by Steph Matuku
I plop down next to her and automatically reach for my uke. I’m stoked it came through the whirlpool thing alright. Auntie grinned when she saw it. She gave it to me when Dad left. She spent ages weaving the strap in red, gold and green stripes like I wanted, but it’s a bit faded and dirty now. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to play it. My finger pads toughened up pretty quickly, and strumming wasn’t so hard either. I’ve always had rhythm. And that’s not being up myself or anything; that’s just a fact. I’ve got it in my blood. Some people reckon it’s a Māori thing, but Tui has got no rhythm at all and she’s as Māori as I am. Maybe I got the rhythm part and she got the library part. I got the best part, if you ask me.
I start strumming and soon there’s a tune, and after a moment or two, words come out.
‘Come out, little fairies; come out and play, little fairies.’
I poke at the ferns nearest me and peer underneath into the emerald gloom, but I can’t see any shimmering wings or anything.
Tui says in that bored, Incredibly Irritating voice that she’s perfected over the years, ‘Tūrehu aren’t those kind of fairies.’
She always thinks she knows everything. It makes me so mad. Fairies are fairies, aren’t they?
She sighs and says, ‘I can’t believe Dad. What the hell was he thinking?’
I grin. ‘That’s him though, eh? He loves drama. He was always doing those big gestures to make Mum happy. Remember when he got that trailer full of roses for her?’
‘They were pruning the roses in the park and dumping all the cuttings. It wasn’t like he bought them or anything. He just stole their trailer.’
‘Borrowed the trailer.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s not what the cops said.’
‘He wasn’t charged. And the cop thought it was funny.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Anyway, he loves Mum. That’s what this whole thing is about. He loves her.’
‘Yes, but she doesn’t love him.’
‘She cried her eyes out when he was inside. You don’t cry over someone you don’t love.’
Tui shakes her head firmly. ‘She cried because he was an arsehole who lost all our money. I should know; I was the one looking after her while you were off with your stupid mates—’
I strum loudly. ‘Shut your face, little Tui; shut your stink, huckery face.’
Tui mouths ‘whatever’ like she doesn’t care, but I know I’ve nailed her with my awesome cutting lyrics.
Suddenly she gasps and points upwards. ‘Isn’t that a huia?’
I stop strumming and peer at a bird flitting past from branch to branch. It has swishy black and white tail feathers and a long, hooked beak. I remember it from a picture Auntie used to have on her dresser – her namesake, she reckoned. ‘I dunno. Looks like it. Aren’t they extinct?’
Tui waggles her fingers and puts on a spooky voice. ‘Not in the Land of the Dead.’
She cracks me up sometimes.
We sit for a while. I’m still picking out a tune and thinking about the huia. Tui sighs. ‘It’s so peaceful here.’
We both jump, as a booming noise echoes through the trees. We glance at each other, and Tui rises up into a crouch, her face fearful. ‘What was that?’
‘I dunno.’
The boom comes again, louder, and this time there’s the rustle of undergrowth and branches snapping. I slide the uke back round onto my back and get to my feet. The silence after that booming sound is heavy somehow, like the silence before thunder cracks. I nearly get tangled up twisting left and right trying to spot what made the noise, but I can’t see anything except for the gentle sway of ferns in the breeze.
There’s a rustle overhead, and we both duck, but it’s just another bird: green this time, a parrot, winging its way up through a crack in the trees and disappearing.
We wait some more, gradually relaxing.
‘What d’you think it was?’ Tui says, finally.
‘I’m not sure—,’ I start to say, and then there’s a BOOM! behind me, and a huge bird with a long neck sticks its head through the ferns right between Tui and me. Tui screams and I yell, and the bird opens its massive, sharp beak and hisses at us, and far out, man. We just take off.
TUIKAE
I’m being chased by a moa. A moa. If I’d been watching it happen to someone else on my phone, it would be totally hilarious. But believe me, in real life there’s nothing fun about being chased by an extinct bird that’s five times the size of an ostrich and about five thousand times as angry.
