Guardian of the Dead

by Karen Healey

  Other than that, much of the activity was totally opaque to me. The woman in the yellow sari was carving wavy lines into the sand with a piece of driftwood, the muscles in her wiry arms standing out with the effort. The bikers had stripped to the waist and were smearing something reddish over their chests and faces. Past them, I saw Mark standing carefully upwind of the food smells, speaking intently to the boy with the moko again.

  He hadn’t spoken to me since the meeting, and had left without waking me. I thought about pretending that I hadn’t been looking for him, and then I thought about the risks we were facing and whether I really wanted to waste my possibly last hours on earth in a snit, and went to say hello.

  In the daylight, I could see the curves and lines of the boy’s moko didn’t sit on the skin, but were actually grooves cut into his flesh. It had been done in the old way, with chisels. He jerked his chin as I approached. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  I blinked. ‘I have to be here. I was born here.’

  ‘But you don’t know anything,’ he said reasonably. ‘You can’t fight.’

  ‘Listen, kiddo—’

  Mark shook his head. ‘Ellie.’

  ‘Fine.’ I folded my arms and waited for them to go on.

  They stood there for a moment, and then the boy said, not rudely, ‘This isn’t your business.’

  ‘Because I’m a girl?’ I demanded.

  He rolled his eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘Matiu,’ Mark said calmly.

  ‘Look,’ the boy said. ‘You don’t know anything, understand? You’re like my two-year-old brother. Always asking stupid questions and wanting to do stuff he’s too young for and breaking things by accident. You’re just going to get yourself killed.’

  Mark sighed. ‘Ellie, can I talk to you for a second?’ he said, and shifted me away while I was still trying to come up with a response. I moved with bad grace, glaring at Matiu. He looked unperturbed.

  ‘How old is he, anyway?’ I muttered. ‘Twelve?’

  ‘Fourteen. He’s right, you know. I mean, not that you shouldn’t be here, but that it’s going to be dangerous. And you can’t listen to us – that’s secret knowledge. You’re not entitled to it.’

  ‘Oh, come on, it’s all magic, isn’t it?’

  Mark halted, still upwind of the bonfires. ‘Matiu is discussing the knowledge of his people. He gets to decide who hears it, not you.’

  His voice was quiet, but it stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘The way I look . . . I know I’m not, but I pass as completely Pkeh,’ he said. ‘My dad doesn’t.’ He winced. ‘Didn’t. In the sixties, when he first came back and I visited him for the first time . . . you should have heard the things they said about the crazy brown guy, Ellie. Don’t think it’s all gone now, just because the signs on public buildings are in Mori as well as English.’

  I bit my lip on my immediate response, which had been I don’t really think of you as Mori, and instead felt self-disgust rise in my throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said after a moment, hoping he could hear the sincerity in my voice. ‘Can you tell Matiu I’m sorry?’

  He nodded. ‘What did you want to see me for?’

  I hesitated, but there was no helping it. ‘I just wanted to say hi. I know you’re not avoiding me or anything, but this is all scary and I only—’ ‘I am.’

  I squinted at him. ‘What?’

  His mouth was tight. ‘I am avoiding you.’

  ‘. . . oh.’

  ‘You don’t— I want to touch you, Ellie. I want to kiss you, all the time. I want to talk to you for hours, and . . . I don’t know.’ He scowled at the ocean. ‘Watch bad TV with you. Sit beside you in Classics and scribble on your notebook. Whatever normal people do. I just . . . I wanted you to know that.’

  I eyed him carefully, trying to think over my own excitement. The words were exactly what I wanted to hear, but the resigned, bitter tone didn’t fit. ‘So why avoid me?’

  He grimaced, and glanced over his shoulder at Matiu. ‘Look, I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and watched him walk away. I turned, meaning to find Professor Gribaldi, and stopped when I saw the dark, stocky shape moving towards me.

  ‘That was a brief conversation,’ Mr Sand noted, stepping out of the clouds of smoke.

  ‘Eavesdropping?’ I asked, scowling.

  Crisp and cool in his white linen suit, he deflected my question with an airy wave. ‘I notice that you didn’t speak of me. I’m deeply wounded.’

