Authors: Summer Wigmore
The idea of waltzing into a café crammed full of supernatural creatures wasn’t too terribly appealing anyway. He told himself that wouldn’t be too bad; most atua were probably more like Cuba than the ponaturi girl who’d threatened him, and even if they weren’t, well –
If they weren’t –
If they weren’t then he’d have to learn how to handle them, wouldn’t he. Nightmares and terror were for the ignorant. The clever people were prepared, and to be prepared you had to know things.
So he swallowed down his cornflakes, and went
He went to the Hikurangi via Cuba Street, but there was no sign of Cuba, or the Bucket Fountain girl, either. He tried not to let that worry him but didn’t succeed very well.
Steffan stood there hesitating outside the Hikurangi for a second, staring into the empty space between two pillars. This was dangerous. But fascinating, as well. And perhaps someone at the Hikurangi would know whether it was usual for street-spirits to disappear like that.
He squared his shoulders and stepped through.
He wasn’t prepared for the sights he saw. It was much stranger and also, more disconcertingly, much more everyday than he’d been expecting. He went, hesitantly, to a table, where he sat down and tried to ignore the people – and not-people, actually, yes, primarily not-people – who were staring at him. None of them looked much like Cuba.
“I brought food,” he blurted out. “Um, I mean. An offering of sorts. Of peace.”
The man behind the café bar set down the cup he’d been filling and wandered over to shake his hand. “Lots of new faces today,” he said. “Though mostly not ones smeared with red paint. I’m Rongo.”
Smeared was an exaggeration; there were only two stripes of it, one on each cheek. Steffan smiled awkwardly and shook his hand. “I didn’t have any red ochre or fish oil,” he said. “I thought this might do?”
Rongo nodded approvingly. “For protection, eh? Wise of you to be cautious. Most folk aren’t. You brought food too?”
“Yes! Yes.” Steffan extracted the plastic ice cream container from his bag and pushed it over. “Eggs. Er… raw eggs.” He cleared his throat. “I know a lot of atua can’t eat cooked food,” he said, lamely.
“It’s very thoughtful,” Rongo said, kindly. “I’ll make meringues. Oh, and a warning, though a clever lad like you probably doesn’t need it – if I were you I wouldn’t eat any of the food here without checking with me first.”
“Why?” he said, leaning forward intently. “Is it magical in some way? Will it trap me in the fae world? A lot of the mythology I’ve read –”
Rongo laughed raucously. “No, no,” he said, still laughing, “not magical, just yuck. What do you want, anyway?” He waved at the food they had available. “Or are you meeting someone?”
“Oh, no, I don’t want anything – I’m just here to watch things and, learn things, that’s all I want.”
Rongo loomed taller than he had a moment before, looking stern and forbidding. “You’re not even going to buy anything?” he growled.
Steffan paled. “Oh, no, I – a coffee – I, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he stammered, and Rongo grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.
“You’re too easy to fool; work on that, eh?” He went back to the counter still chuckling to himself.
Steffan, feeling foolish, settled down to observe. He seemed safe enough, though his hand still slipped into his pocket, where he found the reassuring shape of the cigarette lighter and book of matches he’d stashed there. He was fine. He was prepared. Time to research.
He got out his iPad – the Hikurangi had wi-fi, apparently.
How?
– and Googled, for a start, the name ‘Rongo’. Then he wished he hadn’t. He was willing to accept a lot, because so much evidence couldn’t be denied by any rational man, but – no. That was. Too much. No.
His shoulders twitched nervously. Someone was reading over his shoulder.
“Could you perhaps stop that?” Steffan said. “Please.” He glanced at them and, again, wished he hadn’t.
“All right, mate,” they said amicably, and went to sit back down at their own table. His? Her? It was difficult to tell; they were formless, bony angles draped in a massive coat, their face thin with a beak of a nose and a fluffy mop of hair.
Steffan swallowed his surprise. Fear was just an excuse for ignorance. “I – excuse me,” he said. “You look rather… feathered. Would you mind telling me what manner of atua you are?”
They grinned. “What would you guess, looking at me?”
“Uh,” Steffan said, and stalled. “Something… albatross-y?”
There was a round of laughter, and Steff, face flaming, pretended to stare intently at his iPad.
