Moana Search and Rescue

Part 2 of Moana Moves In.

***

"She's going to freeze out there," She whimpered. Her face was frozen in shock, but her legs were moving. She went over and opened a door by the entryway of the new house and pulled out a puffy coat. "I'm gonna go get her."

"She, no. You shouldn't. I'll go. I was the one that pushed her too far." Said Helen.

"No, I'll go. I'm the one who could have stopped it but I didn't." I said, feeling guilty and defeated.

"I don't care if she ever comes back. She hurt Meiling." Carol spat. Both her and Valkyrie had wrapped themselves around their daughter, trying to calm her worried cries.

Elsa stepped forward, fulfilling her duty as the doll family's matriarch. "Maybe she just needs some time alone. It does wonders for people and dolls alike."

"Fine, she can have it, but not out there. It's January. It's nighttime. The sun's not even out." She was franticly moving about the house, trying to remember what was in the boxes she packed. She started ripping the tape off of them and throwing different items around the room. She grabbed a flashlight and started pressing the button, but it had no batteries. She swore quietly.

Steve came forward as the voice of reason. "She, be serious. You've got work tomorrow and you're hardly settled in yourself. You don't have the time or energy to handle something like this. It's up to us dolls."

"Ve'll understand her plight," Idina chirped. "A human might be ze last thing she wants to rescue her."

"With a sword like that, she hardly needs rescued!" Magneto laughed. "Let her freeze. It'll teach her a lesson."

A smacked him on the head with my oar and gave him a look that said, "be nice, lolo."

She turned her head towards the analog clock on the wall. I couldn't tell time, but by the way She sucked her teeth, it had to be late.

"I hate to say it, but you guys are right. It's late and I have to still clean the kitchen. But this isn't the sort of stuff that can wait until morning."

"You have plenty of volunteers to go," said Meg. "Me, I'd rather clean the kitchen if I'm honest."

"I'll go," said Steve bravely. "When I first came into the family, I felt like I had to run away, too. I know what Raya is going through."

"I'm with him," said Helen. "I know Raya's story. I'm sure our lack of knowledge is part of what's bothering her."

"Me too," I said, raising my oar. "It's all my fault that Raya did this. I'll bring her back."

Magneto tapped my foot as if to tell me to take him along.

"Not this time, lolo."

"You don't have to redeem yourself, you know. You're not responsible for another person's feelings."

I nodded at him, but I didn't really agree.

"So we have a team then." Elsa gave a queenly smile to Helen and I, but her face fell at Steve. She pulled him in close for a hug, and their daughter Thalia latched onto his legs. The room became white noise as my thoughts became louder and louder. She rustled around for flashlight batteries. Meg, Cinderella, and Snow White went to wash the dishes. Helen found Gene and convinced him to cough up her sword. Olaf offered Meiling a piece of muffin to distract her from her pain. Anelle loaned me one of her capes, but I was only reminded of how cold and lost and lonely Raya must be.

"Hey," Magneto tapped my foot again. "I'll keep your necklace safe for you."

"I know you will," I scooped him up in my arms for a hug. His arms weren't even long enough to wrap around my shoulders. "Be good while I'm gone."

"You know I can't promise that."

I rolled my eyes at him. As devious as Magneto was, he could always put a smile on my face.

"Ready to go?" Helen's gentle hand touched my shoulder.

"Mhm."

"She gave Steve a flashlight, and he has his shield. She told me that if we don't bring Raya back by morning, She'll drive around before work to look for us."

I thought it was a good plan. She wished us luck and made us swear we'd come home if we ran into any danger. Steve lead the way out the back door with the flashlight and shut it behind us. Into the cold we went.

The light from inside the house came through the glass door and cast a bright yellow square onto the grass. Already it was crisp with ice, and patches of snow rested under the shrubs that marked the end of She's yard. It was the first time I wished a Moana doll came with shoes.

"Where should we start?" Asked Steve. "Normally I'd say to split up, but with racoons and the cold, I don't want to risk losing either one of you as well."

"Let's try the trees," said Helen. "Raya has that retractable sword. It would be smart of her to use it to get off the ground."

I was already following their suggestions. I threw my oar to the ground and started scaling the tree, wrapping my arms and legs around the trunk and shimmying upwards. The bark was slick with ice. I guess it had rained recently, and the falling temperatures weren't making it any easier. I made my way over to the first branch and kept my body close to it as I went from trunk to end.

"Are you good up there?" Steve called.

"I'm okay." I breathed. In truth, I had never been so high up off the ground. Outside heights were taller than inside heights. It was difference between falling into a carpet or cozy pillow and falling onto grass, dirt, and mulch. I peered up through the branches of the rest of the tree but could see nothing that would be the shape of Raya. Only stars, barely glowing behind the dark clouds of a winter night. I shut one eye and held my palm upwards, spacing out my fingers between the stars. We definitely weren't going to be travelling far enough to use my wayfinding skills. Or at least I hoped not.

"Anything?"

"Nothing. I'm coming down."

"There's another tree over there." Helen pointed.

This one was shorter and more bare than the last, a sapling. It was obvious that Raya wouldn't be found in it. I didn't bother to climb it. 

"Do you think she would leave the yard?" I asked.

"Of course," said Steve. "She wanted to escape. She doesn't care about coming back. She'd go anywhere. Helen, I'll need your sword."

