HORO
[THE BEGINNING]
Year: 1425
Place: The Belly of Māui's Fish, the region of Ngāti Whiti in the west of Taupō Moana
The great eye of Tama-nui-te-rā peers down upon the land at the Belly of Māui-tikitiki-ā-Taranga. In all the surrounding districts of Taupō Moana, the power of the cooking fires of morning rises. Though it is still deep dark, the work of humans has already begun. Te Ākau emerges at the mooring place of the people at the mouth of Kuratau. For generations their canoes have been tethered there so they would not be broken by the surging of the lake when storms come.
Joy clings to him at his return to the lake for fishing — his own special occupation. In recent days, when the storm was fierce upon the water, when the size of the crashing waves was such, he alone with his two elder brothers had beached, they being too pompous in their entry into the highest learning houses of the people. Ha! What of it! Such arrogance! As if they were chiefs! And what? As if I were some worthless servant! To hell with them!
The worm of resentment turns over in his belly, and soon it has coiled itself into a knot of confusion in his liver.
'Te Ākau!' calls Te Patunga, the firstborn of the family.
'What do you want?' returns Te Ākau, the dryness in his words steering him.
'What? Have you forgotten we are going out fishing together today?'
'Your head is water!' says the second brother, Ririkawhai.
Te Ākau is silent, defiant. He will not waste his words on his brothers! Why would he! They will not listen!
'There is no good in you two!' he flings back.
The lake lies flat and calm, the full heat of the sun upon his skin prickling. The three follow their fishing line. The coals still burn in Te Ākau's belly, together with the fruits of his sweat upon his skin. As they paddle out to the centre of the lake, Te Ākau seeks a way to survive among his elders. He has already cast their loaded spears as they glide upon the water, but they sink. His rhythm: one stroke, one word thrown.
'Boy!' says Te Patunga, 'Is that your work? Paddling, fishing, and useless grumbling!'
Laughter breaks from the two.
'But for us,' says Ririkawhai, 'We study the stars of the sky!'
Smoke rises in Te Ākau's ears. When they reach the fishing ground of their family, only then does he find a way to survive, and paddles away elsewhere. He has decided — he will lay a trap that will kill his tormentors. The continued paddling beyond the island standing in the lake, Motutaiko, to the lairs of the taniwha hidden beneath the water. In all his life, from his earliest childhood, his and his grandfather Te Nehu's work was feeding the taniwha. 'Let no fruit fall,' said the old man, his eyes gleaming. 'The fruit, Moko, go safely to sea, return safely to land.' The old man grinned. 'Yes, we must feed the taniwha so they remain close companions.' The old man's warning, his teaching: 'But do not tell anyone. Let sea be settled by sea. Not by land! These words are for us alone.' And the giving by the elder of his words to settle the descendants of the water. In time, the old man died, the lifting of the word passed to Te Ākau.
In the fading of Te Nehu's words, Te Ākau paddles harder. And when they reach the beyond, he drops the anchor, begins preparing the fishing gear. The nose is fixed to the work, and when settled, the hook is good in their canoe. And then, the elders' mockery begins again. But Te Ākau does not listen. His is the careful chanting to summon the taniwha from the water. Just now, from the twitching of Te Patunga's ears, the faint hearing of Te Ākau's words, he is provoked.
'Friend! Whose is that?!'
Te Ākau barely pays attention to his elder.
'Your work is taniwha calling!' says Te Patunga.
Te Ākau's hand runs to slap the water to raise the elders.
'Man! Perhaps it is a calling of the deep?' says Ririkawhai.
'No!' says Te Patunga. 'The creature is calling taniwha.'
'It will not be accomplished by the useless!' says Ririkawhai.
At the uttering of those words, only then does the lake begin to breathe, the froth rising, the back-swelling. Their canoe trembles in the churning of the water. Human words are lost in the howl of the wind and the surging of the wave. Then, the rising of the taniwha snout from the belly of the water.
Horror to the fore but also to the aft.
Te Patunga stands to placate the ancient sea, but death has already settled.
The snout emerges, followed by the eyes. The eyes are seen, followed by the head. The grinning of teeth. The dripping of the creature's saliva. The mouth runs to seize the canoe and the two people.
Te Ākau... holds to the floats of their net to steer himself to shore.
Behold! The great darkness of Te Ākau has settled.
[CHAPTER ONE]
Time: 11:55 pm, Monday 3rd March, 2014
Place: A street in Tāmaki Makaurau
Garth Blomfield stands frozen in the hollow of the road as the roar of a vehicle slaps his ears. In his stumbling, as the vehicle disappears into the deep of the night, he eases, creeps again from one shadow to another. The thrust of thought. Don't be late! Your head is the pavement! Don't be late. He continues creeping, his head bobbing as if a hook spinning in his nape. He aches in the pain but continues. Soon, his back bends again at the sound of an alarm from afar. He stops dead, waits. Eyes dart. Hands of the head strongly trembling. The catching of his breath in his sharp gasp as the beat falls is the ringing of a paper mill. Workers turn. Perfect timing. The time is exactly right. Twelve o'clock at night. The hour of demons.
The man grips his long coat to keep the warmth to his skin as if a toroa shivering. And he turns, turns back, shadowing the street signs, then his disappearance into the midst of dwellings. Like a rat his entry creeps behind a house, the darkness of the night his companion. He stands behind a tree, watches the house before him. Fibrous cement the roof, two storeys, paranihi surrounding the whole house. The mouth gapes. In his entry upwards, the floor creaks, and settles.
'Hurry! What are you waiting for? This prostitute won't wake!'
'How do you know?' says Blomfield to the voice in his nape feeding him.
'How do you not know?! Hurry!'
When he stands beneath the beam of the porch light, the sharp sight of his second upon the shadows of his face.
'Hey, are you throwing words at me?!' The voice rises as if a knife.
Blomfield dies from the strength of the word's bite, stills further. 'Careful! You'll be heard!'
'Heard?!' The retort. 'You alone are hearing my voice...'
His hand runs to the handle of the back door, turns. Locked. At that very moment, the sound of a dog from inside the house, barking.
The body of Blomfield is seized by great fear. He doesn't care about this dog, not since the time his hand was bitten when he was swimming. His eyes simply follow the scar from the dog's bite on his left hand.
'The dog is just food for us!' the shrill voice throws again. 'Go!
'But the dog!'
'Go! We have the gut!
Blomfield's steps falter. The throat rises. Then the turn of the coaxing voice of his companion, it softens, a persuasive spirit.
'It's fine! We have the gut! You won't be allowed to fall! We have the dog!'
The trembling of fear is swallowed, Blomfield's hand grips the door handle. At the touch, a trailing electricity snaps to his eyes, closes down, descends from his head to his shoulder to his outstretched hand. As if a gathering of glow-worms is the nature of the electricity running, something alive upon his skin, something still living. The electricity runs to the door handle, and the hearing of the lock being released.
'There! I hold you! You won't fall!'
At the pushing of the door, Blomfield enters. One push... two pushes... then...
Ggggrrrrrr!
'THE DOG!'
A rottweiler is the breed of the beast snarling. Its ears stand triangular. The spine is rigid, its teeth moist. Saliva drips. One blink of the eye, the dog springs to tear Blomfield's throat. The man shrieks like a seagull crying.
'I have it!'
The time stretches to illuminate.
The dog leaps. The mouth opens. Its sharp teeth gleam.
Blomfield's body is seized by electricity. His blue splits in two.
Two people stand. Blomfield and his companion.
He is horrified at the companion's appearance. A person but not a person!
'Enter, dog,' the heavy voice of the horror-person.
As the dog leaps, as the horror-person stands, as Blomfield stands paralysed, the hand of his second runs, enters the mouth of the dog. Suddenly Irawaru, eyes bulge, the tail hums...
The animal's intestines are pulled inside-out... its bowels are drawn out.
The dog cries... excrement flows freely...
Like a mere shrivelled ball is the appearance of the dog, shrunken, curled.
Blood runs... bowels bulge...
