Falling into Rarohenga

by Steph Matuku

  I kick at the ground, stubbing the ball of my foot against the cobbles, and it hurts but I don’t care. He’s my dad. My dad. Why can’t he be better? And why can’t we just give him another chance to try? It’s not fair. It’s not fair on us and it’s not fair on him either.

  Tui sighs. ‘Let’s just go and smash the front door in, then sneak up and then …’

  ‘Improvise?’

  She nods. ‘Improvise.’

  She gives me a tentative smile, and I smile back to show I’m not mad with her. I mean, what she said hurt, but I know it’s the truth. It’s funny. Yesterday I would have yelled at her for saying something like that to me. But today, I can see the truth of it even if it is jagged and sharp and cutting.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  The voice is loud, angry. We spin around and there she is. Our mum. We’ve come through a whirlpool to find her; travelled through the bush, over hills and rivers, through a crazy city that makes no sense; battled monsters and our own selves just to find her, and here she is, staring at us as though she has no idea who on earth we are.

  ‘Mum!’ Tui breathes.

  A scornful but confused expression passes over Mum’s face. ‘It’s Maia.’

  Tui was right. She does look beautiful. She seems younger, and that little frown of anxiety that usually creases her brow has been smoothed away. I guess when you don’t have to study or work or deal with two hōhā kids, you’re bound to feel a little more relaxed, even if you are hanging out in the Underworld with a bunch of dead people. She looks as though she was born to twirl around in swishy blue dresses with sparkling jewels around her neck. She looks as though she was born to be here, without us.

  ‘What are you doing in the snare garden? Stealing? The cooks won’t like that.’

  Tui glances up at the swinging rows of dead birds and grimaces. ‘Ew. You eat them?’

  Mum frowns. I realise then that she doesn’t know who we are and if we try to explain she’ll just think we’re lying. We need to try another way.

  ‘We got lost,’ I break in. ‘We need to get to the fields but the streets keep changing.’

  Her expression softens, but she still seems suspicious. ‘Are you new?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We just got here.’

  ‘It’s hard, when you first arrive. That’s what they tell me.’ Her voice trails off and she looks confused.

  ‘Mum?’ Tui says softly.

  She doesn’t reply; merely turns on her heel and beckons for us to follow. ‘I’ll help you. But we can’t be long. My husband is throwing me a party. To celebrate my …’ she frowns. ‘Why, to celebrate me, I suppose.’

  She’s walking fast now, and we have to run to keep up. Dad’s building suddenly dissolves behind us, but we keep our gaze firmly fixed on Mum. I grab Tui’s hand. I don’t want to lose her now. Not when we’re so close to getting out of here.

  The city reforms around us, and now it’s as though we’re walking through an aquarium. Fish swim all around us and over our heads, kept back behind shimmering walls of glass. Coral of all colours branches into an underwater city of its own, while tiny seahorses dart between fronds of seaweed. Once I think I see a pod of dolphins, but then the aquarium dissolves and we’re in an alleyway, and the stone walls on either side are lined with ticking clocks.

  ‘Why does it change?’ Tui says. ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘Ārohirohi is built on dreams and wishes,’ Mum says. ‘As your beliefs change, so the city changes. But when you focus on what you really want …’

  The wall of clocks dissolves, and now we’re walking past a window looking into a nursery, and there are babies in woven flax baskets, all relaxing peacefully with gummy smiles on their chubby faces.

  ‘… it becomes real.’

  The nursery wall disappears. We’re at the edge of the city, and the fields and gardens stretch out before us under the leaden sky.

  ‘And here we are.’

  TUIKAE

  We walk through a grove of apple trees, and I reach out and touch Mum’s hand. She jerks away from me as though she’s been burned.

  ‘Don’t you remember anything?’ I can’t help the pleading inmy voice.

  ‘I’m Maia,’ she says, but the conviction in her voice has vanished, and I know, because this happened to me too, that she’s wondering if she really is Maia.

  ‘Why don’t you come with us a little way?’ I say, trying to make it sound fun and inviting.

