Falling into Rarohenga

by Steph Matuku

  Maybe this is a trick too.

  I shuffle back on my bum so I’m not sitting so close to it anymore.

  Tui is crying, and before I can stop her, she throws her arms around the taniwha’s neck and presses a kiss against its cheek.

  It snorts and pulls away, but not before I’ve spotted the scar on its shoulder, knotted and deep.

  ‘What happened to the other one?’ I’m still trying to make

  sense of it.

  ‘You saw.’ Tui wipes her eyes on her shirt. ‘It floated away.’

  ‘Yeah, but what happened to it after that? Do you think the people cooked it up, or made stuff out of it? Like taniwha bone necklaces or whatever?’ I don’t even know why I’m saying this. I just feel a bit irritated, because we’ve been sitting around doing nothing for ages, and my stomach is really beginning to rumble now.

  Tui is staring at me like I’m a total clown. ‘How would I know? That’s hardly the point though, is it?’

  ‘Maybe he ate it.’

  ‘Why are you being such a dick?’

  ‘Well, what was the point of all that?’ And here I pūkana dramatically, widening my eyes and poking my tongue out. ‘We’re wasting time.’

  ‘Because they were twins too. We remind him of them. What’s your problem? It’s just a story!’

  I’m not sure about that. One thing I’ve learned down here is that nothing is ‘just’ anything.

  Tui makes eye contact with the taniwha again, her eyes turning that weird mixture of colours that I’m beginning to really dislike. But the next moment she’s back, and she’s got a smile on her face.

  ‘He’s going to take us across.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘On his back.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ I get up and grab my uke, adjusting the strap so it’s not pressed against my bruised skin. ‘I’m not getting on that thing. What if it dumps us off in the middle?’

  ‘At least we’ll be closer than we are now. What else are we supposed to do? It’s way too far to swim in the dark.’

  ‘It couldn’t save one pair of twins,’ I snap. ‘What makes you think it’s gonna save us?’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he wants to help us!’

  ‘Yeah. Or maybe it’s just trying to scam us.’

  Tui lets out a growl of annoyance, and the taniwha snarls at me.

  I hastily back away, my fingers automatically travelling up to massage my shoulder. I can still feel that burning bite.

  ‘I’m so sick of you!’ Tui cries. ‘You’re always picking fights with people. You don’t trust anyone; you’re always thinking the worst of everyone, especially me—’

  ‘Like you even care. Since when have you ever concerned yourself with what’s going on with me? You’re so wrapped up in yourself, you’re just like Mum—’

  ‘Shut up!’ She stamps toward the taniwha, reaching for the fin on its back. ‘Hurry up, and stop being so stupid.’

  ‘I’m. Not. Stupid,’ I spit between gritted teeth. Throughout my whole life Tui has been held up as the brainy one, the smart one, and I’m always the dumb one. I’m sick of it. ‘And I’m not getting on that thing.’

  ‘This isn’t about you! It’s about Mum.’

  She might be able to fool herself, but she’s not fooling me one bit. ‘No, it’s about you, always wanting to be right all the time, always being so bloody know-it-all, no wonder you’ve got no mates …’

  ‘Shut up!’ she shrieks.

  ‘No wonder you’re always head down in the bloody library – because no one else can stand being around you!’

  ‘Shut up or I’m going without you! I’m warning you!’

  ‘Piss off then!’ I’m so angry my fingernails are digging into my palms, and it’s taking all I’ve got not to storm down the beach and just go for her. ‘Go on, go and play the brown saviour like you always do. It’s pathetic.’

  I turn my back on her and storm up the bank. My foot catches on a loose stone and I fall to my knees, scraping my shins, making me even angrier. I try again, hands scrabbling at the sandy slope, and pull myself up. The disco path cuts through the line of trees, back through the darkness, back to where we first fell in. I put one foot on the path and then the other. It would be so easy to just run down it, away from Tui, away from Mum and Dad, away into the darkness, never to return, ever.

