Sky Dancer

Chapter One

The sea stretched brilliant and glistening to the horizon. High in the sky, a seashag hovered. It saw a fleet of tiny boats, nets straining with fish, bobbing over the rich kahawai grounds. Further out, a pod of whales was making its way northwards.

The seashag was preparing to relinquish its patrol and seek its lunch from a shoal of minnows broiling below. Suddenly, there was a flash from the coast, the border between sea and land, at the seashag’s extreme right perimeter. Alert, the seashag circled towards the land, descending slowly to make a reconnaissance.

A beat-up Jeep shuddered around a bend and up to the top of the mountain road.

With a shiver of apprehension the seashag stalled, spilled air from its outstretched pinions, and dived. Like a stone it hurtled down to take a closer look. At the last moment it swerved, gliding parallel to the Jeep.

The hood was down. The seashag had a clear view. Two women. One older: the hen. The other younger: the chick. The young chick spotted the seashag. Its eyes grew wide and golden, and the seashag knew:

Yes. Yes.

The seashag opened its beak and uttered a gutteral hunting cry.

Kaa. Kaa.

Veering away, it sideslipped down the flanks of the mountain back to the sea.

The seashag had a greater effect on Cora than it did on Skylark.

“Oh my God,” she screamed. She put both hands up to her eyes and covered them. The trouble was she was also driving.

“Watch out,” Skylark yelled. She grabbed at the steering wheel and righted the Jeep. But Cora had also taken her high-heeled foot off the accelerator.

“Oh no you don’t,” Skylark said as the vehicle began to jerk to a stop, threatening to stall. “We haven’t nursed you all this way up the road for nothing.”

Quickly, she pushed her right leg over Cora’s body and stamped down onto the accelerator. With her left hand, she changed gear. Surprised into action, the Jeep leapt ahead with a roar, crested the hill and, in a last gasp of petrol fumes and smoke, died.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Cora said. “Did you see that crazy bird? It gave me such a fright, darting at us like that.”

“At least we made it to the top,” Skylark answered. “Otherwise, we would have rolled all the way back. From here we’ve got a chance.”

Behind, the road twisted and turned back through thick green forest. In front, the road snaked like a roller-coaster down and around the contours of the coast. Tuapa, the small town Skylark and her mother were heading for, was just visible in the distance. The rest was sea, unrolling like a bolt of blue cloth to the horizon.

Skylark opened the bonnet and found the problem almost at once. “I’m going to kill that Zac,” she said. A faulty petrol pump — or, rather, Zac’s faulty replacement.

“Can I help you, honey?”

Skylark looked up, shaded her eyes against the sun, and saw that her mother was picking wild daisies further down the road. This was the way Cora always dealt with her problems: if you went wandering in the flowers long enough, by the time you returned somebody, usually a man, had made it all better.

“No, I’ve found what’s wrong,” Skylark answered — and her mother began sauntering back.

“Can we make it to Tuapa?” she called.

“Yes,” Skylark said, slamming down the bonnet. “I’ll just put the Jeep into neutral and we’ll freewheel into town and —”

Too late, Skylark saw that Cora, trying to make amends, was already behind the wheel. Which was how, halfway down the mountain road, Cora had to overtake a big grader and, swinging widely, almost ran down two old Maori women who had chosen that moment to cross the road.

“Oh no,” Skylark yelled as Cora, yet again, took her hands off the wheel, screamed and covered her eyes.

Skylark grabbed the wheel and pulled hard on it. Rigid with fright, she watched as the two women slid from the left side of the windscreen to the right. She saw two shocked faces, hair covered with scarves, dresses of a formless black. The larger of the two women pushed the smaller woman with a yell so that she would fall out of the Jeep’s path.

Two bends down Cora asked, “Did we hit them?”

“No,” Skylark said. “One of the women looked really angry, though. She was shaking a fist at us.”

“We should go back.”

“How can we? We’ve got no power and, anyway, it’s too late.”

“Well they should have been using a pedestrian crossing,” Cora said. She reached in the glovebox for a cigarette and lit it.

“Mum,” Skylark asked after a while, “do you think you could take the steering wheel again?” With Cora, you had to keep on joining the dots.

“The wheel? Oh! Yes, of course.”

Puffing nervously, but still shaken, Cora guided the Jeep into Tuapa.

“Honey, please don’t tell me that this is where we’re staying,” Cora said.

The main street led down to the small port. On one side was a pub, a fish and chip shop, a takeaway bar, a video rental shop and, interestingly, a massage parlour advertising in Korean and Japanese. On the other side of the street was another pub, a hall which looked like it offered Housie during the week and showed action and sci-fi movies during the weekends, a corner supermarket which also sold Lotto tickets and, next to it, an all-night diner. The diner had a couple of cars and a motorbike parked outside.

“Look on the bright side,” Skylark said. “It’s off season, so it’s not costing us too much to stay here and —” she pointed to the all-night diner — “at least there are some signs of a pulse.”

“You told me it would be a seaside resort,” Cora wailed.

“There really wasn’t that much time to organise this holiday,” Skylark said. “I left it up to the travel agent.”

“You mean we’ll be stuck here for a week? In a place which doesn’t look like it even has a mall?”

“Mum, you’re such a fashionista.” Skylark sighed as she stepped down from the Jeep. Just her luck — the garage, like a mirage, was down the other end of the street.

“Do you want to wait here?” she asked. “I’ll get us a tow truck.”

“Definitely not,” Cora answered. “Who knows what might happen to a single woman in a place like this? One moment.” She took out a lipstick to freshen her lips and flicked her fingers through her hair to give it sass and sex appeal. “How do I look, honey?”

An icecream on high heels wouldn’t have looked any better. “Like the best thing to ever hit this town,” Skylark said, knowing it was just the kind of soap-opera comment her mother liked. Which was why, when mother and daughter walked into the Tuapa Garage, Lucas, the owner, was immediately smitten.

“You’ve broken down, Miss?” he asked, all solicitous, as if Cora had stubbed a tiny red-painted toe. “I’ll get Arnie to tow your Jeep in … Hey, Schwartzenegger!” he shouted, turning to the far end of the garage.

Arnie, the apprentice mechanic, did, in fact, look like a Maori version of Big Arnie himself. The hair was American crewcut. The face was handsome in a pretty-boy kind of way. The body was unbelievable. Even in his overalls, Arnie was a sight to see.

“The little lady’s Jeep is just up the street,” Lucas told him. “Bring it back here and fix it, okay? As for me and her —” He was suddenly painfully aware of the Playboy centrefolds plastered on the walls — “we’ll be at the diner. Come and get us when you’re finished.”

“Hel-lo?” Skylark said. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

But Lucas wasn’t listening. He motioned to the centrefolds.

“Arnie’s,” he told Cora.

Trailing after her mother and Lucas, Skylark took her irritation out on the disconsolate mechanic.

“If you think I don’t know what’s wrong with the Jeep, I do,” she hissed. “It’s the petrol pump.”

Arnie gave her a dirty look but that didn’t faze her one bit.

“Don’t try to overcharge us either,” she added.

The diner turned out to be a surprise. Clean, bright, with sparkling formica tables, plastic tablecloths and pretty little plastic roses in Marmite jars. Along one wall was a bar. On the other side of the bar a waitress — the peroxided Flora Cornish, who was fifty-nine but had been forty for the past twenty years — went about the business of dispensing very bad coffee to patrons who wouldn’t have known the difference.

“Oh, how pretty,” Cora cried as she picked up a handful of roses and sniffed them.

Flora Cornish looked at Cora, wondering what kind of dingbat she was, and her look changed into recognition.

“Here it comes,” Skylark sighed.

“I know you,” Flora screamed. “You’re Cora Edwards. You used to be the weather girl on television, didn’t you, love!”

The diner’s other patrons stared at Cora, struggling to make the connection between a girl who had once been a nightly fixture on the six o’clock news and the older woman who stood before them. After all, her heyday had been five years ago.

“See?” Flora Cornish said, rummaging behind the bar and waving a dogeared Woman’s Weekly. There, in all her radiant youthfulness, was a colour photograph of Cora accepting the award for Television Weather Girl of the Year.

“It’s true!” Skylark heard Lucas gasp. She saw the look on his face as he realised, hey, this was the best thing to have happened to him in years. He’d never been seen with, let alone talked to, a celebrity. His mind was already turning to romantic possibilities.

Meantime, of course, Flora Cornish just had to ring everybody else in the street to come and say hello to Cora Edwards.

“Time to bail out,” Skylark said to herself.

Skylark stepped outside the diner and headed down main street to look at the port. Part way along, she came to a war memorial with a marble soldier pointing down a road that ran off to the left.

What was there to lose?

“Thanks,” Skylark told the soldier. She followed his direction and it was like ripping through an old hoarding and finding another town behind the billboard.

Clearly, Tuapa was more substantial than at first sight. Not so long ago the main industry had been forestry, and workers and their families had flocked to the town. Now all that was left of their time here was the derelict railway station and yards. On the other side of the road the prospect was more encouraging. Immediately ahead was a medical centre and a primary school — two prefabricated boxes sitting in the middle of a paddock. Next to the primary school was a large college and technical training institute whose students, Skylark supposed, were bussed in from the surrounding district. Outside the college was a big poster:

A shadow flicked over Skylark’s head. She looked up. A skua, casting the serrated edges of its wings across the sun. Then another. And another.

There she is. The chick. There.

Skylark followed a circular road and happened on the port. It too was bigger than she had expected: coldstores, dry docking area, marine supply outlets and what looked like a fish packing plant; all evidence that fishing had supplanted forestry and stopped the town from becoming completely comatose.

The breakwater jutted out like a wishbone into the sea. Skylark decided to walk the length. One or two boats were still at anchor. The rest of the fishing fleet were out on the ocean and would not return until nightfall.

“Kia ora, kotiro!” A Maori fisherman, in Swanndri and woollen balaclava, called out from his boat. Too cross to reply, Skylark walked past him, right to the end of the breakwater. The waves had made the footing slippery. It would be easy to fall.

Now, the skuas cried. Now.

One among them closed its wings. Skylark heard a warning yell: “Watch out!” Surprised, she took a step backward.

The skua dropped like a stone.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The voice seemed to come out of darkness. Skylark cleared her head. Worried faces were looking down at her.

“When that skua hit her, she almost went over the side. Blood was coming out of her hair. I reached her just in time. Another second and she might have fallen into the sea.”

Skylark sat up. “Where am I?” she asked.

She was back at the diner. Somebody had put a blanket around her. She looked from one face to the other. The man from the garage. The waitress. The Maori fisherman.

“Oh my baby,” Cora screamed. “My baby, she’s alive.”

Skylark’s head cleared. She saw her mother wringing her hands, reprising her role as a distraught parent on Shortland Street. “I’m definitely back on the planet,” Skylark said to nobody in particular.

“You were attacked by a bird,” Cora explained. “This lovely gentleman —” she pointed out the Maori fisherman — “he saved you.”

“Call me Mitch,” the man said, smiling. “Mitch Mahana.”

“You could have died!” Cora wailed, as usual focusing all the attention on herself. Lucas took the opportunity to offer his arms and Cora’s tears dripped down his hairy chest. He was leaning into her as if he owned her already.

“There, there, baby,” he said. Skylark winced. Mum was at least ten years older than he was. What was this power she had over younger men?

Cora looked up at Lucas and then at the audience in the diner, as if she didn’t know where she was. “It’s been such a long day,” she said. “And now this. You’ve all been so kind. But I think it’s time Skylark and I booked into our lodge. Once we get there we’ll be all right, won’t we, honey?”

“Lodge?” Flora Cornish asked. “There’s no lodge around here. Only the motel at the crossroads that the locals call the Passion Pit, and the hotel across the road which rents rooms by the hour.”

“But Skylark’s travel agent,” Cora said, “made the reservation. Here —”

Flora pursed her lips. “Ah,” she said. “You’re talking about the old bach that Bella and Hoki rent out up the Manu Valley.”

“Manu Valley?” Skylark repeated. She had a terrible feeling about this.

“I’ll show you,” Mitch Mahana said. He led Cora, Skylark, and the various hangers-on outside. “That’s it. Up there.”

Towering over Tuapa were two snow-capped peaks. Where they intersected was a dark, lush valley, the colour of greenstone. It was breathtaking, like the body of a great lustrous bird with wings spreading over the peaks. At that moment, sunlight flashed on two eyes of the bird.

“That’s the reflection off the windows of Bella and Hoki’s place,” Flora Cornish explained. “The bach is just below theirs.”

“But it’s supposed to have views across the beach to the sea,” Cora said.

“It surely has!” Mitch laughed. “Up there you can see to the end of forever. It’s a front porch view on the rest of the world.”

“How come it’s so green?” Skylark asked. Not that she really wanted to know.

“It’s Maori land,” Lucas answered. “When the forestry came here everybody sold up and made a profit. Only the Maoris held out. People say that Manu Valley is one of the few places in New Zealand where you can see virgin forest as it once was. It’s owned by Bella and Hoki now.” He paused, and then turned to Cora. “Listen,” Lucas said. “I can see you’re distressed. There’s no reason for you to wait around for Arnie to finish the repairs on your Jeep. By that time it will be too dark. He can deliver it to you tomorrow.”

“But what can I do to repay you?” Cora asked.

Skylark gave her mother a sarcastic glance. “Lucas will think of something,” she said.

Half an hour later, Cora, Skylark and Lucas reached the top of the valley, where a cattlestop announced that they had crossed over into private land. A no trespassing sign was posted at the gateway. Further on, two houses stood side by side, one an empty-looking bach, the other a large homestead blazing with light.

“Bella and Hoki must be waiting up for you,” Lucas said. “Let’s go and get the key to the bach.”

He bounded up the steps and banged on the door. Cora took a moment to primp at her hair and touch up her eyeliner. She tried to do the same thing to Skylark. “Oh no you don’t,” Skylark said. She pushed Cora away and, taking her cue from a Dracula movie, made the sign of the cross.

“Honey,” Cora sighed, “when are you ever going to start looking after your appearance?” She stepped down, straightened her dress and pulled Skylark up the steps to the front verandah. The door opened.

“Oh no,” Skylark groaned.

“Oh you bet your sweet life, yes,” said Bella.

She took a step towards them and glared at Cora and Skylark. Behind her was the smaller woman, propping herself up with two walking sticks.

“You could have killed us when we were crossing the road today. If it wasn’t for the fact that my sister and I have already taken your money for the bach, I’d tell you both to shove it and shove off.”

The other woman came forward. “Don’t take any notice of my sister,” she said. “She sometimes forgets about being hospitable to our visitors. My name’s Hoki, and you must forgive Bella for being so impolite. Bella is the elder. I am the younger.”

She turned to Skylark and smiled.

“Welcome, Skylark,” she said.

Chapter Two

Ahead, two snow-capped peaks jutted through morning clouds. The sun streaked the clouds with crimson. Approaching was a large wandering albatross, one of the largest flying birds in the world. All morning it had been catching one thermal after another to reach Manu Valley and the sacred mountains. The albatross had been assigned the reconnaissance because among all the seabirds its stiffly held wings, spanning 3.25 metres each, possessed great strength and power. Rarely did it need to flap them.

The albatross stabilised, looking for a gap in the clouds. It breathed smoothly through nostril tubes at the top of its long heavy bill. Those foolish skuas had botched the job and the human chick had escaped unharmed. Now it was up to the albatross to prepare for another attack. That morning, it had received from Kawanatanga, leader of all seabirds, its secret instructions:

Spy out the enemy territory and report back.

Seeing a gap in the clouds, the albatross dived. Immediately below was the valley. A waterfall was at the top, with a small river coursing from it.

Taking surveys left and right to ensure it had not been detected, the albatross silently slipped down into the valley. Its brief was not to be seen, not to alert the landbirds whose territory this was, or the two human hens who guarded the valley. The albatross was confident that by soaring out of the sun it would be invisible against the white clouds. All it needed was a few minutes to spy on the land below. Time enough to get in, do its job, and get out before the alarm was raised.

With a thrill of anticipation the albatross set about its survey. It registered the details of the valley: the forest, the two houses, the waterfall behind the two houses, the track to the cliff face where there was a tree, white boned, skeletal, like a hand with fingers clutching at the air.

Where was the chick?

The albatross spilled more air from its wings to make a faster descent. It caught movement. A small figure looking through glass doors.

Yes, the chick. In the smaller nest.

The albatross’s thoughts flooded with hunger. Its huge beak overflowed with saliva.

Vaaa. Vaaa.

Ecstatic, it caught a swift downflowing air stream and descended the left flank of the mountains back to the offshore islands.

Skylark woke with a start, her heart racing.

“Has Zac found us?”

She looked around her and realised, no, she had actually managed to get Mum away from him. In this valley, so remote that even the travel agent didn’t know where it was when she booked the trip, they were safe.

Skylark fell back on the pillows. But the sounds that had woken her persisted. She got out of bed, tiptoed past Cora’s room and looked through the sliding doors. The bells were all around her, and they were making a kind of music. Some were high, shimmering, glittering sounds. Others were lower, mellow, sonorous. The wind, coming down from the snow, was cold. But Skylark could see the dawn was approaching, the two peaks pink as if they were blushing. The forest still stretched dark and lustrous on all sides, spilling down to the sea.

She opened the sliding doors. Below her the forest began to peal with the most extraordinary music. Snatches of descant. Bits and pieces of an indefinable tune. Fragments of other melodies drifting in on the playful morning wind.

“Of course,” Skylark said. “The forest must be filled with thousands of birds.”

At that moment of recognition, the sun flooded the mountain peaks with crimson. From every part of Manu Valley came birdsong, outpourings of liquid trills and runs swelling with unrivalled wildness and passion.

Cheet-cheet. Zit-zit-zit. Riro-riro riro-riro. Tweep-tweep-tweep-too-too-too. Swee-swee-swee-chir-chir. Bell-bello-bello-bell-bello-bello. Tok-tok-tok. Kita-kita-kita.

As the sun rose higher the birdsong approached fortissimo. Roulade after roulade of full notes cascaded in the air as each forest bird species tried to outdo the other, louder and louder.

The light touched the tops of the forest. The song reached its peak, a deafening orchestral magnificence that made Skylark put her hands to her ears. A hymnal to Tane. A gloria to light.

Tui-tui-tui-tuituia. Alla-alla-lala-alla. Atua-tua-tua. Io-io-io. Amine.

As peacefully as it had begun, the birdsong ended. A few random twitterings and silvered coloratura arpeggios later, it was over.

“Did you like the karanga of the forest birds, Skylark?”

Skylark turned in the direction of the voice. The smaller of the two Maori women, the one on walking sticks, was sitting on the verandah of the big homestead. What was her name? Hoki.

“Come, Skylark,” Hoki said. “Let us enjoy the dawn together.”

Skylark hesitated. “Okay,” she said. She may as well try to get on with the natives.

She walked across the cold grass and up the stairs. Closer now, she could see that a hawk was perched on Hoki’s left arm. It was long-winged and long-tailed. Its overall plumage was brown, barred and striped with reddish brown. As Skylark approached it reared its head and prepared to fly off. Hoki calmed it down and kissed the top of its head.

“You have done well,” Hoki said to the hawk. “Thank you for your message. Reclaim the upper skies.”

With that, the hawk leapt into the air and away.

Ka-hu, it called. Ka-hu, ka-hu.

Hoki unwrapped a shawl and gave it to Skylark. “You must be cold,” she said. “Haramai. I suppose your mother is still having her beauty sleep? The same with my sister Bella. Not that it will do her any good. Her only hope is reincarnation.”

The old woman smiled conspiratorially. She looked at the forest where the birds were beginning to ascend and go about their daily work. “Once upon a time, this whole land belonged to them,” she said.

“To the birds?” Skylark asked.

“They were the supreme rulers,” Hoki answered. “Not just over the forest in this valley, but the Great Forest which spread all over Aotearoa. You have to close your eyes and imagine, Skylark. Can you picture what it was like in those first days of our world after the Lord Tane, who made us, separated his parents, Earth and Sky? You know the story, don’t you?”

“Yes, I’ve heard it.” The scepticism in her words was obvious and Skylark saw a look of surprise flicker over Hoki’s face.

“Sometimes, Skylark, you have to see stories with your heart as well as with your mind. You have to look through Maori eyes. You have to listen with Maori ears. Here, let me show you.”

Before Skylark had a chance to say no, Hoki started to whisper to her. “Whakarongo koe ki au,” she said.

It was the First Lesson.

“In the beginning,” Hoki began, “in the days that have gone before us, Aotearoa was the Kingdom of the Birds. In those days our islands were completely covered with the Great Forest created by the Lord Tane. It was he who with other lords pushed up the Sky Father. He did this by doing a handstand and kicking with his feet at the Sky until it relinquished hold on the earth.”

Oh no, Skylark thought glumly. Fairy tales at this time of the morning.

“In the space between,” Hoki continued, “the lords all contributed to the world we now live in. Tangaroa, for instance, became Lord of the Oceans and guardian of all who lived in the ocean. Paia was Lord of the space between Earth and Sky. Tawhirimatea became Lord of the Winds. All together over seventy gods created all that is seen and unseen. And who was the supreme lord of all? Why, it was the Lord Tane, for it was he who created the Great Forest, verily, a Garden of Eden. The trees touched the sky. Palms and shrubs flowered underneath. Throughout, the Great Forest was laced with shimmering ferns and supplejack. The gateways were the titan kauri, the tallest trees in the world. The palisades were the totara, karaka, kahikatea, manuka, mahika, miro, matai, rata, kowhai and tawa. Over four hundred species of flora, rich with berries and fruits, thrived on the hills and in the valleys. The Great Forest was the wonder of the southern world, the lungs of the Earth, giving air to breathe, giving food to eat. But what use is a forest if it does not have a population to enjoy it?”

Despite herself, Skylark found herself piqued by the question.

“That’s when the Lord Tane went up into the Heavens,” Hoki continued. “There, the myriad birds were waiting for him, trillions of them, of all shapes and sizes. They were so eager to take possession of the land below that they crowded the gates of the Heavens. Laughing, Tane opened the gates and said to them: ‘Go then, my impatient ones! Go down to the world I have created for you and live there.’

“Immediately the air was filled with whirring and jostling as one by one the various families of birds began to fly down to the world below. Indeed, in the great Book of Birds, that exodus is known as the Time of the Falling Feathers.

