Ghosts of Parihaka

by David Hair

  He was having to turn slowly to keep her from vanishing behind him. It was unsettling him. Why am I here again? He felt a surge of guilt, and wondered why he hadn’t felt it before. Cass deserves better.

  ‘Who’s Cass?’ she breathed, her words making his pulse rate double. She was behind him somehow.

  Uh oh. He turned sharply. ‘My … my girlfriend,’ he stammered.

  ‘What’s that like?’ she asked, her head lowered and her face half hidden by her tumbling locks. ‘In my world, there are no “girlfriends”. Only maidens and wives.’

  He blinked. Oh hell, she’s not from around here … like, really not from around here. ‘Uh, look, miss, I think I better get back. This isn’t a good idea.’ He turned quickly away — and she was standing right in front of him, her right hand extended towards him in a crooked gesture. He flinched, his heart in his mouth. ‘Where are you going, Riki Waitoa?’ she asked with a kind of malicious coyness, like a cat teasing its prey.

  ‘Jeez, lady, I don’t know who you are, but I know where you’re from, and—’

  ‘Do you? Do you indeed?’ She flashed closer in an eye-blink, her nose millimetres from his, her breath on his cheek. It was frosty cold. ‘Then let’s go there!’

  ‘No! Wait!’ He tried to back away, but her hand grabbed him and suddenly the world lurched. He felt a swirling of cold winds and fizzing energy about him. A subtle swirl of deep emerald phosphorescence spiralled about them; the world altered. The air felt warmer and smelt sweeter, heavy with saltwater and loamy earth. The moon glowing above was different too; it seemed to contain a carved face. Only she remained constant. It was an alien sensation, but one he’d felt before: when Mat had taken him into Aotearoa.

  She tittered with cold laughter. ‘Welcome to Te Po, Riki Waitoa. The land of night. The land of death.’

  He shook his head, frightened. ‘No, this is Aotearoa, I’ve been here before!’

  She laughed again, a little more derisively. ‘And what did you think Aotearoa was?’ She glided away from him, inhaling deeply. ‘When the goddess comes upon me, this is my realm.’

  The goddess? He stared, and then a number of things clicked into place. ‘Hine-te-po: Hine of the Night.’ The Goddess of Death. He began to back away in earnest. ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  She half-turned away. ‘That is for you to find out.’ She flashed to a point ten yards away, barely visible in the darkness. ‘Have fun,’ she added, with a cruel lilt in her voice. Then she was gone.

  ‘Hey!’ He dashed to where he had last seen her. ‘Hey! You can’t just leave me here!’ The wind rustled through the trees like a dry laughter. ‘Hey! Come back!’

  There was no sign of the girl … woman … goddess.

  Oh shit!

  If this was Aotearoa, he was in the Ghost World’s version of Parihaka. That couldn’t be good. Not after all that had happened here in the past. But if it wasn’t, then where the hell was he? ‘Hey!’ he called forlornly.

  To his shock, a male voice called back from the tree line in a raspy, low-pitched voice. ‘Keep your voice down, you idiot!’

  That stopped him in his tracks. The voice was familiar. He felt a sudden relief: No, I’m not in Aotearoa, I’m just lost in the night-time in an unfamiliar place. The dormitory is probably just over the rise. Riki, you idiot, freaking out over nothing at all. ‘Who’s that?’ he whispered, pitching his voice to carry.

  A tall shape broke from trees at the top of the rise. ‘Riki?’ the newcomer whispered, with hoarse emotion. A big youth with shaggy hair and a pale face was revealed by the stray light of the distant buildings. ‘What the hell?’

  You’re kidding me! Riki felt tears sting his eyes. ‘Damien?’ He threw his arms around his friend. ‘Damien, mate!’ They hugged roughly, slapping each other’s backs. ‘How’re you going?’

  ‘Me? I’m bloody awesome, man! Having the coolest time. Me and Shui — man, I can’t wait to introduce you — she and I … words fail me. Life is so good!’ Damien laughed. ‘Life — ha! But what the hell are you doing here?’

  Riki shook his head and stared at his dead best friend. ‘Life’ might be good for Damien, but it wasn’t really life at all. Damien had died four months ago, stabbed through the heart by Byron Kikitoa. Though Damien had been reborn into Aotearoa afterwards, he would now never grow older, never have children, and could only return to the real world for a few hours at a time lest his spirit be destroyed. He was a newborn ghost. That he had found a girl — Mat had told Riki about Shui, whom they’d met in the north in February — was great, but there was a lingering sense of tragedy Riki couldn’t shake. ‘That’s cool, man. Awesome … I’m here on a school trip.’

