Digital Magic

by Philippa Ballantine

  Her body summoned her back to feel that tremor in her very bones. Swaying, she watched the stones shake and ring to some unseen power, but felt no terror. Unlike the Seed, who keened loud and high and broke from the circle to stand furious beyond the reach of its might.

  The hill opened; a warmth and darkness, a sanctuary. “Come.”

  Ronan staggered to his feet, bleeding from a score of painful wounds, but he smiled right back. Taking her hand, feeling the rush of Art around him, he allowed her to lead them both into the heart of Raven Hill.

  14

  Visitation

  The world that Daniel and Aroha emerged into was a far different one. The girl could feel the weight of the ponamu mere inside her, its power for now quiet, but with it came disturbing thoughts not entirely her own. Of this she said nothing to Daniel.

  He led her down the still quiet street by the hand, sometimes so quickly that she felt dragged somehow. His palm with sweaty and he was shaking. She’d expected no less.

  The words of Whataitai echoed in her head. The taniwha had spoken of her parents so easily, when Nana refused to say anything, and he had known their names though he couldn’t speak them. Aroha tried to imagine the Fey and the bard, trying to picture what their faces might have been like. Would they have smiled often? Would they have loved her as Nana did? Were they even still alive?

  The sudden thought bought Aroha to a stop. The taniwha had not suggested that they were dead. She’d just assumed that the reason Nana would say nothing was because their deaths hurt too much, but if her mother was Fey and immortal, and her father—he too had magic. Tears sprang to Aroha’s eyes. She might even get to meet them.

  “What is it?” Daniel was staring down at her, like he expected her to burst into flames then and there.

  “My... my parents,” she stammered. “If I can find a way to bring the Fey back—they could come here... or I could go there.”

  “That’s just ridiculous,” Daniel snapped, his good humour vanishing. “What a stupid story.”

  Aroha looked up at him puzzled. If you couldn’t believe a story told by a taniwha, then whose could you believe? After all, Whataitai was himself enough proof of magic for even the most cynical. She was hurt that Daniel wouldn’t believe what he had seen.

  Seeing that look in her eye, he softened and gave her an awkward hug. “I’m sorry kid, I’m just shocked—that’s all.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Thanks,” he ruffled her hair like she was little girl. “But I’ve got to get you back home now.” He set off, without even looking back, sure she’d follow.

  Aroha’s lips curled a little and she smoothed down her hair. Daniel really didn’t expect her to forget about the taniwha and what he’d said, did he? She might just be a ‘kid’, but she wasn’t stupid.

  If Daniel noticed that his young charge was in a huff with him, he didn’t show it. He took her back through Wellington at a whopping pace, hardly speaking. But even though they went whipping through the city, Aroha still noticed something different. Smiles were everywhere, and even the crowds of homeless in their shelters near parliament seemed cheerier, as if they sensed a change in the air.

  The strains of utu in her blood felt better, more at home within her. Perhaps it was the taniwha’s gift, or perhaps it was the understanding of what she was. Whatever the case, others were feeling it too. People waved at her from the shattered remains of their homes and they passed several people actually pulling down the slats from their boarded up windows. Through Kelburn, they skirted a small group of residents gathered at a street corner, but not in anger. They were discussing ‘getting things moving’ and how they were going to cope together.

  Daniel noticed none of this. His face was set in an unreadable mask, and Aroha began to feel sorry for him. She’d always been different, so it was easy for her, but he’d seen things and felt things that he couldn’t have expected. She slipped her hand into his and squeezed.

  “It’ll be OK,” she whispered.

  The tramp back home was quicker somehow, perhaps because Daniel was quieter and not so jovial, and pushed them on harder. When Aroha felt herself flagging, he would lift her up in his arms and carry her. Although this was demeaning in a way, Aroha let him. It was nice to be held, and nice not to have to walk.

  They left the city and its shattered suburbs and climbed over the hill. When they got to the spot where they’d left Sally, Daniel put her down with a sigh.

  “You don’t really have to carry me,” Aroha said guiltily. “I can walk.”

  “It’s not that,” Daniel replied. “You’re just a little thing, no bigger than my sister. No, I was just thinking how things are going to be different once we get back.”

  Aroha frowned. Whataitai had said some amazing things, and the greenstone mere was important too. But she was just a child, and somehow all that instruction about rescuing three worlds would have to wait. She was sure Nana wouldn’t allow her to go running off just yet.

  “After all,” Daniel went on, “it’s not every day you get to meet a Taniwha and find out the world’s a different place to what you imagined.”

  It worried him. Aroha could tell the whole thing had unsettled him. He was used to uniforms and orders and duty—what he had seen under the hill had changed all that. Still, there was nothing she could do about it.

  They pushed on, though the day was lengthening and clouds were rolling in from the horizon. Climbing the last curve of the land was a real effort, but at last they could see the faint line of lights of the village. Aroha looked up at Daniel, but he didn’t move and his face was cast in shadow. She put her hand gently against his, only to find it curled in a fist. Something was more than just troubling him.

  “Cooooeeee,” the familiar voice echoed up the hill, and soon after came Nana herself. She had a thick coat on against the chill of the night and was carrying another smaller one.

