by David Hair
Mat sucked in his breath.
‘Yes, your great-aunty Wai, Matiu. But she was in the full bloom of womanhood then, and very beautiful. Like a little bird, with a sharp beak and claws! I will tell you the full story later, but I persuaded her to steal the tiki from Puarata. We had fallen in love in a matter of hours while at the exhibition. She was going to take me away and we were going to live together. It seemed so simple…but Puarata unexpectedly sent me back into the tiki…and Wai-aroha did not know I was inside when she stole it. I had told her too little…and she never learned how to get me out. Even though she held it, and called my name, and even though she dreamt of me…she couldn’t get me out. And I could do nothing to help her…
‘She went mad. Her family put her in an institution, because of their shame at having madness in the family. Only her friend Hinemoa—your Aunty Hine, Mat, kept in touch with her.
‘As for Puarata, I can only imagine his fury! He searched, but Wai had gone into hiding, knowing from what I’d had the chance to tell her that Puarata was a man to be feared. And then the madness claimed her and she was locked away. None of her family knew where, except her father, who died soon afterward. Only Hinemoa knew. Even inside the tiki, I could sense and hear her and Wai talking.
‘The irony was that I had been rescued from my half-life of slavery—but no one knew I was in there, except Puarata, who couldn’t find me! You can imagine my horror. I was aware—being inside the tiki is like floating in a dark place, and I can hear things, and even smell, see or feel some things, but I can’t communicate. I tried! I shouted and screamed and I prayed! For me, an eternity of numb half-existence loomed.
‘I felt Wai age, I felt her madness and despair, and finally I felt her waste away and die. Like a slowly flickering flame. And I could feel Puarata approaching, closing in on me. But to my amazement, it was a boy I’d heard Wai-aroha talk to only once, who plucked me from Wai-aroha’s body in the whare. Even then, even after I sensed the presence of Pania, even then, I never thought you would be able to get me out! Maybe my will helped you? I don’t know! But, here I am!’
Wiri looked at them, and let out a slow breath. He glanced out, at the misty night. Fitzy was lying in the mouth of their little cave, watching Wiri with sad eyes. He must have crept back while they were all engrossed in Wiri’s story. Wiri looked around them. ‘It is time I put out the fire, and we slept. There is still a lot to tell, but you are tired.’
Mat opened his mouth to protest, but he found himself yawning. Kelly just nodded. Mat tried to offer her the sleeping bag, but she shook her head, rolled into her coat and tucked a sweater under her head. Mat’s head was buzzing with questions, but he could feel sleep rising inside him. He looked up at Wiri, who had risen, wrapping his cloak about him. ‘What are we going to do now?’ he asked.
Wiri turned and looked down at him. Something in his eyes reflected his real age. ‘I don’t know, Mat. I would rather you threw the tiki into the sea, with me in it, than have to go back to serving Puarata. I want to kill Puarata, and Tupu, for what they have done to me, and to everyone I loved. But most of all I want this all to end.’ He looked at them grimly. ‘I think I have a plan. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
Kelly said she couldn’t imagine how they’d ever sleep after a day like they’d just had, but once the fire had been left to burn low, and they wriggled into positions of relative comfort, oblivion claimed them quickly. Mat thought he woke during the night, but it seemed so much like a dream that he couldn’t be sure.
Kelly was asleep, and Fitzy was nowhere to be seen. Wiri was squatting, the feather cloak still pulled close about him, the taiaha across his knees. Sitting crosslegged in front of the warrior was a strange little being. Naked, squat, with glistening black leathery skin, it was like some grotesque dwarf—plump little limbs ending in three toes or fingers. But its head was bizarre—hairless, with two wide fishy eyes, and a beak nose that hooked over a twisted leering mouth. Its ears were narrow and pointed. What it looked
exactly like was a living version of the figures Maori carvers put on the pillars of meeting houses.
It exchanged words with Wiri in rolling, throaty Maori, with a voice that sounded like nothing human. It smelt rank, as if it had crawled out of a cave. But it nodded obediently at Wiri, then waddled into the bush and was gone.
