Heart of Danger (18 page)

‘I don’t understand,’ Leebar said. It sounded as if she didn’t want to either, that she’d had enough of the whole ridiculous conversation.

He straightened his back and looked her in the face. ‘I’m speaking what I lived. I’m sorry if it’s not something you can understand. It was my life. It’s what happened.’

‘Explain more.’ She glanced down at Hera. ‘I accept her abilities. She says a thing will happen and it does. It’s this sensing darkness, this airy-fairy feeling, that I can’t credit.’

He stayed polite. ‘Well, for example, once we were staying in a holiday house at the beach – just my parents and me. We were having breakfast and Mum stopped eating. A minute later she hustled us out of the house. Said she didn’t feel safe there, something was going to happen. Half an hour later a tornado blew the house to fragments.’

‘Useful sort of mother,’ Oban said.

‘Yeah, but I yelled at her because I reckoned she could have let me get my surfboard before it got blown out of existence.’

‘Hey, man – you’re a surfer?’ Oban asked. ‘I’m trying but I’m still at the useless stage.’

Before Nash could get sidetracked by surfing, Leebar leaned forward, her manner still spiky. ‘Your family died when you were sixteen, but you overcame the shock of that and went on to university. You got a degree?’

‘Oh yes. Top student. Couldn’t fault me. Brilliant. Parents would be so proud, yah de yah.’ He didn’t sound bitter, just weary to the bone.

Danyat said, ‘A year ago it all came crashing in on you? You just upped and left everything behind?’

‘Yeah. I’ve been finding out that you can run but you have to face up to your demons in the end.’ He gave a slight smile. ‘It took a while and it wasn’t pretty, but I’ve put them to rest.’

His family or his demons? Both probably.

‘You’ve found your way along a hard road,’ Danyat said. ‘Your parents would indeed be proud.’

‘You will stay with us for as long as you need,’ Mother said, checking with Dad to watch for his nod.

‘We’ll find you somewhere better to sleep. A little sleep-out. We could knock one up in no time.’ Bazin rubbed his hands at the prospect of a project. ‘We’ll start after breakfast.’

‘It’s Christmas Day, in case you’ve forgotten,’ Leebar said.

Bazin smacked a kiss on her cheek. ‘Merry Christmas, darling. And what better day to begin a new project?’

She snorted. ‘Well, at least it’ll keep you out of our hair.’

All the men except Nash started discussing plans and materials. Nash just sat there, a dazed look on his face, though every now and again he’d light up in a smile but shake his head as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. Maybe he’d won Leebar over, maybe he hadn’t. She chopped herbs into fine slivers and held her thoughts to herself.

Nash got up from the table to lean on the breakfast bar and talk to Mother, Leebar and me. ‘Will you tell me about Hera? She’s very young to have the gift. For the gifted in my family, it didn’t show up till they were in their teens.’

I told him Hera’s history of predictions. ‘And she also objects to strangers who have evil in their hearts.’

Hera looked up at that. ‘Nash is a nice brother. I like Nash for my brother.’

He seemed not to know whether to laugh or cry. In the end he just said, ‘Thank you, Hera.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, and that did make him laugh.

During breakfast Oban asked Nash what he’d been doing for the past year. ‘Walking mainly,’ Nash said. ‘If there were people around, and they were friendly, I’d stay several days. I walked along old highways where I could and followed a compass if I couldn’t.’

‘Were you in the North Island?’ Bazin asked.

Nash shook his head. ‘I started in Dunedin, went south into the Catlins from there. Moved north when the weather cooled.’

Oban leaned his chin on his hands. ‘Man, I envy you. It must’ve been some adventure.’

‘Yeah. Some of it got too adventurous. Had a few close shaves with the landscape and a couple with groups of people.’ He went back to eating, concentrating on his food.

There was so much I wanted to ask, but it looked like getting information out of him was going to be a slow process. He didn’t say anything else for the rest of the meal.

Mother stood up. ‘Okay, you men – take yourselves off and build things. We’ve got Christmas feasts to organise, and we’ll do much better without the lot of you underfoot.’

‘We have our orders,’ Dad said, getting to his feet. ‘Let’s go and see about this sleep-out.’

They disappeared outside, Mother and Leebar whizzed around the kitchen, and I made an effort to look like I was being useful. I wished Ginevra was here already, and I still wished Thomas wasn’t coming at all.

