100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2024. #14. Ku'u Kahu.

Her mother and grandmother showed Alalani Lawehala how and when to go to Halema'uma'u crater to leave offerings for Pele. 

The preparation was for awa, strained from the plant's root and offered in dedication to the gods Kane and Kanaloa. However, as Ala's mother and grandmother knew, Pele loved to drink awa. So, for generations, the women in Ala's family made awa for the woman who trembles the earth. Ala always accompanied her mother and grandmother to the crater as they offered prayers before leaving out an apu of awa for Pele and then partaking some of it for themselves, after which they would leave. Returning the following morning, the mix was gone. When the time had come for Ala, now a young woman, to assume the kuleana passed down to her, she was seamless. Indeed, Pele liked her sincere heart and intentions. The goddess looked upon her affectionately and ensured that the weather at Halema'uma'u was favorable for Ala, never letting her suffer from the inclemency of the elements. After many years, which seemed like only a moment for Pele, she saw that Ala began to appear with a girl child when she came to make offerings. It was bundled up and precious, with beautiful brown skin and dark curled hair. Pele bestowed her favor upon her by sending a veil of a rainbow that followed the little one whenever she was in the Volcanos National Park with Ala. Once, when Pele's fires scorched the earth and took many homes on her way to the ocean, the fire goddess recognized Ala in the front yard of her home with her child and avoided their house altogether. Still, Ala came with her daughter in tow until the little girl grew older and taller while Ala grew older. She appeared to move slower and was short of breath. Deep lines that time left at the corner of her eyes and mouth hid what was once the vitality of her younger days. Hardly a part of her was black as it was when Pele first saw Ala. White grew at the roots and, like the surging tide, took most of the darker hair away under its current of old age.

Then, one day, Ala didn't come, nor did her daughter, Helelani. Pele waited and waited until she could no longer wait. Deciding to visit Ala's home, she found it crowded with people; some were gathered on the veranda and in the surrounding yard. Everyone moved aside for the tall-dark-skinned woman whose regal bearing reminded them of the ali'i of old. She wore her thick black hair down, cascading off her shoulders and back. Her fitted red gown accentuated her full figure down to her feet, upon which she wore no shoes or sandals. 

"Where are the women who leave the awa at the volcano?" She asked.

The crowd parted even more, revealing a pathway up the stairs and into the house's main room. There stood Helelani, and next to her was a casket containing Ala's dead body.

"Here," Helelani spoke. "I am all that's left to give the awa, while my mother who lays here before you has died."

"Ah yes, death," Pele nodded. "Who, then, will come in her place?"

"I will," Helelani spoke. "I can offer it to you at the crater or here since you have honored us with your presence,"

"Ala, will not come again?" Pele asked.

"The cycle of human life has reached its end; we can only speak of her in the kanikau, but her flesh will be more," Helelani assured the woman of the pit.

Stepping up to the casket and gazing for a considerable length of time at Ala's body, Pele shed tears for the one who brought awa and prepared it for her. Reaching into the casket, Pele carried Ala's body from the main room and down the stairs. "I will commit her remains to my home. I will plant a tree on the earth where she lay; the lehua flower growing from it will be the first of its kind."

"How will we know where to find this tree, e Tutu wahine e?" Helelani asked.

"It was where you serve me the awa," Pele replied. 

Everyone watched as Pele took Alalani's body and, with it, walked into the dry lava field, a dot of fierce red against the lifeless black vista. Then, like a mirage, she faded into the heat waves coming off the ground and was gone. When next Helelani went to the volcano to make offerings of awa to Pele, she approached where the ceremony was done and was surprised yet pleased at what she saw. A lone 'ohia lehua tree with fiery red, orange, and yellow lehua flowers. It was just as Pele promised.