“Now, Skylark, you must never forget that Lord Tane made birds not just for Aotearoa but the entire world below. One after another, great fleets of them departed the upper Heavens and, as they descended, some flew north, south, east and west to all the lands beyond the horizon. The sun shimmered on their feathers like silver rain. First there were the curlews, godwits, sandpipers and snipes. Then came the stilts and avocets, followed by the phalaropes and pratincoles. Have you ever seen squadrons of birds in flight? They twist and turn as if they are dancing, and some of the squadrons can be many kilometres wide.

“Next descended the skuas, gulls, terns and noddies, followed by the pigeons, doves, parrots and cuckoos. It was as if ribbons of many dazzling colours were being thrown through the skies. And, as the birds descended, they filled the air with melody such as the world has never since heard. They soared down through the clouds — the swifts, the kingfishers and rollers — and the sun shimmered on their wings, creating rainbows of hue and colour beyond comparison. Then came the wrens, larks, swallows, martins, pipits and wagtails. Some of them had to carry down the flightless birds like the moa and the kiwi. Can you imagine, Skylark, how many birds were needed to carry the moa?

“Can you also imagine what they looked like, bursting through the clouds? How excited they were to see the land below? Indeed, the Time of Falling Feathers was similar to the exodus that the Bible speaks of when the Israelites left Egypt in search of Canaan, and it took many many days before the great migration from the upper Heavens was completed. After the pipits and wagtails came jostling the cuckoo-shrikes, bulbuls, accentors, warblers and flycatchers. The Lord Tane’s laughter at the birds’ great joy ricocheted around the Heavens. He had to step aside quickly to allow the thrushes, white-eyes, honeyeaters, buntings, finches, starlings and weavers to fly down. Finally, the least among them, the humble sparrow, became the last to leave — and the gates could be closed. But the Lord Tane hadn’t expected there to be so many birds in the cages of the Heavens. Competition was already breaking out between those who arrived first and those who were still descending. Especially here, in his beloved land of Aotearoa.”

Hoki stood up and walked to the edge of the verandah.

“That is how the Great Division was made,” she continued. “The Lord Tane was very wise. He immediately realised that in Aotearoa the birds would need to be given different territories in order that they could all live peacefully together. He said, ‘I will make half of you birds of the sea, manu moana, and your territory will be the sea and the coast. The other half I will make birds of the land, manu whenua, and your territory will be the land and the Great Forest I have made.’ All the birds burst into a trilling of joy and thanks at the Lord Tane’s wisdom. ‘Just to make sure that you keep to your territories,’ he said, ‘I will appoint my brother Hurumanu as the guardian of seabirds and the Lord Punaweko as the guardian of landbirds.’

“Thus was achieved the setting apart of seabirds and landbirds. Ever since, twice every day, all the landbirds praise Tane’s decision. The first time is at the first sign of dawn. The second is at sunset. So the Great Division has remained. Right up to this very day. But —”

Hoki shivered. She was looking across the land to the offshore islands. There, clouds of seabirds were gathering. “Be careful of the manu moana, the seabirds,” she said to Skylark. “They know you are here. The seashags have been patrolling for a week, and you were lucky not to be harmed by the skuas yesterday. This morning, my hawk told me he saw an albatross on high-level reconnaissance. It was spying on us. Stupid seabirds, they grow arrogant and think they can come into the territory of the manu whenua with impunity.”

“The seabirds should not be underestimated. Stay away from their territory, Skylark. Stay away from the beaches. Stay away from the sea.”

It was mid-morning by the time Cora rose from her bed. The light was so bright that she automatically put on her dark glasses and went searching for Skylark. She found her in the kitchen. “Did you have to play the radio so loud?” she wailed.

“What radio?” Skylark answered. “That wasn’t me, Mum. That was the birds.”

Cora put up her hands in resignation. She looked at Skylark strangely — and pinched her.

“So this isn’t a dream after all! I was hoping that it was and I’d wake up to find this had all gone away somewhere.”

“You’re supposed to pinch yourself, Mum, not me! Do you want a cup of coffee? I have to warn you it comes out of a can.”

“Don’t we have coffee beans? Or a grinder? You mean its instant?” Cora shuddered at the word. “This is even worse than I expected. God, pass me a cigarette and the cellphone. I’ll get Zac.”

“Zac won’t know what to do.”

“I know you don’t like him but I’m going to tell him to get us out of here and back to civilisation. Now, why aren’t I getting through?” Cora was having a panic attack. “Why isn’t it working?”

Skylark sighed with relief. “I know you love your cellphone and can’t live without it. And I know it’s a really important fashion accessory for you, and a status symbol. But you know, life can sometimes be so unfair.”

Cora stared at Skylark and then at the phone. Her pupils dilated and she clutched the cellphone like a drowning woman a straw. “My pretty purple cellphone doesn’t work out here?”

“The telephones here are the kind that hang on walls, Mum, and they’re connected to poles.”

“No call waiting? No speed dialling? No screening of calls so that you can decide on whether to pick up? So we’re well and truly stranded?”

Mum had never been the sharpest tool in the shed.

“It’s a bummer,” Skylark said.

The good thing was that Zac could not telephone them either.

Not only were they stranded, Skylark realised, but without their Jeep they had no wheels — and no luggage. Nor did they have food supplies to supplement the kitchen’s minimal sugar, coffee, tea and milk. When Arnie arrived, they would just have to go back down the mountain with him to do a big shop at the local supermarket. Cora brightened at the prospect — shopping: coffee beans, a newspaper maybe — and hastened to the bathroom to make herself up for the trip.

Skylark, meantime, couldn’t help thinking about Hoki’s story. Was that why there were so many birds — landbirds, she was relieved to see — inhabiting Manu Valley? They were everywhere, circling in the sky or walking over the land. The bittern calling ‘Ka Ka!’ controlled the marshland. The hawk squealing ‘Kee Kee!’ was monitor of the upper Heavens. The wild duck honking ‘Koekoe! Koekoe!’ ranged the skies from north to west.

What did Hoki call them? Manu whenua. Yes, that was it. Manu whenua.

If Manu Valley was like this, the Great Forest of Tane must have been awesome: a great confederation of bird tribes, interconnected groups of iwi, just like Maori had today, stretching kilometre upon kilometre from east to west, north to south. Within the tribes had been whanau groups of different birds occupying various levels of the forest strata.

No longer; only small parts of the Great Forest remained. Manu Valley was one of them. Bella and Hoki had kept it for the landbirds. They had created a sanctuary.

In an unsafe world, here birds of the land could find safety and protection.

“Just like Mum and me,” Skylark said to herself.

Around midday, Arnie arrived — not on the Jeep but in a station-wagon. He stopped outside Skylark and Cora’s bach, and Hoki came down the steps of the homestead to greet him.

“Kia ora, Nephew,” Hoki said.

“Hello Auntie,” Arnie answered. He saw Skylark glaring at him. “Before you start, don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger. There was something wrong with the petrol pump —”

“I told you so.”

“And the carburettor and the pistons, and the engine was leaking oil. But do you want to know what was really serious? Your brakes were just about gone. If you and your mother had been on the road a minute longer, you could have been killed.”

Skylark shivered at the news.

“Anyhow,” Arnie continued, “Lucas wants me to take you back to Tuapa so you can discuss what you want to do.”

“Like what,” Skylark said crossly.

“We can repair it so you can get back north, but we’ll have to send for parts, so you won’t be moving from Tuapa for the whole time you’re here.”

“Oh no,” Cora said. “What else can we do?”

“Well,” Arnie answered, “if your Jeep was a horse I’d put it out of its misery and shoot it. But it’s not, so there’s another option. Lucas has offered you his station-wagon.”

“But we can’t do that,” Cora said.

“Course we can, Mum,” Skylark answered. If Lucas wanted to woo Mum with a car rather than roses, fine.

“In that case,” Arnie said, “let’s get back to Tuapa where you can talk to him. Then the station-wagon’s all yours.”

“We could do our shopping,” Cora suggested, as if the thought had just popped into her mind. She turned to Bella and Hoki. “Would you like to come with us?”

Bella pondered this a moment. She nodded and then, for some reason Skylark couldn’t fathom, said to her, “As long as you don’t drive.”

Arnie drove. Cora was squeezed between him and Skylark, looking as if somebody had sat on a tube of toothpaste. Bella and Hoki were in the back. “What did Bella mean about me not driving?” Skylark asked Cora.

“When we arrived last night,” Cora said, biting her lip, “I was so embarrassed about running her and Hoki down. Anyhow, honey, you’ve always been better at taking the blame —”

“About what!”

“I told her you were driving.”

Of course Tuapa hadn’t changed, hadn’t magically transformed into a great big city. No matter how hard Cora closed her eyes, crossed her fingers and hoped, when she opened them, she’d be in some MTV music video setting, it remained Tuapa. That made Skylark so glad. Serve Mum right for putting the blame on her.

However, news soon spread that Cora Edwards was back in town, and at their first stop — Flora Cornish’s Tuapa Diner — the clientele increased quickly from five to ten and included the proprietor of the massage parlour, who was considering making Cora a job offer. Nobody seemed to remember Skylark’s encounter with the skuas and nobody asked her how she was.

When Lucas arrived, it was clear to everybody that he had gelled his hair and substituted armpit au naturel with Old Spice. “I’m really sorry about your Jeep,” he said. “I’ve tried my best to fix it —”

An offended splutter came from Arnie. Meanwhile Cora, utilising a little trick she had learnt from the Hollywood School of Bad Acting, bit her bottom lip so that small tears could appear at the corners of her eyes. “You’re all so kind to me and my daughter,” she said. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart.” Just to prove she meant it, Cora placed both hands on it. Everybody went “Aaah” but Skylark furrowed her brow. After all these years of trying to teach her mother, Cora still couldn’t remember that her heart was on the left.

“I need a drink,” Bella said. She wasn’t fooled one bit. Off she stalked to the pub on the other side of the street for her usual shot of vodka.

“Looks like you and I are the only ones left,” Hoki said to Skylark. “Shall we go to the supermarket, dear?”

“Don’t forget,” Cora whispered, “coffee beans, a carton of cigarettes, I’m out of make-up remover, ear plugs for those awful birds in the morning, a night mask to keep out the sun in the mornings and, oh, do try and get some lovely smellies for my bath.”

Although Skylark wanted to make amends with Hoki, she wasn’t at all thrilled at the prospect of company. Hoki would take hours to negotiate the aisles on her walking sticks. That plus Mum’s little wee lie gave extra meaning to one of Skylark’s favourite badges pinned to her jacket: I Do Not Want To Have A Nice Day.

However, when she and Hoki arrived at the supermarket the old lady wasn’t a bother at all. Instead she placed her walking sticks on top of her shopping cart, put her withered left foot on the bottom rail and, with her good foot, propelled the cart along like a blackbird on silver wheels. Skylark couldn’t stop laughing.

“Did you know you have such a lovely face when you laugh, dear?” Hoki asked. She had always been clever about getting people to open up to her.

Very soon Skylark was telling her about Mum, and about Dad. Eighteen years ago, Brad, Cora’s first husband, had been a Canadian executive assigned to New Zealand to buy into an ailing television company.

“Your father’s Canadian?”

“Yes,” Skylark said. “He’s living in the States now, and I sometimes go up to Los Angeles to see him. He and Mum didn’t last very long. Long enough to have me and then they had different careers. When they separated I stayed with Mum of course. As for Dad —”

Darling Brad. He’d cracked the big time in the television industry. Recently he had married for the fourth time to some tummy-tucked pumped-up television starlet with lots and lots of hair who was appearing in a sci-fi series he was exec-producing. Daddy dearest, swearing undying love in the Chapel of Eternal Love, Las Vegas, to Vonda, Rhonda, Wanda, Sondra or whatever her name was.

“But he does send me a cheque every month and he does love me,” Skylark said.

“So,” Hoki asked hesitantly, “where do you get your Maori blood from?”

“Mum’s real name is Korowai Whiria, but she took on Cora as her television name.”

“Do you know much about your people?”

“No. I don’t think Mum does either. She was adopted at some point when she was a baby. Lost contact with the whanau.”

Hoki squeezed Skylark’s arm. “And your own name? Where does that come from?”

“Skylark? Oh, I’ve always been called that. Mum and Brad thought it would stand me in good stead if ever I became an actor. Skylark has a kind of marquee ring to it. You know, your name up in lights: Pretty Woman Strikes Again, starring Skylark O’Shea.”

Hoki paused to think about what Skylark had said. “Oh dear, who’d want to have people in the television industry as parents!” she said. Which was just what Skylark had thought all her life. “Well, Skylark, it’s just as well you’ve turned out the way you are. It’s lovely and a privilege to know you.”

Their shopping completed, Skylark pushed her trolley into the sunlight. She’d load the back of the wagon, then return to help Hoki with her trolley. She only vaguely took in the fact that the once crowded carpark was now virtually empty. Just the station-wagon and lots of grey asphalt. She unlocked the back door, and didn’t notice the shadows gathering above her. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have worried — just a cloud passing across the sun.

There she is. We’ve got another chance at the chick.

A casual passerby would have assumed that the seabirds gathering above the station-wagon had been attracted by somebody feeding them crumbs of bread. But these birds were silent, feathering the air with menace, their wings whirring like blades.

Then Skylark heard a shout. “Stay where you are, Skylark. Don’t move.”

She looked up, and saw Hoki in the distance. The old woman had left her trolley near the supermarket exit and was advancing across the carpark. Except that the carpark wasn’t grey any longer. Between Skylark and Hoki, the ground was covered with seabirds. Seashags. Black-backed gulls. Terns. Skuas. Hundreds of them.

All of a sudden, the ruler among them, king of all seashags, came flying out of the sun. The other seabirds set up a wild fusillade of cackles and screams, as if acclaiming his arrival. As soon as Hoki saw him, his name hissed from between her lips:

“Kawanatanga.”

The seashag was bigger than the others. When he landed he immediately displayed his supreme position: tail erect, heraldic wings trembling, crest like a crown on his darting head. His top feathers were glossy black with an oily-green sheen. His undersurface was white. He looked at Skylark, his green eyes like a devil’s.

So you are the chick, she of the ancient prophecy.

Kawanatanga’s bill was slightly open, hissing, the sibilants like an evil sigh on the wind. His wings were outstretched, waiting only to get past Skylark’s guard and administer the fast, killing strike through her eyes to her brain.

Hoki stormed across the carpark, black dress flapping like wings, flailing at the birds with her walking sticks. She interposed herself between Kawanatanga and Skylark. Kawanatanga wheezed, whined, writhed and swayed. Arrogant. Elegant. Demonic.

“E Kawanatanga, hoki atu koe ki to waahi,” Hoki called. “Ki a koe he manu moana.”

At her words, Kawanatanga squealed his rage. Hoki raised her walking sticks and advanced. She was seething with anger. “Didn’t you hear me? Go from here, you and your seabird cohorts, and return to your territory. Do not dare to trespass on mine.”

For a moment, Kawanatanga remained where he was, his long neck weaving, ready to strike. Then he stilled, nodded, and lifted.

Today the chick is yours, old hen. Tomorrow she will be mine.

As if of one accord, the other seabirds rose and wheeled away after their leader.

“Aue, Skylark,” Hoki said. “I thought it was enough to warn you away from the beaches and the sea. But I now realise that the seabirds have already begun their incursion into the lands of the manu whenua.”

Hoki’s eyes were glowing.

“From now on, Skylark, you must never be alone. Ever.”

A party was going on at the Tuapa Diner when Skylark and Hoki returned. Cora, of course, was in the middle of it, surrounded by Flora Cornish, Mitch Mahana and a gaggle of Korean sailors who, for some strange reason, were offering Cora wads of dollar notes. Lucas was trying to push them away.

“Hello, kotiro,” Mitch said. He smelt of a thousand fish heads. “How’s the head?”

“You’re the only one to ask,” Skylark answered. “It’s fine. I —”

She was interrupted by a peal of laughter from Cora, who had turned her attention from the Korean sailors to a bespectacled young man who was blushing under her gaze.

“Skylark, honey,” she called. “You must meet Ronnie Shore. He’s from the local college. Ronnie? This is my daughter, Skylark.”

Skylark saw the surprised look on Ronnie’s face.

“I had no idea Cora Edwards was a mother,” he said.

Skylark smiled sweetly. “There is a genetic match.”

Ronnie looked startled. “We’re putting on the musical Bye Bye Birdie at the college this Saturday night,” he explained. “I heard Cora Edwards was in town, so I had this brilliant idea that she might like to join the cast. Your mother has the star quality that will really make the show.”

“Ronnie is working out a specialty number for me to do,” Cora said. “We start rehearsing tomorrow, don’t we Ronnie.”

“I just can’t believe my luck,” Ronnie gushed, as if Cora was Gwyneth Paltrow rather than an ex-TV weather girl.

Skylark saw that Lucas was trying to get back into the action.

“The drinks are on me,” he said loudly. He might be just a mechanic and a bit of a rough diamond, but he wasn’t about to let some other suitor, even if he was a high school teacher, spoil his patch.

“Did someone mention a drink?”

With a clatter and a stumble, Bella arrived back from the pub — and she was already full as a bull.

Hoki took one look at her and with compressed lips announced: “Perhaps it’s time to go home, Skylark dear, before certain persons make public spectacles of themselves.”

Hoki’s disapproval set Bella off. All the way back to Manu Valley, she kept roaring with laughter, finding something funny everywhere she looked, and singing at the top of her lungs. Vodka fumes filled the car. Hoki kept on apologising for her sister’s behaviour, but everybody else was hanging out the windows trying to breathe. By the time they arrived back in the valley, Hoki was seething — but Bella, blissfully unaware, was snoring her head off.

“I’ll help you put Bella to bed,” Skylark offered.

“Thank you, dear,” Hoki replied. “That’s definitely the last time I’m going to let her loose by herself.”

She didn’t realise that Skylark had another reason for wanting to be alone with her — and was surprised when, after they’d tucked Bella up for the night, Skylark let her have her question right between the eyes. Whenever there were questions Skylark needed answers to she had always gone on the offensive. She hated not knowing.

“I want to know what’s going on with those seabirds,” she said firmly.

Hoki took a step back. Looked frightened. The girl had caught her on the hop.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said.

Chapter Three

What with the fuss about Bye Bye Birdie, Cora claimed all of Skylark’s time next morning. Mum could be such a diva. Off on her own planet, her specialty number had escalated to a starring role. Up at ten, she was already putting on her makeup as if for a performance. By the time she finished, she looked like Bambi on beta-blockers.

“Mum, it’s only a rehearsal,” Skylark said, laughing.

“Yes, honey, I know that. But the rest of the cast are seventh formers and I don’t want to appear — well, too mature.” Which was Cora’s synonym for old. “Now don’t just sit there. Get the wagon.”

Secretly, Skylark was pleased that her mother’s time in Tuapa would be taken up with something she was excited about; all Cora’s anxieties about being stuck in the wilderness would evaporate. She started the station-wagon and waited. Hoki was at the window of the homestead, telephone in hand.

“I’ll deal with you later,” Skylark said to herself.

“Hello?” Hoki said into the telephone. “Is that you, Arnie? Skylark and her mother are coming into town. I want you to do me a favour —”

Skylark drew up outside Tuapa College for Cora’s first rehearsal. It was midday. The poster advertising Bye Bye Birdie now had a banner pasted diagonally across it: With Special Guest Cora Edwards

She saw a tow truck come to a stop on the opposite side of the road. Was it Lucas? No, it was Arnie. What was he doing here?

Ronnie Shore bustled over. “It’s so good to see you, Cora,” he said. He had assembled the headmaster, music teacher, head of the art department and the main cast of the production to greet her. The usual sycophantic sucking-up stuff began.

“I’m out of here,” Skylark muttered. She gave Arnie a look as she put the station-wagon into first gear.

“Yeah, and I love you too, babe,” Arnie said to himself.

Skylark didn’t know Arnie was following her until she turned left into Tuapa’s main street; he turned too. When she parked at a phone booth just outside the video rental shop, Arnie’s tow truck stopped as well. But she had no time to worry about him right now. She took out her telephone card and inserted it. She hesitated only a moment before dialling.

The telephone clicked and a voice came down the line. “Hello?”

“You sleazebag,” Skylark said.

“My favourite little girl,” Zac laughed. “So you thought you could sneak away in the night and take my woman from me. Don’t worry, I’ll find you. How is she, by the way?”

“I’m not ringing you to discuss my mother,” Skylark said “It’s the Jeep. I should have known not to take it. It’s a death trap and we could have been killed in it.”

“My heart bleeds,” Zac mocked.

“Listen, you no-account jerk! You have two weeks to get out of the apartment. I don’t want you there when we get back.”

“Is that what Cora wants?” Zac mocked. “Or is that what little daughter has decided? You do that to me, Skylark, and you’ll be the one who pays. You kick me out, and Cora loses a lover and her supplier. And you, little girlie, you just might lose a mother.”

Skylark tried to disguise her fear. “Zac, sweetie, if we promise to miss you, will you go away?” Then her tone hardened. “Mum’s been in rehab for six months now. She’s doing good. It’s only when you keep coming back into her life that she goes back to her old ways. She doesn’t need you any more. Pack your bags and get out. If you don’t, I’m calling the police.”

“But Skylark, I’m Cora’s salvation,” Zac laughed. “I’m the resurrection and the life. I saved her when she was down. I brought her to life again.”

Salvation? Skylark thought back to that terrible night, five years earlier, when Cora had been fired from her position as weather girl. Nobody knew that she had already begun on a cycle of drug dependency. Her boyfriend at that time, Harry, had been a camera operator. They did a little coke here, a little coke there — but didn’t everybody in the entertainment industry? The trouble was that Cora started doing it just before appearing on camera.

That night, Cora was on her mark when the light came on in Camera 3. The cue card came up: Cue Weather Report.

The camera started to roll. Cora breathed in deep, polished her smile and got ready to beam its 300 megawatt perfection out to the whole of New Zealand. Cue Music.

The recorded music came on. Lovely, slow, rhythmic, bringing images of an MGM movie in which Gene Kelly danced along a wet rain-streaked street.

For tonight’s weather report, Cora had dressed in a plastic red raincoat with a hood on it. She was twirling an umbrella. Viewers adored her style. Sometimes she wore beachwear. Other times she held a tennis racquet or a golf club. She laughed, clowned, sometimes sang a short refrain from a popular song before launching into the weather information. Cue Ms Edwards.

