by Joanna Orwin
Kai had the grace to blush. ‘We got a shock, that’s all.’ He held out the two cow bones they had dug out. ‘I did hang on to these.’
He kept holding out the thigh bones, his look a challenge. Taka took one reluctantly.
Later that day, everyone from Ra-Repo accompanied the Wise One along the beach. When they reached the exposed skulls, they listened soberly while she said the quiet prayers for the dead. Taka hung back, not wanting to see the skulls up close again, or the other human bones now exposed. He listened to the prayers and felt the cool breath of the winter wind stirring on his skin as though he was being touched by these ancient dead. He could not stop his instinctive shudder.
Taka was relieved when they left this place of death. Nobody would venture here again until other storms reburied the bones. Now that he had seen for himself such stark evidence of violence, the old stories of machines and a life of ease seemed less appealing. What good had such luxury done those people? Their lives ended brutally amid the destruction of everything they’d known, even those desperate few who were spared had been driven to turn on their own kin. It was all very well for Kai to disparage the need for social obedience — those skeletons were good reason enough for ensuring rituals. If he had to do Something with that cow bone, maybe he should carve Something propitious for the water-god who had helped them to regain a life of peace.
It wasn’t until the following evening when Taka went to feed the chickens that he realized he’d overlooked this task in the tumult of the previous day. Breaking out into a sweat, despite the raw cold, he hurried up the path. Usually, the few remaining chickens waited by the gate, clucking loudly in anticipation. He couldn’t hear anything. Muttering fervent prayers, he pushed open the gate. When he peered into the dark enclosure he spotted the four stiffened bodies lying in the layer of dried fern. He shivered, crossing his arms protectively over his chest, the sweat icy on his clammy skin. Was this yet another sign that the gods were withdrawing their favours? If so, it seemed severe punishment for one day’s inattention when he’d tried his best all winter to look after the chickens. Maybe he could say they had been killed by rats.
When Taka finally faced his mother with the news, he couldn’t bring himself to make excuses. ‘I forgot to feed them yesterday.’
Whi scolded him. ‘First the moki, and now the chickens!’ She turned back to her weaving, her face averted. He heard her add quietly, almost to herself, ‘Why am I burdened with such an irresponsible son?’
Her words cut him to the quick. He looked at his feet, unable to think of anything to say in self-defence. Then he lifted his head. ‘I’ll carve Something we can exchange for replacements in the spring.’ He looked beseechingly at his mother.
‘If someone has chickens to spare.’ Whi’s voice was tart. ‘And if you actually finish a carving for once — a lot of ifs, Taka.’
He had the sense not to continue arguing, but waited, watching his toes clench tight, until, as he’d hoped, his mother relented. ‘Larger forces are at work than your misdemeanours. A day without food isn’t likely to kill the chickens. The winter sickness has been bad this year, and we’d already lost more than half the flock.’
Just when Taka had relaxed his toes, thinking he’d got away with it, Whi added, ‘Not that you should see that as excusing you. That charm of yours will get you into serious trouble one day, boy, mark my words.’
The long weeks of a hungry winter drifted by. When Puweto restricted them to one meal a day — the first time, as far as Taka knew, that the headman had taken such drastic action — old Huaho encouraged them to spend much of their time resting to conserve energy. Taka could feel his ribs where once there had been a comfortable layer of fat. Even though his stomach shrank, the small daily portion of dried eel boiled up with a handful of wild greens did nothing to satisfy his craving for food. At night, visions of lavish feasts filled his dreams: kua glistening with grease, freshly grilled fish, spit-roasted duck — golden-skinned and dripping juices. He would wake salivating, his stomach growling in anticipation.
But even worse than the hunger was the boredom that tormented him, making his limbs twitch until he couldn’t sit still. The daily stretch routine devised by Moho for the dancers did little to satisfy his need for exercise. Sometimes the enforced inactivity was almost more than he could bear. Everything and everyone irritated him, especially the sight of his grandfather Pare sitting placidly by the fire, his jaw working constantly as though chewing on a piece of tough gristle.
