The Kikiloa Chronicles

AT THE END OF TIME

Prelude: I am Kikiloa

I was enslaved after the fire.

I birthed only daughters, more than I could track on my fingers and toes. I remembered them by the dark freckles scattered across the backs of my hands. I’ve since learned to count and know they were twenty-one daughters by twenty different men.

None of my daughters resembled me until my twenty-first and last. She was the child of a forbidden lover, a man my father killed too late to preserve our tribe’s harmony. She was stillborn in my forty-second year, a speckled blue baby strangled by her umbilical cord. The weight of her lifeless body broke the scales of my grief and freed me.

With age, my freckles multiplied, darkening my skin in a mottled tapestry. Despite time’s weathering, I can still find each daughter in those scattered marks, an alphabet of memory.

I am Kikiloa.

I am Mother, the harbinger of humanity, ancient yet not atavistic. I forespoke your future, and you echo my past. We share our genes. We share our deepest dreams.

But my life has since multiplied beyond reckoning.

I’m connected across more of my selves and a longer span of time than the sum of all our lives. With a flicker, I can find you in any moment. And perhaps I found the girl who can save everything.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, as tricksters do.

Let me tell you what I’ve seen, and some that I’ve surmised.

I’ll start two years before my first taste of toast and chocolate.

PRESENT DAY

Chapter 1: I’ll be quick

Hazel sat alone on the swing set, looking out from the park as the midday sun burned back the wall of fog looming over San Francisco. The cold Pacific breeze curled over the cliff behind her, winding through swaying pillars of cypress and pine to tease at her honeyed hair.

She imagined herself sketched beneath the misty curtain like a conductor before her orchestra. For a moment, she felt the gaze of thousands of people watching the fog’s daily spectacle from windows scattered across the city below, wondering if any could see her. Then she remembered the time and pulled her phone from her backpack.

kiki, ru coming? she texted.

Hazel had grown familiar with my loose attitude toward time. I was late today, but I was just as often early. I’d once showed up at ten in the morning for a movie that didn’t start until six that night. As far as she and everyone else knew, I was a homeschooled free spirit with a bike, a bus pass, mysterious Kenyan parents who were always traveling for business, and a cranky nanny who never answered the phone and never said no. If you’re cute and confident enough, people will believe anything.

While Hazel gave me leeway, she’d been raised believing that being on time showed respect for others, and she made a habit of sending me helpful reminders. I didn’t mind the prompts, but I still showed up when it suited me.

“Hey!” I shouted as I emerged from the steep path leading down from the dog park. I bounced across the grass, twirling with outstretched arms, my adolescent body buzzing with energy. I am ancient. Still, in a young body, it’s easy to forget.

Hazel often doodled me as a living spark, my antics jolting with electricity, my tightly crimped cocoa-and-red curls arcing in all directions. I talked in flowing bursts and grinned freely, my green eyes shifting with the light, my earrings seeming to glow against my dark-speckled skin like the bioluminescence Hazel remembered from a fateful trip years ago.

“Sorry I’m late. I didn’t want to be an uptight wacko,” I deadpanned.

“No one would call you uptight,” Hazel replied, her blue eyes glinting above cheeks still rounded with adolescence.

“Yeah,” I laughed, my body fizzing even while still. “Your parents aren’t home, right? Want to climb up to the Penthouse?” I pointed at the cliff bordering the park.

She looked down at her carefully selected school outfit, then slipped off her pink jacket and stuffed it into her backpack. “Sure. My brother has a lacrosse game. They won’t be back for a while.”

“Then let’s go!” I cheered, bounding away toward the dusty scree. Hazel looked down at her carefully mended jeans, shrugged, and followed.

We scrambled up the dark gray rock, angling toward a ledge cut into the cliff forty feet above.

* * *

The ledge was hidden from the park below. Hazel hadn’t known it existed until breakfast the day after her twelfth birthday, when her dad pointed out a small orange tent that had bloomed on the cliff overnight. A man stood outside it, nonchalantly brushing his teeth.