"Where are we going?"

"Through the bushes." Steve whipped the sword from side-to-side, carving out a hole in the dense shrubbery. Helen covered her face as twigs and berries went flying.

"Into the other neighborhood?" I said, bewildered.

"It's like I said. She wanted to escape."

"Wouldn't she cut a hole in the bushes too? We would be able to see if she crawled through or not."

"Maybe she didn't crawl. Look." Helen pointed at another tree, this time the underside. A small rectangular hole had been pierced into one of the lower branches. It was exact size and shape of the hole on the kitchen of She's ceiling, the hole Raya made when she used her sword to swing onto the ground.

"There's our answer," Steve nodded. "Come on. We're getting closer."

I let Helen and Steve go on ahead of me. They ducked their heads and passed under the archway of leaves that had been created. I looked solemnly behind me, wishing the light that came from She's back door could follow us. I sighed and followed them through.

The next neighborhood looked significantly different from She's. The houses were bigger, the roads were wider. They had streetlights and sidewalks. Everything looked older and more elegant. In front of every house, on the driveway, big gray bins stood straight and still.

"What do you think that is?"

"Tomorrow must be trash day," said Steve. "We'll have to be more careful now. Nocturnal animals like to go through those, and they'll notice us, too. I've had my own experience with mice," he returned Helen's sword and pulled the shield off his back. "Nasty creatures."

I shuddered and pulled my cape closer over my shoulders. This new neighborhood wasn't much warmer. We started down the road, keeping close to curb.

"Don't be afraid," Helen cooed. "I know what's its like to venture into the unknown. Not everything that's different is against you."

"I know, I know. I used to be big on adventure, trust me. It was impossible to get me to be still. I was always running around, or running away. I had things to see and do. But as I'm getting older, I don't ache for it like I used to. I'm happy just being at home, doing small favors. I'd rather build up my community than go into the fray."

"Both are admirable." Helen nodded. 

"Really?"

"Of course. Everyone changes with age. It just takes time to find the things that matter to you, and the things that matter to you will change you. Some people get frustrated because they don't know what they value, or they feel like no one cares about them."

"Like Raya."

"It looks like it, yes. But we can show her that she's wrong. She does matter to us, and she can feel like she belongs in our home."

"What can we do for her?"

"We could watch her movie. All of us. That way, we know what she's like, where she's coming from, how to help her..." Helen's voice trailed off. "It may take a lot of convincing to bring her back."

"Can you do it?"

"I can't do it alone, Moana. We'll all have to pitch in."

"Yeah..." I hung my head with the weight of the things I had to do in the future. "Wait a second. Steve! Stop walking."

Steve stopped and straightened his posture. "What? What is it?"

"Tracks. Look! Doesn't that look like the print of Raya's boots?"

I gestured to the curb, which had parts of it that had been lightly powdered with snow. There was the shape of a rounded triangle with a square right behind it, over and over, repeating itself.

"Looks like it to me," Said Steve. "Let's hurry before we lose the trail."

We hurried our pace. We beat against the earth, veering this way and that. We went out of people's yards just as quickly as we came into them. We crossed the street, then ran back again. And then to the other side.

"What is going on?" I cried.

"I think she was trying to get us off her tail." Steve said.

Somehow I didn't believe him. There were the smallest pile of sticks found at each side of the road where Raya's footprints went. It's like she was running with a large bundle of sticks in her arms and kept dropping them as she went from side to side to gather more. I wondered what that meant.

Helen skidded to a stop right before leaving the concrete. Tall, unkempt grasses were blanketed thick with snow, protected from melting by the nearby trees. The trees looked old and brittle, they were not ones I would have normally climbed. 

"At least we know the general direction she went," Steve panted. "There's more bushes up ahead. Maybe she went back to the house."

I couldn't wait for Steve to cut through them again. I scaled the tallest tree and made my way out to the furthest branch, slipping the entire way. I didn't bother to hug myself close to it like last time. This tree hadn't shed its leaves for the winter, and it was impossible to see the stars whenever you looked up.

"Moana! What do you see?" Steve shouted.

"I see..." I leaned closer forward. These were clearly a different line of shrubs, because I didn't see the path of light that had come from She's back door. We were lost lost. Below me, the line of bushes made a circle, bordering something that wasn't grass and wasn't snow. It looked slick, but not smooth. It was silver, but not reflective. "I think it's a pond!"

"Is Raya there?"

"I can't tell," I leaned closer still, hanging onto a springy twig for balance. I squinted, almost shutting my eyes entirely before I made out something small and dark moving on the surface of the pond. "Wait, no! I think it's her!"

There was the whacking sound of Helen slicing her sword through the bushes. But this small dark thing was moving fast. They wouldn't be able to make it to Raya in time before she ran away again. 

"Stay there, Moana!" Steve ordered.

"I can't! You're going to lose her!"

"You're going to fall!"

I bit my lip and backed up, pressed my body close to the tree's trunk. Holding out my oar in front of me, I ran forward and dug the point of the oar into the branch, preparing to pole vault onto the surface of the pond. 

The branch gave way.

A cracking sound erupted in my ears.

I felt the air leave my body as I toppled over and fell, higher than I'd ever fallen before.

My body slammed into the scraggly shrubs below.

I heard Helen scream from the pond.

Ioihi makamaka,

Moana of Motunui