REMNANT

What would you do if you woke up one morning to find the world you took for granted was gone? It’s a beautiful sunny day when Cass wakes up to find herself alone. It should be just a normal day – there’s a beach to enjoy with family and friends and the summer is at it’s height.

Except today is not a normal day. Today there’s no one around. In fact, the only living creatures Cass can see are birds. And a horse. Where is everyone?

As Cass struggles to find other survivors in this strange new world where nature is taking back the land, she discovers that being alone might not be the worst thing. It depends on who or what else is out there…

http://themisbehavingmind.com

REMNANT

By Kate Genet

Copyright Kate Genet 2011

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Characters, places, incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover Photo Credit – AssassinM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty One

Chapter Forty Two

Chapter Forty Three

Chapter Forty Four

Chapter Forty Five

Chapter Forty Six

CHAPTER ONE

We followed the road over the bridge and out of Auckland. It was early January and the heat was stifling. Hemi drove, an elbow cocked casually out the window, a playful hand tickling my thighs as he turned and winked at me.

‘Can’t wait to hit the beach,’ he said.

The first time I 'd met Hemi, I hadn't taken much notice of him. ‘You had your nose stuck in a book,’ he said later. That was nothing new; I always had my nose stuck in a book. I'd brought three of them on this trip, imagining languid days on the beach reading. Hemi had been my new flatmate’s cousin, and the second time he'd visited, he made sure he got my attention. He'd sat with a twist of a smile on his face as he listened to us discuss Nature and Romanticism.

‘Us Maori know all about nature and romance,’ he said, a huge grin on his face. ‘Warriors and poets, that’s what we are.’

Now the university year was over and Hemi and I were going up North to see his whanau. ‘They won’t know what to make of you,’ he'd teased. ‘A skinny white girl who thinks more than she talks.’

The traffic was heavy and I fanned myself with a Christmas card as we sat in a shiny ribbon of cars, inching up the hill to Warkworth. In front a Porsche gunned its engine and did a u-turn, spitting dust as it headed back down the hill.

‘Air-cooled radiator,’ Hemi commented. ‘Overheats sitting still like this.’

I leaned across the divide in the seats and rested my head on his shoulder. He played with my fingers as the traffic crawled forward.

We had the curtains pulled, yellow and brown ones that had been there since the seventies at least. Hemi’s sisters giggled outside, whispering to each other. Hemi grinned at me and winked. He got up from the bed, draping the sheet round his dark-skinned hips and strode to the door. He flung it open and the girls outside scattered in peals of laughter.

‘Porangi! Where’re your brains at, you silly geese?’ He flapped at them and they disappeared around the side of the house, still giggling.

He came back to the bed and lowered himself onto me.

‘All five of them, would you believe it?’ he said, whispering at the sensitive skin on my neck. ‘Huge joke it is, big brother back from the city and with a pakeha kotero in his bed.’

I stroked my hand up the flex of his back, and down again, pausing at the strong flare of his buttocks. He moved slightly and I grasped the sheet, peeling it away from him so that he could fit between my thighs. I watched the orange suns on the curtains turn his skin to a weathered bronze.

We sat up in the bed afterwards, wedged into each other in the single bed and he rolled a cigarette, pinching the tobacco between his fingers and flicking the excess back into the pouch. I drew pictures in the swirl of hairs on his calf. Strong legs. First five in the local rugby team, so much glory there none had dared make fun of his knobbly knees. I cupped one in my hand.

‘It’s so good to be on holiday,’ I sighed.

He laughed at me and tugged on a strand of my blonde hair. ‘Course it is. Give those brain cells of yours a rest. They must be almost burned out by now.’ He offered me the cigarette. ‘You think so much, hine. Life isn’t for so much thinking.’

I didn't really agree with that, but it was a holiday after all, and nice to have a break from the endless round of studying and teaching. I smiled instead, lifted an eyebrow and cast a glance over his chest and down, where the sheet pooled in his lap. ‘What’s it for then, big fella?’ I teased.

He grabbed me with one arm and pushed my face down. ‘That’s life, aroha. Life is for living and breathing and feeling and touching. Touch me, aroha. You touch me.’

He drew my face up to his and kissed me. His breath was sweet with tobacco smoke and something else, something that captured me, in the narrow bed in the hut by a little house nestled into the side of a hill in the Bay of Islands.

Mereana greeted us from the veranda. ‘Eh, the sleeping beauties finally dragging their sorry butts out of bed.’ Her eyes were twinkling as her old brown hands worked at the peas she was shelling. ‘Here I am preparing your supper already and you only just out of bed.’

Hemi gave her a kiss on her cheek and she swatted him away. ‘Enough of your charm, Hemi. We’ve all had enough of your charm, for sure.’ But she was grinning at him.

I sat on the steps, almost at the old woman’s feet. She chuckled. ‘He’s always been a charmer, that boy,’ she said. ‘Got your head turned well and truly, eh?’

I blushed and picked up a pea pod, squeezing it between my fingers until it split down its seam and the peas appeared in a neat row.

‘Head turned and blood heated. Ae, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. A fine man he’s turned into. Even if I can remember when he was running around here in his nappies chasing the chickens. Never thought then that boy’d grow a brain in his oversized head.’ She shucked a handful of peas into the plastic bowl. ‘What you studying at that university, girl? Hemi, he tells me he found a girl who thinks more than she talks and after living with the woman in his family that’s just what he likes.’ She chortled and wiped her eyes.

I looked down at the sandy dirt at the bottom of the steps and dug a toe around in it.

‘Cat got your tongue? No point being shy around here, eh. I seen the way my boy looks at you, I have. No point being shy cos I reckon we all going to have to get used to each other, eh? Plenty room in here for you. And don’t mind those girls giggling round the place all day. They worship the ground Hemi walks on, they do.’ She gave a sniff and a grin. ‘Come on then. Open up. What you studying then?’

I picked up more pea pods and shucked them of their peas in a fair imitation of efficiency. ‘I’m doing graduate studies in English Literature,’ I said.

‘You gonna be a teacher?’

I shrugged. ‘I could have gone into teacher’s college already. I’m doing my Masters. I’ll work at the university perhaps.’

‘Why you want to keep studying when you got enough already for a decent job?’ Another handful of peas into the basin.

I matched it. ‘I’ll teach in a high school if it turns out I have too,’ I said. ‘But a university would suit me better, I think.’ I flashed a quick grin, ‘More to think about.’ I looked out down the hill where the water glittered over in the bay. ‘I was planning to spend six months studying over in London next year,’ I said. ‘Sort of an exchange programme.’

The old woman clucked disapprovingly. ‘And what would Hemi do while you were over there?’

I looked at her. ‘We haven’t discussed it. But Hemi isn’t a stupid man. He wouldn’t have a problem getting work.’ I shrugged again. ‘We haven’t discussed it properly yet. It’s something I was planning before I met him.’

We hadn’t discussed anything much so far. Eight months we’d been seeing each other and there hadn’t been all that much room for discussing things. Oh we talked a lot; or rather Hemi talked a lot. Always specifics. What a mate had said, why we should have won last weekend's rugby game, how we should come here up north for Christmas, so I could meet his family. Whanau, I mean.

And somehow I didn’t care that we never spent time discussing and debating as I did at lunchtime in the student union. With Hemi I relaxed and soaked him up. There wasn't much room for thinking; it was all sensation, feeling. Truthfully, the idea of six months in London had lost a lot of appeal.

But Hemi was proud of me, his girlfriend who always got A’s at the university. His girlfriend who could write a ten-page essay without batting an eyelid. His girlfriend, he laughed, who was going to earn us a fortune so he could go fishing every day.

But even that was a lie because Hemi worked, and worked hard. He built boats and would come back to our little flat with fibreglass dust in his hair and on his skin, turning him into a pale ghost. On nights when I had late tutorials I would step off the train to find him lounging against a pole waiting for me, a lazy smile on his face and the car door open for me to see the picnic blanket there and the wicker basket filled with food and wine. He would drive me to the beach and tell me about the boat he was working on as he spread out the blanket. How the boat was so flash we could fit our whole flat into the stateroom and the taps in the head were going be plated with real gold.

He’d laugh and say we would go gold panning and find our own gold and he’d sprinkle the dust over my naked flesh because who needed a hundred metre boat when they had a woman to keep the mind sharp and balls empty, when they had a full belly and work to keep hands busy? I would fall asleep cradled in his arms, the beating waves keeping pace with my heart. I would drift away to dream about the waka he was going to build and the little tamariki we would have, dark skinned and golden haired, covered in the same gold dust as their mother. None of it made any sense but it was a dream worth every breath and sigh.

We took his sisters down to the beach with us after supper. I sat on a blanket and watched them all laughing and clowning around in the water. I was happy just to watch, even though I'd left my book behind. Hemi laughed at me and shook himself over me, spraying me with water that dried leaving salty trails over my skin. When the sun began finally to sink towards the horizon, Hemi sent the girls on home, swatting their wiggling behinds playfully with a towel while they shrieked and turned their light footprints towards the track home.

‘Let’s walk, eh?’ Hemi said.

I nestled into his side, smelling the salt and sweat on his skin, tasting it with the tip of my tongue.

‘Let’s spend the night outside,’ I said.

Hemi looked at me and raised an eyebrow. ‘No comfy bed? Outside with the morepork owls and the possums?’

‘Let’s sleep outside,’ I said again. ‘You and me and the moon and the stars.’

He laughed. ‘You and me and the moon and the stars and the morepork owls and the possums. I know just the place.’

We went back to the house, giggling at each other like Hemi’s sisters. The soft night air was intoxicating. I was intoxicated. We pilfered the blankets from our bed and Hemi crept inside, took our beer and wine from the fridge and swiped a couple of marmite jars for glasses. I waited under the window, listening to the canned laughter on the television and smiling as Mereana hooted along with it. They laughed so easily at Hemi’s house.

Laden with our booty, Hemi took me by the hand and led me away into the shadows. We skirted around a paddock divided in half, a horse in each.

‘Look at that fella,’ Hemi whispered. ‘He’s going to make a jump at that fence tonight, get over there to see his lady friend. Something in the air tonight, eh aroha?’

Hemi led us into the bush and I wondered how he could see.

‘Used to come down here when I was a kid,’ he said. ‘Only way I could get away from all the aunties and cousins was to run away into the bush. Too many girls in our family even then.’ He laughed and drew me on. ‘Know my way round here blind folded even now.’

What’s that noise?’ I whispered.