Really weird, thought Mat groggily, his brain refusing to engage, as he rolled over and closed his eyes again.
9
Taupo
They woke cold and hungry, mouths stale and dry, eyes
encrusted from sleep. Mat’s watch told him it was Sunday morning. Only Wiri looked fresh, though his chin was whiskery and his hair hung lank in the damp foggy air. Fitzy re-appeared, bounding happily about them as though urging them to wake and get on with the day. Low cloud enveloped the hills, making the air cold and damp, and visibility poor. They could still hear cars from the road, but it was out of sight, obscured by the grey-green bush. Wiri covered over the embers of the fire, and Kelly shared out some sweets from her pack. Kelly and Mat cleaned their teeth in a small stream, and they all washed their faces. Fitzy chaffed about, hurrying everyone along.
‘That dog is mad,’ grumbled Kelly.
Wiri led them through the morning, further from the road, climbing alongside a tumbling stream—the Mokomokonui. The going was hard, through very rough country—sheer cliffs and drops and twisted, gnarled scrub over splintered rocks. A faint path wound up through ferny gullies. Wiri told them the Maori war-leader Te Kooti had used it to fight the British, so they had to be careful. This made no sense to Mat but he was too out of breath to comment. Te Kooti had died centuries ago. What could the danger be? Kelly looked just as puzzled, but she was having an even harder time keeping up. Her freckled face was bright red and she was perspiring profusely. Fitzy seemed to be enjoying himself. The Labrador spurted ahead, took side-routes, and bounded back to them with tail wagging.
Wiri seemed just as eager, as though relishing the chance to walk and run. He and the dog frequently went ahead, bouncing on tireless legs while the teenagers struggled behind. Mat revelled in Kelly’s chatty company; between losing his mother and going to an all boys school he’d seldom had a chance to talk with anyone female in the past three years. They generally felt like another species but Kelly was fun, although he couldn’t help noticing her eyes were focused on Wiri.
At least the air was cool, and there was lots to drink. Small rivulets gurgled down the slopes, running into and out of tiny pools before cascading over drops of up to nine metres. Mat reflected ruefully that the journey from Napier to Taupo might only be a few hours in a car, but on foot, it was a much longer journey. When they abandoned the car they still had more than 80 kilometres to go, and now they were tramping through bush-covered hills.
They rested around midday. Wiri told them they’d barely covered four kilometres that morning, which depressed them all. But they slogged on through the afternoon, and found an old tramping hut—Wiri told them it was the Wakeman Hut. The wind had risen by then and blown away the low cloud, but it was still cold and the wind gusted and ripped at their clothing whenever they crested a rise. Kelly and Mat wanted to sleep in the hut, but Wiri was insistent they camped well off the trail they’d been following, in another small cave. Both Kelly and Mat were too tired to talk, despite the questions they had for Wiri, and after gratefully gulping down another wood pigeon Wiri trapped, they both collapsed into a deep sleep and didn’t so much as stir until dawn.
Wiri and Fitzy curled up together and kept watch. Wiri had a growth of whiskers on his chin now, and even he was beginning to look tired.
They struck farmland the next day—Monday—glimpsing distant buildings. They were able to pick up their pace considerably, striding over areas of open ground, occasionally scattering a flock of sheep. Wiri pointed out a high peak among the hills, Kokomoka, wreathed in low cloud, standing some nine hundred metres above sea level. He told them they’d reach it mid-morning tomorrow a
t their current rate, and after that the going would be easier still, until they hit Kaingaroa Forest. If they could keep on good flat paths, they might make Taupo by Thursday. That night he was content for them to sleep in a modern-looking hut, intended for farm workers or trampers. There was a small larder of tinned food, and they dined well on baked beans and spaghetti. Mat and Kelly both turned down the offer of more grubs. Kelly got the sleeping bag this time, and Mat wrapped himself up in coats. Even Wiri slept.
