The Lost Tohunga

by David Hair

  Contents

  Prologue — the girl with the porcelain doll

  Taupo

  On the day Puarata died …

  Guardian devil

  At Jones’s cottage

  The next cell

  Asher Grieve

  Parukau

  In Aotearoa

  Jones’s guest

  Embodiment of a legend

  Roadhawks

  Patupaiarehe

  Flintlocks and blades

  Rotorua

  Once a warrior

  The witch’s cage

  The local constabulary

  Bargaining points

  Asher’s bargain

  Prisoners in the darkness

  Avatar

  Like Scheherazade

  Hinemoa and Tutanekai

  The Mother of Fire

  The heron and the Birdwitch

  The mission house beside the pool

  Hidden hands

  Warrior’s choice

  The Information Age

  Through the shadow-maze

  The Bath House

  The wizard and the tohunga

  Good for the heart

  Author’s note

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Copyright

  Prologue — the girl with the porcelain doll

  Auckland, 1956

  Whenever the girl heard the crunch of boots on the gravel path outside, she imagined that her father had come to take her away. So when she heard the telltale sound, she picked up her one-eyed porcelain doll, smoothed its perfectly combed hair and tea-stained christening gown, and took it to the window. Brushing aside the mouldy lace curtains, she wiped a hole in the condensation on the glass, then gasped as a big eye peered through the circle she had made.

  ‘Mummy!’ she squealed, leaping back, letting the curtains fall. ‘There’s a man at the door!’

  That eye kept following her.

  ‘I’m sure it’s not Father, Rose,’ she told the doll as she backed away. ‘Father is a soldier.’

  Rose looked doubtful. You don’t know that, the doll whispered. Mummy never said he was a soldier.

  ‘He is too,’ the girl insisted. ‘He’s a captain!’

  The horrid eye continued to follow her.

  She heard Mummy bustle through the house from the laundry, the floor creaking beneath her feet. ‘Who is it?’ Mummy asked crossly. ‘I’m in the middle of my laundry. Go and put your underwear through the wringer!’

  The girl’s face fell. She hated doing washing. The grey soapy water that came off the clothes when they were wrung looked horrid and it made her feel that all of her clothes were coated in grime. She only pretended to go to the laundry, then crept back, wrinkling her nose at the cigarette smoke that trailed her mother. The tiny downstairs apartment off Ponsonby Road always smelt bad, like cooking fat and damp rot. The girl hated it.

  She watched her mother primp in the cracked hall mirror. Mummy is ugly, Rose whispered meanly.

  ‘You shouldn’t say that,’ the girl whispered back.

  She is too. She’s fat and ugly and not really your mother. She’s just a cleaner and the priest says she has ‘low moral character’. I heard him. We should run away.

  The girl quivered a little. ‘Shhh!’ she told Rose, not wanting her mother to overhear. She had been thinking a lot about running away, but she wasn’t quite ready yet. The little shopping bag she had filched from Mummy’s cupboard had only a few copper coins that she had found in the gutters, a pair of shoes she had stolen from a girl at school, and three ribbons. She would need more for her escape. ‘Soon, Rose,’ she told the doll placatingly, watching her mother undo her top button.

  Maybe it was a new man-friend who would leave money.

  Her mother rallied her tired face, and tilted her hips as she fumbled with the deadbolt. ‘Hello, who is it?’ she called through the mail slot, in that voice.

  ‘Nessie,’ a man’s voice purred, just like that frightening cat in the ‘Alice’ book the teacher was reading aloud at school. The girl felt a quiver of fear and excitement, a tremble that tickled the whole of her spine. She watched in fascination as her mother suddenly clutched the wall, her whole frame wobbling.

  ‘Asher … ?’ Mummy breathed in a strangled voice. She took two steps away from the door, pressing onto the wall as if her legs were failing.

  ‘Mummy?’ the girl whispered.

