Teā Dug Wet Fingers Inside Wet Cracks

CHAPTER TWO | TEĀ DUG WET FINGERS INSIDE WET CRACKS

Along the cliff face a god had chiselled crooked lines to grip into. Only when he had a true hold did he dare to look down. Far below, closer to the water’s edge, where the limestone shelf split the overgrown fern and flax, stood Kura of Feke—his best friend.

“Wait Kura!” Teā shouted over the cold roar of Ulu Waimate falls, “come up to the clifftop with me so we can both dive together!”

Kura crouched low readying himself. “One more from here bro!” Kura yelled up at him before leaping, “Then I’ll—

—cliiiimmmmbbbb!”

Teā watched him drop like a rock towards the pool below where the others swam. He shouted at them, “Sukey! Ngara! Look out!” But the warning was lost to the din of falling water.

Kura dived headfirst, poking out his tongue, taunting Ulu Waimate. He has no fear, Teā thought, tracking him to the bottom—where just before hitting the surface Kura tucked in his chin and curled his shoulders—bringing his knees up to his chest in one clean movement. He folds inwards and it is this action that produces the monster.

SLAP-BOOM! When Kura hit the pool he generated a mighty eruption of water, before it collapsed into a swell rivalled only by oceans.

“Aue!”

“Kefe!”

Ngara and Sukey, wading near the mouth, got caught in the surge, cursing Kura before escaping to the shallows. When the waters settled, he shouted, “I tried to warn you!”

Kura broke the surface, smiling as widely as the wave he’d just produced and called back up at him, “How big?”

Teā paused thinking, then replied, “As wide as a banyan tree!”

I can never best him at diving, he concluded, and climbed higher, now determined to reach the top of the falls first, but I can have this victory at least. From above he might even wish to dive—higher and deeper, sending up an even greater wave to outdo his friend.

Below, his ear caught Kura’s rising celebration: “Though my island is small, I rise from a deep pool!”

Teā, too afraid of losing grip to acknowledge Kura, held focus on the climb. Although my island is small, I rise from a deep pool, he then repeated the saying over again to himself, ascending. The proverb was a useful distraction for the fear spiralling inside in his guts, like some awful, festering wind. I rise from a deep pool. Originating from the people of Feke motu—to remind them while Feke was smaller than Kafiki island, it was impactful—as were its people. Feke adopted the slave who became Champion of Kafiki, after all. No tohunga ever predicted that.

Aware of his drifting concentration he carried on the chant: although my island is small, I rise from a deep pool. And mindful of not offending ancestors, forced his mouth shut for fear of repeating the whakataukī loudly wrong, cursing his climb. A fall from such a great height would be the end of him. While death for someone as important felt impossible, even so, the weavings of ancestors beyond the cloak of life were forever part of our patterned path, or something like that. He couldn’t recall the exact Matavai proverb even though it originated from his family—oft repeated by mother—but knew it had something to do with spirits trying to trip him up. Everyone is jealous of me, even the dead.

Feeling for a finger-hold, he dug his hand into a new crevice, noticing for the first time how much smaller everything seemed below him. He could no longer hear his friends over the roaring falls and looking up he guessed about eight to ten feet from the top.

The final part of the climb was the trickiest as the lip of the cliff face bulged before flattening out. Both legs were tiring while his arms burned like he’d been training with the spear all day. Less seams along the cliff itself meant little to no chance of rest, especially with how close the surging crest of water was—a couple of arm widths away—spitting all around the surrounding wall of rock. Everything felt slippery now. I need more strength, Teā thought to invoke his father:

‘O Wātea, protect me

Let the light be awake, let peace stand firm.

It is finished: life, life, life.’

Warmth flushed through him. Something had worked, finally! It felt like Wātea—the God of the Cosmos, his own father—had poured mana directly into Teā through his crown. This simple incantation from when he was a child, finally answered, strength renewed. I spring! And he launched himself up the final part of the way. Grabbing hold of a deeply rooted pōhutukawa whisker, at the very top of the lip, he pulled himself up and over.