The words to the song Cora planned to sing began to roll down the autocue. Action.

Cora began to skip to the beat of the music. She started to twirl her umbrella. The camera zoomed in on her as she sang:

“I’m singing in the rain …”

All of a sudden the coke hit, and before she could stop it Cora was laughing and laughing, pointing at the camera as if all the people watching from the comfort of their lounges were a hilarious joke. She dropped the umbrella and went waltzing around the set. The camera followed as she kissed anyone who happened to be standing in the wings. She was happy, so happy.

Then she tripped. Fell over. Wasn’t that funny, viewers? Wasn’t that simply the funniest thing you had ever seen?

The producer frantically signalled to get the cameras rolling on John Campbell. “Whatever Cora is on,” John quipped, “I’ll have some of that.”

He took over the weather report, and television glided over the moment.

Cora was fired the next day. Boyfriend Harry didn’t last much longer either.

Zac’s voice spat its poison down the telephone. Salvation? The only salvation he gave Cora was a helping hand to push her right to the bottom.

“Zac,” Skylark said, “protect the world and go put a condom on yourself. Don’t even try to draw any more money out of Mum’s account. Two weeks more of freeloading, you piece of shit. Then you’re out.”

She put the telephone down. Leaned against the glass doors, shivering.

What was this? Arnie was still parked outside on the road. Skylark wasn’t in the mood.

“What are you doing? Stalking me?”

“Me? Stalking you? You think a lot of yourself.”

“You know what I’m talking about. Well, just piss off.”

“Jeez, what’s your problem? What’s with the attitude?”

Skylark levelled a look at Arnie. She thought about Cora and Zac and the notion that her mother might not be able to kick her habit after all. Knew that she would have to be strong for her mother as she had always been. The one who had been there when Daddy dearest left. The one who was always there whenever any of the men left. Poor Cora, who always needed a man in her life because she was scared of ending up alone.

“Do you think I like spending my lunch hour watching out for you?” Arnie continued. “I got orders from Auntie Hoki. She said not to leave you alone.”

“Look,” Skylark said. “I’m big enough to look after myself, old enough to know that the best person I can rely on is myself, and if I ever needed help I’d pick on somebody of my own intelligence.”

“Cut me some slack, willya? You know nothing about me.”

“Even if I did I wouldn’t pick a man, least of all a Muscle Mary, even if you are perfectly formed, who goes to bad movies and idolises a movie star who speaks English with a German accent. Just leave me alone, all right?”

Skylark turned on her heel and went back to the station-wagon. Slammed the door. Floored the accelerator.

“You owe me big time, Auntie Hoki,” Arnie said to himself. He took off after Skylark, tailgating her all the way to the crossroads and the Passion Pit motel.

Skylark however, wasn’t having any of that. She put her foot on the pedal, roared past the motel — and, too late, saw the road to Manu Valley sliding past on her right. In an effort to swing the station-wagon around she put too much pressure on the brake. Next moment, it lost traction and was spinning and spinning off the road.

Arnie watched in horror as Skylark fought to correct the station-wagon; in a cloud of dust, it slewed off the road. He stopped the truck, ran over to the wagon and yanked the door open.

“Are you all right?”

Skylark was grim faced. “Don’t talk to me, don’t even think of saying anything to me, just leave me alone.”

“Hey,” Arnie answered angrily, “I’m the hero, right? I’m supposed to save you from the birds, not from yourself.”

He slammed the door shut and walked back to his tow truck. He watched as Skylark managed to get the wagon back onto the road. She didn’t ask for help and he sure as hell wasn’t going to offer it, not even if she went down on her bended knees. Then he heard the wagon’s ignition being switched off, and looked over.

Skylark walked across to where Arnie was standing. She took a deep breath. “I’m really sorry I hit the roof back there, but I want you to listen to what I have to say and not interrupt me until I’ve finished. Okay? We’re not talking existential truth here, so this is simple. For the past year I’ve been looking after my mother. I was supposed to go to university but she was committed to a drug rehab clinic in February — and I chose to go with her. I’m the only one she has to rely on and she is the only mother I have. It’s been a really horrific time for her, coming off drugs, but she’s managed it, despite the fact that her boyfriend Zac still has his hooks into her. The reason why we’re here is that I am trying to get Mum away from him. My mother always gets mixed up with the wrong men. I have to be strong for her. I’ve always had to be strong for her.” She looked at Arnie, willing him to understand. “I know you want to be the hero but I’m not the kind of girl who has a squeaky Melanie Griffith voice and cries out, ‘Oh save me, save me, I’m so helpless!’ Do you understand?”

Arnie looked at Skylark and then he nodded. “Whatever,” he said.

Which made Skylark so furious, because it could have been an admission that he understood what she had said.

Then, again, it could have been nothing like that at all.

By the time Skylark arrived at Manu Valley, the sun had gone behind the sacred mountains. Dark shadows enfolded the Earth like a wing. Evening’s soft voices were murmuring in the wind. The flightless woodhens were beginning to call. Quails were whirring homeward.

Mac-wer-ta. Mac-wer-ta. Tek-tek-tek.

Skylark parked the station-wagon and suppressed her irritation when Arnie, stubborn as, pulled up behind her. He’d made no secret of following her from the crossroads and, now that he’d blown his cover, didn’t care that Skylark was on to him.

“Why, Arnie,” she said. “Fancy meeting you again. If you don’t watch out I’ll start thinking that you have romantic intentions.”

“In your dreams,” Arnie snorted.

Nor did Bella and Hoki seem surprised when Arnie turned up. Bella was on the verandah of the homestead, tending to an injured pukeko.

“Arnie, can you bring some wood in for the stove?” she asked. “Skylark, your mother telephoned to say she’d be late. Hoki’s cooking, so you’re having dinner with us. And just in case you might think it’s funny to ask me if I still have a hangover, I wouldn’t go there if I was you.”

Skylark felt as if she had been fighting all day. She tried to be pleasant.

“Can I do anything to help?” she asked.

Bella grunted, “No” and glared as if the pukeko’s injury was all Skylark’s fault.

“How did it happen?” Skylark tried again.

“Damn cars and trucks speeding down the coast highway.” Bella gave her a meaningful glance. “If they can’t score little old ladies, they like to use my birds as target practice.”

Skylark just lost it. “Look, I know Mum and I almost clocked you and Hoki, and I know we were speeding and I’m sorry. I’ll be big enough to apologise. But are you big enough to accept it? Because if you’re not, you can stick your dinner.”

Bella bristled and Skylark stiffened herself in preparation for an almighty blast of her anger. But Bella bit back on it, put a sock in it. “Hold the pukeko for me,” she said.

“Does a ‘please’ go with that?”

“You sure push the envelope, don’t you,” Bella said. “Okay, please.”

Skylark nodded and took the pukeko. The bird pecked at her fingers and wriggled as Bella fixed an adhesive bandage to its foot. Then Bella kissed the bird on the head and motioned to Skylark to put it down.

“Go home now,” Bella said to the pukeko. “Return to your wife and to your loved ones.”

The pukeko wobbled. It tried to rip the adhesive off and, when it failed, glared — not at Bella but at Skylark. “Go ahead,” Skylark said. “Join the queue.”

The pukeko hip-hopped and skipped into the trees.

“He’ll get it in the neck when he gets home,” Bella said, amused. “His missus will think he’s been to the pub.” Then she turned to Skylark. “Okay, so you’ve given me your perspective on what happened yesterday when you almost ran me and Hoki down, so let me give you mine. All our lives Hoki and I have protected Manu Valley and all the birds who live here. We’re the only protectors the birds have got. It’s our job, plain and simple, and I don’t want to make a big thing of it, but I’m not about to see it all go up in smoke simply because one day you indulged in a bit of dangerous driving. I rely on my sister. She relies on me. We rely on each other for the strength we need to draw the line in the earth and say ‘No’ to all those people who want to cross it.”

“I’ve already said I’m sorry. What else do you want me to do?”

“Do you think it’s easy for us,” Bella persisted, “to keep Manu Valley? To stand up to all those people who come to us and want us to sell it? They come because they want to harvest the timber. Or else they tell us, ‘Look, you two old ladies are standing in the way of progress. Because of you we have to build our road around the coast instead of in a straight line from Christchurch to Tuapa. You’re costing us a lot of money.’ Even some of our own people come to harangue us for keeping hold of the land. They say, ‘This is tribal land but the only tribe living on it is you two old kuia. The rest of us live in the cities where life is very hard and hits us in the pocket. If you sell, the money will help to send our kids to school. You’re holding us all to ransom. You are benefitting yourselves while we lose out.’”

Bella’s voice was as firm as steel. “When everybody else is bending with the wind, very few people will lean against it. It has been very difficult, sometimes, for me and my sister to say ‘No’ to people who want to throw cash at us or get angry with us. Just as difficult is for us to keep on paying the rates so that we can keep Manu Valley. Our parents left us money, but that ran out quickly. Hoki and I were younger then, so it was easy to keep some cash coming in. I used to work with Mitch on the fishing boats and Hoki worked in the fish processing factory. As we’ve become older, making money has become harder. We rent out the bach. We live simply. Sometimes we go without. This is the price to pay, Skylark. You know why we do it?”

Bella couldn’t stop herself. “Hoki and I are servants of the Lord Tane. We are his handmaidens, guardians of all the landbirds, nga manu whenua o Tane.”

“Whatever gives you your jollies,” Skylark muttered uneasily. She started to back away. This sister was as nuts as the other one.

“No, let me explain,” Bella continued quickly. But she knew, even as she began to tell her story, that she wasn’t going to tell it as good as Hoki. Once she started, however, she had to keep going.

“When the First Man came to Aotearoa some families were assigned to guard the land, to protect it, and to protect the birds who lived on it. However, when Aotearoa was discovered again, the Second Man was rapacious. Wherever he went he tilled the land and felled the Great Forest. Year by year, the Great Forest has diminished and the bird populations with it. No longer does the moa graze the southern grasslands. No longer does the huia sing in the forest. Of all the landbird species who once lived here, thirty per cent are now extinct. Many tribes of birds have been decimated, and only fragments of the Great Forest remain. The only reason Manu Valley still exists is because Hoki and I are descended from the original protectors, the women priests who set up our system of guardianship. It’s a family thing. My mother and her sisters were the guardians of this sacred valley before me and Hoki. Before Mum and her sisters it was her mother and sisters. And so on way back generations. Just our luck —” Bella tried to smile — “but there has always been a prediction that in the generation of Hoki and my guardianship the manu whenua would face their greatest challenge. We have to face it together. We can’t do it alone. Got the picture now?”

Skylark nodded. If this was Bella’s little trip through la-la land, fine, as long as it didn’t hurt anybody. “Pax?” she offered.

Bella grunted and put her hand out to seal the compact. But as they were shaking Skylark thought back to the seabird attacks and realised, with the chill of certainty, that there was a crazy logic to what Bella was telling her. “The seabirds have something to do with this, haven’t they?”

“Me and my big mouth,” Bella said.

“You told Skylark what?” Hoki asked. She was in the kitchen making dinner, and Bella was helping her dish out. Skylark and Arnie were sitting at the table, staring past each other.

“I’m sorry, Sister,” Bella said. “My mouth ran away on me.”

“Don’t blame your mouth,” Hoki scolded. “Next time you go to the pub, lay off the vodka shots. So what exactly did you tell Skylark? What kind of damage control will I have to put into place?”

When Hoki’s temper was up, she took it out on anything that was to hand. She banged the pots and pans as if they were cymbals.

“Don’t make me feel any worse than I do now,” Bella said. “I told her about Manu Valley, about Mum and —”

“And?” Hoki waited.

“I told her about you and me being the handmaidens of the Lord Tane.”

It was lucky for Bella that Hoki didn’t have a serving spoon in her hand, otherwise she would have thrown it. “You had no right, Sister,” Hoki exclaimed. “That was my job. I hate it when you do my job.”

“It just came up. I took advantage of the opportunity. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that Skylark can’t be rushed. She could be frightened off. She has to be brought to the understanding of what’s happening in Manu Valley very carefully. I’ve only had time to give her the First Lesson. And what happens? You come along and tell her who we are, and she hasn’t even graduated.”

Bella never liked being backed into a corner and, in retaliation, could say things she really didn’t mean. “Sister, you’ve always been too slow, you’re forever dragging your leg.”

Hoki gave a small angry cry. “Kindly keep my leg out of this.”

“Well, you’d better hurry up with the lessons,” Bella said. “There isn’t much time. Can’t you twiddle your knobs and get a better reception? Isn’t it about time you went digital?”

“You shouldn’t make a mockery of my gift,” Hoki answered. “Nor do I need you to criticise the way I do my job, thank you very much.”

Hoki gave Bella plates of food to take to the table. Bella put them in front of her guests, took a seat and made the silent duo into the silent trio.

“We’ll eat when Hoki joins us,” she said finally.

There was the sound of a smash as something broke on the kitchen floor.

“Should I help her?” Skylark asked.

“No,” Bella said. “Hoki’s perfectly capable of breaking the dishes all by herself — aren’t you, Sister dear,” she yelled.

“When Auntie Hoki’s cooking,” Arnie confirmed, “she doesn’t like offers of help, because it draws attention to the fact that she’s a —”

Bella mouthed the words: See Are Eye Pee Pee Ell Ee. Skylark got the picture. “The consequence is,” Bella said, “that every month we have to go to The Warehouse to buy more crockery.”

An ominous silence descended. When Hoki came to the doorway it was clear that she had heard Bella’s remarks — and that war had been declared. Even so, she tried to appear calm for the sake of her visitors.

“Are you hungry, Skylark?” Hoki asked. She was balanced on one walking stick and pushing the tea trolley across the floor. On the trolley were two pots of stew. Somehow, she misjudged when to stop — and the stew sloshed over and into Bella’s lap.

“Oops, I’m so sorry, Sister. And your best dress too.”

Bella gave Hoki a suspicious glance but accepted the little accident. However, as Bella passed Hoki her plate to be filled with stew, Hoki miscalculated the distance. The plate fell between them and there was a second crash as it departed to the Great Kitchen in the Sky.

“You meant to do that, Hoki,” Bella said.

Hoki beamed a smile of innocence and, changing the subject, turned to Skylark. “What I find interesting,” she said, “is that all of us at the table are named after birds.”

“Even Arnie?” Skylark asked.

But Arnie wasn’t Hoki’s target. Hoki was after revenge and she wasn’t going to divert her aim from Bella. “Do you know about the bellbird, Skylark?” She started to dish the food onto the plates.

“Its Maori name is korimako,” Bella said, oblivious of the fact that she was clearly within Hoki’s sights. “When it sings it sounds like lots of beautiful bells are ringing.”

Hoki gave her a wicked look. “I always wondered why, Sister dear, you never inherited such a beautiful voice. Your voice is so loud and raucous, especially when you’ve had a few.”

“Is that so?” Bella parried. “At least I can sing in tune.” She turned to Skylark and Arnie. “When Hoki was young people used to pay her not to sing.” She dipped her spoon into the stew and grimaced. “Sister, dear, don’t you think the stew is rather salty?”

Hoki took her place at the table, tried the stew herself and looked mystified. “No, Bella dear,” she said. She cocked her head at Arnie and Skylark. “Do you two find it salty?”

“Keep us out of this,” Arnie said. “I knew I should have gone back to Tuapa and had some nice and peaceful fish and chips.”

Hoki glared at him and then returned to her target. “I’ll give you a new plate of stew, Bella” she said, ladling the stew into a new dish. Then, not taking her eyes off her sister, she added three large spoonfuls of sugar to it. “You need all the sweetening that you can get, don’t you, Sister dear,” Hoki continued. “Now, where would you like your stew? In your stomach or over your head?”

“Time to bail out,” Arnie said. But Hoki signed to him to stay at the table. She stood up and motioned to Bella to join her in the kitchen.

“Would you two proceed with dinner and excuse us?” Hoki asked her visitors. “There’s a few things my sister and I have to sort out. For one thing she thinks I haven’t got Ee Why Ee Esses and can’t see her when she spells out Double-U Oh Are Dee Esses with her Bee Eye Gee mouth. Are you coming, sister dear?”

Bella gave an exaggerated bow. “After you, Sister dear,” she said.

Skylark heard Arnie give a dismal sigh. His day had well and truly flatlined. He folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling. “Shovel it on, Lord,” he said.

In the kitchen, a battle royal began.

Feathers were still ruffled when, a quarter of an hour later, Hoki and Bella rejoined the dinner table. Skylark didn’t know who had won but she placed her bets on Hoki; she might be younger and smaller but there was no doubt that she was a determined old woman. Besides, Bella looked somewhat subdued, as if she had finally accepted her fault.

“Well, Auntie Hoki and Auntie Bella,” Arnie said after dinner was over. “Thank you for the lovely dinner and the fun conversation. I really enjoyed myself. We must do it again.”

He managed to duck just as Bella’s hand came up to clip his ear. “You watch yourself,” Bella said.

Arnie gave a brief nod at Skylark and beat a hasty retreat out to the tow truck. Hoki went with him to see him on his way.

“You mustn’t mind us, Skylark,” Bella said as she began to clear the table. “When you have two hens and they’re pecking for the same seed there’s bound to be trouble.”

“Would you like a hand with the dishes?”

“No. You go and join Hoki. Otherwise she’ll think I’m usurping her position again.”

Skylark left the house and watched as Hoki embraced Arnie. In the darkness, Hoki looked different — so small and vulnerable, stooped there over her walking sticks. “Thank you for looking after Skylark, Arnie,” Hoki said.

Arnie saw Skylark. “Yeah, well …” he grunted. As far as he was concerned, she was just another girl on an over-populated planet. He gunned the motor and skidded off into the darkness.

“He sees too many action movies,” Hoki reproved. “It’s a wonder he isn’t brain dead.”

“So what bird is he named after?” Skylark asked.

“Actually, two birds,” Hoki answered. “His real names are Karearea Kereru, so he’s named after the falcon and, unfortunately, the wood pigeon.”

“Unfortunately?”

“For the wood pigeons, that is,” Hoki winked.

“Now I know why he prefers Arnie,” Skylark said.

Through the kitchen window Hoki saw Bella washing the dishes. What was it that Bella had said?

You’re too slow, sister. You’re dragging your leg.

“I think it’s time for us to talk again about the birds,” Hoki said. “Do you feel like a walk?”

“Yes,” Skylark said. The sooner she got to the bottom of this, the better.

Above, the stars were like a million eyes staring down from Heaven. The moon was spilling milk among them. Hoki took the track up behind the homestead. The old lady moved with surprising speed, manoeuvring her walking sticks with practised ease. The track was very narrow and, every now and then, Hoki would stop, peer at something on the pathway and then flick it away with her walking sticks.

“You have to be careful,” Hoki said to Skylark. “If you tripped on a stone you could fall.”

The path took them up the side of a cliff. The moon flashed off it like a mirror. Looking up, Skylark saw the far reaches of the cliff face cutting into the edge of the black night like an axe. Not far away was the waterfall, cascading like mercury to the stream below.

“Surely,” Skylark groaned, “we’re not going all the way to the top.”

No, halfway up the cliff was a small flat area overlooking the valley. Right at the lip was a bench. Hoki sat on it and motioned to Skylark to sit next to her. “Bella made this for me,” Hoki said. “She knows I love coming up here when I need to have time to myself.”

From the midway vantage point the view was breathtaking. The road down Manu Valley was a molten river, pouring as if from the moon. The liquid curved around the flank of the forested valley. Further away, the dark world stretched to the end of forever. Here, between Earth and Sky, you could believe that Manu Valley was where the world had been born. If you jumped, you would fall into the womb of the world. If you reached out you could feel the birth cord joining Heaven and Earth. Night birds were calling, filling the cup of the night with ecstatic song.

“Whakarongo koe ki au,” Hoki said.

She began Skylark’s Second Lesson.

“The Great Book of Birds tells us, Skylark, that the migration of the birds from the Heavens to the Earth took many days. However, it was clear to the Lord Tane, who had made the Earth, that his winged creations would need to be given different territories in order that they could live peacefully together.”

“That’s how the Great Division came about,” Skylark said. “By it, we have manu whenua, birds of the land, and manu moana, seabirds. The God of landbirds is Punaweko and the God of seabirds is Hurumanu.”

“Well done, tamahine,” Hoki said. She pulled Skylark closer and, as a hen does with its chick, used her lips like a beak to preen Skylark’s hair as if it were feathers. “The only bird that the Lord Tane didn’t bring from the Heavens was the owl. That bird, as well as the bat, was brought from the realm of the Underworld. The point is that after the Great Division a balance was struck which allowed all the birds to live in harmony. They never questioned the setting apart of their territories. The landbirds, in their confederation of iwi, maintained supremacy over the land and forest; the seabirds were the territorial overlords of coast and ocean.

“The seabirds actually thought they had the better deal, which of course they did, but they have always been voracious of nature and always seeking to expand their ownership of all things merely for the sake of possession. As for the landbirds, they accepted the ordination of the Lord Tane. They became the first inhabitants of Aotearoa. The high-flying eagle and hawk took dominion of the skies. The moa grazed the plains of the southern islands. The graceful kotuku inhabited inlets near the sea. The kaka and kea held dominion of the craggy alpine terrain to the west. But by far the largest number — countless tribes — lived in the Great Forest that the Lord Tane had made for them. On the ground the flightless birds lived in burrows and fossicked for food.

“Then, one day, it all changed.”

“Changed?” asked Skylark.

“It is not for nothing,” Hoki said, “that the seashags, led by Kawanatanga, have been patrolling and waiting upon your arrival. From the very beginning they were the ones to bring avarice, desire and quest for domination upon the birds. Indeed, it was Kawanatanga’s ancestor Karuhiruhi who, as Cain did with Abel, brought this bloodshed into the world. Landbirds still talk with fear of the Time When the Seabirds Hungered. Do you want to hear the story?”

Again, Hoki had cleverly manipulated Skylark.

“Okay,” Skylark said.

One day Karuhiruhi, chieftain of the large black seashag iwi, decided to leave his cliff-faced pah and travel throughout his coastal domain. His wife, and royal consort, Areta, had just given birth to his first-born son and although Karuhiruhi loved them both, he felt the need to escape the royal rooms, husbandly duties and fatherhood. Flying low over the water, sometimes diving undersea in pursuit of fish and crustaceans, he reached a wide river estuary.