  Damien raised an eyebrow. ‘A school trip? Nah, you’re in Aotearoa. It’s good to see you, man,’ he added fervently. ‘But you look like someone just jigged on your grave.’

  ‘I’m … it’s just a shock. There was this chick and I think she tricked me into coming here.’

  Damien raised his eyebrows. ‘Yeah? That’s pretty weird, cos this Maori chick I met in Paihia said to come here if I wanted to learn about what was going on at Parihaka.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve been down here with some soldiers, trying to suss this place out.’

  ‘A Maori woman told you to come here?’ Riki shook his head, trying to jump-start his brain. ‘Tall, real pretty?’ A goddess, in fact …

  ‘Yeah, sounds like the one.’

  Riki swallowed. This was getting worse. But it’s Damien … He couldn’t help but smile, despite the shock.

  Damien patted his arm. ‘Shui is here too, man! You gotta meet her.’ He clutched Riki’s shoulder. ‘Jeez, it’s really you!’ He nudged Riki. ‘Hey, how’s it going with you and Cassandra?’

  Who? Oh, yeah … He started guiltily. That chick, she put a spell on me, I swear! ‘All good, mate. Super good.’

  Damien threw him a sly look. ‘Are you guys … you know, doing the wild thing?’

  Riki pulled a coy face. ‘That’d be telling.’ But then his boastful side took over and he winked and gave a quick thumbs-up. Last school holidays he’d visited Cassandra in Gisborne, and it certainly had got a little wild, in a very, very good way.

  Damien whooped loudly enough that Riki threw an alarmed look back over his shoulder at the marae, but no-one seemed to have heard. ‘I knew it,’ Damien crowed. ‘Just knew it!’ He slapped his hand onto Riki’s shoulder. ‘Chicks are totally awesome.’ He pulled Riki into the heart of the surrounding darkness. ‘Shui?’

  They entered a small grove of cabbage trees. The sweeter, fuller smells of Aotearoa seemed to cling there. A small figure was crouched beside a well-hidden little fire. As they saw the glow, the figure fired them a question in a language Riki didn’t know. The voice was female and the cadences were Asian.

  To his surprise Damien replied in what sounded like the same language. Then he switched back to English as the tiny girl stood, the fire revealing coppery skin and flat Chinese features, small and perfectly formed. She wore boyish European settler clothing, a cotton shirt and rough trousers, and had a pistol jammed into her belt. She grinned welcomingly at Riki. ‘I Shui,’ she announced with a giggling tinkle that he immediately liked.

  Damien hugged her, his boyish features alive with pleasure. ‘This is my girl,’ he said, willing Riki to approve — which Riki did wholeheartedly. When Mat had told him about how Damien had died, something inside him had perished too. But Damien had been reborn into Aotearoa and had also found love — or at least lust and infatuation. That was a decent silver lining to a dark cloud.

  ‘It’s great to meet you,’ he told the girl, and hugged her. She was skinny as a bird and about as tall as one. ‘Fantastic!’

  She beamed at him. ‘Fanta-chick,’ she repeated, testing out the word. ‘Cool, bro,’ she added solemnly. Clearly the language lessons were coming along, in both of their tongues.

  ‘You learning Chinese, bro?’ he asked Damien.

  ‘Cantonese, man. Yeah. I’m pretty
useless, but we get by. We’ve got all kinds of ways of communicating,’ he laughed. Then he sobered up, throwing a wary look about him. ‘Hey, let’s kick out the fire and get under cover, man. You never know with this place who’s about.’

  They stamped the fire out and covered it with dirt, then Damien led them through the thin bush that fringed the dip where Parihaka village lay. The night sky was cloudless, and as his eyes adjusted to the moon and starlight, Riki found he could make out more of the shape of the land. Mount Taranaki rose in a perfect triangle, filling the eastern sky. The distant murmur of the sea was borne by the west winds. The night seemed empty, but gradual signs of life revealed themselves like magicians’ tricks: an owl, a morepork, swooping by.

