Description: CHAPTER 1 I open my eyes. I''m lying in the dark. It''s humid tonight, the air still. The coqui frogs are mostly quiet. Millions rule the jungle around our home, a few miles from Hilo, but it''s too hot for them. One or two sound from beyond the screen of my open window. Coqui? Coqui? I turn my pillow over, soothing my cheek and temple against the cold side. My stomach growls, and now there''s no question--I''m home. Moments ago I was floating in orbit above the world! But my connection with the Emerald Orchid is distant, my door to her primitive animal consciousness barely ajar. I''m back in my own mind and body, and I''m hungry. We''re not starving. There''s enough food to go around. And it''s supposed to get better as our farming gets up to speed. Most of what we''re planting is vitamin and calcium rich--'uala, sweet potatoes; 'ulu, breadfruit; uhi, yams; and kalo, taro. I''m so sick of taro, which is usually mashed up and eaten as poi, the great life force of all Hawaiian foods. But none of it seems to help the hunger. Here on Hawai'i, the Big Island, we''ve had time to adjust to a new normal. It''s been three months since Dad and I made it home from the island of O'ahu. Four since the Emerald Orchid came to roost in orbit above our atmosphere, destroying electronics around the globe as she labored and gave birth to another of her kind. When the Orchid arrived, at the end of April, I was on O'ahu with Dad. Power went out worldwide. Satellites were zapped. No communication with the outside world. There were no flights, and the ships with the food and gas stopped coming. Things never got better. It took Dad and me a month to make it down the island chain. And we almost didn''t make it-- Stop. I push the nightmares back. We''re getting by, Mom, Dad, Kai, Grandpa, and I. We''re banding together with our neighbors, sharing jobs, pooling resources. At least we have land and a small river down the ravine. And we''re naturally protected on our isolated hillside, surrounded by tall ridges, with only one way in and out, several miles off the highway. Our garden, breadfruit trees, and organic-chicken coop were hobbies before the blackout--things my parents did for fun in their spare time. What a strange phrase: spare time. Once our crops are in full rotation, and we have enough chickens, and we''ve gotten a couple goats and a few other animals, our family and our neighborhood may get by comfortably. But we''re not there yet. "Lei, you awake?" my brother, Kai, whispers from the floor. He sleeps in here whenever our guest worker stays in Kai''s room. "Yeah, what''s up?" "It''s hot. Make it windy." "Oh, I control the weather now?" "Just do it." "Sure, Kai." I match his teasing tone. "Thanks," he says. I''m connected to the Emerald Orchid because of my epilepsy. I started having seizures when I was thirteen. Had them all the way through our struggle to get home, when I discovered our link. My seizures helped me sense the Orchid''s thoughts, urges. An astronomer named Buzz--a mountain guru living at the observatories atop Mauna Kea--helped me talk to the Orchid. The creature was going to leave, but I persuaded her to stay. She can''t go. Her arrival caused a chain reaction of nuclear meltdowns around the world. Without electricity to cool them, power stations blew. But the Orchid feeds on radiation, absorbing it and protecting us. If she had left, we might have gotten our power back, but we would have inherited a global nuclear wasteland. My plan is to make her stay until she devours every meltdown--when all the leaking nuclear radiation is absorbed, she can go. But when will that be? How long can the world hang on without power? Kai sighs. "You gonna practice with Uncle Hank''s Magnum tomorrow?" "No." Kai knows I hate guns. The weapons protect our food. But they also make us a target. "What about the bow?" "Same difference." "No, it''s not." "Is to me." A single frog asks the night for advice. Coqui? Otherwise: silence. Kai is already still. Such a little man. Too skinny, too strong. He''s eight and insists on working as hard as anyone. He''s distanced himself from so many things he used to love. Tore down his UH volleyball posters, threw away his gymnastics competition uniform. I wipe matted hair away from my forehead and stare out my window at the faint green of the night sky. My seizures were really bad for several weeks after I got home from O'ahu--the medicine that once helped me was used up. But slowly the seizures stopped. Somehow the connection I share with the Orchid has channeled and calmed the storm in my head. Now, instead of vicious attacks, I blank out at will and see things from her perspective. Camera Two. I don''t use my eyes, though; my brain just interprets what she senses in ways that I can process. The Orchid will leave our solar system the second I drop my