G
inevra arrived with her father and brothers before midday. Hera raced up to the boys. ‘Come and play with me. I’ve been waiting and waiting for you.’

Mother laughed at their horrified faces. ‘Take her outside, boys. The men are out there digging foundations for a sleep-out.’

They ran, leaving her behind until their father hauled them back. ‘Wait for Hera, boys.’ He took her hand. ‘Come on, we’ll all go outside.’

‘Nice man.’ Leebar gave him her tick of approval. ‘How old are your brothers, Ginevra?’

‘Jonno’s nine and Leo is five,’ she said. Too young to lose their mother.

‘I’d like to tell you it gets easier,’ Mother said. ‘But I don’t think it does. You just get more used to it.’

Leebar put the kettle on with much rattling and crashing. ‘We’ll have a cuppa and then we’ll get busy. Those men’ll be howling for food before we can blink if we’re not careful.’

We prepared a picnic to eat outside. ‘If they’ve left any grass for us to sit on,’ Leebar said. She went out to inspect and we heard her shout, ‘Hose those children clean, somebody.’

She came back in laughing. ‘Add water to the dirt and they’ll be happy for the rest of the day.’

‘You are a sneaky woman,’ Mother said.

Hera and the boys were wet and muddy by the time we began to eat. They sat at the edge of the rugs and, by the look of it, ate mud sauce with everything.

We ate, talked and laughed. ‘If this is Christmas,’ Oban said, ‘I vote we do it again next year.’

Nash looked puzzled. ‘Huh?’

So Oban explained about our Christmas-free life on Taris.

‘Wild, man,’ Nash said.

‘And what’s even wilder,’ Ginevra told him, ‘is that they used to, but then they stopped. Didn’t mention the word.’ She pointed to Oban and me. ‘They’d never even heard of it.’

‘Nobody of our generation had either,’ Dad said.

Oban groaned. ‘Don’t tell me! That bloody crisis! They stopped then.’ He looked at the grandfathers. ‘Was that it?’

‘That was it,’ Bazin said. ‘No Easter either. Or Valentine’s Day, or Halloween. They all went.’

After lunch, Ginevra led Oban, Nash and me to a park that none of us had been to before. It was full of ancient trees and had a lake with ducks on it. There was also an old footbridge that swayed when we walked on it. We sat down in the middle and pushed our legs through the railings so that they dangled over the water.

‘This is the life,’ Oban said. ‘A new place. That’s what I’d love to do. Find new places, keep going, exploring, finding the next place.’ He thumped Nash on the shoulder. ‘I’m so jealous of you – you’ve done it. For an entire year.’

‘Yeah. I guess,’ Nash murmured. He lay back on the warm boards, his hands shading his eyes.

We waited to see if he would start talking, but he didn’t. The three of us couldn’t keep our eyes off the long scar on the inside of his right arm. We counted the marks the stitches had left. There were ten of them. He must have sensed our fascination, because without opening his eyes he said, ‘People weren’t always friendly.’

‘They sewed you up though,’ Oban said.

‘Nope. Did that myself.’ End of conversation.

As we walked home, Nash asked me to tell him more about Hera. I didn’t want to, not after the way he’d refused to talk to Oban about his travels, but I realised if we kept chatting it would leave Oban and Ginevra together without my even having to try to throw them at each other.

‘Okay. What do you want to know?’ I sounded less than gracious.

He stopped and stood still, staring at the ground. I shrugged and let him sulk. I walked on.

‘Wait. Please.’

I turned back to face him. ‘Why? You’re not the best company ever.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve got out of the habit of talking.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t mean to be rude.’

Arrogant, actually, but okay, what he said could be true. I asked again, ‘What would you like to know? We’ve told you pretty much everything already.’

That got me another long silence. I gave up. ‘Come on, we need to keep moving.’

It was easier to walk in silence than stand together without saying a single word.

We’d gone a couple of hundred metres when he got out what it was he really wanted to know. ‘Why did you look for Hera in the north? Nobody else thought she was there.’

My turn for silence – though my mind wasn’t quiet. How much did I want to tell this guy from nowhere?

I heard him sigh, then he said, ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. It’s just … I wondered … I mean, sometimes I kinda know things. So I thought maybe you did too.’