  Even though it had only been a couple of days, Aroha ran down the hill to greet her. She was bundled into a tight embrace that seemed to last forever. But then Nana bent down to her and those wise blue eyes met hers. She said nothing, but her granddaughter knew the silence would not keep for long.

  “And what about me?” Sally’s voice piped up. She was less protected against the cold, her feet still bare. “What’s going on with leaving me behind like that?”

  Nana held out her hand to Daniel as the children squabbled and giggled down the hill. He didn’t take it, but followed the little group.

  Aroha barely noticed when he left them at the village for his own home. She was far too busy listening to Sally talk nine to the dozen about all the fascinating things that had happened while she’d been away. To hear her talk, Aroha had missed out on every fun event since the beginning of time. It was like a grand conspiracy. Mrs. Lennet had kicked out her cheating husband, a pen load of lambs had escaped in the middle of town and there had been free ice cream from the store when Jan’s generator finally failed.

  Sally enveloped her in the human beauty of the world, and the image of the great taniwha receded a little.

  At their doorstep, Nana pried Sally off and told her to go home in a mock stern voice. That didn’t worry Aroha’s friend one little bit, but the threat of getting her mother over did. She scampered off with a wave and a promise to give the whole story the next day.

  The night was telling Aroha something, a gentle tugging at her already abused senses. She yawned until her jaw popped, trying to understand the faint vibrations of the evening.

  Nana was there, tucking a warm blanket over her shoulders and guiding her back towards the house.

  “We need to talk, Nan,” Aroha said blurrily, thinking of the taniwha and the mere and all that she’d learned.

  “Yes, my dear,” a note of sadness lurked in her voice, “but not tonight, eh? There will be plenty of time tomorrow and you need to rest.”

  “Promise?” Aroha asked softly, leaning against the fragile warmth of her grandmother.


  “I promise,” came the reply, and that was enough. Nana always delivered on her promises, which was probably why she didn’t make that many.

  As she let herself be led inside, Aroha couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness that now hung over her home, nor could she escape the thought was it was she who had brought it here.

  Bakari woke with a shudder. The dream that he’d had was so vivid that his fingers went automatically to the nape of his neck. But no, he’d not left himself on the Line: it had only been his imaginings. He tried to grasp the remains of the dream but they slipped away. It had been pleasant and he could just recall the feeling of a baking sun on his back and a tickle of sensuous delight. But it had been no sex dream; it had been something more profound than that.

  Shaking his head, Bakari slipped out of his bed and padded down the hallway in his underwear. It should have been colder, since England in spring was not the balmiest season, but he still felt warm and insulated. On his way to the kitchen he noticed that the sofa was empty and the rest of the house was, too. Ronan had obviously decided not to stay in. He might even be prowling around Ella’s. Bakari smiled. The Fey might claim it was purely to protect her, but he’d only be half honest. There was just something about the way Ronan looked at Ella, like she was a beautiful mermaid pulling him out of the grip of the ocean.

  “I’m going mad, too,” Bakari whispered to himself, uncertain where such an image could have come from. He opened the fridge and fished out the half empty carton of cold milk in the back. Standing at the window by the sink, he drank it straight, letting the coldness do battle with his own lingering heat. He’d been to Jamaica once, just for his Mum’s sake. Her father had come from there and before that, in the dim past, from the black heat of Africa herself. She had told him such tales about the pain and joy of that time, though she’d only heard them as stories from her own mother. Strange how he could only know the past from stories of magic.

  His hunt for it had begun on a night like this one, not long after his mother’s death. He could still recall the exact instant when he’d decided that she was wrong; that there was no magic in the world. That one idea had hurt so badly that the colour had drained out of life for him. He’d set out then, to get it back: desperate to prove his mother right after all.

  Bakari looked out into the dimness of the garden, the wind lifting the leaves and the moon casting odd glows amongst his flowers. It was strange how that past could have brought him here, to an English village far from the home of his ancestors. And yet, he put the empty bottle down on the counter, the Fey must have walked there too. Perhaps even Ronan in his proper form.

  Such odd thoughts to be having in the middle of the night.

  “Something in the air,” he muttered to himself. Out there in the garden a shape was moving, a cat, or a hedgehog perhaps. No, Bakari leaned closer, narrowing his eyes, it was larger than that.

  Everything was so still, like he was sealed off from the world, watching an event not meant to be seen by human eyes. If Ronan had been there, he’d have called him.

  And then the line of bamboo he’d planted for privacy at the end of the garden shifted and his mother stepped out onto the back lawn. Bakari’s heart hammered in his chest, but after the events of the last few days he wasn’t surprised.

  She looked just like she always did, dressed brightly against the cruelties of the world. Her long hair was done in its usual fantastical braids which coiled about her and made her always seem so much younger than her actual years. And her face, the face that had been so destroyed at the end, was as smooth and beautiful as ever, the colour of sweet chocolate.

  “Mum,” Bakari pressed one hand against the glass of the window, but even that reality did not break what was right in front of his eyes.