‘Almost there. That’s the creek you can hear. We’re heading right for it. There’s a little clearing that’s just right for our sleepover, I reckon.’

It was perfect. Hemi spread the blankets and we lay down. The creek sang a soft, watery song and the trees whispered and murmured in the breeze. In the silvery moonlight it was calm and beautiful. We poured ourselves a drink and toasted each other.

Later, of course, when the wine was half drunk (me) and the beer cans were rolling around empty (Hemi), we made love, nestled into the bed of moss and fern beside the stream, drinking moonbeams from each other’s skin. The morepork called as we came together, straining, convulsing in each other’s arms, our voices lifted, answering his call.

We pulled the blankets up over us and slid into sleep, Hemi pressed to my side, his body warm against me. I drifted off into a content sleep, wrapped in my warrior poet’s arms.

CHAPTER TWO

The early morning sun spread its heated fingers between the branches of manuka and rata, groped towards me and pressed against my eyelids. I stretched, a smile on my face before I even opened my eyes, reaching for Hemi. He wasn’t there. I sat up and looked around. It was early, I thought, maybe six o’clock; where was Hemi?

I felt the blankets next to me but they held no lingering warmth. He hadn’t just moved. Disgruntled, I wrapped a blanket around myself and got up. I turned in a circle, calling his name but only the stream answered, gurgling to me with its wet, happy voice. Muttering, I cast around for my clothes. He must have gone back to the house, planning God knows what sort of surprise. That would have been like him, I supposed. But leaving me here in the bush? That wasn’t. Far more romantic to wake together naked under the trees. Hemi was an unabashed romantic. He also hated early mornings; I almost always had to wake him to go to work.

I found my clothes, scattered around the clearing. I picked up my knickers and hopped on one foot then the other to get them on. I stood on another piece of clothing while I was hopping and promptly stopped. I drew my pants up and raised a hand to my face. I’d just stepped on Hemi’s boxers. The ones with the bananas and pickles printed on the silky fabric. Had he gone back to the house without putting his underwear on? I kept my hand over my mouth and looked around for the rest of his clothes.

I found them on the ground outside the nest of blankets, his shirt still turned inside out where I’d drawn it over his head, covering his face with it while I flicked my tongue across his small, hard nipples. It was snagged on a fern, landed where I’d chucked it to the side. I took an inventory. All his clothes were still here in the clearing with me. Clothes but no man.

Perhaps he’d wrapped a blanket around his waist and gone back to the house like that. I looked at the blankets. It was possible. I didn’t know how many we’d brought with us. I thought two and there were still two here, but I might have been wrong. I probably was wrong. Hemi must have gone back to the house when it was still dark, not wanting to disturb me by hunting round for his clothes. Something must have happened back at the house. I couldn't think of any other reason he would leave me sleeping here by myself.

Goose bumps spread over my skin despite the sun. I grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my breasts. Stepped into my shorts and yanked them up. Getting dressed properly could wait. I kicked aside the empty beer cans and promised myself we’d be back soon to pick them up.

How to get back to the house? Chewing my lip I remembered how dark it had been when Hemi led me down here. He might have known his way round here blindfolded, but I had no idea even with the sun climbing through the tree branches. I found a bit of a path. Sliding my feet into my jandals, I followed it, like Hansel and Gretel in the woods.

I shook my head and started worrying about Mereana. She must have had a turn or something and one of the girls had come running down here to get Hemi, her face all screwed up with worry and fright and her feet bare in her rush.

In five minutes or so I was out of the bush. The sun was warmer here and I rubbed my arms, glad of the heat. I hurried past the paddocks where the horses were kept. One of the horses had been moved; the stallion, I thought. I headed towards the house.

Mereana’s house was an old wooden villa with a veranda at the front, the curling wrought iron turning the shadows to ribbons in the early morning sun. I slowed as I approached. The front door was closed, the curtains still drawn. The house sat heavy in the brightening day, heavy and silent. There was no cluster of girls whispering in the rooms or flinging the door open, no mother humming as she made pancakes in the old kitchen, no Hemi pretending to grumble as he fetched the eggs from under the warm feathered rumps of the hens in the back yard.

There must have been an accident. I had been right. Hemi had been called back in a hurry, in a panic, and they’d all gone off to the hospital.

So why was I standing there in front of the house, holding my breath? There would be a note scribbled for me and left on the kitchen table.

But Mereana’s van was still in the drive, and the curtains were still drawn and the door was still closed. The only sounds were the birds in the trees. No homely clucking of the hens, which as far as I’d been able to tell, never stopped their clucking and fussing. I let out my breath and climbed up the steps to the house. There would be a note on the table for me. Of course there would be.

I climbed the veranda steps and pushed the front door to open it. It didn’t move. I stared at it, frowning. Gave it another shove. It was locked. I took a deep breath. Okay. It was locked. That was okay; they would have left the back door open. I stepped back down onto the grass, rubbing at the goose bumps on my arms. The day was like toast going slowly golden under the grill, but I still had goose bumps.

There was a pretty good view from Mereana’s house and I shaded my eyes and stared out, down over the curving bay. But mostly I paid attention to the road that followed the sweep of golden sand. The road was empty. Nothing moved. Anywhere. I shrugged. It was early after all. I went around to the back of the house.

The back door was unlocked, of course. I turned the knob and stepped inside. The house was full of shadows, dim and stuffy. Mereana would usually be up by now, fussing around opening windows and shooing children in to have breakfast. Something must have happened to her. I hoped she was sitting up in a hospital bed giving the nurses merry hell. She was a tough old goose, she had to be okay. I paused, the goose bit reminding me of the hens. I backed out of the door again and turned to look at the hen run. It was empty. No russet coloured hens pecking at the ground and squabbling amongst each other.

That was weird, no two ways about it. They wouldn’t all be in the chicken house, would they? I decided not to look. Better to leave it as a possibility.

Back to the house and right inside this time. The kitchen was full of sun, setting the dust motes shining in the still air. There were crumbs by the toaster and a neat pyramid of glasses by the sink. But no note anywhere. There were a couple of magazines on the table, and some junk mail advertising summer sales, but no note. I tapped the table top with my finger nails and strode down the hallway. One after the other I threw open the bedroom doors. I’d be glad to apologise for waking anyone, but they were all empty. Every bed was empty. Every bed looked as though it had been slept in, but they were all empty now. And the chickens were gone. And there was no note. It wasn’t making sense. I reached the front door and flung it open.

‘Hemi!’ I shouted. ‘Hemi, where are you?’

There was no answer. A distant twittering of birds, the brief flash of a fantail and nothing. The road was empty.

I tried again. ‘Hemi! Mereana!’

No answer. I rubbed the back of my neck; the hairs were standing on end. My palms were itching just beneath the skin. They did that when I was nervous.

‘Okay, okay, it’s all right. They’ve just gone off in a rush somewhere. No need to panic.’

A bitter metallic taste flooded my mouth and I could feel my heart beating rapidly beneath my flimsy shirt. I was suddenly convinced I was the only person left in the world.

‘Beam me up Scotty,’ I croaked.

Then, finally, a noise other than the birds.

Over in the paddock, the horse whinnied. I stumbled down the steps and walked double time down to the paddock.

The mare stood by the wooden fence, pawing at the ground. I approached her slowly. I didn’t know anything about horses, but this one looked almost as freaked out as I felt. She shook her head as I came closer, mane flying.

‘Shh sweetheart, it’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.’

She let me walk up to her. Blew her great nostrils in my hair, a great puff of warm breath. I reached up and tentatively stroked the side of her nose.

‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ I asked, noticing for real this time, that where last night there had been two horses, now there was only the one. ‘Where’s he gone, honey? Maybe he knows where mine is.’ I hiccoughed and took a deep breath. I stroked the horse again and leaned in towards her. I had a bad feeling about all this. A really bad feeling.

‘Okay,’ I said, to the horse, to myself. ‘Going to keep it together. Think.’ My voice was high and thin. ‘No one’s here, okay. So they must be somewhere else. That’s logical, all right?’ I stroked the little bay mare again. ‘So I’ll take the car and go to the hospital and see if I can find them, okay? That sound like a plan to you?’

The horse made no answer but I gave her a rub and said I’d be back when I’d found everyone. I’d bring her an apple or a carrot.

My car keys were in the sleepout with the rest of my gear. Hemi’s clothes were spread over every surface, but he’d left them like that yesterday morning. I sifted through them, looking for his wallet. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere without his wallet. I remembered again Mereana’s van parked outside the house in its usual place. Had they gone in an ambulance? What about the girls? There was no way six girls would be allowed in an ambulance too, so where were they?

I found Hemi’s wallet under a dirty pair of jeans. My own was on a shelf by the door with the car keys. I scooped them up and headed for the door, deciding not to think anymore, just to get in the goddamned car and drive to the hospital (stopping to ask someone where it was first) and when I found Hemi to give him the biggest black eye I could manage, just for scaring me like this.

CHAPTER THREE

It was already hot in the car. I wound down the driver's window and put the key in the ignition. Casting a glance back at the house (I’d forgotten to close the front door) I turned the key. The car didn’t start.

I turned the key again. Nothing. Not even a click. The engine didn’t turn over, the plugs didn’t spark, or whatever else was supposed to happen. I gripped the steering wheel and turned the key again and again. Tears dripped down my cheeks.

‘Start, damn you!’ I yelled, but still nothing. I flung myself out of the car and tuned around in a furious, frightened circle.

‘Hemi!’ I was screaming now. ‘Hemi!’

I clamped my hands over my mouth and leaned against the car. Why was I so freaked out? I took a couple of deep breaths. Sure, it was all a bit strange for everyone to go off without a word like this, but it I could just calm down and think rationally about it a moment, I was sure the answer would come to me.

But what about the missing hens? I smothered the whispering voice and took another deep breath instead.

Okay. Here’s what I would do. There was a little dairy just down the road; we’d bought the girls ice creams there just yesterday. I’d walk down there and see what I could find out. Place like this, I figured everyone would know everyone’s business and I could at least find out where the hospital was and maybe even get a lift. I clung to the story of the hospital. That’s where they were, chickens or no chickens. No chickens my mind whispered. No chickens, no horse, no Hemi. I clamped my teeth down on my lip until I was sure I would draw blood.

‘I’m going to the shop,’ I said aloud. I left the keys in the car and flipped the strap of my purse over my head, slipping Hemi’s wallet inside it.

