Chapter 6
As Long as You Love Me
The early morning sun had just begun to light the valley. The sunlight warmed the pavement beneath Kalama’s sandals as she kept her slow pace beside the wizard Officer. It was clear that he was no more in a hurry to get back the little ceramic tile house than Kalama was. In fact, shifting her eyes up to look at the man’s face, he seemed to be the one who was afraid of facing Kalama’s dad. She still did not know what his name was, and with no plans of becoming a career criminal in the near future, she made a point not to ask.
There had not been any real conversation between the two of them ever since had taken her from that store in Honolulu. Other than asking her what year she was in at school, where she lived, and if there was anywhere else he should take her”typical police questions”he wanted to know nothing more about her. Also, he apparently didn’t want to know that you had to watch your step on the last step up to the porch either. But as soon as he fell flat on his face, he pushed himself back up without asking for Kalama’s help.
The still-rising sun cast his more frantic expression in shadow, but once he found his footing and was able to stand calm and dignified, the valley’s glow seemed to flatter him perfectly. His hair was bleached a brilliant gold and his skin tanned a perfect brown bronze with none of the reddish burn seen in so many pale-tone residents of the warm island. He was dressed far too warm, however, to appears as though he would be staying in the climate for very long, but he was incredibly handsome. How things stood now, though, Kalama had no name to call him and no word to refer to him in her thoughts.
If Kalama had met him under any other circumstance, she would have wondered if they could be friends. She never would have thought of being friends with an adult before she had gone to Kailani. As soon as any member of the staff learned she was from a Muggle family, they would go out of their way to make sure Kalama was getting everything she could out of her experiences in the magical community. By now, Kalama could tell just by looking at an adult whether or not they would be capable of becoming friends with a child. It was too bad she would never have a chance to find out. Although, in the back of her mind, she still hoped that one his duties, whatever they were, would someday bring him back to Kailani so they could meet once again.
“This is your house?” he asked her, stopping in front of one of the neighborhood homes.
At a slow motion speed, Kalama shifted her eyes to where he was pointing, despite the fact they were already standing on the porch. Even though most of the boxy houses were the exact same space with the exact same wrap-around porch, Kalama could recognize the peach-tinted paint on the outside of the house and the red swings shifting back and forth beside the front door. Wordlessly, she nodded in reply.
“Well, then, Miss Jameson,” he said, barely making eye contact with her. “I hope you’ve learned an important lesson from all this.”
Kalama nodded again with enthusiasm.
“And I’m never going to have to see you again, I trust.” Had this been said under any other circumstance, Kalama might have been extremely insulted, but this time, the words captured her sentiments exactly.
Rising to her tiptoes, Kalama peered in through the door window. The inside of the house was quiet. At the very least, there were no policemen racing through the hallways and no candle light vigils in the entryway. Slowly, she pulled the door open just a crack, miraculously not making a sound as it passed by the latch.
“Hello?” Kalama called out into the entryway.
“Kalama?” the voice of her stepfather called out in a questioning tone at first before finally finding his yelling voice. “KALAMA ANNE JAMESON, GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE THIS INSTANT!”
The Officer jumped at the loud sound and seemed very uneasy when he saw Kalama’s calm stance in the face of imminent trouble.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stick around?” he asked her, attempting to peer inside the house. “It can never hurt to have a …witness around in these situations.”
“I’ll be fine,” Kalama answered, a relaxed, serene tone gracing her voice that seemed uncharacteristic of the situation. “Will makes a racket, but really, he’s harmless.”
Offering a nonchalant wave, Kalama turned her back on the man and stepped into her house. She was no more than a few feet in when she was thrown back by her little sister tackling her with a hug. Looking down, Kalama could see the healing cuts that her uncontrolled burst of magic had caused, but thankfully saw no stitches or gauzy bandages. She doubted, however, that this fact would mean she was in any less trouble. The serenity in her voice towards the Officer fell down to her feet and allowed to her walk into the kitchen, Ewa following, but hiding and shielding herself awkwardly behind her sister with every step.
Will’s face was bright red, like a chili pepper, and Ewa remained towards the back of the kitchen, her legs dangling over the edge of her chair. And so commenced the shouting”shouting so loud that Kalama wondered if the neighbors would be calling the police any time soon. Every now and then, Kalama would nod, but she was never truly paying attention. The calm and peace that swept over her now, from the knowledge in knowing what she was going to say and what she was going to cling to, could not be shaken so easily.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, YOUNG LADY?” Will finished, he lack of breath finally catching up with him.
