Guardian of the Dead

by Karen Healey

  ‘I’ve got to make some calls,’ Mark said. ‘There’s . . . not a community, exactly, but a network of people with power. The Eyeslasher murders have got them angry anyway; maybe they’re angry enough to unite and fight back.’

  ‘There’s a phone in the stage manager’s booth,’ Iris said.

  Reka grabbed his arm. ‘But you have to stay,’ she said, sounding a little broken. ‘I only told you so that you would stay. You can’t go.’

  ‘Mother,’ he said, as if it cost him. ‘You really don’t know that much about me.’

  She gaped at him.

  ‘And don’t attack Iris or Ellie while I’m busy,’ he added. ‘See, I know you. If you try to get rid of inconvenient witnesses, I’ll fight you. We’ll fight for real. And then what’ll become of the bloodline?’ He tugged his arm out from under her hand, and she let him step clear of her.

  ‘Ellie? What about you?’ He looked at me, calm and beautiful in his borrowed clothes, and I saw again the bravery that had first made me love him.

  The thought hit me like a hammer between the eyes. I could not love Mark. The idea was impossible, even if there wasn’t a hidden war and a horrible disaster fast approaching. A harmless crush on a handsome loner classmate was one thing; hopeless yearning for someone who’d enchanted and lied to me was something entirely different, and much more dangerous.

  But still. ‘I’ll go,’ I choked out.

  Mark misunderstood my horrified expression. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he said quickly. ‘We know what they’re planning. We know where it has to take place: at the hook of the fish, near Napier. We can stop it, I promise.’ He hobbled toward the stage manager’s booth, moving like an old man. Like his father. I flinched.

  ‘You will really go with him?’ Reka said, after a few minutes of silence, with Mark’s careful mutterings the background track.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, with as much scorn as I could muster. I’d volunteered for a war, and I wasn’t a soldier. Last night’s frantic struggle against the taiaha-wielding male had very quickly confirmed the difference between my dojang training and the realities of a genuine battle. I’d seen dead bodies now, and as much as I told myself that they hadn’t been human, I wasn’t even sure I could kill.

  ‘It’s not my war,’ she said. ‘And if Mark goes, I must remain, to be the last of my bloodline.’

  ‘And you’d quite like to live forever,’ Iris said with mock sympathy, obviously still smarting over Mark’s implication that Reka had planned to dispose of her like an unwanted kitten.

  Reka inspected the ends of her hair. I caught a glimpse of silver threads through the bright red before she began to braid it, her hands moving leisurely through the motions. I wondered, then, how long she had left. Mark had said they aged slowly in the mists, but she’d spent a lot of time in our world. ‘No, I think we should not go back. No living patupaiarehe was born immortal. We should live in this world through our children.’

  ‘What a fantastic excuse for rape,’ Iris said sweetly.

  ‘Robert loved me.’

  ‘But he didn’t know what you were, did he? What kind of consent is that?’

  Reka stood, gave Iris a mocking half-bow, and strode toward the greenroom door. She couldn’t slam it – the door was padded against exactly that sort of accident – but she did manage a dull thud that echoed in the silent room. I looked at Mark’s hunched figure in the booth, but he paid no attention to Reka’s departure.

  When I turned back to her, Iris was looking thoughtful. ‘You can’t go,’ I said, hating myself a little bit for saying it, however true. ‘You don’t have any magic. I mean, it’s bad enough for me.’

  She laughed, a creaking, painful sound. ‘Of course I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’m not an idiot. But I’ll buy your plane tickets.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  She folded her hands neatly in front of her. ‘I can’t see what you can, and I can’t do spells, and I can’t fight. I can help this way.’

  I made a face. ‘I feel weird about it.’

  She smacked the canvas, hard, and the dust haloed around her. ‘This is my land too!’

  It was like a fist in the gut, the realisation of what we truly stood to lose, while I quibbled politely over money. There was only one possible answer: ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you; you’re right. Yes.’

  The male patupaiarehe’s body was gone by the time Mark finished his phone calls, presumably by Reka’s doing. I found myself grateful to her for that, if nothing else.

