Huia Short Stories 10 (11 page)

Ahikā

Arihia Latham

She could taste the metallic wash of blood in her mouth. A groan echoed in the air, and for a moment, Tia thought it was her own. Her head was jostled by the sound.

‘Tia.'

‘Hmmm?'

‘Tia, we have to get out of here. They'll catch us.'

Tia felt her head roll to the side and then hit the floor with a gentle thump. The thing that writhed and spoke to her had been holding her head in the soft cloud of a dream. Now the floor was a very clear message of reality. Pain started somewhere and everywhere. It consumed her thoughts as it licked and burned at her nerve endings, the sparks sending a feral wail from her mouth.

‘Tia! Shut it. I can't see anything. Where is your body?'

But Tia could only whimper. She realised quickly that breathing felt harder now. That something was on top of her chest. She started clawing at the concrete beneath her. She bit her lips to stop the wails that begged to come out. The sensations were welling up beneath her skin, they were shooting along the cracks that held her nerves. The heat of pain was moving its way methodically toward her fingertips. She scratched them harder against the rough ground.

As if in response to Tia's sensation, the space around them was lit up. The boy was on his feet, a look of terror in his eyes. He frantically hauled the filing cabinet off Tia's body and then cowered behind it.

Tia gasped in breath like it was God. The pain in her chest was still there but the panic was gone. She realised the idea of being caught, which the boy had mentioned, could be the current reality, considering the sudden burst of light and the look on his face. As she looked for the source of light she noticed it had a flickering, golden quality … like fire.

Tia's arms still had the feeling that electric shocks were bursting from her nerves, and she shook one arm to clear it. As she did this, the light flickered, dimmed and then returned. Her eyes followed the movement of the light, then travelled along her arms. A shriek came from her mouth, and her head knocked back against the concrete as she fainted.

When she came to, it was dark again. The boy had put a jersey under her head and was sitting with his back to her, rocking slightly back and forth. Swish – tap. Swish – tap.

‘Woki?'

‘Hummph.'

‘Woki, what was that … before. What did that to my hands?'

‘How should I know?'

‘When did it stop?'

‘When you darked out.'

‘Blacked out.'

‘Same thing, innut?'

‘I'm real scared,' she faltered.

‘Me too,' he admitted softly. ‘What should we do?'

‘I reckon we need to get outta here. Seeing as we're trespassing and all. We need to find out how bad that shake was. I think I can move.'

She was pretty sure at least two of her ribs were broken. Her hips felt badly bruised as she rolled gingerly on to her hands and knees.

Woki held out his forearm like a hand rail for her to pull herself up on. Tears sprung up in her eyes, and she bit her lip fiercely. The room was swimming in darkness. She gripped on to Woki's arm forcefully. He understood and held her elbow with his other hand.

‘Reckon you could do that thing again so we can see where we're going?'

‘I didn't make it happen!'

‘So you're telling me that's never happened before?'

‘No way.'

Tia was shaking with pain, shock and cold. She shuffled beside Woki as she felt cautiously ahead of them with her one free hand. The ground was like a rubbish dump; items had been thrown from shelves and tables. Hell, even the tables and shelves had been thrown down on the ground. Every crunch travelled up her shins and sent pain ricocheting about her body. Almost in slow motion, Woki lost his balance and twisted the arm Tia was holding out and forward to catch himself. Tia fell and landed on the corner of a desk. It rammed into her chest. The injured ribs cried out in agony. Biting her from the inside, the burning pain poured down her arms. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gasped for air again. Within seconds, the light was pouring from her hands. This time she stayed conscious and looked Woki in the eyes. His fear was evident as his eyes met hers and then moved back to her hands. There, on the tip of each finger, was a single flame.

‘Holy crap,' he muttered

‘Quick, look for the way out. I don't know how long this is going to last.' Tia was feeling the adrenalin pounding at her heart. She scanned the room. The memory of how they had got in there only hours before seemed to have been shattered along with the windows.

