 5 dollar coin. “Keola”, he said with a wicked grin, “if you are a smart man, you will forget our
adventure today and tell my daughter that you spent the day sleeping on the porch and that you had a wild
dream.”.

Days went by and if Keola was lazy before, he was criminally lazy now. “Why should I work at all”, he
thought, “when my father-in-law can make money out of seashells?” Foolishly, Keola quickly spent his 5
dollars on fine clothes, trying to make himself feel more important. But it didn’t work. Each day he grew
more and more jealous and angry with Kalamake. “Why didn’t I buy one of the nice violins from the
merchant ship instead of these clothes?”, he pouted to himself. “I could have learned how to play the violin
and made myself famous and happy with it”.
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Finally, he couldn’t take it any longer and he confessed the whole story to his wife Lehua while sitting on
the porch. She said, trembling as they spoke in the dark, “Be careful my husband! My father is a dangerous
man. The village people are all afraid of him and sometimes, so am I. His enemies die horrible deaths and
sometimes just disappear! Oh, my dear Keola, you are like a baby in my father’s hand, please don’t get him
angry at you.”

But Keola wouldn’t listen to his wife. “Well if that is how little you think of me, I’ll show you that I am a
real man!”. With that, Keola marched straight into the house, right to Kalamake sitting in the large living
room and proudly he said, “Kalamake, I want a violin.”

Kalamake looked up with his pure white eyes from his couch and he said, “Do you indeed?”

“Yes”, Keola said, “and I mean to have it. A man who can pick up gold coins from a beach can afford a
violin”.

“I had no idea that you had so much spirit in you.” The sorcerer said slowly. “I thought that you were a
useless boy, I’m so happy to find that I was mistaken. Perhaps you can be my assistant after all. A violin?
Certainly, you shall have the best violin in Honolulu. Tonight, when it is dark, we will go and get the
money. Meet me at our boat at sunset and I will teach you to catch fish”.

“We aren’t going back to the island of the seashells?” Keola asked.

“Oh no, I have many magical secrets to teach you, tonight I will show you how to use magic to catch fish.”
And he gave Keola a crooked grin.

“Well I should have done that days ago” thought Keola. “I will show my wife that sometimes you just need
to be brave and stand up for yourself”. Keola walked to the beach, dreaming of all the nice things his new
money would buy, the cigars, the clothes, the rich foods and, of course, his new violin. The wind and the
waves on the shore drowned out the sound of his wife weeping on the porch.

Later that evening, Keola and Kalamake met at the fishing boat on the dock as the sun was setting. As they
pushed away from the shore, Kalamake raised his hands high and muttered some words that Keola couldn’t
understand. The wind caught their sail and quickly pushed the large fishing boat away from the shoreline.
The two men sat at the back of the boat, speaking of all the nice things that they would buy and of the magic
that Keola would learn of. After a couple of hours, Keola looked around their position and he could no
longer see the lights of the city of Molokai which was very far in the distance.

“So”, said Kalamake, “you wish to learn the old magic and become a sorcerer like me and buy a violin for
yourself, do you? This part of the ocean is called the Sea of the Dead. You will soon learn why it got this
name”. With that, Kalamake lifted up the lantern he was holding and, chanting more words unfamiliar to
Keola, the sorcerer began to change, to grow and get bigger and bigger until he was almost tipping over their
boat because of his growing size. Then, with a splash, Kalamake the giant jumped into the sea causing a
wave to capsize their boat. Kalamake grew so large that he could then stand on the shallow seabed.
Kalamake, stood over their boat now and lifted it with his hands, shaking Keola into the sea. As Kalamake
carried the now empty boat away he laughed. “Perhaps my daughters second husband will have more sense
than you”. Keola struggled to swim as he watched Kalamake walk away with the boat in his giant hands.

Chapter 3 – Back to the Island

Keola floated in the water for a long time, alone and scared. Though he was an OK swimmer, he had still
been a lazy man and he was not very strong. He tried to swim a bit this way and that, but out of fear he was
getting nowhere. Finally, he saw a light and the light got closer and closer to him. A ship! He cried out for
help as the ship came by and he was rescued by the men on board. The men were kind and gave him a
blanket and warm food. The captain told him, “You’ll be safe soon, we will land at Molokai tomorrow
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morning and we can drop you off there.” Keola began to shake from fear. “Back to Molokai? Kalamake
would find me and kill me for sure this time!” he thought.

He thought and thought and came up with a story about his sad life that made the captain feel pity for him
and he begged the captain to let him stay and work on the ship and finally the captain agreed. Keola hid on
the ship until they finally left port.

Soon after, however, the life of a sailor became very hard for a lazy man like Keola. The captain grew more
and more impatient with him. Keola was depressed and wondered if it had been better if he had drowned in
the sea that night many months ago.

One time after the ship left the city of Molokai again, a storm came up and blew the steamship off course.
When the sun rose the next day, Keola was standing on the deck, pretending to do the work that the captain
had given him and off in the distance he saw an island. “Why does this islands shape look familiar?”, he
thought to himself. Keola was lost in thought and then it occurred to him, that was the island of shells from
many, many months ago where he had been with Kalamake! Not really thinking about the danger, tired of
his life on this ship (and to the captains great surprise) Keola grabbed the railing and jumped into the sea.