They travelled north and westward. On Tuesday, they left the ranges behind. Fringing the back-blocks of the highland farms, they tramped through pine forests, skirting the occasional work gang. Several times Mat heard chainsaws and even axes, and voices that sounded English. Once, he heard a rattling sound like very low-powered guns firing a ragged volley, and lots of shouting. Wiri made them hide until the sounds had died away. Toward evening Mat thought he saw something staring back at him from the bushes, but a second look revealed nothing. He tried to ask Wiri about the goblin-creature he had either seen or dreamt about on Sunday evening, but Wiri just laughed. They saw nothing of searchers or pursuers.
Mid-afternoon Wednesday, they heard voices ahead. Mat looked at Kelly, who stared back. Wiri and Fitzy had gone ahead. After a moment of indecision, they crept forward, and saw a strange sight. Wiri was talking to a man on horseback, while Fitzy sniffed about. The horse was a huge brown steed, with rolling eyes and a tangled tail. It shifted nervously whenever Fitzy came near, but calmed when the rider stroked its neck. It was the rider who made them pause in disbelief.
Kelly laughed softly. ‘He looks like an extra from a historical drama on telly,’ she whispered to Mat.
Mat could only agree. The man had the bushy sideburns and moustache of a British regimental officer from a Jane Austen mini-series Mat sat through once, to please his mother. His uniform was black and white, and he spoke in a very ‘hullo guvnor’ Cockney way. But he looked very confident with the horse, and with the long rifle over his shoulder. He was warning Wiri about trouble to the north, which Wiri promised they would avoid. He looked Mat over curiously, and bowed low in his saddle to Kelly before galloping away, to her amusement.
‘Who was that?’ she asked Wiri as he disappeared over a ridge.
‘Local constabulary,’ Wiri answered.
‘Looked more like local drama society,’ Kelly replied. She and Wiri bantered in plummy English accents for the remainder of the afternoon, but Wiri was evasive about the horseman, and where he came from.
That evening, Wiri talked about something Mat found hard to follow. ‘Puarata once told me that every land has a shadow twin. The real land is where people live and die—but the shadow land is where all the things those people believed and remembered still exist. In every country it is different. In Ireland’s other-land there are leprechauns and fairies. In America they see Indian spirits and folk legends. In central Europe the imaginary place is populated by vampires and gypsies. Whatever the people believe most about their land. Do you follow?’
Mat and Kelly shook their heads.
‘Imagine that everything important—the big stuff lots of people know or think or do—creates a recording. Like a television programme. Now, imagine that video keeps playing, over and over, but is constantly being added to as well—with new ideas and beliefs and events, and with the ghosts of the dead. Got it?’
‘Uh-uh,’ said Mat.
‘Nope,’ said Kelly.
Wiri sighed. ‘OK, do you know about the Tarawera eruption, which destroyed the famous Pink and White Terraces? Well, imagine there is a version of New Zealand, in which the terraces are still there—because they are still remembered.’
‘That’d be cool. Can you get tourists there? They’d pay a fortune!’
Wiri rolled his eyes, and Kelly grinned mischievously.
‘Another example is how Mat met Pania in Napier…that was the real Pania. Was there really a Pania? I don’t know. But enough people have believed in her for long enough for her to create an imprint in this special memory world, so that if you go there, you’ll meet her.’
Mat frowned. ‘But I didn’t go there. I was in the real Napier—wasn’t I?’
‘Maybe. Some of what you told me makes me wonder. But someone like Pania can step across,’ said Wiri. ‘She’s a magical being in the stories, which gives her power in the memory land.’
‘So you’re saying there’s a place—a kind of parallel universe, with all the myths of the real world? Like Hercules and Xena and stuff?’
‘Well, it tends to be quite localised. And it is surprising who can show up. As long as enough people think a lot about someone, they tend to pop up. Or a version that’s like the impression people have of them. A famous All Black might be there, though they would need to be dead. I’ve noticed that no one living has a twin in the other-land, which is why Puarata calls it a ghost-world.’
Kelly shook her head. ‘You’re telling us there’s a magical world right next door to ours, and Pania of the Reef and dead All Blacks live there? You’ve been there?
Wiri nodded. Kelly sucked her teeth, then shook her head. ‘I may be a magic clown, but I’ll need to see that one to believe it!’
