Aliens In The Family (9 page)

At first the horses moved in single file, zigzagging backwards and forwards along a track which looked like a thin thread cobbling the cleft hillside together. Divided by a gully of dense native bush, the hill looked as if it had once been struck by the wand of a powerful magician and had never recovered from the blow. The riders were surrounded by trees and ferns. Unexpected clearings showed ranks of trees climbing up and down the slopes, uneven drifts of their own fallen leaves spread across their twisted, mossy toes. The path ahead was wide enough for a horse to travel comfortably as the low branches had been trimmed back, but the bright, sharp sunlight of the world beyond the living canopy became softer by the time it reached the forest floor.

Not very far behind them were the paved yards of Rackham Rides, the office with its filing cabinets, the Range Rover and all the things that clearly proved that humankind controlled the world. And further beyond was the city, and in the city the new house which now seemed like a memory of long ago, though they had left it only that morning. The bush closed densely around them as if it must stretch out for miles, and it was easy to believe that they had passed into a world with no other people but themselves.

Philippa sat astride a solid, black gelding called Blackberry, who would sometimes kick out if he sensed another horse close behind him on the track. A slight distance back rode David, who was mounted on a large, hairy, good-natured horse called Enchanter; and Lewis on Tommy, a round, greedy pony which moved busily down the track, looking yearningly from side to side at the grass rather as if he was shopping in a supermarket. Lewis smiled as he rode, entirely wrapped in his own thoughts. Every so often he turned to check that Bond was still safely behind him riding Scoot, while beside Bond rode Dora, wearing her best blue shirt and corduroy trousers, on a horse called Prince. At the end of the line in a position she had chosen for herself, came Jake, hunched and silent, looking strangely vulnerable and small without her cowboy hat. Her horse, a pretty chestnut named Cooney, looked particularly large and powerful in contrast with Jake, who looked unexpectedly defenceless in her black riding cap.

"Are you all right, Lewis?" Philippa called back a little anxiously. "You're unusually quiet this morning."

"I'm just thinking," said Lewis in an injured tone. "I'm allowed to."

Spread out like this it was easy to ride in silence, and Lewis was not the only one who was thinking private thoughts. David was still a little suspicious about the sudden decision to come on the trek, and wondered whether Dora and Jake were enjoying themselves. He wondered too about the mysterious Bond who had appeared so very early this morning, resplendent in his clothes of patches and pockets, with his scarlet hair and what looked like hundreds of dollars of electronic equipment looped around his neck. It is difficult to look at someone riding behind you, and David was trying to work out a way of watching Bond surreptitiously, as he was a riddle that required solving. Meanwhile Dora considered the adventure story she was actually living, while at the rear of the group Jake was troubled about something she could not bring herself to mention.

And I'm the heroine!
Dora was thinking.
I'm the one who saved Bond when he was being chased. Jake may understand what he's talking about, but I'm the rescuer!

Poised uneasily on Cooney, Jake watched his ears, hoping they might somehow signal what his next move would be. If the right one flicked, did that mean he was going to turn to the right, she wondered? She hung on to the front of the saddle covertly until she felt reassured, and hoped Dora hadn't noticed.
Don't fall off or I'll never forgive you, she threatened
herself.
You'll be chained out in the desert covered in honey so the ants will come and eat you.
She often tried to frighten herself into a state of courage.
Me against the world!
she thought and felt better, even though riding was turning out to be a whole lot harder than it looked on television. Cooney's back seemed to be designed for a differently shaped bottom than hers. She felt as though she was straddling a huge barrel. Yet mixed with the discomfort and the anxiety was the beginning of pleasure, for after all, she was actually sitting on a horse's back, moving forward; she was actually... yes, she was actually riding. The bush around about was green and shadowy and smelt rich—and just a little bit peppery. A bellbird called in its strange, pure voice, like a music box gone slightly wrong. Then it made a sterner, husky sound.

"It's clearing its throat," Philippa remarked to Lewis, still worried about his silence. He slowly turned his eyes to look at her, as if he was surprised to see that there was anyone nearby, and almost as if he was unsure who was speaking.