“Wow, that guy picked a million-dollar penthouse view,” her dad said. And so, the ledge became the Penthouse.

The man was a topic of family conversations for several days until her mom finally called the police when he relieved himself over the ledge in full view of the park.

It took hours for the police and firefighters to get the man down. No one was willing to climb up after him, so they watched as he calmly packed up his belongings and then scaled down the cliff as if he’d done it a thousand times. His burnt-orange windbreaker caught Hazel’s eye. His face was deeply tanned and clean-shaven. He gave her a lion-yellow wink as the cops escorted him from the park.

“Don’t you two climb up there,” Hazel’s mom had warned at dinner that night. “Who knows what he left behind? Needles and, you know… stuff.”

Intrigued, Hazel’s brother, Lee, looked out the dining room window and up at the cliff.

“And poop,” her dad added, noticing Lee’s interest. “He was up there for days. That’s the ‘stuff’ your mom means.”

Lee’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

Hazel doubted her dad’s story. The man was the most clean-cut urban camper she’d ever seen. The day before, she’d secretly set out a thermos of leftover soup near the path to his ledge. That morning, she’d found the empty container on their front steps, carefully washed and wrapped in orange craft paper. That didn’t seem like something someone who left “stuff” everywhere would do.

A few days later, Hazel met me for the first time. She spotted me climbing down the rocks below the ledge. Curious, she called out.

“Hi! Were you up on that ledge? Is there, uh, poop up there?”

“Nope!” I said with a bright smile. “Just a great view, and some sitting stones where the Ohlone wise ones talked story back in the day. I’m Kiki!” I ended with an enthusiastic click of my tongue.

She smiled back, quizzical and suddenly a little shy. “I’m Hazel.”

* * *

Hazel clambered over the exposed roots of a large cypress that clung to the cliff ledge, hauling herself up onto the ledge and joining me at a semicircle of sun-warmed sitting stones. Sheltered from the chill breeze by cliff and trees, we shared a bag of roasted seaweed from Hazel’s backpack and played our version of “I Spy.”

The bay gleamed in the bright sun, the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge soaring above a tongue of fog jetting in from the ocean, the dark slopes of Mount Tam rising beyond. Alcatraz hid in the fog, the deep surrounding waters flecked with whitecaps. Directly below, the city marked out intersecting diagonals of pastel neighborhoods backed by mirrored skyscrapers. Cargo ships dotted the bay, disappearing into Silicon Valley’s bright haze.

“I spy a sunburned bald head,” I said, looking east.

Hazel scanned the park below, but it was unusually empty for this time of day. I held my gaze steady until she spied Bernal Peak’s rust-red hump poking up through the street grid.

“I spy silver rainbows,” Hazel said, leaning back until the city hung upside down behind her.

I quickly spied the shining spans of the Bay Bridge.

I loved our games, but I was stalling. I’d been stalling ever since we met two years ago, enjoying the childhood friend I’d never had. But now it was time.

I turned to her, mock-serious. “I spy someone I need to talk to.” I tapped Hazel’s backpack with my toe. “Got any water in there?”

Hazel raised an eyebrow in response and pulled out her water bottle.

“I’ll be quick.” I unscrewed the cap, took a sip, and said with a straight face, “Let’s start with this, I’m not here.”

Hazel waited expectantly, taking back the water, patient with my conversational oddities as always.

Suddenly, a sharp crack sounded deep in the rock ledge beneath us. The colossal cypress shuddered as its roots ripped free from the cliff face, its cantilevered weight dragging a car-sized section of the ledge loose. A fracture ratcheted toward us across the rock shelf, discharging sharp flakes and puffs of dust.

I leapt up and yanked Hazel away from the growing fissure, rolling her over me in a fluid somersault that ended with her sliding to a stop on the solid rock beyond the sitting stones.

“Whoa. That’s a big one!” I called out, my eyes unfocusing as I registered a familiar surge emanating from every detail of the scene.

