Guardian of the Dead (4 page)

‘Oh,' Kevin said, in tones of enlightenment. After a brief pause, he continued. ‘So, did you hear that Mr Reweti nearly blew up the lab this afternoon?'

I let him go on about the interesting properties of potassium, the monologue washing over me as I settled into the freedom of being outside the school on a weekday. Most of the weekends were our own, provided we didn't drink or smoke (even if, like eighteen-year-old Kevin, we were legally allowed to) or violate curfew. And it wasn't hard to get permission for after-school leave. But I was used to a more complete freedom – I'd been able to roam Napier at will since I turned sixteen. My parents trusted me, and had relied on me during the Cancer Year; Mansfield's rulebook treated me like a stupid kid, and I found myself acting like one. Drinking in my room was a total moron move, and it hadn't been the first time.

Kevin's chatter trailed off after a while, and we walked in friendly silence. Even cold and smog and the thick smell of burning couldn't make the path completely unpleasant. Ducks floated serenely along the creek, occasionally passing on an important piece of duck-related news. The houses between Mansfield and the university were invariably owned by the wealthy, and lush lawns and well-kept gardens showed in glimpses over red-brick walls. Most of the gardens were populated with imported English varieties, but there were a couple of house owners who had made some effort with native New Zealand vegetation, and the dark greens and rich browns stood out among the bleak, bare branches of the non-native trees that seemed to claw at the grey air.

We followed the creek, which divided one of the university halls of residence from another, and cut into the sports fields that stretched all the way to the edge of the university proper. Wet grass and mud squelched under my sneakers. There were going to be boys in the play – possibly hot uni boys – but choosing not to wear my decent boots in this muck had obviously been the right decision. Still some way distant, the tall column of the main library loomed up to dominate the skyline. Kevin picked up the pace; I pointedly checked my battered watch.

‘Got to pee,' he said. ‘I'll jog ahead.'

‘It's getting dark,' I protested, but not too loudly. There were plenty of people around now, students lugging backpacks and making their way back to their halls for dinner. The important thing was that I not be alone.

‘Sorry,' Kevin said, not sounding very sorry, and took off at something close to a dead run.

‘I can't take you anywhere!' I yelled after him, and continued at my own speed. I could have kept up, but only at the price of arriving sweaty and rumpled. Iris made me feel grubby even at my most polished and composed; there was no point in spotting her an advantage.

We were supposed to be meeting in the student-union building. I was vaguely familiar with the university grounds – Mansfield students were allowed to use the library, which was much better stocked and stayed open later than ours – and the fastest way there would have been to turn south at the road and walk straight down the block to hit the student-union car park.

But I was enjoying the walk, and I still owed Kevin for dragging me into this. It would serve him right if he had to wait for me. I carried straight on into the university. Out of my school uniform, I could pass for a first-year student, I thought. Maybe even a second-year. Studying Commerce, maybe, or Law, or Forestry. Or Classics – why not, in a daydream, even if it was useless for getting a job – a Classics honours student, soberly occupied with a translation of Euripides that would make her famous and admired the world over . . .

Caught up in the fantasy, I realised I was in danger of walking right through the campus. I dodged around two girls practising M
ori as they walked, turned southwest at the next path, and found myself in a strange spot I hadn't seen before.

The ground had been shaped into a semicircular hill – an amphitheatre, really, sloping down to an outdoor concrete stage jutting out of the building behind it. The cherry trees that studded the top of the rise must have looked pretty in bloom, but now their black branches glinted sullenly in the heavy air and the feet of other shortcutters had churned a straight line of muck through the grass, up and over the slope. I avoided that sodden path as I crested the hill, more out of fear that my worn sneakers might skid than out of fastidiousness.

With a shiver of fear, I saw that the others had all vanished into school buildings or other paths.

I was alone, in the growing darkness, when the red-haired woman walked out of the fog.

I ducked my head nervously, but though she surveyed me from my sneakers to the collar of my coat, she didn't meet my eyes. I gained the impression that, my heavy body being of no interest, my face could hold nothing more, and flushed, half-furious, half-ashamed. Of her, I saw white skin, red hair, piled and pinned, and a tight, short-waisted jacket.

As she came closer, her beauty struck me, almost physically – a weird, ageless beauty that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. I felt like an alley cat, bristling at the sudden appearance of a Siamese.

I pulled my hands out of my coat pockets. She was almost as tall as I was, but her wrists were delicate and the high sweep of her cheekbones almost painfully fragile. If it came to a fight, I could hit for her face, and run.

The rush of aggression subsided a little in the bloody horror of that image. My hands were in fists so tight they squeezed my bitten-down nails into my palms and I forced them flat against my thighs. They stiffened there, blades of bone and sinew.

But the gesture gained her attention. She tilted a glance at me as she passed, and I saw her eyes, undimmed by dusk and fog. They were strong and dark – like greenstone under water – but there was something wrong with them. It took me a long moment to realise that her face gave reason to my fears.

The woman had no pupils.

A shout stalled in my throat as she regarded me with that inhuman gaze for seconds my heart stammered out in double time. My throat was too dry for words, too tight for air; I felt breath whistle harshly out through my nose and a straining tightness in my chest.

Then she smiled slightly and stepped past me, precise and measured through the mud.

I managed a sound that was more a whimper than a cry and scrambled up the rest of the slope, bracing myself against a tree trunk before I dared to look after her. I half-expected her to have vanished, but I could still make out the straight line of her back through the fog. When she did disappear, it was into one of the university buildings, via a door held open by one of a group of chattering boys. One of them brushed against her, and I saw her move with the impact before he made his cheerful apology.

I was panting like a dog, breath coming in short sharp huffs of chilly air. Head pounding, I leaned against the rough trunk and tried to put my thoughts back in order.