There, while wading in the estuary and reflecting on his life, Karuhiruhi was confronted by the Chieftain Kawau, lord of the rivershags.

“E tu,” Kawau challenged, “who are you to trespass in my river domain?” He executed a haka of splendid jumps and swoops, flashing his sharply hooked bill.

Karuhiruhi bowed in acknowledgement. “E te rangatira,” he said, “tena koe.” He proceeded to mihi to Kawau. “I am sorry if I have strayed into your territory. It was not intended.”

The exchange was elaborate and formal but, by the end of it, Kawau accepted Karuhiruhi’s apology and his credentials. The atmosphere became more relaxed, so Kawau proceeded to extend the hospitalities of his estuary to Karuhiruhi. “Please rest as long as you wish before you resume your travels,” he said.

“Thank you,” Karuhiruhi answered. “But I think it is time for me to return to my pah. E hoa, since you have extended the courtesies of your home to me, may I extend to you the courtesies of mine?”

“I would love to visit,” Kawau said.

So saying, he followed Karuhiruhi. The black seashag took off from the estuary in a long series of jumps before becoming airborne.

On the way back to his island fortress, Karuhiruhi proudly showed Kawau the extent of his domain and his tribe. His personality was invested with vanity and arrogance and he could not but boast about the vast coastal territory that he ruled. Kawau himself was not without pride and, as Karuhiruhi waxed lyrical about his possessions, Kawau became irritated by the boastful fellow. But he bided his time, knowing that an opportunity would eventually come to take Karuhiruhi down a peg or two.

Areta was awaiting her husband’s return. “My Lord, your son is in his nest. You have arrived just in time for kai.”

“My royal consort,” Karuhiruhi answered, “I have brought a guest, Kawau, chief of rivershags. Let him be welcomed in the appropriate manner.”

At this order, Areta and her female attendants called in karanga, and young warriors assembled to exhibit their skills at taiaha, peruperu drill and other martial arts.

It was time for kai. “Let it be only the best for our guest,” Karuhiruhi said. He dived from the cliff, plunged into the sea, caught the choicest fish he could find and gave it to Kawau.

“Aue,” Kawau grimaced. The spines of the fish had hurt his throat. He saw his chance to hang one on Karuhiruhi. In a slightly supercilious tone, he said, “Your food is no good, Chief Karuhiruhi. Where I live the food is much better.”

There was nothing more humiliating than to have a guest belittle one’s hospitality. “Much better?” Karuhiruhi hissed. “What food do you have that could possibly compare with ours?”

Kawau smiled, and his smile was not entirely guileless. “There are eels in my estuary which are so smooth that it is a pleasure to swallow them.” He hung another one on Karuhiruhi. “Not like your fish which make me feel as if I have eaten razors.”

If only Kawau had been more diplomatic.

“Is that so?” Karuhiruhi asked, beginning to take a dislike of this arrogant rivershag. “Prove it.”

“Be my guest,” Kawau said.

He led Karuhiruhi back to his river domain. Toroa the albatross, Karoro the chieftain of the aggressive and powerful tribe of black-backed gulls, Taranui the tern, Parara the broad-billed prion, Areta and other seabird courtiers accompanied them. Kawau was oblivious to the foreboding swish of Karuhiruhi’s dark wingspan and the glitter of anger in his eyes. And he was also foolish! He took Karuhiruhi and the seabird entourage far inland, further than any seabird had ever been before, to a lagoon renowned for the deliciousness of its eels.

The lagoon was below. With a cry, “Taiki e!”, Kawau plummeted from the sky, diving deep into the sunlit waters, pursuing the eels as they fled through the sunken logs and forests of their world. On returning to the surface, he nonchalantly tossed a gleaming eel to Karuhiruhi.

“Here!” he laughed.

Karuhiruhi arched his face to the sun. He saw the eel wriggling in the air, its sinuous length flashing in the sky towards him. “So this is better kai than my own?” he sneered. The gleaming eel fell towards him. He opened his bill, catching the eel. It slid down his throat, cool, wriggling, sweet.

Nothing had prepared Karuhiruhi for such joy. His green eyes widened with shock. “It is true.” Even before the eel reached his stomach, Karuhiruhi knew he wanted more. He watched as Kawau offered eels to the other seabirds and observed in them the same swooning reaction. Always hungry, his mind immediately flicked to the ultimate possibilities: if this was the food in one lagoon, imagine the bounty in all the others. The seabirds stared at each other, speechless. Their sensory perceptions were in overload.

“So what do you think?” Kawau said.

The words flew out of Karuhiruhi’s beak before he could stop them.

“One could murder for such sweetness,” he said.

Murder?

“The Great Book of Birds tells us,” Hoki said, “that this is how the battle of the landbirds and the seabirds began. It quotes a proverb that has since become famous in the literature of the landbirds: ‘Over such things, eels, hens and land, are wars fought; he tuna, he wahine, he whenua, ka ngaro te tangata —’”

When Karuhiruhi returned to his cliff-faced pah, his mind was already whirling with a plan. Obsessed with the taste of eel, he got down to proposing a strategy. The voracious and cannibalistic Karoro was already his ally.

“I want to call a hui of all seabird chieftains,” Karuhiruhi said. “It would be helpful if I had your support. Will you all give it to me? You, Karoro, kei te tautoko? Will you be my Second in Command?”

“Ae,” Karoro nodded, his beak razoring the air.

“Count us in too,” said Toroa, Taranui and Parara.

Karuhiruhi nodded. “Let emissaries be despatched to all the other seabird chieftains,” he ordered. “All you who rule mollymawks, fulmars, petrels, shearwaters, gannets, boobies, pelicans, shags, tropicbirds, frigate birds and skuas, haere mai, haere mai, haere mai.”

Three nights later, all manu moana chieftains had assembled at Karuhiruhi’s island fortress. They were curious, excited, sensing that something revolutionary was about to happen.

“Timata,” Karuhiruhi said. “Let us begin.” In the firelit interior of the wharenui, with Areta looking on proudly, Karuhiruhi told the seabird chieftains of his meeting with Kawau. Never had Areta seen her husband act so powerfully, so like the ruler of the world.

“I have supped on kai so exquisite that I would give up all to have it again,” he said. “Oh … that river eel was so smooth and so cool. When it slid down my throat I could not believe that food could bring so much delight. Even now, remembering it, I drool for more. It had no scales, brothers, and in its death throes it flicked its tail inside me. The sensation was exquisite, and lasted for days.”

“How can such a food exist?” the chieftains asked. “No scales, you say?”

“None,” Toroa confirmed. “Just think, brothers, of the other kai which must exist in the kingdom of the landbirds. Think —”

“All could be ours,” Karoro added. “All, all —”

Karuhiruhi, Karoro, Toroa, Taranui and Parara swept the other chieftains along with the conviction of their words. Pathologically driven to eat, eat, eat, seabirds had always possessed appetites that could never be appeased. They gorged themselves even when full. Now they bore testimony to the aphrodisiacal nature of the food of the inland river lagoon. The vision they offered of limitless food sent all the seabird chieftains wild with delirium.

It was then that Karuhiruhi spoke what had until then remained unbroached.

“Why just stop at taking the kai of the landbirds,” he hissed.

“He aha? What?”

The hui turned into a Council of War.

“Why should the manu whenua live in such luxury in the forest,” Karuhiruhi continued, “where their food is within beak’s reach, while we, the manu moana, spend all our hours scouring the coast and the sea for our paltry sustenance?”

“Ka tika!” the chieftains whistled, their heads bobbing in assent.

“Why should their food be so sweet while ours is salty? Their kai so smooth while ours is scaly?”

“Yes! Ae! Ka tika!”

Then Karuhiruhi voiced the Ultimate Heresy.

“Why should the landbirds have been given such bounty by the Lord Tane and the seabirds not?” he cried. “Why should the seabirds be denied the incredible riches possessed by the landbirds? Such division of bounty is unfair. The setting apart of the Earth into two territories was not meant to be!”

The chieftains whistled and screamed with horror. They waited for Karuhiruhi to be struck dead by Tane. They waited for Hurumanu’s claws to descend and strike Karuhiruhi’s head from his body.

Nothing happened. The seabirds tipped over into insanity.

“Let us take the land!” Karuhiruhi called.

Intoxicated by his rhetoric, the other chieftains roared their approval.

“Let us declare war on the manu whenua. Ka tika?”

“Ka tika,” Karoro called in support, and he crossed his wings against Karuhiruhi’s in an act of allegiance.

The chieftains roared their agreement. “Ka tika! Ka tika!” they cried.

Karuhiruhi issued the instructions. “War! War! War!”

Chapter Four

As usual in the morning, birdsong.

Skylark was asleep when the melody drifted through her dreams. Something was sighing in the wind. The trilling began, ornamenting the vocal line. The warbling came next, followed by a throbbing bass and a syncopated whistling. The sounds merged into a crescendo of wind chimes silvered with a scattering of bells.

“Not again,” Cora wailed from her bedroom.

The sun flooded across the Manu Valley. The manu whenua repeated their age-old thanks to the Lord Tane.

Skylark awoke, wondering whether she’d been dreaming or whether Hoki really had told her about how the war between the landbirds and seabirds began. Her head was throbbing with it all. The seabird attacks, the stories Hoki and Bella were putting into her head — none of it made sense, yet she couldn’t shake off the impact.

“No, no, no,” Skylark said to herself. “I will not be caught up in someone else’s psychodrama.” She got up, put on her bathrobe, went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. A couple of pieces of toast with peanut butter later, and she was sitting in the sun looking across the valley.

What was that shadow over the sea? Was the weather changing?

Bella and Hoki were also up early that morning. At breakfast Bella made up with her sister.

“I’m sorry I overstepped the mark with Skylark,” Bella said. “From now on, I’ll leave you to do your job.”

“You’ll zip your lip?” Hoki asked sternly. She cocked an eye and made a threatening peck to make sure Bella got the picture.

“Consider it done,” Bella answered. Better to have peace in the henhouse and to smooth ruffled feathers.

Satisfied, Hoki put an arm around her sister to show she’d been forgiven. “Good,” she said.

Bella left the house in the direction of the toolshed, aware that she’d got out of that one lightly. Sometimes Hoki’s temper could go on for days. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Hoki got on with the breadmaking. She looked out the window, saw the shadows over the sea, and paused a moment to watch the weather front coming up from the south. She returned to her breadmaking. Then she looked again at the approaching southerly.

Her blood froze. “I have to find Bella,” she said.

Far off she heard Bella banging and crashing away, preparing the traps to catch the wild dogs, stoats, ferrets and feral cats that roamed the forest, killing the birds and destroying their nests.

“Bella?” Hoki called. “Bella!”

The sound of fear in her sister’s voice was enough to make Bella stop in her tracks. One look at Hoki’s face and she came running.

“Are you all right, sister?”

“Look!” Hoki pointed.

The shadows weren’t clouds. Seabirds, hundreds of them, were coming across the sea, making for the offshore islands.

“The Book of Birds told us this would happen, but I never thought we’d see the day,” Hoki continued.

“It’s an early warning call. Sister, you must bring Skylark up to speed. Rev up and put yourself into third, okay?”

Out on the Sea Queen, Mitch Mahana didn’t take much notice of the seabirds arrowing overhead. He’d been aware the numbers had increased over the last few weeks, but merely put it down to seasonal migratory patterns. The offshore islands had always been the staging post for seabirds heading north for the winter. Of more interest was the movement below water. The boat’s sonar system was pinging and it was clear from the screen that a huge shoal of kahawai was moving beneath them.

Within an hour Mitch and his crew — his son Francis and nephews Hori and Vic — had the nets out and were trawling the shoal. Soon after, they were scooping the catch from the bottom. The net rose and the kahawai began to stipple the surface of the water with froth.

Mitch and his crew were jubilant. It was a good catch. They began winching the nets in, unconcerned by the darkness of the clouds over the sun.

Then harsh cries split their eardrums and seabirds fell from the air.

Kaa. Kaa. Kee law. Kee law.

Mitch was accustomed to seabirds following his boat and skimming some of the fish from the nets. But this was different.

“Dad? Dad!” Francis came running along the deck. “What’s going on, Dad?”

Hundreds of seabirds were hurtling down on the catch. Hungry after their long journeys to the offshore islands, they relished the opportunity of easy kai. Again and again they hurled themselves into the nets, slashing at the fish and tearing the flesh from throat to tail, stripping the kahawai to the bones in seconds.

Just as quickly as it had started, the feeding frenzy was over. The seabirds resumed their slow procession towards the offshore islands. All that was left was water stained with blood and bits and pieces of the catch.

The crew, open-mouthed, began to haul in the net. Nothing.

Mitch thought of Manu Valley. He thought of Hoki and Bella.

“We have to go back to Tuapa,” he said.

Skylark finished her coffee. She saw Bella heading off to set her traps. A few moments later, Hoki appeared and began walking up the cliff path. She had binoculars slung around her neck.

Hoki must be going to the lookout point, Skylark realised.

For a few moments she watched Hoki’s ascent. Then she took a deep breath and turned her mind to the most difficult mission of the morning: giving Cora her wake-up call.

“Mum?”

Cora was lying with a sleeping mask over her face. She was also wearing her high heels; they were sticking out of the end of the bed. She had got back very late last night.

“Go away,” Cora moaned.

“I haven’t made you a cup of coffee for nothing.”

“I didn’t get any sleep at all,” Cora wailed. “Isn’t there some way we can turn off the birds?” She reached grumpily for the first cigarette of the day.

“Mum, do you have to smoke?”

Cora frowned. “Let’s make a deal today, honey. You don’t talk about my smoking, I won’t talk about your weight.”

“Whoa,” Skylark said. Cora was rocking today. Well, there were two ways of handling Mum’s ultimatums. One was to rock on with the issue; the other was to be kind to the dear. Skylark chose to be kind. “So how did the rehearsal go?”

“The rehearsal? Oh! The re-hearsal!”

Immediately Cora was awake, sitting up in bed, plumping the pillows around her, reaching for her coffee and ready to dish Skylark the goss. “Honey, all I can say is that Ronnie is very lucky that I happened to be in town. I mean, it’s not his fault that the girl who plays the lead can’t sing and the boy who plays the hero can’t dance and has no sex appeal whatsoever — but after all it is a college production.”

Skylark always loved it when her mother played the star who comes in the nick of time to save the production.

“I watched the run-through,” Cora continued, waving her hands to indicate it was so-so, “and then Ronnie and I got down to business. Ronnie — he has such lovely brown eyes, just like a puppy — asked me what I had in mind for my specialty routine. You know the story, don’t you? It’s set in the 1960s and famous rock star Conrad Birdie is drafted into the army. Just before he gets his hair cut he makes his final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Well, a light went on in my head and I remembered something —”

Cora was in full flight now. She gulped at her coffee, took a long drag on her cigarette and brought Skylark into her confidence.

“Can you remember, honey, when I did my Madonna number at the TVNZ Christmas party a few years ago?”

Who could forget it, Skylark thought dismally. Mum was trying the comeback trail and chose to sing “Like a Virgin”. Unfortunately, all that her frenetic, excruciating performance showed was that underneath her makeup was an ordinary and desperate woman — and certainly not a virgin — trying to hold on in a world that had grown young.

“I said to Ronnie, ‘How about this! Not only is Conrad Birdie in the show but also —’” Cora was winding up to her big idea — “Madonna!”

“But Madonna wasn’t around in the 1960s,” Skylark said.

“A mere trifle,” Cora sniffed. “Since when did you become so pedantic?” Lost in a vision of her own cleverness, Cora burst into song: “I wanted everybody to love me …” She forgot the words half way through, saw the look on Skylark’s face and hastened to explain. “Luckily, Ronnie has the song on CD, so this time I’ll lipsync it.”

“That’ll help,” Skylark said, without meaning it.

“It’ll all come together this time,” Cora went on. “I even had a fitting for my costume, and one of the girls over at the massage parlour has a blonde wig — you wouldn’t believe how many times Korean sailors ask her to put it on — and I’ll sing the song, and then I’ll turn to Conrad Birdie and give him the sweetest kiss.”

Cora closed her eyes and pursed her lips. Skylark winced, embarrassed, and then was cross with herself. Mum was one of the world’s courageous souls. She put herself out there, in the spotlight. What you saw was what you got. How many people were that brave?

“So what do you think, honey?” Cora asked.

Skylark knew she could never let her mother down. After all these years, when the audiences had slowly dwindled, she was still there to clap.

“Great, Mum. Just great.”

An hour later, Lucas turned up to take Cora down to a dress rehearsal.

“What are you doing here?” Cora laughed. “Where’s Ronnie?”

“I told him I’d collect you,” Lucas said, which was a more polite version of the words he had used to warn Ronnie off his patch. In his hand he had a small bouquet of plastic roses. “These are for you,” he said. They looked suspiciously like the ones Flora Cornish had on the tables of her diner.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Cora laughed.

Cora accepted the flowers and then, with a rush and a roar she and Lucas were off.

No sooner had they gone than Mitch Mahana turned up.

“Hello, Skylark,” Mitch smiled. “Home alone? Is Bella or Hoki around?” He seemed anxious about something.

“I don’t know where Bella’s gone,” Skylark told him, “but last time I saw Hoki she was walking up the cliff path.”

“I know where to find her,” said Mitch. “Catch you later.”

Curious, Skylark watched as Mitch ascended the path. He reached the midway point and paused, looking out to sea. There was something so frightening about his stillness that Skylark turned and followed his gaze.

What was that shadow over the sea?

Then she realised: seabirds, hundreds of them, circling over the offshore islands.

“That does it,” Skylark said to herself. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and I’m going to do it now —” With that, Skylark took off after Mitch.

When she reached the summit she saw Mitch and Hoki talking earnestly. She also saw something she hadn’t noticed before:

A tree. But no ordinary tree. This one was skeletal. Bony, with many branches but no leaves. It looked like two hands, cupped like a bowl, with fingers clutching at the sky. There was something grand about the tree, something profound, and had Skylark been receptive she may have understood. But she had other bones to pick.

Hoki and Mitch didn’t hear Skylark arriving. They were taking turns to look at the gathering birds through Hoki’s binoculars.

Hoki’s voice was grave. “Thank you for coming by with your news,” she said to Mitch. “You are right to be anxious and to tell me off for not involving you earlier.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Mitch said. “I should have worked it out myself. I should have realised that the heliacal rising of the planet Venus is only two mornings away. No wonder the seabirds are arriving.”

The heliacal rising of the planet Venus?

“Two mornings left to stop what has been prophesied. Skylark is the key. Only she has the power to lock the seabirds out so that the prophecy is not fulfilled.”

I’m the key? What prophecy?

“Ae,” Mitch nodded. “Don’t forget — call on me and my son Francis if you need our help.”

“I will.”

Skylark felt her temper rising. “I hate being talked about behind my back!” she shouted, striding over to the pair. “What’s this prophecy you’re talking about?”

Hoki gave a gasp. She turned to Mitch. “Leave me alone with the girl, would you? We have an unfinished conversation.”

“Okay, Kui,” Mitch said. He looked at Skylark and his eyes twinkled. “Good luck!” he said to Hoki. “You’ll need it.”

Hoki watched Mitch start his way back down the track. Then she hobbled over to where Skylark was standing. “Follow me, child,” she said.

She walked straight up to the strange tree and began to sing to it as she approached. “E te kaumatua, tena koe.” There were tears in her eyes as she placed her nose against it in greeting. “This tree was once a giant kauri, the largest in the Great Forest of Tane,” she told Skylark. “It was the first tree ever, like unto the Tree of Good and Evil that stood in the Garden of Eden. It isn’t familiar to you, Skylark? Nor this place, the twin mountains?”

“Should it be?” Skylark answered. She was still trying to get over the astonishment of an old woman singing to a tree, good grief. Now she was on her guard, suspicious of Hoki’s tears, and the way Hoki had of not answering the question to hand and, instead, tacking like a yacht in another direction. “Don’t think you can fob me off again,” Skylark warned. “What’s the tree or the twin mountains got to do with the planet Venus!”

Hoki sighed and wiped away her tears. “Skylark, dear,” she began, “not every question can be answered by going straight down the middle. Sometimes you have to take the long way home. This is why Maori like to answer by going in a circle. So humour a little old lady, because what you want to know about is all part of the same loop.”

Oh, it was so sneaky, really, how Hoki eased Skylark back into the spiral of storytelling.

“The twin mountains are renowned,” she began, “because Maori people regard them as being the closest point between the earth and the moon. In the time of the birds, they marked the very heart of the Great Forest. That eternal icon, the rainbow, arched overhead and, if ever you wanted to find the twin mountains, all you had to do was to look for the brightest rainbow in the sky. Why was it so bright? The celestial colours were made richer by the mist which was the very breath of the trees. Every morning the dew dazzled like emeralds. By afternoon the sun gleamed like greenstone. Came the evening and the Great Forest wore a garland of stars.”

Hoki looked at Skylark. Was any of this getting through or was she still off-line? Hoping for the best, Hoki turned to the tree — and a sense of awe and reverence flooded her voice.

“As for the tree, it was immediately acknowledged by all the landbirds as representing the Lord Tane, as being unto the image of Tane himself. Over those years it became their Jerusalem, if you like, venerated as a sacred site. Here, they congregated whenever they had issues to discuss, disputes to settle or matters of grave concern to vote on. It therefore became the venue for meetings of the Runanga a Manu — the parliament of birds.”

Hoki pointed at the branches of the tree. “The landbirds realised that their loosely linked confederation of different iwi needed a system of central governance. They appointed Chieftain Tui of the parson-bird clan to be their paramount leader, their prime minister as it were, and the ultimate arbiter of all things to do with landbird political, economic and cultural affairs. Along with Chieftain Tui, the landbirds also established a system of high-ranking ministers: Chieftain Ruru of the morepork clan was appointed because of his wisdom; Chieftain Kahu of the hawk iwi was appointed because of his warrior skills; and Chieftain Titi of the muttonbird clan was appointed because of his diplomatic experience. Below them, in hierarchical order based on whether they had wings or not, were all the chieftains of the other bird iwi. Of course, women were not regarded as having the same mana as men, so those women who led their iwi, like Te Arikinui Kotuku of herons, Te Arikinui Huia of huias, Te Arikinui Korimako of bellbirds and Te Arikinui Karuwai of robins, had branches lower to the ground where the wingless birds were.