I sprang to the edge near the doomed tree, knees bent and arms out in a surf stance as the ledge tilted further beneath my feet. I flickered in and out of existence. “It won’t break,” I breathed, then looked uphill and raised an angry fist.

Startled, Hazel followed my gaze and saw a splash of orange — the jacket of a man, vaguely familiar, standing in the dark trees above the cliff with a pickaxe on his shoulder. Did he do this?

Paha gave us a perfunctory wave before turning into the shadows with a glint of his sunglasses.

The tree groaned, tilting further until its trunk stuck straight out from the cliff. Wood and rock popped and squealed under the strain. Several large stones broke free from above the ledge and crashed past us, sparking a hot, sulfurous smell.

“Asshole,” I muttered to myself, shuffling to keep my balance. “What’s he playing at? Maybe another ‘accident’…”

I turned to Hazel. “You gotta get out of here.” I flickered again. “Don’t worry, you’ll survive.” I flickered once more, like a flip book, testing. “Probably.”

“Kiki, what is going on?! Come back from there!” Hazel bellied forward, swinging her backpack toward me like a lifeline. “Grab this!”

I flashed a final smile, sidestepping the moment’s pressing weight. “Really, don’t worry. I’ll find you later and explain everything. Just go. Go home. Oh, and maybe lock the door.”

I crouched, turning away, then flickered one last time. “Yeah. This’ll do.”

The ledge gave way beneath my feet. I spun, extended my thumbs and pinkies to throw Hazel a double shaka, then fell backward off the cliff, vanishing with a soft snap, as if the air had swallowed me whole.

The empty park echoed with the crash of the falling tree.

Chapter 2: Kiki, what the hell?

Stunned, Hazel inched across the sundered rock shelf and peered over the edge, stomach sinking, searching for me.

The rock slab had dropped from beneath me and lodged at the base of the slope, still grasped in the fallen tree’s roots. The tree lay upended, its broken branches spearing into the blackberry brambles bordering the playground lawn. A final cascade of pebbles spilled from the cleft. Dust drifted outward, twisting into the wind. There was no sign of me.

Hazel eased back from the edge, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then scanned the park. One of the stone seats from the shattered semicircle had landed near the swing set, the square boulder embedded in the grass. A few broken branches were scattered nearby. The park lay quiet, and a glance at the street revealed it was deserted too. Spooky. She shook her head. The empty playground was a miracle at this time of day. At least no one else was hurt.

Hazel reached into her backpack and found her phone smashed and unusable. Jittery and unsure what she’d seen, she scrambled off the broken ledge, picking her way down the loose scree, pressing on despite gruesome visions of me flattened like the Wicked Witch of the East beneath Dorothy’s house. She searched the wreckage, finding nothing, then pushed through the blackberry brambles, snagging on thorns again and again until she accepted that, incredibly, I’d vanished into thin air.

She slumped to the grass and wrapped her arms around herself. “Kiki, what the hell?” she whispered.

Then she remembered the threatening man atop the cliff. A chill crawled across her scalp.

She jumped up and sprinted across the street to her house, slamming the deadbolt and wedging the foyer bench against the door. She started to check the window locks but froze. What good were window locks against a man with a pickaxe? She considered running to a neighbor’s house but couldn’t shake the feeling he was watching, waiting for her to do just that.

She backed away from the door, wanting to hide, but their small Marina-style house sat on the corner across from the park. Anyone could see straight into every room. She bumped against the plain cherry dining table and spun around in fright. The spindle-backed chairs and arched flower arrangement were etched in sharp relief by the afternoon sun. The room felt starkly exposed. Family dinners had always felt cozy and safe, but now the windows gaped wide, unsparing.

Heart pounding, she ran to the kitchen computer and pulled up the family chat.

Hazel: mom, dad, call 911! there was a man in the park he had a pig ace

Hazel: *pickaxe

Hazel: my phone is smashed, pls call them

Mom: What? Is this Kiki? This is not funny.