That took my breath away. ‘
You
do? Like Hera does? That sort of knowing?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not that definite. It’s more like something in my mind pushing me in a certain direction.’

This was weird – that was exactly what it was. ‘Give me an example, something you did even though you didn’t really want to.’

I was startled when he laughed. ‘That’s easy. I wasn’t going to get in touch with your family. No way. I was going to find a place out in the country and live there by myself. But my mind kept on hassling me and I didn’t get any peace till I set out to find you all.’

I was nodding: yes, yes and yes again. That was exactly how it was. I said, ‘If I try and go against one of those feelings, it gets too uncomfortable.’ I paused for a moment, wondering whether to tell him about Grif’s voice in my head. I risked it and started talking, surprised at how good it was to speak of it.

‘You’re lucky. So lucky.’ He looked up at the wide blue sky as if he’d find the voices of his dead up there. ‘I’ve never heard words.’ He thought for a moment. ‘But that feeling of their love wrapping around me. Yeah. That’s familiar.’

We wandered on without speaking, but it was no longer a prickly silence until he went and spoilt it by saying, ‘You don’t like talking about it, do you?’

I cracked a branch off a bush, long enough to smack him with. ‘No. And before you ask – it’s because it scares me.’ The scene back at Mokau zinged through my mind. I would never know where the words that had saved us had come from. Or the power that apparently had lit me up like a candle. And then had come the dreams. I did so not want to explore that part of my mind. ‘I can’t understand it, so it’s frightening.’

‘I think …’ But he stopped and shook his head. ‘Come on, let’s catch the others up.’

‘What? What were you going to say?’ I hated that – starting something, then running out of the courage to finish it.

‘Okay, I will say it. Yell at me if you want.’

This wasn’t sounding good. I should change my mind, tell him it didn’t matter. Too late.

‘It’s not something to understand,’ he said. ‘Mum and Grandad always told me that. You just have to trust it. And it seems to me you don’t. Trust, I mean.’ He picked a yellow flower from my stick and gave it to me. A peace offering?

In a couple of steps I’d shredded it. I threw away the stick. ‘Easy for you. It’s part of your family. They could teach you. The whole mess was normal for them.’

‘You didn’t have anybody like that?’

‘My grandmother. She died in the pandemic. And anyway, she couldn’t talk openly about it. Too dangerous.’ I started running. Ginevra and Oban had got a long way ahead of us. ‘Come on, let’s hurry.’

The four of us arrived back at the house in a dead heat with Thomas and Gilda.

‘Damn!’ I muttered. ‘I’d managed to forget about him.’

Ginevra squeezed my hand. ‘It’s Christmas Day, Juno. Nobody does the hard stuff on Christmas Day. Relax and have fun.’

She was having fun – she looked happier than I’d ever seen her. I took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Good advice. Watch me ooze friendliness.’

I caught a quizzical expression on Nash’s face.
Trust it
. All very well for him. It was Thomas I needed to be able to trust, and that was never going to happen unless Willem had done the miracle worker thing on him.

He hadn’t. Thomas barely took the time to greet Mother and Leebar before he confronted me.

‘I bet you didn’t want me to come today. You don’t like me but get this – I don’t like you either. You’re mean and …’

Gilda was horrified. ‘Thomas, be quiet! No, shut your mouth this very second. Remember your manners, if you please. Apologise to Juno, and to Sheen.’

He shot her a filthy look, but he did mumble an apology. Mother the peacemaker smiled at him. ‘Go out into the back garden, Thomas. The men are working out there.’

Oban, a hand firmly against Thomas’s back, said, ‘Come with Nash and me, mate. Unless you’d like to stay and help here?’ He swivelled Thomas around so he could see the collection of dishes waiting to be washed.

Thomas started walking.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gilda said. ‘I don’t know what to do about it. I thought it’d be good – Willem working with him – but he’s getting more and more obsessed with that wretched man.’

‘Hilto?’ Mother asked.

Gilda nodded. ‘Gavin Hilton. Hilto. Yes.’

Ginevra started washing the bowls and pots in the sink. I picked up the tea towel. Thomas. Hilto. This was Christmas Day. Did we have to talk about them?

Apparently we did. Leebar asked, ‘Exactly what is Willem doing with him?’

‘I don’t know!’ It was a wail of frustration. ‘It sounds simple enough. Thomas just talks to him about the sessions he had with his father. He didn’t like it at first, but now he can’t wait. And his behaviour is terrible.’