  He walked calmly to the back door and opened it just like he did most days. The grass was wet under his bare feet and he could smell the neighbor’s roses in the air. All the time he never took his eyes off his mother standing so patiently at the end of the garden. She never stopped smiling.

  She held out her hands to him and Bakari ran to her, just like the little boy he’d once been. He blessed every moment of magic in that night air. He sobbed into her warm shoulder, cried out in joy that which he loved above everything else had been restored to him. She’d found her way back to him from the abyss.

  Whispering joy and delight, the son cried. But his mother did not speak. She pushed him back and when Bakari looked into those eyes, they were not hers. Those eyes had never looked down at a child in love, or comforted one in pain. Whatever this was, it had never birthed him or anything else.

  The face shivered and became one that was familiar. The ruined eyes of Greer offered no solace, though he’d shed tears on her shoulder.

  The knowledge so recently gained from the Line burned suddenly brightly in his head, images of a vast web of manipulation, all which led to Ella.

  Bakari opened his mouth to speak. He had a lot to say to a woman that would impersonate his mother, and when he was done he’d send her sprawling on her arse in his garden.

  But the icy white lips twitched and fire bloomed behind his eyes. He knew she wouldn’t catch him when he fell.

  There were no dreams this time, no pleasant images to rock him to sleep, only blackness and the awareness of danger. Bakari struggled against it, trying to find his way back. When he did, he almost longed for the blackness again.

  He woke for the second time that night, knowing he was nowhere near his pleasant little cottage. He’d been to a few castles before, laughed with a couple of his boyhood friends about the racks and chains and torture instruments. It wasn’t nearly so funny to wake up to find himself hanging from a wall by manacles that looked remarkably like the ones he’d tried on as a lark fifteen years ago. Life was nothing if not ironic. He was dangling, and this wasn’t a vid, this hurt. His feet were at least a foot off the ground and already his shoulders were beginning to ache.

  Bakari tried to take his mind off it by looking around for any clue as to where he was. But it looked just like any other set piece for a B grade horror; a rough looking rock chamber, complete with water running down the walls and a thick stench. The only light spilled from a rectangular fitting on the far wall, so at least there was electricity. Though, why that should comfort him, Bakari couldn’t quite say.

  He couldn’t guess how long Greer had been standing at the doorway: she’d made no sound and the light barely reached her. She was wearing the same ethereal white fabric as the last time he’d seen her. The way her sightless head was turned to him gave him the creeps, and would have even in more pleasant surroundings. Eyeing her warily, he decided not to be the first one to speak—he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. The long drawn out silence seemed to last an age, but when one of them finally broke it, it was Greer.

  “Giving me the silent treatment, are you?”

  “I just thought since I was the guest, I’d be polite.”

  She stepped down from the doorway into the room. “I see you’ve been learning some of Ronan’s wit in your time with him.” Her lips twisted on the words.

  “Since you were the one that introduced us in the first place, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  She stopped just a few inches from him and looked up with those scarred sockets. “You haven’t been a very good employee, Bakari.”

  His heart sank a little. She might not be very tall or powerfully built, but there was something about Greer that stank of real danger. Shutting up seemed like a very good idea.

  “In fact, you’ve been worse than bad, you’ve got in my way—deliberately.”

  If she knew about him Lining into Infinity Rose, he was royally screwed. Right now Bakari could only hope he had absorbed a bit of Ronan’s gift of the gab. “Look, I know we haven’t got that Mask for you yet,” he said, “but we’re working on it and in the next couple of days…”

  “You’re not a very good liar, Bakari,” she sighed, as if something upset h
er. Then she turned her face to the wall. “And we know it was you who broke into Infinity Rose yesterday.”

  Bakari bit back a denial. They would have evidence and he was damned if he was going to beg. It annoyed him, though. He thought he’d got away clean; he'd used all his best bots and tricks.

  “So you must know all about me,” Greer stood very still, looking like some ancient Greek sibyl. “But what I want to know is, why you risked so much. Why?”

  Bakari slowed his breathing down, tried to achieve that state he reached just before entering the Line. He didn’t want to show her any emotion; he, too, could be as calm as a statue.

  “Why did you break into my system?” Greer whispered, and her words bounced eerily around the little chamber. “You can’t have known I had anything to do with Infinity Rose. So there must be another reason.”

  Here it comes, Bakari thought. The torture, bribery, all those things he’d pretty much avoided in his life of so called crime.

  He couldn’t have been more surprised when Greer slipped from the room and returned bearing a small node connection. He recognized the dark grey cube as one of the most expensive, most sought after versions. She attached a double adaptor to the side and plugged one of the hair thin wires into his connector. She smelt like old paper, but her touch was not unpleasant. He waited for the Liner to enter the room.

  But it was Greer herself who sat down at his feet, and it was she who pulled back her curling white hair and inserted the second plug into her own neck.

  “But…” Bakari could hear the incredulity in his own voice, “magic and the Line… Ronan said…”

  “Ronan is an unknowing fool, too long cut off from that which made him special. You will find, dear Bakari, that many things he says are wrong.”

  His head sunk down on his chest and he sighed. “I’ve been looking for magic everywhere, and it was right there all along.”