  They found a vantage point above the village and sat, taking care not to be silhouetted against the ridgeline. Shui smiled shyly at Riki and cuddled into Damien’s arms. They looked good together.

  Riki returned his attention to Parihaka village below. It looked desolate, utterly empty. Riki leant towards Damien and whispered, ‘What’s happening, mate?’

  ‘We’re not sure, man.’ Damien licked his lips. ‘You know what went down here, right? In November 1881, Badman Bryce brought in the troops and carted everyone away. In Aotearoa events like that have a kind of echo effect — they re-enact themselves, usually on the anniversary of the event. But recently, it’s been repeating itself more often. And ships keep coming up from the south, taking people away. The locals got worried and sent a request for help to Governor Grey. Grey sent a cutter down from Manukau to check it out. I asked to be on the mission after this Maori chick talked to me about it. We came south on a coastal trader called the Wallaby. We got here three days ago. Grey sent a sergeant called Bain and a squad of soldiers.’

  ‘Find anything?’

  Damien shook his head. ‘Sergeant Bain’s got the lads down at the coast, cos someone told us there was another ship lurking there. The Wallaby is in port at Moturoa — that’s the Maori name for the Aotearoa side of New Plymouth. She’s going south in two days’ time.’ He pointed towards the village. ‘The thing is, the Maori village isn’t usually here: normally all you find is the military camp, the one they built after 1881. But something — or someone — is making Te Whiti’s village reappear.’

  They stared down at the darkened village. ‘Wish Mat was here,’ Riki admitted eventually. ‘This is more his line than ours.’ The three of them had been involved in some dangers together in Aotearoa before — usually Mat did the thinking and the magic, and Damien and Riki did the fighting. ‘He’d know if there was something going on.’

  Suddenly Shui murmured and jabbed a finger towards the south corner of the village. A stab of light had flashed momentarily, once, twice, then nothing. She muttered something to Damien in Cantonese.

  ‘What do we do?’ Riki asked.

  Damien stood, pulling Shui to her feet with him. ‘We go check it out.’

  Riki grimaced. ‘Uh, mate, how am I going to get back to my world?’

  Damien grinned. ‘There’s a portal not far away, but let’s check that light out first, man. Won’t take a mo. And hell, I haven’t see you in ages. Don’t go yet.’

  Riki exhaled. This is dumb, especially as that chick seems to have gone to some trouble to get me here, and Dame too. But he found himself nodding anyway. The excitement of the hunt was taking over. The three of them crept silently down the slope and through a gap in the wooden palisade that fenced the village. Up close the housing was not Maori in style, but very roughly built in a European manner, with none of the care and diligence of traditional Maori whare. The buildings looked half broken and there was a strong air of decay. Rot and stale urine. Old foulness. The earth was muddy, the few tufts of grass having been trampled back into the churned dirt. Shui sniffed meaningfully; Riki smelt it too: the thin whiff of wood smoke. There was a fire burning, somewhere near, but they could see no flames.

  They crept between the buildings, as quietly as they could, until they found a hut whose only window was broken; through the crack leaked the faintest thread of smoke. Damien nudged Riki and pointed to the opposite shack. For an instant, Riki thought he saw a girl’s face, with a white flower in her hair and huge frightened eyes. Then she vanished back into the darkness of the hut.

  ‘You take that one and I’ll take the smoke,’ Damien whispered. He flicked open his coat, revealing a navy-issue cutlass. He pulled the short sword out, while Shui drew her pistol and primed it with calm competence. Riki wished he had a weapon.

  ‘Got a spare?’ he whispered.

  Damien shook his head. ‘Stay behind me if anything happens.’ He jabbed a finger at the door of the hut where the girl had vanished. ‘Let’s do them at the same time.’

  Riki found himself trembling with nervous tension, but not fear. This wasn’t his first time in Aotearoa, and not the first time he’d faced danger. And, anyway, maybe nothing would happen …

  Yeah right.

  He slunk towards the door of the hut, waited until Damien reached the opposite one, and then laid his hands on the handle. Shui stood between them, pistol held in a two-handed grip, barrel pointed skywards like someone from a police drama. She looked the calmest of the three of them.

  Damien nodded, mouthing: One, two, three.

  He opened the door silently and tried to penetrate the darkness of the hut. Opposite he heard voices, but before he could look away a girl emerged from the darkness. She was Maori, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with a sadly beautiful face. She wore a shapeless smock and held out flowers. White camellias, like the ones in his mother’s garden.