  A drop of water falls on my hand, and I look up. Another drop spatters my cheek. The lady on the moon has managed to sail overhead, and she’s tipping her sack thing over. But it’s not a sack after all; it’s an old-fashioned water gourd, and she’s about to tip the lot on me. A stream of water patters down, and I cover my head, dodging sideways.

  ‘Alright, alright,’ I tell her, and I’m not angry anymore. I’m resigned. I know what I’ve got to do, and fighting with Tui isn’t going to make it any easier.

  The lady on the moon tosses her hair back and resumes her position, holding onto her tree and her water gourd, staring out across the black expanse of the Underworld universe.

  I sigh heavily and retrace my footsteps, making sure I watch where I put my feet as I scramble back down onto the sand.

  But when I get there, the beach is empty. Tui and the taniwha are gone.

  TUIKAE

  I’m about a quarter of the way across the river when I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I was just so angry. Kae gets me wound up like nobody else can. What he said hurt. It did. Because he was probably right. And don’t they say that it’s always the truth that hurts the most?

  I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about all those times I’ve been in the library and watched through the windows at my classmates laughing and having fun and making plans together. Or about the mean texts I get sometimes. Or about that time I thought Piri really liked me and it turned out to be Ruby and her bitch mates pretending to be him and laughing at the messages I’d sent back. Innocent messages, but anyone with a brain could see the hope and the yearning in them. It took them nearly three months to forget about it and move on to someone else, and that whole time I cried in my room after school, wanting to die with embarrassment, because I’d really liked Piri.

  It was Kae who stopped it. He told Ruby if she didn’t back off he’d make sure Kyle Jenkins heard about it and she could kiss goodbye to going with Kyle to the end-of-term social.

  I didn’t go at all. Kae tried to make me, but I refused. I pretended the whole thing was dumb, and stayed home watching movies, but I wish I’d been brave after all and gone.

  Is that what this is? Being brave? Going by myself? Or am I just being incredibly stupid?

  I press tighter with my thighs, my hands wrapped firmly around the taniwha’s rubbery dorsal fin, hoping it doesn’t forget I’m up here and dive under the water. The wind rushes through my hair. Although I’ve rolled my jeans up and raised my legs as high as I can, my shins and calves still get wet.

  I see what seems to be the reflection of stars like sparkles in the water, and then I realise there’s no stars above at all: these are lights way, way down beneath the surface. I can make out spiralling towers and little houses, all laid out in a circular maze of underwater streets and channels and lit by who knows what – glowing plankton? Shapes glide through the streets, and at first I think they’re fish, and then with a gulp I realise they’re people, keeping up with the taniwha as he powers to the opposite shore.

  A group of them swim up toward me. I draw my legs up as high as I can in case they try to bite me, but they don’t come too close. They stay just below the surface. Their faces are watery green and covered with the same iridescent scales the taniwha has. They’re not mermaids or anything; they have legs, but tails as well, long skinny tails like a lion but with a triangular fleshy bit on the end instead of a fluffy tuft.

  One of them holds a long, carved stick that looks like a taiaha. He brandishes it at me, and for a moment I think he’s about to attack, but then I realise he’s just trying to get my attention. He shakes his head ‘no’, po
ints in the direction we’re heading, and then back to where we came from.

  I don’t understand. Does he want me to go back? But I can’t; we’re more than halfway already, and it’s not as if the taniwha has a steering wheel or anything.

  I glance back down at the underwater people – the ponaturi, I think they’re called – but they’ve vanished. The glowing lights of the city blend into ripples, and the river is black once more. To my dismay, the taniwha has angled away from the opposite shore and is now coasting sideways along the river.

  I tap at the shoulder of the taniwha.

  ‘Hey!’ My voice is flung over my shoulder into the wind and away. I tap again. ‘You’re going the wrong way!’

  I can tell he hears me, because his skin quivers almost resentfully under my touch. But thankfully he changes course again, heading for the bank. He glides up onto the sand like a boat being hauled into shore, and I slither off inelegantly, my legs wobbly after gripping his body for so long. This beach is rockier than the last, and I stumble, my shin scraping painfully against a rock covered with what feels like baby mussels. My blood oozes black under the faint moonlight. I bend to splash water onto the graze, hissing at the sting.