“Yes,” Kalama answered. “I know what I did wrong. It was stupid of me to think I could run away from my family in such a big city. I could have been hurt, I could have been kidnapped, I could have been brought home by the police.”
Technically, she had been, but she wasn’t going to choose now to split hairs. Will had finally calmed down, and his face was returning to its normal, sunburned shade. Even Ewa was beginning to take interest in the new demeanor of her old sister, leaning forward in her chair in order to hear better.
“You two don’t have to worry,” Kalama finally finished. “You’re my family, the only one I have. I’m not going to abandon you.”
Will seemed shock. “Kalama, that”that’s wonderful!” He reached forward and hugged his stepdaughter. “I know things are a little confusing right now, but we have the whole summer to figure them out. We’ll put you back in school”we can start you at a brand new school if you want, but””
Kalama took a deep breath as she prepared for her next words. “I didn’t say that.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to stay a member of this family,” Kalama explained, “but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on the other world I’m a part of either. I’m going back to Kailani this fall, and I’m going to finish my education there.”
“Kalama,” Will said, his voice sounding unmistakably shaky, “don’t you remember the talk we had? We established that you could either stay here with the family, or go back to that school of yours. Choosing both was not one of the options.”
This was where things were going to start getting complicated.
“No, I’m not making that choice,” Kalama told her stepfather. “You are.”
For the first time in her life, Kalama watched her stepfather find himself at a loss for words. She took the window of opportunity even further.
“I’m going back to school in the fall, but I’m still going to do my best to be a good daughter and a good sister,” Kalama explained her plan and the reasoning that went with it. “Whether or not you choose to accept these efforts is entirely up to you.”
That slightest shade of purple-red was just beginning to return to Will’s face once again.
“Kalama, who coached you to say these things?” His ranting tone began to pick up again. “Was it that Officer? Because if it was, I swear to””
“Mama.”
And by citing that source, Kalama’s reasoning became as solid as gospel. Several times, Will tried to get his anger up to the level it was before, but he kept stammering and stumbling over his own words. Eventually, he just gave up and stomped down the hallway, slamming the bedroom door shut. In a strange combination of flinching and falling, Ewa scrambled to her feet and raced across the kitchen floor and into the hallway herself, her own bedroom door cracking loudly against the latch. Kalama was left alone.
A lot of people might have said Kalama had won, but she did not considered what just happened here to be a battle. Her mother had not considered this a battle when it had been her in this situation either.
August 31st, 1997
Groaning loudly, Kalama strained to shut her over-stuffed trunk. Even with her entire body weight pressing down on it, the latch refused to click into place. Why couldn’t the school just give in and get the students bigger trunks? she thought to herself. This is not the eighteen hundreds. A students entire collection of worldly possessions does not consist of a work dress, a church dress, and an oil lamp! Out of habit, she found herself nearly call out for Will to help her, but stopped herself just as the name brushed over her lips.
Finally, by some sort of miracle, Kalama heard her trunk latch shut. Exhausted, she slid down to the floor. She hadn’t remembered packing her things being so much work when she had done it last year. Of course, last year the idea of school was all so fresh and exciting. Maybe now she was just beginning to see it as a boring yearly chore.
And last year, she had had a lot more help in throwing everything into her trunk.
One more mental survey of her trunk contents, and Kalama determined that she had, more or less, everything she needed. She contemplated prolonging this further, but there seemed to be little point in it. Throwing her rose-red school robe over her shoulders, she made her way to the kitchen. Will and Ewa were both sitting at the table. Everything for breakfast was displayed out in front of them, but neither of them were eating.
“Will,” Kalama said as she came into the kitchen, the use of her dad’s first name still resting strange on her tongue, “the Kellers will be here in about ten minutes.”
But Will did not even look up from his morning newspaper. This situation had been playing out just Kalama had seen with her mother in the Pensieve. True to his word, Will Jameson had done nothing to help his stepdaughter get ready for school. He had even, at the last minute, refused to drive Kalama to the harbor, forcing her to enlist the help of an emergency owl and send a very last minute letter to Rachel’s family, begging to tag along with them.