There were plenty of birds up and about that morning, hens or no. A fat woodpigeon sat in a kowhai tree at the side of the road, its weight bending the slim branch until I was sure it would give way. I wondered what the Maori name for woodpigeon was. I should know it, I probably did. But I was having a bit of a rough morning.

I listened to the sound of my jandals flip flopping on the asphalt. I wiped an arm across my forehead. It was hot, even at seven in the morning. I looked at my wrist, but I’d taken my watch off the day before, not keen to get salt water in it. Still, shading my eyes and looking up at the sky, seven in the morning seemed about right. I wondered if the dairy would even be open. If it’s not I’m going to bang on the door and get them up anyway.

I felt an absurd desire, walking down the road, to run back to the horse. It was the only living thing I’d seen all morning. Apart from the birds, that was. Except for the hens. Yes, okay, except for the hens. But I hadn’t checked the hen house, so it was obvious that for some reason they were all still in there. I shrugged. Maybe the rooster was sleeping in.

There was a blue Holden parked outside the dairy, but no open sign outside the shop. I glanced at the windows of the house behind the dairy. The curtains were all drawn. The car was empty and I leaned over to peer in. Just a car. I stood up again and turned back to the shop. I tried the door but it was locked and inside was dim and silent.

There was a sign on the door. Open seven days from 7- 5.30. I must have been wrong about the time. Wasn’t seven yet. I turned and leaned back against the door. What now? I wished the car had started.

Suddenly I felt incredibly stupid. Fishing in my purse I pulled out my cell phone. I hadn’t bothered much with it since coming up north, I usually only used it these days to keep in touch with Hemi, and I hoped it was still charged. The screen was blank when I flipped the lid up and nothing happened when I pressed the button to turn it on. Damn, the battery was flat. I chewed on my lip, trying to decide what to do next. In the trees on the other side of the road the birds chirruped and squabbled among themselves, and all of a sudden I felt enormously alone.

I pushed open the gate beside the shop and walked along the path to the house. They’d be up getting ready to open the shop anyway, I figured; they wouldn’t mind if I used their phone. I’d call Hemi on his cell. I should have done that at home, of course, but I knocked on the door anyway. It would be a relief just to see someone, even if I did end up feeling like an idiot. I could put up with feeling like an idiot.

No one answered my knock. I tried again, banging the side of my fist against the glass. There didn't seem to be anyone home. I went down the path again, looking at the windows (all curtained) and found the back door. I knocked again, almost tripping over a child’s scooter. No answer. I tried the door. Locked.

I left the house and went back to the road. Standing in the middle of it, I looked first one way then the other. Nothing. No cars, no people, nothing but birds and the chittering of cicadas. The air seemed heavy around my shoulders. I walked back up the road. I’d call Hemi from Mereana’s. And if I couldn’t get hold of Hemi I thought maybe I’d call the police. Or someone. Hell, anyone.

I was running by the time I got back to the house. Up the stairs and through the open door, calling Hemi’s name. Listening to the sound of my voice in my ears and my ragged breath. No one answered, nothing moved, no laughing and chattering girls, no sound in the house at all. Not even the ticking of a clock.

I dashed back to the kitchen and picked up the phone, punching the numbers in before I even brought it to my ear.

‘Come on Hemi, come on baby, answer the phone.’ I put the receiver to my ear and prayed to hear his voice. After a moment I removed the phone and looked at it. I pushed the buttons to disengage and let them go. There was no dial tone. I pushed the buttons again. Nothing. In slow motion I put the receiver back on its cradle. Walking as though in a dream, I moved to the wall and flipped the switch to turn the lights on. Nothing. I went into the hallway and found the light switch there. Nothing.

The phones were down. The power was out. I looked around to find the fuse box. Maybe a breaker had gone. The panel was in the hallway and I pried it open, scanning the rows of fuses. The breakers were all flipped to on, everything looked good. I left the door open and backed up into the kitchen. I sat down at the table. My palms were itching, my stomach felt queasy. I looked up at the clock on the wall. Three o’clock, it said, but the second hand wasn’t moving. That battery was flat too.

Suddenly it seemed imperative to know the time. My watch was in the sleepout. I kept my face averted from the chicken run as I walked down the path behind the house to the little hut where Hemi and I had spent the last few days sleeping and making love and talking and laughing. I found my watch on the table beside the bed, along with my reading glasses. I sat down on the unmade bed and picked up my watch.

According to my watch it was three o’clock. I shook it but it just repeated the same time to me. Three o'clock. Throwing it down, I backed outside, scowling at the bright sun. What was going on here? Just what on earth was going on? I stomped over to the chicken run and let myself through the gate. I was going to get to the bottom of this and I was going to damn well see once and for all if the hens were there or not.

They weren’t.

Shocked, I stood there with my hands over my face. The morning took on a weird, dislocated feel and spun momentarily around me. Weak at the knees I sank to the ground there by the hen house. In my mind I kept seeing the row of roosting boxes, each with a neat brown egg on the straw at the bottom and no hen in sight. I sank my head to the ground, trying not to faint.

In a few minutes, my mind now carefully blank, I got up and went back to the house. I was hot and thirsty. I had a headache. I needed a long cool drink of water, half a dozen aspirin and a nice lie down. And when I woke up there would be Hemi and everyone back from town. I staggered through the door over to the sink. I thought I could feel a fever coming on.

CHAPTER FOUR

The tap didn’t work. I twisted it and no water came out. Yanked it off and back on again. Nothing. ‘Nothing’ was getting to be the theme of the day. I tried the hot tap. Water from the cylinder gushed out. I grabbed a glass and filled it, drank it down and refilled it. Then I put the glass aside and scrubbed water all over my face. The water was warm, but it wouldn’t be for long, not with the power off. I turned the tap off and leaned over the sink, trying to get my thoughts straight. Trying to decide what to do next. I should take advantage of the bit of warm water, shower and walk into town, see if I could find a working phone. Call Hemi; find out what was going on. That’s what I should do.

I stood in the silent house, watching the shadows stretching in the corner, listening to the unnatural silence.

I shook my head in frustration. I was freaking myself out, imagining all sorts of strange and impossible things. I’d better go find that phone, get hold of Hemi and get a handle on myself.

I showered and pulled on clean clothes, laced my sneakers up and found a drink bottle in Mereana’s cupboard. I filled it up with the last of the water. The shop would probably be open by now, of course, but I slung the bottle in my bag anyway. Found hat and sunglasses, grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and hit the road.

The shop was still closed. The curtains in the house were tightly drawn and the blue Holden sat locked at the curb. Maybe they’d gone on holiday.

I walked down the road, estimating it would take forty minutes or so to walk further around the bay to the shops. My footsteps echoed in my ears and I wished I’d brought my iPod so I could block the lonely sound out. Not a single car passed me.

The shopping area was a surprisingly graceful curve of road that followed around the next bay. Boutique shops for the tourist, a pair of discreet golden arches, supermarket. But the main street was deserted. It reminded me of the movie I’d seen not long before. Will Smith running around a deserted New York. I banished the thought straight away. It would have been all over the news for weeks if there had been some sort of deadly pandemic. Besides, as much as I hated the thought, there were no bodies, no evidence of death. Instead there was just – nothing.

I gazed around. No people anywhere, just the birds. I walked down the footpath. Every shop was closed, locked. Every light was off, every counter unstaffed. There were no cars. It was as though everyone had decided to stay in bed for the day.

Now there was no denying something was wrong. Badly wrong.

Horror movie wrong.

I walked slower, eyeing the shadows, almost expecting something to leap out at me, pull me to pieces.

I stopped stock still in the middle of the path. Had to get a grip on myself. Couldn’t fall apart. Maybe this was all just a bad dream and any minute I’d wake up beside the stream with Hemi snoring softly beside me.

I had to get out of here. The empty shops, deserted footpaths and car parks, it was too much. If I stayed here any longer I was going to start screaming. I turned around and headed back the way I’d come, my sneakers thudding against the path.

When the shops ended, I turned and looked again. Nothing moved.

‘Hello!’ I called out. ‘Hello! Is anyone here?’

My voice echoed down the empty street. I shuddered and started walking back to the house. My headache was coming back. I needed a nap.

Back at Mereana's, I walked slowly through the house. There was no one here. The dust hung suspended in the air. I paced from room to room then quit the house and walked down the short path to the sleepout. I was very tired. The blankets and pillows were still out in the woods, but the sun slanted through the orange curtains and pooled in a golden spill on the bed. That little oasis of light was the only inviting thing I’d seen all day and I dropped my bag onto the floor, kicked off my sneakers and curled up in it, knees drawn up to my chest, arms wrapped around them, eyes clenched shut. Images of the empty streets twisted and turned behind my eyelids and I shook my head to banish them.

A low keening noise started up in the room. It was coming from me. Rocking slowly I forced my mind blank and went to sleep.

The pool of light had left the room when I woke, groggy and disoriented. I sat up too quickly and slammed my head against the wall. Tears sprung to my eyes and within seconds I was howling in pain and fear. Mostly fear. Sitting on the bed, aching all over from sleeping tightly curled, hot tears washed down my face as I rocked back and forth crying as a small child does, mouth open, wet, streaky with tears and mucus.

After all, who was there to see me?

Slowly the sobbing subsided. My eyes felt raw and heavy but I opened them enough to look around again. I must have slept most of the day away; the sleepout was deep in shadow. Automatically I twisted my wrist to look at my watch, but my watch was still on the table beside the bed. It was probably telling much the right time. 3 o’clock. The room was stifling with late afternoon heat and I stood up slowly, stretching, feeling strangely exposed and vulnerable though nobody was around.

That was the problem, of course. There was nobody around. I pulled open the door and stepped into Mereana’s back yard. No sound of children playing and adults laughing and gossiping and scolding in the sun. No cars driving down the road, no planes in the sky, no speedboats out on the water. The day lay hot and still, and except for the birds, silent. I’d never heard so much silence.

Feeling slightly sick I stepped up into the shade of Mereana’s kitchen. My stomach rumbled and I realised I hadn’t eaten all day. The fridge was full of food. I pulled out a bowl of salad, plastic wrap covering it ready for the next meal. I put it on the table and found some cold chicken and a bottle of beer. I sat at the table and ate steadily, eating the salad straight from the bowl, using my fingers. I absorbed myself in tearing strips off the chicken and wrapping them in pieces of lettuce, washing it down with swigs of beer. The air in the house hung heavy around me, almost like a cloak settling around my shoulders. I kept eating.