‘The windows!' she hissed to Woki. They made their way to the nearest one. The cool night air was hunting her flamed digits; they flickered, threatening to go out. Tia turned her back to the window while Woki made his way through to a walkway outside.

‘Come on,' he called to her, reaching his arm through again.

‘But we might lose the fire,' she said.

‘I reckon you‘re gonna figure it out,' he said quietly. He gently placed his hand underneath her elbow so she could hold her hands in the air while stepping through the window.

As they turned around, the enormity of their situation became clear. Directly below them was a huge chasm, like the earth had just yawned and forgotten to shut its mouth again. The buildings that had been around them were rubble or seriously damaged, like the one they just stepped out of.

‘God,' Tia said.

‘I don't know if this is the work of a god. More like humans. But I think Rūaumoko is pretty angry with those humans.'

‘Who?' asked Tia.

‘You know, Rūaumoko, he's the baby of the earth mother, Papatūānuku. He's the one that makes earthquakes.'

‘Oh,' said Tia, ‘I've never really learnt that stuff. My dad always said it was a load of bull.'

‘What, so you never heard the story of Mahuika then either?' Woki crouched down on his haunches.

‘Nope.'

‘You serious?'

Tia looked sideways at Woki. Her fingers were back to their normal state and she shivered again.

‘Yeah, I'm serious. Why should I know about Mahuika, huh?'

‘Because she was the goddess of fire, and each of her fingernails was a single flame.'

‘Wait,' said Tia softly, ‘Are you saying that there have been stories about what is happening to me?' She started scuffing her feet to keep warm, and to distract her from where her mind was going.

‘This is crazy. None of this feels real. What should we do Wok? Do you think we can get home?'

‘I don't know. We'd have to either cross this huge crack somehow or walk along it until it ends. I just hope it ends before town. But it's too dark now to try that; that's freaking dangerous.'

‘The mountain is behind us. Maybe we should go up there and find shelter.'

‘Yep, maybe. The old pā site is just a small way up on the plateau. We could make it there, I think.'

They walked behind the building and started to climb up the bank behind it. Tia's thoughts turned to what Woki had just said about the story of the fire goddess. It felt silly, childish to even believe what was happening. Surely she had knocked her head in the quake and things were all mixed up. Or maybe she was actually dreaming all of this and soon could wake up back in her soft, warm bed at Aunty Mae's.

As her mind wandered off, her feet collided with an entanglement of roots and earth from an upturned tree. She flipped forward, managing to shove her hands in front of her just before she hit the ground, rolling to the other side of the tree. Her ribs played wild music in her ears, the bile in her gut rushed, quietening the noise of the pain momentarily. She vomited in the earth beside her and as she brought her hand up to wipe her face she realised her fingers were glowing with flames once more.

Woki hurried back to her. ‘You alright?'

‘What does it look like?'

‘OK, OK. No need to get rough on it. Do you wanna stop?'

‘How far is it?'

‘Well, now that we can see, I reckon we can go much quicker. I can tell now that we need to go right a bit. Worked out how to keep them going yet?'

‘Shut up! This isn't like some new app on your phone. It only happens when I'm in pain.'

‘Alright, calm down.' Woki looked thoughtful, ‘but when you're in pain you can't control yourself, right? It's like your mind needs to step out of it.'

‘Maybe. But then why does it stop when I pass out or calm down? It's like the fire needs my pain to exist.'

When they eventually reached the clearing, there was an eerie stillness. While there had been slips and cracks further down, this flat old village site was virtually untouched.

Woki began collecting dry pieces of wood and started to build them into a pyre. Tia knelt down gently and tried to hold her fingers beneath the wood. Nothing happened.

‘I don't get it.'

‘Maybe you have to actually use one, like pull it off?'

Tia plucked at one flame with her fingers, but the other flames confused her motion.

‘I can't. You try.'

Woki reached over and cupped the flame from Tia's little finger. He was able to carry it without burning himself, yet when he dropped it into the stack of wood, the fire burned hungrily.