She wasn't a ghost. Just someone with weird contact lenses, a fetish for Victoriana, and bad manners. Any campus had its share of crazies who got their fun out of scaring the normal people.

‘Hi, Ellie!' someone chirped behind me, and I screamed and whipped round, my hands ready to strike.

Iris Tsang stepped backwards hastily, her sleek fall of black hair swinging back and forth across her shoulders. She looked alarmed, as well she might, with a giant girl screaming at her.

I leaned one hand against the tree and bent my head as the adrenaline subsided again, fighting the urge to pant some more. ‘Oh, my God! I'm sorry! Oh, God!' So much for polished and composed.

‘It's okay. Are you all right? You're completely white!'

‘I've always been white,' I cracked feebly, and straightened to give her my usual envious once-over. I knew that ‘China doll' was racist, even just in my head, but I couldn't help thinking it. Iris had skin like fragile porcelain, dark eyes that tilted sweetly under a delicate fold of eyelid, and that gratuitously gorgeous hair. I was proud of my own hair, which was blonde and straight, and the only thing that was vaguely pretty about me, but Iris had me beat without even trying. And
she
was wearing boots, knee-high black ones that looked great with her grey skirt and white jersey.

‘What happened?'

I frowned. ‘Nothing. I was just . . . it's spooky, I guess. The fog.'

She nodded sympathetically. ‘Well, come on in. We're in the lower common-room tonight. Oh! Did you hear? We found a new Titania!'

I fell in beside her as we went down the hill and across the bridge over the creek. Passersby looked at us, and I bristled inwardly at the inevitable comparison, hunching down into my coat. ‘I didn't know you'd lost a Titania.'

‘Sarah pulled out
yesterday
, and with only three weeks to go, can you believe it? I thought we might have to promote one of the fairies. But Reka got a hold of me.' She frowned a little. ‘She had some conditions . . . oh, well, I'll explain when I can talk to everyone. And thank
you
so much for helping! I just have no idea what to do with the fight scenes.'

She really did look grateful. ‘No problem,' I said, and resolved to be a nicer person, kind to animals and old people and irritatingly gorgeous nice girls who had never done me any harm.

The rehearsal room was filled with earnest, stretching people in white martial-arts uniforms, which, unless Iris had vastly underestimated the fighting abilities of her cast, seemed out of the ordinary for a rehearsal. Kevin was just sticking a notice on the door when we arrived.

‘We've been booted out by the karate club. We get the theatre.'

Iris sighed.

‘Isn't that better?' I asked.

‘It's freezing in the theatre,' Kevin explained. ‘Iris, why can't we do this outside? In summer?'

Iris smiled at him. ‘One, the only reason a mere first year is directing is because no one else wanted to take on a production this close to exams. Two, my directorial vision requires a decent set. And three, I want to do it now, and you're helping me out because you love me. Did I miss anything?'

Kevin's smile suddenly looked forced.

‘Four, he's allergic to bees,' I said quickly.

Iris turned to me, eyes shining brightly. ‘Oh, of course. Four, possible horrible death.'

‘Iris!' someone cried from behind us, and I twisted to see a pair of petite girls in the student uniform of sweatpants and pink polar-fleece hoodies coming up the stairs. ‘Oh, how are we translated?' the smaller one asked, which made no sense to me at all.

‘Transported, more like,' Iris said, and pointed down the corridor. ‘To the theatre.'

We wandered through the smokers' lounge and past the photos of past student executives, beginning with the faded black-and-white photos of the early 1900s. Kevin tossed a mock salute at his missing Great-Uncle Bob when we passed his photo, and we had to stop so Kevin could explain the tragic story of his uncle's disappearance to the two girls. The photograph had been taken in 1939, a week before he'd gone missing. The boyish, handsome face was eerily similar to Kevin's – a bit darker, maybe – but some photographer's trick had given Robert Waldgrave's dark eyes an intense, suppressed excitement that Kevin had never demonstrated.

The girls made the expected sad noises at the story and then introduced themselves to me as Carrie and Carla. They were playing Helena and Hermia, and they were delighted that I was going to teach them how to catfight properly. I wondered if Iris had cast them for the alliteration, but she was staring pensively at Kevin, and I didn't ask. I began to edge forward, and the girls followed me, talking about the fight.

‘I thought we could fall over things,' blonde Carrie said. ‘Like, maybe I break a walking stick on her, and then she tugs at my foot and we roll around. And then I kick her in the face!'

I pictured the impact of Carrie's flailing shoe against Carla's snub, brown nose. ‘I'll work something out,' I said diplomatically.

‘Nothing that tears at clothes,' Carla said. ‘We're hiring all the Edwardian stuff.'

‘Carla's doing costumes,' Kevin informed me. ‘Since the original costume designer quit.'

‘Do you want to be onstage too?' Iris said, perking up. ‘You could be a fairy, Ellie.'

‘What do fairies wear?'

‘Bodysuits,' Carla said promptly. ‘With
koru
designs drawn on them, and the girls get grass skirts.'

I envisioned myself on stage, wearing spandex decorated in curling patterns and surrounded by tiny women like these. ‘Ah . . . no. Thanks.'

‘I'm glad I don't have to wear one,' Carrie chirped, rubbing her flat stomach. ‘I've put on the first-year five kilos since March!' I was probably imagining her sly look at my bulk, I told myself, uncomfortably aware that my ‘dinner' had comprised three chocolate-chip biscuits and four pieces of peanut-butter toast. I
had
to get some exercise. My tae kwon do gear bag was in my wardrobe, untouched since I'd moved down in February. Maybe I could join the university karate club after the play. It might be interesting to see how they did it.