Guardian of the Dead

by Karen Healey

‘What? So?’

  ‘One of her old students was killed by the Eyeslasher,’ he said. ‘She went to the funeral.’

  ‘What has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘I mean—’ he started, and then began to cough, great tearing bursts of sound that left him leaning on the wall and fighting for breath. He recovered and stood straight, reaching for the door again. ‘I’ve got to go. Don’t go out at night. It’s dangerous.’ He hesitated, shook his hair out of his eyes and looked straight at me. ‘Please?’

  The effect of that level green gaze, both sincere and frightened for me, was enough that I abandoned my urge to kick him in the kneecap. But his secrecy was still infuriating. ‘You and I are going to have words,’ I promised.

  He shrugged, and went out. The wind rushed in to tug at my skirt and hair, and then vanished, leaving only my shivers behind.

  Rehearsal was a nightmare.

  I had forgotten to bring the mask for the full props run, and Iris very nearly snapped at me before striding off to confiscate the short knives the fairies were poking at each other. Kevin and Reka spent all their time offstage together, whispering in the corners, and I spent most of mine spying on them and trying to pretend I wasn’t. I didn’t know if Reka was a witch, but I did know she was bad news. And whether by accident or by design, she kept me from taking Kevin away for a private conversation about Mark Nolan and hypnotism and possible witchery.

  The first three acts were awful. The non-speaking fairies and Puck were supposed to do these intricate bits of physical theatre representing magic in the world, but though Blake was perfect, the others fumbled and pushed and got out of time with the haunting flute music and, at one point, nearly dropped Bottom on his papier-mâché donkey head. The rude mechanicals still didn’t know what they were saying, and didn’t care. Iris was so tightly wound she was nearly vibrating, and her notes at the break went from encouraging statements to something that was pretty close to pleading.

  But the fights went off okay, and Demetrius and Lysander were gratifyingly well behaved.

  When the notes were over, and everyone scattered to various tasks, Blake found me to remind me of our coffee date.

  ‘Sure,’ I said absently, watching Reka stroke Kevin’s arm, and then my brain caught up with my mouth. ‘I mean, I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘I can guarantee she won’t follow us there,’ he said, nodding at Reka.

  I laughed. ‘To coffee? Definitely not.’

  Blake snorted. ‘Isn’t that allergy stuff the most prima donna bullshit you ever heard?’

  ‘It’s not real?’

  ‘Who ever heard of an allergy to hot food? To the smell of hot food? What does she do, eat raw fish and berries?’

  ‘She’s pretty strange,’ I ventured. ‘Has anything weird ever happened around her?’

  ‘Weird? How do you mean?’

  ‘Like . . . I don’t know. Supernatural.’ I was beginning to blush.

  He looked at me in alarm. ‘You don’t believe in that stuff, do you? Vampires and unicorns and fairies at the bottom of the garden?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I backtracked. ‘I was trying to set up a bad joke about her being such a witch.’

  Blake laughed. ‘Gotta say, if there was ever a candidate for getting a farmhouse dropped on her head – oh, here we go.’

  Carrie was walking onto the stage, a paper packet of hot chips in her arms. ‘I think I got enough for everyone,’ she announced, and began unfolding the layers of paper.

  ‘Don’t open it!’ Reka’s voice sliced through the appreciative hum like a scalpel. She was holding her hand over her nose, recoiling up the auditorium stairs. Her nails were long and unfashionably pointy, and I thought, unkindly, of claws. ‘Get that crap out of here,’ she ordered. ‘You know I’m allergic.’

  ‘I forgot,’ Carrie said apologetically, and pointed toward the wings. ‘How about if we eat in the greenroom?’

  Reka’s lip curled. ‘You leave, but the stench remains. Iris! I’m going home.’

  Iris leaned out of the lighting box. ‘We’re going to run the second halve,’ she said mildly.

  ‘Not with me,’ she snapped. ‘I made it very clear what accommodations I required. No cooked food. If your cast can’t respect that, I’m not certain I want to be a part of the production.’

  Opening night was less than two weeks away, and there were no understudies. Two pink spots appeared high on Iris’s cheeks.

  ‘That’s not fair!’ Carla said indignantly.

