by David Hair
Wiri nodded. ‘Some people are more sensitive to these things, and draw the shadow-things out. People like Mat.’
Kelly snorted. ‘You’ll scare the boy!’
‘I’m not a boy!’ retorted Mat. But he began to watch the shadows more closely.
They spent Thursday night in the shadow of Tauhara, eating wood pigeon and a rabbit Fitzy caught. Wiri told them of a local legend, in which the patupaiarehe of Tauhara were troubling the locals, so the local chief and his war party climbed Tauhara, found the fairies sleeping near the summit, and killed them. ‘That probably isn’t the best of stories to tell when we’re so close though,’ he added when he’d finished. ‘It might anger them. I’ll tell you another.’
He told them Tauhara was the place where the tohunga Ngatoro-i-rangi created Taupo-Nui-a-Tai, Lake Taupo, when he threw a totara from the mountain top into the empty basin beneath, and where it landed it pierced the stone and water flooded the basin, forming the lake. The same tohunga was also responsible for the volcanic fires. Trapped in freezing snow on the summit of Mount Tongariro, he called on his sisters back in Hawaiiki to save him. They sent relatives carrying fire to his aid, travelling beneath the ground, surfacing first at White Island, in the Bay of Plenty, before finally reaching him and in the process, bringing the fire and heat that now burnt inside the volcanoes of the region.
Kelly scoffed. ‘That has got to be rubbish! Those volcanoes were around millions of years before the Maori even got here!’
Wiri shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, in the land of myth, anything is possible.’
‘Yeah right!’
‘Well, I’m here aren’t I?’
‘You I can handle,’ declared Kelly. ‘It’s tohunga creating volcanoes to warm their toes I have a problem with.’
Wiri and Kelly argued and laughed late into the night while Mat dozed, wishing he could make Kelly laugh the way Wiri could. He’d not really thought much about girls before, but he liked Kelly, liked her a lot. Only after she and Wiri had stopped talking and she had fallen asleep did he finally close his eyes. Wiri had gone out into the night to stand guard.
Mat woke late at night to see a pale face watching them from the shadows, with cold, ancient eyes and tangled hair that gleamed like blood in the firelight. He yelped in fright, and just as quickly the face was gone. He lay awake, too frightened to speak. Even Fitzy seemed nervous, until Wiri returned to report that all was quiet. Mat spent an uneasy night, though nothing else disturbed his sleep.
Next morning, Mat felt the aching fear he had suppressed in the journey through the hills return. They would reach Taupo tonight, and this almost-safe existence would end. Surely Puarata would be watching Mum’s house? It was Friday, a week since he had taken the tiki and run. Puarata had had plenty of time to surround his mother’s place. It was crazy to go there. And yet, even though he liked both Kelly and Wiri, he really, really, needed to see his mother. She would understand, she would protect him, she would feed and wash him, and hold him close. He needed someone to hug him, take the tiki away, and just deal with it. It shouldn’t be his responsibility. There were grown-ups out there who could deal with this stuff. He was just a kid. Let someone else look after it, so that he could have his parents back.
He woke before the others. Quietly, he slipped away, found a tree to lean against, and watched the sky brighten slowly. A nippy wind was gusting about the tussock and scrub, seeking out bare flesh to slap and sting. He took off his shoes and socks and examined them for blisters. There was some chaffing, but nothing too painful. His legs were stiff and sore, and bruised and scabbed at the knees from repeated falls, but it wasn’t too bad. He felt fitter than he’d ever been. He sniffed the air and looked around. Wild flowers were blossoming, and the bees were already humming. Tauhara towered behind him, blocking the view to the north. A lonely hawk circled away to the south, toward the highway. He watched it until it plummeted behind some trees, diving after prey, leaving the sky empty and lonely. He reached inside his T-shirt and fingered the two pendants around his neck, the koru and the tiki. He pulled them out.
Compared to the ugly tiki the koru looked graceful—it had good proportion, a smooth finish. He still felt proud of it. His mother had beamed and immediately worn her half, the Celtic knot. He longed to see her, and join the two pendants together, to show her how much he loved her. It was as though the other half of the pendant was calling him. He would take her Celtic knot, lock it into the koru, and see her smile. Everything would be alright again.