The dog's remains are thrown to the ceiling. Stick, hold to its father. Like a pet clinging to its rock.
'There is your food!'
Then... silence.
Blomfield and his companion are alone again.
'You have my servant, let the god's sword stand, give it!'
Blomfield climbs the steps of the house.
'Kill that prostitute. She overthrew me! Here is the payment, here is the righting...!'
Blomfield's arrival at the upstairs floor. His entry into the bedroom of the person whose house this is.
'Here is your food, the sword of the god...'
The old woman lying prostrate gapes.
The horror's hand runs to the gaping mouth of that person.
Draws out.
[CHAPTER TWO]
Time: 08:09 am, Tuesday 4th March, 2014
Place: 24 Kūtae Rd, Tāmaki Makaurau
Tame Tārere, 35, detective, of Tāmaki Makaurau, is irritated. The skin was cut by the razor this morning from the rush of his eagerness to get to work — a murder is happening. Soon it went wrong, very wrong from the sheer number of vehicles on the roads of Tāmaki. Then, to rub salt on the wound, the tyre of his car blows flat. Bang!
Tame is thrown from his car. A cluster of police has already arrived to examine the murder scene. One single move to the gate of the house. The sun has already risen, a scorching day. He drinks from his white hat, his signature ridiculousness to his mocking colleagues, wipes his forehead, puts the hat back on, goes. Shortly after, a voice sounds like a trumpet.
'Tame, is that you?'
Tame is startled. He knows that voice. 'Hēmi? Hēmi Kukutai! Is that you!'
A tall man descends from the paranihi of the house. His height matches his tallness. 'Well then... the heart is still wrong... my pockets are full of bills... a gift in the liver... the arse is also loose... my wife has also run to another, but, beyond those, great health!'
'Your damn! How long have you been falling into these miserable depressions.'
The two hongi, embrace, pat each other's backs.
'Hēmi Kurutete Kukutai! The champion boxer of the south coast... are you still boxing?'
'At home! I can no longer lift my arms so what is the point of boxing! But, how are you? I heard your balls were tied, you got married?'
'Eh! That woman... ran!'
'How terrible! She should have run from you to be right!'
'Eh! Your arse!'
The two watch the police as a swarm of ants creeping about outside the house, inside the house, everywhere.
Tame turns, says, 'Have you taken the examination of this murder?'
'Yes! I am still digging through the stones to see the maggots hidden beneath.'
'What are the maggots of this stone?'
Hēmi pauses, as if a dark cloud descending over the sun is the appearance of his face. 'Boy, I have never seen a shape like this one! The creature who did this work... there are no words to show its kind.'
In Tame's deep listening to their words, he did not see the woman at Hēmi's side watching. At the lowering of their voices, the woman pushes forward, enters their conversation.
'Yes, there is a kind.'
Tame's gaze flicks to the woman, returns quickly to his friend.
Hēmi says, 'My manners... Tame, this is my right hand, Maria Tūhekeroa.'
The two look at each other carefully, as if lions circling. They greet. In Tame's lack of attention, the word pops from the woman's mouth.
'Tameheihei... I have heard of you!' In the woman's eyes the sting of a reptile's tail. Her mouth slightly gapes.
'Ha!' says Tame to Hēmi, 'Your right hand? Your left hand? A shit-wiping hand!'
The woman does not blink, says, 'Tameheihei, Tametikiroa, Tama Tārere...'
Hēmi rushes in to block the sharpness. 'You two! Your children! Play nicely, because you two are working together...'
Their faces hang at Hēmi's explanation, and soften.
'Together!' says Tame. 'Us?'
Like a chopping blow the words fly from Maria. 'What? Don't you have the gut?'
'You too!' says Tame, 'Who said?' He turns to Maria, returns to Hēmi. 'Don't be dark broken-cocked, but Hēmi, I work alone, me alone!'
Hēmi frowns at the appearance of the two, says, 'Don't bite my ears. It was your own boss who spoke, this very morning.'
Maria approaches her bag, rummages, 'What if I don't want to?'
Hēmi doesn't turn to Maria to answer, his gaze fixed forward, 'Very simple. If you don't work, you don't work. A pan of bread is your food! There! Do you two understand?!'
The two rush to catch breath. They understand they are not being deceived. The removal of Tārere's hat. The entry of Maria's hands into her coat pockets. The spell of their gaze at each other.
Hēmi enters to fix the coldness. 'Good. You two are working together. That is the request!' His quick turn to head to the house door. 'Follow!'
'The argument is not finished,' says Tame like a dog gripping his bone.
Hēmi's special annoyance, he turns, says, 'There is no argument, it is a request!' His heading again to the house. Behind them the woman grumbles. Another word on her lips, but in Hēmi's complete turning away, it does not fall. When Hēmi reaches the threshold of the house, he gives a sign to Tame. 'Look carefully at the walkway.'
Tame's head descends to examine the floor of the house. Soon, in his not seeing any shape, he says, 'What am I looking for?'
'Look! What do you see?'
The eyes follow the entire floor of the house, the continued not-seeing of any different shape. Tame's entry, 'What is the smell?'
'The dog's droppings,' says Hēmi.
'Where is the dog?'
'Look up.'
All clusters of eyes run upward. Five seconds pass in their examination of the ceiling. Tame's forehead bulges. The tilting of his head to clarify what he sees.
'What is that thing?' he says, pointing to a cluster of dirt on the ceiling.
'Maria, explain,' says Hēmi.
'That is Cuddles, a dog. But his intestines, they are stuck to the ceiling.'
Tame whistles long at the strength of the disgust.
Maria continues. 'Look carefully. There is the head, the body, the legs, the tail...'
Tame examines. 'But, the appearance is curled...'
'Yes, that is Cuddles' appearance from inside...'
'From inside???' Tame's pressure.
Maria slightly annoyed at Tame's interference, her words direct. 'The dog was turned inside-out. Its bowels were drawn from inside to outside through its mouth.'
Tārere is completely overwhelmed. Understanding has not yet fully settled in the pīnati.
Maria's explanations continue. 'The dog's remains have been pulled from its mouth. The appearance seen there is the dog's intestines.'
Tame's eye falls, whistles again at the strength of disbelief. His push to another part of the room to see clearly the curled thing on the ceiling. Again, he says to his friends, 'So you two are saying, someone entered this house, was attacked by the small dog, the dog was frightened, defecated, was killed by the murderer, was turned inside-out, and its intestines were thrown to the ceiling, where they still stick?'
'Yes!' says Maria, 'Only one thing is wrong...'
Tame turns to Maria, eyebrows raised.
'This dog is not small — it is a rottweiler!'
Tame swallows his own turning over of Maria's explanation inside himself. So, if rottweiler is the breed... how was it turned inside-out??? It is not as if the dog simply agreed to that!
'Was there human blood?' he says to Maria. 'Perhaps bitten by the dog...'
'None.'
'A little blood?'
'None.'
The two are fixed to their work. Quiet to the side are the arguments of the minutes just past.
'You haven't seen the strangeness of the work yet,' says Maria.
Hēmi guides them to climb the stairs to the upstairs floor of the house. At the arrival at the bedroom door, Hēmi turns, says, 'Hold your stomach...'
Tame does not argue. His police nose is firmly set. He enters the room, his friends close behind following.
'Boy...!' he says to himself at his sight of the murdered person. He suppresses his desire to vomit. On the wall of the room is another curled thing like the dog below. Only one difference, this person is crucified by the murderer, their intestines drawn out from inside.
Maria enters to speak, but Tame's hand quickly rises to block. He shakes his head to signal his desire for no one to speak. He walks to each corner of the room, slight pauses, watching the appearance of the room and its evil fruit hanging on the wall. He feels the touch of a shape, a spirit, upon him. As if he is being watched, he and the three of them, by something. Tame shivers.
At Hēmi's sight of his friend slightly trembling, speech pushes out. 'Are you alright friend? Did you see the ghost?'
At Tame's turn to his friends, the horror of the sight of the watery gleam in the corners of his eyes holds. 'Maria, do you have a recording machine?'