I cleared up after myself and replaced the food in the fridge. It was still pretty cold in there, it would be a day or two before things would start to spoil. That’s if the power stayed off. Maybe I would wake up in the morning and everything would be right again, with people around and shops open and the power back on and chickens in the hen house.

I was tired again. I wanted to curl back up to sleep. I stood on the step and refused the idea. I rubbed my face and tried to clear my thoughts. What were you supposed to do when there was a disaster?

Listen to the radio of course.

Hurrying back inside I scoured the kitchen for the radio I knew Mereana had somewhere. She played it all day, it must be somewhere. I never listened to the radio at home. Preferred to put CD’s on and not have to listen to endless ads.

It was on a shelf in the kitchen and I flicked the switch on. Nothing. I twisted the tuner up and down but still nothing, not even static. I groaned, of course, it was plugged in and there was no power. I pulled the plug and lifted it down. There must be somewhere for batteries to go. Mereana must keep batteries somewhere. But even if she did, I discovered, the radio wasn’t equipped to take them. I left it on the bench and went into the girls’ rooms. They must have their own radios.

The older girls had a stereo. Useless with no power. There were iPods on bedside tables. I picked one up and put the ear buds in. The batteries were flat; it didn’t even turn on. Chewing my lip I crept into Mereana’s room. If anyone were to have something as simple as a radio, it would be Mereana. But she apparently had enough of the radio during the day because I couldn’t find one in her room. I stood and stared at the unmade bed. The blankets were creased and pillow dented as though Mereana had only just been lying there.

‘Mereana?’ I whispered. No answer. I backed out of her room and retreated to the kitchen.

I needed to get hold of a radio. There wasn’t one in the sleepout, I was sure of that. What about the garage? I went outside and over to the garage. It was cool in there, and empty. Mereana’s van was still parked outside, and it didn’t look like anyone used the garage for anything. A cardboard box stood in the corner, covered in dust. I pulled open one of the flaps and looked in. Old curtains and blankets. I sneezed and left it.

I was going to have to go back to the shop. There they would have batteries for sure and most likely a radio too. If not in the shop then maybe in the house behind it. I would have to keep looking until I found a radio. Not iPods or mp3 players, but a real, old fashioned, transistor radio. When I’d found one, and fed it with batteries I would be able to turn it on and tune it to an emergency broadcast that would tell me what had happened and what to do.

I had a plan, and immediately felt stronger. It was a sound plan, it made sense. It was what we’d all been taught to do by television and civil defence people. At home, I even had an emergency kit, with water and food for 3 days and radio and batteries. I didn’t think Mereana had bothered to be so prepared.

I squashed the little voice that pointed out there hadn’t been an earthquake or flood or other disaster like that. I had a plan. That was the main thing.

CHAPTER FIVE

Not bothering to pick up my bag, I jammed sunglasses on my face and headed down the dirt driveway to the shop. I stopped midway down and looked at Mereana’s van. Slamming the heal of my palm against a temple I scolded myself for not thinking of it before. Just because my car had a flat battery didn’t mean Mereana’s would too. And there would be a radio in it.

It was locked. Would the keys be inside somewhere? Well, that all depended on where Mereana kept them. And where she was. They would be on a table or hook somewhere, or in her handbag. I was guessing most women were like me. I had a particular place where I threw down my keys each day. And if they weren’t there, it meant they were in my bag. Simple. I walked back inside.

I looked in the kitchen first. It seemed the most logical choice, and I hated the idea of going back into Mereana’s room and hunting through her things. The keys were on top of a sideboard. Next to them was an old black purse. Mereana’s. Something bad must have happened for her to leave the house without purse and keys.

I stood for a minute staring into space, the keys in my hand. Was I really still thinking that Mereana had had an accident and been taken away by ambulance sometime during the night? The sun crept lazy golden fingers across the table. Outside, birds sang placid afternoon songs. I shook my head. She hadn’t gone to hospital. Hemi hadn’t taken her there in the middle of the night. Not unless he’d taken the whole town as well.

A tear rolled down my cheek. In a moment they were streaming down my face. I had a choice now, I realised. I could panic, fall apart, shout and scream and cry and do everything I felt on the verge of doing anyway. Or I could get a grip on myself, hold it all in and focus on getting through and finding out what was going on.

Wiping away the tears with the back of a hand, I made my choice. Taking a deep breath I walked outside with Mereana’s keys. It was hot in the van and I left the door open as I slid the key in the ignition.

The engine didn’t turn over. Like my car, the starter motor didn’t even give the tiniest click. It was totally, completely dead. I left the keys in the ignition and quietly closed the door before walking back down the driveway to the road.

Squinting up at the sky, I decided it was probably about four o’clock. I’d wasted a lot of time sleeping. I rolled my shoulders and massaged my neck, feeling tense. Down in the distance the bay sparkled a deep blue in the sun. It was strange not seeing any motor boats. I closed my eyes a moment then kept walking.

The shop was just as I’d left it earlier. I peered through the window into the dimness. There was no choice but to break in.

The window smashing was the noisiest thing I'd heard all day and I shrieked in fright, my nerves on edge. A bird screamed in response and flapped away. But there was no shrill wail of an alarm and in a moment everything was just as quiet as before. I poked my hand through the hole in the glass and turned the deadlock, easing the door open. I kicked away the rock I’d used to break the window.

I’d never broken into anything before. Worst I’d ever done was to pinch a bottle of vodka off my folks when I was still in high school. My boyfriend Sam and I had taken it up One Tree Hill and drunk the lot.

No one came rushing out from the shadows screaming at me, threatening to call the police. If they had I would have burst into tears and kissed them. But there was nothing except birdsong and the strange sighing of the wind up from the sea.

It was hot in here too, despite the shade. I looked longingly at the ice creams. First things first, I thought and looked around for a radio. Couldn’t find one. I pushed through the back door into the house, stepping into a hallway strewn with kids’ toys. Sneaking a look into the bedrooms I saw bunk beds, the batman blankets rumpled and in the corner of the master bedroom sat a white cot, a pink teddy bear leaning against the side. No baby. I backed out in a hurry. If there was a radio, I hoped it wouldn't be in there.

I found what I was looking for in the kitchen, plugged into the wall. I flipped it on, thinking maybe the power would be on here, but it sat silent. I tried the overhead lights, but they didn’t work either. The power must be off everywhere. Whatever had happened, it had affected the power. And engines, I reminded myself, thinking of my car and Mereana’s van.

It didn’t make any sense.

Taking the radio off the shelf, I went back through into the shop. It was too much being in the house. At least in the shop I’d been there before, stopping to buy milk and ice creams. It didn't feel so much like trespassing. I kept my eyes away from the bedroom with that sad little bed in it, the teddy bear left behind.

I set the radio on the counter and checked for batteries. It took D’s but didn’t have any in it. I wasn’t surprised. I found some on the shelves and prised them from their packaging. My hands were shaking. I fumbled with them, putting them in the radio the wrong way round the first time. Then, when I had them in properly, I hesitated over the on button. What was I going to hear?

Nothing.

There wasn't even any static as I rolled up and down the dial searching for a broadcast. I took the batteries out, hoping maybe they’d just been sitting on the shelf too long, and tried a different pack.

Nothing.

I had another thought. There was a selection of CD’s by the counter with a bunch of sunglasses. I ripped the cellophane off a CD and stuck it in the player. It didn’t work either.

So. Power didn’t work. Vehicles didn’t go. Batteries didn’t work.

And there were no people around. No hens either, which didn’t make any sense considering the number of other birds. I hadn’t seen or heard any dogs. The only animal I'd seen was the horse, and last night there'd been two of those. Now the other horse was gone, along with all the people.

I slid down the counter until my bottom touched the floor. Everyone but me and a horse and a bunch of wild birds had disappeared. I knew it. There wasn’t anyone out there doing emergency broadcasts, because there was no civil defence. Not anymore.

I leaned my head back against the counter. There was me though. And there was the horse. So whatever had happened, it hadn’t got everything. And if I were still left here, then there would be others. Somewhere there would be others. I just had to find them. I got up and picked a bottle of Coke out of the fridge.

I thought of Hemi. He was gone too, I knew it. There was just me and the horse, and somewhere perhaps, others. It was too much. I fought the urge to curl up on the floor where I sat and go back to sleep.

Numbness crept over me. In my mind's eye I could see myself, huddled on the floor of the shop, an empty world pressing in around me. Where was everyone?

I had to think, had to do something. The urge to curl up and go back to sleep was strong and it was too soon to give up. I just had to come up with a plan. If I could come up with a plan, I'd be all right. There had to be something I could do.

I stared out the window, thinking. My mouth was dry and I took a swallow of Coca Cola. It was still cold from the industrial freezer. I turned my attention to the bottle. When would I ever see new Coca Cola products come on the market? Maybe never. Maybe I was drinking the last Coke ever produced.

Thinking like that wasn’t productive. I had to decide what to do. A plan, remember? I needed a plan. Standing up, I decided then and there that the first thing to do was make sure the horse was all right. I suddenly felt a huge urge to stroke its nose and say hello again. I didn’t know much about horses, but I needed to make sure it had food and water. It was too precious to fool around with.

I left the radio and batteries where they were, took my bottle of Coke and headed out the door, stepping over the broken glass. It was hot outside and I wished I had my hat. The sun was blinding. I pushed my sunglasses back on and kept my head down as I walked back to Mereana's house, not looking at anything but the road under my feet.

CHAPTER SIX

I named the horse Ezzy, short for Esmeralda. I don't know why. She was a beautiful bay mare and I had no problem coaxing her over to the fence. She came of her own accord and nuzzled my neck as though we were friends from way back. Her breath was warm against my neck and I smoothed my hands over her nose and down her neck, glad to reach out and touch something living and breathing. She seemed equally pleased to see me. I climbed the fence and walked over to have a look in her trough. She followed me, walking close by my side. The trough was good, more than half full of water. I patted her side.

‘What about food, sweetheart?’ I asked her, and hearing my voice frightened me. It sounded thin and unsure. I grimaced and shrugged the thought aside. Did Ezzy eat stuff other than grass?

I crossed the paddock and left the horse at the gate. There was a barn not far away and I headed toward it, thinking I'd probably find supplies in there. The barn was dim and dusty, with an almost pleasant smell of molasses and horse. At least that was what I assumed the smell to be. It was rather like the malt my mother used to feed me from a spoon when I was little. I shivered, wishing I was still little, wanting my mother. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced the thought away.