“The most important branch,” Hoki continued, “was right at the very top of the sacred tree. It was called the paepae, the perch of chiefs. If you wished to speak, you spoke from there in the pecking order determined by your rank. Speak out of turn and you were howled down. Thus, when the seabirds began to mass against the landbirds it was only natural that —”

“That?” Skylark asked.

“Whakarongo koe ki au,” Hoki said.

She began the Third Lesson.

“Can you remember, Skylark, how the battle of the birds began? It started when the chieftain of the seashag clan, Karuhiruhi, was able to persuade all the other seabird chieftains to join him in a war to overturn the Great Division, a war against the birds of the land. He told them to assemble their troops on the offshore islands —”

The steady procession of manu moana to the pah of Karuhiruhi did not go unnoticed by the landbirds. The forest tribes lining the coast wondered about the squadrons of seabirds which blackened the sky from dawn to dusk. But it was Kawau, the rivershag, noting the sudden departure of the gulls and skuas from his bordering territories, who was the first to start putting two and two together.

“I must go and speak with Chieftain Tui,” Kawau thought. He wheeled away from his lagoon and flew inland toward the twin mountains.

“Tena koe, Kawau,” Tui said. He was a handsome chieftain with a feathered cloak of fine mazarine blue clasped at the throat with tufts of white curled feathers. He also had an eye for the ladies and, when Kawau found him at his official duties — on the paepae of the sacred tree — he was plucking the feathers of some very pretty constituents.

“Sir,” Kawau began, “I have grave news. The seabirds, led by Karuhiruhi of the seashag clan, are assembling at the offshore islands to attack us. I think they mean war.”

“War?” Tui asked.

Nothing fanned a cock’s ardour more than sex or the prospect of a fight. Tui had just enjoyed the former, so he was quick to turn his interests the latter.

“What is your evidence? What proof do you bring to me?”

Kawau was reluctant to tell of his own involvement in the story but was unable to avoid the chieftain’s probing questions. After all, Tui was the bird whose long beak could suck the deepest honey from the most challenging clematis flower.

“You have been a foolish rivershag, haven’t you,” Tui said. He pondered Kawau’s news. Not for nothing was he regarded as Commander-in-Chief of landbirds. He claimed his wisdom and mana from being a direct descendant of Parauri, one of the brothers of the Lord Tane, and one of the three guardians charged with the welfare and fertility of the Great Forest.

“Your report is serious. Similar intelligence has been coming in from other landbird clans throughout the Great Forest. What was missing from their reports, and what you have now given me, is the missing piece of the puzzle: the motive for the seabird movements. Put together, the movements and the motive — and greed is the only motive that makes sense — indeed add up to war.”

“What can we do about it?” Kawau asked.

Tui came to his decision. “We must call an extraordinary meeting of the Runanga a Manu. Let all assemble on the Longest Night before the Winter Solstice sunrise.”

He stood on the perch of chiefs, stretched his throat and with a cry sounding like a trumpet he called:

“Tui! Tui! Tuia!”

“Chieftain Tui’s calls passed through the length and breadth of the land,” Hoki said. “Each dawn it was passed during birdsong:

“‘Haramai nga rangatira manu whenua ki te Runanga! Tui, tui, tuia!’

“Throughout the confederation the message was passed from one iwi to the next, from one whanau to another. It was called through the Great Forest. It was called across the straits separating our islands. It was passed from small thrush to high-flying hawk. From kingfisher to wingless weka. From grebe to the mountain citadels of the kaka and the pastures of the moa.

“‘Haramai, haramai, haramai.’

“The Book of Birds tells us, Skylark, that it was to the paepae, to this sacred tree here, at the juncture of the twin mountains, that the birds journeyed —”

The chieftains came from the myriad pah, the many nesting places, of Te Tai Tokerau in the north, Te Tai Rawhiti in the east, Te Tai Hauauru in the west and from Te Waipounamu in the south — from the Hauraki, the Waikato, the Arawa, the Mataatua, the Kahungunu. You would have thought that because they had wings — well, most of them — the journeys of the manu whenua would have been speedily accomplished. Not so. Over the years they had developed intricate and highly sophisticated protocols which, by acknowledging ownership by the various landbird species of specific tribal territories, required rituals of encounter at every border before visitors could cross them. Their various fabulous and grand processions as hundreds of travelling parties through the whanau groups of the Great Forest were therefore slowed by the necessities of observing customary protocol. You never moved from one group to the next without paying the appropriate respects to that whanau, their dead, their living, and without due attention to your own whakapapa. Not only that but you also had to partake of kai, always a risky business as it meant you got fatter as you journeyed further. When you realise that the movements were further complicated by happening at various levels — on the ground, within the lower, middle and upper parts of the forest canopy, and in the open sky — you understand why the time taken for assembly in the twin mountains was dangerously overlong.

High above, quartering the land with upswept wings, was Chieftain Kahu of the hawk iwi. Proud and magnificent, protector of the upper skies, he kept lookout on the landbird processions below. “Come on, people,” he called to the stragglers. “Make greater haste, kia tere, kia tere.” Sometimes he sent his beautiful daughter, Kahurangi, or one of his virile sons with a more peremptory command to move it or lose it.

Eventually, one by one, the landbird chieftains arrived at the twin mountains closest to the moon. Chieftain Kuku of the pigeon iwi was showing the effects of eating too well during his travels; the puku of his white breast bulged over his dark plumage. He saw the sacred tree in front of him and wondered how on earth he was going to get to the top.

For Chieftain Kakariki of the parakeets, however, ascending the branches was a breeze. “Torete! Kaurehe!” he cried as he leapt from one branch to the next, chattering and spreading juicy gossip.

Chieftain Kakapo stayed on the ground, making up for his lack of flight by being his usual aggressive and male chauvinist self. There, he struck poses of superiority and cast angry looks at the women chieftains present — Te Arikinui Huia, Te Arikinui Korimako and Te Arikinui Karuwai.

“The parliament is the place of men,” Kakapo muttered. “A hen’s place is behind her man.”

Always on the prowl, Chieftain Pukeko was making a nuisance of himself, trampling over Chieftain Kiwi, the shy hidden bird of Tane. Seeing this, Chieftain Kokako of the crows flew at him: “Hie! Hie! Haere ki te huhi, haere ki te repo! Go away! Leave him alone! Go back to the swamp where you came from!”

As for Chieftain Kea, he was lording it in his multi-coloured magnificence, strutting his stuff before his many wives.

Chieftain Pitoitoi of the robin whanau wasn’t impressed. “That Kea is all blow and no go,” he said.

Chieftain Kaka, Chieftain Koreke of the quails and Chieftain Parera of grey ducks all agreed. They noted that Kea had made a throne on his branch.

“Those Te Arawa customs are being taken up by everyone,” said Chieftain Piwakawaka of fantails.

Chieftain Stitchbird of the native thrush iwi tittered; and so did Chieftain Popokatea of the whitehead whanau and Chieftain Brightbird of the silver-eye iwi.

It was an impressive sight to see the chieftains of the manu whenua hopping and flying among the branches of the sacred tree and taking their places. It was to be expected that there should be squabbles as some of the birds pretended to forget their lower status and tried to ascend to somebody else’s branch; the upstarts were sent packing down to lower branches where they belonged. The roll call revealed that Chieftain Tui’s command to come had indeed been heeded by all landbird chieftains. There was shy Chieftain Pakura of the swamp-hens, Chieftain Matuku of the bitterns, Chieftain Koekoea of the long-tailed cuckoos, Chieftain Pipiwharauroa of the shining-cuckoos, and Chieftain Kuaka of godwits. Chieftain Ruru of moreporks and Chieftain Whekau of laughing-owls waited for complete darkness before taking their places.

Chieftain Pekapeka of bats also waited until night fell, hanging from his own special upside-down branch. His participation was by special agreement of the birds, who had never been sure of his avian status but were persuaded by the fact that he flew.

Last to arrive at the Runanga a Manu, because they had come furthest, were Chieftain Titi of the southern muttonbirds and the graceful Te Arikinui Kotuku of the white heron colony at Okarito. They brought apologies from Chieftain Moa, which was a relief to all because he took up so much room when he sat down.

Kotuku was always one to make an entrance, gliding in like a glistening dream, her long white feathers raking the moon. She took her branch beside the other women chieftains.

“We’re so glad you’re here,” Te Arikinui Korimako said. “Kakapo is being such a teke.”

Kotuku fluted a silvery voice. “Not to worry, dear,” she said. “Me and Huia can fix him any day. What do you say, Huia?”

The gorgeous Te Arikinui Huia sighed a delicious sigh. She preened her white-tipped plumes and adjusted her fabulous white-feathered choker. “My dears, he lives on the ground,” she said throatily.

The assembly was complete. Within the amphitheatre of the twin mountains, sitting in the most ancient tree of the Great Forest of Tane, the extraordinary meeting waited to come to order. Whistling, trilling, cooing and warbling, the chieftains settled down.

Chieftain Kahu reported to Chieftain Tui. “All present and correct, sir.”

Tui coughed, preparing to speak. He flew to the perch of chiefs, folded his wings and hopped, strutted, tap-danced and two-stepped his way along the branch.

“Show-off,” whispered Te Arikinui Karuwai, who had been one of Tui’s many conquests.

A glow came up behind the twin mountains, illuminating the sacred tree with unearthly beauty. The moon arose, full, belling out into the night. A great sigh of wonder came from the throats of the landbirds as they watched it ascend. Higher and higher it rose, dimming the stars with its awesome radiance. Tui lifted his voice:

“Whakarongo ake au ki te tangi a te manu nei a te ma tui, tui, tuituia!”

The Runanga a Manu, the Parliament of Birds, was in session.

“E nga rangatira,” Tui began, “tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.” He adjusted his mazarine blue cloak. “As we all know it was the great Lord Tane who with other Lords pushed up the Sky Father. In the space between he created his Great Forest as the home for us, the birds, his children. As our guardian he appointed the Lord Punaweko.”

“Ka tika, ka tika,” Chieftain Kuku interjected. The assembly murmured in agreement.

“The Lord Tane also set aside the coast and the seas of our whanaunga, the seabirds, under the guardianship of the Lord Hurumanu. This setting apart of manu whenua and manu moana has been enshrined in Divine Law and, in our history, as the Great Division.”

“That is true, that is true,” Chieftain Kokako assented.

“Now,” Tui continued, “the alarm has been raised about the seabird troops that are gathering at the island fortress of Karuhiruhi, Lord of seashags. The troops have been training under the generalship of Karoro, chieftain of black-backed gulls. Special frontline squads under the command of Chieftain Toroa, Chieftain Taranui and Chieftain Parara have also been observed in specialist military activities.”

The landbird chieftains began to murmur, shifting uneasily and hopping along their branches.

“How are we to respond to this challenge?” Tui asked. “This is the question you must debate. This is why I have called you all to this extraordinary meeting of the Runanga.”

Tui flew back to his branch.

For a moment there was silence.

Then, rather prematurely, Kawau the rivershag flew from his low branch up to the perch of chiefs. There was an instant ruffling of feathers as the other birds expressed their displeasure at Kawau daring to fly past others of greater mana and take the perch before they did. Not even his showy display of strutting footwork and beakwork pacified them.

“E nga rangatira,” Kawau began. His tone was pompous as he endeavoured to ingratiate himself. “It was I who brought the word to Chieftain Tui, and it was on my intelligence that he decided to call the Runanga. I —”

“Typical, typical,” Te Arikinui Kotuku called out. “It is only the rivershag that cries out its own name. Ko au! Ko au! Ko au!”

The other chieftains laughed good-humouredly. But Kawau extended his neck in an arrogant gesture, dismissive of Kotuku. “It is easy for Kotuku to challenge me. After all, she has only one small inlet at Okarito to defend, an insignificant stretch of tepid water that nobody would want, whereas I have a lagoon famed for its food supplies.”

Kotuku veiled her yellow eyes. “Silly shag, to think you can cross me and get away with it.” The other women shivered. Kotuku was not one to be enemies with.

“I believe the seabirds plan to take my lagoon,” Kawau continued. “It was there that Karuhiruhi tasted my sweet river eels, famed for their deliciousness and for their aphrodisiacal powers. Many of you have bickered over them. Now, the seabirds want to take possession of them. No doubt exists in my mind that the seabirds are therefore planning an all out war. I ask that our response be to deploy a strong landbird force to defend my lagoon.”

“Self-interest as usual,” Te Arikinui Huia murmured.

The landbirds swayed, weighing Kawau’s words.

With a whirr of wings, Chieftain Titi of the southern muttonbird clan took the perch. A kapa haka expert, Titi was small in stature, but was well-practised in crowd control, twirling and gesticulating, doing the pukana, and winning the admiration of all. The landbirds settled down again.

“E nga rangatira,” Titi said, “the issue is not whether we are at war but whether there will be a war. Certainly, the mass movements of seabirds to Karuhiruhi’s island fortress seem to imply this possibility. However no declaration of war has yet been delivered to us.”

“Can I believe my ears?” Te Arikinui Korimako asked. “Does Titi really expect Karuhiruhi to be so honourable as to declare his intentions? No way. Hey, Titi, whose side are you on?”

The question was reasonable enough. Titi, after all, was a member of the shearwater family, a seabird clan. His iwi had been included in the landbird confederacy by special dispensation: their burrowing sites often stretched inland from the beaches. It was to be expected that he, with the blood of seabirds in his veins, would incline to diplomacy and conciliation.

Titi responded by playing the injured party. “My loyalties may be split,” he conceded, “but that does not undercut my argument that until there really is war we cannot say we are at war. For instance, if the seabirds saw us gathering, as we have done tonight, might they not think the same of us as we are thinking about them?”

“Ka tika,” some of the landbirds nodded. “That is true.”

Others, like Chieftain Kahu of the hawk iwi, however, were having trouble with Titi’s line of reasoning.

“Might I say something?” Kahu tried to intervene. “Of all landbirds I am the one who has the greatest overview. I also know more than anybody the psychology of the seabirds. It is my clan’s responsibility to maintain the borders and, from our high reconnaissance of the seabirds, my opinion is that they are certainly deploying for some major offensive. Over the past few days my iwi and I have had more sorties with intruding seabirds than ever before. I know Karuhiruhi. He is my implacable opponent. Words are wasted on him. What we need to do is to spring into action. If we don’t prepare for war now, we will be overrun without any chance at offering resistance.”

The chieftains began an anxious chattering. Kahu’s words could always be trusted. But, the very idea of war was difficult to contemplate. There was, after all, no precedent.

Titi seized on the landbirds’ indecision. “I agree with Kahu that the seabirds probably do mean to wage war. However, we must be prudent. To this end, I am prepared to lead a mission to the seabirds and, through my cousins, the shearwaters, seek an understanding of their intentions. If they truly are planning a war, let me have your approval to resolve any tensions through diplomatic channels.”

Titi’s voice was persuasive and as sweet as his own delicious flesh. His words held the landbirds spellbound. He was one of their top ministers. His words came with the weight of the mana that his office held. He offered them a way out of a military confrontation. Having lived with security of tenure for so long, they had grown complacent. They wanted the way of things to remain but preferred, if at all possible, to expend only minimal effort to maintain it. They were relieved to hear such reason being uttered by one as benevolent as Titi.

Even better, he had offered to do the work.

“Can you credit these men?” Te Arikinui Karuwai whistled.

“Kahu tried his best,” Huia nodded, “but it is not his fault. His fellow chieftains are bound to take the easy option if they are offered it.”

Kotuku became anxious. She was certain she could smell a rat. From the corner of her eye she saw Chieftain Kaka preparing to speak. What was that? Did he give a surreptitious wink in Titi’s direction? Her eyes narrowed. “Ladies, it’s a jack-up,” she said.

With a harsh cry, Kaka flew up to the perch of chiefs. As if being swept up by the passion of the hui, the brown-cloaked chieftain attacked the branch with his beak. “This is what we would do to the seabirds if they dared to war with us,” Kaka screamed.

“He kaka wahanui!” Chieftain Kuku called out with approval.

“He kaka kai uta, he mangaa kai te moana!” cried Chieftain Kokako, drawing a comparison between the kaka on land with the barracouta at sea.

With the light of theatrical anger in his eyes, Kaka struck a warrior position.

“Why do we even bother to worry about the seabirds when we know that we are better and stronger than them? Why do we worry ourselves over what they are doing when our own superiority is without doubt?”

“Kaka sure knows how to play to the gallery,” Huia said. “Just listen to them.”

The Runanga a Manu was roaring with approval and smug satisfaction. What a brilliant fellow Kaka was to remind them of their superior status.

Kaka modulated his voice, spreading a soothing mood of self-congratulation. “Let us not forget that we are an intelligent and humane species. We have the capacity to be forgiving, to be magnanimous, to be understanding. Is this not the trait which most sets us apart from the seabirds?”

“Ka tika, ka tika!” the chieftains called.

“Therefore,” Kaka continued, “I support what my colleague Titi has suggested. Let us talk to the seabirds. Let us negotiate if we have to.” He paused and lifted his left birdwing like a pointed finger. “And in our magnanimity and generosity, let us offer the seabirds — a treaty.”

There was an inward gasp. A silence. A murmur as the suggestion passed from beak to beak. A treaty? A treaty? Yes, a treaty!

Kaka pushed his recommendation home before those pesky women could voice any objection. “In my humble opinion, we should not, unless absolutely necessary, plunge our people into a war which could devastate our lands. Does it really need to come to a fight? No. A treaty would be infinitely preferable.”

Titi looked at Chieftain Tui. “I would like to propose, my Lord,” he said, “that we take a vote on this matter.”

Te Arikinui Korimako and Huia, alarmed, turned to Kotuku. “Do something, Kotuku,” they said. “You hold rank over us.”

“Yes! Yes! Let us vote!” came the cries from all the branches of the sacred tree. Chieftain Kahu tried a last-ditch effort. “No, my Lords, I cannot stand by and let you do this. I know Karuhiruhi, I know his ultimate ambition, I —”

Chieftain Tui cut across Kahu’s words. “A vote has been called,” he said, “and I am obliged to put it before our parliament. We will abide by the consensus.”

“But —” Kahu tried again.

Tui put the vote. “All those in favour say ae.”

“Ae! Ae! Ae!”

Kotuku stood up. “Oh, bother,” she said, preening herself and tossing her head, “why am I always the one to have to do this!”

“All those against say no —”

“Wish me luck, ladies,” Kotuku said. She opened her wings, glided like a dream up to the perch of chiefs, and made a perfect two-point landing on the branch.

“No,” she said.

Chieftain Kaka was still sitting on the perch. Before he could stop her, Kotuku accidentally on purpose swept him off it with one of her gorgeous white wings and began her address.

“Ka tangi te titi! Ka tangi te kaka! Ka tangi hoki ahau —”

Immediately, there was an uproar from the male chieftains.

“Your neck should be wrung,” Chieftain Kakapo screamed, jumping up and down on the ground. “It is only the cock who crows.”

Kotuku looked down at him with scorn. “Get some class, Kakapo,” she said. “Whiti koreke ka kitea koe. Find yourself some wings and transform yourself into a real bird.”

But Chieftain Kakapo had support from Kawau. “You have no right to the paepae!” he cried. “Leave it immediately.”

Kotuku regurgitated a seed and spat it at Kawau with derision. “You, of all people tell me to mind my place? It is you who caused the seabirds’ hunger.”

Yes,” Te Arikinui Huia asked. “How did Karuhiruhi know about the lagoon?”

“I–I-I —”

“Ko au! Ko au! Ko au!” Te Arikinui Korimako mimicked.

“Because you showed him, didn’t you?” Kotuku intervened. “You couldn’t stop yourself, could you? You had to show you were better than he was, that yours was bigger than his and, because you did —”

Kotuku realised that this was the moment to drive home her point. She spread her wings, executed some movements of intimidation, lifted her beautiful throat and let everyone hear her warrior woman karanga.

Kra-aak. Kra-aak.

Even Ruru shuddered and closed his hooded eyes.

Kotuku began her korero of warning. “Listen! All of you! Ka maro te kaki o te karuhiruhi! The seashag’s neck is already stretched out.” The assembly gasped at her words. They knew very well their import.

“That’s telling them,” Huia muttered to herself as she saw the male chieftains lose colour.

“It is too late to negotiate,” Kotuku continued. “It is ridiculous for Titi and Kaka to promote the idea of a treaty. A treaty is tantamount to giving in. It is a position of weakness, not a position of strength. It indicates that we are prepared to accommodate. Both Titi and Kaka have forgotten that things of value must be fought for or defended, not negotiated. Stop sitting on your mana. Have you all grown too smug and fat for war?”

Kotuku showed her scorn for the idea by attacking the perch with her beak and tearing strips off it.

Titi made a plea to Chieftain Tui to intervene. “Point of order, my lord, point of order —”

Like all women, Kotuku carried on regardless. “And why is the idea of a treaty stupid?” she asked, strutting her stuff. “Because there is already a treaty! Don’t you remember? The Lord Tane made it when he gave us the land and his Great Forest. We are the Lord Tane’s ordained children. The seabirds intend to break this contract. Are you all blind as a bat?”

There was an outraged splutter from the branch where Chieftain Pekapeka was hanging upside down.

“No offence intended,” Kotuku apologised. “But don’t any of you trust the evidence of your eyes? You have all seen the seabird squadrons leaving their nesting places and assembling at the offshore islands. What else are they doing if they are not plotting war?”

The sound level of the gathered birds increased, evidencing their nervousness at Kotuku’s words. When the chieftains were like this, not knowing what to say or what to do next, their natural inclination was to pass the buck to their leader. Hadn’t he been appointed to sort out such problems as this?

Tui found himself in the hot seat.

“What do you say, Prime Minister?” Kahu asked.

“I must admit,” Tui began, “on second thoughts, with the benefit of hindsight, bearing in mind all the angles, having the best interests of all uppermost, given the circumstances —”

“Yes? Yes?”

Tui coughed, having run out of his usual stonewalling phrases. But he was not a supreme politician for nothing. “Kotuku has reminded me of two crucial points.”

“What points are those?” The male chieftains hung on Tui’s words.