  ‘This isn’t fair,’ Kevin said, striding across the stage and snatching the greasy paper package from Carrie’s unprotesting hands. She’d been shocked into stillness by Reka’s fury, but she squeaked and jumped back as he took the food, eyes wide.

  Kevin banged through the greenroom door. I was following him before I was entirely aware of it.

  He was wrapping the chips in garbage bags, burying them in layer upon layer of bright-blue plastic.

  ‘What was that?’ I demanded.

  He tossed the package into the rubbish bin closest to the back door. ‘This crap makes Reka sick.’

  ‘Carrie said she was sorry. You scared the hell out of her!’

  He wedged the back door open and started yanking the dressing-room windows open. They shrieked in protest, rust showering the sills. The temperature dropped as the fog outside began seeping in.

  ‘Kevin! It’s freezing!’

  ‘It makes Reka sick,’ he repeated. The expression he turned toward me wasn’t entirely his own. His eyes glittered feverishly in the middle of a face usually so familiar that even his remarkable handsomeness was less noticeable. Now he looked beautiful and dangerous and nothing like the friend I knew.

  The door swung open behind me and I jumped, half turning. I was keeping my feet hip-width apart, my arms up and braced over my ribcage. A defence stance. I hadn’t known I was in it until I stepped smoothly to face what my body told me was a new threat.

  Reka strode past me, her eyes trained on Kevin’s face. Looking at her, he relaxed, that terrifying beauty transforming into slavish devotion. My stomach twisted.

  Iris followed her, still protesting Reka’s departure, but she lurched to a halt when she saw the two of them together. For a moment, I thought she was going to faint and stepped closer to offer support.

  ‘Will you take me home?’ Reka asked softly, laying long white fingers on the inside of Kevin’s wrist.

  He smiled down at her. ‘Of course.’

  They walked out together, both tall and beautiful, looking only at each other. Kevin didn’t try to touch her, but he didn’t shy away from her hands on him either.

  The door swung shut behind them. Iris and I stared at each other.

  ‘He said he was asexual,’ Iris whispered.

  I swallowed hard at the anguish in her voice and looked away. ‘He is. I don’t know what the hell he thinks he’s doing.’

  She managed a mirthless little laugh. ‘This will sound bitter. But something strange is going on.’

  I thought about the way Reka had touched him, without any response in kind. ‘He’s gone all protective. Knight-errant. Maybe it’s some courtly love thing: no sex involved.’

  ‘But it’s weird, right?’ Iris said. Her face was tight and strained, as if some inner implosion was drawing her features together.

  ‘It is weird,’ I admitted. ‘Hey, does Reka ever wear coloured contact lenses?’

  She pursed her lips. ‘I don’t think so. Why?’

  Blake poked his head through the door. ‘Is she gone, boss?’

  ‘They both are,’ Iris said.

  ‘Don’t stress,’ he said. ‘Someone has a tantrum in every show. Usually it doesn’t happen until dress rehearsal.’

  ‘Something to look forward to,’ Iris said, but she was smiling again.

  ‘I guess we have the rest of the night off?’ he asked, and winked at me.

  Iris pursed her lips. ‘I suppose so,’ she said reluctantly, and went back to
the stage.

  ‘So,’ Blake said, leaning against the wall and grinning in a way that made my blood leap. ‘You need a ride home?’

  I scowled at the door. ‘So it seems.’

  ‘My car and I are at your disposal. But before that: you, me, and the best coffee I can buy on a student loan?’

  ‘It’s a date,’ I said. ‘Well, not a date.’

  ‘A friendly date.’

  I smiled. ‘That.’

  We ended up in a small café in the central city. The place was decorated with hundreds of little kewpie dolls, all individually repainted. There was Pilot Kewpie and Pirate Kewpie and Prime Minister Kewpie, and a whole line of cancan-dancing kewpies, who watched us drink with cute and creepy smiles. Blake apologised for the coffee, but it tasted fine to me. When I said so, I got a ten-minute lecture on different beans and flavours, until he clapped his hands over his mouth and gave me an apologetic look.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, through his interlaced fingers. ‘Some things I’m passionate about, but there’s no excuse for boring you. Tell me about yourself?’