When I opened my eyes again, feeling steadier, I was looking at horse tack hanging on big hooks in the walls. I’d only ridden a horse a couple of times, years ago staying at a school friend’s place. I’d never got a horse ready to ride. Thinking of all the books I’d read and movies I’d watched though, how hard could it be? As long as the thing around the horses middle was tight and the stirrups in the right position.

I looked away from the tack. That wasn’t part of the current plan, though in the back of my mind was the strong feeling it would be part of tomorrow’s. What I was looking for was hanging in the corner. A feed bag that you rigged on a fence corner. Excellent. I looked in the sack beside it. It looked like breakfast cereal, and when I scooped some up and sniffed it, I knew I'd found the source of the molasses. A grimy bucket stood beside it.

Outside in the hot glare again I walked back to the horse, bucket of feed in one hand and bag draped over my shoulder. She was waiting for me and I watched her ears flicker this way and that. I slung the feed bag over the fence and filled it with cereal, watching her put her nose in it to eat before I’d even finished pouring.

There was no shade out here and I felt the sun burning my arms. It seemed wrong for an animal to have no shelter in weather like this. She must be so hot. I looked around. The adjoining paddock lacked shade as well. Of course, it was empty now, but I didn't want to think about that. I followed the fence line with my eyes instead. It went out of sight behind the barn, and an old gate sagged open at the driveway. If I closed that gate and let Ezzy out of the paddock she was in, then she’d be able to wander around the old barn and stand in the shade. What if she found a way out though? I already couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. But it seemed so cruel to leave her out in the sun.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware I wasn’t thinking straight. The horse was fine in the paddock or she simply wouldn’t have been there, but I was obsessed now. She needed shade. I needed to take care of her. While she ate I walked the fence line. It was a bit dilapidated, but I reckoned it would be enough to keep her in. Chewing my lip, I dragged the old gate across the drive and swung open the one to Ezzy's paddock.

Now what? I sat down on an old bench in front of the barn and clasped my knees to my breast. What was a good thing to do next? There was still lots of the day to get through and I needed another plan. My stomach rumbled in hunger. I needed to eat something. I got up and dusted myself off. Ezzy had finished her cereal and was looking at both the open gate and me. I swear she looked surprised. I called out to her.

‘You come out of the sun, sweetheart. I’m going to go have something to eat. I’ll be back later.’ I felt absurd talking to the horse like she was a person, but I couldn’t help myself.

Back at Mereana’s I faced the prospect of making a meal without being able to cook anything. I needed some camping equipment obviously, or I would in a day or two. I took the chicken and salad out of the fridge again and arranged some on a plate. Buttering some bread, I added that and poured a glass of orange juice. Then I sat at the table to eat my silent meal. I would have given anything for the sound of someone else’s voice.

‘Hemi,’ I whispered and I could feel tears in my eyes again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I woke with a start.

The darkness smothered my face as I shot upwards into a sitting position. I’d heard something. Something outside in the darkness. A voice? Hemi?

I scrambled for the door of the sleepout, certain I'd heard a voice out there. It was Hemi, he was back! It had all been just a dream!

I yanked open the door and rushed outside. The only light was from the stars.

Listening, looking at the house which stood a solid, dark shadow, no friendly lights in its windows, I whispered for Hemi.

There was no answer.

An owl screamed and I clamped a hand across my mouth to stifle a scream of my own. I couldn’t hear anything else, except for the wind in the trees. What had woken me? I thought I'd heard something, someone. Now I couldn't hear anything except for my heart thudding in my chest. I shuffled forward down the path to the kitchen door.

The kitchen was quiet, empty. I peered towards the hallway.

‘Hemi?’ I called. ‘Hemi, are you there?’

No answer.

I didn’t want to go into the hallway and have to see all those empty bedrooms. I knew they were empty. I could feel it.

I shivered, in spite of the warm night. There was no one in the house. It wasn’t Hemi that had woken me.

I retraced my steps and went back outside, my skin prickling with goose bumps as I gazed around. The owl called again as it hunted in the dark. I rubbed my arms. I felt like someone was watching me.

I want to go home.

I didn't like it here anymore. I wanted to be at home, where everything was familiar, even at night. I turned a slow circle, straining my eyes towards the shadows. I couldn't see anything. There was no one watching me, there was no one there at all.

I walked back to bed and pulled the covers over me, and sitting up I lit one of Hemi's cigarettes, just to breathe in the familiar smell. I didn't want to go back to sleep.

By the time the sun rose, I’d come up with another plan. I got off the bed and stretched sore, cramping limbs. An early start would be good. I chose some clothes and stepped outside into the dawn.

It was going to be another clear, fine day. From somewhere in the trees came the high, piping voice of a bird. A perfect day was dawning.

As long as you weren’t wanting company.

Dumping my clothes on the kitchen table I tried the tap but it was dry, not water at all now. I visited the bathroom, thinking it didn’t really matter anymore that the toilet wouldn’t flush. I didn’t find any bottled water in the fridge, settled for orange juice. That was okay, I’d really wanted the water to wash with and I would've loved a coffee. But there would be no coffee unless I could find water and a way to boil it.

Deciding that the milk was still cool enough to be okay, I made myself a bowl of cereal with some tinned peaches. I forced it down, knowing I would need the energy. I had a busy day ahead of me. I sat at the table, alone in the early morning sun and ate my breakfast, and left my bowl in the sink, unwashed. Then I dressed and went outside.

In the sleepout I sorted through my stuff. I wanted to travel light. I threw a pair of jeans and a jersey into my bag and some clean underwear. I used some deodorant and sprayed myself all over with sun block before throwing that in the bag too. I tied on my sneakers, thinking I probably needed something a bit sturdier. Shrugging, I picked up my bag and went to the door. Hemi’s gear still lay strewn over the floor where he’d left it. I stopped and looked back at it. The sight of his things tore at me. Eyes filling with tears I went back and picked up his cell phone, watch and keys. I held them a moment and then put them in my bag. I wished so badly he was there with me.

I closed the door and walked away.

I swear Ezzy was waiting for me. I gave her nose a rub and she bumped against my face, almost sending my baseball cap flying. I climbed the gate and we walked up toward the barn.

Ezzy watched me curiously as I wandered around the barn trying to figure out the bits and pieces of tack. I started with the bridle and she stood still for me as I pulled it over her nose and settled it around her ears.

It was as though she knew I was leaving, and had her own plans to come with me. Not that I was planning to go without her. It would be much quicker than walking, and I wanted her big, living, breathing company.

I remembered last night, thinking someone had been watching me. Maybe it had just been Ezzy, though I hadn't seen her. I shivered in the cool of the barn and decided not to think about it. I had to guard my thoughts; it would be too easy to give in to hysteria and panic. I swallowed, throat dry and straightened out the saddle blanket and hefted the saddle itself onto Ezzy who was still standing patiently.

It took about an hour and I was covered in dirt and dust but at last I had the horse ready. As ready as I knew how, anyway. I reached into my bag and pulled out an apple I’d swiped off the table. A reward for her cooperation. She crunched into it gladly. I checked the bags. I’d found some dusty old saddle bags hanging on a hook and transferred my stuff into one of them before slinging them over Esmeralda’s broad rump. I’d fill the other with food and drink when we got to the shops.

I couldn’t put it off any longer. Leading Esmeralda (though I hardly need lead her, she was walking freely beside me) I opened the gate and we went through. Asking her to stand still, I walked around her side and put a foot in the stirrup, heaving myself up and over onto the saddle. I teetered in the seat, shocked to be so high off the ground with nothing tying me in place. I slipped my other foot into a stirrup and wished there was a seatbelt.

Stroking Esmeralda’s neck, I took a deep breath.

‘Okay girl, here we go,’ I told her. A gentle nudge with my knees and Esmeralda was rolling her hips down the drive to the road. Maybe we can do this after all.

We walked past the deserted dairy. Was it my imagination or did the place look dilapidated already? I could have sworn the paint was flaking, the grass longer and unkempt. But it was just my imagination, of course. We moved down the road at a steady walk, me slowly adjusting to the Ezzy’s rolling gait.

The birds were louder today. They whistled and sang and squabbled over the sound of the waves from the bay, over the noise of Ezzy’s hooves on the tar seal. It sounded as though the whole world was full of birds, an eerie and almost manic symphony of birdsong. I wanted to block my ears.

The main street was still deserted.

Ezzy’s hoof steps rang out in the hushed street. There weren’t so many birds here.

I didn't like it here. Already the shops seemed dusty, their signs withering in the heat, no one to read them. I eyed the shadowy doorways, the hairs on my arms standing up. I wanted to keep looking behind us, feeling as though a thousand invisible eyes were on my. But of course, it was just my imagination. There was no one here. No one at all.

I corralled my thoughts. I'd ridden Ezzy here for a purpose. I had a list of things to get. There were things Ezzy and I would need for the journey. I patted her neck and tugged on the reigns, hoping that would make her stop walking. She stopped and stood, head hanging in the middle of the empty street.

We needed a map, for starters. It was nice to think in terms of 'we'. Comforting. I wasn't alone, even if my only companion was a horse. Anyway, we needed a map. I wasn’t familiar with the area, though I knew it would be a simply a matter of following the highway back to the city. If I had a map though, I could work out how long it would take us to get there. I was already figuring it would take us a couple of days. Much quicker than if I'd had to walk. I gave Ezzy another pat.

I swung awkwardly off and pulled the reigns over her head to lead her, reciting my mental list, struggling not to let the empty street overwhelm me. We needed a map, bottles of water, some food. I thought again of being watched last night. It had been my imagination, of course, but a big knife or something would make me feel better. Briefly I considered a gun, but pushed the thought aside. A gun was too much for me, I wouldn't even know how to use one.

I stood in the street with the horse and looked around. It was so quiet.

‘Hello!’ I yelled out, and Ezzy flattened her ears at the sudden noise. There was no answer.

I sighed and looked at the shops. Where to start? There was a bookshop on my left, but I wasn't going to need anything from there. When would I ever feel like reading for pleasure again?

I wasn't in the mood for picking out a pretty dress from the fashion boutique. But the bakery, that was more like it. And next to it, a bag and souvenir shop. I walked over to that one and Ezzy obediently followed. Peering through the window, I thought it had possibilities. It looked like it stocked a bit of camping equipment. I stepped back and looked at the shop front. Plate glass windows. Jesus, I’ll have to break them.