Teā kissed the earth mother and thanked his father again. Knelt at the edge he leaned out, while his breath caught up, admiring his effort. From this far up, Teā almost made out the full path he’d climbed, deciding it would be best to go back down through the bush, in case his leap failed. At the bottom, he spotted Ngara and Kura diving under the falls while Sukey sat upon a boulder across the pool.

In the safety of distance, he could finally let his eyes linger. Long brown legs lit by Rā, dangled off the side. She traced small circles on the stone with a hairpin. Teā wanted to shout something down to her, but he couldn’t think of anything clever to say except to boast that he had made it ahead of them all. She now leaned back, propped upon elbows, mouth silently moving. Probably growling Kura for wetting her. He tried to read her lips. Kura swam back towards Ngara and the falls, and they began to wrestle while Sukey picked up her flute, shaking it free of water.

That flute possesses Sukey, Teā thought. She began to play and he listened, laying on his stomach to dry. The heat of Paraharaha below and Rā midway through the sky, welcomed him as warmly as his own mothers embrace. Sukey played a well-known song for lovers, calling to one another across islands. Soon Kura and Ngara stopped their play to listen. Fingers and lips and breath charmed the flute, lifting the song high into the gorge. A powerful incantation from a young master—Sukey of Ahukai. A different longing stirred in him; one he pushed aside, ignoring the restless heat in his body. And to further distract himself he dangled his arms over the edge, humming along, while the other two swam peacefully.

Each lingering note lifted beyond the roar of the falls and the birdsong soon fell silent as if under the flute’s spell. “Thank you for this,” Teā whispered, certain the day would stay with him forever. Such a gift to mark my victory, and for the moment, he felt the space between them as wide as the ocean of the song, our song, and couldn’t wait to speak of it—perhaps to their children.

From his heightened position, he realised something: that to her, his standing as the son of a god must feel just as vast. Perhaps that was why she was always shy with him. Even when she was of ariki blood. Daughter to one of the most powerful Kafiki chiefs. “I see you fully, Sukey of Ahukai.” Whispering, “you are not that far off from me,” willing his consideration down to her, “and if this reaches you look up to me, so I know.”

Look up.

Look at me.

I am a demigod.

Notice me, now.

Now!

But Sukey never looked, remaining loyal to her instrument. Teā escaped rejection by admiring her devotion. Discipline makes her powerful like me. After the song was finished, she began it all over and he spotted Ngara tiring of listening to return to play, yanking Kura’s hair and dragging him underwater with wild laughter.

After the third listen Teā too lost interest to a new desire. It stirred in him stronger than the one that kept him rooted to the ground—bright and hard to master—and he rose to his feet. Now was the moment. She could hardly ignore him once he dived from above like the demigod he wa,s or going to be. More his father than his human mother. A short run before the leap was safest; without it, he would smash his head on the shelf jutting from the water’s edge. He stepped to the lip of cliff and judged the drop—perhaps a hundred feet, the height of the tallest kauri in the forest. The sight made his stomach cramp. Unable to remain steady eyeballing the rocks below, he dropped to a knee. Kura had been warned about it the day they left for the falls by a sharp-tongued slave: ‘Keep away from the rocks! Run and jump to the right of pōhutukawa, closer to the crest of the falls. Or you’ll end up like the boy Maloo—head split on the stones.’ Maloo had been the foremost among divers, almost a friend, if he hadn't been born so low.

An afternoon breeze shifted through his shoulder length hair, brightly yellowed by the previous summer. Teā breathed deep, trying to clear his mind of the warning. Turning, he stepped ten paces back toward the second set of falls, then returned to face the cliff edge. That would give him the distance he needed.

