My wife tells me that she has, yet again, dreamt again of bones buried beneath the mango tree in our front yard.

She has been having this dream for several nights now. With each dream, the bones are closer to the surface. She worries. She says that in a few more nights they will be freed and that something terrible will befall someone in our family.

The mangos lie rotting on the ground. Neither of us will go near the tree now. My wife dreams of bones. I dream of … other things. A beautiful woman calls to me. The calls grows stronger each night I dream of her.

A greenish froth coats the surface of the stagnant brackish water. The shallow pool is the remnant of a seasonal stream bordering the beach. The surrounding growth, usually verdant, is a sickly yellow. During the rainy season the pool quickly turns into a rapidly flowing stream that swallows up its sandy banks and cuts a deep path in the dunes as it rushes down toward the winter surf.

In the middle of the pool, a glossy mo’o ‘ala, nearly a foot in length, lies sunning itself on a dense water-worn volcanic rock from whence it takes its name. Before long, another lizard joins the first. Then another. And another. Soon the archipelago of moss-covered stones is teeming with mo’o ‘ala.

On the largest stone of all sits a young woman with her feet immersed in the water as she strings delicate ‘ilima blossoms into lei ‘apiki (the lei that attracts mischievous spirits). The woman’s face is hidden beneath a cascade of long, dark reddish-brown hair, which tumbles past her hips into the water.

A few hours later the lei ‘apiki adorns her head and neck. Emitting a short chirping-clicking sound "Kkkikikikikkii," she calls the mo’o ‘ala to her. She laughs as they crawl over her, tickling her. Suddenly, something plops into the water. The ‘o’opu have leapt from tide pool to tide pool to join them. Hers is the power to attract fish … and men.

A breeze arrives. The woman pauses to scent the air. The man approaches. She visits him in his dreams while his wife sleeps, dreaming of bones. The woman begins chanting softly and the lizards fuse into her skin. Her face shimmers like radiating heat; wavering briefly between human and reptilian before settling back into human guise.

Large black eyes watch as the man draws nearer. She steps off the stone and wades through the water to meet him. His eyes widen when he sees her beauty, but then … she smiles, revealing her sharp, pointed teeth. He steps back, confused. She quickly moves forward and grabs his hand.

The moment she touches him, he forgets and becomes docile. She leads him deep into the valley to her dwelling. Hours later, they arrive to a thick grove of ferns. She moves aside a curtain of ferns to reveal a narrow opening in the ground — the collapsed roof of a lava tube. She gently pushes the man through the hole and then follows him.

Many months pass. The rainy season has come. Within the cave the mo’o woman lies next to her human lover, caressing him. Her hand leaves a trail of slime along his body. His skin, cold to the touch, is pale and waterlogged from prolonged contact with her skin. His eyes stare upward, but in death, he is sightless. He has served his purpose.

The mo’o takes his hand and lifts it gently to her mouth as if to bestow a kiss. Instead, she bites the hand off at the wrist. She delicately peels the flesh with her teeth into small strips and swallows them. She re-forms the little bones into their former shape with the help of a fine cord made of olona fiber.

Finished, she dangles her creation, gently shaking it. Pleased with the soft clattering sound it makes, she smiles and caresses the large mound of her distended belly.

It is late summer. The mo’o ‘ala surround the mo’o woman as she sits on her favorite stone in the stagnant pool with her infant daughter in her lap. She dangles the hand bones of her daughter’s sire, gently shaking it.

The child, pleased with the sound, smiles.