The slight bow of the head.
'Here is your work,' says Tame to her. 'You must show all the appearances you see, all you hear. Everything. Let no thought be left out.'
'My own thoughts?' Maria's question.
'Yes! All your feelings.'
'What kind of feelings?'
Tame turns directly to see if the woman is being sarcastic or something else. And in his nose not smelling the armpit, he eases, says, 'There are different shapes here.' He carefully explains, something pushed not rushed. 'It holds to my skin.' Tame's continued looking to examine the appearance of the room and its own evil fruit hanging on the wall. 'You must show what you feel in body, what you see in face.'
At the straightness of Tame's thoughts, at the love also of his own manner, Maria does not bristle, though to her own thoughts Tame's request is a waste of time. Her hand runs into her coat pocket to retrieve her flat machine. As she prepares, Tame and Hēmi separate.
Maria's machine lights, her words open. 'The place is 24 Kūtae Street, Tāmaki Makaurau. The house of Puhirangi Whāroa, 66 years old. The time, the 4th of March, 27 minutes past eight in the morning. This is Maria Tūhekeroa speaking.'
Maria returns to the door of the room where her words began.
'I am inside the bedroom of the deceased. To the south wall the body hangs. Turned inside-out like the dog below. Also bound by its own bowels...'
Then a slight whispered voice is heard. 'A-n-a!'
Maria starts. Her turning around to see the person whose voice it is. But nothing.
Then...
'Y-o-u c-o-m-e t-o m-e...'
Maria freezes, her skin crawling with electricity. Her careful push backward to the door, to exit out. Paralysed.
[CHAPTER THREE]
Time: 07:12 am, Wednesday 5th March, 2014
Place: Detective Office, Police Station, Tāmaki Makaurau
Tame's sleep is a broken sleep. Upon his face the restless sleep is written. A hollow face, the teeth grinding. A detective's map has been drawn to follow the murder of the old woman, Tame and his team are to lead. A section of the police station has been cordoned for them. Tame's desk connects to the main room. Tame sits quietly, his head held by his left hand. Though his eyes are open, his gaze travels beyond boredom. His work desk is covered with photos, paper, whatever. His pen taps the desk.
The word is out. In the newspaper words spreading. 'The Inside-Out Murderer.' 'Who leaked it!' His ears still smart from his boss's scolding.
'Shut the hole!' was his to Tame this very morning. 'Not one more word gets out! Keep your nose to the work! The capture of the creature must be accomplished quickly! Must end quickly!'
The problem is, despite the many detectives following, not one single small clue has been found. There is not one precise sign in the house beyond the deceased and her family. Nor has one small thing been seen by anyone. The girl who first found the body, a granddaughter of the old woman, still a child. Every morning, early she arrives at her grandmother's house for food, breakfast companion. Poor thing, the child was somewhat deranged by what she saw in the house. Deranged would be right!
In his deep listening, Tame did not truly hear the knocking at his door.
'Morning!' says Maria. A hang of desire. Two cups of coffee carried, the second placed before Tame. A shame of the woman at her appearance of grumbling at their first meeting.
'About yesterday... my attention to you was not right...'
Tame's head bows slightly. The mouth does not speak. He is still too open inside his own thought hollow.
Maria dies again to apologise.
'However, for my wrong...'
At Tame's lack of attention, Maria's buttons stand. 'What the hell? I am here apologising... you won't pay attention!'
Like a slap to her face the voice of Maria, Tame startles greatly, quickly stands to attend. At the full opening, the fall of his coffee cup, spilling over his papers. 'Damn!'
'Your own fault!' Maria's eruption.
Tame's hands rise to block. 'Aii! You are right, my own... too open...'
'Your lack of desire to pay attention.' Still pouting.
'Your... your... ouch!' Lost to Tame is the tail of his words.
They look at each other again. They both feel the electricity between them. A slight pause. Then the push of laughter.
'For my wrong Tameheihei,' says Maria, still grinning.
'For my wrong broken-cock,' says Tame, nearly splitting at the strength of the laughter. 'My bladder nearly burst because of you.'
'Mine too because of you,' says Maria.
Their gaze holds.
'Has the word been patched?' says Maria, eyes gleaming.
'It has been patched!' Tame's hands run to fix the spilt coffee.
Maria disappears. In her return a cloth in hand.
'I will wipe. With my left hand. My shit-wiping left hand...' Her hands run to wipe the coffee.
Tame dies of laughter. 'The left hand... is a rehe hand.'
'Alas! What a small thanks for that,' says Maria.
When the desk is wiped, Maria says, 'There have been two murders in the past six months, the evil is exactly like yesterday's.'
Tame's ears sharpen. 'Yes...'
'One in Ōtepoti,' says Maria. 'A man whose head was split. The murderer not found.'
Tame thinks carefully, says, 'The second?'
'A woman, stabbed with a knife, the heart removed. The killer still being sought.'
'A connection to yesterday's?' says Tame.
'Perhaps. They were all three, mentally ill, down to yesterday's.'
'What mental illness?'
'Dual, or multiple.'
'All of them?'
'Yes! Their repeated returns to the psychiatric hospitals from long ago.'
'From when?'
'From when they were children.'
'Have you reached the psychiatric hospitals?'
'Not yet.'
'Perhaps there... we must reach.'
'One more thing... there is a very different shape... when we were at the house...'
'Different how?' says Tame. His thoughts return to the evil spirit felt by him when they were at the house of the dead. At his seeing of Maria's face, heavy, he stands, approaches. 'Different how?'
Maria sits hesitating. Should I speak, should I not? Lest I be called equally mad! 'Different in horror...'
'What?' says Tame.
She descends straight, rises hesitating, the turn of Maria's thought, she says, 'Well then, what of it! My thoughts are just confused.' She turns, disappears into the main room, Tame following behind.
'Different how?' he says to Maria as she exits.
'It's fine Tame,' Maria's answer. 'It's nothing...' Her true disappearance to follow the two previous murders.
Time: 08:03 pm, Wednesday 5th March, 2014
Place: The house of Garth Blomfield
The wings of the Bird of the Sky spread though it struggles in its descent to the west. The smoke-long town of Tāmaki is carried in its murky colours. The work of cars continues upon the connecting roads, but it is a trickle not a torrent like the hours before the end of work.
Not long before the fall of night. The man is bound to his own pleasure in the dwellings. The blinds are closed. The television of madness is on. The temperature settles.
But not for the house of Garth Blomfield.
The appearance inside is a wilderness. Not because Blomfield's appearance is so much. Not at all! He has his own particular appearance, but he is troubled by the disappearance of his greatest treasure. A pounamu. A kapeu shape. Its proper place, held by the ear but turned by him to a neck pendant. To properly hide it so it would not be clearly seen by people, lest it be coveted. Then trouble!
The pāua eyes of Blomfield bleed. As if his back is a cormorant diving into the depth of thought, perhaps, the disappearance is special, and completely gone. His tools of the house have been turned upside down. The jewellery box has still not been found.
In the hollow of his bedroom Blomfield sits shattered, like a shipwreck washed ashore. Trembling in the hold. From the great twisting, the bursting up of his many past pains. The key is the disappearance of his pounamu as the door entering his house of pain. He is drenched by his ghosts.
From long ago, from his homeland of London, England, his travel was solitary, he alone, together with his shadow. He is not desired by people.
Whito! Whito! You have no ends!
Whito! Whito! You have no ends!
The thrown words of children to him when he was bullied. It is not that he is whito, his five foot six inches his height. Yes, not particularly tall, but also not particularly short. He has ends too, not that there are none. The children's throwing to make the challenge stick, continues even now. And so! Blomfield dies to fix it, and shows his end to them, but useless, the snotty noses do not pay attention.
But before his bullying the building of his house of pain. The Mother is a widow, the Father died in a car crash. He is an only child. The family had no money. Their ancestor grandfather Garthery Blomfield built the first of the spark plugs. In the opportunity of that small tool into all the engines of cars, boats, whatever, the hereditary money flowed continuously. However, it is not by the amount of money that the amount of love equals, no. At the death of the Father when Garth was six, the Mother turned to scorching him.
