Guardian of the Dead (22 page)

Under our twin stares, Mark sagged. Then he tilted his bruised face to me. ‘Just out of interest, Spencer, if I don't tell you everything you want to know, will you beat it out of me?'

I jerked back. ‘No.'

‘But I might,' Iris said thoughtfully. ‘I've still got another shoe.'

Mark raked his hair out of his face, and looked into the middle distance. ‘Okay. Come with me.'

Before we left, I inspected my back in the bathroom. Reka's claws had cut right through my blazer and blouse so that they hung awkwardly off my shoulders. Iris gave me a big T-shirt that she probably slept in, and I grabbed Kevin's jacket. My bra was also ruined, only hanging on by a few threads, and I took it off, glad for the first time that my breasts hadn't increased much with the rest of me. The cuts were shallow, but long, and naturally, they hurt more the moment I saw them: five angry streaks, curving from under my right shoulder blade to above my left hip. I awkwardly squeezed anti-bacterial lotion into the wounds and hissed, bracing over the sink with locked arms, trembling until the burning stopped.

It would have been easier with help. But I didn't trust Mark at my back right then, and I didn't want either him or Iris to see me half-naked.

Kevin was hidden in Iris's bed, a big snoring lump. I tiptoed in and dropped a kiss on his forehead. It hurt to close the door on him, and even more to hear the front-door lock snap as I tugged it shut behind me and went to join the others in the car.

Iris had left me the front passenger seat of Mark's shabby Toyota, and spent most of the ride staring out the back window, lips shaping silent arguments. I sat forward so my back didn't rest against the seat, and tried to stop flicking glances at Mark. He drove pretty well for someone I was almost certain didn't have a real licence, staring at the road with a furrowed intensity.

‘Where are we going?' I asked.

‘The Gardens,' he said tersely.

‘Why?'

‘You'll find out when we get there.' He relaxed a little, and noticed me noticing. ‘I was checking on Dad.' He lifted his left hand from the wheel and held it out for me. The furry white tuft was hair, not wool. ‘He's preaching.'

‘Neat trick,' I said, instead of
Should you be doing that
while you drive?

‘What else can you do?' Iris asked. ‘Since you can't do what Reka does.'

Mark must have filled her in on some of his history while I was doctoring my back. That made sense. It was stupid to feel jealous about it.

He pulled into the car park before he answered, and sat there for a minute with the engine running, his fingers turning over his charms. ‘I can do lots of things. Suppress memories. Tangle your feet into falling. Make lightning in my hands and send it to kill you.'

Iris made a noise that wasn't quite a gasp. I didn't say anything, but I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because he twisted in his seat and gave me the full impact of his green stare. ‘I've never killed anyone,' he said quietly. ‘But I could. Ellie, after this, you won't be able to go back. You'll never be normal again. Are you
sure
?'

He meant it. I stared into the misty car park and thought about the electric thrill that had gone down me the moment I made contact with his charm bracelet, the determination with which I'd clung to the memory of his bewitching me, fighting to make my pathetic scrap of paper a talisman for my memory. I thought about Reka's song in the night, and the pain burning down my back, and the risk Kevin had run, all-unknowing. I thought about Mark, strong enough to make a life for himself and keep Reka away. And I thought about the mask on my desk, warm and welcoming and perfect.

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Yes,' said Iris.

Mark sighed and pushed his door open. ‘Your choice,' he said, and I couldn't tell whether he thought it was the wrong one.

The Botanic Gardens closed at sunset every night. We walked up to the gates just as a security guard was rattling the locked gate. Mark turned smoothly to pace beside the fence, and we walked on in silence until the blue-striped Armourguard car purred past us.

Climbing over the gates wasn't fun. My school skirt was wide enough to not restrict my movement, but my back screamed as I lifted my arms, and howled as I automatically bent to take the landing with my knees. Iris climbed surprisingly well, though she insisted I check for people watching before she hiked her pencil skirt up to her hips. She'd changed to silky black ballet-style slippers, which were only slightly more practical than her heels, but matched her skirt and little handbag perfectly. She didn't need to instruct Mark to keep his eyes closed – he had hoisted his lanky body over with ease and was leaning against the fence of the Peacock Fountain, staring into the water. The fountain was a Victorian ironwork monstrosity with hideous iron animals gape-mouthed all over it, and it was much improved by the mist's partial concealment.