Exasperated by his fidgeting, Moho asked, ‘What about that leg bone you were carving?’
‘It didn’t work out,’ Taka mumbled. He had long since decided his efforts were doomed.
His father looked at him sharply. ‘Isn’t there a certain debt you’re meant to be paying?’
To Taka’s barely hidden annoyance, his grandfather couldn’t resist adding his bit. ‘Waste not, want not. When I was a boy nothing could make me abandon a project.’
Taka’s resentment simmered as he fetched the partly worked thigh bone and pulled his low stool close to the fire for the light. It was hard being trapped inside all day with the old man, forced to listen to his repetitive sayings and over-familiar stories, which had none of the power of Huaho’s. He silently mouthed the final few sentences while his grandfather recited yet another of his interminable tales. It was no satisfaction that he was word-perfect. For a few days, he dutifully toyed with the carving. As soon as he could, he quietly put it aside again. He envied the women their fully occupied days. Winter was always busy for them. Whi was Ra-Repo’s best weaver, following in his grandmother Tete’s footsteps, and Hina wasn’t far behind, despite her blindness. He sat watching his sister’s deft fingers barely hesitate as she tied off the last knots on a waist mat. ‘I don’t Understand how you manage that.’
‘It’s easy enough,’ she said. ‘Even you could tie knots blindfolded.’
‘Maybe.’ Taka was unconvinced. ‘But what about those intricate patterns I’ve seen you weave?’
‘The dyes change the texture of the fibres so my fingertips can detect the differences.’ Hina smiled when her brother snorted in disbelief. ‘There’s nothing special about it.’
No matter what she said, it looked like god-gifted magic to him. Taka could tell how much pleasure Hina got out of being able to contribute to the daily routine. She never took advantage of being blind. He wasn’t sure how she would adjust to life as a Wise One: she seemed too humble to become one of that austere group of learned women. He wished his own future held such promise of prestige, the status of being special. He wondered yet again what it would be like to become a Traveller, singled out as a hero, taking on the challenge of the unknown, the excitement of adventure.
Perhaps Hina sensed his thoughts. When he shifted restlessly, her fingers slowed and she turned her head in his direction. ‘Your time is coming.’
Taka caught his breath. ‘What do you mean?’
She wouldn’t elaborate, just shook her head and smiled, then returned to her weaving. Taka sat staring at her. He couldn’t tell whether her words were those of a sympathetic sister or whether the gods had spoken through her once more.
Chapter 3
A storm-besieged month later, the two cousins were sent again to search the beach for new deposits of driftwood. Buffeted by a boisterous wind, they jogged along the debris-strewn sand, finding nothing but severed straps of kelp and shell fragments. They warily skirted the place where the human bones had been exposed earlier in the winter, now covered with a new drift of sand. They had gone some distance when Taka stopped in mid-stride. Something projected beyond the sand dunes ahead of them. Not bones this time. A dark bulk absorbing the light. He pointed it out to Kai. ‘One of those old steel ships?’
Kai shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think so. It’s years since they all decayed into rust.’
Taka scarcely heard; he was already running again.
The half-exposed object was unlike anything they’d found
before. It was indeed the prow of some sort of vessel, but this one was made of hollowed-out timber. They could see it was ancient, maybe even older than the layer of bones, its blackened wood fretted thin and separated into ribbed fibres. The prow faced due north, lifted up on a mound of sand as though they had caught it in the act of breaking free. The air seemed to still. The beat of the sea on the shore receded into the distance. He felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.
After a long moment, Kai stirred beside him. They turned away to walk slowly back along the beach, leaving the exposed prow to a silence interrupted only by the mournful cry of a seagull wheeling overhead.