  Iris packed our wet clothes into plastic bags to take with us, and conscientiously wrote a note for Carla, explaining that the costumes had been taken away for a photo shoot.

  ‘You’re a great liar,’ I said.

  She smiled proudly.

  Then we were outside, shivering in the early morning frost. There were no clocks in the theatre, and no one’s watch or mobile phone had survived our watery journey. I looked at the sun to gauge its position, and nearly cried out. Wounded, the sun limped wearily across the sky, bleeding light from great cuts in his sides where Mui’s weapon had struck.

  The light was harsh in my eyes, and I quickly dragged my head down. Mark was watching me carefully as we picked our way through the nearly deserted car park.

  ‘Sunlight’s more dangerous in New Zealand,’ he said. ‘Highest skin cancer rate in the world.’

  ‘It’s the hole in the ozone layer,’ I replied automatically, then paused. ‘Isn’t it?’

  He shrugged.

  I looked up at the glowering sun. Mui’s gifts were apparently double-edged.

  We crossed the road to the bus stop, where the display informed us that it was 8.30 am. No one spoke much, and I tried not to look at the sky.

  Iris’s bus lumbered around the corner. I looked at her, uncertain of what to do. Apologise for dragging her into this? Warn her to stay safe? No, that was silly – she was a sensible person, probably the most sensible I knew. Warnings from me would be insulting.

  She wasn’t paying any attention to me anyway, poking around in her ruined handbag while the bus disgorged its cargo of yawning students. She pulled out her wallet and handed it to me. It was a beautiful piece of leatherwork, a deep red with a tiny black flower stitched into one corner, only slightly water-stained. ‘I put the pin for my cards in the coin pocket.’

  ‘I can’t—’ I began.

  ‘You will,’ she said. ‘Don’t even start. I never lose arguments. I’ll call your room when I’ve got the tickets.’

  I hugged her, then, on impulse. She surprised me by yielding, not at all stiffly, hands hovering lightly on my shoulders. ‘Will you go ahead with Dream?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘If I can find a replacement Titania who isn’t actually stealing human boys.’

  I laughed. ‘When I come back, you and I are going to be friends.’

  ‘Aren’t we already?’ she asked uncertainly.

  ‘Yeah, but we’re going to stay friends.’

  She grinned. ‘Kevin will be so pleased. And then he’ll be scared.’

  ‘It will be very good for him,’ I said, and watched her climb into the bus, straight-backed, chin raised, and brazenly ignoring the driver’s double take at her curious clothes.

  Our own clothes got some comment as Mark and I trekked over the university rugby fields and followed the creek down Behn Road back to Mansfield. More by habit than anything else, I led us over the garden fence and toward my bedroom window, before I realised that school had started, and we could just go through the door.

  I walked in blithely, already calculating what to pack.

  Mrs Chappell stood in the middle of my room, soft pale-purple cardigan and pearls completely at odds with the blistering fury on her face.

  My stomach went into free-fall.

  She had clearly been through my room. The bottom bed drawer was open, with the empty beer cans and full bottle of wine lined up on my desk in mute accusation. The mask looked even more beautiful beside them. It was th
e first time I had seen it with my eyes fully open.

  It was calling to me, soft and sweet.

  ‘Eleanor,’ Mrs Chappell said, her voice like chips of ice. ‘Can you provide an explanation for these?’

  ‘No,’ I said, over the singing in my head.

  ‘No? How about one for your truancy yesterday? Your failure to turn up at our appointed meeting? Your absence last night – to the great concern of your roommates – and your reappearance this morning with this young man?’ She gave Mark a sweeping up-and-down look.

  ‘I’m a Mansfield day student,’ Mark offered helpfully. He fumbled with his bracelet, and then shook his head at me, frowning. Still out of juice, it seemed. Across the room the mask was gleaming whitely, though the pale winter sunlight from my window had not reached it.

  ‘Indeed? Then Principal Kerrigan will certainly have something to say to you.’ She shook her head, blonde bob brushing her shoulders. ‘Eleanor, I am extremely disappointed. Samia observes hijab, as you are well aware. Did you stop for even a second to think about what bringing men into this space might mean to her?’

