Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

“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.