  It’s darker than before. The moonlight isn’t as bright over here and it feels much scarier. I know that’s because Kae isn’t at my side. What the hell was I thinking? How could I just leave my brother there? I turn to the taniwha to ask him to please, please go back and get Kae, but to my surprise and shock, he’s already gone, a circle of ripples marking the spot where he vanished. I can’t believe it. He didn’t even stay to say goodbye. I’m alone.

  I don’t know what to do. I shout, ‘Kae! Kae!’ but my voice is swallowed up by the dark, and although I strain to hear, there’s no answer from the other side of the river. What now? If Kae swims straight across, he’ll end up way down the beach from me. If I swim back, I might miss him. And besides, now I know for a fact there are things in there. What if the ponaturi attacked me? Grabbed me and pulled me under? I shudder at the thought of it. They didn’t look as though they were the types to ask me in for a cup of tea. They had the faces of warriors.

  The only thing I can do is head back along the beach to where I was supposed to land, and wait and hope. And if he doesn’t come soon, I’ll have to go and get Mum by myself.

  Tears flow down my cheeks. I scrub at them but they keep coming.

  My brother. I left him. He’ll never forgive me. And I’ll never forgive myself.

  I’m so confused and worried that I get all mixed up, and I can’t remember which way to go. Left or right? I’m sure I’m supposed to be further downriver. I’m about to head off, but then a light up by the treeline catches my eye.

  My feet are numb from cold, but that doesn’t stop me crying out when I stub my toes against the rocks. Scrambling, crablike, I finally make it to a soft sandy bank.

  In front of me stands a pair of tall pou hammered into the earth, faces carved at the top with gleaming pāua shells for eyes. I limp between them, my hands automatically reaching out to stroke the polished wood. There’s another pair of pou on either side of me, and then another. I follow them into the bush, toward a light shining through the trees.

  There are voices now, and laughter too, coming from behind a wall made of carved pou. Some of the posts are missing, leaving narrow gaps. I slide through, staying in the shadows. Billowing steam rises from a multitude of hot pools in a clearing, revealing and concealing a group of naked women bathing. Some laugh and talk together, while others lie back and gaze up at the bush canopy above, dreaming. Flaming torches cast a friendly light, reflected in the pāua eyes of the pou.

  I’m shivering now. The river was cold on my legs, and I can feel the coldness creeping up into my body. I shuffle nearer to one of those flaming torches, hoping to warm up a little, and one of the women in the pool closest to me spots me.

  I freeze. She’s on her feet in an instant, stepping out of the pool and walking toward me, utterly unembarrassed that she’s completely naked. I can’t even run. Where would I go? And perhaps she can help me.

  She reaches my side and, to my surprise, drops to her knees to inspect my leg.

  ‘Come.’ She takes my hand, draws me closer to the pool. The women there stop their chatter and peep at me. I don’t know what to say, so I just wave, and one of them mimics me, wiggling her fingers in the air. The others burst into laughter.

  I’m not sure what I’ve done to make them laugh. Perhaps they haven’t seen anyone wave before? I’m wondering if they’ll even be able to understand me, when the woman holding onto my hand says, ‘I’m Rākau.’

  She’s speaking Māori. I’m a long way from fluent but I still understand her.

  ‘I’m Tui,’ I say. I feel shy.

  Rākau dips a cupped hand into the pool and carefully dribbles water on my cut leg. I brace myself for a sting, but it doesn’t come. Surprised, I peer down at my leg and watch the blood turn to steam, the wound knitting and closing. Rākau rubs a firm hand against my flesh and my skin is unbroken and new again. I can only gasp in wonder.

  ‘The water has healing powers,’ she says. ‘And the steam too.’

  She takes a deep breath, holds it, releases it and smiles. ‘But only at night. Come. Sit with us. Refresh yourself.’

  The way she speaks is very odd. It’s as though she’s swallowing the words, while some of the consonants come out in a hiss. As I watch her mouth move, I realise that what I’m hearing doesn’t match the movements her mouth is making. The reo Māori that I know, I hear, and the words I don’t know are substituted with English in my head, so that the meaning behind it all makes sense to me. It’s very strange, but I’m so cold now, I really don’t care.