Captain and other crew ran to the side of the ship and could see Keola swimming toward the island. “Well
we aren’t going to be able to help him now, no one ever returns from that island.. May God have mercy on
that man’s soul…” the captain whispered.

Chapter 4 – The Isle of Voices

Keola swam and swam, getting more and more tired but happy to be free of the life aboard the ship. The
day was warm and the waves carried him into a beautiful lagoon with palm trees ringing around the dunes
outside the water. He could see huts in the distance beyond the dunes, so he lazily let the sea take him to the
beach and, after getting there, he went to find the people who he had met there before, but when he had been
invisible by Kalamake’s magic.

He continued from hut to hut and could see that all were abandoned. There were rings of rocks where fires
had been lit but clearly not for a long time. He searched around this part of the island and, finding no one,
he went back to the lagoon and he got started setting himself up. Fortunately, he had his large fish knife
with him when he jumped overboard and he used this to catch some fish, make a fishing pole from long
sticks, he fixed up one hut to live in and drank coconut milk from the many coconut trees on the island.

As many days passed, Keola began to regret his rash actions. Now the life on the ship didn’t look so hard!
He made a lamp from coconut shells and a wick which he used to light a crude lamp with flint rock he found
in the middle of the island. One time he made a complete circle around and through the island and he found
no one else there. He saw the special trees and the shells that he and Kalamake had taken years before, but
he didn’t know the magic or have the special dust and he tried in vain to make the shells turn into gold.
Finally, he decided to just stay near the lagoon where there were plenty of fish. Bored and lonely he lived
this way for a couple of months.

One day, as he was coming back from catching some fish, he heard the noise of other people. He looked up
and saw 6 large boats coming to the island filled with the same people he had seen with Kalamake. They
were a fine looking people and they were kind to him. He tried to speak with them, but very few of their
words made sense to him. They fixed up his hut, along with the other huts and they even gave him a wife.
In fact, it was the same woman that he had scared on the beach that day. They didn’t even make him go off
with the men when they went to work around the little village or fishing. Altogether, this period of Keola’s
life was pretty merry. He had a new wife, he didn’t have to work and his new friends took care of all his
needs.

Slowly, he learned their language enough to communicate. He told them that he came from Hawaii and they
seemed to know where it was, though much farther away than any of them could ever travel. They told him
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that this island was not their real home, they only visited from sometimes and they called it “The Island of
Voices”. They told him that from time to time, magic would happen in the groves here and the people
would hear different voices and these invisible devils would take leaves and shells and sometimes even try
to harm the people in the tribe, so they only came to this island a few times a year. Their home was on an
island more than 3 hours away where they had pigs and chickens and sometimes smaller merchant ships
would visit and bring rum and tobacco. They warned him that if anyone heard the devil voices, they were to
warn the others and leave the island right away so as not to anger them. Keola nodded and tried not to look
like he know more than he did.

As he was lying in his hut that night, next to his new, sleeping wife, something occurred to him. Here he
was, this whole time, on the same island that Kalamake would want to visit again! If Kalamake ever saw
him, he would surely kill him. So, the next morning, he visited the high chief of the tribe and told him a
story. He said that he had heard of these devil voices visiting other islands and troubling the inhabitants but
he knew how to get rid of the devils. “It seems”, Keola told him, “that the devils were using special leaves
from the trees for their magic. Once the people of the island cut down all those trees the devils couldn’t
come back to their island again”. The high chief nodded and thought, then he called together all the older
men of the tribe and they discussed it. In the end, the tribe decided that cutting down all those trees would
take much time and might anger the devils more, so they decided against it.

Keola then simply decided to avoid those groves and live in his comfortable life as best he could. Days
turned into weeks and Keola was getting fatter and happier. Even he and his new wife had begun to spend
much time swimming and enjoying each other’s company, to the point where his wife actually fell in love
with him. He asked her a few times when they would leave this island and go back to their other home and
she always told him, “soon”.

One day, Keola came back to his hut and found his wife weeping by herself. “What is wrong?” Keola said
concerned for her. She wiped her tears and told him that it was nothing. However, later that night, when the
rest of the tribe had gone to sleep in their huts, his wife pulled him close to her and she whispered, “Five
days from now we will leave this island. You and I must start to save food for you, I have found a hidden
cave in the grove, near some rocks. Before the last day, you must disappear and hide in the little cave and
wait for us to leave. On the last day before we leave I will sing out loud, near the cave. The day after you
hear me sing, you will be safe to come back to your hut”.

Keola didn’t understand. “But, my wife, I want to leave this island of devils and come and live with you. I
don’t want to stay here alone!” he cried.

She touched his face. “Oh my poor Keola” she said, “you were never going to leave this island alive. For
my people have a secret, we are cannibals, eaters of men. They have been making you fat all this time to
have a great feast on the day before we leave this place.”