From where I was standing, his behaviour had always been terrible.

Leebar became brisk. ‘Today isn’t a day for worries. Gilda, can you work out how we can fit thirteen people around this table for dinner?’

Her eyes lit up. ‘I know exactly what to do.’ She almost ran outside.

Good work, Leebar.

An hour later, all of us sat down to eat Christmas dinner at our table, now extended by means of a door propped on sawhorses. The seating was improvised too. Mother poured wine and lifted her glass. ‘To Gilda, whose ingenuity has allowed us to sit together for this happy celebration.’

We drank the toast, then settled to the business of carving the meat and filling our plates. ‘Heaven!’ Nash muttered, pouring gravy over slices of roast pork and a leg of chicken. We’d prepared an abundance of vegetables too – new potatoes, fresh peas, baby carrots and a salad of tomato, cucumber and basil.

But I couldn’t relax. Something was building in the air, and it centred around Thomas. I tried to ignore it. Christmas dinner was not the time to trust such feelings. Absolutely not. I talked to Hera, asked her what she’d done all day.

‘I made rivers with my friends,’ she said. Ginevra’s brothers wriggled and looked embarrassed.

I asked Dad how the sleep-out was going. ‘Great,’ he said.

I asked Ginevra’s dad – Bryan – if he’d always lived in New Plymouth. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Ginevra smiled at me and whispered, ‘Relax!’

Chatter swirled around me, but the only way I could tune out the forces concentrating around Thomas was when I spoke out loud.

From across the table, I caught Nash regarding me, his eyebrows raised. I pulled a face and muttered, ‘Yeah. Something’s going on.’ I doubted he’d heard, but he got the drift. I waited for him to say,
Trust it
. Instead, he said, ‘Bummer.’

I laughed.

‘Something tickle your funny bone?’ Bazin asked.

Before I could say anything, Thomas crashed his fists on the table. ‘She was laughing at me! She hates me.’

Gilda was on her feet, her hand out to shove it over her son’s mouth, but I said, ‘Leave him, Gilda. Let him say it.’ There was no escape other than to face the darkness drawing tighter around the kid.

When next he spoke, every nerve in my body told me to run: it was Hilto looking out of his eyes, Hilto speaking through his son’s mouth. Those of us from Taris stared, horrified, and Hera burst into screaming sobs. Ginevra picked her up and held her close, rocking her.

‘Thomas,’ I shouted, again not knowing why I did so. ‘Come back. You are
Thomas
. You are yourself. You can choose your own path. You
must
choose your own path. You can choose, Thomas. You can choose to obey blindly, or you can choose to be the person you want to be.’ I was babbling, scarcely aware of what I was saying, but Hera’s sobs faded to whimpers and I felt a wall of strength at my back. It was coming from Nash. He was sitting in front of me, but he had somehow joined me in this battle with the unseen.

Thomas’s eyes rolled in his head. ‘Talk to us,’ I ordered, keeping my voice firm and as full of authority as I could make it. ‘Say what is in your mind.’

His eyes stilled and he closed them. ‘I am the leader. People will obey me. I will have power. Absolute power. I shall trample all who oppose me. They will suffer.’

‘Is that what you want?’ I spoke more quietly now. ‘Is that what Thomas of Aotearoa wants?’

None of us made a sound. We waited, our breathing quick and shallow.

‘I have to. That’s what he told me over and over again.
It is your destiny. You are my son. It is your duty.’
He let out a long breath.

What now? I had no idea and my head ached. I looked around at my family, at Nash and Oban, but it was Danyat who leaned across the table to take Thomas’s hands. ‘No, Thomas, it’s not your duty and it’s not your destiny unless you decide to make it so.’ He shook Thomas’s hands slightly. ‘Open your eyes, son, and look at me. Good. I’ll tell you about your father, and I’ll tell the good and the bad so that you can understand. Then it’s up to you to decide if you want to be like the good part of him or the bad part. Are you listening?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

I slumped back in my chair, exhausted. My part was over. I rested my head in my hands, listening to Danyat, with Bazin and Leebar chipping in, speak of a Hilto whom my parents, sister, Oban and I had never known. They said he was a brilliant leader, charismatic. He made people want to follow him. He was clever, a gifted problem-solver. He had the ability to see the big picture and to understand all the small details.