The longer he looked at it, the more confident he felt that going to Taupo was the right thing to do. He could almost feel the bond between the koru and the Celtic knot, almost hear them calling each other. He felt a deep certainty that going there was right.
He looked at the tiki, which by contrast seemed cold and empty. There was no mistaking the craftsmanship or Puarata’s skill—it was polished and precise, a perfect little grotesquery. He tried to remember the feeling in the moment he had summoned Wiri, but it was hard. He’d been so panicked…but somehow that seemed to make it all come together in his head. I wonder if I can do it again?
Wiri hailed him. ‘You ready to make tracks?’ He had his cloak around his shoulders, and Mat’s kit in his hand. Kelly came puffing up behind him, Fitzy at her side sniffing the air thoughtfully.
Mat sighed softly. ‘What are we going to do?’
Kelly frowned and looked at Wiri, who came and sat beside the tree. She pondered for a few seconds, then said, ‘Well, to me, the best thing would be to go round Taupo, strike the Waikato River, and follow it to…what’s it called—Maungatautari Pa. But that would mean you don’t get to see your mother.’
Mat had known she would say that. He tried to find words that would convey the certainty he felt inside, that going to Taupo was right. He shook his head. ‘I’ve got to see Mum!’
‘Come on, Mat! Think about it! Donna and her friends will be crawling all over the place. You’d go straight into their hands. They’d be laughing!’
‘We don’t know that!’ Mat snapped back. ‘It’s alright for you, it’s not your father helping the bad guys! You can walk out whenever you want!’
Kelly stood up. ‘Well I haven’t walked out yet, have I? And I’ve tramped for days and risked my butt and got my car shot up on your behalf, in case you don’t remember, kid!’
Mat leapt up too, and ripped the tiki off his neck. ‘Well fine! You take it then! I don’t want it!’
He threw the tiki at Kelly’s feet, and stamped away, his eyes stinging. In the back of his mind a voice told him he was messing up, and he tried to force that voice into silence, holding on to his certainty that going to Taupo was right.
‘Baby!’ Kelly called after him. He started running, and ran until he knew that when he looked back he wouldn’t be able to see them. Then he sat down and sobbed. When he finally got himself under control, he heard footsteps. He rubbed his eyes frantically, to hide the salty tears. It was Kelly, and he saw her eyes were also red and puffy. Fitzy was with her, and the Labrador put his head into Mat’s lap, his eyes wide. Mat thought briefly about running again, but Kelly’s stinging ‘Baby!’ rang in his ears, and made him stay, to prove her wrong.
Kelly stopped in front of him, gingerly holding out the tiki in both hands. ‘I’m sorry. Here, this is yours.’
‘It’s not. It’s his. And I don’t want it.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Well, Wiri says that if you don’t take it back, they’ll find us pretty quick.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I thought it would make perfect sense me taking it, and you going back to your mother. But he says there’s something you were doing I can’t, which is hiding the tiki from Puarata.’
Mat remembered the whispering, and the way he could make it go away. Maybe that’s what Wiri meant? Or maybe it was just a trick to make him stay. He hesitated.
Kelly held it out again. ‘Take it. Please! I—I don’t like it, it gives me the cree
ps. It’s like…like carrying a spider. Here!’
Reluctantly, Mat held out his hand. When she dropped it into his palm, he felt it tingle, and the surface seemed to have an oily slickness. It whispered to him, inaudibly. ‘Mat, Mat…’ He shuddered, and whispered ‘Shush…’ and then it was silent, and dry and normal again. He let out his breath. So did Kelly.
‘I don’t think you’re a baby,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I lost my temper. But do we really need to go to Taupo? You’ll be endangering everything, just to see your mum.’
Mat looked down at his feet. ‘I just feel we need to do it. It’s the same feeling I got when I took the tiki. I just think we have to go there.’
Kelly looked at him and nodded. ‘OK, I can accept that,’ she said after a while. ‘I trust your instincts.’ And before he could move she came up and hugged him. He let her briefly hold him, then pulled away, embarrassed.
‘I’ll stick with you,’ Kelly promised. ‘I wouldn’t leave someone in the sort of trouble you’re in.’
Mat felt himself colour. ‘Thanks.’
They turned at the sound of Wiri approaching.
‘Are you sure you aren’t just hanging round because you think Wiri’s cute?’ teased Mat, half-serious.