My feet slip on dead leaves and branches whip back into my face. There’s a ragged stitch in my side, slowing me down, and every now and then my bare foot slams against a rock or a broken stick and it huuurts. My breathing is all wheezy, and I wish I’d spent a little more time exercising and a little less time reading. Mind you, who would have ever thought I’d be running from a moa? A moa.
I risk a glance back, and it’s right behind me, brown head held steady on its long neck as its body bobs up and down, huge feet crashing through the undergrowth, beady eyes fixed right on me. I get the feeling that it could go even faster if it wanted to, but it’s just playing: doing that whole cat teasing the mouse thing before it pounces and gobbles the mouse up. I’m the mouse. It doesn’t feel good.
Kae pulls ahead easily, but then turns and waits, reaching for my hand.
‘Come on,’ he shouts. ‘Faster!’
He yanks me on, and it’s even harder to run now with him dragging me and making me all lopsided, but I don’t want him to let go. We fairly fly over a tangle of fallen logs blocking the way. Ferns poke out from between the gaps, disguising the holes. I fall through one gap, rip my leg out, scramble over another log and then another. I eventually make it to the other side unscathed, but Kae is still struggling, his leg caught between two branches. The moa stretches out its neck and tears at Kae’s shoulder with its beak.
Kae lets out a cry of pain, dragging his leg out and falling across the logs. The moa is nearly on him, and I’ve got that queasy feeling in my stomach, the one I always get when Kae is in trouble.
‘Here! Here!’ I scream.
The bird whips round and studies me with hard, brown eyes, and for an instant I wonder what the hell I’m doing, shouting at it. Kae tries to scramble away, and a branch snaps under his weight. The bird’s attention flicks back to him, and I frantically wave my arms over my head and yell, ‘You big chicken burger!’
It lets out another deafening boom and launches at me. I sprint as fast as I can toward a mass of kareao vines growing in a woody tangle through the trees, strangling the shrubs beneath. I slide through a cluster, hopping over some and ducking through others, and, just as I hoped, the bird follows me. Eventually I look back and there it is, thrashing in the vines, hopelessly entangled.
‘Take that,’ I tell it. Giving it a wide berth, I head back to Kae.
He’s back on his feet, but his face is very pale. There’s blood staining his shirt. I reach out to check it, but he flinches back.
‘It’s fine. Just a scratch.’ He licks his finger and dabs at the cut under his shirt, wincing. ‘Peaceful, huh? Do me a favour. Never say that again. It just brings trouble.’
‘No wonder our ancestors killed them all off.’
‘Chicken burger,’ Kae replies.
We grin at each other. And then the chicken burger lets out an enraged BOOM! and we get the hell out of there.
TUIKAE
As we walk, the bush begins to change. There’s less light, because the tree branches are thicker and the leaves more dense. Little wisps of mist coil around the tree trunks, and it feels colder than it did before. Even the birds are quieter.
Tui keeps looking over her shoulder, scanning the ferns.
‘Stop doing that,’ I grumble, as she stops for about the fiftieth time and peers around her.
‘It’s like there’s someone watching us,’ she hisses. ‘Can’t you feel it?’
Now that she mentions it, i
t does feel like there are eyes on us, tracking us. I glance around but can’t see anything. It’s just trees and ferns and dark green shadows.
Suddenly something falls out of the tree, right in front of Tui. She yelps and jumps back, and it just misses her before smacking to the ground. It’s a dead bird – but not just a bird that’s dropped dead. This dead bird has been ripped to pieces, bones showing white in the mutilated carcass. The long, hooked beak is attached though, and the sweeping black and white tail feathers are still intact.
A long column of mist pours down from the branches overhead. It swirls in front of us, gradually forming into a blurry shape. The mist clears, and there’s a guy standing before us.
TUIKAE
OMG.
Like, seriously.
OMG.