  Her mother threw a look back over her shoulder. ‘Edith, go to your room.’ Her voice was frightened, but the instruction was normal. Whenever a man-friend came to give Mummy money, she had to go to her room. Why did Mummy sound so scared this time?

  She tried to scuttle past her mother, when the key turned in the lock of its own volition. Her mother whimpered, and she grabbed her daughter, dragging her back towards the kitchen. The girl squealed in protest, her heel lashing against her mother’s shin. ‘Lemme go! Lemme go!’ Her mother cried out, and dropped her. Then the key turned, and the door flew open.

  The man in the doorway looked like an actor from a stage show. He wore a velvet robe and cloak, and a floppy plumed hat. In his right hand was a long wooden cane, polished ebony with a crystal knob.

  The girl’s mother stopped moving. ‘Asher? Asher?’

  The man smiled, his lined face lighting up although his eyes remained cold. ‘Nessie. It’s been a long time.’

  The girl watched her mother’s face drain of colour. But she struggled to her feet. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Only what is mine, sweet Nessie.’ He pointed his finger at the girl, who stared at that crooked talon with its overlong nails and almost wet herself. ‘I’ve come for her.’

  ‘No,’ Mummy breathed. ‘No! You have no right. Not after eight years!’

  The man reached out his ring-encrusted hand to the girl. ‘Has it been so long?’ He shrugged and looked at the girl directly. ‘Hello, child. What is your name?’

  Mummy jerked the girl to her breast and wrapped her arms about her, as if she wanted to crush her. ‘Don’t answer him. Don’t ever talk to him!’ The girl struggled, frightened and fascinated, peering out at the man as he bent closer. ‘She’s mine!’ Mummy gritted in a voice the girl had never heard. ‘Get away from us!’

  The man straightened, and then gestured with his cane. Mummy dropped her, and she fell to the floor with a squeal. Another sweep of the cane, and Mummy flew backwards through the air, slamming into the back wall. She didn’t fall, but hung there, her mouth open and eyes pleading.

  The girl clutched Rose, too scared to breathe.

  ‘Please, Asher,’ Mummy pleaded.

  She’s pathetic, Rose whispered in her ear.

  The girl was too scared to acknowledge the doll’s opinion. She just stared up at this elegant creature towering over her, as her brain made connections. ‘Father?’

  His eyes turned to her. ‘Yes, child. You are my daughter.’

  Mummy sobbed, still held invisibly pinned to the wall. ‘Asher! Please! You ruined me. My family threw me out. I’ve raised her on my own! On my own! She’s mine!’

  Asher made a flicking noise with his hand, and her mother reacted as if slapped, her face jerking aside with an audible crack. ‘Silence, Nessie. She is my daughter, and I claim her.’ He lifted a single finger and made a zipping gesture. The girl watched as her mother suddenly lost the power to open her mouth, although she visibly tried, her cheeks and eyes bulging.

  Don’t feel sorry for her, Rose told her. She deserves it. She has loose morals.

  ‘Are you really my father?’ the girl asked.

  He bowed floridly. ‘I am,’ he said grandly, and handed her a rose that appeared in his hand. ‘My name is Asher Grieve.’ She took the ro
se and sniffed it, but it had no smell.

  ‘My name is Edith Madonna Kyle,’ she replied proudly. ‘But Edith is a horrid name. Rose calls me Donna.’

  ‘Then Donna you shall be,’ Asher told her. He reached down and offered her a hand.

  Mother tried to move, as tears spurted from her eyes.

  ‘Say goodbye to your mother,’ Asher Grieve told her. ‘You will not see her again.’

  The girl straightened. ‘I don’t need to. She’s pathetic.’

  She turned away, and didn’t look back.

  They stood in a clearing in a forest that she had never seen before. The air was so clean, without even a trace of smoke, and the pool was fed by a stream so clean she felt she could drink it all night. The moon hung overhead, and it was the strangest moon ever, because if you looked at it out of the corner of your eye, it had a face in it like a native carving. She thought it weird but pretty, and Rose liked it, too.