This time it was Kelly’s turn to blush.
‘I can’t move more than a few kilometres from the tiki,’ Wiri told them as they walked. ‘Otherwise I’m kind of pinged back into it, like a rubber-band being stretched, then let go. It hurts! And, I’m dressed funny,’ he added with a smile. ‘So when we get to the edge of town, you’re going to need to put me back inside.’
Mat gulped. ‘How?’
‘Don’t worry, that’s the easy part. All you need to do is hold up the tiki and say return while thinking about me going back into it and I’ll vanish.’
Kelly laughed. ‘Ha—sounds just like Pokemon!’ She and Mat laughed, and began calling him ‘Pikachu’. Mat argued that he was more like a Hitmonlee, and he ended up giving Wiri a rundown on the mysteries of Pokemon.
‘This is so bizarre!’ laughed Kelly. ‘Here we are, teaching the Maori ghost-ninja about Pokemon! This just freaks me out!’
They reached the city edge in the evening, walking wearily across a farm paddock. It was after sunset. There was no dramatic transition, just a few houses that became a few more, then became a street, and soon they were ghosting through quiet backstreets. Wiri touched Mat’s shoulder, and pointed to the tiki. They stepped behind a shrub.
Before Mat could do anything else, Wiri reached under his cloak, and unbuckled a thin, sharp-edged bone patu, and pressed it into Mat’s hands. Mat looked at it curiously. It had a curved, ornamental look, and was quite light, but the edge was honed and wicked looking. It also had a leather thong, which he hooked into his belt.
‘Strike with the edges,’ Wiri told him. ‘Protect Kelly. You are the man of the group for now.’ He gave Mat a tight smile. ‘You like her, don’t you?’
Mat swallowed and nodded. ‘Yeah…but…she likes you better.’
‘Is that bothering you?’
Mat thought for a moment. ‘Yes…no…You and her, well, it’s like Mum and Dad…when they liked each other. She just sees me as some sort of little brother…So I guess, she’s all yours, if she’ll have you.’
Wiri looked down at him with a gentle look on his hard-chiselled warrior face. ‘You’re pretty mature for a fifteen-year-old.’
Mat could only shrug. They shook hands, and then, focusing his concentration, he lifted the tiki, to say return, but partway through he burst out laughing. Wiri put his hands on his hips and raised his eyebrows.
‘Sorry,’ said Mat. ‘It’s just that when I went to do it, something in my head went “Pikachu”, and I lost it. I’ll try again.’
He got it at the next attempt; a peculiar rush, and Wiri vanished, still smiling. Fitzy whimpered anxiously. ‘Wow!’ Mat breathed silently. ‘I did it!’ He shook his head, to fight off a momentary dizziness.
Kelly peered around. ‘All clear still,’ she reported, then flicked her gaze around, wide-eyed. ‘Did it work?’
‘Yeah,’ said Mat, feigning nonchalance. He felt a surge of pride, but then wondered if he could summon Wiri again.
‘You can bring him back, can’t you?’ Kelly asked, voicing the question on his mind.
He nodded, though he felt far from certain.
They made their way through the quietest streets. Mat knew Taupo passably well from visiting his mother and earlier family holidays. Her new home was on a side-street, off one of the streets that came off Spa Road, which came off the top of the main street and ran uphill toward a thermal swimming pool complex. He led them on a criss-cross to approach the house from the back. Maybe they could find a way to get across the back neighbour’s section unseen?
They were conscious of avoiding attention. As Kelly said, it would be the easiest thing for Puarata to have the police find Mat, and then have Dad arrive, reclaim the tiki, and Wiri would be back in slavery. And who knew what Puarata and Donna would do to Mat and Kelly to pay them back for the trouble they had caused? They avoided every passing car. When they got to the block containing his mother’s house, Kelly scouted it while Mat waited in the garden of a house with no lights on, trembling in anticipation. He could almost see the Celtic pendant, and hear Mum’s voice calling him home.
Finally Kelly returned, admitting she couldn’t see anyone waiting for them. And there was a light on in his mother’s house, she added reluctantly. Mat felt a surge of relief and a feverish anticipation. Now! He strode impatiently along the street, and turned into the garden path.
The house was small, and old. She hadn’t been left much money from the separation settlement. Dad was a lawyer, and seemed to have the rights to everything. And according to his father, she’d admitted seeing someone else. Mat didn’t believe him.
