by Baker Chris
‘The young fella said something like that.’ Wilf gestured towards two armchairs. ‘Get comfortable. I can see you’re in a rough way yourself. I’ll make us something to eat.’
Over fried vegetables and celery-leaf salad, Paki explained about the events of the past few months. He told Wilf about how the Ponaturi had suddenly appeared, night after night, terrifying the local people. And Eric had been possessed by one of them. Hoheria had rescued him, but had become possessed herself. She had eventually been able to free herself, and then Jim had taken it on himself to destroy her.
‘Blue fire?’ said Wilf. He pushed back from the table and waved his hands. Blue flames danced on his fingers. Paki and Cheryl were wide-eyed.
‘That’s it,’ Paki said. ‘What does it mean?’
‘You should know. You’ve got The Sight.’ Wilf looked at the big man, suddenly stricken with frustration, his brows knotted and teeth clenched. ‘Sorry, mate. But it’s simple enough. It’s energy, and it’s in you too.’
‘That’s all very well,’ Paki said. ‘But it didn’t help Hoheria.’
Wilf looked incredulous for a moment, then his face was lit by the dawning light of realisation. ‘You don’t know, do you?’
‘Don’t know what?’
‘She’s alive. Underwater’
Two hours later, a revived and restored Kevin was questioning Wilf. The fire would allow Hoheria to live underwater indefinitely. But at a price, he warned.
‘It shifts her into another dimension. She’s still here physically and there isn’t much that can harm her, but her mind isn’t on this plane.’ Kevin bit back a string of questions. ‘I can feel her. That’s why I was expecting a young woman when I found you. And I can still feel her, south of here.’
‘Kokopu Waters,’ said Cheryl. ‘She’s somewhere near there.’
12
Kokopu Waters
The next morning they made Kevin comfortable with blankets and cushions on Wilf’s cart. ‘I’m okay,’ Kevin protested. ‘Let’s just get going.’
‘There’s no mad rush,’ Wilf countered. ‘You won’t be helping anyone if you knacker yourself. And excuse me while I go and let the chooks out. They can look after themselves for a few days.’
‘He’s right,’ said Paki. ‘Take it easy. We’re all going to the same place.’
‘You can talk. How’re your ribs?’
‘Healing. I’ll live.’
A few miles down the road, Kevin remembered hearing, as if in a dream, something Wilf had said. ‘What do you mean, there’ll be a price for Hoheria to pay?’
Wilf looked at Kevin, obviously wondering how to put an unpleasant truth.
‘It’ll change her,’ he finally said.
‘What’ll change her?’
‘Drowning.’
‘What?’
‘She has to die so she can live underwater. That’s the simplest way I can put it. And believe me, that’s a profound experience, especially the first time.’
Kevin was horrified. Hoheria dying? The thought ripped into his gut like a sharpened stake. And drowning? What a dreadful way to go, fighting for breath, your lungs filling with water, everything turning black as you lost consciousness. But obviously it was possible to survive it. He looked at Wilf. The old man’s braided beard clattered and jangled as the cart swayed. He didn’t seem any the worse for wear.
‘What happened to you?’
‘I found out by accident. I fell in the river when it was in flood, and drowned. I went unconscious and came to underwater, breathing water like air. I really did think I’d died.’
‘When did you realise you hadn’t?’
‘Not for ages. Not till I was back on land and burnt myself trying to light the fire. I had to stick my hand back in the flames to convince myself.’ He laughed, wryly. ‘Where there’s pain, there’s life.’
‘It sounds weird.’
‘It was. Just like a dream. You ever have a logical dream that made sense? They’re all a bit peculiar. Alice in Wonderland stuff. ’
‘Tell me about the blue fire,’ Kevin said. ‘Where does it come from? How come I never heard about it before?’
Wilf puffed ruminatively on his pipe as they passed regenerating native bush. The cart’s motocross tyres made easy work of the cracked tar seal.