“Tasty, albatrosses,” said a large woman a few tables over, unexpectedly. She had what looked like paua shells where her eyes should be, shiny and slick. “Good with some camembert, maybe a light salad.”
“Brie,” said the person sitting with her, who was chewing slowly on a giant weta and had three eyes, two black and unblinking, the other smaller and set in their forehead.
“No, no, camembert much better compliments the
texture
, the subtlety of… ”
Steffan tuned out, picking up a newspaper and flipping through it. Things had happened. People had done things. There was weather. The cartoon was about politics and tried its hardest to be funny. There was a disembodied hand on the table.
Steffan squeaked and pushed his chair back, staring at the hand. It was a perfectly normal hand, except for not being attached to anything. As he watched, it flipped itself up and scuttled crablike to the cover of the tree growing through the hole in the centre of his table. It dived into the foliage and was gone from sight.
There was a long pause.
“… So there
is
a curse!” Steffan said weakly, once his voice wasn’t in danger of wobbling. “That’s interesting!”
He was a massive geek, he knew that – Saint had told him so, more than once. Actually a lot more than once. But it helped, silly little jokes like that. Meant he could get back to focusing on gathering as much information as he could.
He looked around and could see more of them. There were hands clinging to the vines trailing from the ceiling (if it was a ceiling), and hands hanging in chains like they were vines themselves, and hands half-hidden in the nooks and crannies of the trees and shrubs that filled the room. No one seemed to notice them – or, wait, no, there was one sneaking towards a bright green woman’s neenish tart, and she just flicked it away casually and went on talking. So the atua noticed them, they just didn’t see anything out of the ordinary there.
Steffan stared at a tree which had a few hands in it, and then squeaked and fell out of his chair. There was a
head
. Sitting in the crook of one of the branches there was a head, a head with a smooth blank face which just had bumps and hollows to suggest nose and eyes, a disembodied head just sitting there like it was perfectly normal.
“This place literally couldn’t get any stranger,” he said.
“Need a hand?” someone asked, taking pity on him.
“No thanks!” Steffan said, and then smiled expectantly. “Ah, that – that was meant to be a pun,” he added, and there was another round of laughter, not unkind. Fondly condescending, if anything. These people weren’t all that bad.
Then someone sat across from him, an arrogant pale redhead in a nice suit. He met Steff’s gaze with eyes as blank as the sky. “Odd for a normal human to be here,” he said.
Steffan put his iPad down. “I’m just curious about things,” he said. “On that note. The… the hands. And the heads. The disembodied hands and the heads and – good gracious, that one’s
floating
, all right.” He rallied himself. “The hands and the heads, what’s… I mean, not to seem ignorant, but what’s the deal with those?”
“Oh, you get those in forests sometimes,” the man in the suit said dismissively. He leaned forward. “Who are you, to ask questions of me? What gives you the right?” He smiled soft and dangerous. “Are you under someone’s protection, to be so bold? Because if not, then I’d tread with care, were I you. Asking fool’s questions can lead to a fool’s death.”
Steffan shuddered. The man was so so pale, his hair so red, the contrast as startling as blood on cold skin. He was reminded of his nightmare.
“I just – I don’t mean any harm,” he said, faltering.
The pale man smiled. “I do,” he said. “Your folk killed someone who was
mine
to kill, you see.” He leaned forward still closer, so that Steffan could feel his breath, cold as mist. Up close his eyes were terrifying. “And what,” he whispered, smiling all empty, “are we to do about that? I could kill you just for the crime of being human, and I’m not the only creature in this silly little café who would, however easily you’re fooled.”
Steff couldn’t find words, couldn’t think of anything but women in comas, children drained of blood, patupaiarehe, patupaiarehe.
Fortunately at that moment a Māori woman hurried over, glaring. “Ariki!” she snapped. “Leave him alone.”
The pale man – Ariki – hissed, dissatisfied. “He could be associated with the killer,” he said, leaning back and waving a hand languidly in Steffan’s direction.
“I’ll deal with it,” the girl said, and after staring at her competitively for a few moments the man stood up and left. She waited until he was several metres away before slumping down into the seat opposite Steffan with a sigh. “Sorry about that,” she said, and gave him a tired smile. “Hey! I’m Tony. Ariki can come on a bit strong, but he means well. Or… I mean, he doesn’t mean
badly
.”
