Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

Bella went to the room and closed the door behind her. She sat down feeling a bit weak at the knees. Things were getting curiouser and curiouser. It had been years since she had even thought of Florence; after all, Florence had been more Agnes’s friend than hers or Hoki’s.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Bella said as she picked up the telephone and dialled the number.

“Hello?” a voice answered. Cultured. Upper class.

“Is this Florence Wipani?” Bella asked.

“This is she,” the voice answered. “To whom am I speaking?”

No doubt about it, Bella thought. She was talking to Florence all right, her sister Agnes’s best friend; when Agnes had left Tuapa, Florence had joined her in Christchurch. Florence had always had a slight lisp — Thith ith thee — and no amount of cultivation could hide it. She’d come up in the world since the days when she had been plain old Flo, Fred the butcher’s daughter.

Bella decided that the best strategy was to cut the crap and go straight for the jugular. “I know it’s you, Flo, so don’t try to hide it. This is Bella here, Agnes’s sister. I want the truth about Cora. What are you hiding? What’s this all about?”

It seemed to Skylark that thousands of small bones were flying all around her, twisting, whirling and wheeling. At first she thought they might hit her, but they seemed to know she was there and whizzed, sizzled and spat past her with centimetres to spare. The bones trailed light like after-images and, as she watched, Skylark saw they were moving in a particular sequence. They were building a circle. One by one, they spun, hovered, edged in with each other and clicked into place until —

Interlock.

The bones became stationary. Time was in stasis. But for how long? What had Lottie said?

She had four days.

The circle began to hum. Skylark flew closer to it. She saw that a dark indigo tunnel had formed inside the circle. “The Time Portal,” Skylark whispered to herself. It looked as if it went on for years and years. It was so dark in there. Dark. Windy. Scary.

“Where are you, Arnie?” Skylark called.

“Right behind you,” he whistled. “Feel like doing another tandem jump?”

Before she could say no, Arnie pushed her through.

“You boofhead!” Skylark screamed. “I really hate you.”

“Oh Skylark,” Arnie laughed. “Can’t you just switch off your brain and enjoy the ride? Just pretend you’re in a hydroslide at the swimming pool.”

“I avoid those slides like the plague,” Skylark answered.

She looked for something to hold onto — but what? There was nothing there but air.

“Just think of all those sci-fi movies where the hero has to go back in time or through a stargate or wormholes into an alternative universe.”

“Hero? Excuse me?” Skylark asked. She hated this sensation of falling and of having no control over it.

Arnie, of course, was loving it, revelling in his new abilities: “Oh man! Oh wow! Oh awe- some !” Skylark got so tired of his darting over, under and around her, not to mention his persistent male chauvinism, that she accidentally on purpose tipped one of his wings with hers. Arnie gave a yell as he tumbled off to the left.

“Oops,” Skylark said. “Heh heh heh.”

“You meant to do that,” Arnie accused as he righted himself and sped back. But he was so revved up, he couldn’t stay cross for long. Everything excited him, and when he looked ahead, the pupils of his eyes dilated. “Oh man, I’ve got telescopic vision!” he yelled. “I can see light down there.”

“Down there? Where?”

“Can’t you see it?” Arnie asked. “Oh, I forgot,” he added slyly, “you’re a skylark and you have limited vision.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Skylark answered. “But yes, I can see it!”

Sure enough, far down in the distance was a pinhole of brightness. Then the pinhole began to widen. “Uh oh,” Skylark said. The pinhole had now become like the plughole of a bath. She felt centrifugal forces sucking her down, buffeting her around, and she had the sudden urge to fight against them. Just because she had agreed to go back in time didn’t mean she had to like it. Nor did she have any experience of being a bird, and it was difficult learning about the controls. “Where are the bloody brakes?” she yelled. “How do I get this thing into reverse?”As for Arnie, he was totally into it.

“Don’t fight it! Go with the flow!” Arnie folded his wings and dropped like a stone through the middle of the light.

“But I hate flying,” Skylark moaned. The brightness became so intense she had to close her eyes. She felt giddy from fighting against the descent, and she felt as if she was spiralling out of control. As much as she hated to follow Arnie’s example, she realised that pretending to be a sky diver was the only way to get out of this mess. And because Arnie wasn’t around, she let out a most unladylike scream of terror.

“Eeaarggh!”

The tunnel spat Skylark out. She had the sensation that she was falling through a huge sky. She felt coldness. She felt currents of air …

Then something nudged her.

“You can put on your brakes now,” Arnie said. “And you can open your eyes.”

“I don’t want to look,” Skylark said. Even so, she peeked out of her left eye and saw the Southern Cross directly above. She would have to remember that when she and Arnie needed to find their way back. The Time Portal was between the two pointer stars.

Skylark took a deep breath and looked down. Big mistake. For a moment vertigo overwhelmed her, and she screamed again. Who would catch her if she fell?

“You can use your wings now.” Arnie said as he flew alongside her. He saw that she was frightened, and tried to calm her fears.

Skylark remembered what she was, spread her wings and stabilised. Her heart stopped beating so fast. Her breathing became normal. She would have thanked Arnie for his solicitude, but he spoilt it by smiling like an idiot.

“ What! ” Skylark asked him.

“I heard you as you came out of the Time tunnel,” he kidded her. “What’s with the ‘Eeaarggh’?”

“I was practising my karanga,” Skylark sniffed.

“Your karanga? Do you want to frighten the birds away? Come on, Skylark, admit it. You were scared, weren’t you! You were out of your tree!”

“A Masters in avian aeronautics is not part of my CV,” she answered. “Nor is finding my way without a map.”

Arnie laughed, then quickly became more sober. The Southern Cross had winked out and, in its place, was a primaeval sky. Planets whirled around like pinballs. Comets trailed fiery tails from north to south. Strange shapes like winged snakes were gathering above them.

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” he said. “I think we’re in the highest Heavens, the uppermost reaches of the sky, where the giant pouakai lives.”

Don’t look back, Lottie had said. Fly like hell and get the blazes out of there .

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” Skylark said. “We’d better not stick around.”

This time it was she who folded her wings and dived. Arnie zoomed after her. All the way his feathers were prickling, and he had the sense that he and Skylark were being followed.

“Hurry, Skylark!” he urged.

Down, down, down they went, dropping from one Heaven to the next. Not until he felt they were safe did Arnie call out to Skylark that she could rest.

“Well, wherever we are,” Skylark said when he caught up with her, “one thing’s for sure. You’re not in Guatemala now, Dr Ropata.”

Below, the sky became dark with thickening clouds. A distant blue star was trying to break through the cover. Everything was rippling, faster and faster, and all around them the sky was transforming from one shape into another. From far off came a glow.