‘Nobody ever saw it in the Old Times,’ he said. ‘At least nobody I ever heard of.’ He turned to Kevin. ‘I wasn’t even aware of it till I’d been without electricity for a year. No TV, no radio, no heaters, no electric light. Nothing but me.’ He laughed. ‘I nearly died of fright the first time I saw it. I was fishing for eels with a gaff and some smelly old goat bones. The lamp went out and there were my hands, glowing in the dark. I thought it was rotten meat rubbed off on me at first, but it wouldn’t wash away and it flickered with my thoughts. Eventually I figured out it was strongest when I thought of how grateful I was for the stream and the bush, the eel that was going to feed me.’
‘But what does it do?’
‘Whatever you want it to.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘If you want to breathe underwater, you can.’ Wilf looked at Kevin with an eyebrow raised. ‘Once you’re there, that is. You just do it. Instinct takes over. But you have to believe in yourself to start with.’
They stopped while the horse crapped, steaming green grenades that plopped on the road with a grassy smell washing over the two men. Wilf chuckled as the horse finished and started moving forward again. ‘Most horses keep walking while they do that, but Ernie isn’t too bright. There used to be a joke about an Old Time politician – he couldn’t fart and chew gum at the same time. That’s what I mean about the blue fire. You have to be a smart cookie in the first place. Strong-minded, too.’
Kevin thought about Hoheria, the quickness and clarity of her thinking, the strength of her resolve, her ability to leap from one idea to another.
‘But there’s got to be more to it than brains,’ he said to Wilf. ‘I know clever people who can’t do anything like that.’
‘There is more to it. You need Te Matakite as well. You need The Sight. Your wahine must have it in spades. I can feel her from here.’
Kevin sat up and looked around Wilf as they rode down the hill to Kokopu Waters. The place was beautiful. He’d forgotten. He’d been away for over a month. He could see the trees with their glossy green, late spring leaves. A gentle breeze ruffled the estuary. Smoke rose from over a dozen chimneys. People were busy on the foreshore. Kevin could see them in the communal gardens he’d helped dig before moving to Kahuika to stay with Paki and Cheryl. But where was Hoheria? And how had Kokopu Waters fared? Had the Ponaturi caused anything like the trouble they had in Kahuika?
‘Trouble for sure,’ Sean said when they were all sitting in his and Alex’s kitchen, drinking lupin-flower tea and eating smoked fish on wholemeal bread. ‘But nothing we couldn’t handle.’ He gave Kevin a worried look. ‘What about Hoheria? What’s our girl up to? How come she’s living underwater?’ He slapped his own face and shook his head. ‘My turn to doubt the story.’
‘Then try this,’ said Kevin, and told the tale of Eric’s possession and how Hoheria had taken the creature into herself, freeing Eric but becoming a monster until she learnt to deal with it.
Sean whistled. ‘Holy shit. She’s really done the whole nine yards, hasn’t she? So what’ll you do now?’
Wilf spoke then. ‘We got the word to come here.’ He didn’t say how. ‘We just have to wait. Something’ll happen.
The sun had set behind the western hills, rainbow colours painting the darkening sky, fading while Kevin and Paki watched as they sat on the foreshore.
‘You can see things,’ Kevin said. ‘How come you don’t use the blue fire?’
Paki thought for a moment, then jammed the stick he’d been whittling into the sand. ‘One toke over the line,’ he said. Kevin raised an eyebrow. ‘I went off the rails for a few years.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Classes A, B, C; glue, petrol, booze
, datura, you name it. I think I fried my brains.’ Paki explained how he’d developed a bipolar disorder and how periodically they’d lock him up in Ward 10 and turn him into an overweight vegetable with repeated doses of chlorpromazine.
‘Bad shit,’ he said. ‘I was good for nothing.’
‘When did you first know you could see things?’
‘It was my uncle Bert’s funeral. I was only four.’ Paki explained how he was a whāngai, adopted out to a Pākehā couple. ‘I loved my uncle Bert. When I saw him standing by the coffin in the front of the church, I went up and took his hand. But he wasn’t really there. He was in the coffin and I was seeing his kēhua. I got a fright and started to cry, and this old woman in the back of the church came up to me. She must have moved fast too. She got to me before my mum and dad, before anybody. She took me with her into the nearest empty pew and she made me feel okay.’
She was his Nanny Riria, Paki explained. She’d been aware of him for some time and had been keeping an eye on him. She made herself known to his parents and when he started school he visited her every day and slept at her place on weekends.
‘How did your parents handle that?’