guard, taking her daughter with her. As with a helium balloon held by a string, the tension is always there. It''s not hard for me to grip the line, easy as flying a kite. I can literally do it in my sleep. But she will rise and fade back into the sea of stars the moment I loosen my grasp. And I worry: will my epilepsy return when she''s gone? We are Leilani. We are Flowers of Heaven. I hear the Orchid now: We will stay here until we are strong and safe and all the sweetness is gone. Then return to the depths. Home? I ask. What is your home like? I''ve asked this before. I''m so curious to know. I only sense confusion from her, though--a vague questioning. Home is where you belong. What''s it like where you belong? Depths. Vastness. We are many there. I give up. I think of her as a honu, a sea turtle, acting on instinct. I could be asking a fish what it''s like to swim in the sea. Some things I''ll just never know. Our rooster, Sweet William, wakes me well before dawn. The cardinals and the Java sparrows and the mynas start to chatter. I shuffle downstairs and sit at the table. Mom and Dad and Grandpa are already busy. Mom hums an old Hawaiian tune and absently dances the hula as she works. Her movements are subtle, rhythmic, like seaweed swaying in the rising tide. Mom is pure Hawaiian; Dad is haole, a white guy, from New Mexico. So Kai and I are hapa. Half and half. My parents met on O'ahu while in grad school. They both studied ecology. They married, found work on the mainland, and had me and Kai. We settled back here almost three and a half years ago, when they accepted two tropical biology professorships at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. Mom is as gorgeous as any hula dancer on any poster, and she knows it. Dad is also good-looking--in a scruffy, surfer-who-never-grew-up sort of way. The kettle on our propane stove shouts. Mom offers me coffee. I perk up. "Wow. Sure. What''s the occasion?" Usually we''ll boil water over an actual wood fire outside. Someone must have hauled in a good amount of propane yesterday. "Fresh from Kona." She pours boiling water into our French press. "Paul brought a couple bags home. And two gallons of propane." I give a silent toast to our neighbor up the road. It''s been weeks since I last smelled coffee; the odor alone wakes me up. "Howzit on Kona side?" Kona''s on the opposite side of our island, where the resorts and coffee growers are. "Bad. The pyres at the hospital are burning day and night. Refugees arriving in droves, but there''s nothing for them. The town is in ruins. Worse off than Hilo." My eyes widen. Postcard-perfect Kona worse than Hilo? Kona was tourist central: resorts, restaurants, beaches, and activities. Predictable weather, calm waters. Not like rainy Hilo. Makes sense that the refugees from other islands would be dumped there--safer for the boats to land, and so much more familiar to city dwellers than wild, backward Hilo, still reeling from the tsunami four months ago. I shudder and change the subject. "What''s our game plan today?" Mom places before me a glass of water, three slices of passion fruit, some 'uala wedges, a coffee cup, and the press. Her eyes glow in mock excitement. "Barbecue on Coconut Island, beach volleyball tourney, snorkeling." "Actually"--Dad clears his throat and grins like a car salesman--"I was thinking more along the lines of finishing the fence along plot D and moving in a bit more compost. We could start planting there by week''s end. Sound fun?" I lean my head back and stare at the ceiling. I don''t know where the hunger ends and the other aches begin. I''ve been lifting and hauling rocks, building dams and fishponds, terracing farm plots and fencing them to keep the pigs out. Weeding. Cutting rain channels out of the old lava flows that lead into the greenhouses. Dismantling old sheds, carting the materials across the rocky slope to repair a large barn. Constructing a corral for the horse we acquired by trading some of our neighbor Uncle Hank''s rifles. My eyes catch the world map taped to the wall above the breakfast bar. Perfect distraction. I grab a pushpin from the tray and poke it through the crackly paper just off the coast of New York. I stand back to survey my work. Numerous pins on every continent. Many clustered. New England, for example, is getting crowded. Each one represents a belly-up nuclear plant. "Saw another explosion last night?" Dad asks. I nod. "Big one. Off New York." I can''t shake the image of that ballooning ball of water rising out of the ocean. That creeping disc of cloud smothering the coast, like batter slowly poured onto a griddle. "It was offshore." "Nuclear sub?" Grandpa ponders. He''s a navy vet. "Accident? Malfunction? Or an attack?" "People in the region must be so scared," says Mom. "I hope they r

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