'Your uselessness! You are like your Father! Better, you both died!'
That word of the Mother was a seed planted in the boy's heart.
'You have no purpose! Like your Father! Die before you!'
Later, in his adulthood, only then did he know, on the night his Father's car crashed, there was another woman beside him. And, another family. True! A separate family, a wife, two children. Thus the Mother's anger at the man and his son. The Mother sees Garth, she sees her wandering husband, her two-timing husband.
Blomfield weeps at the rising of his ghosts.
'My treasure!' His voice is hoarse from the long crying.
At the twisting of the nape, thirteen years old, the fruit of evil enters Blomfield.
In his abandonment by the Mother, his work at night was to go out to the streets to stalk. His pleasure was to watch people in their homes. There, his seeing of Susan Wordsworth. A girl, 15 years old. Delicate and pretty her shape. Blomfield presses to the window of her room, there to peep. Oh the sweetness! The grounding of his dreams! As he stalks, the girl sees him, the bursting of the bowels. Fortunately, he is not caught. And, becoming accustomed to his lurking work, he becomes proud. Then, his climbing to another peak, entering houses, into rooms, into people sleeping. As if he is a flying ghost of the night. To show his manhood, he kills families' pets, cats, rabbits, dogs, hangs them inside the bedrooms. Then, he breaks a window of the house so the person wakes suddenly. The person dies badly from the fear at seeing the pet hovering above them as they sleep. And what, Blomfield does not know which of his works is the most enjoyable — the watching of the girl sleeping, or the seeing of her fear.
When one year of sharpening his skills passes, his decision is that seeing fear is his greatest desire. At his climbing to sixteen years, his path hardens — fear is food. He feeds on people's fear. A person by day, a demon eating fear by night.
Then, at the Mother's pushing of him one night, she pushes him from the second floor of their house. The woman does not die. The boy's work is to sit beside her watching, or rather, eating her fear. Three days of watching then the woman dies from her wounds. At the seeing of Blomfield by the police, they pity the Poor-Boy who nurtured his mother from her fall from above.
And, Blomfield is free.
In his jealous heart a hungry insect mocks. Waiting. To emerge.
To sever his umbilical feeding, he leaves England for Aotearoa — the land beneath the world, a land of gods, a land of curses, perhaps Pain will not strike him. Five years the length of his indigenisation in Aotearoa. He reaches thirty-one years. He has work in a computer shop in Tāmaki.
In one of his wanderings to explore the new land, when he was at the Tail of the Fish, the seeing of the treasure pounamu, a koekoeā. As if he was called by that treasure. As if he was born to hold that treasure. And, he dies of love for that offspring of Ngahue. So, his purchase, holding up.
At the first touch of his hand to the smooth skin of tangiwai, his feeling of the age, the antiquity, of the treasure. A thing to warm his broken heart. Like cool water to hot skin. Like a glow-worm to the deep dark. Like life to death.
Garth Blomfield is bound to his pounamu.
The pounamu is bound to him.
'My treasure.' Mucus runs. Saliva runs. Trembling runs.
Then...
'It is not yours!'
Blomfield's shock. The standing of the head.
'IT IS NOT YOURS!'
Blomfield's anger. The standing of the body. The rise of the voice.
'Mine!' The bite of the word. The rasp of the voice.
'I have it...'
Tama Whito trembles.
'Give it...' Teeth chatter.
No answer from his spirit companion.
'Give it... please give it...' The upturned eye of Tama Pito-kore begs.
Still no answer.
'Give it... please...' The protruding eye of Tama Useless rises.
'My treasure...' Tama Fear trembles.
Not answered.
'My pounamu...' The gasp of Tama Two-Minds.
Blomfield descends to the floor, his back broken.
Thus the heavy push of his spirit companion.
'Blood must flow again.'
Blomfield shudders at the falling of the words upon him.
'No! I do not want!'
His skin trembles at the great desire of his second to emerge. But Blomfield does not agree, the close fierce battle. Blomfield's twisting to hold his own mana, lest it be taken by his dual. Like a crayfish being twisted. At the great pressure, the weakness.
Then, at the snap of fingers, Blomfield's large bed floats, descends gradually, rises, falls, rises, falls. The house shakes in the earthquake. Then the bed flies straight to press Blomfield against the wall.
'Blood must flow again...'
Blomfield's trembling.
'Tonight...'
Then the fast flight of the person's body to the ceiling of the room.
'Turn inside-out...'
Finally, the fast fall of his body to the floor, his head above the ankle of the right foot of his bed. A few centimetres more, his head would have been crushed.
'Blood must flow!'
And, the slow flight of Blomfield's body above his bed, falling down like a sack of potatoes. At the opening of his eyes, before his nose, upon the bed, his pounamu treasure lies.
The reaching of Blomfield's hand to hold.
His missing.
Time: 11:35 pm, Wednesday 5th March, 2014
Place: Church, Tāmaki Makaurau
Tame Tārere's fingers tap the steering wheel of his car, returning home. The length of the day, the length of the work, the interviewing of people connected to the deceased of the previous night. Despite the length, the fruit is small. Like a barren land, only wī flowers growing. But for that Maria. Different land. A land not yet explored. Yes, there was friction at our meeting, but the word has been patched, the word settles, the word is good. However, only the day has climbed, who knows what the waters will show, what the signs will say, how it will go in the days to come. There! There! And Tame's sinking into his deeper thought pool.
'This is the dispatch,' the police radio voice. 'To all police in the Maungawhau area, please respond...'
Tame's head shakes. Should he respond? Should he ignore?
His hand runs to respond.
'Detective Tārere here, travelling in Maungawhau. What is it?'
'The alarm of the church at the corner of Mīhare and Toropuku is sounding. Will you look?'
'Very good. Four blocks my distance. I will turn. I am ending this.''
As Tame eats the road to reach the church quickly, he hears the announcements of their dispatch. Then, two more police cars are heading there. Tame arrives, the dispatch informs him, close behind him continuing to come is an ambulance. Tame waits. Ears tremble at the piercing of the alarm of the holy house.
Then, the hearing of human voices crying out. He is horrified at their sound, something wrapped in blood. At that same moment the arrival of the police on foot. Tame leaves his car, opens to the two who have just arrived.
'One behind, one with me,' standing authority. 'You and me in front.'
The three run, two in front, one behind.
Another voice cries out the evil of the pain.
The front door of the house is locked. Tame's kick to his feet. The door flies open. The entry of the two inside. Small lights of the house glow, shadows moving everywhere. Eyes run here and there seeking the source of the voice growling from within. The fall of the two's gaze to the altar of the house. The seeing of one standing there.
'There!' Tame's companion. Hand pointing to the person.
Tame's mouth opens, 'You there standing at the altar!'
The person does not move.
'Wait Tārere,' his companion. 'A large crucifix hangs behind... what is it?'
At the coincidence, Tame examines carefully. Then, the hearing of the voice snarling.
'Friend! A person!' says Tārere to the hard hat. 'You help. I have the villain.'
His companion exits to support the capture. But at his arrival at the foot of the crucifix, a very different shape falls from above.
In one second, the villain stands before the altar.
In another second, wings spread.
Another second, wings wide, rising upward.
Then, in one blink of the eye, the villain flies to his captive crucified to the great sign of Christ. The hand runs to his still crying mouth, draws inside-out his bowels from inside to outside. The throwing of the remains to all places of the house. A ringing echo the dying voice of the captive to the walls of the holy house of Jesus Christ.
The horror flies straight to Tame who stands seized as if the rock of his body and its folds have separated. He is thrown down. The demon flies out to disappear into the throat of the night.