‘My mum freaked out but my dad thought it was a good idea. He was a detective sergeant in the police. He’d seen a few things.’ Paki was silent. He pulled his stick out of the sand and started whittling again.
Kevin held his breath waiting for Paki to continue. Eventually he started speaking again. ‘She told me about Te Matakite, about the fire. She taught me a lot of things, mostly about how to live properly.’
‘What happened?’
‘She died. Right when I started high school, my nanny up and died. That’s what happened. And I went crazy. I forgot all the things she’d ever taught me, my parents too, and I got into everything I could. Burgs, fights, dealing, and doing heaps of dope. I got expelled from school. They arrested me all the time and I did a fair bit of porridge. My dad tried to help me, but the poor old bugger died and my mum just lost the plot. So I was on my own. I didn’t even know who my whānau was, not my iwi either. I still don’t.’ He looked at Kevin. ‘You know how you felt after the Fever? That’s how I felt back then. All on my own.’ He put an arm around Kevin’s shoulders. ‘Not any more though, bro. You guys are my family now. Nothing I wouldn’t do for you.’
Kevin didn’t hesitate. ‘You can help Hoheria get back. I’ve got no idea how, but there must be a way.’
Paki looked at him, both determined and uncertain. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. Wilf must have some ideas.’ He stood up and hugged himself. Kevin could see his ribs were still hurting. ‘He seems to know what he’s doing. Don’t worry, bro. We’ll do our best to save Hoheria.’ In the fading light he turned away, but not before Kevin caught his look of doubt and uncertainty.
All the Kokopu Waters residents were gathered in the lounge bar of the old hotel. A pot of soup simmered on the log burner. On the walls portraits of Old Time rugby heroes were sepia-toned in the candlelight. Everyone was talking about how to rescue Hoheria. They all agreed that it sounded like crunch time in the fight against the Ponaturi.
‘We haven’t got a lot of choice now,’ said Manu, smacking a fist into a work-hardened hand. ‘We have to get Hoheria back. It’s just that I’m fucked if I know how.’
‘One more thing I meant to ask you, Wilf,’ said Kevin. ‘How did you get back on dry land? How did you start breathing air again?’
Wilf turned to Kevin. ‘I was just plain lucky the first time. The river carried me out to sea, but the tide was going out and I was washed up on a sandbar. It wasn’t very pleasant either. I was lying in shallow water puking my guts up. Even that didn’t get through to me. I remember thinking I must be delirious, in bed and really crook, and there’d be a huge mess to clean up in the morning.’ Wilf shook his head. ‘I really believed I was dreaming, and that nothing could happen to me. I swam out to a willow log, hung on, and got washed ashore about a mile up the coast. I walked back to the river, found a dinghy, and rowed across. And I still thought I was asleep. That’s when I burnt myself lighting the fire.’
‘What about other times?’
‘It got easier, but the experience never stopped feeling like a dream. There’s another thing that’s been consistent too. Once I was living underwater I didn’t want to come back.’
Kevin took a sip of his home brew. ‘You knew it would be hard?’
Wilf thought for a moment. ‘No, it wasn’t that. But every time, I lost a lot of memory of life on land. It was real underwater. That’s where I belonged. Everything else was a dream.’
Paki joined them carrying a chair in one hand and a cup of soup in the other. ‘Kia ora, cuz,’ he said to Wilf. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. I need your help.’
Wilf knew. ‘The blue fire,’ he said. ‘You want to go underwater.’
‘That’s the one,’ said Paki. ‘D’you think I can do it?’
‘You can. No doubt about that. But you’ll have to get clean first. No booze, no wacky baccy. Nothing but fresh water for three days, and then we’ll see.’
‘You need to meditate. Clear your head,’ said Kevin.
‘That’s a laugh,’ said Cheryl. ‘He’s got the original tin of worms in there. He never stops thinking.’ The three of them were sitting on the porch of Kevin and Hoheria’s house, taking a break from gardening.
‘Feels strange to be doing this on my own,’ Kevin said, as he looked at the rows of new lettuce plants where he’d been hoeing, his leg strapped and bandaged.
‘Get these in the ground,’ Sean had said to him the previous evening. ‘May as well carry on like everything’s in order.’ He looked at Kevin’s leg. ‘Except you might have to give the triathlon a big swerve.’