The door was coated in a thin, peeling layer of white paint. There was dirt and mould around the walls, and dead moths in the porch light. Kelly stood back, holding Fitzy still. The Labrador was whining and kept trying to pull away. Mat glanced at her nervously—he didn’t like it when Fitzy was upset. Just as Kelly trusted Mat’s instincts, he trusted the dog’s. Fitzy looked poised to run, and Kelly kept glancing behind her, as if someone might be trying to creep up behind them. He turned back to the door. He raised his hand to knock, then thought better of it. He tried the handle instead, and to his surprise it wasn’t locked. It clicked as he turned it, and the door pulled slightly ajar. He didn’t like that. It should have been locked. But they had come too far to turn away now.
He pushed the door slightly open, and peered in. A musty smell filled the hall, as though the doors and windows hadn’t been opened for a long time. That wasn’t like Mum either—normally she had everything open, revelling in fresh air and garden scents. He felt a cold fear descend over him, a sudden certainty that he’d been wrong, that he’d duped himself, suppressed his instincts, and listened to his hopes instead. It felt like a trap. He unlooped the bone patu from his belt, and gripped it in a trembling hand.
Turning back to Kelly, he mouthed ‘Wait here’. Then he turned back to the gloomy hall, and the strip of light on the left, leading into the lounge. Taking a deep swallow of the stale air, he crept to the lounge door, and pushed it open.
His mother sat in an armchair, turned sidelong to him, gazing at an empty television screen. Her red hair tumbled down hiding her face. The Celtic pendant was in her hands, the cord looped about her fingers. Mat felt a lump swell up his throat. ‘Mum,’ he choked, his eyes beginning to blur. She turned, a smile slowly spreading across her face. She looked vague, and tired, her face lined as if she hadn’t slept for a long time.
‘Mat. Come here. I’ve been so worried.’ She reached out her hands to him, dangling the Celtic pendant. He felt the koru lift toward it, as though pulled by some magnetic force. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Somewhere behind him he heard Fitzy whine.
‘Come here, darling. Let me
hold you.’
She didn’t sound like his mother. He froze. Her eyes were wrong. They were blue. Mum’s eyes were green. His knees shook, as she rose, her gaze pinning him, her face narrowing and hardening and her hair turning pale and shimmering, her lips twisting. It wasn’t Mum. It was Donna, triumphant, leering at him. ‘We knew you’d come. All those warm feelings we’ve been sending to encourage you. And here you are, called home like a faithful little poodle.’ She held out her hand. ‘Give it to me, you stupid little boy,’ she snarled at him, and he froze, went absolutely rigid in fright, his skin crawling backward as though every pore in his body were trying to escape, if only his limbs would obey him.
She stalked over to him, reached down, and jerked the tiki from his neck, the cord scoring the back of his neck as it broke. She bent down and hissed in his face, the tiki gripped tight in her fist. ‘You are going to suffer for the trouble you have caused, you little sneak.’
Something inside Mat snapped. The terror, like cords around him, went tight then flew apart, and he could move again. His right hand whipped up and struck. The edge of the bone patu slashed the blonde woman’s face, and he heard something crunch. She shrieked, and went down, clutching her nose and screaming. Blood sprayed through her fingers. The tiki flew from her grasp and he snatched it before it landed. He bent over her, grabbed his mother’s Celtic knot pendant and pulled. The string snapped from around Donna’s neck, and he turned to run, yelling to Kelly. But suddenly the door from the passage flew open, and was filled by a furious Puarata. Mat froze and felt his stomach curdle.
Puarata pointed at Mat and bellowed something, his face as bestial as Tupu’s. Half-seen hands closed about Mat, blurred ghost shapes that felt like ice. He fell to the floor struggling, calling for help, beside the writhing Donna. Her foot lashed past his head. But then Puarata cried in shock and pain, and Mat felt the grip of the ghost-hands fly apart. Kelly shouted something from the front door, and Mat leapt to his feet. Fitzy had bitten Puarata in the back of the leg, and the big man had gone down. The dog worried at him, snarling, and Mat darted past him, into the hall, calling for his mother. He dashed down the hall, looked into the bedroom. Empty. He ran back to the lounge. Fitzy was snapping at Puarata’s throat.