I hated that idea. Maybe there was a back door that would be easier to break, although that meant finding the way round to the back of the row of shops. I hated that idea too. I stood with Ezzy hanging her head over my shoulder. Damn it, I’d just break the glass and be done with it. I turned and led my friend over to the other side of the street, looking for something to tie her to. I didn’t want her to spook and take off. I looped the reigns around a tree and looked for something to throw through the window.

It took me five minutes hunting up and down the street but eventually I found a paving stone that had come loose. I walked back to the shop and heaved it against the glass before I could lose my nerve.

The glass shattered with a huge noise. A quick glance at Ezzy saw her hiding behind the tree. I backed up and gave her a quick pat.

‘It’s okay,’ I reassured her, while waiting for my own heart to slow. ‘Had to get in there, sweetheart, couldn’t find the owner to open up for us.’ I choked then and leaned against Ezzy's warm flank, closing my eyes and willing myself not to give in to tears.

The shop proved a goldmine. I picked out a hunting knife and belt and strapped both around my waist, wondering if I was over-reacting. But I kept it anyway, deciding I felt safer, better prepared with it there. I looked over the camping gear as well, wondering if I needed a tent or anything because I didn't think I could stomach the idea of breaking into someone's house to have a bed for the night. The image of that sad white cot and pink teddy played over in my mind.

I couldn't break into someone's house.

I chose a tent and sleeping bag, mindful of how heavy they were. I didn't want to weigh Ezzy down any more than necessary. She probably wasn't any more used to day treks than I was and the last thing I wanted to do was to make it harder for her. I scratched my head and looked around. Was there anything else we needed? A torch was useless, batteries no longer worked in this brave new world. I spotted one of those eco torches, with the crank handles. I tried it, but that didn’t work either.

I was getting tired of prowling around the shop. I wanted to find something to eat and get out of here. I found two more things; a professional looking backpack I figured might come in handy and a hat. One of those proper cowboy hats. I swopped it for my cap. It would keep the sun off my neck. And who knows, maybe Ezzy would approve of me looking more the part.

At the counter I hunted around for a piece of paper and wrote a quick note on it. On the off-chance that someone else was around.

Then I went out in search of food and water.

CHAPTER EIGHT

There were tears pouring down my face when Ezzy and I left town. Part of me wanted to turn around there and then and head back to the house, wait for Hemi and Mereana and the kids. I didn’t wipe the tears away but I didn’t turn back either. I knew the house was empty. Ezzy’s hooves echoed on the road and all around the birds and insects cried and called, sang and squabbled.

The road south moved inland and we followed its curves, past houses and paddocks. Every house was blind with curtains still drawn and the surrounding paddocks were empty, the sheep and horses vanished. I leaned forward and rubbed Ezzy’s neck, wondering where they had all gone and wondering even harder why Ezzy and I were still here. Then I tried not to think at all.

The sun rose steadily in the east, drawing the day hotter around us. There was no hint of a breeze now that we were in from the coast and the grass behind the fences settled limp and brown into the day. We kept on walking.

Every now and then we passed a dairy or service station, all of them closed up and deserted. I watched at one as a family of birds, native pukeko, marched solemnly in procession past, their clawed feet clacking on the concrete. They ignored us.

The sun was almost straight overhead when I pulled Ezzy to a stop. She’d been slowing down for the last hour or so, head drooping, unused to the exercise. I swung down to the ground, legs stiff and bottom sore. I led her off the road, walking bow legged and groaning. We’d stopped at a roadside café, though of course it was closed. What interested me most was the shady grassed area, bordered by trees, through which a stream ran, gurgling cheerfully in the heat of the day. I led Ezzy down and she drank for what must have been a full five minutes.

I looped her reigns around a convenient tree and took the saddle bags off her. Then I took the saddle off too. The poor girl looked done in. I decided to spend a couple hours resting up. I spread the map out on one of the picnic tables while Ezzy cropped contentedly at the grass. Peering at the map, tracing our route with a finger, I decided I wanted to be in Orewa by nightfall. I folded back away and took a couple of buns from my pack. I sat and ate, listening to nothing but birds.

We didn’t even get close to Orewa by nightfall. It was too far for Ezzy to go, and I couldn’t help but agree with her. I was saddle sore beyond belief. The insides of my thighs chafed against the seams of my jeans and Ezzy looked shell shocked. We stopped in a well sheltered paddock and I let her roam free. She drank from the trough and didn’t seem keen to do anything but sleep.

There was a house further up the hill and I sat leaning against the saddle in the dry grass looking up at it. Some of its curtains were drawn, those in the bedrooms I guessed, but the big picture window was bare, reflecting the late afternoon sun. I debated whether to spend the night up at the house. Decided I was too tired to even walk up there. Staying exactly where I was, I ate the rest of the food I’d packed and drank a bottle of orange juice. I pulled the sleeping bag over me and was asleep even before the sun had gone down.

We hit Orewa mid afternoon. The sky had clouded over and a steady rain accompanied us along the increasingly winding road back down to the coast. I sat on the horse, drenched to the skin and exhausted. Every now and then I would lift a hand and wipe the tears from my eyes. Ezzy’s hooves thudded against the pavement and the rain hissed past my hat.

There would be no going any further that day. I was cold and wet and on my left the sea reflected my mood, grey and turbulent. We stopped in the middle of the road and I looked around. Where should we stay? I’d not spent any time in Orewa since I was a kid and we camped every year at the motor camp. There had been a wonderful old house there by the river, I remembered. It had been deserted back then, locked and boarded up, but I'd always loved the look of it. I looked around, I doubted it would be unused now, it would be either done up or pulled down. The town had doubled in size since I was a kid.

I didn’t bother with the map; it would just get wet. Turning Ezzy’s head we plodded down a road away from the sea. We needed the grassy spaces of the motor camp, or some park at least.

Unbelievably, the old house I remembered from childhood holidays was still there. Renovated, spruced up and looking good even in the rain, it was now a boutique hotel. The river ran a muddy brown beside it. We walked around the place, looking for the back door. I felt far more comfortable breaking in through the back door. Not that it really mattered because I hadn't seen another person or animal apart from a bird for the whole trip.

I unsaddled Ezzy and wondered where to put her, thinking she'd probably appreciate some shelter too. The rain was steady and cold. But of course, garages had long supplanted stables. I ended up tying her reigns to a big old tree behind the house.

The door to the hotel was taken care of with a rock. Inside it was dim and shadowy, the old wood gleaming in the darkness of the afternoon. I could smell the lemon polish they had used on it, but as I stood there in the doorway I smelt something more. There was a scent of damp and mildew, of old rotting wood and dark places. It wasn’t strong, but it was definitely there. I wondered how they could have been open for business with that scent lurking underneath everything.

I shivered. Looking up the staircase, I knew I would have to go searching through the rooms for clean dry clothes. My stomach cramped, from hunger and a deeper feeling of despair.

I dragged my feet up the stairs. The light shone muddy through stained glass windows and I hugged my arms around myself. It was too eerie being in empty rooms. I moved faster. It felt wrong being here with no one else around. And there was that smell, who in their right minds would have paid for a room with that smell?

I hit pay dirt in the second room I searched. It didn’t feel like any victory though. I couldn’t help but think about the woman whose clothes I was putting on. What had happened to her? What had happened to all of them?

I looked around the room. Were their spirits trapped somewhere nearby? Trapped when the world blinked and lurched? The rain blew in a sudden gust against the window and I yelped.

‘Quit it,’ I told myself, but that just made it worse, hearing my voice small and timid with no one to answer it. I pulled the jersey over my head, grabbed a pair of socks and hurried back downstairs.

I was still cold. There’d been only summer clothes in the drawers; the jersey was pretty but only light cotton. I shivered as I tried to find the kitchen.

I found myself in a room with a beautiful bay window, the glass smeared by the rain. Deep sofas crowded round a large open fireplace. Being summer of course, the fireplace wasn’t laid. A dried flower arrangement stood in the grate. But there was a basket of pinecones next to it, and a pretty stack of wood. More for looks that anything I guessed, but it would do the job. I looked around for paper to start it with.

There was a newspaper on the coffee table. I stood looking down at it, reading the headlines. It was dated two days ago. Two days ago this room had been full of people enjoying coffee, reading the paper, talking and laughing. Two days ago Hemi and I had been swimming, eating ice creams, making love. With a lump in my throat I balled up the front pages and took them to the fireplace, removing the flowers and building up a fire with the newspaper and pine cones. Searching for matches, I found some in a side table drawer and preyed they at least would work. They did.

I sat by the fire and tended it until it was a hot blaze. Then I got up to search for the kitchen.

The wind and rain hurled themselves at the windows, rattling the glass in staccato bursts. I lay on one of the sofas, drawn close to the fire. Shadows from the fire sidled up the walls and congregated in the corners. I tucked myself tighter in the quilt I’d taken from one of the beds upstairs. The remains of my meal sat on the floor, bread I’d toasted over the fire, chilli beans and cheese. I’d even managed to boil some water and make coffee. Now I lay in front of the fire, staring into the flames, trying to ignore the emptiness of the house around me. Strange noises kept coming from rooms I couldn’t see; creaking, the odd bang. I knew it was just the house being buffeted by the summer storm but I buried myself deeper into the quilt anyway.

I woke in the night to Ezzy screaming. Lightening stuttered at the window, turning the scene into silvery negative. Thunder cracked and rolled right above the house. The horse kept screaming.

CHAPTER NINE

The screams sounded human.

I was out the door running, not stopping to put shoes on. The rain lashed at me in fury, turning my clothes sodden in seconds. Another flash of lightening and I could see Ezzy.

I saw her in that brief moment, pulling at her rope, ears back, eyes wild, backing away, and screaming.

I called her name the same time as the thunder cracked loudly overhead. I stumbled and tripped, the thunder still rumbling, the air humming with ozone, my heart thudding way up in my throat.

‘Ezzy!’ I called, up again and running toward her. She was rearing up on her hind legs, frightened out of her mind. ‘Ezzy!’ I yelled again, ‘It’s all right baby, it’s all right, hush now.’ I took hold of the rope and tried to calm her.

It was a struggle to hold onto the rope, twisting around in circles with the horse as she flailed about. I talked to her, trying to get her attention, whispering sweet nothings, begging her to be all right. I didn’t want to lose her, not Ezzy, the only friend I had left. Lightning flashed again, a little further away this time, but with a sizzling crack it struck something, sending sparks towards the black sky.

I looked back to the horse. She was standing still, sides heaving, eyes rolling so I could see the whites of them, even in the dark. I shushed her, stroking her neck, oblivious to the water pouring down over the both of us.