  ‘Please don’t kill me,’ she said in a tremulous voice. ‘I’m so tired of dying.’

  What the hell?

  Then from outside someone shouted, and three shots boomed and echoed about them. Riki flinched and spun in time to see Shui throw herself sideways, her pistol disgorging thick smoke. On the opposite doorstep, Damien was pressed to the wall. Beside him was a big Maori youth with tousled hair and hideous scars all over his bare torso. Damien called, his voice high-pitched, ‘At least six men, dude. We’ve got to roll!’

  Riki grabbed the girl’s hand. She flinched from him, tried to pull free. ‘Come on,’ he told her. ‘We’ve got to go.’ But she tore her hand free and backed into the shadows. Outside there were more shots. Musket balls tore at the timber of the huts.

  ‘Come on, Rik!’ Damien shouted. To his alarm Riki realized his friend’s shout came from further away. ‘Please, you’ve got to come,’ he implored the girl. He lunged at her, but she was too fast, darting to the ground and slithering like a lizard to a place under her heavy wooden bed. ‘Damn it, girl!’

  ‘Riki!’ Damien shouted, from further away. More gunfire. Shouting voices rang out, far too many.

  That better be Dame’s mates coming to the rescue. He fell to his knees. ‘Please, girl. Come with me. We’ve got to get away. Bad men are coming.’

  She looked at him hesitantly. He held his breath as she stared back at him from the deepest shadows, only her shining eyes clearly visible. For an instant he thought she was about to give him her trust and come. But then the door crashed open behind him. Too late. He rose as a burly shape in a long coat appeared in the doorway. The man held a musket, but he didn’t fire it. Instead he smashed the butt towards Riki’s head.

  Riki was his school’s champion taiaha fighter. He didn’t have a weapon, but he knew how to dodge and how to use his body in a scrap. He dropped under the blow and scissored his legs at the man’s knee and ankle. The man crashed to the ground beside him. Riki rabbit-punched him in the nose, rewarded by a wet crunch beneath his fist, then rolled clear as the man bellowed furiously. The girl under the bed squealed and darted for the door faster than a wild cat. Riki went after her, snatching up the musket as he went, though he knew next to nothing about them. The barrel was hot, so he suspected it wasn’t loaded anyway. He kicked the attacker back down as he tried to rise, then leapt after the girl.

  In t
he alley between the huts the burly youth who had been beside Damien a few seconds ago was lying in the mud, clutching his head. There was a man towering over him, his leg pulled back to kick him in the belly. Without thinking, Riki slammed the butt of the musket he held into the man’s temple. He dropped like a stone. The Maori youth’s eyes opened and he looked up at Riki, a flash of gratitude that became a warning. Riki spun, ducking under a wild cutlass blow from a bearded man in sailor’s garb. He blocked another blow, then jabbed his barrel into the man’s guts. The man gasped and crumpled, winded. More shots whipped past Riki. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Damien and Shui further down the line of buildings, both holding smoking pistols. Someone shrieked in pain, one of the attackers. He half-turned to see what was coming.

  He should have just run. A massive fist smashed into his jaw and he staggered, dazed. He heard the Maori girl scream and more shots ring out. Damien shouted, but Riki’s hearing seemed wonky, coming and going. A massive man loomed before him, and he tried to lift the musket to protect himself. Then that huge fist came back, moving in slow motion but way too fast for him anyway. It hammered him over backwards, the moon flashed above him and then the back of his head struck the mud. Everything else was sucked into the roaring silence …

  Riki woke to a pounding ache, and when he tried to move chains clanked on his ankles. Oh no.

  He opened an eye and winced in pain at even such a tiny action. A brilliant light seared his eyes, then faded, and he realized it was just a candle. His brain felt like it had been malleted and his ribs throbbed. Every breath was painful. Someone gave me a bloody good kicking when I was down. Best time to kick a man, I guess. He opened his eyes more fully and looked about him, then blanched.

  He realized instantly that he was in the hold of a ship, not a modern one but an old wooden one. It stank of sewage and saltwater, and rolled in a stomach-churning wallow. He was not alone either. There were at least twenty men and half a dozen women chained up here with him. None of them was the young girl he’d tried to rescue. For an instant he hoped to see Damien here with him, but he wasn’t and, anyway, it was better if his friend had got away safe.