  I shrugged, feeling young and unworldly. ‘Not much to tell. I’m down here for a year while my parents are on holiday. Then it’s back to Napier, and probably Waikato Uni.’ Also, I’m apparently some kind of potential witch, I thought, but I wasn’t going to float that after he’d reacted with such disdain to the mere idea of the supernatural.

  ‘Pity,’ Blake said, and it took a second for my brain to catch up. He meant me leaving after this year.

  ‘But I might stay here and go to Canterbury University,’ I said recklessly. ‘If I can get used to the South Island winters.’

  ‘You Pig Islanders are all the same,’ he scoffed, taking a showy deep breath. ‘Taste that smoggy, muggy air! You can chew on it if you have to! It’s invigorating.’ His brown eyes sparkled at me, challenging and inviting.

  ‘Maybe if you’re a South Island mutant,’ I parried. ‘Breathing smoke instead of oxygen.’

  He laughed. ‘Then you should definitely stay. Improve the stock.’

  I felt my cheeks heating, and looked away in an attempt to cover. My eye fell on the café’s clock (installed in the stomach of a giant kewpie) and I started. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘Yeah, I have curfew.’ I was back to feeling like a kid again, but Blake merely nodded and stood, offering me his arm as we strolled to the cashier. I took it, tucking my fingers against his wiry forearm, and ignored the way I loomed over him.

  ‘Together or separate?’ asked the attendant.

  ‘Separate,’ I said, and was pleased when Blake didn’t demur. Making new friends suddenly didn’t seem that hard.

  We drove back toward Mansfield, but Blake asked to show me the scenic route, promising it wouldn’t take that long.

  ‘I love this city at night,’ he said. ‘Have you ever seen it from the Port Hills? The whole place spreads out like . . . a really pretty, shiny thing.’

  I laughed, and he shot me that wide smile before returning his attention to the road. ‘Hang on, I can do better than that. Okay, like a little galaxy, with every house light a personal guiding star.’

  ‘Oh, that was much better.’

  ‘I thought so,’ he said, and pulled over on a street I didn’t recognise, released his seatbelt, and, hand on my cheek, guided me gently into a kiss.

  His lips were chapped, but warm, and his hands were careful in my hair, fingers moving in feathery strokes down my neck and scalp. The last person to kiss me had been my sort-of ex-boyfriend Eric Gould, over a year ago. I suspected that he’d partly asked me out because his two best friends had girlfriends, and he was sick of getting crap. He was a nice guy, but I’d drifted from him, like everyone else, when Mum got sick.

  Blake was a much, much better kisser. I sank into the sensation, my eyelids fluttering closed. It took some effort to put my hands on his shoulders and move back.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said, half laughing. ‘What about Carrie?’

  Blake blinked at me, still well over toward my side of the car. ‘What about her?’

  I blinked, suddenly unsure. ‘Isn’t she your girlfriend?’

  He grimaced. ‘She thinks so.’

  ‘Is she right?’ I was really, really hoping for a denial, but his heavy sigh was a bad sign.

  ‘Well, sort of. I can’t break up with her right now, you know? She’s having a tough time with her classes. And it’d really mess up the play.’

  ‘So what are you doing with me?’ I asked, feeling my temper start to burn.

  He leaned in, breath warm on my face. ‘I like you. You’re sexy.’

  For a moment I hesitated, remembering the trembling heat of my lips meeting his. What did I owe Carrie? I didn’t even like her.

  But I didn’t want to kiss someone capable of doing this to her. ‘No.’

  ‘Come on,’ he wheedled, and brushed my cheek with one hand, the other landing on my knee.

  I moved closer to the door, and his hands fell away. ‘Really, no. But we can stay friends, right?’

  He was still smiling. ‘No one would ever have to know,’ he said, and trailed his fingers up my thigh. Then he squeezed, hard.

  All of my alarms went off at once.

  Adrenaline coursed through me as I reared back, scrambling for the seatbelt release. My bag was at my feet. While he half-fell across my lap, unbalanced by my sudden retreat, I scooped it up and opened the door, yanking myself out into damp and chilly air. ‘I said no!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Ellie. Jesus! Get back in the car.’

  ‘Not a chance!’

