From the window of her upstairs bedroom, Rita saw Boy emerge from the back seat of his car with a wooden gourd in his hand. Kealoha stepped out of his employer's way as he made a beeline for the front door. Aunty Rita hurried down the stairs and stopped Boy in the foyer.
"Hanson, what you are doing is unfair and it's meddlesome. Tabby has not been that scared little girl for some time now. We've all seen for ourselves that she is an emerging young woman with her own feelings and her own thoughts," Rita was firm in her resolve and would not budge until Boy understood her point.
"Aunty Rita, this is training, please move out of my way," Boy asked kindly as he put his head down and leaned his shoulders forward so that Rita understood that he meant business, but she would not relent.
"Training my eye!" The old woman folded her arms and doubled down on her stance. "You've been a great father to that girl since the adoption, no one is denying it and no one can take that from you. But now you must step away and let her blossom! I'm not asking you, Hanson, I'm telling you!"
"I have to prepare her Aunty Rita, I have to make her strong so that....." Boy couldn't finish what he was going to say, the words would not come.
"So that you don't lose her like you lost your parents?" Rita's tone was softer now but it still held that strength.
'This life we live......you know......I can't lose her. After everything, she's been through......I have to prepare her and train her so that nothing happens to her." Boy looked down at Aunty Rita for the first time in the conversation. "I have to protect her, I have to protect all of you."
"Is this why you've denied yourself love all this time? Because you don't want to risk losing someone you might actually love?" Rita asked already knowing the answer.
"I've only loved two women in my life and I lost them both. One I had to kill myself once I realized that she'd intended to take my life. The other I had a child with but we lost it, she turned to drugs after that...." Boy's voice trailed off and Rita grabbed both his arms.
"Denying yourself love does not give you the right to deny Tabby of it! It's too overbearing and very unfair!" Rita practically hissed at Boy to make her point.
"Jose," Boy stated.
"Yes, Jose Rizal," Rita confirmed. "They're in love, and Jose for his age is mature and responsible beyond his years and he and his brothers come from our world. You'll never find a more loyal group of young men than the Rizal brothers. Tabby and Jose are good for each other because they both understand loss, loyalty, and love. Whether they are meant to be or not......it's not up to you. You're a great man Boy, a great man! But you're still human and neither you nor I have any control over fate. You can't keep them apart, you can't deny them what you've been denying yourself."
"You mean together as in they're together right now? Even after I told Jose that he had to give up seeing Tabby?" Boy's voice began to rise like the very tempest that he held in his wooden gourd.
"They're upstairs, Jose has not wavered from what you've told him. He's trying to explain things to Tabby and she's very upset." Rita looked at Boy with that expression that it was all his fault. "I understand this is training. You do what you have to do, but it is cruel and unfair to deny those two what you denied yourself. Do I make myself clear Hanson?"
"Yes, aunty," Boy mumbled as he walked past her. Rita watched as Boy walked upstairs with a slow purpose while holding on to the wooden gourd. The sound of his footsteps resonated from the wooden flooring until he stopped in front of Tabby's room. Rita watched as Boy took a deep breath and then kicked in the door. It snapped open with blinding speed. Rita did not see it, but she heard it.
"I understand that the two of you want to be together?' She heard Boy say in his best authoritative voice She heard no reply from Tabby or Jose which told her that their answers must have been a nod of the head. Rita moved along the windows just near the front door so that she could see what was about to happen. There was Boy standing at the open door of Tabby's room.
"Alright," she saw Boy raise the gourd above his head and then saw him remove the cork made from coconut husk. "Work together on getting this thing back in the gourd." Rita then saw Boy toss the gourd in the room. He reached in grabbing the doorknob and pulled it toward him. He closed his eyes and inhaled. As he let out a breath, the door expanded and locked itself into the frame. A second later, Rita heard the screams and howls from inside Tabby's room.
Boy walked back down the stairs and smiled, "I'm heading back to the office. Jose's assignment was to manifest that storm and send it to me to do me harm. It wasn't sent at its full zenith so I captured it in that ipu. His test was to do the proper prayers and protocols to send it back into the ipu once I released it. Maybe he and Tabby can work together to figure it out."
Rita could only shake her head and laugh.
"If they don't make it out of there in 15 minutes....can you go help them, aunty?" Boy smiled and gave Rita a big hug. They both laughed together before his departure.
Rita could only look up at Tabby's room and chuckle. "Everyone has to earn their place at Boy's table."
Come listen to Lopaka's storytelling LIVE - Friday, August 23rd, 7:30pm, at the Honolulu Museum of Art Doris Duke Theater
Please note: This is not a scientific study; the "most haunted" stories are purely based on the number of ghost stories and haunted tales shared with our storyteller about each place.
7:30pm, Friday, August 23rd
$15 per person/ $12 museum members
Get your tickets HERE
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