[CHAPTER FOUR]
Year: 1431
Place: The Belly of Māui's Fish, Ngāti Whiti, Taupō Moana
The Ladder of Tāwhaki hangs in the sky. Its first platform of Matariki twinkles. The cold holds the people. Matariki has reached the horizon, the dead of the year are sent behind, the living of the new year are guided forth. Inside two summer fruits. Inside the house the person rests. The land is wrapped in the grasping of frost. The person dives into the warmth of the earth to seek the lost thing.
Te Ākau, the adult son of Pirinoa, the second of the tohunga of the people of Ngāti Whiti, burns. The first is Tauri. On this night, Tauri will baptise the sacred cords of the people to lift to higher realms. Te Ākau is one of the cord threads.
'My mana, my tapu,' Pirinoa's confirming words to his son. 'You are the climbing step.' The old man embraces his child.
At the drowning of the water of Te Ākau's two elder brothers in the years past, he is doted upon. The people love the survivor. Yes, the death of the brothers was a waste, but what can be done says the people? Who holds the tide of Death? Who blocks the wind of Death? From where! From where indeed!
Because it was a double drowning, their funeral was drawn out so all the obligations of Misfortune would be paid. From afar come the descendants. Te Patunga the elder of them was a white feather. Wise, first-born, brave, many were the chiefly words poured upon the growing earth of the marae. At the eating of the tongue's work, the two bodies were hung upon high poles to be eaten by the wind, the storm, the descendant of Punga, the descendant also of Tāne. Later, the bones are lowered, entered into one of the cave burial places of the people in the rocky cliffs never travelled by humans. There they still remain.
For Te Ākau, his murder of his elders, it is nothing. He continues his work of the day as if it was not him, not his doing. And what? As time passes, as Time makes real his work, settling down to sea go the thoughts of the two brothers, of their appearances, of their works. The world of Te Ākau settles differently.
At the turning of the age to eighteen years, his entry into the storytelling house of the people, the house where the two elders were pompous, and where the nose of Te Ākau was raised. But it is not as if the door of that house of words was open to him. By the great speaking of the Father and the great love together of the elders of the house to him himself, thus the agreement for Te Ākau to enter. At the setting of the sun, by the seniority of the house by Tauri the decision, great love from him to Pirinoa for his strength in supporting the work of the people.
'Your two sons,' Tauri explained at the end of the turning of words, 'they together in the house. They are dead. There is love. Only one son lives. He will follow the footsteps of his brothers.'
At the emergence of the word, the mauri of Te Ākau lights up. That desire of his to enter the house is accomplished. Yes, despite his smallness, despite being a younger sibling, he will show his mana so people know he is a chief. Yes! He is struck by the rays of the sun.
The work of the house continues through the years, the seeing, Te Ākau is a kind. His nose does not flatten at the great learning of the people. In their learning of the whakapapa to clarify the connections, Te Ākau excels. No ancestor name is missed. Not one thread of the binding cord is broken. In the weaving of words for each ancestor so the woven mat of the people and its external relations to other tribes is seen, Te Ākau excels again. The jaws of the house drop at the descendant of Pirinoa and his wife Ringakapo, a name the Mother gave herself to hold remembrance for her children grasped by the hand of Misfortune. Then, the path is cleared for the nose of Te Ākau to emerge to the light world, to the world of clarity.
The house of learning is a great cave in the cliffs of Karangahape at the western point of the lake of Taupō. From long ago, the great words of the people stand inside the Sacred Cave of Whitiwhiti, its special name. From ancient times Whitiwhiti, the founding ancestor of the people of Ngāti Whiti, from them the mana of the land in the west. It is said Whitiwhiti lived inside that cave, his work was counting stars as signs for the people. By his great signs, the words of the people's movements to gather food, to fish, to make war, to whatever, are decided. In the descending words, Whitiwhiti and his great god Pekarau lived together inside this cave. The Pekarau there is a pekapeka. The elders say, it is bigger than a human that creature. If its wings are spread indeed its size, bigger than the mouth of the cave, its span the size — four people with outstretched arms two. The elder's servant stands at the cave's edge, flies out upon the command word of his chief. The command word is 'Whitiwhiti'. Then, the bat flies to the sky like a night-travelling crescent. Thus the descent of the name 'Whitiwhiti' down as a name for the people. These are the hairs of Pekarau the ancestor of Whitiwhiti the creature.
When a person reaches the warmth of Pekarau, they must enter the doorway of Karangahape and descend by the platforms to the belly of the great cave. The mouth of the entrance is hidden by māheuheu so it is not disturbed by the saliva, or the stranger.
When the Ladder of Tāwhaki rises in the sky, the door of the learning house opens. Te Ākau swells. On this night is the baptism of lifting of the students to climb the stepped path to the third of the learning house's levels — the words of Te Tumu there, that is, the origin of Te Kore of Te Pō of Te Ao.
Seven students follow their elders. They descend together the earth entrance, arriving at the mouth of the Sacred Cave of Whitiwhiti. Their day clothes are removed, they enter the long wraps of the house — a kaitaka woven with muka, the borders tānikoed, a waiwaiā shape. Below are the maro aroarotea from the breast of the cormorant held. Not a person is small-bellied. The sacred group follows like rats inside the cave.
Wide is the spread of the sacred cave. The upper floor is not truly seen, not because of height but because of deep darkness. A glow-worm light burns in the sides of the cave, two fires also running flames. The nose of the person is assaulted by the amiami of naupiro — a different smell pressing here.
Tauri, the senior holding the mauri of the house, goes to the right of the cave to sit. His second, the council, moves to the left. These are the ridge poles of the house of words. The third, the altar, enters the death chamber of the cave, to the back, to its deepest, sits. One of the elders, the rangatauā, sits beside the inner door of the cave. The great mouth of the cave where the person exits to the cliff of Karangahape, where the spread of the lake of Taupō is seen, is elsewhere. Another elder, the waitohi, sits beside the first fire.
The students are directed to surround the altar at the rear post of the cave. Their faces toward the tohunga, their backs to the door.
The proceedings are opened. The students bow.
The altar of the house gathers the tablets of the house, flat stones white in colour, upon one side a large stick holding the words of the sky. The giving to each student to hold. Upon each stone its own sign and its own words. The student's work is to explain the signs through the feeding words of the house — whakapapa, whakamahuki, whakahono, uruuru. If the mouth slightly errs in the stutter or the slip of the word, the student will not ascend. They must return again to learn the words. Thus the tapu and mauri of the word are held. From where is the changing of words, of stories, of explanations permitted.
Te Ākau holds his tablet, looks at his sign, understands. The great sign of Makaka. I have the words!
The work proceeds.
When the individual beginnings of the experts finish, the altar gathers two small stones, also white in colour, the giving to the first of the students. The stone is pressed into his mouth. The second stone the altar holds in its mouth. The nature of the stones, hard, hard food. It is not the water-eaten path the tohunga treads. A slippery rock to the person who does not steady themselves.
The first student recites his words of the sky separations of the various skies. Perfect the taking. No stutter of tongue is heard. Good. The work goes well.
At the end of each student, the sacred house rumbles with the goodness of each word bearing. Correct the student by the correctness of the learning. A two-way travelling path.
Te Ākau listens to the word ends. The first to the sixth is accomplished. Correct all. He is the seventh. At the receiving of the stone in his mouth, the reciting of the explanations begins. Soft his voice. Gentle his giving of the word. The taking is lifted. The ancestors of the house run forward, ears pricked. Pirinoa's chest swells with joy. My son! He has it!
Like a water current the treasure of words.
Perfect is Te Ākau's reciting.
Then...
A stutter is heard...
A rustle...
A wind gust...
A shadow runs forth...
Then, a bat settles upon Te Ākau's shoulder. Its size like that of a hand. The astonishment of the tohunga. The hearing of the squeak.
Te Ākau does not move, but his tongue still curves whakapapa.
Another wind gust...
Another rustle...
The arrival of another bat to the shoulder of that person.
Then a third... a fourth...
Fast runs the swarm of bats. The belly of the cave fills with the creatures of the night. Then the climbing swarm of the night upon the body of Te Ākau. His words do not break, continue on, continue on, finish completely.