  She regards Kae with a suspicious expression, and then me. I’m terrified she’s going to bolt back into the city. If she can create the streets any way she chooses, how will we be able to follow her? It strikes me then that I don’t know where she’d go; that I really don’t know my mum at all.

  ‘Why should I?’ She sounds apprehensive now. ‘Who are you?’

  I touch her hand again, and although she flinches away, I hold on tight. Although it’s been a long time, I remember that hand in mine. I’ve held it for as long as I can remember.

  ‘It’s me, Mum.’ I want to be gentle, but I’m beginning to panic now. ‘It’s Tui. Your daughter.’

  She peers at my face. I can see a hint of recognition swimming in the depths of her gaze, but then she blinks and it’s gone. She reaches out to brush my hair back from my face.

  ‘Tui?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  Her hand drops, and her face closes over again. The moment is lost.

  ‘That’s my brother, Kae, you remember? We’re your kids.’

  She tries to wrench her hand away, but I cling on tighter.

  ‘Let go, please,’ she says, and when I don’t, she raises her voice. ‘Let go!’

  She prises my fingers away, but I latch on with the other hand. ‘Help me!’ I cry to Kae.

  My stomach tightens as I register the closed expression on his face: the one he gets when life gets a bit tough and he can’t be bothered anymore. I’ve seen it with his schoolwork, I’ve seen it when he has jobs to do around the house, I’ve seen it with his girlfriends just before he deletes their contact details, and I’m seeing it now.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he says. ‘Carry her?’

  ‘Do something! Anything would be good right about now!’

  Mum’s twisting away and slapping at me, and I can’t hold on much longer.

  ‘Twenty-six hours in labour, remember? You can’t forget that. You bang on about it often enough!’

  ‘You can’t help her,’ Kae says. ‘She has to help herself.’

  I’m utterly appalled. He has an apple in his hand.

  ‘Drop that right now!’ I shriek, and he actually snarls at me before lifting it to his lips.

  I let go of Mum, sprint over and shoulder-charge him. I’m so angry it doesn’t even hurt. He goes down, swearing, and I wrestle the apple from him and chuck it over my shoulder.

  ‘You idiot!’ I storm at him, and then make a lunge for Mum, who’s sifting back into the trees to make her escape. I grab at her but only just manage to snatch a handful of her dress.

  ‘Let go!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Let her go,’ says another voice, and we all freeze: Kae on the ground, me with a handful of Mum’s dress, Mum indignant and bewildered.

  And Dad, with Kae’s stolen apple in his hand.

  TUIKAE

  When Tui ripped that apple out of my hand, I was so mad I wanted to smash her. But as soon as it’s out of my grasp, I’m shocked at what I nearly did. I scrub my hand on my shorts, trying to wipe the apple smell off, my mind going in all directions. I’m trying to figure out what to do; how to get Mum home.

  And then, like a miracle, Dad shows up. I can’t believe it; can’t help the joy bubbling up within me.

  ‘Dad!’ I scramble to my feet and drink him in. He’s bigger than I remember. Stronger. And his hair is wilder and longer. He’s got a tā moko now, and the lines are swirling on his cheeks, diving above and below the surface of his skin, like … I’ve seen something
like that before, but it takes me a moment to remember. Hine-what’s-her-face. She has a tā moko like this.

  All this flashes through my mind in an instant, and then I’m moving again, running to my dad. I hug him hard. Slowly his arms come around me, but the moment is all too brief and then he’s pushing me away again.

  ‘Kae.’ He’s studying me not with love or happiness but with a stern regard, as though he’s my teacher or something and I’ve just crossed a line by hugging him. ‘You’re a man now.’

  I’m suddenly shy, my toe tracing an arc in the grass. ‘Aw nah.’ I’m still wearing my school uniform; how can he think I look like a man? I don’t even need to shave yet. ‘Not quite.’

  ‘When I was your age, I was already working, paying bills.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  He dropped out of school when he was fifteen and went to work at the freezing works. Then he met Mum and decided to be an accountant. It took him a long time. Maybe he just should have stayed in school in the first place, I think, and then immediately feel guilty that it even crossed my mind. He did what he did because he had to. Just like he’s doing now.