Steff, in the excitement of seeing and learning so many new things, had almost forgotten where he’d started: with the murders, the couple whose minds had been wiped clean into a coma they never woke up from, the body found drained of blood…
The girl felt safe, somehow, warm and friendly like you could trust her. “I’m Steffan,” he said, and gathered his courage. “That man. Is he… safe?
Tony blinked. “What do you mean?”
I think he may’ve killed people
, Steffan didn’t say. It wasn’t really any of his business. He was here in the name of scientific enquiry; he couldn’t take a side. Besides, even if Ariki had killed people, there was no guarantee that this girl hadn’t. “Nothing, really. He just scared me.”
She frowned.
“But, I mean, that doesn’t mean anything,” he said, hasty. “Most atua scare me. First one I met tried to kill me.”
Tony ran a hand through her hair. “First one I met did kind of worse than that,” she said. “But she’s okay, really. I think. They’re all okay, I think, once you get to know them.”
Steffan shifted uncomfortably. “Sure,” he said, and then, more certain, “I did meet some nice ones, earlier, a – a tipua, I think, and a city spirit named Cuba.”
“Wait, what,” Tony said, “city spirits? What?” And then her eyes lit up. “Oh! I saw those while I was out walking once, I think. Hrm.” She looked around frowning. “There don’t seem to be any in here… This place is for
all
atua. And if the city ones don’t come here they won’t have been warned yet.” She buttoned up her coat, scowling. “I’ll check them out.”
She looked tired. “Can I help?” he asked on impulse, and then he shook his head. “No, I, I take that back, I… I do
not
know why I said that, I’m, I’m trying to avoid being involved or taking sides.”
“Naw, fair enough,” Tony said, waving a hand. “It’s not your fight. You’re kinda cute when you’re flustered, though – hey.
Hey
.” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, looking at him. “Heyyy. Are you single?”
Steffan blushed deeply.
Tony burst out laughing. “Oh, Christ – I’m not asking for
me
, dude, I have this friend who wants… Oh, never mind, I doubt you’re her type anyway.” She stood up. “I better get back to work.”
“I won’t keep you; it’s past time I went home anyway,” Steffan said. Don’t get involved, don’t take a stance, you don’t know the
rules
of this world yet, you have to know the
rules
–
But he had to know everything, he always had. He couldn’t help it. So, “… The city ones won’t have been
warned
, you said. Warned of what?”
Tony looked serious. “A murderer. Working under Māui, or he
is
Māui. No one’s clear on the details yet. This – actually, this might not be the best of times to be hanging around here.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets, frowning. “I mean, you’re safe
here
, in this place, everyone is, but with everything that’s going on… You might want to do your studies some other time? Not going to tell you what to do, just figured I should warn you.”
Steffan rubbed at his face. A little red paint came off on his hand, and he surveyed it. Hadn’t done much to keep him safe from Ariki now, had it? “No, yes, you’re right, I’m not very well equipped to deal with this world yet,” he said. “I need to
know
more… ”
Tony shrugged. “I don’t know all that much about it, and I’m doing fine,” she said. “Of course, I’m also a mighty mythological seadragon, so.”
“Oh. Uh. All right then.”
“Did you know that in some stories taniwha eat people alive?” she added with a wink.
He paled. She laughed, trying to hide it behind one hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said through her laughter, “you’re just so alarmed by everything, you’re
precious
– seriously, what do you think of my friend over there?” She tilted her head. Steffan followed her line of gaze. A woman beautiful as a supermodel looked up and met his eyes. There was a chunk of raw meat on the end of her fork.
“She’s terrifying and I want to stay as far away from her as humanly possible,” Steffan said.
“Yeah, that’s wise.” Tony grinned. “Anyway. Stay safe, I guess! I better go look after her, she’s a menace.”
“Ha, I know what that’s like,” Steff said, and Tony bestowed one final grin upon him before bouncing off to deal with her friend.
And then he was thinking of Saint, and how he’d perhaps been a little unfair, and… It was odd, but. Back in high school Saint had generally been just about the only person who could get him away from his studying long enough to go to parties or on ridiculous adventures or to introduce him to girls. And he doubted he’d have had half as much fun his first year in uni if Saint hadn’t been there to drag him into trouble. It was just downright
strange
to be meeting new people and doing new things without Saint by his side, and suddenly Steffan missed him.