The video call opened, and Hazel’s mom looked out from the screen. She was in the car, and Lee was visible in the back seat, twirling his finger at his temple.

“Hazel, what are you talking about? Is Kiki there?” her mom demanded, suspicious of my pranks. Half-wary and half-indulgent, her parents treated me like a mischievous stray, humoring my quirks and privately blaming the worst on my own perpetually absent parents.

“No, Mom, it’s, uh, just me,” Hazel said, then paused, wondering how to explain what had happened and still be believed. She was reluctant to tell her mom everything. Looking back, I see how my vanishing act pulled her further away from her mother, perhaps too soon. But it is always too soon.

“I was waiting for Kiki in the park…” She paused, then cut me out of the story entirely. “A tree and part of the Penthouse ledge fell down and almost hit the swing set. There was a man up there, and he had a pickaxe.” She swallowed, struggling for a story as close to the truth as possible without mentioning my impossible vanishing act. “I was afraid he’d come after me. I locked myself in the house. I don’t see him, but I’m scared he’s still out there.”

The car whooshed in the background as her dad careened through the streets. He told Hazel to hide in their bedroom closet. Her mom called the police, and Hazel gave a brief description of the man, emphasizing the sunglasses, the orange jacket, and the pickaxe.

“Maybe we should have her get the gun,” her father said.

“Wait, what?” Lee exclaimed. “What gun?”

“Dad!” Hazel scolded. “You guys have a gun? Don’t you know that guns kill way more family members than criminals?”

“Guns don’t kill people,” Lee deadpanned. “People do.”

Her mother cut in. “Honey, forget the gun. Lee, not funny. Hazel, stay calm. Get in the closet. Now. The police are on their way.”

Hazel heard sirens in the distance. They’d always disturbed her, howling her awake, haunting her walks, pressing into her studies, and raising the hairs on the back of her neck as the vehicles charged forward, carrying police officers, firefighters, and paramedics to their tragic destinations. Now she urged them on.

When her family arrived, four officers were questioning an older man in sunglasses and an orange jacket. The man stood leaning against the park fence, gesturing calmly at the cliff and Hazel’s house as he explained himself. Hazel slipped outside and stood behind her father on their front steps, white-knuckled fingers clutching the back of his shirt. Paha was unfazed by the interrogation, of course. At last, he walked off with a stout walking stick in hand, and two police officers peeled away to speak with Hazel’s father.

“Well, sir, that guy was hiking above the park and heard the rockfall. He saw the girl and headed down to check if she was okay. He didn’t have an axe,” the officer said with a slight smile. “Just his walking stick. His ID checks out. With the landslide and everything, it must have been a scary situation for your daughter.”

The officer nodded reassuringly at Hazel over her father’s shoulder. “It’s good that you called, young lady. It’s better to be safe than sorry.” He waved toward the park, where the other officers were stretching caution tape around the fallen tree. “You’re lucky you weren’t hurt. That big stone near the swings is in there pretty deep.”

Sometimes luck is more than it seems.

Chapter 3: Sneezing into a bowl of glitter

Hazel had been quiet at dinner, feigning embarrassment about her report of the man with the axe and unsettled by the surreality of what had happened and her own willingness to hide the truth. Now, propped up on her pillows and bathed in the warm glow of her bedside lamp, she wrote steadily, her words unspooling across the pages of her journal.

Her bedroom was tucked into a corner of the garage below her parents’ room. On foggy nights, it was dark and a little cold. She’d swapped rooms with her fraternal twin Lee several years ago after he complained about the dark and made it her own by collaging the wall with maps and pictures cut from travel magazines. When it rained, she opened her garden window to breathe in petrichor, the living breath of wet rock, her favorite scent.

She hovered over the final word, then set her pen down with a sigh and shook out her cramped fingers. She’d recounted the day as best she could, recording what I’d said and done, matter-of-factly documenting that I’d been about to reveal something important and suddenly vanished. My disappearance felt oddly familiar, just a more extreme “that’s Kiki” moment. Somehow, she knew I would return...