  Tui is standing there with her weight on one hip; her arms crossed, her lip curled.

  ‘Hello, Tui,’ he says, and throws the apple for her to catch.

  She doesn’t, though. She doesn’t even bother unfolding her arms, and the apple thuds to the ground next to her. It’s all I can do not to dive onto it and cram it in my mouth, but I don’t want to seem weak; not in front of Dad.

  Mum’s watching all of this with her head cocked to one side. She looks so confused.

  ‘They said they were my children,’ she says to Dad.

  ‘They’re not children. Not anymore. They can look after themselves. I waited until they were old enough. I did that for them. And for you.’

  Tui snorts. ‘Aw, you did that for us? That’s so sweet.’

  I eye Tui in disbelief. She’s never talked back to Dad. Neither of us have. Mind you, the last time we saw him we were only kids, and he wasn’t really the kind of guy you talked back to.

  ‘Mum doesn’t belong here,’ Tui insists. ‘Not down here with all these mirages and ghosts and monsters, and—’ She jabs a thumb up to where Tāwhirimatea is rolling in the clouds, wrapping them around his body like they’re a big feather duvet. ‘What the hell even is that? We’re taking her home.’

  ‘But this is my home,’ Mum says. Dad holds his hand out to her encouragingly, and she moves to his side.

  Tui is fighting back tears, but she juts her chin out and screams, ‘You stupid cow, this isn’t your home! Your home is with us. In the World of Light.’

  Mum raises an eyebrow, and I’m pretty sure she’s thinking she’d much rather be with a handsome guy who throws her a party than with a grubby teenager who calls her a stupid cow. An idea begins to form. I take Tui by the elbow and talk to her, quietly, urgently. ‘Look, this isn’t going to do us any good. If she doesn’t want to go, she should stay.’

  Tui’s mouth drops. ‘What the hell, Kae?’

  ‘And we could stay too.’

  She’s speechless. I start talking again faster, my mouth coming out with ideas that my brain hasn’t quite figured out yet. ‘Or I could stay and you could go. I don’t mind. School’s shit anyway. The only thing I want to do is music, and I can do that here. And you could go back if you want. Finish school, go to uni, get a great job, a fancy apartment …’

  She’s shaking her head, but I can tell there’s something about that idea that she likes. There’s something shadowy and secret behind her eyes.

  ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore. You wouldn’t have to watch out for Mum. And you wouldn’t have to worry about me holding you back.’

  ‘But Kae—’

  ‘And I’d see you again.’ It all makes sense to me; it’s all so clear. ‘I’d see you at the end. When it’s really your time.’

  She bites her lip. I can almost see the thoughts racing through her brain. And then her face crumples. ‘But you promised we’d stick together. You promised.’

  I know I did. I look over at Mum and Dad. He’s got an arm around her shoulders, and she’s leaning on him, and they look so together and so right. I’ve never known them like this, and my heart is overflowing seeing them like that.

  Tui looks at me and then at them, and her face crumples. Slowly, as if she’s thought of something, she slips a hand into her pocket. ‘Fine. Do it, then. Stay here. But she needs to know the truth.’

  Before I can stop her, she’s racing toward Mum. She dives at her and wipes a hand across Mum’s forehead, leaving a streak of red. Mum’s eyelids immediately flutter closed and she drops to the ground, her dress billowing around her like a cloud.

  Dad grabs at Tui, peels open her fingers. Her palm is stained with red ochre.

  ‘What have you done?’ he says, and his voice is filled with a dark horror that makes my skin crawl. ‘What have you done?’

  He shakes her hard, his temper suddenly furious. I charge over to them, grab Tui and pull her away.

  And Mum opens her eyes.

  TUIKAE

  The instant Mum opens her eyes, I know she’s back. She gets to her feet, looking down at her dress with an incredulous expression. She gives Dad nothing but the slightest contemptuous glance before she heads for Kae and me, sweeping us up in a hug so tight I can’t breathe, and I don’t even care because all I can think is that I’ve got my mum back.