“The first has to do with the magnitude of the seabird threat. Not only do we have to worry about Karuhiruhi. We also have to consider Karoro, Toroa, Taranui and Parara. Collectively, they are a formidable foe. Why would they all band together if they were not thinking on the big scale? And then there is the second point —”

Tui knew how to keep the chieftains in suspense. He paced his branch. Back and forth. Back and forth. “Kotuku is correct,” he concluded. “It is too late for a treaty.”

Everybody gasped. Tui spoke as the Supreme Commander. His sanction of Kotuku meant that he agreed with her assessment.

Kaka and Titi tried to object, but Tui waved them to be silent.

“Why is Kotuku correct?” Tui asked. “I will tell you why. She quoted a proverb about the outstretched neck of the seashag. But she quoted only the first part of it. The second part warns us that once his neck is stretched out, he cannot be stopped. He is already primed for battle and —”

“Ka tika,” the chieftains murmured. “Yes —”

“No fish has any hope when the seashag has seized it. Nor bird.”

At that, the noise of the landbirds grew into a loud hubbub. The divine Te Arikinui Kotuku launched herself into the air and returned to the women’s branch of the sacred tree. She affected a simple, glorious, bow.

“Why didn’t you stay up there!” Huia scolded.

“And make the decision?” Kotuku asked, fluttering her eyelids and preening her long filamentous plumes. “Oh no, let one of the men do that!”

Tui had already reclaimed the perch of chiefs. “The seabirds are hungry,” he warbled. “The seabirds are voracious. The seabirds are power hungry. They have already committed the Ultimate Heresy. They have already broken the treaty —”

Birds were hopping up and down and scratching marks into the branches in their frenzy.

“If we don’t stop them now they will overturn the Great Division. Today Aotearoa, tomorrow the rest of the world. Do you want this to happen?”

“No!” the landbirds screamed.

“Then is it agreed? Is it to be war?” Tui asked. “Kei te tautoko?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

“So there was a war?” Skylark asked.

She was sitting with Hoki beneath the sacred tree, looking across the Manu Valley to the sea.

“Yes,” Hoki nodded, “and the seabirds were the aggressors. They should have remembered the dictum ‘Ko Tane mata nui’, Tane sees everything, but they were so arrogant. They flew even in Tane’s face when they decided to overturn his Great Division. They thought they could get away with it. More seriously they had caught the landbirds hopping. They were way ahead in terms of preparations for war —”

It was Te Arikinui Kotuku who realised that the odds were favouring the seabirds.

“Aue,” Kotuku said to Tui, “what a big job you have now. How, my Lord, can you possibly bring our troops up to speed? The only iwi that is battle ready is Kahu’s. It is hopeless —”

Kotuku let out a theatrical sigh but, under cover of her gorgeous plumes, winked at her sister leaders. They knew very well what she was doing: appealing to Tui’s vanity by implying, in ever such an indirect way, that his chieftains just weren’t up to the job.

“Don’t worry, Kotuku,” Tui answered, puffing out his breast feathers in a show of manliness. “I will order Kahu to begin compulsory military training, and to put our young warriors through a strict physical fitness regimen. Look at them! They’ve all grown so weak and plump from living the good life for so long. A war will do them good.”

“He should talk!” Huia said to Te Arikinui Korimako. “Has he looked in the river lately? Even his puku drags along the ground when he walks. It’s no wonder that he has trouble getting it up — I mean, getting his weight up into the sky —”

“Sly one,” Te Arikinui Karuwai. “Sly one.”

“Be reasonable,” Chieftain Kaka interjected. “When was the last time any of us led a raiding party on an enemy? We’ve lived peacefully all these years and we’ve lost our skills.”

“That may be true, but the seabirds won’t be as reasonable as us,” Kotuku said. “As far as I’m concerned, a long peace in our landbird history is not an acceptable excuse.”

She turned to Tui, flirting with him again.

“Kotuku is right,” Tui intoned. He lifted his voice to the assembled birds. “Let all landbird chieftains of all bird iwi and clans assign taiaha tutors to teach the ancient arts of warfare! All young men who have achieved mature feathers are to be called up. It is time for them to sharpen their beaks and claws! Time to get fit, start some serious wing ups, weight training, claw boxing, route flights and battle drills! Timata! Begin!”

Over the following week even Te Arikinui Kotuku was impressed at how quickly the chieftains achieved a level of battle readiness. But did she ever let up? She sidled up to Tui again, and honeyed words dripped from her beak. “Your leadership is of the highest quality,” she said, stroking his feathers. “You have managed to get our warriors to an acceptable military standard. But, e rangatira, you need a battle plan to go with it.”

“Who are you to tell us what we should be doing?” Chieftain Kawau interjected. “Let the men do what men do and let women do what women do.”

“Don’t be so complacent, you teke,” Te Arikinui Korimako said. “Are you so ready that you are prepared to be in the front rank? After all, it will be your lagoon over which the war will be fought.”

“I–I-I —” Kawau quailed.

“What’s your battle plan, Tui?” Te Arikinui Kotuku repeated. “What sophisticated military techniques and stratagems are you going to deploy?”

Tui saw her point. He turned to his other chieftains, Titi and Kaka in particular, and gave them a withering look. “Hoi! Do you fellas think we can just turn up at the battlefield and expect our superiority to win the day? And what is that superiority anyhow? If any of you think that the seabirds will recognise our divinity, our mana and our chiefly status and retreat, think again. They won’t, and we all know it.” Tui puffed out his lacy collar and the double tuft of curled white feathers at his throat. “Kotuku is right,” he said. “We need a plan.”

There was a rustle in the trees and Chieftain Ruru came flying into the discussion. You think his going to sleep during the day was a natural inclination? Get a grip. It was all because of boredom. Ruru relished the idea of a battle. “Did somebody mention my name?” he asked.

“So it was,” Hoki said, “that guided by Te Arikinui Kotuku’s cool and measured hints the landbirds were able to set up their defensive system — and they had a battle plan to go with it.”

Worked out by Ruru, the plan called for the strongest landbirds to lead a defensive war party. Chieftain Kahu, of course, was Chieftain Tui’s left hand man and Second in Command. Among the other leaders were Chieftain Kuku of the pigeon clan, Chieftain Kaka of the parrots and Chieftain Kokako of the crows. Chieftain Pitoitoi was assigned to forward sentry duty. Straws were drawn for the great honour of sending out the three challengers in the first battle against the seabirds. The honours went to Chieftain Koekoea of long-tailed cuckoos, Chieftain Piwakawaka of fantails and, joy of joys, Kahu himself.

“A strong team,” Tui approved. “Solid. Ace.”

With increasing confidence, the landbirds practised their drills. All the while, far off, they could see the seabird ranks circling above the offshore islands and hear the savage chants and haka coming across the sea.

One afternoon, the chanting of the seabirds stopped.

An uneasy silence fell across the Great Forest.

“Well, boys,” Tui said. “I think the time’s come, ready or not. We should expect a dawn attack. Let everyone be in their positions. Is everybody clear on the battle plan? The war party will be at the forefront of the defence against the seabird army. They will engage the seabirds and then —”

At that moment, Hoki’s lesson was interrupted by a flash of sunlight. She shaded her eyes and looked down from the clifftop to Manu Valley below. A car was coming up the valley road. Cora, returning home after her rehearsal.

“And then?” Skylark asked. She didn’t want Hoki to stop telling the story of the war. But the mood was broken.

“We’d better get back home,” Hoki answered. “Your mother will worry about where you are. We’ll resume the story later. And by the way —”

“Yes?”

Hoki looked at the sacred tree. Rebellious, Skylark followed her gaze — and took a step back. For the first time she felt the mana and power of the tree. She saw it with new eyes, glowing, utterly commanding, and she felt she should kneel before it.

“You should never have followed me up here,” Hoki said. “Only a few people know of the tree’s existence. We who have guarded it all these years have a commitment to defend it unto the death. On no account must you come up here without my and Bella’s express permission.”

“You still haven’t told me about the heliacal rising of the planet Venus,” Skylark called as Hoki started her walk back down the track. Did Hoki really think she would let her get away so easily? No way.

Hoki stopped. “I was afraid you would ask me that,” she said. “It’s a special conjunction of the rising of the sun with the appearance of the planet Venus. Only at such conjunctions can extraordinary events beyond human understanding occur. All ancient cultures who watch the skies for new stars, comets and any astronomical disturbances to time and space know this.”

“When is it supposed to happen?” Skylark asked.

“Actually, Skylark, in two days’ time.”

Skylark became very cross. “Well don’t look at me,” she said. “I’m just here with my mother on holiday.”

That night, Skylark dreamt of the tree. It looked like the claw of a bird. When she looked again, the tree turned into Hoki’s withered left foot. Then the tree caught fire, and Hoki’s claw curled into itself, grabbing at the sky.

Chapter Five

With a start, Skylark awoke to a red sky.

The manu whenua were rising to the penultimate dawn. Their song was a brilliant, shining cantilena, soaring across Manu Valley. This morning, however, the song was sharp, uneasy, shrill, like stones being scraped together.

Skylark’s memory immediately turned to Hoki’s words. One day to go to the heliacal rising of Venus. She flung the blankets off her bed and stepped to the window. “Read my lips,” she shouted to nobody in particular. “Not my problem, okay?”

“Oh why did I ever agree to go back to show business?” Cora asked.

The landbirds weren’t the only ones feeling fractious that morning. So was Cora, having second thoughts about Bye Bye Birdie opening that very evening. She sat on a lounger in the sun drinking cup after cup of coffee, trying to learn her lines. She’d die of lung cancer or drowning one way or another.

“I’m never going to be ready in time. Really, Skylark honey, it’s all your fault. You should have stopped me from saying yes.”

“Can’t you just relax and enjoy the view?” Skylark said between gritted teeth. “Can’t you forget the show for a moment?” Skylark had decided that today she was going to be just a tourist.

But somebody had snapped Cora’s elastic. She reached for her sunglasses, though even they could not diminish the glare from her eyes, and had a hissy fit. “If I wanted to enjoy the view I’d watch television,” she answered. “At least I’d have a remote and a choice of channels. What have I got here? Just one view over a forest to a sea. And it’s not even framed.”

“What about all this fresh air —”

“Honey, you can buy fresh air in a can from the supermarket. ‘Country Glade’, ‘Meadow Fresh’ or ‘Spring Flowers’. It might be full of fluorocarbons but at least it doesn’t come mixed up with manure smells and bird dung.”

Skylark picked up one of her mother’s magazines and tried to bury her nose in it. “Oh no you don’t, Skylark,” Cora said, taking the magazine. “I’m not going to let a perfectly good tantrum go to waste. I need an audience and you’re it!”

In fact, if Cora had bothered to look around her, she would have noticed that her outburst had attracted a bevy of curious multi-coloured parrots. They sat on the terrace, watching Cora carefully, and then began to imitate everything she did. When she paced to the left, they paced to the left. When she muttered, they muttered.

Kita-kita-kita. Nag nag nag. Boring boring boring. Yeah yeah yeah.

Cora was deeply offended. “I may have had one or two bad notices,” she spluttered, “and some people might have switched channels to watch the other weather girl, but I have never been upstaged by birds of any colour or persuasion whatsoever. Go away, you awful things, go away.”

Instead, one of the parrots flew at Cora as if she was the interloper. “Save me!” Cora wailed, as she fended the parrot away. “And don’t you dare laugh, Skylark, don’t you dare —”

It was too late. Skylark began to snort — huge trumpeting sounds of hilarity.

“Oh no more, Skylark honey,” Cora said, seeing the funny side at last, “otherwise I’ll wet my knickers.”

That only set Skylark off on another round of laughter, and she collapsed into her mother’s arms. Surprised, momentarily, by how big Skylark was, Cora’s first reaction was to push her off. Then something was triggered in her memory — and she pulled her daughter closer to her instead.

“You’ve always been there for me, haven’t you Skylark?” Cora began. “You save me from parrots, from trouble, from all the men who come into my life. Who’s there to pick me up when they leave? You.” Skylark tried to move away but Cora only tightened her embrace. “You’re the only good thing to have come out of my marriage to Brad. How could I ever have fallen for him?”

“He’s been a good dad,” Skylark said, “and you’ve been a good mum. The best mother in the world.”

“Have I really been that good?” Cora asked. She took off her sunglasses. “I mean, look at you —”

“No, Mum,” Skylark answered. “Let’s not go there.” She hated Cora’s self-pitying moods.

Cora was undeterred. “The way you are is all my fault. You should have been pretty. You should have been skinny. Instead you had to look after me. When your father left me, you had to become the head of the household. All that responsibility, Skylark honey.”

“I’ll say,” Skylark answered, trying to change the focus. “How many of your boyfriends did I have to throw out of the house. Who was it after Dad?”

Skylark’s strategy worked. “Don’t get me started,” Cora said. “Rick?”

“That’s the one. Rick, Rick, thick as a brick. George was next, wasn’t he? I quite liked him. He was replaced by Jock.”

“He doesn’t count,” Cora sniffed. “Jock by name but certainly not by nature. I came home one night and found him in one of my frocks.”

“Jock, Jock, the one in the frock,” Skylark chanted. “One thing’s for sure, you could certainly pick ’em. Then there was Harry —”

“Don’t remind me,” Cora shuddered.

“He was the one who started your little problemo,” Skylark said.

“What was he thinking of, giving me some stuff before I went on to do the weather!” Cora growled. “No wonder I got fired. If you hadn’t stood up for me, I’d have been on my way to prison for possession of a class-A drug.”

Skylark had rung darling Daddy in Canada and asked him for enough money to employ the best lawyer in town. Realising that having an ex in prison was not a good look for an upwardly mobile television executive, Brad instructed the lawyer to arrange a hearing for Cora. There, Skylark sought guardianship of her mother. The judge was another of those men who could never resist Cora’s tears, and when she intervened with an impassioned “Please, sir, I’ll be good”, his heart melted. Surely a weather girl, the darling of the nation, should have a second start at coming up sunshine. So Cora was given in care to Skylark, who guaranteed that her mother would check into a rehab centre. The trouble was, that was where Mum met a certain slimeball called Zac.

“Forget him, Mum,” Skylark said. “He’s so low on the evolutionary scale, his only hope would be if somebody put a microchip in him so he can gain artificial intelligence.”

Cora bit her lip, chewing at her lipstick. Tears were threatening. “God, I’ve made such a mess of my life,” she said. “I’ve made a mess of your life too, of everybody’s lives.”

“I like trench warfare,” Skylark said, trying to console Cora. “Look on the bright side. You beat your drug dependency. That gives you a gold star.”

Cora nodded, but then her eyes widened with something that looked like sheer terror. Her face stilled, became calm with a chilling acceptance. “But I’ve still got another dependency,” she said. “I’m not as strong as you, I’ve always needed a man in my life. I get frightened of being alone.”

Midday came along and, with it, Ronnie to take Cora to the final rehearsal for Bye Bye Birdie. He too was feeling harassed. The sound system was playing up, and the lighting had been sabotaged by Lottie, the music teacher, who had wanted The Sound of Music instead. Not only that, but the boof-headed boy playing Conrad Birdie had come down with laryngitis.

“How are we going to manage?” Ronnie asked Cora. “Perhaps we should cancel tonight’s show.”

Did Cora take up the offer? Get real. Better to give a bad performance than no performance at all.

“One never cancels,” she said, striking a pose. “The show must go on.” Quickly, before Ronnie had a chance to think again, she turned to Skylark. “Now don’t forget, honey, it’s too far for me to come back after the dress rehearsal, so I’ll stay down at Tuapa and have a bite to eat at Flora’s. There’s only a couple of hours between the rehearsal and the performance anyhow. I’ve arranged with Bella and Hoki for you to have dinner with them and for them to bring you down to the show. Please, Skylark, wear something attractive. And do your hair and put some lipstick on. If for nobody else, do it for me. All right? See you later, then!”

Cora hastened Ronnie to the car, and they drove off. “Peace in the valley at last,” Skylark sighed.

Skylark made the most of the time alone to stay tucked up reading in a chair by the window. The only irritating matter was that she was constantly aware of Bella and Hoki as they took turns to stand sentry at the top of the cliff. They were looking across the sea.

At three o’clock Hoki completed her duty. Skylark watched her as she carefully descended the cliff path, using her crutches to manoeuvre herself past the waterfall and then down to the homestead. A sense of something heroic stirred Skylark’s sympathies. Soon after, Bella called it quits for the day.

“Oh what’s the use,” Skylark said to herself.

Muttering crossly, she got up from her chair and stomped over to the homestead to see Hoki. How could she chill out with all this stuff swirling around about wars between birds and premonitions of a doomsday that would come with the next dawn. At the doorway she bumped into Bella coming out with that look on her face. She gave a brief nod to Skylark and yelled back over her shoulder.

“I am not getting all gladwrapped in that old dress!”

Uh-oh, two more people having a bad day, Skylark thought. I may as well throw a triple.

She walked into the room. Hoki looked up.

“So you’re next, are you?” Hoki asked. She had a needle and thread in her hand, and was stabbing tiny stars onto a black dress.

“Don’t take your anger out on me,” Skylark said.

“Why shouldn’t I? Isn’t anything getting through to you? About the rising of Venus tomorrow morning? The battle of the birds that led to the prophecy?” Hoki’s fingers were simply flying over the dress. One false move and she could prick herself. “You know, it happened not far from here. Down there, just below Manu Valley, that’s where Kawau’s river lagoon was.”

Hoki pointed to a place halfway between valley and sea.

She began to give Skylark the Final Lesson.

“On the morning the battle began,” Hoki said, “all the seabirds were gathered around the three offshore islands. There were so many of them that they smothered the sea completely like a white carpet. All eyes were looking toward Karuhiruhi’s fortress. They were waiting for the dawn to tip the islands with the red colour of blood —”

Remarkable, really, how quickly the sun came up on that morning. The Great Book of Birds says that the fireball erupted with a hiss from the sea, ascended quickly, its light cutting quickly across the black night water. The surface of the sea became a mirror. The dawn travelled fast, and when it glowed upon the seabirds, that unholy Sea of White Feathers, it wanted to turn back, to retreat from such unnatural order. But it was too late. Already the sun’s forward edge had drenched the offshore islands with crimson.

Kee-law, kee-law. Kaa. Kaa. The Day of Days has come.

The sun flared, burning all colour away, and it was day. There was no turning back. Karuhiruhi stood on the ramparts of the island fortress. Beside him was Areta, her baby son in her wings. On either side of the royal pair were the co-conspirators Karoro, Toroa, Taranui and Parara. The seabird army opened their beaks and began to hiss, creating a whirlwind of menace.

Karuhiruhi stepped forward. “Today, my fellow birds of the sea, is our day of liberation.” The hissing grew louder. “Today we overturn the Great Division. If the Lord Tane disapproves, then let me be the first to be struck down. Oh, Lord Tane, do your will.”

Karuhiruhi offered his breast to the heavens. But where was the bolt of lightning? Where was the death-dealing blow? There was none. None! The hissing became ecstatic, triumphant, ascending into the Heavens. “The Lord Tane has spoken,” Karuhiruhi cried. “Let the war begin.”

As one the seabird army lifted from the sea. They beat the air, keeping formation, and watched as Karuhiruhi and Karoro took positions at the spearhead of the seashag squadron.

“Forward — fly!”

“Meantime,” Hoki said, “Chieftain Kahu of hawks was on forward surveillance. He sent his daughter, the beautiful Kahurangi, back with the message that the seabirds were on the wing.

“‘Kia hiwa ra, kia hiwa ra!’ Kahurangi shrilled. ‘Be alert! Be watchful! Be alert on this terrace! Be alert on that terrace!’

“Duly forewarned, the manu whenua were in position. Chieftain Pitoitoi of robins was the first to see the black and grey cloud arising from the sea. He had never seen such a phantom menace and, for a moment, his voice almost deserted him. His throat seized up, so he took a quick sip of nectar, gargled and that did the trick. ‘Pitoi toi toi!’ he called. ‘They’re coming!’ Hearing his call, Chieftain Koekoea of the long-tailed cuckoos, limbered up for action. How proud he was that he had drawn the straw to be the first challenger. How lucky, too, that he happened to be in Aotearoa and not wintering over in the Marquesas. Koekoea loved a good fight. Psyched up for action, he took to the air —”

Chieftain Tui saw and heard the manu whenua cheer as Koekoea streaked upward. He saw the light flash on Koekoea’s long reddish brown tail feathers and watched with approval as he climbed swiftly to a height that would give him advantage. There, Koekoea took an aggressive position, flying backwards and forwards before the approaching seabirds.

Karuhiruhi sighed with contempt. He turned to Toroa, the albatross chieftain. “Despatch that bothersome bird,” he said.

Toroa nodded his head and, propelled by his powerful wings, soared up to engage Koekoea.

At the enemy’s approach, Koekoea felt battle excitement surging through his loins. He knew it was imperative for morale that the landbirds draw the first blood. Koekoea dived, planing down from the sky, calling his wild, long, drawn-out cry: “Shweesht kik-kik-kik-kik! Come no further! Kik-kik-kik-kik!”

For a moment Toroa hesitated. He recalled the times in the past when he and Koekoea had encountered each other during the long-tailed cuckoo’s migratory flights between New Guinea and New Zealand. He had forgotten how evil-looking Koekoea, a carnivore and predator, was.

Toroa’s hesitation was his undoing. He stalled and, stationary, became an ideal target.

“Cross the border between land and sea,” Koekoea said, “and you do so at your own peril.” He moved his head in a sinuous reptilian manner, drilling Toroa with his baleful yellow eyes. Then he struck. With a cry, Toroa reeled back, air spilling from his wings.

“I-ah-ha-haa!” Koekoea screeched in triumph. He had done it. He had drawn the first blood. High in the sky he heard Kahu, chieftain of hawks, calling, “Well done, you of the long-tail tribe which braves the sky.”

Toroa returned to the seabird war party. Karuhiruhi was furious with him and slashed the albatross’s face with his beak, drawing blood.

“But you said our attack would be a surprise,” Toroa said. “You never said that the landbirds would put up any defence.”

Karuhiruhi whistled scornfully. “You call one long-tailed cuckoo a defence?” Before he could pour more scorn on Toroa’s pathetic display, Karoro plucked at his left wing: “Sire, the second challenger comes.”

Karuhiruhi looked to the front and almost fell out of the air with laughter. Spinning and twittering through the sky came Chieftain Piwakawaka of the fantail clan.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Karuhiruhi asked. “Is that really a bird in front of me?”

