Guardian of the Dead

by Karen Healey

  I could put it on. Mark would want me then. The mask could make him want me. The mask would give me anyone I wanted, because I was beautiful and it loved me.

  A hand landed on my shoulder, and the buzzing in my head abruptly died.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  I jumped, dropping the mask back into the bag. I’d pulled it half out in my daze. A woman with frizzy orange hair was standing behind me, two caramel squares balanced on her tray. She wrinkled her tiny nose. ‘Are you all right?’

  I was shivering. ‘I’m fine. I’m sorry. I just really hate flying.’

  She gave me a sympathetic smile. Beyond her, Mark was standing by the window, watching me anxiously.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, and stood out of her way. My steps quickened as I moved toward Mark. He lifted his hand, then arrested the motion.

  ‘What happened to you? You went completely still.’

  ‘The mask.’ I was shaking, and not only from fear. I knew it had been wrong, what I’d done to Chappell – but the adoration, the love, that had felt so good. And it was something I was never going to get without the mask’s help.

  He waved his hand near the bag. It shuddered. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Ow,’ I echoed. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  A bored, pleasant voice announced our flight. Mark slung my pack over his shoulder. ‘It’s just . . . very much yours,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll talk to the flight attendants and get us separate seats.’

  The mask thought that was a good idea. If I wasn’t going to control the other magician, it wanted him far away from me. I followed Mark like a forlorn puppy, fingers tracing the outline of the mask through the shiny black leather, trying not to picture him looking at me with that same lost devotion.

  It felt too good.

  I spent the flight with a paper bag clutched in my fists, forcing myself not to use it. The Asian-featured man next to me eyed it with some alarm, and I gave him a sick smile that tried to be reassuring.

  I couldn’t very well explain that I never got travelsick and that the reason I was nauseated and sweaty was the view out the window. The land below me shifted and trembled. One minute, we were floating over the snow-dusted mountain range that formed the spine of the South Island. The next, I was seeing Mui’s giant canoe beneath me instead, a vessel he’d hewn from a single log, the ancient, smoke-darkened wood evidence of a magic I couldn’t begin to comprehend.

  I could have avoided the whole sick-making ordeal by closing my eyes and turning away, but that struck me as somehow cowardly, and Mark had said I’d be able to control the vision eventually. I had some respite when we went over the strait that divided the two islands. But I stiffened as we reached the North Island, bumping my head against the weird side flaps of the headrest.

  I’d known that Te Ika a Mui drifted through his uneasy slumber, while the children of the maiden of the dawn walked blithely on his back. After the canoe, I’d even prepared to see him.

  But I hadn’t realised the scale. I couldn’t see the whole of Mui’s fish, any more than I could see the whole island. Valleys and mountains were enormous slashes and humps in his skin, where the tools of Mui’s brothers had torn at him. And as we came in to land at Napier, the worst of his wounds showed itself to me. All the green-drenched winter landscape vanished, the vineyards and patches of paddocks, and beaches as familiar as my own face in the mirror. Instead I saw the festering flesh of the great fish’s belly and the massive bone hook, yellow with age, that was the steep curve of the bay.

  I pressed the bag to my mouth and clenched my eyes shut against the wave of terror at the sheer immensity of our task. Huddled around myself, I didn’t stir until the plane roared and bumped beneath me.

  The man beside me tapped my arm. ‘We are here now,’ he said kindly, and pulled my handbag down from the luggage compartment. He had to go on tiptoe to do it, settling back on his heels with the bag cradled carefully in his hands. Guilt suddenly twisted in me. I wanted to tell him to go, to take the next flight back to Christchurch, where he might be safe.

  But I couldn’t warn them all.

  Instead I took the bag, and smiled my thanks, and shuffled through the plane to the gate where Mark waited, hands stuffed in his pockets to prevent me from taking them.

  Napier being what it was, I wasn’t off the plane for more than ten minutes before I was hailed by a friend of my dead grandmother.

  ‘Eleanor, dear! Hello!’

  I ran a quick search through my memory to confirm that I had no idea who this round, purple-haired woman was, and pushed extra enthusiasm into my voice to make up for it. ‘Good morning! How are you?’

