Guardian of the Dead (36 page)

‘Looks like a good feed,' one of the bikers said. Try as I might, I wasn't able to tell them apart. When I tried to pick an identifying feature for one, it seemed to belong to another.

The food was universally fantastic. I tried the vegetable curry and some thick slices of rewana bread and managed to eat a bunch of grapes and nearly half a small circle of brie by myself. Mark eyed the table with longing, pressing his hand against his stomach, and then went back to his discussion with the boy with the moko. I wandered up to the pair, but they were speaking to each other in fast M
ori and didn't stop when I paused beside them. Mark gave me a distracted nod; the skinny boy didn't look at me at all.

I took the hint and went back to try the mead.

No one had told me it was alcoholic.

Some time later, when things were pleasantly blurry, La Gribaldi came to me where I was sitting on the swing, swaying gently.

‘This stuff is great!' I said enthusiastically. ‘It tastes like honey!'

She smiled. ‘It does indeed. Ms Spencer, a moment's conversation. What do you see when you look at the moon?'

I looked at the sky. ‘The sad woman. Who can't get back down.'

‘Quite so. That's a strong story here. My father was Italian, and when we left Eritrea for Rome, he would sit outside and smoke and tell me stories: about his father's farm; about the war; about the gods. My favourite was the myth of Selene, who drives the chariot of the moon. She loved many men, but she loved beautiful Endymion best, and begged the father of the gods to give him immortality. This was granted, but Endymion sleeps eternally. Selene treasures him still, and rises every night she can, so that she might kiss him with the beams of her light.

‘Now. Look.'

I did. For a moment I saw it, the woman eagerly driving her silver chariot across the sky. The image wavered, and it was just the moon, a near-circle of white light; and then the anguished woman returned, clutching the tree on which she'd stubbed her toe.

‘It changes,' I said, astonished.

La Gribaldi laid her hand on my shoulder. I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin, like the heat stored in sun-baked earth. ‘Stories change us; they change the world. People are stories of themselves.'

I squinted, my head spinning. ‘Like . . . history is written by the victors?'

She nodded, looking sombre. ‘Or erased by them. Ms Spencer, the stories we know are real things. Especially for people like ourselves. Remember that.'

‘I will,' I said. ‘Did your mother tell you stories?'

‘Of course. But I won't tell them to you now.'

‘Okay. Are you sure you don't want some mead?'

She shook her head and moved away again. I swung back and forth, listening to the priest and the Fijian ladies murmuring over the rosary. I hadn't heard it since Granny Spencer had died, but the familiar rhythm was soothing in my ears. From the bag in my bedroom, I could feel the mask humming along. It sounded lonely.

I woke later that night, sunk into the soft mattress of my parents' bed. La Gribaldi was standing looking out at the moon. I must have made a sound, because she turned around.

‘You're safe, Eleanor,' she said, and I went back to sleep, lulled by the mead and the far-off whisper of the sea.

WHY DOES LOVE DO THIS TO ME
?

I
'
M GOING TO
have a hangover
, I thought, a good ten seconds before the pain hit.

During those ten seconds, I managed to roll out of bed, stagger to the bathroom, and lift the toilet seat. The first spasm dropped me to my knees, and then I lost everything I'd eaten the day before. I hadn't felt this wretched since Kevin's birthday dinner in April, where we'd finished the long night of being polite to his parents and their friends by doing tequila shots in their enormous backyard. I spat and scowled into the spattered toilet bowl until I was sure that the nausea had abated.

There were food smells and cooking noises from the kitchen. I didn't really want witnesses to my humiliation, but I knew from experience that as bad as I felt, I was going to feel a lot worse if I didn't rehydrate.

I staggered in. ‘Kill me,' I said before I remembered that this maybe wasn't a smart thing to say in front of a magician of unknown origins.

Professor Gribaldi looked up from the stove and forked another pancake onto the stack. ‘I warned you, Ms Spencer. My best mead, I said.'

‘You didn't say it would do this,' I protested, and turned on the tap. The water was so cold it pricked at my teeth, but I kept grimly slurping at it. ‘I'm the host. Is this even allowed to happen?'

‘Hah! I can't harm you directly without breaking guest-right. No stabbing you while you sleep, for instance. But there's nothing against indirect harm, or you harming yourself by drinking too much too quickly.'

‘I didn't know,' I protested weakly, although of course I'd worked it out when my head started spinning. But by then, it had just been so easy to keep drinking.

La Gribaldi ignored that and set the plate of pancakes down beside me. My stomach made an embarrassing noise.

