Kaya Stormchild

KAYA
STORMCHILD

by

Lael
Whitehead

Cover art and
book illustrations by Tamsin McIntosh

Published by
Night Publishing, Smashwords edition

Copyright 2011,
Lael Whitehead

ISBN
978-1-4580-7807-0

Thank you for
downloading this e-book. You are welcome to share it with your
friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for
non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete
original form.

All
characters are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or
dead is accidental.

To discover
other books by Lael Whitehead, please go to
http://www.nightpublishing.com/id49.html.

Chapter 1:
A New Friend

Kaya
Stormchild knew she wasn’t like other girls her age. Grandmother
had explained to her how other people lived: children grew up
inside square buildings called houses and schools, and traveled
from place to place in machines called cars. At night they sat in
front of glowing boxes called televisions or computers. Kaya’s eyes
would widen as she listened, her head shaking with pity. The
thought that made her saddest of all was that these other girls had
no Grandmother to live with like she had.

Grandmother
was a bald eagle, a great, stately bird who had seen many seasons
come and go, and was wiser than the sea itself. She taught Kaya
about so many things: how to understand the ways of all the
creatures who shared their island home and the sea which surrounded
it; how to read the tides and the winds and the changing seasons;
how to use the plants and roots that grew nearby for healing and
strength. Grandmother told Kaya stories about things long past and
things yet to come.

But most of
all, Grandmother was always
there
, her warm wings soft and cozy
to curl up against on winter nights, her voice gentle and soothing,
like the sound of a murmuring wind through leaves.

Grandmother
and Kaya lived in Moon Cove on Tangle Island, a small,
crescent-shaped island that lay mid-way in a chain of islands
dotting the body of water called the Salish Sea. Westward lay Henby
Island, which was much larger than Tangle, with a human population
of over a thousand. Eastward, the dim mountains of the mainland
loomed tall on the horizon.

Kaya could
barely remember the time before she had come to live on Tangle
Island. There had been a boat, and then a storm, and then the cold,
wild sea closing all around her. Voices had called out her name,
but the sea choked her and she couldn’t answer.

Then
darkness.

Her next
memory was of waking up on the beach, here on Tangle Island, with
rain beating down and thunder still howling in the distance. Two
round, dark eyes were peering anxiously at her. It was Kelpie, the
seal who had found her drowning out in the strait and pushed her
all that way through the tossing sea. Kelpie shouted and called,
until at last a great dark figure came swooping out of the wind.
Grandmother.

“
You’ve
brought me a little half-drowned seal-pup!”

That was how
Grandmother told the story, describing her first impression of the
small, drenched girl with the dark eyes and the long, black hair
clinging to her shoulders. Later that night, and for days
afterwards, Grandmother flew back and forth over the tossing sea,
searching for signs of the lost girl’s family. At last a passing
kingfisher told her the news: the bodies of a drowned man and woman
had washed ashore on Henby Island, near the battered remains of an
empty fishing boat. The old eagle hung her head sadly as the
kingfisher finished his tale and flew off over the sea. The poor
child was an orphan. She and Kelpie would have to care for the girl
from now on.

“
You once
lived with a human family,” Grandmother would recount softly, when
Kaya questioned her years later. “But one night the Tempest scooped
you up and whirled you away here to Tangle Island, to live with me.
That is why I gave you your new last name: Stormchild.”

Kaya knew that
once she had had a different name, in the time before the storm.
But she had long forgotten it. Grandmother told her she couldn’t
have been more than four years old when she came to the
island.

Since then
Kaya had carved notches into the trunk of the maple tree in Moon
cove, one for each winter that passed. Seven notches
now.

I’ve lived
here seven years
, thought Kaya, as she
dipped her paddle into the waves.

It was spring,
and though the sky was overcast, the air no longer had the chill
edge of late winter. Kaya was in the red canoe that Kelpie had
found drifting loose in the strait two years before and had brought
for the girl to use. It had taken Kaya a while to learn to steer
the canoe with one paddle, but once she had mastered the skill, she
went out often in the little boat. She loved to explore the islets
on either side of Tangle. The canoe was so fast and light, she
could travel to Campbell Harbour on Henby Island in less than an
hour. At least once a week she made the trip to the town, taking
salmon Grandmother caught to trade for supplies at the general
store.

“
I don‘t like
the look of that sky,” came a peevish voice from the front of the
canoe.

“
Oh, Tike,
don’t be such a worrier!” said Kaya, laughing. “It’s just a little
wind.”

A pointed head
stretched up and sniffed the breeze. Then a small, sleek otter
reached out and rapped his paw on the side of the boat.

“
Kaya, look
at that cloud over there. It’s moving so fast! And it’s
black!”

“
Tike, you
insisted on coming along. You said you couldn’t wait to see what
Campbell Harbour is like, and now you’re afraid of a little
weather? You can hop out and swim home, if you’re scared,” Kaya
said patiently. “But I’m not turning back.”