‘What’s the go with meditation?’ Paki said. ‘What do I have to do?’
Kevin thought for a moment. ‘Hoheria explained it all to me once. You have to get your posture right first.’ He showed Paki how to sit cross-legged, his back straight and eyes open, focussed on a point on the ground, about a metre to the front and slightly to the left. ‘That’s all. It’ll help to have an image to concentrate on, something you’re not emotionally involved with. Try Sean’s taniwha manaia. That’s as good as anything. Just imagine it floating before your eyes, about two feet away. And try not to think about anything, but don’t try too hard.’
Paki lowered himself and sat cross-legged on a cushion from an armchair on the porch. After a few minutes he slapped his hands on the wooden boards, startling Cheryl and Kevin. ‘It’s no use,’ he said. ‘All sorts of things keep popping into my head. It’s too busy in there, bro!’
‘Know what you mean,’ said Kevin. ‘Same thing happened to me. Old TV shows, cannibals, dog attacks, people from the North – you name it, they’re all lined up waiting to fill my head. I asked Hoheria. She said just let it all come and don’t grab hold of any of it. After a while it slows right down and just goes away. She was right. It did too.’
‘He should be okay,’ Wilf said to Sean. ‘But it’s a bit of a gamble. He needs three months to get ready, not three days.’
‘What’s he going to do down there anyway?’
‘I’m not sure. He needs to remind Hoheria of who she is and where she comes from, but I don’t really know how. He won’t even know who he is, let alone anyone else. And I don’t know what’s going on down there. The Ponaturi live there. It’ll be a very strange place.’
13
That Dark Place
‘What do you think’s happening down there?’ Paki said. He was taking a break from meditation, walking along the foreshore with Wilf, Cheryl and Eric, and trying to skip shells and stones on the glassy water without hurting his healing ribs. His right arm was in a sling. ‘Can anything hurt me? Can it hurt Hoheria?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Wilf. ‘But it’s probably best to assume it’s enemy territory. I’m guessing the Ponaturi are down there somewhere, but they’ll probably be nothing like you’ve
seen on land. Up here they’re squat and ugly. Down there they’ll be the opposite, tall and beautiful. And they won’t be walking, they’ll be swimming. Most important of all, don’t forget they’re demons. Normal rules don’t apply.’
Normal rules ... Paki thought for a moment and suddenly he knew. ‘I know what I have to take to Hoheria!’ he said excitedly. ‘Tinirau. The taniwha manaia!’ Wilf looked puzzled. ‘It’s a carved bone charm that Sean has. It represents the taniwha that’s supposed to be looking after this place.’
‘Supposed to be – what’s he up to, then, with those horrors running riot?’
‘Wouldn’t have a clue, mate. Maybe he’s off visiting friends, maybe he’s just taking a breather. Maybe he knows something we don’t.’
‘How do I get down there?’ Paki asked. ‘I won’t be able to just drown myself.’
Cheryl looked horrified. ‘It sounds absolutely ghastly. It sounds risky, too.’
‘It is,’ Wilf said. ‘I couldn’t pretend otherwise.’ He turned to Paki. ‘D’you understand the risk? You do know that once you’re drowned, there’s a chance that you might stay drowned. You might be down there forever?’
Paki swallowed. He looked frightened. ‘Yeah, I understand that. But I’ll take the risk.’ He put his hands on Cheryl’s shoulders. ‘I’ve got something to lose now, something to live for. I think it makes things easier, believe it or not.’
Cheryl flung her arms around him. She started to weep. ‘I can’t stand the thought of losing you,’ she sobbed. ‘Being with you is the happiest I’ve been in my whole life.’
‘It’ll all work out,’ Paki said. ‘We’ve been on borrowed time since the Fever anyway. We have to take a few risks, especially for each other, if we want a new life.’
Cheryl sniffed. ‘I’ve taken enough risks already.’ She reached down to Eric and grasped his hand. The boy looked from her to Paki and back.
‘Where’s Auntie Hoheria?’ he asked.
‘Tie yourself to something heavy, row out into the middle of the estuary, and heave it overboard. By the time you get untied, you’ll be drowned,’ Sean said. ‘Me, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes. I can think of better ways of passing the time.’