The Wind City (41 page)

Authors: Summer Wigmore

Before she could really start worrying, Hinewai stalked up to the fellow and stared at him, stood with her face a few inches from him and glared ferociously right into his eyes. He gulped and fled. Tony grinned proudly.

Though. That reminded her.

“Hin!” she said, hopping to her feet and jogging over. “I’m sorry, all the work on this has slowed down our epic quest for finding your true love! Wanna do some more searching now? There’s some bars we haven’t hit yet, it’d be fun.”

Hinewai examined her thoughtfully.

“Maybe we could take Bucket Fountain girl,” Tony said, babbling a bit under the intensity of that gaze. “She needs to get out more, I think. Maybe she’d stop splashing water on people if she had more fun. And you know the cityfae have been on about being included in stuff more.”

Hinewai scowled. “I dislike her.”

“Whaaat? But she’s colourful and cute and nice!”

“Hmph,” Hinewai said.

“Hin, come on – I mean, you helped me with Māui. I want to help you with this!”

Hinewai stayed where she was and said nothing.

“Hinewai?” Tony said, suppressing a sigh. “C’mooon, we need to look for your true lo – mmmmph –”

Hinewai pulled back. “I think I’ve already found her,” she said matter-of-factly, and she stalked away, leaving Tony to stand there and stare after her, hand hovering over her lips.

“Oh,” she said.

Then she crowed, “
Yes
!” really loudly and punched the air. Which made people stare more, but this time she didn’t care in the slightest.

Epilogue

Saint climbed.

There wasn’t any hurry, so he climbed slowly. Flight after flight of steps, around and around and around. He managed not to think, to just focus on the rhythm of it, the beat of his heart against his ribs, his breath in his throat, his feet on the steps. At last he reached a floor that he judged was high enough, and slipped out into the offices. Pretending that he belonged there was enough, as it always seemed to be – lovably fearless. That was all it took, really. If you had enough arrogance to think that the world worked however you wanted it to, then it did.

Except for those very important times when it didn’t.

He went to an office and locked the door behind him, conscientiously, then opened the window and climbed out. It was a brisk day, windy, and he stepped with care onto the ledge that ran around the building, the reason why he’d chosen this one. He stood there, and looked down.

The city spread out below him, the tall buildings, the docks, all the steep hills with their brightly coloured houses, the sea. He looked at it all.

A gust of wind caught him, and he staggered for a second, and said, “Oops,” and sat down carefully, and then less carefully, because hey, the ledge was pretty broad.

Saint lit a cigarette. It seemed the thing to do. He sat there, and blew smoke that was whipped away by the wind, and swung his legs out over nothingness, and for the first time in days he almost felt comfortable in his own skin. Sights like this made you forget yourself. They made the world so big that your worries were too small to crush you.

Did it matter that some of the people in those streets far below him were human and some were other? That some were sharp creatures looking for green-life-growth-of-trees in the buildings, playing mist-music at the corners for coins?

No, he decided, not really. Certainly not from this distance. You couldn’t tell the difference, from up here.

The atua were – amoral, was the best word. He thought, as he sometimes did, about that day when he’d met Hinewai on the bus, and whether any of this would even have happened if not for that. Her fault, and his fault, and Noah’s fault, so what did it matter who was what? What did anything matter, really? Saint breathed in smoke thoughtfully, and blew it out again, and thought about wind and breathing and being alive, and the fact that he still was.

He didn’t know how to feel about that. It was worse when he came to high places, of course, because there was always that temptation there, more than a little. Right now, there was no one there to catch him.

But here, now, being alive – he could handle this. One breath at a time, one day at a time. He could do this. He kinda had to. Steff’d be really annoyed at him, otherwise. Also heartbroken.

The wind was strong up here, tugging at him insistently. Not very helpful, really, so he ignored it, till a curl of wind caressed his face and – oh, right, he’d almost forgotten, how could he forget such a dear friend when they’d parted on such bad terms, he’d know him anywhere, that was –

“
Noah
?” Saint said, disbelieving, and he turned to greet him with a grin, but there was no one there. “Noah. Hey! Noah?”

He waited.

“… Hey, come on, pet, don’t give me the cold shoulder,” he said, grin fading, but there was no reply. He’d have been contented with a whisper of farewell, at the very least,
some
kind of closure, but there was nothing. So he waited, stubbed out his cigarette and leaned back grimly and watched the city and waited, waited, as the wind whispered but not in words he could ever hope to understand.

The End

About the Author

I’m an upstart young writer initially from Hamilton, who started writing a book about Wellington long before I got around to moving there and have yet to regret it. (Not casting any aspersions on Hamilton, mind. I ain’t got anything against the river city.) This is my first book! I hope you liked it. If just one person reads it and goes wow then I’ll be an extremely happy being, because that moment when you read a book and love it or like it or it awes you or it makes you laugh or makes you cry or both – that moment is the
best
moment, is the best thing in the world.

So yeah. I like stories, writing and reading them. Slipping into the world as seen through someone else’s eyes for a bit. I like stories, and words, and friends. And other things, of course, I like cities and thunderstorms and fae – but stories, and words, and friends, those are the main things. That’s all of me you really need to know.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to:

My family members, for being sweet and kind or so annoyingly awesome that I felt I had something to live up to or both.

Stephen, whose press was the utterly perfect place for this book, and who is the only person I can imagine publishing it with, really. NZ speculative fiction
represent
.

Storyfriends new and old – Kath who was first, and Shade who writes as deft and graceful as a cat hunts or a bird flies. Not sure what my writing would be without you, love. And Felix who shared my love for this city and talked characters and was basically perfect for bouncing ideas off of and who – and I’m putting this in writing, mind – is
tall
. Super tall. The tallest.

As to readerfriends, my thanks to: Lena, for contributions towards the understanding of Steff’s storyline and Whai’s taste in music; Marie, for seeing that Tony needed to talk to her family and Saint needed to be at least slightly less of a massive jerk; Terra and Zy for encouragement and affirmation and late-stage tweaking. Large amounts of less-than-three to you all.

And other friends, all my friends, everyone I’ve known and/or loved and who has known and/or loved me or hated my guts, the strangers in the street who lent me their faces, basically every English teacher I’ve had, everyone, everyone. But especially
especially
Gemma, Gemma the brave, Gemma my heart-sister.

And Wellington my heart-city.

And Tam last and most, Tam always. I daresay I could’ve done this without you, but it would’ve been very far from fun.

Thank you.

Summer

Other Steam Press books

Steam Press is a New Zealand publisher specialising in speculative fiction. Fantasy, horror, and science fiction; utopias, dystopias, and the coming apocalypse; punks of the cyber, steam, and diesel persuasion – these are our raison d’être.

Steam Press was established in 2011 because we believe that New Zealand’s authors of speculative fiction should not have to send their work offshore to have any hope of seeing it in print. We want to read locally written titles that make us sit up all night with stupid grins on our faces and then forget to get off the train the next morning, and we want to hold books that are as beautiful as they are exciting, books that reflect the quality of their content rather than the demands of an accounts department.

The Prince of Soul and the Lighthouse

Winner: Best youth novel

2013 Sir Julius Vogel Awards