A final prayer was offered, the same one asking for father’s protection. He spoke a new part then. A prayer to himself:

“Let Sukey see the courage and skill you have placed in me father.

And in your people of Matavai.

And make me a leader who can unite the tribes of Kafiki,

that we may share her treasures and not perish apart.”

The last line wasn’t his invention but a whakataukī by the great tohunga Faturaki, who lived upon the volcano Takali Foto. Faturaki was from Ahukai, just like Sukey. Teā did not fully understand the words, but they sounded wise and generous, and appropriate, and made up for his poor opening.

“Enough delaying,” he urged himself. “Time to jump!”

Teā took off in a sprint towards the edge but as he stepped to the right of the pōhutukawa tree a sudden gust struck his face forcing his eyes to close where an image of Maloo, shattered on the rocks, appeared in mind. Fear turned legs into unmoveable statue, and he grabbed for the closest branch to keep from sliding off the edge.

A rage quickly took hold of Teā, cursing the wind god Tāwhirimātea firstly, before self-condemnation took over, “You are afraid! You are a child! You are nothing!”

He stared into the abyss and shouted until his voice broke. “You are afraid of everything! Are you going to be a baby all your life?! You are nothing Teā—unworthy to be my son, let alone Wātea!”

His accusation had become his mother’s. Words used when he angered or disobeyed her—often the same thing. Worrying that his friends had noticed, he peered out to check below. Ngara and Kura were now diving and playing among the boulders at the southern end. Nothing. Sukey did not look up. His failure and reaction his alone.

Sighing, Teā stepped back, sinking to his knees, before erupting into sobs and wailing. “Why am I weak? Why does fear rule me?” Then to the skies in anguish he cried, “Where are you, Wātea? Why do you turn away from me? Am I not a demigod and worthy of your attention?” Anger returned and this time he screamed—cursing his mother, Sukey, Kura, Ngara, the island, all the nobles and even the slaves, and at last Wātea. A father he could never know who he’d never witnessed, of whom he’d never been acknowledged by—laughing bitterly as a fresh gust blew away his remaining tears. Teā wiped his face and breathing deeply, calmed his wayward spirit. Lifting his head up again, he felt lightness return, and casting his concern out over the chasm, noticed for the first time just how beautiful his island was.

Across the valley, rows of karāka, kamala, and wiriwiri trees swayed in the afternoon breeze, their scent of fallen fronds sweet and heavy. Above stretched the blue veil of the goddess Mailagu, ceaseless and clear. Far to the northwest, four days’ journey away, rose the volcano god—Takali Foto—its flanks breathing grey and black smoke like a drowned campfire. The hungry volcano, visible from every part of the island, spread its foothills out across the rohe of four of the nine major tribes of Kafiki. The Ahukai, Sukey’s people, even claimed the mountain as their primary god. “The children of Ahukai cast themselves into the lake of fire of Takali Foto,” interrupting himself with more bitter laughs. “You can’t even throw yourself into water.”

Teā rose to his feet and turned east, where the Mahana ranges coiled toward the volcano, flanked by his own tribal river; the mighty Matavai. Somewhere in the forests upstream of his village, it forked into the Waimate river and to the falls he’d just climbed. All else in sight was deep green, the colour of the new year and the colder season to come. He walked away from the cliff face and falls; his anger and shame eased by the island’s warmth. No one had seen his failure today, he reminded himself—there was no shame.

After all, he was Teā Wātea—a child of a god, a demigod and a future chief, strong in lineage and rich in mana.

Now a new challenge lay ahead, and that was all that mattered. Hunters, tohunga, even the braver slave children had spoken of these falls, and at last he stood among them. Not even the prohibition had kept him away. Set two summers gone by his stepfather, Chief Kuanua. A rahui banishing all from Ulu Waimate because of all the deaths.

The cascades had two levels, and they say that if you reached the top of the first where he now stood, you would find another pool. Its waters even sweeter and clearer than below—a place where spirits made their dwelling, drawn by the mana of the land.