  Asher Grieve sat on a fallen log, watching her as she washed Rose’s dress. No more grey water, she thought with satisfaction. From now on, everything is going to be clean.

  Then the frightening native came. She didn’t see how — one moment he wasn’t there, the next he was. He had a mane of silver hair and his whole face was black with the horrible face carving the natives did. Donna wanted to hide her eyes, but she didn’t, because Rose told her not to. Be brave, she whispered.

  ‘This is she, I presume?’ the man rumbled in the Queen’s English.

  ‘Aye, she is my daughter,’ Father told the native. ‘She calls herself Donna Kyle.’

  ‘And does she have the potential?’ the native asked.

  That’s odd, Donna thought. This man behaves as if he were my father’s master, but natives are lesser men; everyone knows that. And my father is important.

  ‘See for yourself,’ Asher told him. He smiled wryly, and called in a soft voice. ‘Rose, is Donna special?’

  The doll’s head turned slowly and her one eye flickered towards the man. She is very special, she told the two men. She is the cleverest eight-year-old in all of Auckland. The doll’s out-loud voice was tinkling and clear. Donna felt very proud to be spoken of so, although Rose was her friend and would always say nice things about her.

  The native’s eyebrows raised fractionally. ‘Ahhh,’ was all he said. Then he stood, and offered her father a handshake. ‘Then we have a bargain,’ he said in a resonant voice.

  Asher Grieve stood and took the larger man’s hand. ‘Yes, Master. That we do. She is yours.’

  There was something in his voice that Donna didn’t like.

  Her father crouched beside her. He lifted her chin. ‘This man is Puarata. He is the master tohunga. You belong to him, now.’ He put a hand on her head, stroked her blonde curls briefly, then he straightened. His face lost all interest in her. The earth seemed wafer-thin suddenly, and for the first time she felt truly frightened. She reached out a hand to him, but all at once he was gone, simply not there.

  The waters of the stream trickled onwards as if nothing had happened, but she stood there blinking, her mouth open. It occurred to her that she was dreaming all of this.

  Then the heavy hand of the native grasped Rose and tore her from Donna’s grasp. She screamed, and then felt a sickening wrench inside her as the man tore the doll’s head off, and flung the two pieces to the ground. She found herself grovelling in the grass, shrieking in horror and pain at a sensation like having her heart ripped in two.

  The tohunga was impassive as he picked her up with one hand, his strength horrifying. Crack! His hand slapped her, making her cheek burn and her skull ring. ‘SILENCE!’

  She was frightened mute.

  His alien face filled her vision. ‘The doll was a prop, dangerously weakening over the long term.’ He regarded her coldly, dangling in his grasp like a specimen for inspection. She was too frightened to struggle. ‘I do not tolerate weakness.’

  He lowered her to the ground, and cupped her face, holding her eyes locked in his gaze ‘My name is Puarata. I am going to break you down and re-make you, Donna Kyle. I’m going to mould you and fire you like pottery, and when you emerge, you will be everything I want you to be. And you will be utterly mine.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘There is only one thing of your past life that I desire you to remember: that it was your own father who sold you to me.’

  Taupo

  Saturday

  Matiu Douglas fidgeted as the kilometres rolled past, taking him ever closer to Taupo. His father, Tama, hummed tunelessly to an FM signal that came and went as they wound through the hills. The spring rains lashing Hawke’s Bay that morning were well behind them. On this side of the Kaimanawa Ranges the skies were silvery grey, and a stiff wind swept the aisles of verdant pines on the final approaches to Taupo. He hoped it would be blue skies for the next two weeks. School holidays were meant to be sunny. It was the first Saturday of the September break, and Dad had insisted on driving Mat to Taupo, hoping to see his estranged wife for a while.

  The Napier–Taupo road held many memories for Mat. His mind drifted back to almost exactly one year ago, and the terrifying chase that had changed his life totally. He held his breath at the spot where he and his new-found friend Kelly had been run off the road by the minions of Puarata, the evil tohunga. But Puarata was dead now, and Mat had survived and grown. Nine months ago at Lake Waikaremoana he had been duped by one of Puarata’s former allies and almost died in a flood, but he had got through that, too. He was now almost seventeen.