Now it must be admitted that a fantail — at best, the size of a human hand from the wrist to outstretched fingertips — does not convince as a worthwhile opponent. But Piwakawaka had drawn the second straw and was determined to claim the right given to him, whatever others might say. “You can’t possibly send him,” Kawau had moaned. “He will be made a mockery of by the seabirds.” Te Arikinui Kotuku had disagreed and Te Arikinui Huia, who knew a real bird when she saw one, intoned an ancient proverb. “Ahakoa he iti,” she said, “he pounamu.” Roughly translated, Huia’s words meant size wasn’t everything.

Chieftain Tui therefore watched with some admiration as Piwakawaka flitted up to meet the army of manu moana. He raised a cheer for the valiant fantail. “Although our second challenge will be unequal, similar to David’s battle with the giant Goliath, what Piwakawaka lacks in stature he makes up for in bravery — or foolhardiness. Go, Piwakawaka! Stick it to the seabirds.”

The loud cheering buoyed Piwakawaka’s spirits. His heart was thundering in his little breast. Pae kare, those seabirds were big fellas all right. Still, he was up here in front of the whole world, not to mention his wife and tribe, so there was nothing for it but to start doing his thing. He glared, grimaced, capered and double-flipped across the front line of the seabird attackers. “Tei! Tei! Tei!” he challenged. “Tei! Tei! Tei!”

“What an upstart,” Karuhiruhi said, “what a clown.” With a lazy gesture he ordered Taranui, chieftain of terns, to respond. “Make whatever morsel you wish of the miserable midget.”

“Must I?” Taranui asked. Handsome and vain, he considered the challenge of a fantail beneath his dignity. Nevertheless he raised himself on his toes like a ballet dancer, did a lazy pirouette and a couple of jetés, and on upward-angled wings gained the upper air. There he sighted on Piwakawaka, wheeled, yawned and plunge-dived.

Piwakawaka ought to have been an easy target. But you should never underestimate an opponent simply because he is slow as well as small. At Taranui’s first pass, Piwakawaka made an erratic jinking movement to the right and, insult of insults, showed his contempt for the tern in the age-old gesture of whakapohane — mooning Taranui with his bum.

“Oh, I wish he wouldn’t do that.” His watching wife, Waka, blushed.

Enraged, Taranui wheeled and squealed his anger. The action unsettled him, which was precisely what Piwakawaka wanted.

“Okay, you silly little shuttlecock, playtime is over,” the tern called — and he made his second attack.

If there was one thing Chieftain Piwakawaka disliked, it was remarks that diminished the royal nature of his person. When Taranui called him ‘little’ he saw red. Taranui might be bearing down on him like a jumbo jet, but no way was Piwakawaka going to give air.

“Wait for it,” he said to himself. “Not yet, not yet. Now.” With a quick flip of his tail, Piwakawaka did a forward somersault over Taranui’s head and landed on the tern’s back. Fantails are insectivores, and catch their prey by hawking from a perch. Piwakawaka settled on Taranui’s neck, gripped, and with one peck severed the tern’s jugular. Like a jet plane trailing petrol from a ruptured tank, Taranui fell to his death.

“The landbirds let out a roar of elation,” Hoki said. “However, their joy turned to dismay when they realised that Taranui had managed to twist his neck and catch Piwakawaka in his beak. ‘If I go to my death,’ Taranui yelled, ‘you’re coming with me.’ Tern and fantail fell into the forest.

“Waka, Piwakawaka’s wife, let out a cry of grief. ‘Aue, taku tane, alas, my husband.’ She sought solace, and Chieftain Tui quickly opened his wings and embraced her. Around them the landbirds fell silent, stunned at Piwakawaka’s death —”

“Now’s our chance,” Karuhiruhi said. “Quickly,” he ordered Karoro and Parara, “mount a two-pronged attack.”

Before the gull and the prion could execute the order, winged vengeance came swooping from on high. Chieftain Kahu, angry of eye, his wingtips raking the sky, stalled in front of Karoro and Parara. “Going somewhere?” he asked. Two prion guardsmen came to protect their chieftains. Kahu’s revenge was sweet. A sudden clawing movement and the prions were decapitated.

Kahu’s intervention brought the landbirds back to reality, to the seriousness of their situation. Chieftain Tui began a haka of defiance. “Let not Chieftain Piwakawaka’s death be in vain,” he chanted. Very soon, Chieftain Kokako of crows joined him, followed by Chieftain Teraweke of saddlebacks and Chieftain Pipiwharauroa. “Avenge Piwakawaka’s death! Kui! Kui! Kui whiti ora!”

Then, Chieftain Ruru of the owls blinked and sought Tui’s instructions.

“Well, Chief,” Ruru said. “Is it time to make the counter-attack?”

“Yes,” Tui answered. “Lead your attack right through the middle of the seabird army.”

Ruru bowed to Te Arikinui Kotuku and the other women. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said. “There’s a battle to win.”

Uttering loud dismal shrieks he beat his wings and gained the upper winds. He looked as if he had come from the bowels of hell. His eyes, powerful for binocular judgement of distance, completely filled the sockets. As he advanced on the seabirds he uttered the call which, for all men and women, is a premonition that their last breath has come:

“Mor-por! Mor-por!”

The cry resounded across the sky. The Great Forest seemed to move, to shimmer, to seethe as thousands of landbirds flew upward to the battle.

“Taka rere! Taka rere!” they called. “Kia iro! Kia iro!”

“The landbirds and the seabirds began their bloody battle,” Hoki said. She described the battle with her hands, sweeping them back and forth, swish, swish, swish, like a sword. If Skylark had been closer she’d have had to duck for cover.

“The Great Book of Birds tells us that the sky dripped blood as skua fought parrot, gull fought heron, prion fought wren. The seabirds thought they were crazed for battle: their passion was as nothing to the landbirds. The seabirds had made one very big mistake. They had underestimated the landbird numbers. They were totally unprepared for the manu whenua large and small who pitched in to fight against them. The mollymawks engaged in wing-to-wing combat with the pigeons, and soon found that the pigeons could outmanoeuvre them by swooping upwards, stalling, and diving in another direction. The fulmars came up against the awesome duck clan; the ducks were belligerent, aggressive and brooked no trespass. Out in the sky they had a habit of climbing high, then closing their wings and plummeting earthwards onto their target. A squad of petrels found themselves being used as low-level target practice by quails who, running fast downslope on twinkling legs, took off at the last moment, glided on stiff wings and hit them like swift, deadly bullets. All over the sky, prions, shearwaters, gannets, boobies, pelicans, shags and tropicbirds found themselves battling with myriads of landbirds. They soon learned to beware of the clownish kaka; their beaks could tear you apart. The kea clan, with their heavy bills, could not only dig in deep but could also kill by introducing a form of blood poisoning that could take effect in two hours —”

Karuhiruhi called in albatross reinforcements: “Toroa, now is the time to redeem yourself. Order your battalions into the air.”

Toroa, glad to have a second chance, led the albatrosses into the fray. His strategy was to rise high above the battle and over Manu Valley. He had forgotten, however, that Chieftain Kahu and his squadron of hawks were waiting in the upper battlesky to thwart this very tactic. Their raking hind claws were lowered to slit open the enemy from head to stomach.

Nor was there any safety for the seabirds if they fell wounded into the Great Forest. There, the wingless forest birds trapped them and killed them. Even so, for a time the outcome of the battle hung in the balance. The fight was long. The fight was desperate. The uproar across the battlefield created such a din that it was heard on the other side of the world.

Then it was that Te Arikinui Kotuku decided to pitch in. “Don’t you girls get tired of knitting, waiting at home for our husbands to return from whatever crusades they go on?” she asked Huia, Te Arikinui Korimako and Te Arikinui Karuwai.

“Nothing to do,” Huia sighed, “except paint our clawnails Magenta Magic or Scarlet Desire.”

“Our job just to wait,” Korimako yawned, “for them to return battle-scarred and wounded —”

“To soothe and bandage them and to take them to the nest,” Te Arikinui Karuwai fluttered.

“And while we’re at it,” shuddered Huia, “we have to listen to all their boring tales of heroism and courage.” She preened down her ruffled feathers. “So what’s your suggestion?” she asked Kotuku.

“I think it is time, girls, for us to have some fun ourselves.” She launched herself from her branch. “Kia whakatane au i ahau!” she cried.

That’s when the tide of battle turned. And at that very moment when the new combatants were entering the field, something else happened. Karoro of black-backed gulls saw a black seashag falling to the sea. He thought it was his leader, Karuhiruhi, and his courage deserted him. “The day is lost!” he called. “Retreat! Retreat!”

His call echoed across the sky. Other seabirds took it up. One of them, Karuhiruhi, very much alive, cried out: “No! Maintain the attack! Press on! Press forward!”

It was too late. All around Karuhiruhi the seabirds were breaking off. Above the battlesky came the mocking laugh of Chieftain Parera. “Ke-ke! Ke-ke! Yes, run, run away from the women!”

That’s when Karuhiruhi knew he was defeated. Gone was his chance to dine all life long on cool, smooth river eels. Gone was his opportunity to become emperor of the world. He led his squad of seashags from the field of battle, vowing to whip that coward Karoro until he begged for mercy.

At the sight of the retreat, the landbirds gave a huge cheer. The kiwi came out and danced with the kaka. The owl clan celebrated with loud hoots of joy.

“Let there be a great feast of celebration,” Tui said. To prove how glad he was that his inlet was safe, Kawau ordered his iwi to provide as many eels as all could eat. The merriment, feasting and dancing lasted many days, and all were happy — except for Te Arikinui Kotuku.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “We’ve forgotten to do something. There’s something important that we have overlooked.”

“And what was that something?” Skylark asked.

“Well,” Hoki continued, “Karuhiruhi happened upon it and his luck turned out to be to his advantage. This is how it happened:

“After the battle, Karuhiruhi brooded over his defeat and became afraid of the divine retribution that might come down upon him from the Lord Tane. He ordered his clansmen to make a huge altar to the Lord Tane, and on it he made many sacrifices. ‘Forgive me, Lord Tane, for I have sinned. I tried to put myself above you, I tried to put myself in your place. I am unworthy of your protection.’

“Karuhiruhi stretched out his neck, waiting for the divine blow which would take his life. Instead the voice of the Lord Tane came down from the heavens: ‘I forgive you, my disobedient servant and I shall give you another chance. For you have done what my landbirds, whom I love dearly, have not done. You, Karuhiruhi, have made sacrifice to me whereas they, in their pride at their victory, have forgotten to honour me with similar offerings.’”

“Oh no,” Skylark said.

“Oh yes,” Hoki sighed. “The manu whenua won the battle of the birds but they were as the Israelites who, when liberated from Egypt, did not praise the Lord their God and instead made a golden calf and worshipped it rather than their Divine Deliverer. And just as happened with the Children of Israel, so it happened to the landbirds. They were vain. They could only think of their victory, their triumph. Because of their arrogance, the Great Book of Birds tells us that the Lord Tane chastised them. Because of it, the Lord Tane said, he would test them again in a second battle of the birds.”

“A second battle?” Skylark asked.

Hoki nodded. “It’s all written in the Great Book of Birds, Revelations, Chapter Four, Verse Five. I know the words by heart.”

Hoki closed her eyes and recited the verse: “And it shall come to pass that in the latter days the sky will open. Then, oh birds, the Lord Tane will allow the great battle between those he loved, his landbirds, to be fought again with the seabirds, for the landbirds hath not respected his love and, indeed, shewed arrogance and did not make appropriate sacrificial offering unto him as Karuhiruhi did. So unto him, Karuhiruhi and all his descendants, Tane will offer up this opportunity as a lesson to be learnt by his birds of the land. And Armageddon shall begin in the third year of the second millennium as it is counted by Man. In that year, at summer solstice, the rising sun at dawn will be in conjunction with the heliacal rising of the planet Venus. And what will be will be.”

“So that’s how Venus comes into it,” Skylark said. “But what about the prophecy? What about tomorrow?”

Hoki opened her eyes. She was staring straight at Skylark, hypnotic, probing into her as if searching for something.

“The Great Book of Birds also mentions, two verses later, that the Lord Tane received a delegation from the landbirds. The delegation was led by Te Arikinui Kotuku. ‘Oh Lord Tane,’ Te Arikinui Kotuku pleaded, ‘forgive us, your creatures of your Great Forest, for our sin of pride. Revoke, we beg you, this agreement with the seabirds.’

“It is written,” Hoki continued, “that the Lord Tane was not unmoved by Te Arikinui Kotuku’s entreaties. ‘What is done cannot be undone,’ the Lord Tane answered. ‘My word is my word and I will not go back on it. However —’”

“However?” Skylark asked.

“The Lord Tane said he would give the landbirds a second chance also. In the latter days, he said, just before the sky opens, he would send a chick, and she would have the power to deny the prophecy’s fulfilment.”

So that’s it, Skylark thought. She stared at Hoki. Her mind was whirling but she was icy calm. “Oh no you don’t,” Skylark said. “This is the ‘uh-oh’ part, isn’t it? The ‘hel-lo, is anybody home?’ part. You think I’m the chick, don’t you?”

“You’re the only one who’s turned up,” Hoki answered. Surely, now that Skylark knew the whole story, she would know who she was and what she was supposed to do.

Skylark dashed these hopes. “It’s crazy,” she began. “How can you even think it? Before my mother and I arrived here, we’d never even heard of Tuapa or Manu Valley. Don’t you think that if I was the chick something more than chance would bring me here? Something like a sense of destiny or a quest? I don’t feel as if I have been on either. My name is Skylark O’Shea and I’m just an ordinary girl.”

“But the seabirds recognise you,” Hoki said quickly. “They —”

“They recognise the threat,” Skylark answered. “I just happen to have turned up to coincide with that threat. The girl who was supposed to arrive has taken a wrong turning and ended up somewhere else. Maybe she’s had an accident on the way or something. Maybe —”

“No, Skylark, you are the girl,” Hoki persisted. Her eyes were shining with conviction. “You’re the one we’ve been waiting for. You’re the one who can stop the sky from opening and the seabirds from fighting the battle of the birds again.”

Skylark shook her head. “This has got to stop,” she said grimly. “You’re only hoping it’s me. If I was the chick, don’t you think I would know? Don’t you think you’d have hit the jackpot by now? But no bells are ringing in my head and no lights are flashing like they do at the Sky City Casino when all those dollar signs line up in a single row. Nobody is running up to congratulate me for winning a million dollars. I’m sorry, Hoki, even if I did believe your story, I’m not the girl you’re looking for. Let it end here. Let it end now.”

Hoki did not know what to say or what to do. All she could feel was a tremendous sadness, a heaviness that took her to a place of pain and heartbreak. She thought of all those handmaidens of Tane going back to the very beginning of Time. Was all their work for nothing?

“Leave me, child,” she said. “It’s time you got dressed for tonight anyway.”

She kissed Skylark on the forehead, but held back her tears until the girl had left. Then, taking the blame on herself, she wept for the past, for the present and for the future. And she waited for her sister’s return.

“We’re in big trouble, Sister,” Hoki said to Bella. “I thought that having told Skylark all I know, she’d know what she’s supposed to do. She doesn’t. In fact, she doesn’t even believe me.”

“Can’t you tell her what to do?” Bella asked.

“No. I don’t know either.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re supposed to know everything!”

“All I know is what is in the Great Book of Birds and what we’re supposed to do. All it tells us to do is prepare the chick so that she can prevent the seabirds re-litigating the battle of the birds. But the Great Book of Birds doesn’t say how.”

“You mean there’s no set of magic words, no ‘open sesame’ that she has to say? Or a magic wand that she can wave?”

“If there is, I don’t know what the words are or where to find the wand.”

“Skylark is the one, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know that either!” Hoki wailed. “She doesn’t think she is.”

“But she must be,” Bella answered. “You must be doing something wrong, Sister.”

“What can it be?” Hoki asked. “I’ve done everything in my power to open her mind so that she can walk into it and find the answers to her and our questions. But she is still on the threshold, the paepae, hesitating, and she doesn’t even want to go in.”

Bella was silent for a moment. “Well, there’s only twelve hours to sunrise,” she said finally. “All I can say is you’d better give Skylark a big push — and quick.”

The day had been bad enough with its criss-cross currents of frayed tempers and wrong signals; the night was worse. With countdown already begun to dawn — not to mention the Bye Bye Birdie opening — everybody was on edge. So it was only to be expected that when Skylark went to Hoki and Bella’s for dinner, wires were still fizzing and crackling like electric circuits looking for connection. One look at Hoki’s face was enough to tell Skylark that the stubborn old woman hadn’t taken any notice of what she’d said earlier.

“I’m telling you,” Skylark said, “don’t even think about it. I’m not the girl you’re looking for, and that’s final.”

“If I were you,” Hoki answered, the glint of battle in her eyes, “I wouldn’t speak too soon, Miss Skylark O’Shea.”

“What she means,” Bella translated, “is that your conversation went in one ear and out the other.”

“What I mean,” Hoki corrected, glaring at Bella, “is that you may know you aren’t the chick, I may think you are, but it’s not up to us.”

“What she really means,” Bella translated again, “is that you shouldn’t tempt fate, because you could end up with mud in your eye.”

“Who is it up to!” Skylark asked.

Hoki drew herself up to her highest height. “It’s up to the Lord Tane,” she answered. “And do you,” she said to Bella, kicking her, “always have to be my echo?”

Hoki’s attitude left Skylark floundering for a response. In the end she just gave up. After all, how could you argue with a god? “Oh, suit yourself then,” she said.

When Arnie arrived he found himself caught in the cross-currents. He’d poured himself into slimcut jeans and black leather jacket, and, man, his boots must have cost him a month’s wages. Skylark had to admit he was an awesome looking dude.

“Hey,” she said, “you scrub up well.” Unfortunately she laughed, and Arnie assumed she was being sarcastic.

“Yeah?” he said. “Well, now that I’m closer up, my view isn’t so hot either.”

“Quit it, you two,” Bella reproved. “And you, Arnie, you should be more of a gentleman. Can’t you see how pretty Skylark is?”

Skylark was looking more presentable than usual. She had taken a serious look at herself and against her better judgement had decided it was time to renovate. She had put on her best jeans and a nice top, and she’d even added a plum-coloured vest. Not only that, but she had managed to get some curl into her hair — and was that just the hint of lippy? Not for long.

“I’d be a gentleman if Skylark was a lady,” Arnie said.

Skylark stormed back to the bach and into her bedroom. Off came the vest and back on went the favourite jersey. Next, splash, and the curls disappeared, and while she was at it, wipe, and gone was the lippy too. Just to make sure that nobody messed with her, jab, on went a badge: I’m Against Animal Testing (Stick Your Hypodermics Into Humans).

There, that should do it. Enter the harpie from Hell.

“I didn’t know it was Halloween,” Arnie said as Skylark got into his ute. “Who’s your date tonight? Festus Munster or Frankie Stein?”

“Get a life,” Skylark answered.

Tuapa College was ablaze with lights. The street in front of the auditorium was packed with cars. “Goodness me,” Hoki said, “the whole of Tuapa must be here. I’ve never seen so many people.”

“Well what else is there to do on a Saturday night?” Bella answered. “At least coming here will mean two hours of enforced birth control for everybody.” People were hurrying up the drive and past the sign announcing that Bye Bye Birdie was Sold Out.

“It’s because your mother’s in the show,” Hoki said to Skylark. She was trying to thaw the frozen continent that had lurched out of the sea between Skylark and Arnie by making happee happee talkee.

“Yep,” Skylark answered. “Star power. Mum was always big in the burbs. Pity that quality is wasted on some of the dumb ass locals, right Arnie?”

“What are you saying here?” Arnie asked, angry.

“Oh,” Skylark answered in mock innocence. “You didn’t wents to this college?”

“Quit it, you two,” Hoki interrupted. “I don’t know what’s got into you, Skylark, nor you Arnie. Behave, both of you.”

Further along from the auditorium the football field had been turned into a carpark for the evening. Arnie, hunched back in the driver’s seat, looked like he was tempted to score a few of the squeaky-clean attendants with the ute. “Don’t you dare,” Hoki said.

“Why not?” Arnie growled. He parked the ute, leapt out and slammed the door. “I’ll go and join my mates. I’ll see you all later.”

That was it. Hoki’s eyes narrowed and she compressed her lips. “You just come back here, nephew,” she ordered. “And don’t think you’re getting away so easily, Skylark.” She pointed one of her walking sticks at her. “You two are not children. You’re supposed to be two thinking adults, so act like adults. You, Skylark, you started it. Apologise to Arnie. Say you’re sorry.”

Skylark gave an incredulous laugh. “I will not say I’m sorry.”

Did Hoki give a toss? No. As far as she was concerned, legally speaking, Skylark had said the word required. She lifted her other walking stick and waved it at Arnie. “Skylark said sorry, so now it’s your turn. Say sorry.”

“It didn’t sound like sorry to me,” Arnie mumbled.

“Perfect!” Hoki barked. “Now let’s try to enjoy the rest of the evening, shall we?”

She marched off as quickly as her sticks would allow, leaving Skylark and Arnie gaping.

“I wouldn’t argue with her if I was you,” Bella whispered.

Reluctantly, Skylark nodded. Even so, as she watched Hoki negotiate the stairs to the auditorium she felt a mean idea enter into her head.

“Oh, topple over, Hoki,” she whispered.

The vestibule was in a state of bedlam. The ticket booth was thronged with people trying to buy tickets. Bella and Hoki found Mitch and Francis. Mitch spotted Skylark and mimed a bird coming out of the sky towards her. Skylark ducked and Mitch roared with laughter. In a corner Flora Cornish had swapped her apron as proprietress of the Tuapa Diner for an apron as chairwoman of the Tuapa College Parents Association. She was presiding over the refreshments area, dispensing Coke, lemonade, coffee and tea with soggy biscuits to the masses. No wonder there was so much bad skin in Tuapa. Not that that seemed to matter to a group of Korean sailors, who were taking an inordinate interest in a group of sixth formers in uniform. Were they schoolgirls? When Skylark took a second look she realised they were girls from the massage parlour.

“Excuse me,” Skylark said as she walked through the crowd. Her badge was doing wonders. People parted before her like the Red Sea.