  She flicked a quick glance to my left, where Mark was standing awkwardly. ‘Fine, dear. Just fine. Holidays, is it? Home to visit your school friends?’

  I made a vaguely affirmative noise and looked around.

  ‘Are you meeting someone here?’

  She patted her curls. ‘Oh no. Fred and I are off to Sydney for a fortnight with the lawn bowls team. Oops, looks like we’re off!’ The octogenarians were laboriously collecting small suitcases on wheels. She patted my arm. ‘Lovely seeing you, dear. Say hello to your mother from me. Hope she’s enjoying her trip!’ She bustled off.

  ‘Who was that?’ Mark asked.

  I made sure she was out of earshot before I replied. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘But she knew you.’

  ‘Well, yeah, this is my hometown. She was just one of those family friends.’

  Mark looked slightly stunned. ‘Oh. Do you have a big family?’

  I knew it was mean, but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Just the usual,’ I said casually. ‘Two parents, four grandparents – three dead now – one sister in Australia. Some aunts and uncles and cousins. Nothing big.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We had a dog, but he died. And about ten thousand guinea pigs, also dead.’ I glanced at him and stopped, carefully avoiding touching him. ‘You have family too, you know.’

  His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘My mother—’

  ‘Not her. The Waldgraves. I mean, not that they’re perfect or anything. Kevin’s great, but his brothers are kind of arseholes. His parents are okay, for High Country snobs.’ I paused. ‘Actually, his dad is named after your dad.’

  He looked stubborn. ‘I knew that.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘They’re not – I couldn’t tell them.’

  ‘Well, I’m telling Kevin everything when we get back. I promised.’ I shrugged. ‘Just something to think about. He really is great.’

  Mark looked thoughtful. ‘Do you, um, like him?’

  ‘Like him? Smooches-like-him? Primary-school-want-to-get-married-behind-the-bike-sheds-at-morning-teatime like him?’

  He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t know about that either.’

  ‘Boy, you missed out. No. He’s my mate.’

  He looked at me, then over my shoulder, blushing slightly, ‘Uh . . .’

  To hell with it. ‘I like you, though,’ I said casually, clutching my handbag to stop my hands from shaking.

  ‘Can we talk about it later?’ he said quickly, staring over my shoulder.

  I flinched at the rejection, and then, as the deep, pleasant voice came behind me, realised, once again, that the universe wasn’t all about me.

  ‘So this is the little woman!’ the voice said, and I twisted to face someone I already knew I wasn’t going to like.

  He was a short, stocky man, not more than chin-height on me, with skin dark and smooth as oil, and thin, sharp eyebrows. His face was wrinkle-free, and his tight, short curls had no white hairs, but I had the impression of agelessness, not youth. He wasn’t patupaiarehe, but now that I knew to look for it, there was a similar sense of something completely out of place, like a Chinese opera aria in the middle of a rugby match. A hot, rich smell stung my nostrils, unlike any cologne I’d ever smelled before.

  ‘If you keep staring, my dear, your face might freeze that way.’ His voice, with its precise Brit
ish accent, was so dry that it took me a moment to realise it was a threat, not a joke. He shifted his attention to Mark while I was trying to form a response. ‘Delighted to see you, naturally.’

  Mark’s face was stone. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The man splayed his fingers against his heart, looking shocked. ‘I live here, darling boy. Had you forgotten?’

  Mark snarled, his eyes burning green.

  Alarmed, I snatched the handbag open, but the little man seemed undismayed. ‘Oh, dear, shall we scuffle in the airport? Neutral territory, you know, terribly gauche.’ He paused. ‘Or you could introduce me to your little friend.’

  I was nearly a foot taller than him. ‘You can call me Ms Spencer,’ I said, and thrust out my hand.

  The fine arches of his brows lifted. ‘Clever girl,’ he murmured, and reached to grasp my hand in his. ‘You may call me Mr Sand.’ He raised his eyebrows again when I met the painful grip without flinching.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Mark repeated, but the intensity of his glare had calmed to ordinary human hatred.