"Wakey-wakey, dreamy! Having a nice time?" Philippa asked, even more concerned by his bewilderment.

"Terrific!" said Lewis. His voice sounded higher than usual—higher and colder. The bellbird, clearing its throat again, now seemed to be making a more human sound that Lewis. It was as if they had swapped over.

Suddenly there was another bird call, and this one sounded like someone laughing.
It's laughing at me!
thought Jake.
It knows that everyone thinks I can ride.
David's parting words to her when he had last seen her over a year ago had been about horses.

"Sweetheart, you'll love it out in the country. Your granny is a dear, even if she does blame me for everything, and there'll be Pet's horses for you to ride. You'll be better off with the horses than with me—at least until I get my life reorganized." And now David was settled and Jake was saddled with a lot of imaginary horses. She felt them trotting invisibly alongside her, sneering with their yellow teeth, angry at being called into half-life and never truly ridden.
At least if they stand on my foot it doesn't hurt,
she thought, recalling how agonizing it was when Cooney stood on her foot back at the stables before the ride. In the shadows of the bush she smiled a little at her thoughts.

Surrounded by the shaggy bark of manuka trees, their tiny leaves speckling the air above, the riders continued in single file. Shortly however they came out onto a hunched shoulder of rock and grass that protruded from the bush making enough room for them all to gather in a group, to look across the tree tops falling away with the slope below them, and to see not only a vast sky, but also the open valley beyond.

"We'll be able to canter when we get down there," said Philippa, pointing to Webster's Valley. The bird sang again. It was surprising that anything so clear and simple could also be eerie, but it was partly the great clarity that made it ghostly in a world where everything else was softened and blurred with shadows.

"Is it really haunted?" asked Jake.

"Not here," replied Philippa, "but where we're heading—Webster's Valley—that's supposed to be haunted. Not that I've ever seen a ghost there myself, but I know all about it. A man called Sebastian Webster saw ghosts sometime during the 1830s. He wrote about it. You'll find it in the New Zealand Room at the Library—it's called 'An Account of Strange Appearances in the New Zealand Forest, by Sebastian Webster, Sailor and Whaler and Pakeha Maori'."

"What a title!" commented David. "But what was Sebastian Webster, Sailor and Whaler, doing here during the 1830s?"

"He came out to New Zealand to work on the whaling boats and ended up living with the Maoris," Philippa said, turning her head so that her voice would carry to the children behind her. "He had a Maori wife and family—there are still Websters living over the hill. Anyhow, he was coming home through this valley one day with two of his Maori friends—they'd been visiting the whaling station further round the coast and had stopped off to help the Martins at Martins Bay do a bit of pit-sawing—and they actually saw... well, Sebastian Webster said they saw ghosts."

"There's no such thing," said Jake scornfully. "Must have been shadows they saw."

"Well, I don't think it was quite as simple as that," Philippa answered. "He says they were walking home from Martins Bay when there was an earthquake—okay, nothing very strange so far. But he maintained that after the earthquake they could no longer find their way through the bush. Everything had altered and they got lost. Then there was another earthquake and after that, pitch-black night! They blundered about, very frightened by what was happening, and eventually came across a lighted glade full of mannikins and imps. Some had wings and one was blue, there was one in the shape of a horse, and all of them were outlined in silver fire."

"I'd die if I saw a ghost," said Dora sombrely. "I believe in ghosts. I'm inhibited."

"You mean 'intuitive'," Philippa corrected her. "Sebastian says the mannikins argued amongst themselves—at least their lips moved although he couldn't hear any sound. However he says his earring protected him—I think it was his earring—some charm the Maoris had given him, anyway. The ghosts took fright and vanished in a fountain of fire. Now, you have to admit that's more than shadows, Jake!"

"Sebastian Webster was a sort of great-great-uncle of my father's," added Dora, importantly. "This greenstone I'm wearing is called Wehipa's stone. Dad gave it to me for my tenth birthday. It used to be a Maori stone."

"Do you think it will keep the ghosts away?" asked Jake in a sinister voice.

