Song of the Spirits (43 page)

A new succession of cries issued from Zoé’s room. Everyone in the house was distracted.

If she did not do it now, she never would.

Elaine ran to her bedroom and threw a bundle together. She did not need much, but she had to take a cloak and riding dress. She did not have the time to change just then, but she did not want to brave a three- or four-day ride in her housedress, especially not in the mountains where it was still quite cold. Though she would have liked to bring along some provisions or at least firewood, it was too risky to sneak into the kitchen, and she would not dare start a fire in the wilderness.

The only other thing that Elaine took before running out was the revolver, which she slid into the pocket of her housedress. She did not look back. Her grandfather James McKenzie had once told her that brought bad luck. Anyone who left a prison had to keep looking forward.

Elaine made it to the stables unseen. Banshee and little Khan whinnied greetings at her as soon as she entered. Banshee pawed impatiently as Elaine hurried past her stall in the direction of the tack room to let Callie out. Pita shut Callie up in there when he was working and could not watch her. Otherwise, the little dog would go in search of Elaine right away, and, as of recently, she was no longer allowed in the house. Zoé had ostensibly developed an animal allergy during her pregnancy.

Now that was all behind her. Elaine felt a surge of joy and the desire for adventure rising within her. Hopefully, Patrick had thought to bring Banshee’s saddle, as the Sideblossoms’ horses were all thinner than her horse. She found the saddle was hanging there—and thankfully not the lady’s saddle, which would have turned the hours of galloping into torture. There was no time to clean her horse, but Banshee had not gotten dirty in the stables anyway. Elaine bridled and saddled her while the horse was still in her stall. She tied her baggage to the saddle’s leather straps. She was ready. They just needed to make it outside and head toward the river, giving the shearing sheds
a wide berth. With a half hour, they would be out of Thomas’s sphere of influence.

It was a shame she didn’t know where Emere had gone off to for her spirit summoning. Elaine didn’t trust her. Though Emere appeared to hate the Sideblossoms, she had served them loyally for years. There had to be a reason she continued to allow John Sideblossom to sleep with her instead of running away. Did she love him, or had she loved him once? Elaine did not want to think about it, but either way, she would have felt safer if the old Maori woman had been far away. It would be much better if no one saw her.

But then she heard the flute. Emere was once again playing in that confusing hollow-sounding tone with which she conjured the spirits. Evil spirits, from the looks of things. But none of that mattered now. Elaine sighed with relief when she heard the flute. The music was coming from somewhere in back of the house, and as long as Emere continued to play, it would be easy to avoid her.

Elaine led her mare into the aisle of the stable—and stopped, aghast, when she saw Thomas at the entrance. His shadow loomed threateningly, framed against the sunlight outside. He was rubbing his forehead—as he so often did when he heard Emere’s flute. But that day he had no need of spirit voices to whip himself up into a frothing rage.

“Hey now. Another ride? I knew it was worth checking up on that sweet wife of mine. With all the sheepshearers on the farm, one doesn’t leave such a lusty little thing unattended.” Thomas grinned sardonically, but his hand moved as if by force to his ear in an apparent attempt to muffle the sound of the flute.

Elaine squared herself. She needed to gather her courage. There was no going back.

“I’m not interested in your sheepshearers,” she said calmly, guiding her hand slowly toward the pocket where the revolver was stored. Emere’s playing sped up. Elaine felt the heavy pounding of her heart. “And I’m not going for a ride. I’m leaving you, Thomas. I don’t want any more to do with your jealousy and your strange… little games. Now let me out!”

She moved to lead her horse past him, but Thomas stood with legs spread in front of the exit.

“Well, look here, your puppy’s growling!” he yelled, laughing.

Callie began to bark wildly as though on command. She easily drowned out Emere’s flute playing, which seemed to relieve Thomas. He took a step toward Elaine.

Elaine drew her weapon.

“I’m not joking,” she said with trembling voice. She would not relent. She could not! It was not worth thinking about what he would do to her if she went back now.

Thomas’s laugh boomed. “Oh, a new toy!”

He pointed to the revolver. Callie barked even louder, and, in the background, the notes that Emere was drawing from the flute were vibrating.

Then everything happened in a flash. Elaine, terrified, removed the weapon’s safety just as Thomas lunged at her. But his attempt to take her by surprise came too late. Elaine pulled the trigger, uncertainly, holding the gun in one hand. She did not know if she hit him, but Thomas froze with a look of disbelief. She grasped the pistol with both hands, and with ice-cold concentration, she aimed it at her husband again. She meant to hit his chest, but the revolver seemed to develop a life of its own when she pulled the trigger. The recoil forced the barrel upward. And then she saw the blood spray. Thomas’s face exploded in a fountain of red before her eyes. He did not scream even once. He just fell to the ground as though struck by lightning.