  ‘I wish.’

  He laughed, a thin, nasty sound like metal scraping. ‘You little partisan.’

  I set my legs and let my arms rest ready. ‘Little?’

  ‘Oh, dear girl, I’m not looking at what you see in the mirror. Although I wonder what you do see in the mirror.’ He lifted an eyebrow but I declined to answer, glancing down the beach and wondering how to get him away. I had no intention of turning my back on him.

  He extended his hand suddenly, and I stepped back to clear kicking range before I realised that he wasn’t holding a weapon, but a glass bottle full of sparkling water. ‘Have a drink.’

  I took the bottle. It’d make a good weapon.

  ‘It will be a full moon tonight. Not my kind of time, Ms Spencer. I danced with your grandmother once, on a night with no moon at all. There was a pretty woman.’ He paused. ‘Tasty too. Did you know yours was inherited potential?’

  I went dizzy with rage, shifting my weight as my focus narrowed to the bridge of his nose. He’d preyed on my Granny Spencer, who had stopped seeing ghosts. ‘You son of a bitch.’

  ‘Oh, don’t. A fight would be terribly dreary for me and deeply humiliating for you.’ He waved at the hook of the bay, and the bonfires. ‘Besides. You really don’t want to experience what happens to someone who breaks the bond between guest and host.’ He grinned. ‘Just one blow, and you’d be mine, and everyone here would give you to me.’

  I lowered the bottle, fighting back the fury. ‘You ate my grandmother’s power. Like you ate Mark’s.’

  ‘No, not like Mark’s. I didn’t eat your grandmother’s power before she passed the potential on. Good husbandry on my part, and only wise. Your father didn’t manifest the power, of course, nor your sister, but you certainly did. Mark was an entirely different matter.’ He looked at me. ‘You think I’m a monster.’

  ‘You’re going to tell me I’m wrong?’

  ‘No. But tell me, darling, what dark deeds would you perform to ward off starvation?’

  I started at the question. He smirked as if he’d expected no answer, and seated himself on the damp sand as neatly as a cat folding itself up for a nap.

  ‘My dear girl, when the days of magic faded and the age of iron began, I could no longer dine on the power that had once saturated the air and trembled underfoot with every step. I did try to do without. It left these islands a little later than in most places. But hunger is an incredible force, you know. One can survive nearly forty days without food, while your body eats itself. It devours the fat reserves, feeds on all the large muscles. Finally, desperately, the heart.’ He twitched his fingers impatiently, the first unpolished gesture I’d seen him make. ‘So it was for me. Metaphorically.’

  ‘Boo-hoo.’

  ‘Would you condemn a woman who steals bread for her starving children?’

  My throat was dry. I took a swallow of the water. ‘There’s plenty of bread in the world.’

  ‘There’s still some magic too, but most of it is sadly attached to beings and things reluctant to lose it. And only one animavore left, reduced to explaining himself to callow children. I don’t usually kill people, of course. Fights are terribly risky, especially with those who know what they’re doing. I prefer . . . bargains. Should you ever need something from me, rest assured that I’ll be eager to trade.’ His smile was sharp.

  I thought of my grandmother, who had once seen ghosts, and lost the power after her son was born. ‘Bargains, and people who can’t fight back,
’ I said.

  ‘Indeed. It’s only sensible, isn’t it?’

  I took another long pull of the water to give myself time to think. ‘Does Mark know? That you need it to live?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He grinned horribly. ‘If Mark were me, he’d make my choices.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s not as noble as you think him, dear girl.

  When he asked me to eat his power, I was happy to oblige.’

  My heart stammered. ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘No. I don’t do that.’

  ‘He said you stole it. He said he showed you patupaiarehe tricks, in exchange for — He said you took his power.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, that’s delightful! A truly tragic tale. The truth, Ms Spencer, is that he wanted to stop being what he is, and he asked me to help him do that. He was wise enough to specify without killing him, or it would have been much easier. But he didn’t want to be powerless either – some nonsense about a kinsman in trouble. No, he wanted knowledge in exchange.’

  I’m a monster, Mark had said, sitting on the end of my bed, vulnerable and sad.