Dora did not want to hear about ghosts, and she certainly did not want to see any. Once again, things were becoming too much like a horror story for her liking. As for Jake, she was far more frightened of Cooney, who was sidling towards the edge of the track. Whenever he had to step down to a lower level he seemed to vanish in front of her. It was like being stuck on top of a Ferris wheel, with nothing in front of you but space, out and down.

Lewis listened to the story of the ghosts and suddenly began to feel frightened again—not frightened of ghosts, but of the spirit that he could feel in his head. "Hello," he said cautiously, not with his voice but with his thoughts.

There was no reply but he knew someone or something was there—using his eyes to see with, making him turn his head to watch Bond from time to time, and waiting for the right moment to act. He could feel the fear as it built up in his mind, rather as if he was feeling it for another boy, not for himself at all. However his companion was a fear-eater, and it swallowed up the fear before Lewis had time to react. For a brief moment, however, it had begun to show on his face and Philippa noticed it, though she assumed it was the talk of the haunted bush that had scared him.

"I've ridden through the valley a thousand times," she said to comfort him, "and I've never seen any fading, fighting ghosts, no blue mannikins outlined in fire—nothing. Some people do say that at times the trees change places but I can't say I've noticed that either."

Dora decided to change the subject. She turned to Bond and said in a dreamy voice that made both David and Philippa sigh in despair, "I love the bush. I'd like to live here with the birds and ferns and things."

"And the wetas!" added Jake, gleefully. Dora shuddered, but Bond hesitated and looked questioningly at Jake as though he was unsure what wetas were. "They're large, brown, shiny, spiky, crawly insects with big heads," said Jake with relish, and added, "They're pretty harmless, really, but they're awfully ugly and when you try to brush them off they latch on pretty tightly."

"Well, they scare me!" said David, and Dora looked at him gratefully.

They rode on and soon came out of the bush into a long valley green with autumn grass but curiously desolate. At some time in the past someone had burnt all the bush that covered it and the valley sides were studded with a ghostly army of blackened tree stumps. These remains of taller trees than those they had just passed through looked sad against the grazing green that had taken the place of native forest. It was almost like riding into a ruined city, moving through its bleached, burnt and splintered foundations. Those parts of the tree stumps undamaged by fire had been turned silver by time and were covered with a tracery of parallel lines, thin cracks in the dried wood.

"Can you get anything on your transistor here?" Philippa asked Bond curiously, somewhat disapproving of a boy who rode with one ear continually plugged into such an expensive toy. "I should think the hills would interfere with the reception."

"Oh no, no problem at all," replied Bond. Scoot stood passively, twitching his ears as they spoke.

"He is behaving well," observed Philippa. "Scoot's often a bit naughty. You must have a way with horses."

"Do you know them all?" Bond asked. Philippa was surprised at the intent way in which he gazed at everything.

"Years ago I used to take treks out myself. That's why they let me take you lot on our own." She turned to Lewis, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "You're so quiet, Lewie. Are you feeling all right?"

Lewis smiled. He looked as if he was just waking up, and his smile was slightly fuzzy. "I was just thinking."

"Thinking again! Are you
sure
you're all right?" Philippa persisted, still puzzled by his odd behaviour. "You haven't got a headache?" But it was she who suddenly exclaimed and put a hand to her own head as she was struck by a sudden sensation. Not only Philippa but everyone else felt it too. They each cried out involuntarily and looked about in confusion. "What was that?" Philippa asked. "It felt like an electric shock!"

"Like snakes in the head," Dora cried.

"Snakes in the stomach!" David declared. It was true. There had been something snake-like in the churning twist that had overtaken them. Philippa and Dora had put their hands to their heads; David had clasped his stomach; Jake had put her hands over her ears.

"What on earth could it have been, hitting us like that?" asked Philippa, bewildered. "A mild kind of lightning?" She looked up at the sky to see the sun shining against a brilliant blue background dotted with fluffy, white clouds.

"Whoever heard of mild lightning!" said David, still very startled. "I've absolutely no idea what it could possibly have been. Was the sun out a moment ago?" Confused, everyone looked at him then gazed skywards once again.