  Dad glanced across at Mat, a strangely uncertain look on his dark, pugnacious features. ‘Mat, do you know if your mother is still seeing that Neil fella she was dating back in June?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Mat shrugged apologetically, feeling bad for Dad. Since that Christmas holiday in Gisborne, it felt like Mum and Dad had hit another brick wall in terms of them ever getting back together. Dad was pretty low, and on the few occasions he saw Mum, he tensed up and said the wrong thing. His parents seemed further apart than ever. Dad still worked his law practice in Napier, and Mum still taught at her school in Taupo.

  The pine forests that fed the central North Island’s logging industry gave way to thick brush and tussock, and then a lake appeared through the folds of the land, shining like a sheet-metal plate. Lake Taupo, a water-filled crater left after an explosion thousands of years ago that had matched the famous Krakatoa eruption for power. Or if you went with the Maori legends, a great dry basin, until the legendary tohunga Ngatoro-i-rangi had flung a tree from the top of Mount Tauhara, which pierced the basin causing water to erupt from below and fill the lake.

  Remembering this naturally led Mat to thoughts of Ngatoro. Since his adventure in Waikaremoana at New Year, Mat had been in intermittent mental contact with the supposedly dead tohunga. It was eerie — sometimes the old tohunga’s thoughts would spill into Mat’s mind. They managed conversation occasionally. All Ngatoro could tell him was that he was floating weightless, in complete darkness and silence. It sounded awful.

  On impulse, he called in his mind. Ngatoro?

  The dry, ancient voice responded almost at once. Matiu? What is it?

  Oh, nothing really. I just wondered whether you actually created Lake Taupo or not?

  I’m an old man, Mat. The last thing I need is this trivia! You know how these things are: in your world, it was formed by a volcanic eruption, but in Aotearoa …

  It was made by you. Yeah, sorry. I just kind of thought of you, and called without thinking.

  The old tohunga tutted. I must preserve my energies, poai. I feel so weak …

  Mat winced as the contact faded. ‘Uh, sorry,’ he said aloud.

  His father threw a look his way. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ he replied. Dad knew about Aotearoa, but if he knew Mat was in mental contact with a missing tohunga, he would flip.

  Jones and Mat had a mini project going trying to trace those brief mental contacts so they could find Ngatoro and free him, but they had made lit
tle progress. He was looking forward to seeing the Welshman again. This would be his fourth holiday in Taupo since he had met Jones. He would divide his time between Mum’s house, and Jones’s cottage in Aotearoa, the Ghost World. Just thinking about going to Aotearoa had him smiling again. Sure, he had to study and Mum would ride him hard over the exams that were coming up next term. But most importantly, he wanted to see Jones, and renew his REAL training. His fingers carved little patterns in the air as he remembered lessons and movements … Mat Douglas, apprentice Adept of Aotearoa!

  The township of Taupo lay on the north side of the lake. It was base camp for those wanting to ski the mountains, boat or fish the lake, go bungee jumping or white-water rafting, or try any of the loads of other adventure activities. It was also a geothermal area. He liked Taupo. Mum and Jones made it special, even if they didn’t get on with each other.

  Mum’s house was on a quiet side street several blocks from the lake and the shops. It wasn’t the same house Mum had lived in a year ago, where Puarata had kidnapped her and attacked Mat. She had left that place almost immediately, unable to feel safe there again. Dad peered up the driveway, sighing in relief that only one car was parked there. Mat agreed. Not that he didn’t like Neil, but Mum’s recent boyfriend didn’t feel like family. Mat hoped he was off the scene, too.

  Mum greeted Mat at the door with a warm hug, her red hair tumbling over her shoulders and into his face. Her voice still held a soft Irish lilt. There were a few strands of grey, and a few more frown lines, but she still felt the same when she hugged him.