When they were not far from the homeward path, Taka stopped and lifted his face to the renewed blast of the wind, not caring that his eyes started watering in the cold brightness of the mid-winter day. He felt light, buoyed up in some unexpected way. He abandoned his short cape and waist mat and began to dance, in great swirling loops that bore no resemblance to the foot-stamping, formalized movements of the traditional dances Moho taught them. He leapt and bounded, his blood beginning to sing in his veins. He wove patterns around Kai until his cousin joined in, although he stayed in the one spot, his feet drumming the rhythm, his hands fluttering like the kua’s wings. Where Kai danced the traditional steps that mimicked the birds’ feeding movements, Taka danced their spiralling flight before they set off across the Great Ocean. He danced their unity with the horizon-rolling waves, with the soaring wind. Only when the shadows grew long and a cold, moonless night threatened, was Kai able to persuade him to stop and return home.
The next day, they waited impatiently for the Wise One and some of the elders to accompany them along the shore. It was mid-afternoon before they made a slow journey back along the beach, the Wise One leaning on Kai’s arm while Taka navigated a clear path for them through the mounds of seaweed and storm debris. After they passed the covered layer of bones, Taka looked eagerly ahead, expecting to see the dark shape of the prow jutting from the sand dune.
There was no sign of it. No sign that it had ever been there. The dune sloped in an uninterrupted smooth curve from crest to beach. Leaving the Wise One with the elders, the two cousins ran further along the beach, searching every likely spot. It wasn’t long before they knew they had found the right place the first time. The prow had disappeared. Slowly, without looking at each other, they returned to the small waiting group.
‘We can’t find it,’ said Kai soberly.
‘We did see it yesterday.’ Taka’s voice rose. ‘We’re not making it up.’
The Wise One held up her hand to calm him. ‘We know of this. What you saw was an ancient voyaging canoe from long, long ago — long before the Dark. Its appearances are brief. This is the first time the canoe has been seen in my lifetime.’
There was a pause while they absorbed what she’d said.
After a while, Taka dared to ask, ‘What does it mean?’
The Wise One shook her head. ‘All we know is that the appearance of this ancient canoe is a portent of profound change.’
On a dull day in late winter, Taka woke to hear the distant seagull cry of a new-born. He sighed with relief. Kawau’s son Turi had been pacing the settlement for days, his young Incoming wife expected to give birth at any moment. A first child was always cause for celebration, but Kawau’s self-important boasting was enough to drive anyone insane. He bailed up anyone unwise enough to walk within shouting distance of him. Taka and his father were caught one morning as they returned from dance practice. They stood shivering in the teeth of a cold wind as the doomsayer blocked their path.
The top of his head barely reached Moho’s chin, but Kawau stood uncomfortably close as always. ‘Such a good marriage — Manawa is a headman’s daughter, from the Hara people, you know.’
‘We were at the marriage ceremony,’ said Moho, his voice dry.
Kawau didn’t notice. ‘And now this first child on the way. She’ll make such a good mother, and my son of course is an excellent provider, one of our best eelers.’
Moho nodded patiently. ‘No one would argue with you. They make a worthy couple.’ He tried to edge past, but the doomsayer placed a restraining hand on his arm.
‘Once they show off their child at the Choosing, Turi will gain further status with the Hara headman.’ Kawau’s eyes glistened.
Taka winced. This was the man who criticized anyone anticipating the favour of the gods, yet Kawau was willing to risk attracting misfortune to his son. Not that the doomsayer seemed to have much respect for Turi: he was quick to thrash him if he stepped out of line. Although the younger man had been taller and stronger than his father for some years, he didn’t retaliate. Taka wasn’t sure whether this was admirable restraint or lack of gumption. Regardless of Kawau’s ambition, everyone knew Turi hadn’t accepted the Hara girl for social status. Even though she was no great beauty, he clearly adored her. Quiet and homely, Manawa didn’t stand out until she smiled, then her broad, dark-skinned face lit up like the newly bright moon. More significant, Hina liked her, and that was good enough for Taka. Now, as he lay on his sleeping mat listening to that distant, mewling cry, he grinned to himself. For a few days at least, until the baby was old enough to be shown off in public, everyone else could get on with their own lives without having to listen to Kawau. He would be far too busy supervising the young parents within the confines of their own house.