  Blake lunged across the seat as I tried to slam the door, holding it open. ‘What are you going to do, walk home? The Eyeslasher’s moving south, you know.’

  Fear quivered for a moment, but it was drowning in my increasing anger, at him and at myself. Mark had told me to not to go into the dark alone; but even if I could trust him, and I wasn’t sure I could, I was capable of taking care of myself. And being in a car with someone who’d already ignored a no was the more immediate danger.

  ‘I’ll drive you home. I won’t touch you; I won’t even speak. You can’t just walk around this late!’

  I started walking, my sneakers smacking into the pavement with the force of my steps. I was glad, for the first time in a long time, that I was so big. If Blake got out to press the situation, I knew I could deal with him.

  He didn’t. ‘Fine!’ he yelled. ‘You crazy bitch, you can just be a drama queen! Don’t come crying to me if you get yourself raped!’

  I sucked in a breath of pure rage, and whirled, ready to spit out something poisonous, but he yanked the passenger door closed and started the ignition. I turned on my heel again and, stiff-backed, ignored his roaring retreat.

  ‘Kia ora! This is Kevin’s toaster. Kevin’s phone is busy right now. You could leave a message with me, but don’t blame Kevin if he doesn’t get it. I’m really much better at toast.’

  ‘Call me as soon as you get this,’ I said, striding down the road. ‘I’m angry at you, you arsehole, but I won’t yell. I promise. Call me! Please! I’m stranded!’

  I cycled through the other numbers on my contacts list, all of them useless to me. Mum and Dad. Friends in Napier. I hesitated at Iris’s number, but she didn’t have a car. Even if I could swallow my pride enough to call her, she couldn’t help me. I hit the end of the list and threw my phone back into my bag.

  It was a horrible confirmation of just how alone and friendless I was in Christchurch. If I’d made even a little effort, I could have had Mansfielder friends, ready to help me get home, ready to sympathise with my situation, ready to share my anger with Blake.

  But there was no one but Kevin.

  And that meant that, right now, there was no one but me.

  Out of the twisty little streets at last, I found one of the main roads and the right direction, and set off grimly. It would be a long time until I got home, and Chappell was going to hang
me out to dry when she checked the sign-in log in the morning. I huddled into my coat as I walked against the cold wind and worried about Kevin, out in the dark with someone I was convinced meant him harm.

  I paid the car no attention until it pulled alongside, engine revving as the driver let it crawl along at my pace. His passenger leaned out the open window, and I summed him up in one glance. Mid-twenties, rugby jersey, cropped hair above a face that might have been handsome if it hadn’t been leering.

  ‘Hey! Need a ride?’

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. ‘No.’

  He held up his hands, mock hurt. ‘Hey, hey! Just being friendly. You should be careful. The Eyeslasher guy killed a girl in Kaikoura. They say he’s moving south.’

  I gritted my teeth at this reminder of Blake and lengthened my stride. ‘I live just down here.’ The street branched. I turned the next corner to give support to my lie, resolutely not looking over my shoulder, and trying to walk as if I owned the area.

  The car followed. ‘I’m Liam. What’s your name?’ The driver laughed and muttered something I couldn’t hear, and the passenger whispered back.

  Two of them, and big guys. If they both got out, I was in trouble.

  I glanced ahead, my heart jerking unpleasantly. The road was a cul-de-sac, blank-windowed houses curling around the blunted road. But it wasn’t quite a dead-end. At the highest point of the road’s curve, a narrow asphalt path appeared in a gap in a chain-link fence, leading into what looked like a park. A car couldn’t fit down there.

  ‘Hey! Be polite! What’s your name?’

  ‘Iris.’

  ‘That’s a pretty name. We’ll give you a ride home, Iris.’

  I didn’t respond and sped up again, trying to look casual as I gauged the distance to the gap in the fence.

  ‘Come on. We’ll look after you. Get you home safe.’

  I stopped, and the car stopped too. It wasn’t fair. Being huge and unfeminine was popularly supposed to prevent this sort of situation, but instead the perpetrators inevitably expected me to be grateful. I remembered the malice in Blake’s parting shot. I was not going to give him the satisfaction.

  ‘Just keep driving,’ I said, gauging the give in my jeans, and trying not to flinch at the nasty promise in their laughter.