Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

“Eh? What?” Kahu asked.

Sometimes, Kotuku sighed, Kahu could be as dumb as. “Kua eke ke taumou na tetahi, kauaka hai raweke,” she scolded him. “Do not interfere with those whose hearts are already reaching out to each other. You may be able to see into the corners of the sky, Kahu, but you are blind at seeing into the corners of the heart. Although they do not know it yet, Skylark and Arnie are as if already betrothed.”

In a last-ditch effort, Kahurangi threw herself into Arnie’s arms, and Skylark herself spoke out. After all, Kahurangi was really pretty and, well, she wasn’t Winona Ryder. “Arnie, if you want to stay, then stay. You’ve done your job, and I’m grateful. I’ll be able to make it back by myself.”

Arnie’s face blanched. He stared at Skylark as if she didn’t know anything.

“How can you say that to me, Skylark?” he asked. “Don’t turn your face away from me.”

“Don’t you want to keep on playing the hero?”

“Skylark,” Arnie answered, “where you go, I go.”

After that, it all happened so quickly. The Runanga a Manu set up a loud trilling farewell. Chieftain Ruru and his owl clan began a series of sad, lugubrious poroporoaki. Skylark found it difficult to leave them.

“We must go,” Arnie said. “Now, Skylark.”

“Goodbye,” Skylark cried. “Manu whenua, live forever —”

She lifted into the air, Arnie beside her, and they began their return journey to the Time Portal.

“Don’t look back,” Arnie said. Even so, long after they had left the twin mountains, Skylark could still hear the trilling birds.

Kotuku and Kahu escorted them as far as Cook Strait. The Great White Egret and her kung fu warriors also accompanied them, and then turned to the east for their flight back to China.

“It has been an honour,” Yu Shu Lien said. “I will take back with me to my side of the world the story of the extraordinary exploits that have taken place, here, at the end of the sky.” Then she led her warriors from that place, flying fast and in a pefect V-formation, falling like feathers into the setting sun.

“We must hurry,” Arnie said. He turned to embrace Chieftain Kahu. “I have travelled under the protection of the white hawk,” he said to Kahu, who couldn’t disguise the tears at the corners of his eyes. “When I return to the future, I promise that your descendants will travel under mine.”

“Farewell, Chieftainess,” Kotuku said to Skylark. “I will carry you in my heart forever.”

Skylark and Arnie flew up into the sky. The emotion was too much for Te Arikinui Kotuku. Her filamentous wings glittered in the sunlight as she sang a waiata of farewell:

“Haere ra e te hine, farewell, Skylark, farewell, farewell, oh farewell …”

Skylark and Arnie climbed towards the clouds. The sky was empty, oh so empty, and Skylark felt very alone. At least Arnie was there. No matter that she had offered him the chance to stay in this world, she was glad he was coming back to hers. But she was worried about him too. The blood was seeping through the poultice from his injured wing. All the way up, Skylark tried to find thermals, any little upward current that would make flying easier for him.

“As soon as we get home, I’m taking you straight to a doctor,” Skylark said.

“That won’t do my wing any good,” Arnie quipped. “I need a vet. Actually, speaking of home, it’s sure going to seem pretty quiet after all we’ve been through, isn’t it? No one will believe us of course, but the things we will have to tell our children —”

“What! Our children?”

“Oh.” Arnie blushed, trying to cover his tracks. “Well, after all, one of these days you’ll get married and, uh, I’ll probably get married, not to each other of course, and um —”

“I’m never getting married,” Skylark cut in. “I’ve been a witness to one bad marriage and I’m not about to repeat their mistake, thank you very much.” Having feelings for Arnie was one thing, but marriage? Whoa!

They reached the cloud ceiling and stilled, gaining their breath. “After you.” Arnie said.

“No, after you . From now on I want to see where your hands — I mean wings — are at all times.”

But when Arnie took the lead he began to tire. Skylark was alarmed to see that he was operating mainly on one wing. He was going so slowly she was soon overflying him.

“I’ll play leader,” she said in the end. It would be easier for Arnie to cruise in her slipstream.

The journey through the clouds was like going through candyfloss. Wisps of it kept breaking across Skylark like a dream. When she penetrated the upper atmosphere the sky was azure blue, beautiful, with tall cloud pillars like castles. But Arnie was lagging far behind and — oh no — the poultice had fallen off, and blood was streaming from his wing.

Desperate, Skylark searched the air and saw that a stratospheric windstream was pouring from the south, a river of cold wind which had come up from Antarctica. She sped back to Arnie and pointed it out to him. “There’s our train,” she yelled. Once Arnie was in it, all he’d have to do was open his wings and glide.

“Great.” Arnie nodded with relief. It wasn’t just his wounds that were worrying him. Although the sun was still in the sky, the heat was going off the air and the edges of the cloud cover below were turning crimson. Time too was ticking by. They’d make their rendezvous with the Time Portal only by the skin of their teeth. But where was it?

“There it is!” Skylark cried.

Hanging on the horizon was the Southern Cross. Right in the middle of it was a dark plughole, studded with gem stars. The stars were winking as if the Time Portal was already on a countdown to zero.

“We’d better hurry,” Arnie said. Although he was flying on his reserves, the sight of the Time Portal gave him renewed energy. However, rather than let Skylark take the lead again, he surged ahead, sensed what he thought felt like a short cut warming his underwings, and crossed into it. “Oh no,” he groaned. It was a cross-thermal, like a rip, and it began to pull him away from the stratospheric windstream.

Skylark flew quickly after him and recognised the danger. “What’s happening, Arnie?”

The air was shimmering. The atmosphere was heating up. “There’s a rogue thermal cooking,” he said. “We’re right in the middle of it. We have to get out of it quick, otherwise we’ll miss that ride home.”

It was too late. With a sudden whoosh, the air around them erupted into rising columns of heat. Arnie tried to stabilise himself but his left wing wasn’t up to it and he began to spin away in a giddying ascent.

“Arnie!” Skylark screamed. She soared after him, reached — and locked claws. “Hang on!”

Hydraulic elevator winds exploded all around them. There was nothing else for Skylark to do except maintain her own wing configuration for both herself and Arnie — wingtips upthrust for balance and steerage — and ride with him to the top floor. Sometimes she just couldn’t maintain her trim and they would tumble and twirl out of control, the winds trying to tear them apart. But despite the bone-jarring effort, Skylark held on to Arnie for dear life. She knew if she let go he’d be swept one way and she the other, and how would they find each other again?

Not only were they going higher, they were also ascending into a world of ever-increasing blackness. Soon they reached the realm that lay above the sky. A few seconds later they had gone beyond the stars. Suspended above an inky universe, they were swept into the belly of the Primal Night. The light blinked out completely.

When the elevator stopped, Skylark’s heart was thundering in her ears. Everything was so pitch black. She couldn’t even see Arnie. But she could hear him whimpering as he clung to her: “Skylark? Where’s the button that will make the elevator take us back? I don’t even want to know where we are —”