Right in the middle of the crowd was Lucas. He had a young woman with him, and he didn’t seem too happy about it. “Hello, Lucas,” Skylark said. “Is this your sister?”

“His sister?” the young woman asked. “I’m Melissa, his fiancée, though he —” and she kicked Lucas in the shins — “seems to have forgotten it.”

“Oops,” Skylark said.

“Melissa’s just come back to Tuapa for the weekend,” Lucas said. He hustled Skylark aside, speaking in a hurried whisper. “She’s been hanging around my neck like a smelly possum and I haven’t had a chance to explain to Cora. Will you tell her that —”

Skylark stopped him. “Tell her what! That you’ve got another girlfriend? Sort it out yourself, Lucas.” She turned, and pushed and jostled her way back through the crowd.

“We’re right behind you, dear,” Hoki said as she and Bella rejoined her.

“Am I a tug?” Skylark asked herself.

Across the vestibule she saw Ronnie, waving their tickets in his hands, and made for him.

“Did you see the ‘Sold Out’ sign?” he exclaimed. “We’ve never had such a crowd at a college production ever. And just to think that Lottie —” he pointed to the music teacher — “didn’t think I’d pull it off, the cow.”

An excited student came rushing towards him. “Sir, the headmaster has asked if we can put more seats into the auditorium. Sir?”

“More? They want more?” Ron was ecstatic. “Then give my audience more!” He turned to Skylark. “It’s all due to your wonderful mother! Now will you all follow me? You have special VIP seats with me right at the front.”

“Oh no,” said Skylark and Bella in unison.

Hoki laughed. “Just as well you wore your lovely dress,” she said.

“How did she persuade you to get into it?” Skylark asked Bella.

“We compromised,” Bella said, pursing her lips and pulling up her hem ever so slightly. Underneath she was wearing gumboots.

“Now —” Ron hesitated. “There’s just one more of your mother’s guests to come and we’re all set. Meanwhile, I’d better get backstage where I’m wanted. Do enjoy the show!”

Before Skylark could ask who the other guest was, Ron had disappeared backstage. Skylark stared afer him and saw Cora signalling her from the stage door. Her mother had on her blonde wig and her eyes were sparkling. She looked like a colour facsimile of Madonna herself. “Skylark, honey —”

Members of the crowd saw Cora and a great gasp of admiration went up. “There she is! Cora Edwards!” Cora laughed and, briefly, waved. She looked so gorgeous. Bursting with beauty. But Skylark knew there was something wrong. Her mother was too gorgeous. Her eyes were too sparkling. Something shifted behind Cora — and Skylark realised why her mother’s manner was too animated.

All the ills and spites of the day came crashing down at her feet.

“Zac,” Skylark whispered. Her first instinct was to protect her mother. She shoved through the crowd. “Get out of my way. Coming through.” When she was close enough to Cora, she pushed her through the stage door and shut it. She turned to Zac. “You lowlife, how did you find us?”

“Skylark, honey! Be careful!” Cora laughed and, giddy, fell against Zac. “You’ll mess me up and it’s taken a whole day to look like this.” Her arms went around Zac’s neck and she sighed dreamily.

“I asked you, you sicko,” Skylark raged, “how did you know we were here?”

Zac gave Skylark a mocking glance. “You always did have a mouth on you, didn’t you, girlie.” He kissed Cora but kept his eyes on Skylark, taunting her. “Have you ever heard of caller ID? When you called me from the phone box, it was oh so easy to trace the call.”

Skylark felt the blood leave her face. She stepped back, angry with herself for being so stupid. She heard Cora laugh again. Up close, her mother did not look gorgeous at all. The wig was really bad and her face was absolutely caked with makeup. Where Zac had kissed her, the lipstick had smeared.

“Oh, Mum,” Skylark said. “Of all the things I’ve ever lost, I miss my mind the most. Why did I ever let this happen to you?”

She had seen that beneath the false eyelashes Cora’s eyes were unnaturally wide. She pulled at her mother’s left arm. Found bruised skin. Punctures as if a snake had bitten it. Needle tracks.

“What are you doing, Skylark? Keep her away from me, Zac,” Cora whimpered.

“How much have you given her, you loser?” Skylark screamed at Zac. “When will it kick in?”

It was too late. Skylark heard the overture starting up.

Of course Cora insisted on going on. The show must, mustn’t it? Hadn’t all of Tuapa turned up because she was starring? A star never let down her public, did she? And even though the two people she loved in the whole world turned her dressing room into a boxing ring for most of the performance, let nobody ever doubt that Cora Edwards was a professional.

“What’s Zac made you do?” Skylark shouted. “Have you signed anything? You know I’m your guardian so anything you’ve signed won’t stand up in court. Why do you need him, Mum? Why —”

“Why?” Zac interrupted. “Because I give her what you can’t. You want some of it too, girlie? You want some of Zac’s action?”

“Keep away from me, you creep. Go back to the swamp where you came from and do everybody a favour and die.”

Cora kept smiling and smiling through it all. Family squabbles? Boring, boring, boring. The stuff Zac had given her was just great. It was like feeling something bubbling under you like champagne, keeping you afloat. It made you want to spread your arms and flyyy —

Skylark and Zac were so busy arguing they didn’t know Cora had left the room until they heard her entrance music. “Onstage Miss Edwards, take your position please.”

“Mum?” Skylark called.

Cora wasn’t there. “Mum, no.” Skylark pushed past Zac and ran towards the wings. It was dark, she tripped, and there were so many people in the way. “Let me through,” she called. Her heart leapt with hope when she realised Cora had missed her cue. The curtain was still down. There was still time to stop her. But the entrance music had started again.

“Cue Miss Edwards.”

“Where is she!” Ronnie asked. He had been backstage, stage managing the amateurs. It hadn’t occurred to him that the famous Cora Edwards would miss a cue and he was tearing his hair out.

There was a nervous rustle in the audience. Hoki and Bella looked at each other, puzzled. “What’s going on?” Flora Cornish recalled the awful scene that had finished Cora’s television career. Arnie, standing with Francis at the back of the hall, remembered what Skylark had told him about her mother: I have to be strong for her. All we have in the world is each other. Lucas was on tenterhooks. As for Melissa, she was hoping Cora would trip on her entrance and fall flat on her face.

For the third time, the entrance music started up. With a sigh of relief, Ronnie caught a glimpse of Cora climbing the backstage ladder which would take her to the top of the set — a near-exact replica of one Madonna had in her music video.

“Stop her,” Skylark yelled. Her voice was drowned in the orchestral introduction.

Cora reached the top of the staircase, found her mark and took up her position. She saw Ronnie and blew him a kiss. With a sigh of relief, he nodded to the headmaster, who was standing in front of the curtain playing Ed Sullivan. Then he caught a movement on the far side of the stage. Who was that? Cora’s daughter? She was trying to get his attention. What was she saying?

“Don’t raise the curtain. Don’t —”

It was too late. Cora was ready. Everybody was ready. Cora struck a provocative pose.

Ed Sullivan gave a grin. “Ladies and gentlemen, not only do we have Conrad Birdie tonight but the girl all you men would most like to meet on a blind date. She’s that superstar of our times, Queen of Pop, Maa-donna!” he ad libbed.

The curtain went up. Exposed at the top of the stairs was a dazzling apparition. Applause, wolf whistles and cheers went up in the auditorium. This was what they had been waiting for all night. It was true after all. Cora Edwards, as Madonna, had really come to town. She looked sensational.

Cora began to blow kisses to all her fans. And after that entrance, who cared that Madonna’s appearance in a 1960s musical was an anachronism?

She saw the boy playing Conrad Birdie standing at stage left. Remembered her lines. “Hey, Conrad, how’s it hanging?”

With a roar, the audience lifted the roof off the auditorium. Quickly, Ronnie ran the tape of “Like a Virgin”. There were a few bars of introductory music before Cora’s lipsync. She began to work it, baby, strutting her stuff, flaunting her body, and pouting her lips as if she wanted to kiss everybody in the world. They loved her, they really loved her. But, at that moment, somebody dark knocked on her head, wanting to come in. Cora shook her head, willing the dark intruder to go away. Can’t you see I’m busy? Perspiration was building up beneath the wig. She almost lost her place. Then, there they were, the bars leading up to the beginning of her lipsync. Thank God Ronnie had suggested it; free of having to sing the song, she could concentrate on dancing the steps. She tapped out the beat with her shoes. One two, one two three and:

“I went to New York, I didn’t know anybody

I wanted to dance, I wanted to sing —”

Cora took the first step down the staircase. That’s when whoever was knocking on Cora’s head broke down the door. Coming ready or not. Before she knew what was happening, she was tumbling down the staircase and: Cue Weather Report.

Explosions popped in Cora’s brain. This had all happened before. Where was it? When was it? Cue Music.

Cora tried to stand up. Where aaare youuu? Her outfit was ripped. One of her shoes had come off. Conrad was trying to help her up. She pushed him away. She had to get herself together to read the weather, yes, that was it. Cue Ms Edwards.

Cora stumbled to the footlights. She made ready to beam her 300-megawatt smile out to the whole of New Zealand. But then she heard voices, or thought she heard voices, and they were whispering, laughing, mocking her.

And, all of a sudden, Cora felt a huge rocketing pain. The dark intruder leapt out at her. You didn’t think I’d let you get away that easily did you? Cora screamed. “No, no, no, noooooooo —” Action.

Cora fell to the stage, put her hands up and pulled the golden wig from her head. With the wig went all illusion, all hope, all redemption. All that was left was a woman made up of sticks and straw, sugar and spice and everything nice, pitilessly exposed in the harsh light.

And where was lovely John Campbell this time, when she really needed him?

“Mum. Mummy?”

They were back at the bach in Tuapa Valley. Skylark was sitting beside Cora, trying to revive her. Hoki and Bella were hovering nearby, looking on.

“Hello, honey,” Cora whispered. “I really messed up, didn’t I? I messed up big time.”

“Thank God,” Skylark sighed. “You didn’t mess up, Mum. All you did was trip on the stairs. It’s the stuff that legends are made of. Nobody will remember Bye Bye Birdie, but they will certainly remember the night Cora Edwards fell.”

“I heard the audience laughing. Somebody laughed.”

“No, Mum, nobody laughed. Truly.” She was trying to keep her mother’s mood upbeat. She knew how quickly depression followed a drug-induced high. Once it wore off Cora would go down with the elevator.

Suddenly, Cora looked around, frightened. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

“Don’t worry, Mum,” Skylark said. “As soon as you fell I asked Bella to help me get you off the stage. Ron wanted to call an ambulance to take you to hospital.”

“They would have found out about me … I would have been sent back to rehab …”

“I had to tell Bella,” Skylark said.

Bella had once been a nurse aide. She recognised Cora’s symptoms. Told Arnie to get the ute out to the front — and quick. The local news reporter had managed a lucky snap as Cora was being carried out by a grim-faced Lucas through the milling, shocked-looking crowd.

“Where’s Zac?” Cora asked. “Is Zac here?” She looked from Skylark’s face to Hoki and Bella.

“No, Mum, Zac’s gone.” At the first hint of trouble he had burnt rubber getting out of town.

“He’s done another runner on me, hasn’t he,” Cora said. Tears were streaking down her face, and she began to shiver. Next moment she was convulsing.

“This won’t be pretty,” Skylark said, turning to Bella and Hoki.

“I’ll say it won’t,” Bella answered. “Why didn’t you tell us about your mother’s habit? Are there any more skeletons in her cupboard that we don’t know about?” She ticked them off: “First she’s a dangerous driver. Second she’s got an addiction …”

“It’s not Skylark’s fault,” Hoki said. “Don’t blame her for her mother.”

Skylark gave Bella an angry look. “I haven’t got time to cope with your aggro,” she said. “I’ve got to concentrate on Mum. You and Hoki should go now. Leave me with her.”

“Hoki can go. I’m staying,” Bella said.

“This isn’t like repairing the damaged wing of one of your birds,” Skylark flared.

“Don’t you think I know that? It’s going to take the two of us to handle it.” She turned to Hoki. “You go, Sister. I’ll keep an eye on things here. But one of us has to watch out for the dawn.”

And it was the Longest Night before the ascending of the sun and, with it, the heliacal rising of the planet Venus.

Hoki went to the homestead and got a thick, warm blanket. Behind the homestead was a small grove of fruit trees; beneath one of them was an old armchair where she liked to sit whenever she had a spare moment. She made herself comfortable in it, wrapped the blanket around her and kept watch on the spinning night.

“Lord Tane,” Hoki prayed, “your humble servant seeks your help. As prophesied, you have sent us a chick. But is she the one we have been waiting for? If she is, what guidance can I give her to prevent the sky from opening? Help me, oh Lord, I pray you.”

A loud scream interrupted her karakia. She shivered and wondered what was happening in the bach.

Cora was going from one screaming jag to the next, from one hallucination to the next. Screaming, laughing, crying. Bella was trying to hold her down. Skylark was sponging her forehead. Cora’s head kept whiplashing back and forth — lash, lash, whiplash. “Oh Zac —”

“God, she’s strong,” Bella panted. “I don’t know how long I can keep her down.”

Skylark was concentrating on her mother.

“For once and for all get Zac out of your life! He’s slime, Mum.”

“This isn’t about Zac,” Cora laughed. “I don’t care about Zac. What I care about is what he can give me.” She spat a huge gob of spit into Bella’s face.

Taken by surprise, Bella let go — and Cora sprinted into the next room, to the chair where Skylark had piled her clothes. “Zac left me some extra drugs. Where are they?”

“Oh no you don’t!” Skylark was hot on her heels and wrested the bottle out of her mother’s hands.

“Give them to me you little bitch.” Cora reached for Skylark, snarling, clawing at her with her fingers. Skylark pushed her mother away. Cora fell to the floor, a shocked look on her face. Then she doubled up as the first cramps hit her. Her voice took on a cajoling whine: “Skylark, honey, please, just one tab? Skylark? Please?”

“I’m sorry, Mum, no. They’re prescription poisons.”

“Just one, please? That’s all I need. Just one tiny tab? Please?”

Skylark shook her head.

Cora was on her feet again. Furious. “Zac brought them for me, they belong to me, give them to me.” They started to fight again.

Then Bella was there, standing behind Cora, feeling for a pressure point in her neck. She pressed. Cora slumped to the floor.

“Go and fill the bath,” Bella ordered. “Is there any ice in the fridge? Get it now and fill the bath with it. There’s some more ice in the freezer in the homestead. Do it. Now.”

And Hoki was watching the sky spinning, spinning, spinning with stars. The stars were chasing each other, dancing to some quirky lopsided rhythm, popping and cracking and sizzling like bizarre fireworks. Somewhere in the middle of the Southern Cross, something strange was happening.

“What is that?” Hoki said to herself. It looked like a black hole opening up and moving above the twin mountains.

Fearful, Hoki looked at her watch. Two hours to dawn.

During the midnight hours she had seen Skylark hurrying between the bach and the homestead and, through the bathroom window of the bach, Skylark and Bella struggling with Cora. There had been a piercing scream — “It’s so cold, so cold” — followed by moans and shouts of such plaintive, begging quality that Hoki had to put her hands to her ears to shut them out. Then there had been more ruckus, Bella shouting, and next moment Cora was being wrapped up in blankets to get her warm. “I’m on fire,” Cora screamed. “I’m burning up.”

For the rest of the time, Hoki had been racking her brains, trying to find an answer to the problem that confronted her. “Where is the key to open the door so that Skylark can step across the threshold and into her own understanding?” She had a brainwave. She walked back to the homestead, opened the big walnut cabinet and took out the Great Book of Birds — a set of three ledger books into which her great-grandmother had painstakingly transcribed the words from the previous copy of the original Great Book of Birds. That original copy, written by the very first handmaiden of Tane, had long succumbed to old age, brittle paper and the ravages of sun and wind. Even the transcription copy made by Hoki’s great-grandmother had to be handled with care.

Hoki opened the third ledger book and turned to Revelations. The sight of her great-grandmother’s squiggly handwriting, done in fading pen and ink, made tears come to her eyes. She had a vision of all those handmaidens of Tane, keeping the faith alive, looking after the manu whenua, passing the job down from one generation to the next, making sure the primary imperative was maintained.

There will come a time when the Sky will open again. At that time, then will the reigning handmaiden be required to fulfil the task to which we have all been ordained.

Hoki wiped angrily at her tears. This time, when she prayed again, she aimed her prayers at all the former handmaidens. “Well, thank you all so much for dumping the task on me,” she said. “You had the easy job. All you had to do was pass the message on like a parcel. But you forgot to mention how I was supposed to accomplish the task and what I was supposed to tell the chick.” Hoki opened the third ledger book. In it was the Book of Revelations. “If the answers are here,”she continued, glaring into the past, “for goodness sake show me.”

Skylark and Bella, meantime, were struggling to stabilise Cora.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen her,” Skylark said to Bella. “How much longer do we have to do this?”

“As long as it takes,” Bella answered, as she pushed Cora down on the bed and kept her there. Somewhere inside Cora was a succubus. “Come out, damn you,” Bella said. “Come out.”

Then, around four in the morning, exhausted, Bella thought it was all over. Cora vomited yet again, and passed through the crisis point. Skylark recognised the signs and gave Bella a hopeful glance. She’d been sponging Cora, coaxing her through the withdrawal symptoms, forcing her to drink water, trying to help her to adopt the breathing techniques she had learnt in rehab, sponging her down again — and she was really beat.

Finally, Cora opened her eyes. She gave a grateful smile to Bella. She pressed Skylark’s hands.

“Thank you, Skylark honey,” she said. “Who’d want to have a mother like me, eh?”

“You’re the only mother I have,” Skylark answered. “It’s not as if I can go and pick another one off the shelf.”

Cora lay back on her bed. “I love you, honey.” Very soon her breathing evened out.

With a sigh, Bella started to clean up. “You get to bed now,” she said to Skylark.

“Thank you for being here,” Skylark answered. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it by myself.”

Hoki snapped the Great Book of Birds shut. Nothing. She could find nothing in it to help her. “Well, that’s it,” she said.

She was beyond despair. Beyond anger. Beyond frustration. She began to shiver. A cold wind had begun to blow from the sea. Dawn was approaching. She heard a door slamming and saw Bella leaving the bach and walking wearily back to the homestead.

“Shift over and give me some of the blankets,” Bella said as she came over to the bed. “If you think your night has been difficult, man oh man, I’ve been to Hell and back.”

“How is Cora now?”

“We finally managed to bring her down. They’re both asleep. And you? Any luck?”

“No,” Hoki answered.

“Well, whatever will happen will happen,” Bella said philosophically. “Hey, maybe we’ve got the date wrong! Maybe something has happened to change things between the time the Great Book was written and today. Maybe the sky isn’t going to open at all.”

Hoki gave Bella a questioning glance. “Since when did you change into a cock-eyed optimist? I like the old grumbly Bella better.”

“Easy on the old,” Bella said. “I suppose there’s nothing for it but to take our medicine then.” She fumbled in her kit and brought out a bottle of vodka.

“You know I never drink spirits,” Hoki said.

“Oh go on, live a little,” Bella answered. She poured a shot, lifted it to her mouth and threw the vodka against the back of her throat. “Ah, just the ticket,” she said. She poured again and gave the glass to Hoki. “Be a devil,” she said.

In the bach, Cora’s eyes snapped open. Thank God, the old bitch had finally left.

She leapt out of bed and tiptoed carefully past Skylark’s bedroom.

Where had she put that damn bottle of tabs? There! Grab her smokes too and a can of beer, and out of the house before Skylark could stop her. Now get away somewhere Skylark wouldn’t find her.

What was this? A pathway. Leading up the cliff. The dawn was coming up, lighting the way.

“I worked very hard and my dream came true,

I went to New York and became a star …”

Cora tripped lightly up the pathway. She was feeling triumphant. Victorious. She reached the halfway point where there was a lookout and a bench to take advantage of the view. She hesitated but decided to go on.

Yes, go right to the top, Cora, dear. Find your mark. Then begin your song. One two, one two three and:

“I wanted to make people happy …”

She made it — to the top of path, the top of the cliff, the top of the world.

Now find a place to sit and watch the sun come up and have a smoke and get going before those damn birds start their singing.

“Mama’s got her own plans for a party.”

Giggling to herself, Cora sat down. She lit a cigarette and threw the match away. She took a few puffs and then got down to the serious business of feeling good. Good about herself as a woman. Good about herself as a person. Good about herself as a mother.

One tab. Two tabs. Three tabs. Hell, make myself a cocktail.

Where is that can of beer to skull it down with? Ah, that’s better. “May as well trash myself for good and get it over with.”

Oh no, the match was smouldering in the grass. Reach over, stamp it out. Too far, too far.

“Who gives a damn anyway.”

The tabs took effect. Something began to tickle her. Whatever it was, Cora was giggling as if the whole world was a laughing matter.

Suddenly, whatever was tickling her stopped. It became angry and jumped on her. It was big, black and it was growling, and it bit her head off.

“Oh, Cora Edwards,” Cora said to herself, “you’re going straight to Hell.”

Finally it was the dawn.

With a deep inward breath, Hoki realised something was wrong. For a moment she couldn’t put a finger on it. Then she knew.

“Where’s the birdsong?” she asked Bella.

Bella shrugged her shoulders. She stood up and looked across Manu Valley. Everything appeared normal. It was a day just like any other day. Then she looked up at the cliff, and her face blazed with grief.

“Well, nobody can hold back the dawn,” Hoki said.

Bella kissed her on the forehead. “We tried, Sister. We tried.”

The sun had come up, shockingly bright. Silhouetted against the sunrise was the ancient tree. All its branches were on fire.

“Look, Sister,” Hoki said. Her voice was hushed. Above the sacred mountains, Venus was shining in its heliacal rising. The conjunction of dawn, Venus and burning tree made the sky glow. Within the glow was an imperfection, a place where the sky was thin.

Suddenly the fire from the ancient tree found that place of thinness. It found a seam, invisible to the naked eye and began to track along it until, with a sudden flaring, the sky ripped apart. Behind was a black opening, so dark and disturbing that Hoki gave a cry and fell forward. Bella caught her.

Hoki’s attention turned to the sea.

Yes. There it is! As was prophesied, the sky has opened!

The first wave of seabirds was riding the thermals and ascending up the Manu Valley.

With a cry, a seashag hurtled toward the rip in the sky and in.

“It’s started,” Bella said.