Marvellous is Te Ākau's appearance. A person. A bat. A person-bat. Hundreds of bats cling to his skin.
The head senior Tauri stands to greet the descendants of Pekarau, the creature of Whitiwhiti, indeed, to Te Ākau.
A sign! A sign of life! A sign of settlement! Settled is life!
Then the spread of the light wings of the bats. The claws still hold Te Ākau. In the strength of the wing-beating, he is slowly lifted higher, carried by the small ones of Pekarau.
The people of the house stand frozen. Gasping at Te Ākau's appearance.
His height of lift is three metres. Only the beating of wings is heard.
Then... the bats suddenly shriek. Ears break from the sharpness.
Te Ākau is released...
His fall to the floor to the stone floor.
The hearing of the breaking of the leg.
The crying of the mouth.
The rolling of the body like a fish.
The running swarm of the night.
They follow Te Ākau. They scratch. They tear. They bite. They gnaw.
His sacred garments are shredded.
His skin is lacerated.
Blood flows.
A sign! An evil sign! A sign of death!
Pekarau has been seen, the great one of Whitiwhiti, the guardian of the great house of Rehua of Ngāti Whiti, the hook of the heart of Te Ākau.
A jealous heart.
Te Ākau will not ascend.
[CHAPTER FIVE]
Time: 06:40 am, Friday 7th March, 2014
Place: The home of Tame Tārere
Tame's sleep is flickering. His word returns to his boss.
'A demon is the murderer,' he said to Tāwhai the day before, 'The appearance is like a bat!'
Tāwhai's head shakes, squeaks in mockery. 'Yes yes! You madman!'
The flash of the demon red-eye rising, pulling the entrails of the crucified minister. The croaking of the dying voice of the minister. The wing-beating of the horror. The thrusting. His fall to the floor.
Tame wakes from his bad dream. Skin moist with sweat like a waterfall running. He lies back so his spirit fully settles.
His phone rings. Hand reaches to answer.
'Morning sleepy!'
Tame brightens. His caller is Maria.
'Turn on your TV. Station Three.'
Tame works, watches.
'Joe Brown,' he says to Maria, 'what?'
'The bird of the morning, the guardian of faith...' Maria catching the minister of the god's radio voice.
'Yes, what of it? Just a cake. Money is his god!'
'You are right,' Maria quickly agreeing. 'But still, at this time this evening, he is speaking together with the cake on his TV show'
Tame groans, says, 'What for?'
'Eh! From your bumping perhaps you forgot!'
'What is the fruit?'
'You two are speaking about the minister crucified in the church.'
'What?!'
'Yes! Minister... crucifix... church... demon... devil... what is the connection?' Maria's slight pause for Tame to catch up. 'Perhaps there will be words from one of the viewers. How many hundreds of thousands of people watch the work of that cake.'
Time: 05:50 am, Saturday 8th March, 2014
Place: The TV office of Minister Joe Brown
Tame and Maria enter together into the decorated office of Joe Brown. Tame is still grumbling at the appearance of their work beside the merely cakey minister.
'A waste of time,' he says to Maria as they drive to the big office of Station Three.
However, Maria is not for rushing. 'Your lack of desire to follow clues! Hence the not-seeing of one small clue thread for us to hold.'
Tame's buttons stand. 'There is no good in you is there?!' he flings. 'As if you have the gut! Your one and only!'
They bicker until they reach Brown's office.
When all Tame's face preparations are finished, only then does the minister descend like a heron landing upon his pond. Like a proud wind his entry into the office, one assistant on one side pointing to the show's proceedings, another on one side smoothing his ridiculous suit of white cloud colour. Gleaming are the big money rings on some of his fingers.
The greetings settle, Brown turns to feed his signs to Tame. 'Hārere... here are my signs.'
'Tārere...' says Tame at the murder of his name. 'Detective Tārere...'
'Yes,' says the minister. 'First, I am right at all times.'
Tame's gaze flicks to Maria, eyes squint.
'Second,' says Brown, 'do not speak lest you be questioned again. Third,' his gaze thrusts to Maria. 'Who is your woman, the beautiful one! Is she...' the minister's eye blinks to Tame. '...yours?
Maria's face slightly warms at the knife of the flattery. The old man in white suit left in shame. 'You should be dark beside the girl,' he says to Maria. 'Lest it be said she is more beautiful than me.' The cake turns straight to the photo floor. 'We are similar,' he says to the workers. 'Count it...'
Tame is placed upon the soft seat leaning at Brown's seat. From the strength of the lights, the heat sinks into Tame's forehead. But Brown. A duck to his pond. A fish to his water. A bird to his sky. A shepherd to his sheep. The show has been floated.
Like a train the minister's mouth. Ten words a second the speed. A zigzag coming from here to there. Sometimes, brightly speaking of heaven's angels. Sometimes, darkly speaking of the devil's temptations. Tame's head shakes at the tittering of the word.
'Detective Mārere,' says Brown to the TV world. The word runs out again.
'Tārere...' Tame's correction.
'You have the word Mārere.'
Tame looks directly at the camera, says, 'Kia ora...'
Brown interrupts, still waiting for the awe of the fly to fill with word. At the lack of another word, he laughs, says, 'The tongue is caught by the worm. What of that big greeting, 'kia ora!' What of it!'
Minister Joe explains the reason for Tame's coming. The descent of his voice to show the evil works of the recent past nights. The rise of his voice to scold the villain working evil. Then, he turns to prayer.
The old man is a pīkaokao. He descends to his knee bones, hands together standing before him to the sky. 'God,' like a rumbling jar his voice. 'Here we prostrate before you. Let emerge from you the villain who murdered your harmless servant, who violated your holy house, who defiled your holy name. Give your sign! Give the sign!' Brown's hands reach to the sky. Eyes closed.
A lightning flashes.
Tame's gaze continues. Amazed at the TV world's tools.
'Give your sign,' the loud voice of Brown.
Another small lightning flashes.
The flicking of a light. Sparks run.
Then another.
A cold wind has stood inside the photo studio.
Maria's head also shakes standing at the side watching the proceedings. Money is the people's world! They also have for the showing off!
Then a booming voice crashes into the studio. 'Here is the sign of God!'
The show's directors die searching for the source of the trumpet voice. Technical workers pull electric cords to stop the crashing.
'Here is the sign of God!' The voice has risen jar-rumbling. The sides of the house tremble.
'A miracle,' says the Minister. 'A miracle! The voice of God!'
Tame grumbles at the fly's stupidity of Brown's shape. Hands still reaching before him to the sky. Coat of his suit flapping in the strength of the wind. Skin gleaming. Eyes bulging in the great desire to see his god. Head blue like a bird, seeking its saviour.
Then a sharp voice breaks from the studio's hollow. 'Look!' A make-up woman's hand points to a thing flying above the stage floor where the minister and his guest sit. A god is the flying shadow. A ghost.
Maria's face falls at the landing of her gaze upon the shadow ghost floating. Tame's falls the same.
'T-A-M-E!' Maria's shout.
Tame's rise, attention to the minister.
'HERE IS THE SIGN!'
Too late the run of Tame's hand to Brown. The god's arrival to him.
'I HAVE THE SIGN!'
The inside-out turning of Minister Joe Brown by his god of miracle.
Time: 01:15 pm, Saturday 8th March, 2014
Place: Police office, boss's office
A hundred butterflies swatted, the final work of Minister Joe Brown showing in colour, in blood, of his murder, the biggest show of all his biggest shows. Alive he was because of his god. Dead he was because of his god. The phone floor of Station Three breaks from the great number of people, hundreds of thousands, who called about the matter. Half the callers called to complain. The other half to praise. Everywhere around the land, Joe Brown is the word of talk. However, the true sign of the show's rise to prominence, the how many millions more of viewers online. He tears the internet's web in the flood from the man-eating world to the entrail-gatherer. In the history of the internet, Joe Brown's final show is the fastest to reach ten million viewers. Not one day had passed, it had already settled to that number. In the weeks to come, the birth into the world of computer games. Then, the word that Peter Jackson, the famous film director of the world, is chasing the matter for film. It is said fifty million dollars will be separated by the Hollywood heads to complete the matter. Tommy Lee Jones is expected for Brown's role. For Tame Tārere, the detective chasing the inside-out murderer, Tom Cruise.