  ‘So – with his full participation – I ate the power he was born to, and I bound up certain useful bits and pieces into that charming bit of tat. And in fulfilment of our bargain, I placed on him a rather tricky and very ancient curse of transference and transformation. I rather suspect he wasn’t expecting that, but that was hardly my affair. I did what he asked for.’

  ‘But he’s still patupaiarehe,’ I pointed out. ‘You didn’t fulfil your side of the bargain.’

  ‘Oh, but I did. I created the circumstances he needs to achieve humanity. He will stay patupaiarehe until the day he dies. That is, unless someone confesses their heartfelt, drippy, squishy love for him. Then, poof! The curse kicks in. He’ll be a real boy. And the poor devoted lover, on the instant, won’t be human any more.’

  ‘What?’ I whispered.

  ‘Darling girl, it’s a tale as old as time! But they can’t ever seem to get the ending right. The Beast becomes human and rides off on his merry way. But Beauty, beautiful no more, howls and hurries through the enchanted castle, her claws clattering on the hard stone floors.’ He waved his hand. ‘“And they all lived happily ever after.” Oh dear. I really cannot abide lies.’

  ‘You twist the truth,’ I said. My head was pounding.

  ‘You seem such a nice girl,’ he confided, reaching to pat my arm, smiling when I shied away. ‘I thought I would warn you.’

  ‘You twist it into knots.’

  ‘I certainly do, my sweet. But I never lie.’ He looked over my shoulder. ‘Do I, dearest Mark?’

  I whirled. Mark’s eyes met mine through the smoky air, their vibrant green dulled. But if there was guilt there, or even sorrow, I couldn’t see it.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t lie.’

  THE DAY I WENT UNDER

  IDISCOVERED MARK HAD been holding back on our wild flight through the Gardens. He was impressively speedy as he raced after me.

  But he’d been fasting for over a day, and my legs were as long as his, and, as it turned out, I was faster.

  I pounded down the beach, ignoring the sand weighing down my sneakers and the weird buzzing in my mind. The handbag thumped against my ribs as I pumped my arms, and I ignored that too, scrambling up the rock path at the sharp curve of the beach, climbing for the cape. The birds shrieked and scolded as we climbed, almost loud enough to muffle the refrain of stupid stupid stupid that reverberated in my head.

  Mark cried ‘Ellie!’ and ‘It’s not safe!’ but I was their dumb mascot because this place was my home. I knew where the rough-cut steps went shallow at the top, and I shortened my step, still at the full speed Mark couldn’t match.

  Behind me, there was a thump, and a breathy curse word. You could hurt yourself badly, falling on the steps. I smiled, and only then noticed that I’d run that tricky stretch still holding the damn water bottle. I flung it to the side and ran faster, up the long-grassed curve of the hill. The prickling sensation that had urged me to run, run, run faded as soon as the bottle left my hand, but I’d settled into my stride.

  I was well up the slope, moving fast, when I fell.

  I didn’t trip. The ground bucked and twisted under me and my feet tangled, so quickly I could do nothing but fling my arms around the handbag to cushion it. I landed hard on my back and lay there, trying to breathe, trying to make the black spots in my eyes go away. I was not going to cry.

  I was not going to cry.

  Mark panted up and crouched a few steps away from me, just barely in my field of vision. He’d cut his lip, on the other side from where I’d split it, only three nights before.

  ‘Fuck off,’ I said, after a few silent minutes where he didn’t seem to have got the hint.

  ‘I just want to talk.’

  ‘You were trying to trap me.’ He’d betrayed me so many times; how had I thought it possible that some of it was genuine?

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, screw you.’ I stood up. ‘Strike that; I’m glad I didn’t. You said you liked me! Bad TV, talking for hours!’

  ‘I do!’ he cried.

  ‘Liar! I believed you. I thought—’ My voice cracked. ‘I am so stupid. Have you been laughing at me this whole time? Dumb, fat Ellie, thinking someone like you could ever—’

  ‘No!’ he said, face stark with horror. ‘Oh, no, Ellie, no! I meant to tell you. Warn you. I just couldn’t find the right time.’

  ‘Well, that’s original.’