  The mask called again, and I gave way all at once. I brushed past Chappell, to her obvious consternation, and picked it up with my bare hands.

  The first contact with Mark’s bracelet had been a thunderclap inside my head. This was a great ringing of cathedral bells, the connection instantaneous and complete as the mask claimed me and surrendered itself to my care.

  Like a shrilling buzz, discordant against that glorious tumult, Chappell spoke again. ‘Young lady, you are in very serious trouble! If you want to avoid suspension or expulsion, you need to start talking.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You’re right, especially about Samia.’ I lifted the smooth, perfect face to cover my own and spoke through the pouting red mouth: ‘But I need you to be quiet now.’

  There was no resistance at all. Mrs Chappell went from glaring at me to gazing at my masked face in unfeigned adoration. The mask thrilled against my skin.

  ‘You will remember that you found nothing in my room.’ She nodded, eager to please. I thought through the rest as carefully as I could with the mask carolling joy through my body. I didn’t want her to get fired. ‘You will tell anyone who asks that the matter has been sorted out, and that I have gone back to Napier, saying there was a family illness. You’ll remember these things, but you’ll forget that we had this conversation. And when you leave you will be otherwise yourself.’

  She nodded again, still looking as if I were the only person in the world. ‘Go now,’ I said, and closed the door in her yearning face as she shuffled backward out of the room.

  ‘What?’ Mark asked breathily, then, ‘What did you do?’

  I reluctantly lowered the mask. It protested briefly, then resumed its song in my hands, delighted to be awake again, delighted to be mine. ‘When I wear it, it makes me beautiful,’ I said. ‘If I want it to, it will make people want me. And then they’ll do anything I want, just to make me happy.’

  Mark flinched. I turned the mask over and over in my hands, and felt the ghost of its smile against my mouth.

  NOT GIVEN LIGHTLY

  IPULLED OUT MY biggest tracksuit for Mark and handed it to him, but he stood stiffly in the middle of the floor instead of taking the hint. I saw as if through his eyes the crumpled bedcovers, the piles of papers and texts. It wasn’t as if I’d prepared for visitors.

  ‘Sorry about the mess.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Our place is messy too.’

  I thought of his father’s neatly ironed clothes and held my tongue.

  ‘My place,’ Mark said. ‘I guess it’s just my place now.’

  He sat down on the bed with a thump, pain pinching his face closed. I groped for words of comfort and solace, but the truth was I had no idea what to say. I had thought about my mother dying many times during the Cancer Year. But it hadn’t happened.

  Rather than risk saying the wrong thing, I said nothing at all. It seemed callous to kick him out so I could get dressed. My back kept protesting sudden motion, so I found clothes for the trip to Napier as carefully as possible. I was emptying out my tae kwon do gear bag, unused since February, when Iris called my desk phone. Mark started at the sound, and finally snuck out to the bathroom, clothes in hand.

  ‘You’re on the 11.00 am. flight,’ she said briskly. ‘Get a move on.’

  ‘You’re a legend.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Let me know how it goes, with the nation-saving and all. And with Mark.’

  ‘With – what?’

  ‘I repeat. I’m not an idiot.’ There was a beat, and when she spoke again she sounded wistful. ‘You were hugging each other. When you were sleeping.’

  That silenced me for a moment, as I felt warmth wash right through me. But: ‘He’s a gorgeous, secretive patupaiarehe boy who tells lies,’ I said. ‘And she’s a gigantic, socially inept human girl with anger issues. The prospects aren’t good.’

  ‘“The path of true love never did run smooth.” ’ ‘That’s Shakespeare, Iris, not real life. There’s no happy ending here.’

  ‘Sure there is,’ she said. ‘Make it happen.’

  Taking advice from a woman who, since the age of eleven, had been pursuing someone who wasn’t interested in sex was definitely a bad idea. I was tempted to follow it anyway.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Kevin wasn’t here when I got back. He left me a note, so I’m not really worried, but if you see him—’

  There was a furious pounding at my window, rattling the glass in the frame.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘He’s right here.’