‘They rebuilt this,' he said when we joined him. ‘It was on a little island in the river, but the island sank under the weight, and it rusted.'

I wondered if the designers had wanted the horrible thing to crumble quickly. Otherwise, putting cast iron in a river that flooded regularly seemed to lack a certain amount of foresight.

Mark led us further into the park, toward the river. The trees lining the pale gravel path were mostly non-natives, oak and pine thrusting massively out of the earth. I shuddered, remembering Reka's sung invitation to vegetable life.

Mark reached out without looking at me and caught my uninjured shoulder. I couldn't decide on a reaction before he squeezed gently and withdrew. After a few minutes we came to the grassy riverbank and squelched our way down.

Mark was staring at the river, twisting his charm bracelet over his wrist link by link. ‘Sit down.'

I gave up my school skirt for dead and sank onto the bank beside him. Iris eyed the muddy grass for a moment longer, then sat, crossing her ankles. We looked expectantly at Mark at the same time, and I felt a reluctant liking for her. Really, she was being much better about this than anyone had a right to expect.

‘The full story,' I said. ‘And explain why Reka said they would take your
eyes
.'

The corner of his mouth crinkled. ‘Actually . . . the full story wouldn't be a bad place to start. Okay. In the beginning . . .' He hesitated, then shook his head. ‘Look. This is a dubious version of the myth. It isn't the whole story, or an entirely true one, and there's no way to get around it. I can't even tell it to you in the right language, because you don't speak it.'

‘Chapman's Homer?' I suggested.

He slanted a tight smile at me. ‘Heh. Close enough.'

‘So,' I said, and half bowed, trying to mimic Professor Gribaldi's drawl. ‘At least be
gloriously
inaccurate.'

He returned the bow with an arm flourish that set his charms jingling, and tried again.

‘Okay,' he said. ‘This is a story of how mankind was made, and how death entered the world. A long time
after
the beginning, there are Papatuanuku, who is the Earth-Mother, and Rangi-nui, who is the Sky-Father. So strong is their affection that they cannot bear to be apart, and remain always in loving embrace. They bring forth many children, but will not relinquish their grip on each other. Those brought forth from Earth's womb are forced to crawl upon her surface, while their father presses against her. There is only close, moist darkness and suffocating warmth. Like everyone, these children want to stretch and grow without the constraints laid upon them by their parents.'

I gaped at him. The words had rolled out in a low, passionate flow, his usually ordinary voice becoming something rich and compelling, lightly accented. In that voice, the familiar story was transformed into a living epic of intense fascination. Iris's eyes had acquired a familiar glint. If Mark wasn't careful, he was going to end up with a starring role in her next production.

‘Some of their sons gather to decide what should be done. One of the brothers says that they should kill their parents, but he is shouted down. Another proposes they do nothing at all and be content in their closeness, but no one listens to him. As always happens in such meetings, the most charismatic speaker wins the argument. One by one, five of the brothers, crawling in their claustrophobic prison-home, set their shoulders against their father and push. And finally, the last of the brothers, the tallest and strongest, lies on his back and pushes with his mighty legs, and measure by tiny measure, their father's body moves.

‘Rangi-nui calls to Papa-tuanuku, and they cleave ever tighter to each other. But they have seeded their own destruction, and the six brothers fight for every finger of space until their father is a torso's length from their mother.

Then a body's length. Then as far as they can reach with their arms outstretched. And then, with one final heave, they hurl their father high above the loving reach of their mother's embrace.

‘And Sky-Father weeps in his grief and Earth-Mother tosses and rumbles in her anger, but it is done, and nothing they can do can ever reverse it.

‘The brothers look around and shake out their long hair, stretching freely for the first time in their long lives. The tallest, strongest brother, T
ne-te-toko-o-te-rangi, T
ne the prop of the sky, is disconcerted by his father's nakedness, hanging above them. He gathers lights in a basket, and sets them in his father's cloak, to shine down at night. But the brother who protested this violation is angry with his siblings. He joins his father in the sky, to be the God of Wind and Storm, and he is an enemy to the descendants of his brothers still today.'

He rotated his shoulders, and I startled. The vivid images his voice had conjured faded. ‘With me so far?' he asked.

Iris nodded, her lips parted in admiration.

‘But I know this,' I said, resenting him and his beautiful voice and his beautiful face and body. They kept tricking me into thinking I could trust him, when most of the evidence suggested the opposite. ‘It's the M
ori origin myth; everyone knows this.'