author   Justina Taft

CHAPTER 1

BREAK OF DAWN

Deep night saturated the stratosphere. The low sonorous beat of a Hawaiian pahu drum echoed across the water, pulsating louder and quicker until it gained the rhythm of a human heart.

     Calling.

     The black ocean, passing quickly below, gradually grayed in the pre-dawn light. Ahead in the distance appeared an island. And always, the compelling call of the heartbeat.

     As the first morning rays of light peeked over the horizon, the sea sparkled blue and a descending mountain ridge revealed middle-income houses spilling into a valley. Birds sang a cacophony, greeting the dawn.

     An open window in an average-looking house provided easy access to the hungry fingers of morning as the heartbeat continued its provocative rhythm. Something was searching - urgently. Murmurs of a man and woman escaped through a partially open bedroom door.

     “Oh,” Eileen moaned softly, “What time is it?”

     “No worry,” whispered Gary. “We get time.”

     The seeker turned away from these voices, moving quickly down a dim hall to another bedroom door, this one closed. A hand-written sign scotch-taped to the painted wood exclaimed: "Aurora’s room - knock first!" Below the antique knob was an old-fashioned keyhole. Through this a young woman was visible, peacefully asleep in her bed. Her lithe, eighteen-year old figure was swathed lightly with a thin cotton sheet, and wisps of long dark hair streamed softly over the pillow.

     The persistent sound of the heartbeat ceased abruptly as a rush of air swept through the keyhole, breathing a single word: “Alaula...”