I stood, focused on nothing but the horse, stroking her, calming her, talking to her, my voice plaintive under the roaring of the rain. When she finally came round, when I could tell she was calmer, eyes no longer rolling around in her head like marbles, I untied her lead rope from the tree, and coaxed her away. I didn’t know where I was leading her, but somewhere dry, somewhere out of this storm. There was a fire now, where the lightening had struck and the night was eerie with rain reflecting the red flames. The thunder and lightning was moving north, past us.

But the rain pelted down. I led Ezzy across the drive, stones biting into my feet. I took her to the garage and we stood together under the eaves of what had once, ironically enough, most likely been the stables.

Ezzy’s sides were still heaving and I stroked and talked to her. I didn’t especially like thunderstorms either. We stood looking over at the burning building. It was a bit close for comfort; how easily that could have been the house where we were. It was wooden, old, would have gone up like a stack of matches though most likely the rain would have damped it quickly down. I didn’t know; that wasn’t happening with the one I was watching.

Ezzy shifted beside me, tugging on her rope, skittering sideways. I put out a hand to calm her, wondering what she was shying away from, now that the lightening had moved on. All I could see was rain, silver and red from the fire, and shadows, deep, all around us.

The horse shifted again and I shivered, feeling twitchy. I peered again into the shadows that surrounded the garden, bordered on one side, I knew, by the river. On the other side of the river, native bush crowded close. Ezzy gave a small whinny beside me and tugged away again. I was focused on the shadows, and my sudden goose bumps.

That feeling of being watched was back again. Was someone there?

‘Hello?’ I called out. ‘Hello, is someone there?’ My voice didn’t carry far over the rain, and there was no reply. Nothing but the hissing of the rain, the distant rumble of thunder and the sound of Ezzy’s hooves, restless on the gravel in the garage.

I couldn’t tell if anything moved in the shadows. Everything was moving. But that prickly feeling climbed up my back and I focused on a deep blackness there in the bush. Something was there, I was sure of it.

I couldn’t move, every muscle strained and tense, my heart beating double time. The itchy feeling of being watched spread. If someone was there, why didn’t they come out? If someone was there, why didn’t they want to make themselves known?

But no one stepped out of the darkness there at the edge of the bush. I reached a hand up and felt for the warmth of the horse. Gradually I steadied and the itchy feeling went. Whatever had been watching us had turned its gaze elsewhere.

I shook my head. Nothing was out there. Remember? There was nothing anywhere anymore. I leaned against the horse and let loose, big hitching sobs.

It was still raining in the morning, when dirty grey light rubbed itself over my face and I woke, eyes gritty from disrupted sleep. I was back inside, under the quilt, huddled by the fire, which was out now. I shivered and pulled the quilt tighter around my shoulders. I hadn’t been brave enough to go back upstairs last night for dry clothes; damp knickers and bra were all I had on.

Wrapping the quilt around me I got up from the sofa and walked over to the window, wondering what time it was. Not far past dawn, I estimated. Outside the day was a swirling grey mist. Not just fog though, I realised, but ash and smoke. Despite the rain, something was still burning. I shuddered. It didn’t smell too good either. I needed to check on Ezzy. I also needed to find some feed for her sometime soon. She’d had plenty of grass of course, but I thought she could do with more than that. She needed the extra sustenance.

I looked out the window again, remembering the way my skin had crawled last night with the sensation of being watched. I couldn’t see anything out there but the vague outlines of trees in the misty rain and smoke. I checked my internal gauge. No sensation of being watched.

I was forced to raid the drawers upstairs again for clothes. Whoever it was had been staying here, she didn't come prepared for colder weather. I held up a string bikini. I hated this. Finding something to wear belonging to someone else. Someone who was no longer around. And God only knew where they’d disappeared to. I thought of Hemi and my mouth pulled down in a grimace of grief. I didn’t think God had had all that much to do with recent events actually. I laughed out loud, a horrible bitter sound I didn’t ever want to hear again coming from my own throat. I snapped my mouth shut and, shaking all thoughts away, pulled on a pair of shorts. There was nothing else around that fitted. I found a thick cotton bathrobe and pulled that on too. There was no one around to laugh at my wardrobe.

I hoped Ezzy was okay. I’d left her in the garage last night; it was all I could think of to do. I couldn’t put her back out in the rain again. Downstairs I pulled on my wet sneakers and went back out in the drizzling rain.

Ezzy looked miserable. I knew how she felt. I led her out, whispering to her, wondering what the hell I was going to do. I wished there was a paddock I could let her free in, but we were in town now. I led her back to the garden. She didn’t want to come, skittering backwards again. The strangest thing, but I was sure she was shying away from the bush on the other side of the narrow river, from whatever had been in the bush last night.

I decided not to think about that again. I had to find somewhere else for Ezzy though, that much was obvious. We turned around and walked back to the driveway. Ezzy was shaking her head and hitting me with her nose. I’d never seen her this skittish.

I couldn’t decide what to do. I’d half planned yesterday to spend a day here, giving the horse a break, waiting for the rain to pass. And admit it, I wasn’t looking forward to crossing the harbour bridge back into Auckland, finding it empty, the whole city empty. At least here, I’d never really spent any time, so it wasn’t unbearable. I had a feeling that getting back to the little house I’d shared with Hemi, I had a feeling that would be unbearable.

Ezzy butted me again; I had to come up with a plan. Make some decisions, take some action. Find somewhere for the horse while I damn well looked for some warm clothes and something to keep the rain off me. I was wet through again already, and the mist was creepy, touchy feely against my bare legs. My face was wet too under my hat, but that was because I was crying again.

Ezzy and I walked through the motor camp. Everywhere there were tents and caravans, evidence of people enjoying their summer holiday, recovering in the sun from the excesses of Christmas. Hemi and I had spent most of Christmas in bed, giggling, drinking champagne and making love. We'd got up finally and driven over to my parent's place, where they were waiting for us, their vegetarian version of Christmas lunch ready and waiting. I wiped my tears with the back of a hand just as wet. Mum had been wearing big, silly earrings in the shapes of bells, festooned with Christmas tinsel. She had met both of us with huge smiles, hugs, kisses. Hemi had charmed her the first time they met, and she had recently been making noises about grandbabies. I rolled my eyes, remembering that, I was only twenty four for Christ’s sakes. There was plenty time for that.

There had been plenty of time for that, I corrected myself.

The manager’s house was fenced off. I led Ezzy through the narrow gate and into their back yard. I took the rope off her and coiled it up, sticking it out of the way on the back steps. Ezzy wandered off and chewed at the grass. A quick glance around told me she would be okay here.

I looked up at the house. I really didn’t want to go in there, looking for food and clothes. I really didn’t want to. I turned back to the horse.

‘Be back soon, okay Ezzy? Take it easy.’ I closed the gate behind me and headed in the direction I hoped would take me to the shops. I couldn’t bear the thought of going through other people’s belongings, touching clothes they’d worn, washed, hung out on the line to dry.

The mist slithered around me in a clammy embrace and I scanned the skyline. I couldn’t see much but in the distance I could hear the roar of the sea. I headed towards it, knowing the main road followed the curve of surf. And I tried to decide whether to keep moving towards the city today or whether to hole up here again for another night. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend another night here. I wished I could go back in time to Christmas again, sitting at Mum and Dad's place. I'd even laugh at their corny jokes.

CHAPTER TEN

Main streets and shopping malls are grim places when they are deserted. Standing in the middle of the road wreathed in mist, dressed absurdly in shorts, bathrobe and cowboy hat, I felt horribly alone. The silence hung in the air, just as palpable as the mist. The shop windows reflected the greyness of the day and nothing more. Behind me I could feel the surf, rhythmic, monotonous, pounding away at the beach, the sound of the waves like white noise in the mist.

I heaved a breath and scrubbed at the skin on my cheeks. Somewhere there were buildings still burning. I could smell it even under the dampness of the morning sea fog. I closed my eyes a moment and decided Ezzy and I would move on towards the city. I’d get some supplies here and then we'd leave. I kept thinking of Mum and Dad. I wanted to go home.

Another rock through a window. The breaking glass sounded flat in the shrouded morning. It was a clothing store and I picked out a pair of khaki combat pants, underwear, socks, and the thickest jersey I could find.

Walking down the footpath, a pair of socks in my hand and wearing the rest of the clothes, I looked for a camping store and a shoe shop. But on the corner, there was a 24 hour convenience store, the door unlocked. It felt strange to be able to walk straight in.

A cup of cold coffee sat on the counter, a cookie wrapped in cellophane beside it. On the floor lay a brown leather wallet and a car key. I bent down and picked it up, flipped it open. Ryan Godfrey stared at me from a drivers licence photo. Ryan liked late night coffee and cookies. I looked out through the glass window. That was probably Ryan’s BMW parked at the curb. I dropped the wallet on the counter next to the coffee and hugged myself.

Pulling myself together, I grabbed one of the mini shopping trolleys and wheeled it up and down the aisles. My stomach was rumbling. It was shocking to be hungry, I'd never felt less like eating.

I dumped some bread and fruit in the trolley and pushed it right out the door and down the street, back to the clothing store where I filled it with another set of clothes. A camping store was next on my list and I was lucky enough to find one not far away. Even better, they stocked some sturdy hiking boots. I left my wet sneakers on the floor of the shop and strapped the boots on. Checking they fit, I wandered the shelves of gear and pocketed one of those Leatherman tools. I examined another crank-handled torch, shaking my head over it. I couldn't get it to work, but why wouldn't it? What had happened to the world? I replaced it on the shelf and shivered, despite being warmly dressed. I wanted to go home, climb under the covers and go to sleep. Maybe when I woke up I'd discover this was all just a bad dream.

A glass display case caught my eye; it was filled with Zippo lighters. Surely they would work? I examined one, then hunted around for lighter fluid and fiddled with it until it was filled. I tried lighting it, and hey presto, a flame. I flipped the lid back down then tried again, just to make sure. It definitely worked. It stuck it in my pocket, and another one from the shelf for good luck. The lighter fluid went into the trolley.

There were oilskin coats at the back, or more modern nylon parkers. I took a coat, wanting something that would cover my legs. Besides, it matched my hat. I turned around and caught a startled glimpse of myself in a mirror and stood there staring. Pale, pale face, eyes too wide and dark, hat, boots and coat. I didn’t recognise myself. Walking over to the mirror I put out a hand and touched my reflection. This was the first human face I'd seen in three days. The face in the mirror crumpled and I turned away to push my trolley back out into the fog.