Although that just added a whole other host of worries about what would happen what would happen once Rachel and her very wizarding parents paraded into her home.
A sudden rustling sound in the living room, however, soon made worrying about what could happen irrelevant, because it was all happening right now.
“Uh oh,” Kalama gasped as she heard the rushing movement. She had forgotten to tell Will that the Kellers might be taking the Floo Network. Come to think of it, she didn’t think she had even told him and Ewa what the Floo Network was.
Please don’t be them! Please don’t be them! Kalama found herself thinking. But all the wishing in the world couldn’t stop the two full grown adults from jumping out of the rarely-used fireplace, and one very sooty twelve-year-old from crashing head-first into the coffee table. Will and Ewa hadn’t overlooked the ruckus coming from the living room and arrived just behind Kalama, receiving a complete show of their first wizarding family entering their home.
“Kalama!” Rachel scurried to place herself on her feet once she saw her friend. She had cut her red hair into a short bob over the summer, but remained much the same Rachel see had last seen at the end of their first-year. “Well, we’re here, just like we said we would be.”
“Yeah,” Kalama gave an airy reply, taking a moment to observe her best friend’s traveling companions.
Rachel had told Kalama about her parents on several occasion, but it wasn’t until she had actually met them face to face that she was able to see even the most outlandish of Rachel’s tales had a touch of truth to them.
“Hi,” Rachel’s father greeted Kalama’s family enthusiastically, shaking Will’s hand with one hand, and brushing the soot off his robes with the other. “I’m Ben Keller, this is my wife, Lizzy, and you have probably heard all about Rachel by now.”
Will nodded curtly as he shook Mr. Keller’s hand, his jaw looking painfully tight. Kalama had been relatively vague about the reason why she would be needing them to take her to the harbor.
“Well, Miss Kalama, it appears you will be accompanying us on our next great trek,” Mr. Keller said as he turned his attentions to Kalama. And with every single word that came out of the mouth of Rachel’s father, Kalama watched Will becoming wound tighter and tight. She wondered how long it would be before he finally snapped.
Luckily, Rachel appeared to be a lot more receptive than either of her parents. “A great journey and following adventure that will be leaving without us if we don’t get out of here ASAP!”
“Calm down, Rachel,” Mrs. Keller said. She appeared to be the more level-headed of the two parents, if such a label could be attached to such an eccentric couple. “The ship knows that you two are coming; they won’t leave without you. But I’ll bet Kalama would like a minute or two to say good-bye to her family.”
“And we should wait outside while they do so,” Rachel prompted her parents as she began pushing her father towards the door. “Mom?”
Mrs. Keller promptly followed her daughter out the screen door and Rachel slammed the solid inner door. At the very least, Kalama was thankful that her best friend was doing everything possible to make things go smoothly.
Turning to her small family, Kalama looked up at Will with at least some hope that now he saw that she was actually going through with her plan, he might feel some softness towards her. No such luck. Will maintained his stance just as stiff and cold as ever. Best to start at the weaker point of the barrier first.
“What?” Kalama teased her little sister in the same way she did before all the ugliness started. “You’re too old to give your big sister a hug?”
Ewa couldn’t help but giggle like she used to, and hugged her sister tightly around the middle. There was nothing fake, insincere, or dishonest to it. It was incredibly refreshing. Once Ewa was done, Kalama decided it was finally time to give her second target another go.
“Will?” Kalama asked, holding her arms out to him. “Dad?”
That last word was what it finally took to make her stepfather finally break down. He too offered his daughter a firm hug, bending down to her ear to whisper, “Make sure you write us to let know when to come get you for Christmas.”
Kalama would have started jumping up in down in spontaneous dance if it weren’t for her impending departure becoming closer and closer.
“Hey, Kalama,” Rachel shouted through the open screen door. “What my mom said aside, that ship is not going to wait for us forever. We have to go!”
Not even a matter of ‘when’ anymore. She was leaving now. After all she had gone through, fighting to go back to Kailani, now she wanted to do nothing more than to stay her with her newly reconciled family. Family: that word had a nice ring to it right now.
Ironically, however, this new reconciliation did not allow that as an option.
“Aloha,” Kalama breathed, saying both hello and good-bye, and neither at the same time.
War Torn by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Kalama makes her choice and shares it with her family.
The final chapter and my first compled chapter fic. Thank you so much for getting me her, Anna!