  ‘I heard Sand telling you. He knew I was there. I thought, well, she can’t love me now. She’ll be safe.’ He looked at me.

  ‘I want you to be safe, Ellie.’

  ‘Too late!’ I snarled. ‘And since when do you get to choose that for me?’

  ‘I was going to tell you about the curse,’ he insisted. ‘But I didn’t think you were in any danger.’

  I laughed, high and mocking. ‘Are you kidding me, or just yourself? I pushed you down on my bed and stuck my tongue down your throat!’

  He flushed. ‘I thought maybe that was – you know. Just . . . attraction. Sex.’

  ‘Oh, please! You think I’m that shallow?’

  ‘I think you’re amazing,’ he said, and my last words stuck in my throat. ‘And I really do like you. I know I shouldn’t, but the thing is —’ ‘The thing is, you told yourself “she won’t say she loves me,” all the time secretly hoping I would. Didn’t you?’

  ‘I hope not,’ he whispered.

  I flattened my anger over the hurt welling up under my ribcage.

  ‘You knew what I was,’ he said, raking his hair back from his face, eyes wild with the will to make me believe. ‘You knew that my face is a lie; just pretending to be human. And you still wanted me, you could touch me, you could see what I am, the only one who knew and wanted me all the same, and you said I wasn’t a —’ his chest hitched. ‘Not a monster. I was going to tell you, and then I thought, well, I’m probably going to die in the underworld, so why can’t I have this until then? I’m the stupid one; not you. I’m so sorry.’

  I studied his face. He was so beautiful. So obviously repentant. ‘I remember. I said you were a good enough person.’

  He nodded, hope flaring in his face.

  ‘I was wrong,’ I said. ‘I was so wrong about you. You are every inch your mother’s son.’

  Watching Mark cry made me feel mean and bitchy instead of righteously avenged, so after a few moments of the awful choked noises coming from behind his cupped hands, I opened the handbag to check on the mask.

  It was fine.

  It also had a number of suggestions for what I could do to Mark. Perhaps he should lick the dirt from my shoes. Or dance off the edge of the cliff. Or eat his own fingers. He’d do anything, if I only I put it on and made him love me.

  No, I told it, aching, and stuffed it back into the bag.

  Mark was staring at me, tears smeared over his high cheekbones.


  ‘I wasn’t going to use it,’ I said before I remembered I didn’t have to defend myself to him.

  ‘Shut up,’ he said.

  ‘What did you just—’

  ‘Shhhh!’ He was looking past me, head tilted as if he was listening, eyes wide and terrified.

  With a jolt I realised just how far we’d run from the beach. We were high on the slope, the rest of our people hidden behind the swell of the hillside and the curve of the cliff. I couldn’t hear them singing.

  It’s not safe, he’d said.

  I’d thought he was talking about running on wet rock. Now I registered the grey wetness in the air. A sea mist had come in, and I didn’t need to ask if it was natural. It tingled unpleasantly against my bare face. In seconds it was so thick I could only make out Mark by my memory of where he was. I caught a strain of aching flute music, high and discordant.

  A light rain began to fall.

  ‘Oh, no,’ I whispered. The patupaiarehe weren’t waiting for the night. They were trading the power the night gave them for the chance of taking the beach defenders unprepared.

  I stood up as quietly as I could, sliding into a defensive position with Mark at my back.

  ‘We’re surrounded,’ he said softly. ‘They’ll find us in a moment.’

  I peered through the murk, hoping to see the attack before it came, trying to find someone to kick. Three dozen patupaiarehe, and I’d barely survived a fight with one. Just one, I thought, just let me take down one. My parents were going to come home to bury their daughter. Oh, Mum, I’m so sorry.

  Mark hit me with the charm while my back was turned.

  One last betrayal, I thought, wondering how I could even be surprised. My legs stiffened and I toppled. Mark’s arms were around my waist to ease my fall, lowering me flat. He hadn’t touched me at all since we’d kissed on the end of my bed, his skin warm under my palms.

  I couldn’t feel his hands now. The spell was taking me under, transforming me into something still and quiet. I didn’t have a shred of anything to resist it. Even the mask was numb, taken as unawares as I was.