  Mr Sand spread his hands. ‘I’m an envoy, dear Mark, regarding this council of war you’ve inspired. There’s been a tiny little problem regarding venue. I made it clear that all were welcome to meet at my humble abode, but for some reason not everyone views that as a palatable solution.’

  Mark snorted. ‘They don’t trust you. I’m shocked.’

  Sand’s eyes glittered. ‘Careful, boy. If you were to accuse me of breaking guest-right, I would rightly take offence.’

  ‘In an airport?’ Mark said, shaking back his sleeve. His bracelet jingled.

  ‘Touché!’ He looked Mark over. I didn’t like the way he did it, like someone inspecting fresh apples in the supermarket produce department. ‘Goodness. What have you been up to? You’re positively blooming.’

  Mark’s mouth was a tight line. ‘What do you want me to do about the situation?’

  ‘Tell them they can trust me,’ Sand said.

  ‘No,’ Mark said flatly. ‘They can’t. And shouldn’t.’

  Sand looked mournful, an expression that appeared as staged as everything else about him. ‘I had hoped you’d have come to your senses on that little contretemps. You knew what I was when you asked me to teach you.’

  Mark snorted, and Sand sighed. ‘We must confer in a home, Mark. Without the guarantee of guest-right, no one will come at all. And no one else lives here.’

  ‘I wonder why.’

  Sand bowed mockingly. ‘Still. What solution do you propose?’

  I eyed my gear bag going around the baggage carousel again, looking lonely on the black rubber. ‘I live here,’ I said. ‘We can meet at my place.’

  Sand lifted an eyebrow at me. ‘Really. And what would you know about the sacred obligation between guests and host?’

  ‘I got an A+ for my essay on Ancient Greek Culture,’ I said, smiling sweetly. ‘Does that count?’

  Sand waited a long, dangerous moment, then tipped his head back to expel a laugh like bubbles rising between his even white teeth. ‘Just so,’ he gurgled. ‘Ms Spencer, I shall be delighted to accept your hospitality. The meeting is set for sundown. Do enjoy your day.’ He reached as if to take my hand again, but spun away when I stiffened. He levelled one more wide smile at Mark, and then sauntered away, a small, dapper man who lifted the hairs on the back of my neck, even in retreat. The hot smell faded as he disappeared through the wide doors.

  Mark was staring at me.

  ‘What?’ I said, a great deal more insouciantly than I felt.

  ‘You got an A+ out of Professor Gribaldi?’

  I grinned at him. ‘It was an A-, actually. But don’t tell our friend.’

  Mark cracked up. I watched him wheeze for a second, then strode over to retrieve my bag. Everything was still in there, though a note informed me that airport security had looked inside. I wondered what they’d thought of Mark’s wet, stinking clothes.

  ‘What was that about you asking him to teach you?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  He kept saying that. ‘Later will be soon,’ I said firmly, and led him out to find a taxi.

  The taxi driver was a dark-complected gregarious man who wanted to chat about the Eyeslasher murders. ‘And one in Gore!’ he said. ‘Why would anyone go to Gore?’

  I managed a laugh. ‘How about we take the scenic route?’ I suggested, and managed to divert him to the topic of Napier’s many sights to be seen. The people walking around looked happy and healthy, and I was reminded how disproportionately white Christchurch was, compared to the North Island towns. I’d got used to it, over the last months.

  The sea glittered as we drove along the waterfront, gorgeously contrasted against the oily green of the Norfolk Pines that edged Marine Parade. I caught a glimpse of the statue of Pania of the Reef. Pania, the legend went, had been a maiden of the sea, secretly wedded to a human man. Betrayed by him, she’d run back to the ocean depths. Their son was supposed to be the taniwha who guarded the bay.

  Until yesterday, the most attention I’d paid to the story had been mocking the tourists who liked to pose by the bronze statue of a topless girl smiling out to sea. Now the story made my flesh creep. I’d swum in that ocean.

  I mentioned this to Mark when we got out of the taxi. He shrugged. ‘Her son isn’t there right now.’

  It hadn’t been quite the response I’d been looking for. I’d wanted him to tell me that I was doing very well under the circumstances. ‘Is he dead?’ I asked, lifting up the loose rock in the front garden to retrieve the key.