TUIKAE
Tui’s eyes look like they’re about to fall out of her head. To be fair, he is pretty good-looking, although he’s not like anyone I’ve ever seen before. He’s pale, but not like a regular Pākehā guy. He’s even paler than that, and his skin has this bluish tinge to it. He’s really muscly and lean, and he has long dreads tied up in a topknot. His hair is bright orange, like fire, but I get the feeling that if someone ever mocked him and called him a ranga or a carrot top or whatever, the dude would rip their heads off. He doesn’t feel safe, if you know what I mean. A white mere is tucked into the woven cloth around his waist, and he’s wearing a necklace made from bird beaks. He might be our age – but then again, I’m not sure. He could be anything.
‘It’s them,’ Tui whispers, once she’s finally got her voice back. ‘The tūrehu.’
I can feel my eyebrows lifting high. ‘He’s the fairy?’
Tui steps toward him, and I grab the back of her shirt and yank her back. I don’t want her getting too close. He might be dangerous. She shakes me off, shooting me an irritated look, and the guy grins at me. He has blood all over his teeth.
‘I shall not touch her. Unless she should want me to.’
His voice sounds like … I know this is stupid, but it sounds like music. Like little chiming bells.
Tui smiles self-consciously and runs a hand over her hair. Puh-leeze. I’ve never seen my sister flirting before and if this is how she does it, then I’m glad I haven’t.
‘We’re looking for our mother,’ Tui tells him.
‘She is beautiful,’ the tūrehu says. ‘Just like you.’
Tui smiles in this sickly sort of way that makes me want to puke.
‘So you’ve seen her then?’ My voice doesn’t sound like music. It sounds cross.
The tūrehu turns his attention to me, and I notice for the first time that his eyes are black as night, like someone has drilled deep holes into his face.
‘She has gone below,’ he says, and then he stops as though his sentence has finished.
I wait for a moment and then say, ‘Below what?’
The tūrehu looks surprised.
‘He means the levels below this one,’ Tui explains.
‘There’s more?’ I say, incredulous. I thought we’d find Mum with Dad in the bush somewhere, sitting in a tree hut weaving mats or something.
‘Many, many more,’ the tūrehu says. ‘All lead down and down until …’ He shrugs.
I’m getting kind of annoyed with how he talks – like he expects us to know what the hell he’s going on about.
‘Until what?’ I prompt.
‘Until nothing,’ Tui says flatly. ‘Extinction. We’re going to be here forever looking for her! Typical. Never around when you need her.’
‘It’s not her fault.’
Tui snaps, ‘Oh, don’t pretend you’re even interested in her. This is all about seeing Dad again for you, isn’t it?’
The anger comes up in me quick, like a rushing wave. I take a step toward Tui, and she backs away, her arm half raised as if warding me off. I fall back then, ashamed. I haven’t hit Tui since we were little kids. I never would now. I thought she would have known that.
The tūrehu abruptly vanishes into a column of mist, and we turn around and about, wondering where he went. To our relief he appears again, a little way off, leaning against a tree trunk. We hurry toward him. Even though he’s totally weird, he’s still the only person – fairy – we know in this place, and how are we supposed to get down to those other levels without him?
‘Do you wish my help?’ He asks both of us, but he’s only looking at Tui.
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘of course.’
‘In exchange for one thing.’
‘What?’ I ask, all suspicious.
‘You,’ he says to Tui. ‘As a wife.’
Tui blushes bright red, and I nearly choke on my tongue.
‘Are you kidding me?’ I burst into laughter. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’
He doesn’t even glance at me; he’s still looking at Tui.
‘No way,’ I say. ‘Not even.’
‘Alright,’ she says.
I turn on her. ‘What? You’re only fourteen! You’re not even the same species! And he’s got bird guts in his teeth.’
She’s not even listening to me, as usual. ‘Are you sure you’ll help us find her?’
The tūrehu nods. ‘Yes.’
I grab Tui by the arm. ‘What are you doing?!’
‘Oh, shut up,’ she says in an undertone, her eyes never leaving her future husband’s face. ‘I’ll figure some way to get out of it. There’s always a loophole somewhere. And besides, what else are we supposed to do?’
She’s saying what I was just thinking, but I don’t like it at all.
‘Fine,’ I hiss. ‘But you’d better figure out your loophole, and fast. I’m not eating raw chicken at your wedding.’