  She smoothes my hair back from my cheek, kisses Kae and then glares at Dad. I’m surprised he doesn’t burst into flames on the spot.

  His voice, when it comes, is conciliatory. ‘Now, now, Maia,’ he says, his hands out in a placating gesture. ‘Don’t get angry.’

  Mum sucks in a furious breath and spits, ‘Angry? Angry? Angry doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling right now. Of all the things you’ve ever done – and there’s been a long bloody list of them – this is the worst. How could you? How could you!’

  ‘Because I love you! I told you over and over!’

  ‘That’s. Not. Love.’ She rips that beautiful choker from her throat and throws it at Dad. I can’t help wincing. They’re diamonds, after all. Probably not the time or place to mention that.

  ‘You can’t buy me. You never could. Money never mattered to me the way it mattered to you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me now! Money’s useless here anyway.’

  Mum doesn’t say anything, just ushers me and Kae away, her arms around our shoulders. I can feel her whole body trembling. Kae twists around to look at Dad, and I can tell part of him wants to run back there and be with him, even if Dad hasn’t shown the slightest bit of interest.

  ‘I tore apart time and space for you!’ Dad’s face is mottled an ugly purple, and it seems as though he’s growing even bigger with his anger. ‘I did it for you!’

  A whirling shadow flies past us. We barely have time to register it before a nearby apple tree suddenly crumbles into dust.

  Quick as anything, I’ve got my mere out and Kae is in front of Mum, protecting her. And there she is. Hinekōruru. She strides through the fields toward us, the grain stalks withering as she passes. She’s wrapped in black, and her poi swings lazily in her hand.

  ‘Isn’t this lovely?’ she calls. She sounds amused. ‘So romantic. So …’

  She sticks one finger down her throat and mimes vomiting.

  I want to laugh, but I’m not sure why she’s here, and because I sure as hell know she can turn us to dust if she feels like it, I just hold my tongue and say nothing.

  Kae doesn’t seem to have got that memo. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Hinekōruru flicks her gaze toward us, but it’s Mum she looks at the hardest. Mum draws herself up and narrows her eyes, and the two of them have that unspoken conversation that women tend to have just before they scratch each other’s eyes out.

  Finally Hinekōruru sniffs and turns away. ‘I’m here to thank you, Kae. And you
too, Tui.’

  I have no idea what she’s talking about, and from the blank expression on his face, neither does Kae.

  She smiles, but there’s no humour in it. ‘For bringing him out to me. I can’t go in there, you see. A city built on shifting beliefs is no place for a goddess. I could be wished away altogether.’

  A goddess! Well, that explains a lot. I sift through my memory of all the ancient Māori gods and goddesses I know of, but I can’t place her at all.

  ‘The Goddess of Shadows,’ Mum murmurs. ‘We had a pantheon of gods and goddesses in the old days. Many have been forgotten. She must have been one of them. But someone remembered who she was. Someone brought her back.’

  Yeah. I bet I know who that was.

  ‘The taniwha has quit your employ,’ Hinekōruru calls to Dad, whose face is growing more ashen by the second. ‘It seems Kae made quite an impression on him. And, of course, the ponaturi answer to me. They swim in the shadows. They swim where I wish.’

  She flicks her poi again, and another tree, closer to Dad, collapses into a pile of grey dust.

  I yelp and clutch at Mum’s hand. I’m so glad she’s here. I feel like I’ve been brave for too long. I need my mum to take care of me. But then I feel her hand squeeze mine back, and I realise she’s scared too. I guess I have to keep being brave for her sake, for just a little while longer.

  ‘The twins defeated the peropero, and overcame the power of the cleansing waters. They even broke the red ochre line. All those nasty little traps to keep me out.’

  ‘You said he set those traps to keep us out,’ Kae says hotly.

  ‘I said “to prevent anyone from following”. Not just you. The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.’ She pauses; taps a thoughtful finger against her chin. ‘Actually, now I think about it, this world doesn’t revolve at all. It sort of … swings. Back and forth, like this.’ And she rocks her hand this way and that. Her face becomes hard, and another tree crumbles. ‘He tried, and failed. And here I am.’