Rain set in soon after dawn, cold and penetrating, carried on a bitter south-west wind. No one ventured out, other than the women going to the birth-house to congratulate the new mother and inspect the baby. Whi took Hina to visit, but returned alone and sooner than Taka expected. Her normally cheerful face sagged in folds he’d not noticed before. Moho took her aside, and he couldn’t hear what was being said, for his parents kept their voices low. But after Whi sat down beside his grandmother and whispered in her ear, Tete started keening, a discordant wail that penetrated Taka’s heart.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked his father as the two women huddled close together, mingling their tears. He could hear the baby’s thin cry every now and then, so there must be Something wrong with Manawa. ‘Didn’t the birth go well? Why hasn’t Hina come back?’
Moho shook his head, his face creased with grief. ‘She’s at the birth-house with the Wise One.’ He paused, then said softly, ‘Manawa is fine. It’s the baby. The baby cannot live.’
‘But it’s a first baby!’ Taka was about to ask more when Whi looked up and glanced a warning at him as old Pare shambled back into the house after a latrine visit. Oblivious to the women’s choked-off distress, Taka’s grandfather reclaimed his stool close to the fire, mumbling to himself. Taka subsided. He knew there was no point upsetting the old man.
As the bleak afternoon wore on, there was still no sign of Hina. Whi went back to her weaving, and Taka watched her fingers move with ferocious speed, not pausing to correct the errors she wouldn’t normally make. Tete sat silent on her stool beside his grandfather, staring into the flames, her shoulders hunched protectively, her arms folded tight across her chest.
Moho took Taka aside. ‘Go down to the beach. This is Wise Ones’ business and it might be best if you’re not here when Hina returns.’
Slowly, Taka walked alone through the dunes. Waves pummelled the shore, leaving mounds of curdled foam at the water’s edge. Wind-whipped spray blew around him until he was wrapped in a grey cloak woven from drops of moisture, its salt bitter on his lips. For the only time he could remember, he had no urge to dance. His thoughts kept returning to the birth-house and the baby that wouldn’t live. He’d not realized a first baby might die. This wasn’t like those babies born beyond the permitted two children per couple. Dealing with them was strictly women’s business, conducted in seclusion away from the settlement. It wasn’t Something anyone ever talked about, so Taka had never given it any thought. He couldn’t imagine what Manawa and Turi must be feeling.
Taka trudged for what seemed like long, solitary hours along
the beach until the barrier of the cliffs loomed out of the murk and he had to turn back. The rain-soaked sand dragged at his feet, and every step proved an effort. When he returned to the settlement, drenched to the skin, no one was outdoors. Sullen smoke lay in wreaths over the low, thatched roofs. Night was still some way off, but the light was dim and there were no shadows. It was as though they’d returned to the last days of the Dark. He stood and listened for a long time. Not a sound came from the birth-house.
Reluctantly, he made his way home. As he came through the door, he saw his sister slumped on the stool in front of her weaving frame, hands idle on her lap. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps and he swallowed hard. Bruised shadows smudged her eye sockets, her cheekbones prominent in the firelight as though the flesh had dissolved beneath shrunken skin. For one disorienting moment, Hina looked as old as their grandmother. He knew not to ask any questions.
Spring was long in coming. Taka’s spirits lifted only when, at last, they set off south to Ra-Hou, whose turn it was to host the Choosing. He was looking forward to the distraction of the coming festivities. Moho had worked the Ra-Repo dance troupe hard, and he was eager to show off his skills at the evening performances. Subdued by the unexpected death of a first baby, Taka had concentrated on complying with his father’s stringent schooling, wanting to please him, needing to prove himself a worthy son. His efforts bore unexpected fruit. Even though the dance master was at first reluctant to single him out, no one could deny that he was by far the troupe’s most talented dancer. Moho ended up teaching him several solos that would serve as links between the main set pieces. Taka now danced in the centre of the troupe’s front line. His stomach fluttered in pleasurable anticipation as he visualized performing solo before the crowds. He would stand out. everyone would see him as the principal dancer.