Thursday saw them flitting through pine forests, close to the Napier-Taupo Road. At times they had to cross open land, where the pines had been logged, and the replacement saplings were barely a metre high. They were crossing one such area, more than a kilometre long and twice as wide, when with a sudden, chattering roar, a helicopter rose from a fold in the ground and powered toward them.
‘Get down!’ Wiri pulled Kelly to the earth beside him. Mat dived headlong into a tangle of broken branches and rotting pine needles. Fitzy wormed in beside him, panting into Mat’s face. The chopper roared overhead, slightly beyond them, and was just as quickly gone again, heading northward. They got slowly to their feet when it was out of sight.
‘Was that them?’ Mat asked.
‘It was Donna Kyle,’ the young warrior answered him, rubbing his bristly chin. ‘I could sense her presence.’
Kelly scowled at the thought of the blonde woman, brushing dead pine needles from her clothes.
‘We should stay under cover of the trees whenever we can,’ said Wiri. ‘It will slow us down, but not too much—these are logged forests and they cull the saplings and undergrowth to allow space for the pines to grow. We should still make good time.’
They stared after the chopper for a few more minutes, catching their breath, and then turned to move on.
‘You need a shave, Wiri,’ commented Kelly. ‘I don’t like beards. Especially not up close.’
‘Don’t you? And to think I was growing it just to impress you.’
‘How come you don’t carry a razor?’
Wiri grinned. ‘Puarata forgot to pack one. He made a patu and a taiaha for me, and my loincloth and cloak, but clean forgot about a razor, a gun, or any number of other useful things that hadn’t been invented at the time.’
‘What if you got hold of a gun—could you take it back into the tiki with you and then have it whenever you wanted?’ asked Mat.
Wiri shook his head. ‘No, only the things Puarata enchanted into the tiki at the time he carved it. Have a look at the tiki, and you’ll see them.’
Mat pulled it out, and sure enough, the reverse side of the hei-tiki had a tiny patu in its hand, a long club across its shoulder, and a stylised cloak and cloth. He showed Kelly who declared it was typical of men to forget the practical things. ‘You’re lucky he remembered to clothe you,’ she added.
Wiri laughed, and for a while they joked about useful things Puarata could have carved into the tiki, like guns, razors, food, cellphones, and aeroplanes.
Several times the helicopter swooped low nearby, sending them diving for cover. Wiri remained certain Donna Kyle was aboard, though it never came close enough for them to see. The wind was cold, on the high plain. Hills dotted the wide expanse—old volcanic plugs. They were nearing the heart of the volcanic pla
teau, steering more or less toward Mount Tauhara, Wiri told them. From the top they could look out over Taupo. ‘But we won’t climb it,’ he added. ‘It is not a good place after dark.’
‘Why not?’ Kelly wanted to know.
‘Patupaiarehe.’
‘Patu-what?’
‘Pa-tu-pai-a-re-he. Maori fairy creatures. White skinned, red haired, and their behaviour ranges from mischief to nightly blood drinking. Just like the Irish fairies, and vampires.’
‘That’s weird,’ said Kelly.
Wiri shrugged.
‘Why isn’t it safe for us though?’ asked Mat.
‘Remember what I told you about the other-land? If you believe me about it being true—’;
‘That’s a whopping big if, mate!’ put in Kelly.
Wiri grinned. ‘OK, point taken. But if you take my word on it—which is the word of a centuries old Maori warrior summoned from a tiki, incidentally—then you might agree that going someplace where blood-sucking fairy-folk might appear is a bad idea.’
‘But how come they don’t appear more often?’ asked Mat.
‘Most people don’t draw their attention. But I’m here, and I’m not most people. The tiki is another reason. It is special. Our passing through this area is waking all sorts of things. If your eyes were less focused on the path in front of you, you might have seen some of them already.’
Mat remembered the goblin-creature at the cave mouth again, and nodded. ‘Like that thing you talked to back on the first night?’
‘Yes,’ Wiri admitted slowly. ‘And some other things not so obvious—like the horseman, for example.’
Kelly looked stunned. ‘But he was so…ordinary…kind of, just dressed funny. Was he really from the other-land?’