  She climbs up the rocks surrounding the pool and steps in. Slowly I strip off my clothes, leaving them on the ground. I’ve always been shy about my body, but somehow, being among all these women who are all different sizes and shapes and ages, it doesn’t matter. I climb into the hot pool, my skin rising in goose­bumps. The heat, at first almost too much to bear, becomes warm and comforting.

  I sigh with pleasure and sink down until the water laps around my shoulders. I breathe in the steam and my mind becomes calm. Rākau glides through the water toward me, smiling, holding up a wooden comb with a questioning look.

  I smile and nod, sitting up and yanking out my hair tie to let my hair fall. She drifts behind me and begins to comb my hair. I haven’t had my hair brushed since I was a little girl. Mum used to do it for me every morning before school, and every morning she’d say, ‘We have to get your hair cut,’ but she never did. It was down to my waist before I finally hacked at it with the kitchen scissors myself, and then Mum cried and took me to the hairdresser. I can remember this very clearly, but as Rākau combs, the memory becomes dim and distant.

  ‘What is this place?’ I say, my head tipping this way and that.

  ‘A place where we can meet and talk,’ she says. ‘At dawn the water cools. The steam disappears and so must we.’ She works on a tangle in my hair. ‘I had a daughter once.’

  ‘What was her name?’ I’m feeling drowsy now. A few of the women have stepped out of the pool and vanished into the dark beyond the flickering torches.

  Rākau doesn’t answer. She splits my hair into widths and begins to plait.

  ‘I have a brother,’ I tell her, and I frown, because I can’t … I can’t quite remember his name. It’s there, a short name, an easy name, just dancing on the tip of my tongue. I breathe in deep and feel the steam cleansing my lungs, wiping away a little more of the bad feeling inside me: the feelings I have toward my brother, the hurt, the resentment, the anger. I breathe until there is nothing left to feel.

  ‘Where is he?’ Rākau asks. Her voice sounds as if it’s coming from far, far away, but I can still feel her fingers working my hair, twisting it up into an intricate braid.

  ‘We were looking for something,’ I reply, but I can’t remember what that something was. I
think we were searching in someone’s room. I frown, and the pieces of that memory become hazy, indistinct.

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ I conclude, and for a moment I feel very, very sad.

  ‘And now you are alone.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, and this time I speak with more conviction. ‘But that’s okay. No one can hurt you when you’re alone.’

  ‘Trees in a forest stand stronger than a single tree in a field. You’re lucky to have a brother.’

  I blink, confused. ‘What brother?’

  She doesn’t answer, and when I glance over my shoulder, she’s drifting back into the steam, back to the other side of the pool. It’s almost empty now. More women have vanished, and many of the torches have been extinguished.

  I close my eyes for what seems like a moment, and when I open them again, the clearing is even darker.

  ‘Hello?’ I call, and my voice sounds strange and afraid.

  There is no reply.

  I lean back against the warm rocks.

  I breathe.

  TUIKAE

  I stare at the empty beach in disbelief and then in growing anger.

  ‘What the hell?’ I storm up to the water’s edge and shout, ‘Tui!’ but my cry is swept away downriver, into the dark.

  I pace up and down the beach, up and down. My anger slowly dissipates, to be replaced by unease and then panic. She’s gone off and left me. Left me! How could she do that? And then I remember my angry words, the hurtful things I threw at her, and I know why she left.

  It’s not her fault she spends most of her time alone. Well, maybe a little bit. She’s a prickly kind of person, Tui. It’s not easy getting close to someone who’s practically a kina in disguise. But she’s only been that way since Dad left. She didn’t have to watch out for Mum. She could have been like me and gone off with her friends and left Mum to wallow in her sadness. But she didn’t. She stayed home and made sure Mum had clean clothes and something to eat, and that the house was tidy. She took it all on, and gradually all her mates drifted away. She didn’t have time for them, and so they didn’t have time for her. Funny how that happens sometimes.