“You shall be damned!” Thomas heard Emere’s voice. He knew he was not supposed to follow the spirits’ song. Had she not always told him that he would only be safe in his nursery when she called the spirits? But he was curious, and he was now eight years old. At that age, a boy had to summon the courage to stand up against threats. At least that is what his father had told him. And so he had followed Emere one night when she mistakenly believed he had fallen asleep to the deep, hypnotic sound of the flute. However, Emere
was not meeting with any spirit. It was his father who approached her in the garden. She seemed strangely unsteady, as though she did not know whether she should stay or run away. And then his voice.

“Didn’t I call you?”

Emere turned around to face him.

“I come when I want.”

“Oh? So you want to play these little games.”

What Thomas saw next was burned into his memory forever. It was repugnant, but also… thrilling. It was almost as if this secret observation allowed him to share in his father’s power. And what power it was. His father received the affection Thomas yearned for so desperately. Emere embraced him and kissed him. But she had to be forced, subdued, in order to do it. Thomas longed to possess his father’s power, longed to be able to force Emere like that. Finally, his father left her lying there. She whimpered. She had been punished
…

And then the flute sounded. The spirit’s voice. Thomas should have fled. Then Emere would never know that he had seen her defilement. But he stayed, stepped nearer even. He would have liked to…

And then she turned to face him.

“You saw everything? And you’re not ashamed? You have it in your eyes already, Thomas Sideblossom. You shall be damned!”

Thomas’s face exploded.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elaine saw a red pool spreading around Thomas’s head. She didn’t dare move, though she no longer felt fear, only horror and cold. Callie whined, hiding in a stall. She was afraid of loud noises. Emere’s flute warbled unceasingly, its hollow notes swelling and ebbing.

“He’s dead; he’s dead.” The thoughts tumbled over each other in Elaine’s brain. She vacillated between the morbid desire to go to Thomas to be sure and the longing to run and hide in a corner of her room.

But then she realized that she would do nothing of the sort. She would do exactly what she had planned: take her horse and disappear.

Elaine did not look at the man lying on the ground again—not even when she had to lead Banshee over him. His mutilated face horrified her, and she already had enough horrible memories of Thomas to last her a lifetime. Banshee snorted, but then stepped over the body as though it were a log in the woods. Elaine thanked heaven that she did not step on him; that would have been too much. It was bad enough that Callie sniffed at him curiously. She had to reprimand the dog sharply to keep her from licking his blood. They reached the barnyard unseen, though Emere must have heard the shot. She could not have immersed herself that deeply into her flute playing. Elaine would have that gunshot in her ear forever.

Though Emere did not appear, the flute had ceased by the time Elaine left the stables. Was that a coincidence? Or had the old Maori woman gone off in search of help? Elaine did not care. She only wanted to escape. Swinging herself up on Banshee, she took off at a gallop. The mare wanted to take the most direct path to Wanaka, and Elaine no longer needed to avoid the shearing sheds.

Then the realization struck her, like a knife into her soul: she had shot her husband. She had aimed a pistol at an unarmed man and pulled the trigger with icy coldness. She could not even plead self-defense. It was no longer possible to flee to her parents and hide out there. She was now a murderer on the run. By the following morning, if not sooner, her father-in-law would file charges, and then the constable would be after her. There was no question now of riding back to Queenstown or even to the Canterbury Plains. She had to forget her friends and family, change her name, and start a new life somewhere else. How and where were a mystery, but flight was her only option.

Elaine turned her rather unwilling mare in the direction of the McKenzie Highlands.

C
ANTERBURY
P
LAINS AND
G
REYMOUTH

1896

M
y God, William, of course we could bring her back!” Gwyneira’s voice struck an impatient note, but she was having this conversation with her grandson-in-law for the umpteenth time. “This ensemble’s touring schedule is hardly a secret. They’re on the North Island, not in Timbuktu. But the question is whether that would do any good. You read her letter: she’s happy. She’s exactly where she wants to be and doing what she’s always wanted to.”

“But she’s my wife,” William objected—not for the first time either—pouring himself a whiskey. It was not his first of the evening. “I have my rights.”

Gwyneira furrowed her brow. “What kind of rights? Do you want to take her by force? Theoretically you could, I suppose; she’s still a minor. But she would never forgive you. Besides, she would just run right away again. Or do you want to lock her up?”

William had no answer to that. Of course he didn’t want to lock Kura up, not that he would have been able to find a prison guard on Kiward Station. The McKenzies had accepted Kura’s departure—and the Maori did not get overwrought about this sort of thing. He could not even count on Tonga’s help. After all, there was a new heiress, in Gloria. Tonga had lost the game for this generation. Gwyneira, on the other hand, had triumphed and appeared to be almost happy for her granddaughter. Kura’s letter from Christchurch—delivered by George Greenwood after the troupe had already left for Wellington—had sounded euphoric, overjoyed. The opera ensemble had taken her in with open arms. Naturally, she wrote, she still had a great deal to learn, but the impresario, Roderick Barrister, was instructing her personally, and she was making rapid progress. They had even allowed
her onstage on her very first night; she had sung the “Habanera” and earned a standing ovation.