  ‘I don’t know. Not there. Some stories say he had children and died, or became a rock.’

  ‘Which is true?’

  He laughs. ‘Will you hit me if I say that it depends?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I muttered, and pushed open the front door, reaching automatically for the light switch. The electricity bill would clearly show our presence here, but after my truancy had been reported to my parents, driving up the bill was going to be the least of my worries.

  The house felt weird – cold and far too empty. I tiptoed down the dusty hall to my parents’ room, and deposited my bag there.

  ‘I like your house,’ Mark said, following me. I blushed, suddenly uncomfortable about the old-fashioned bedspread and the piles of golf books and gardening manuals and medical texts heaped around its head. Mark was looking at everything with a weird hunger, and I was very aware that I was alone with him in my parents’ room, two steps from the bed where they had slept for over twenty years of married mostly bliss.

  ‘We shouldn’t be in here,’ I said, and backed him out, closing the door firmly behind me.

  He looked only slightly disappointed. ‘Where’s your room?’

  I pointed. ‘That one, and Magda’s room is beside it. I shared it with her, until Nanny Spencer died. Bathroom there. Kitchen and living room and laundry that way.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s nothing fancy. We only live on the Hill because my grandfather built here before it was fashionable.’

  ‘Where did your dog live?’

  ‘In his kennel when Dad could make him, and on Magda’s bed when he couldn’t. So, Magda’s bed.’

  ‘And the ten thousand guinea pigs?’

  ‘Between guinea-pig funerals, in the hutch.’

  ‘I never had a pet. Can I see?’ He was already walking through the laundry, heading for the back door. I trailed in his wake, wondering how I’d lost control of the tour so quickly.

  He flung the door open, heedless of the white paint flaking onto his palm, and stepped out into the muddy green expanse of the backyard. The weeds were flourishing in the vegetable patch, and the old clothesline squeaked and groaned as it slowly turned. The guinea-pig hutch sat under one of the trees, much shabbier than I remembered, the chicken wire over the run sagging. ‘Oh,’ Mark breathed. ‘Oh, wow.’

  ‘It’s not much in winter.’

  He pointed at my dad’s roses in their proudly maintaine
d mulch pits. ‘Those are not “not much”. ’ ‘Well, yeah, but they’re not blooming.’

  ‘Is that tree a magnolia?’

  ‘Yeah. You can still see what’s left of the tree house.’

  ‘You hammered nails into a magnolia?’

  ‘Blame Magda; I was only seven. But we hung the tyre swing from the kowhai. No nails there.’

  Mark smiled at me. ‘And the view . . .’

  The view, I felt, I couldn’t fairly disparage. The lawn ran down the slope for a quarter of an acre, to the low wooden fence that separated us from the well-kept houses below. And down, and down, dappled in the harsh noon light like a tarnished mirror, lay the ocean, embraced in the sandy curve of the bay and the reef beyond the breakwater.

  My sight flickered and doubled, but I pushed it away with a firm effort of will. For this moment, I wanted only the familiar sight of home. I sat on the back step and hugged my legs against the wind.

  Mark sat beside me. Even on the narrow step, he left a hand’s-width of space between us, but I could feel him across the gap, prickling at my side. I stared at the lump under his jacket and wondered what his mother’s gift had been.

  But I couldn’t ask that again.

  Time to be brave about something else.

  ‘Um, so, at the airport,’ I said, concentrating on tucking my arms firmly around my body. ‘Before Mr Creep turned up, remember how I said I liked you?’

  He nodded.

  I was positive my face was glowing with the heat of my flushing cheeks. ‘Well, uh . . . I do. Just saying.’

  ‘I can’t understand why,’ he said, looking uneasy.

  ‘Oh, I have no idea either,’ I scoffed. ‘I mean, you’re gorgeous, smart, mysterious, and when you make up your mind to talk, you have a lot of interesting things to say. What’s to like?’

  ‘Mysterious?’

  ‘Chicks dig guys with a sense of mystique. It was in Cosmopolitan, so it must be true.’

  He gave me that shy smile. ‘I like you too.’

  My heart leaped, and I was reaching for him before I remembered. He leaned back warily, and I retreated, re-folding my arms to resist the temptation.