The Wayfinder

Set in a pre-contact Polynesian world of island kingdoms, oceanic voyaging, and celestial navigation, the novel weaves together two storylines separated by vast stretches of sea: a small, isolated community of Māori descendants struggling to survive on a depleted island, and the royal family of Tonga, an empire fracturing under the weight of war and internal violence.

Kōrero, a talkative 16-year-old girl, narrates the first storyline. She lives on Manumotu (Bird Island), a remote speck in the southern waters where 84 people subsist on dwindling food supplies. Her people descend from enslaved Māori who fled Aotearoa (New Zealand) generations ago aboard a waka (seagoing canoe) called Mā Atarau (By Moonlight), separated by a storm from their captors' canoe, Te Kahukura (The Red Cloak). Kōrero's father is the island's fishing captain; her mother is its tattooing captain. While opening ancestral graves, Kōrero finds a greenstone (jade) fishhook pendant she begins to wear. The community faces ecological collapse: Crops fail, birds vanish, trees disappear. A marriage ban controls population growth, and no child younger than Kōrero and her best friend Hine exists.

Three omens foreshadow upheaval: A whale beaches and vanishes, a parrot arrives bearing a greenstone ring and fragments of human speech, and a turtle uncovers a buried greenstone adze. After the parrot's arrival, the islanders appoint the large, easygoing Tapoto as their first war captain. Then a double-hulled voyaging canoe enters the cove, bearing two young Tongan men. The younger, Finau, is brash and entitled. The elder calls himself only a wayfinder, an expert navigator. Both carry sacks of human bones they describe as "temporarily dead," claiming to be bound for Pulotu, the mythical afterlife island, to restore their dead to life. The Wayfinder recognizes Kōrero's fishhook pendant and takes it, telling her only a true navigator may wear it. He reveals that a neighboring island lies just two days away.

The novel's second storyline unfolds on Tongatapu, Tonga's main island, where the Tu'itonga (king) rules. He has three sons: Lolohea, the eldest, is groomed for kingship through brutal qualification tests; the Second Son has been apprenticed for nine years to Havea, a master navigator forcibly separated from his own family; and Finau, the youngest, studies poetry under New Punake, a castrated royal poet. The king's brother 'Aho has returned from the Fisian (Fijian) wars carrying his dead wife's bones, accompanied by his son Mateaki. 'Aho possesses a supernatural power: He can brand others with a black jellyfish mark by touch, a mark he applies to those he kills and, increasingly, to women he assaults. His wife's death was at his own hands during a dissociative episode caused by war trauma.

The Tu'itonga's aunt, the Tamahā, holds the highest rank in all of Tonga and possesses the Life-Affecting Fan, an artifact capable of giving and withdrawing life. She raises endangered species, grows medicinal plants, and mentors the Fefine Girls, young women who serve the royal household. Among them is Moon Appearing, from the rural island of Hunga, who catches Lolohea's eye when she applies ritual soot to his chest before one of his tests.

As the Tu'itonga's health deteriorates from kidney disease, violence escalates. A Fisian assassination team kills the warrior chief Tu'ilifuka. 'Aho assaults Fefine Girls with impunity. The Tu'itonga attempts to bury 'Aho alive in the royal tomb. When no one moves to subdue 'Aho, Finau charges his uncle, and both tumble inside. Finau strangles 'Aho unconscious and is pulled out alive; 'Aho is sealed within. Having escaped, 'Aho assaults Moon Appearing. She flees to the Tamahā, who takes her in and teaches her to wield the Fan through improvised dance. Sun Shower, another Fefine Girl, employs a different strategy: She has a tattoo artist ink a fake jellyfish mark on her body, revealing it to 'Aho so he believes he has already attacked her. He retreats in confusion, and Sun Shower escapes to join oceanic nomads.

Havea initiates the Second Son as a full navigator by giving him his fishhook pendant. From this point, the Second Son is called the Wayfinder. Lolohea is sent to fill a Tongan Hull, meaning to kidnap 12 people. On the peace-loving island of Rotuma, he devises a scheme: After secretly abducting a young woman named Kaniva, he returns claiming to hunt a fugitive. Ten Rotuman warriors volunteer to join the chase, unwittingly becoming the captives. Mateaki, left alone with Kaniva, kills her. The poet Punake is left behind on Rotuma as collateral.

The Bird Islanders persuade the Tongan brothers to visit the neighboring island, but the expedition finds it depopulated by civil war. Only a single girl child survives. The men return with Te Kahukura, the very waka from their origin story, and baskets of greenstone war clubs, confirming the neighbors descended from those who sailed The Red Cloak. After receiving her moko (facial tattoo), marking her passage to womanhood, Kōrero sails alone to rescue the surviving child. The Wayfinder catches up and helps. Through patience and song, they coax the traumatized girl, whom they name Ihi, into their company.

The island's blind elder and storyteller, Tiri, then reveals the community's darkest secret: Upon their ancestors' arrival at Bird Island, they found people already living there and killed them, forcing the prior inhabitants to bury themselves alive. The last man's dying words prove to be a line of Tongan poetry, revealing the victims were Tongans. This discovery shatters the community's peaceful self-image.

Kōrero's people strike a bargain with the Tongan brothers: Tapoto will kill 'Aho, Kōrero will obtain the Tamahā's Fan, and the Wayfinder will become king and grant them the uninhabited island of 'Ata. During the ocean crossing, The Red Cloak's hull cracks. As the waka sinks, the islanders sacrifice all their possessions to lighten the Wayfinder's overloaded canoe. The Tongan brothers release the bones they have carried throughout the novel: the remains of Lolohea, Moon Appearing, and Six Fists, the king's security chief, who perished in Tonga's upheavals. Kōrero dives back toward her parents on the sinking canoe, choosing family over survival, before Tiri's sacrifice of her last possessions creates room to save them.

On Tongatapu, Kōrero presents the Tamahā with two malau birds, the last breeding pair of an endangered species. The Tamahā loans her the Life-Affecting Fan. At the royal bathing pond, Tapoto challenges 'Aho to a duel, but 'Aho beats him savagely. Sun Shower tackles 'Aho from behind, and together she and Tapoto pin him underwater until he drowns. Kōrero uses the Fan to briefly revive him, then amputates his right hand, removing his jellyfish power. She restores him to life and sends him to find his son Mateaki.

The Wayfinder is crowned Tu'itonga in a ceremony where Kōrero's father serves as surrogate, offering words of fatherly affirmation the new king has never heard. The Tamahā passes the Fan to Kōrero permanently, effectively naming her successor. The Wayfinder returns Kōrero's greenstone fishhook pendant, recognizing her as a navigator. Kōrero and the Wayfinder acknowledge their feelings and agree to reunite when the seasonal winds shift. Kōrero's flotilla departs for 'Ata, guided by the constellation Toloa.

The epilogue recounts Kōrero's legendary future: She becomes known as "The Wayfinder," traveling the Pacific with her navigator husband and their children, reviving depleted islands with her Fan, freeing captive women, and hiding pristine islands by coaxing their zenith stars from the sky, ensuring these places can only be found by those who allow themselves to become utterly, wonderfully lost.