‘Weird, man.' Woki looked back over to Tia. ‘This is flippin' weird.'

The warmth of the fire was soothing and gentle. Tia and Woki sat opposite each other in hunched piles.

‘Haph.' Tia exhaled as if to say something but then sighed again with the depth of exhausted sleep.

Woki, however, couldn't sleep. He lay there watching the flames dancing toward the sky. He foraged for more wood and attentively stoked the flames as they got low. The uneasiness sitting beneath his conscious mind was growing. He tried to nut out how best to make it back in to town at first light. He was worried about his mother and his little sister after the quake. The thoughts and worries eddied in his head, sullying the hypnotic effect of the fire. He wished he knew how to get in touch with them. He checked his mobile phone again, but service was still down. Soon the battery would be dead.

He must have eventually drifted off, as the sudden shudder beneath the earth shook both Woki and Tia to their feet.

Before they could do anything more, it was over. The sky had turned a dirty grey as the day suggested itself.

‘We need to get home,' Woki said quietly.

‘OK, let's do it,' Tia winced as she moved.

♦♦♦

The assignment on fracking had been set by Mr Simes. He was a new teacher, fresh from teachers' college in the city. He said this was going to be a big part of their internal assessment grade and that he was going to split everyone into pairs at random. Woki was quieter than most of the other boys, and Tia had been surprised by the flush beneath his cheeks when they had started talking about fracking. His anger at the business had tapped on the window of her own doubt about this new plant that had been set up out of town. As they began to meet and research some facts on fracking, their mutual alarm grew steadily.

‘Did you know that some dudes in America could light their tap water on fire 'cause the gas has leaked into their bore water supply?'

‘What? That's crazy.' Tia looked over at the computer screen as Woki Googled more and more information. She was poring over a list of all the chemicals that were added to the hydraulic fracturing liquid. ‘Says here that some of this stuff causes cancer and all kinds of weird diseases.'

‘Yeah and if that isn't bad enough, it turns out that all this destabilising of the land can cause earthquakes too. I am struggling to see the good side of this,' Woki said darkly.

‘Heaps of this information is from America though, right Wok?'

‘Only because that's where it's been happening for years. I bet the company has done some local testing and has information they aren't making public.'

‘Fat chance we can get any of that though.'

The two looked at each other for a moment.

‘Wait up. You are not thinking what I think you are thinking,' Tia whispered.

‘I don't think I know what you are thinking that I am thinking,' Woki cracked a grin.

Tia punched him in the arm. ‘Dead arm for using such charm, you dick.'

‘No, for real, Tia. We could cream this assignment and get some fresh figures straight from the horse's bum.'

‘Horse's mouth.'

‘Not when they talk this much crap.'

♦♦♦

The thing about getting down the hill was that by daylight they could see just how much damage had been done by the quake. There were slips that had left muddied roots and branches everywhere, the way they had come up seemed to have been covered by more earth. Now they had to bend and crawl beneath fallen branches. Tia's chest was on fire and her breath was hot and fast. Tears started pricking her eyes, but she didn't say anything to Woki; she could see he was worried about his family. Tia on the other hand wasn't so worried about home. Her Dad was away on business, and she was staying with her Aunty Mae who wasn't really her aunty. Aunty Mae had three grown-up sons who lived locally, so Tia felt pretty sure they would be there for the elderly woman. With her thoughts busying her mind, she was able to keep going, until her feet lost their grip on the fresh mud of another slip. She slid down the bank, landing hard on her back, which sent pain ripping through her body. A dark nausea came over her, and her hands became light.

As she recovered, Tia was shocked to discover that the figure crouching down beside her was not Woki.

Tia looked up at him; he was older than them, maybe nineteen or twenty. He was wearing a Swanndri jacket and cargo pants and was carrying a tramping pack. He had a softness in his dark brown eyes that seemed to soothe Tia's pain instantly.

She smiled slightly, just the corners of her mouth turning away from the sickening feeling in her gut.