Before him lay that sacred pool, shaped like a gourd and bordered with flowering flax and toi toi. The trees were heavy with fruit. This second great fall fed the pond—half as high as the first but wider in its flow—and a strong cascade ran from it, twisting between boulders before falling again to the world below, to where his friends would still be swimming. Forest pigeons gulped the ripe guava, and water lizards darted across the lily pads, hunting insects above the bubbling surface.

I am alone, he remembered. It occurred to him to go back and wait for the others, so they could share this place together—but when he returned to the edge, the pool below lay empty.

Teā guessed they were already climbing toward him. He leaned out to gauge their progress, but again Maloo’s flattened face flashed in his mind, and again he drew back from the brink. They are on the way, he told himself. A thrill rose up, difficult to contain. Teā turned, ran, and dived into the cool, clear water, swimming beneath the surface before breaking through the mist near the centre.

Sour scents reached his nose—the smell of decay—drawing his gaze to a dark opening visible behind the falls drape, partway up the cliff face. He traced the rock ledges down and decided he could reach it if he swam across the pond. Teā kicked forward but froze after a few strokes, about halfway to the crag. Something is alive up there. Lying flat on the wall, over the cave mouth, was a great green taniwha, its scales glistening against the limestone—three lengths of Teā. I thought it was merely shade cast by the overhang. The hair on his neck rose, his skin prickled. This place is tapu.

Then, emerging from the cave behind the falling water, a wavering form appeared—a human form moving into light. Skin pale, long red hair clinging to shoulders and flowing to waist. For a moment Teā forgot the taniwha; his eyes fixed upon the shape as it stepped closer to the clear veil that divided them. She smiled shyly. A hand reached through the falls beckoning him. Without thinking, Teā obeyed.

***

He stumbled as he entered the cave, striking his knee against a weathered rock. Pain shot through him. Teā nearly cursed Paraharaha for the stone’s cruelty—but stopped himself, remembering the girl. Do you want to act like a child before her? Do not fail again as you did at the cliff.

He waited, letting his eyes adjust. She was real leaning on a boulder deeper within, wringing water from her hair. The chamber shimmered with the voice of the falls. Blood ran down his knee, yet he felt no pain—only the pounding of his heart. She turned, and when the light caught her face, it revealed her smile.

Teā looked away, his cheeks hot. Am I in with her? He took an uncertain step forward. “I’m Teā,” he stammered, “son of Wateā, the god of the cosmos… my tribe is Matavai, and my river” His voice faltered. The echo returned his words to him, warped and hollow, and they suddenly sounded wrong. A thin stream of water slid down her arms, dripping from her elbows to the stone. Her eyes met his and held fast, calling something into being between them.

Say something to fill this void.

He swallowed, suddenly thirsty. “I’ve never seen anyone with skin like mine before.” The tightness in his throat deepened.

Not that! She’ll think you vulgar.

Shamed, he turned away to preserve his mana, surely leaking out of every part of him.

Drip, drip. Drip.

What could he say now? Teā was lost. Drip, drip. All he could hear over his rattling heartbeat, was the slowing of the trickle.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

When Teā raised his eyes, she had turned and headed off down the tunnel, providing a final glimpse of her slick back and hips and a final look before disappearing round the dark corner. Provoked, Teā called out after her, “are you a Patupaiarehe?” His only reply the echo—again sounding wrong, sounding childlike. Kura tripped after a few steps, this time over loose bone, twisting his ankle. I barely feel any pain, he thought, and limped to chase after her. Wātea watches over me!

_________________________

Her hair fell away to reveal a face, twisted and wrong. Teā recoiled in disgust, pushed at it, trying to turn it away from his own. Sharpened teeth snapped at his fingers while claws punctured his throat, pinning him in place. She shrieked long and loud and Teā saw she was no fairy at all, and instead some kind of goblin.