‘And in any case, it's not all bad. You have the memory of the taste, and you will have heard some truths while you drank. The pain's the price. Now eat.' When I opened my mouth to protest she neatly poked a loaded forkful onto my tongue.

I lunged for the sink, but my body was a lot smarter than I was and was already chewing. ‘This is great,' I said, when I could speak again.

She looked smug. ‘Whatever I make is made well.'

My stomach quieted. My headache was suddenly less insistent. ‘Sit,' she ordered, pushing the plate towards me. ‘Eat.'

I did, with single-minded concentration, until my belly pressed against my jeans and I paused. ‘Where is everyone?'

‘Down on the hook, preparing. I'm to take you there when you're ready.'

‘Should I bring the mask?'

She looked intently at me. ‘You have an affinity for items of power.'

‘Mark said that too.'

‘Bring it, then. But to use it to full effect, you must see your victim, and they must see you, and you must voice a command they can hear.' She shook her head. ‘In battle, these conditions may be difficult to meet.'

I frowned. ‘So what will I do? I'm not a street fighter.'

‘Mostly, you will be there, Ms Spencer. You are our host, and you were born here. For a number of them, having you endorse our efforts increases their strength.'

I didn't much like the idea of being a mascot. ‘Not you?'

‘Blood and land isn't my way. I make things.'

Like my little scrap of paper? M
ARK
! B
IBLE
! D
ON'T
F
ORGET
! I'd made that in pain and only half-woken to my magic, and I was suddenly curious to see what I could do now. Maybe I could learn to do what she did. ‘Is that why Sand calls you Smith?'

She was silent for a long time, stacking dishes in the sink and running water over them. The kitchen looked far too clean for a place that had hosted fifty-something people the night before.

‘I'm not a Smith,' she said at last. ‘I was the apprentice of the last Smith, before he died. But I never made my masterpiece for his appraisal.' She wiped her hands on her skirt, leaving dark water marks on the scarlet fabric. ‘Did you know the English settlers imported Scandinavian couples to New Zealand? They came across two dark oceans to a strange land on the edge of the world. And when the couples got here, they found that the New Zealand townspeople would keep the women here while their men cleared the forests to the south. Dannevirke is named after them. Danish work. The women weren't quite hostages, but they weren't quite free, either. In the cold nights without their men, they told the old stories to one another.' She snorted. ‘Don't look so confused, girl. They told the stories of one of my traditions, and it means I'm a little stronger here, that's all. Then again, everything's strong here, where M
ui's hook sinks in, and worlds collide.'

I thought of the pale people of the mist. ‘The patupaiarehe too?'

‘Especially them.'

I set my fork down. ‘Let's go,' I said, and stood, no longer hungry.

La Gribaldi watched me, dark eyes smug.

‘What—' I said, and then realised how easily I'd moved. I twisted and stretched, wide-eyed, and then thrust a hand up under my shirt to brush down my spine. My fingers moved easily across smooth skin. When I concentrated, I found five raised lines, barely noticeable, like scars from a wound that had been healed for years.

I began to stammer out my thanks, then thought better of it. ‘Those were fantastic pancakes,' I said.

La Gribaldi nodded. ‘You'll need all your strength today,' she said, and even that reminder couldn't make me less grateful to be moving without pain.

La Gribaldi's Ford Explorer was a monolith of polished black steel and gleaming, tinted windows. It welcomed me with a warm brush across my skin, purring like a friendly cat. I sat straight in the leather seats, hands crossed neatly in my lap to prevent them from stroking the dashboard, the mask grumbling jealously in its handbag.

La Gribaldi said a short word I didn't recognise, and the car leapt into motion, rolling smoothly down the hill. She hadn't put a key in the ignition, or her hands on the steering wheel. I flinched and she gave me an amused look.

‘She won't crash, Ms Spencer.'

‘It just feels wrong,' I said weakly, as the Explorer swung neatly around a corner and headed for the coast.

At the south end of Hawkes Bay, jutting into the sea, was Cape Kidnappers. It was actually a little distance from Napier proper, closer to the small town of Havelock North. Small, craggy islands trailed off its edge in a wavering line out to sea and a few golden-headed gannets wheeled above the saddle of the cape, early-comers to the colony nesting season. The only way to get there was along the beach at low tide. As the Explorer headed down the shore, my double vision revealed once more the massive hook tearing at the fish's flesh, under the deceptively calm water-kissed sand and green-topped white rock. When I swung my feet out of the car, I felt M
ui's hook register my presence as I might note a stray eyelash on my cheek.