Minister Joe's desire to carry his fame to all places of the world is accomplished. But, the pity, the belief of the majority of the peering eyes is that the murder of Joe was staged by Station Three, and merely performed. As if tomato sauce was the blood seen on TV. As if mere meat was the flesh seen. The claim of speakers everywhere is a strategy by Station Three to lift the viewing of the station's shows. And what, the argument reaches the feet of the Minister of Broadcasting, thrown before Parliament. There are the chief heads of Station Three who tremble in the seeking of wit-hanging of the criminal who agreed to show a program — for the Great Father of Heaven too — an R18 shape. Nearly sunk down the high house of Station Three.
For Tame Tārere and Maria Tūhekeroa? They brought the matter of the inside-out death to Joe Brown's show — the word still hangs.
'You two are idiots?!' the whip of their boss Tāwhai at their arrival at the police office at the end of the interviews. 'A fountain?' Tāwhai's eyebrows tremble in great anger. 'You were born only yesterday? Your damn road!'
Half an hour of Tāwhai's dog-whipping. Tame's turn. Maria's turn.
'You two are suspended,' Tāwhai's decision. 'Lucky you are not fired! Now, get dark!'
The two exit. Inside-out. Their intestines curled upon the floor. Their mana behind being pulled like a rope that has snapped from the rotted thread broken in the sun.
The two do not look at each other. Nor do they look at work colleagues at their arrival to their section. They enter straight to Tame's office. Door slams. TV of the office is on, but ears are plugged like a dog's tail kicked has deafened them. No media words land.
Thoughts mix together.
Yes, says Tame, soon it will go wrong and very wrong! His gathering of his parts — body working, spirit elsewhere.
No, says Maria, there is life in death! What is life? Her throwing of herself onto the chair, broken. Defiant.
The radio voice of the TV rises to the ear...
'...this is the Pā Tuku... to police teams everywhere, listen up. A captive has escaped from the three psychiatric hospitals of the area. They are eight. They are deranged. Do not approach... proceed with caution...'
Tame has not yet exited Tāwhai's office.
Maria stretches again so the cramping of her muscles, her bones finishes, exits the room to follow Blomfield. Her descent to the police house's cells to retrieve the vehicle. Very shortly, they arrive at the first of the interview rooms.
Blomfield's hands are bound to the chair. He sits. Maria sits haughtily at one side of the table. No words. The gaping of Blomfield's mouth. His raising of his hands to show Maria. Maria stands, takes the key to the bindings, frees Blomfield. Face close to face with Blomfield. Her head tilts, carefully watching his puppet. Tongue protrudes, licks the face of Maria, reaching to her red lips.
'Mmm... waste or die completely!'
At her hearing of voices outside the room, her head turns, says, 'The guns? Where?'
Maria stands, Blomfield stands, exit together from the room. Blomfield's freed hands behind him, as if bound. He runs forward, Maria behind holding his right shoulder, directing him. Soon, their arrival elsewhere. A long cupboard, iron shape. Maria releases the lock, opens its doors. Blomfield's run to retrieve a long gun. Loaded with cartridge.
'Go then...' his only to Maria.
The stand of the rifle, the pull of the trigger, bang.
He shoots Maria. The woman falls to the floor.
Blomfield's hand runs to the pounamu at his neck, pulls, holds.
'You have it too,' says Pilmaker to his great puppet. 'Let us go!'
At the gun's bang, the bowels burst in the hollows of the police house. Police hats fly out, fly in working at that hour of the night. Blomfield stands, goes. Attention from a police, shot by the horror. Three bangs of his gun, he reaches outside the house.
At the first bang, Tame is exiting Tāwhai's office. 'Don't be wrong,' the boss's throw to his worker.
Bang! Tame freezes, fear clings to skin.
'Maria!' And his run to seek his friend.
Soon, his seeing of Maria on the floor blood running. Arranged to be guarded by one pressing her, his run to follow the gun bangs.
At Tame's arrival to the group of hospitals, Blomfield is already dead. In the very second he died, the emergence of a murmuring vortex in the area, as if the mouth of the parata or rather The Door of the Night, the sucking of all ghosts into its navel, disappearing completely. The last bulging head of Pilmaker seen, his mouth gaping, his chasing ghosts cutting his eyes, his skin, and dying badly.
Shortly after, Tame's seeing of the pounamu treasure lying upon the floor, caught in Blomfield's hand.
He takes it. Holds it.
Blomfield the puppet is dead. Pilmaker the holder is dead.
Te Ākau the god lives.
Beyond is Pekarau the creature.
[CHAPTER TEN]
Year: 1435
Place: The Belly of Māui's Fish, Ngāti Whiti, Taupō Moana
The people of Ngāti Whiti are broken by the death of the great ones of the learning house of the Sacred Cave of Whitiwhiti. Seven of them fell in the battle of the tohunga Te Reinga. Near the extinction of the people's sacred fire.
The first person to reach the floor of the battle is a woman, Te Maungaroa, the old woman of the people. She descended from the tapairu lines. All the tohunga who died in that cold night were descendants of the male line of the people, the ure tārewa line. At their death together, the leadership mana of the people fell to the tapairu line, the whare tangata line. Te Maungaroa is the pūtikitiki of the mana of that chiefly house. Thus the turn of the people to the deep hearing of the woman. More than that, the people's saying has turned, 'Pīhanga is the mountain, Taupō is the lake, Ngāti Whiti is the people, Te Maungaroa is the mana.' Pīhanga is a female mountain, not a ure tārewa.
By Te Maungaroa the pounamu treasure koekoeā was seen in the ashes of the cooking fire. At her reaching, shapes fallen before her from the night of the experts' cremation. Her first seeing of Pekarau imprisoned inside the pounamu, together with Te Ākau, the troublemaker, by whom the learning was disturbed. And her seeing also of Te Reinga, the eldest of the tohunga, who bound Pekarau god as a god for himself.
At her taking of the hoi nakonako, her seeing that one part of the pounamu has been whitened by the fire's work. When pounamu is heated, its many colours die, settling only to white. So, one part of the pounamu is white, one part still tangiwai. In the white part, Pekarau creature holds. In the still tangiwai part, Te Ākau is bound. At Te Maungaroa's deep taking of the treasure, her seeing again, the great tapu of the jewellery box, and its internal bindings, by the cooking fire has been settled. The mana of the creatures hidden inside is slept. Therefore, the pounamu binding is free to be touched, to be hand-held. And the tangiwai remains as a treasure handed down to the descendants of the tapairu line.
At the people's turn to the tapairu, the mauri, mana, and tapu of the person are born again. Ngāti Whiti lives. In time, through the generations, through the people's decline, the words of the pounamu and its bindings are forgotten. The two gods remain bound inside in darkness.
The treasure descends to the loving hands of Maria's ancestor grandmother to Te Uru, the last surviving sprout of the people in the 1800s. From the treasure at Te Uru, only then did her god fruits awaken from their sleep. Long had Te Ākau been waiting to restore his mauri. Only one path can accomplish this restoration — by mauri can mauri be arranged. Therefore through the generations his work was manipulating the Door of the Night, from inside his binding, to draw the dead to him, and the taking of their dead mauri. Yet, unbeknown to the tohunga, as he follows mauri, Pekarau's following mauri into his white part of the pounamu is the same. Te Ākau's method of death to follow mauri is too slow. A dead mauri is the mauri of the dead. By the living mauri of the living can his following strength be hastened, can he be freed to emerge from his evil binding. At the treasure's arrival to Te Uru, twenty generations back, Te Ākau has gained strength from dead mauri, is hungry for living mauri. His descending saliva is the living mauri of the person. By that, he is freed, and becomes god.
Like a pupa the horror sits inside the pounamu.
Waiting for opportunity.