“
No, I want
to stay with you. But - Oh, I hate boats!”

Kaya chuckled.
“You told me you were bored. You said you wanted to get off Tangle
Island and see some of the world, remember? Well, if you are going
to go on adventures, you have to put up with a little discomfort
now and then.”

“
Humph!”
grunted the otter.

Just then a
flash and a loud crack shook the sky.

“
Whoa!” said
Kaya, her paddle poised in mid-stroke. The sea was turning a dark
steely gray, and the surface began to wrinkle in white-tipped
waves. Kaya gazed up at the sky, then at the sea,
frowning.

“
I’ve never
seen a storm whip up so fast! That’s more weather than even I
bargained for! The question now is do we keep going and try to
reach Campbell Harbour, or do we turn around and head back home?
We’re just about half-way.”

But Tike
wasn’t any help. At the first sound of thunder he dove into the
bottom of the canoe and lay there whimpering, curled in a tight
ball.

Kaya made up
her mind. She turned the canoe and began to paddle hard back
towards Tangle Island. More flashes of lightning lit the sky,
followed by rolling thunder. After a moment, the sky split right
open. Rain came pelting down upon them with such force that the sea
on either side of the canoe seemed to boil. The storm blotted out
the distant landscape. Kaya could no longer make out the dark green
shoreline of home.

“
Tike! Your
nose is better than mine!” Kaya shouted through the howling wind.
“Which way should I go?”

The otter
reluctantly poked out his nose. He squinted through the rain,
scenting the wind for a moment, but a sudden peal of thunder made
him dive back into the bottom of the boat with a shriek.

Far overhead,
through the clamor of the rain, Kaya heard a familiar call. Out of
the sky a dark form descended. With a flurry of great dark wings,
an eagle came to perch on the prow of the canoe.

“
Grandmother,
it’s you! I’m so glad, ‘cause we’re lost!”

“
I know,”
said the eagle, in her husky, warm voice. “I will show you the way
home, but first we need to help someone. There is a rowboat adrift
not far from here. Follow me!”

With that,
Grandmother lifted her wings and flew off into the swirling mist.
Kaya heard Tike’s shout of protest as she turned the canoe and
followed the eagle.

“
Someone’s in
trouble, Tike. We’ve got to go and see. Hang on!” she called over
her shoulder.

Straining, she
drove the little boat over the swelling waves. All around her the
world howled and blew and raged. Nothing could be seen but the
tumbling sea and the wild, hammering rain. Kaya felt more lost than
ever. Where was Grandmother?

Just then she
caught sight of something ahead. A darker patch of grey on the grey
water. She paddled hard towards it and at last saw that it was a
small rowboat. A figure sat slumped in the stern, clutching a
single oar.

It was a boy,
about her own age. He had no jacket, and his thin T-shirt was
soaked right through. Kaya approached the boat and could see that
the boy’s shoulders shuddered as though he were crying. Every now
and then, he gave a pull on his one oar, but that only sent the
boat in circles and made him shake his head in frustration. He
caught sight of the canoe and immediately straightened in his seat,
wiping his eyes with the backs of his fists.

“
I’ve lost an
oar,” the boy shouted at her, pointing at the empty
oarlock.

“
Did it fall
in far from here?” Kaya shouted back.

The boy shook
his head, and pointed off to the other side of the rowboat. Kaya
dug her paddle into the waves, intending to head around his boat in
the direction he indicated, but then she saw Grandmother. The eagle
was flying towards them over the water, clutching in her talons the
end of a wooden oar.

The boy’s jaw
dropped in astonishment. He managed to grasp the handle just in
time, ducking his head as the eagle swooped past above
him.

“
Follow me,”
Kaya called. “We’ve got to get out of this storm!”

The boy
eagerly fitted the oar back into place and began pulling hard,
following the red canoe. He seemed so relieved at last to be able
to make progress that he kept good time, despite the
waves.

At last the
two boats entered the shelter of Moon Cove. Kaya hauled her canoe
high up onto the beach, then turned to help the newcomer tie his
boat to a driftwood log.

“
You’re
freezing,” said Kaya, seeing the boy shiver in his wet T
-shirt.

“
Yeah,” he
said through chattering teeth. He began to cough. “And I got this
cold, too. But I never thought there’d be a storm or anything, so I
didn’t bring my jacket.”

“
Come on,”
Kaya shouted through the wind. “We’d better get inside and get you
warmed up!”

“
Inside?” The
boy looked around puzzled. “There’s no shelter here. This is a wild
island. No houses, don’t you know?”

Kaya laughed.
“Follow me!”

She ran along
the beach to an opening in the salal bushes that was invisible from
the water. Beyond this, a narrow footpath led a short distance into
the forest, stopping at the base of a giant, gnarled, maple tree.
Up the trunk of this tree were carved footholds, like the rungs of
a ladder. Kaya climbed up easily, turning to beckon her companion
to follow. He paused at the base of the tree.