She smiles sweetly at me, brushes my hand off her arm and turns to the tūrehu.
‘Shall we go?’
TUIKAE
I’m ENGAGED. I can’t help a secret little smile creeping across my face as we walk through the bush. I mean, I haven’t even had a boyfriend before, and now I’m practically married. I’ve never had a boy look at me the way the tūrehu does. It makes my toes curl up and my stomach feel all melty. Most guys at my school don’t seem to know I exist. For one thing, I’m Kae’s sister, which puts me off limits, and for another, I’m not exactly an Insta-model, or even one of those laughing, happy, chatty, flirty kinds of girls. My only focus is my schoolwork, and getting away from Kae and Mum and our creaky old house and our boring old town. You don’t really meet guys when you spend most of your time at the library with your face in a book. Anyway, not a single one of them is as hot as the tūrehu.
It’s getting rockier underfoot, and we begin to climb uphill. I’m trying not to pant next to the tūrehu, but he’s not really walking near me anyway. He disappears, then reappears a little way ahead and waits for us to catch up. Once, he holds aside some branches so I can get past, and it’s only when Kae grunts in annoyance that I realise the tūrehu let the branches thwack back into Kae’s face. It’s pretty funny.
Soon we hear the sound of pretty flute music, laughter and chatter. We push forward a little further and the tūrehu points through the trees down into a valley covered in cloud. The clouds part for a moment, and I catch a glimpse of people moving about: beautiful people, all as pale and red-haired as he is.
‘Is this your home?’ I ask.
The tūrehu touches my arm, and I swear I can feel it right through my body. ‘Would you meet them now? Or later?’
I can’t help myself. I move toward him until I’m standing so close I can feel the heat coming off his body. He gazes down at me and I gaze back at him, and there are a thousand unspoken words floating in the space between us, all contained within that one moment.
Kae pushes rudely in between us and growls, ‘Where exactly are we going?’
For the first time, the tūrehu seems irritated. To my alarm, he reaches for the mere tucked into his maro and twirls it idly.
Kae doesn’t seem at all threatened. Instead he reaches for his
ukulele and holds it out like a patu. ‘D’you want a go?’
I push in front of Kae and say to the tūrehu, ‘He doesn’t mean it.’ Then I turn to Kae and hiss, ‘Seriously? You can’t fight a fairy!’
‘Watch me,’ Kae snaps.
‘What are you going to do?’ I can feel my temper rising. ‘Strum him to death?’
‘Get out of the way,’ Kae says, trying to push past me.
I shove him back. ‘No! He’s the only one who knows where Mum is!’
I turn back to the tūrehu to apologise for my stupid brother’s behaviour, but to my surprise he seems almost pleased, giving me an approving look as though he’s happy I leapt in to defend him. And there’s a hint of malice there too, toward Kae for getting so riled up about it. Boys are so weird.
He gives his mere another twirl and tucks it back into his maro. ‘The cave entrances between the levels are closely guarded. But there is another way: a secret way. You may yet find your mother and the demon who took her.’
Kae lets out a scoffing noise. ‘That’s not a demon. That’s our dad.’
The tūrehu appears astonished, and with a faint air of disgust he disappears into mist, reappearing a little way ahead.
‘How unfortunate.’ His voice, until now so friendly, is cold, and he doesn’t look at me.
I try to placate him. ‘I don’t like him or anything.’
The tūrehu doesn’t acknowledge me; just disappears and reappears up the hill so that we have to hurry to catch up.
‘I think he’s gone off you,’ says Kae. He sounds positively gleeful.
‘Oh, shut up,’ I growl.
TUIKAE
We climb higher and higher and eventually come out of the trees onto a rocky point covered with craggy limestone boulders with dark spaces in between. It feels familiar, like the area around Waitomo and the King Country.
I join Tui at the edge of the peak. She’s studying the view, but I get the feeling she’s just trying to cover up how stuffed she is in front of the tūrehu. He’s not even looking at her, just lounging against a rock, idly swinging that mere of his round and round.