  Kevin was wearing the green shirt stained with my blood and a thunderous expression, and he climbed through the window with no greeting at all for me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  He glowered. ‘No. I woke up in Iris’s bed, with wind whistling through the broken window in her living room, and your sliced-up clothes in the bathroom. What cut through your bra, Ellie?’ He thrust out his hand, the sad scrap of blue cotton dangling from his fist. I retreated a step.

  ‘I have next to no idea how I got there. But I think you do, Ellie, and I think you don’t want me to know.’ He leaned in. ‘I am really, really not okay. What the hell happened?’

  Mark took this opportune moment to walk in. He hesitated, closed the door firmly behind him, and said, ‘We don’t have time.’

  ‘You,’ Kevin said dangerously. ‘You keep turning up, don’t you?’

  Mark said nothing, and I quailed at the thought of explanations. Kevin, this is your cousin. Remember your great-uncle who ran away? Actually, he was kidnapped by Mark’s mother, who also tried to kidnap you. Mark stopped her, so he really doesn’t deserve that death glare you’re giving him. Oh, and his father was murdered last night by inhuman magical beings determined to sink the North Island.

  No. It was impossible. I picked up the mask without really thinking about it, and it vibrated in my hand, eager to help me smooth over the situation. I could make Kevin forget everything, it suggested. I could keep him happy and calm and safe and still trusting me.

  Just like Reka.

  ‘Ellie,’ Kevin said, eerily calm. ‘What happened last night?’

  I took a deep breath, and chose the other way. ‘I can’t tell you yet,’ I said, and quailed as his face shut down in rage and betrayal.

  Mark shot me an ironic look, probably remembering now he’d told me the same thing before I tried to beat the truth out of him. There was no magical binding to stop me telling all. Except . . . Kevin’s power was still latent, still only potential. The patupaiarehe wouldn’t hunt him. We could open his eyes, as mine had opened, but Mark was right. We didn’t have time. And it was incredibly selfish, but I could risk myself so much more easily than I could drag Kevin with me.

  ‘Give me a week,’ I said, over Mark’s half-formed protest. Assuming we won, assuming I was still alive. ‘I swear, I’ll tell you everything in one week.
’

  Kevin’s breath sucked through his teeth. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘Kevin, please,’ I said. ‘Please, please, trust me. I have never let you down, not once. I have never lied to you, or told your secrets—’ That one hit home, and he flinched away. It hurt my heart, but I continued. ‘—and I need just a little more trust. Just a week’s worth.’ The mask turned in my hands. ‘Please,’ I said. I could feel tears prickling at my eyes, and desperately blinked them back.

  It might have been the tears that did it, or my tone; I could see him beginning to waver. I resisted the urge to beg, to go to my knees, to break and tell him everything. But I knew I couldn’t. I would trade even this friendship to keep him safe.

  ‘It’s not drugs or anything?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘But you’re in some kind of trouble?’

  I shook my head, and then nodded. ‘But it’s nothing you can help with. I just have to go home for a while. Mark’s coming with me.’

  ‘You barely know him!’ He shot Mark a dubious look.

  My grip tightened on the mask. ‘They’re not all my secrets to tell, Kevin. And I have to catch the 11.00 am. flight to Napier.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, after far too long, and gripped my shoulder, a little too tight. ‘Okay, one week.’

  My knees weakened with relief, and I felt tears stinging again. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t do anything?’ He was still angry, and fighting down hurt besides, that I was going to Mark, and not him, for help.

  I cast around, looking for something to make him feel useful: ‘You could give us a lift to the airport?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Sure. What’s a little playing hooky from school just before exams?’

  ‘Thank you. Really.’

  Mark nodded, earning another suspicious look. Kevin shook his head. ‘One week, Ellie. I’ve parked Theodore by the garden fence. I’ll meet you there in twenty.’

  Despite his words, Kevin looked as if he was regretting the decision, hesitating by the open window. I went to brush my teeth, hoping that treating the deal as made would confirm it for him.