In time, the gospel of Christ arrives at the lake of Taupō, a Methodist, Pā Thomas Pilmaker. The people marvel at the appearance of his words of the Holy Bible. At his request to show the mana of his god by walking upon the mountain vents of the tōnihinihi, that is the hot stones of the hāngi, the old man is scorched. And, he enters upon those vents, stands, like a god. The scorching, from the length of his church garment, a panekoti garment covering his body down to his feet, his Roman sandals on his heels not seen. Thus, by the strength of Pilmaker's god, Ngāti Whiti turned to Christian work. Therefore, on the first night of the minister among Ngāti Whiti, above the people's customs, he is asked for a beautiful woman to sleep with. The woman, a daughter of Te Uru. At her preparation as pleasure for the eye, hung upon her ear is her Mother's pounamu pendant, that is, the tangiwai of Te Reinga.
From long ago the hidden heart of Pā Pilmaker. And his dreams of this thing of the woman. Though the minister of the church lives celibate, from where is the touching of the woman by the hand permitted, the hand reaches continuously. And, caught is the sweetness. Never to be returned! Later after Pilmaker's separation from the great home of Ngāti Whiti, only then is the pounamu pendant seen to be missing.
Te Ākau's teeth have emerged. They hold to Pilmaker's forehead. By Pilmaker the treasure was stolen. Yes, but from Te Ākau the great desire. The living mauri of Pilmaker's dead flows to Te Ākau. The horror awakens in his long sleep. Pekarau awakens together.
At Pilmaker's expulsion from the church, he despairs, the ripping of his own throat with a heu knife. The pounamu treasure descends to the descendant of the minister, a premature baby, a fruit of one of the women he criminally violated. The first of Pilmaker's puppets, by whom the world of the dead was opened, so the Father could pursue payment from those who expelled him from the church. From then on, the descent of the treasure to another person, the puppeting of that one as servant for Pilmaker. Descending continuously to Garth Blomfield, by whom the pounamu treasure was seen in a shop in the Taitokerau.
The living mauri flows to Te Ākau.
[CHAPTER ELEVEN]
Time: 01:25 pm, Saturday 15th March, 2014
Place: The psychiatric hospital of Kingsland, Tāmaki Makaurau
She is lucky, wearing a protective coat at her shooting by Blomfield. The skin is bruised, greatly weakened, some of her organs also pained. But beyond those, great life.
She and Tame exit to the psychiatric hospital of Kingsland. Nearly arriving.
Tame looks at her, says, 'Useless! I do not understand your...' His gaze returns to the road.
Maria slightly grumbles at the different appearance of Tame's shape, a hōkeke, a hard pane, a grumbling mouth. At her arrival at the hospital to see him, Maria's understanding of his withdrawn appearance. Her decision for him, he has wandered from the weight of the work accomplished in the recent weeks. However, the place she truly worries, the disappearance, the complete not-seeing of the pounamu pendant.
'What happened to the treasure?' she says to Tame that morning at her arrival to fetch him.
'Dunno!' the answer. No additional words.
'The evil is in the treasure.'
Not answered by his friend.
Maria explains the emergence of her ancestor grandmother Te Uru into her dreams. 'She said, there is another evil beyond Blomfield and Pilmaker. Te Ākau is the great evil.'
Tame bursts at Maria's words, says, 'And what, to you, the treasure is at the psychiatric hospital?'
'I suspect,' Maria's answer. 'Perhaps we are wrong...'
Tame groans again. Maria defies.
Soon, the two emerge into the psychiatric hospital, Dr Fiona Ryder their guide. 'Here are the survivors from the group that escaped in the night,' says the doctor to them. 'There!' her pointing beyond the window of the big room holding the bindings.
As she points, the hospitals turn to the window, one runs, throws his own body with his head first, to the glass. His head breaks, blood spills.
'Eh!' says the Doctor startled. 'This is a new shape.'
Another of the hospitals runs, throws himself the same, hits the glass. The remaining hands rise to point.
'AKA! AKA! AKAU E!' the shout of the hospitals.
Like a ghost is Tame's appearance. He begins his trembling.
'Tame?' says Maria.
At the raising of his head at the end of the trembling, his face is completely different. 'Maria...!' he gasps for lack of breath. 'I have the treasure...'
The seeing of the pounamu flickering beneath Tame's shirt, still at his neck. At that very moment, Te Ākau separates from Tame's body. Like a shark emerging from the net, like a kārearea floating from its perch.
'IAHAHA!' the hollow voice of the horror. 'Here I am Te Ākau growling...'
The doctor falls unconscious to the floor.
The hospitals beat at the big window of their bound room.
'AKA! AKA! AKAU E!'
The body of the tohunga mākutu is seized by the swarm of bats. His skin is crawled by the signs of the bat-claw. Like a snake the continuous creeping movement of the scratching. And, the many ghosts flying circling him, as a second skin. There are the dead mauri by whom Te Ākau lives. The great mouth of misfortune opens to suck the living mauri of Tame.
'Give me your life!' says Te Ākau, bending to eat.
Maria throws herself upon Tame as shield for him.
Tame's mauri nearly separates from him. The sky of the body is seen trembling.
'GIVE!'
Maria's hand touches the koekoeā, pulls from Tame's neck.
Tame collapses, lies upon the floor.
Maria throws the treasure to break it.
'NO!' Te Ākau's shout.
At the breaking, Pekarau god emerges. Upon Te Reinga's back he sits.
Te Ākau is shocked at Te Reinga's seeing. 'I killed you!'
Pekarau stands, wings spread. Te Reinga laughs.
'Me die by you? Never...'
Pekarau rises, shrieks to the sky.
'Pekarau and I are one mauri,' says the elder. 'By him me, by me him!'
From the currents of Pekarau's wings, the small ones separate. They fly together to the ceiling of the house, turn, turn back, descend to Te Ākau, hold. Wings beat, the lifting of Te Ākau held by the bats. They fly, the raising of Te Ākau before Pekarau. His mouth opens, the horde of bats and their burden swallowed.
Te Ākau disappears into Pekarau's deathly mouth.
Disappeared, truly dead.
His voice alone still hangs in the area.
Maria catches the two broken pieces of the pendant, throws again to the cement floor to smash completely.
Pekarau shrieks again in great pain, turns to Maria.
But Te Reinga, still laughing.
The opening of the vortex in the area, the opening of the Door of the Night.
'I am free,' the open voice of Te Reinga.
The sucking of the small bat remains, the flying ghosts, into the Door.
Pekarau and his chief are also drawn.
Disappeared. Completely gone.
'I am free...!'
[CHAPTER TWELVE]
Time: 08:10 pm, Saturday 15th March, 2014
Place: Greenlane Hospital, Tāmaki Makaurau
Maria holds the hand of her friend Tame lying upon his hospital bed. The person is still collapsed. A breathing tube holds to his nose. A medicine water drip clings to one hand, feeding life.
'The collapse of a person is difficult,' the doctor's explanation to Maria at her pressing to understand how her friend's life is. 'Who knows, who can tell, for how long the person will emerge.' The doctor turns to Maria, says, 'the sign for you, rest, catch breath, leave the medicine to do its work.'
Maria's agreement, the doctor's exit.
Maria's entry into her own thought world.
If someone had said at their first meeting that she would fall in love with that man, perhaps, she would have laughed, 'Never!'
But here, here, love has emerged into her heart for this wounded one. Her holding of Tame's hand strengthens.
Maria continues examining the shapes of the day...
The place with Garth Blomfield...
The place with Pā Thomas Pilmaker...
The place with Te Ākau...
The place with Pekarau...
The place with Te Reinga...
Perhaps from weariness, from the rushing of these thoughts, her head descends, she weeps. Mucus runs. Tears run.
Then...
'I am being wept for,' says Tame, 'but I am not dead...'
'Tame!' the grip of Maria's hand.
'What,' says Tame. 'Have you missed me?'
Her weeping turns to laughter.
Tame sits up, holds Maria's face, kisses.
'How long I have desired...'