At this, Keola’s soul died inside him. He realized now why they had been so nice to him and he had heard
of these types of cannibals living in islands around Hawaii; how they pampered and fattened their victim
until the feast, how they treated him as one of them until it was time to consume him. He laid on the mat in
their hut, looked up toward the sky and cursed the universe and it’s cruelty.

Chapter 5 – Keola’s Decision

The next days, the men and women of the tribe treated him the same; laughing and singing and telling their
poetry. But as they laughed and joked with Keola he could only see their shining white teeth, now looking
like the teeth of a hungry shark before it eats its prey. Keola went back to his hut and laid their all day long,
too depressed to move.

The next day, his new wife left their hut and, when he didn’t follow her out of the hut even many hours later
she returned. “My dear Keola, you must come out and eat and be with the villagers or they will know that
something is wrong” she told him sadly. “What do I care?” Keola cried bitterly. “Either they will kill me in
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a couple of days or you will leave me here to die alone.” After saying that, Keola left their hut and walked
past the other villagers toward the other side of the island. “Maybe Kalamake will find me and kill me
quicky instead of being eaten by these wicked men!” he thought to himself.

As Keola got closer and closer to the magical trees and shells on the island he could see small fires springing
up and disappearing in different parts of the grove and long beach filled with the magical sea shells. He
could hear whispering voices in strange languages he could never understand. From all over the world
sorcerers were coming now to this place; French, Dutch, Russian, Chinese. Keola, in his bitterness, would
rush toward the little magical fires and try to put them out. He ran faster and faster, back and forth toward
the dimly lit magical flames. “Why should they come here and make gold for themselves when my life is so
miserable?” he thought angrily to himself. He spent many hours trying to disrupt them and fight against
them. At times he even caught one and would wrestle him to the ground but they would use some magic to
get away from him. He could tell that he was making them angry though.

As the day went on, Keola got tired and despondent and he couldn’t keep up the fight. Without thinking he
went back to his hut, laid down and went to sleep.

Late that night, he woke to the sound of screaming and men rushing about. He and his new wife leapt out of
their hut in the dark to see men from the village running scared and wounded. The devil voices had returned
to defend their magical trees and shells, hoping to drive the villagers from this island! Here and there fires
broke out among the huts and men and women were attacked by the invisible hands. The villagers got angry
and the village chief began fighting back with some of his young men. They grabbed at the invisible hands
and fought them. Then, the chief sent some men with axes and fire to chop down the magical trees and burn
them.

Keola joined in the fight. As Keola ran back and forth through the grove of trees he heard his name called:

“Keola!” said a hidden voice in the groves. He should have been afraid but he knew that voice.

“Lehua, is that you?!” he called out to his wife, looking around for her.

“I saw you before, but I couldn’t believe it was you!” she said, grabbing his hand to show him that she was
there. “Come with me quickly! I will bring you to our mat”. With that, she brought him to their small
burning fire and had him sit on one side of the mat. She then ran through the grove and grabbed enough
leaves for their magic, then leapt onto the mat in front of the fire, facing him and she pulled out a small
pouch she had hidden from her father with some of the magical crystal dust. She finished the words of the
spell, tossed the dust on the flames with her trembling hands and, with a “pop!” and a pain swimming
though their minds, the world spun and suddenly they were back in the living room in Molokai. Lehua
crawled over the mat and laid in her husband’s arms.

Chapter 6 – Back Home in Molokai

The next morning they slept almost until noon-time. When he woke up, Lehua had made him his favorite
foods. Keola was so happy that he quickly forgot the anger and fear of the cannibal people too.

But, after their joy wore off, they both grew afraid. What had happened to Kalamake? Would the sorcerer
be able to return to Molokai someday? Keola had seen him use his magic to grow large, could he do that
again and maybe just swim back to disrupt their happy life?

They spoke about it throughout the next few days and Keola got a map book from the living room and
checked it carefully. From his time working on the boat he could guess the location of that island where the
storm had blown them off-course, but he wasn’t completely sure.

Finally they decided to visit one of the missionaries on the island who had lived in Hawaii for many years
and was known to give good advice. Keola told him the entire story, from the beginning, leaving nothing
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out. They had even brought a pile of gold coins with them to show the missionary. It turned out that after
Keola left, Kalamake had then taken Lehua into his schemes and taught her some of the magic so she could
help him.

The missionary listened carefully to their story without showing much emotion but in the end he couldn’t
tell if they were making it all up or not. He was quite sharp with Keola for taking a second wife but for the
rest of the story, the missionary couldn’t tell them whether he thought Kalamake would return or not.

“However”, the missionary said, “if you think that Kalamake got his riches from evil magic, I suggest that
you donate some of it to the poor and the orphanage on the island to make things right with God about the
whole affair”.

Keola and Lehua thought this was fine advice and they donated half of their gold coins to the poor and
orphans. This seemed to have been good advice because after that time Kalamake never returned. Whether
he was killed in the battle with the cannibals or just became stuck on the Island of Voices, who could say?

The End

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