I knew there was no point looking anywhere for horse feed. This was a tourist town. Even the oilskin coat would have been aimed at the tourist market. But I had some apples and carrots, and a funny little box of sugar cubes. I’d see if all the books I’d read as a kid were right in telling me that horses love sugar cubes.

The mist was disorientating and it seemed to take me hours to find the old house where I was staying. I unpacked my gear from the trolley and put it away in the backpack and saddle bags, loaded them back into the trolley and went into the kitchen to have some breakfast. The fire was long out so I couldn't make toast without fussing around lighting another one. I didn't want to take the time to do that so settled for opening a can of tuna instead. I stood leaning against an immaculate bench, forking the tuna straight out of the can. I finished my meal with a ripe banana and a bottle of orange juice. Then I left to get my horse.

I pushed the trolley over to the garage where I’d left the tack. I grabbed the apple and box of sugar cubes and walked head down, in between the deserted caravans and tents feeling ridiculous in my new gear, but it didn't matter – there was no one to see me.

I should have been sitting on the beach in my bikini, my boyfriend’s arms around me, or if it was raining, enjoying a hilarious game of monopoly around the kitchen table with the whole whanau. No way should I be trekking through this unnatural fog and smoke that covered this deserted town.

Ezzy lifted her ears and whickered softly when she saw me. I rubbed her beautiful head and fed her the apple, talking nonsense, glad to have the company of another living creature. I leaned against her, tired. I'd had hardly any sleep, been cold and wet most of the night, and everything seemed so lonely and dismal. Why was I even bothering?

Maybe when I was home, I'd think about that one some more.

Ezzy finished the apple and sniffed around my pockets. I dug out the box of sugar cubes and fumbled it open. The books were right. Horses love sugar cubes. I rationed her to three.

It was perhaps another hour or so before we were ready to leave. I sat on Ezzy's broad back, my bruised body complaining and listened to Ezzy's steps echo through the fog. The mist swirled around the branches of trees like spider webs and underneath it all was the drone of the surf, the loneliest sound on earth.

I bent my head over the horse as we turned inland again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The mare skittered under my weight. I shuddered and my hand snaked down to press against Ezzy’s neck. Her hair was slick from the drizzling rain and I could feel the muscles rippling underneath.

The Sky Tower pierced a hole in grey clouds and hung suspended over a silent city. We were standing in the middle of a motorway lane leading over the harbour bridge, greyish rain pattering down onto the asphalt at our feet, the only sound there was to hear. The harbour spun out in front of us, Rangitoto Island wreathed in clouds, its green flanks shadowed and grim.

When I was a kid my mother had driven the pair of us over this bridge every Tuesday, coming to the North Shore to visit my grandmother, a woman who danced the can-can all the way into her eighties. My mother drove an ancient little red Fiat 850 and she'd always hugged the bridge’s outside lane. I spent every trip fingers clenched onto the black vinyl seats and my eyes tightly closed.

Ezzy and I should have gone the other way, over the old bridge, which of course, was no longer an old bridge but part of a motorway so efficient you didn’t even know you were going over water. We should have gone that way.

But it was miles out of our way.

I stared out over the city on the other side of the harbour, looking at the rows of yachts moored at the marina. I cast my eye over the burnished metal of the skyscrapers, drawn back at last to the Sky Tower, dominating the horizon, a concrete tree in a concrete forest.

At last I urged Ezzy forward and she plodded onwards, head down, up and over the curving road of the bridge.

I kept my eyes fixed on the cityscape. Were there any people there? Was there anyone wandering around dazed like me, thinking they were the only ones left in some horrible nightmare? I had to go there and find out. And if the city was empty, I had to face that too.

My palms were sweating at the possibility of finding other people. I sifted through the movies I’d watched; there were always survivors, and wasn’t I proof of that in real life?

But that’s just it. This was real life. I didn’t know what had happened to make everyone disappear, or what had happened so that the horse and I were still here; but I did know one thing. I hadn’t seen a single other soul in four days. Maybe that would change. Hopefully that would change.

The road was steeper now. I’d never walked over the bridge before. We walked up the middle, heading for the relative security of those middle struts and arches. Ezzy’s sides were heaving, her head down as though she were determined only to look at her feet. I guessed maybe she didn’t like heights any more than I did.

I forced myself to look. The water, grey capped in white lay far beneath. A small yacht was tossing around on the waves, its course aimless, no sails up, no one at the rudder. It would puncture its smooth white hull against the rocks soon enough, or fall finally, slipping beneath the waves with barely a protest.

We reached the apex of the bridge. Ezzy was trembling noticeably now. I hushed her and tightened my grip on the reigns as she skittered sideways. A sudden wind gusted round our heads and Ezzy snorted, coming to a complete stop. Once again I reached a hand down to her neck, this time to comfort her. The wind gusted again.

There was a strange guttural noise, a deep rumbling and the road beneath us shuddered and the bridge began a slow swaying. Ezzy screamed and stumbled sideways, a sudden movement that had me tipping from my perch on her back. I dug my knees in instinctively and leaned low over her neck. The bridge gave another shudder and the horse screamed again, dancing in a tight circle. The road was moving, the bridge swaying, wind howling. I pressed my head against Ezzy’s neck and she danced another circle, keening, raising onto her back legs and down again. The world rumbled and groaned again and the bridge struts shrieked in a grinding of steel. I could feel Ezzy madly looking for somewhere to bolt to, somewhere safe.

The noise died down as quickly as it had started. The roadway flattened again, the swaying slowed and Ezzy skittered slowly to a halt, pulling her head against the reigns, rolling her eyes. I had my arms full around her neck by this time, hugging her, holding on desperately. As she quietened, I sat slowly up.

The water below was angry, running up and down the harbour in waves I could see were huge even from here. In the marina boats were smashing against each other, against the wharfs and moorings.

What was happening? The wind was up, the sky a mass of swirling grey cloud, the sea angry and boiling beneath us. The Sky Tower was waving madly towards us.

Whatever was happening, I wanted off the bridge. The horse was shuddering beneath me, only just holding on above her fear. I climbed gingerly off her back, afraid that any sudden movement would send her rearing and plummeting over the edge of the bridge.

I pulled the reigns gently over her head, whispering reassurances to her. The wind pulled at my clothes and I kept thinking about how we were standing several hundred meters above nothing but water.

Water that was still whipping frantically within the confines of the harbour. I pulled my gaze down to my feet and urged Esmeralda to follow me. Slowly, feeling the bridge vibrating almost electrically beneath my boots we walked on in the direction of the city. I walked down the middle of the lane, stepping between the yellow cats’ eyes, markers that no longer served any purpose. The horse followed. I could feel her fear and reluctance in every step but I kept a firm grip and urged her on.

The road curved downwards, the masts of the boats in the marina crowding round beneath us. They were swaying as though in the aftermath of a storm and above the rain I could hear the clanging of stays and ropes against masts. I stared at them. Surreal against the shadowed day, they heaved restlessly in water stirred by a giant’s hand. We were almost off the bridge. Ezzy must have sensed this; the reigns slackened in my hand as she picked up her pace, as eager as me to reach solid ground.

We were almost there and the wind screamed again. The yachts heaved their fine white bellies out of the water, thrown against each other in an empty rending and scarring. The water beneath them was boiling and I was running, running the last metres off the bridge, running as far from the water as possible.

The water was alive as though a giant moved and heaved in the wet mud beneath.

Earthquake.

Ezzy was screaming again and further away the buildings were groaning as foundations turned against metal.

Where to run? I clutched Ezzy’s reigns as she reared and backed around in terrified circles. I had to keep hold of her; she would injure herself if allowed to run. The sea heaved again and the road was inundated with a sudden spewing of water. A flash of white, something big, and the hull of a boat was out of the water and skidding along the road towards us. I dropped the reigns and scrambled backwards.

The yacht bumped along the road toward me like an oversized toy. Towering over me it skidded to a stop, keel testing the air. And the day turned quiet. The wind died and the screaming of tortured buildings ceased. The boat loomed above me, its skin encrusted and torn. Repulsed, I turned aside and vomited, hot bile stinging my lips. On my knees, head down, palms against the untrustworthy ground.

I crawled past the yacht, no longer a sea vessel but something strange, nonsensical. I wiped my mouth.

On unsteady legs I stood and looked around. It was drizzling rain but still there were clouds of dust or cement where buildings sank back on wounded haunches. The cityscape around the harbour basin was scarred and pitted as though a bomb had been dropped. I stumbled and wiped hands over the slick skin of my face. My hands came away bloody. There was a cut on my forehead. I pressed my palm to it and winced.

The boats were a jumble in the water, their masts like a child’s game of pick-up-sticks. I turned away and began to walk.

I had to get out of the city. There would be no staying here. Who knew how many aftershocks there would be? Maybe there'd be a tsunami? And I had to find Ezzy.

The rain came down harder, pellets of glass against my skin. The sound of it swelled around me. Where was the horse? Where would she have run to, terrified, maybe injured? I called her name. Over and over, not sure I'd ever find her again.

She surprised me though. I found her an hour or so later, standing in the middle of the deserted Western motorway, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling, but otherwise unharmed. I approached her warily, not knowing if she wasn’t traumatised beyond my help. I closed my eyes briefly and the bloated hulk of the boat came rushing towards me again. I started shaking.

She let me approach her and hung her head down against my shoulder. Perhaps she was as relieved to see me as I was her. I wrapped my arms around her and leaned into her. Tears pricked at my eyes but I drove them back. There wasn’t time for tears. I wanted out of here. Out of the city; as far as we could get by nightfall. We were on the Western artery out of town; we would keep going in this direction. I thought about it a moment. Probably we should be heading south out of the city all together. I leaned against Ezzy a moment longer. No. We would keep going in this direction. Stupid perhaps, but I needed to go home. I needed to check. I needed something warm and familiar in the harsh confusion the world had suddenly become.

Besides, I had found Ezzy on this road. A sign, surely.

I didn’t trust Ezzy to be steady enough to carry me so I took her by the reigns instead. She came willingly and we turned west, leaving the city behind us. Every now and then the road would ripple underneath us and I would watch it undulate, like a carpet shaken out by invisible hands. We kept walking, staying on the motorway, stepping around an abandoned car every now and then.

The first cars interested me and I stopped to investigate. They sat in the middle of their lanes, doors unlocked, keys in the ignition, in the on position. But the engines were dead, like my own car where I’d left it back up north. I found a purse and cell phone on the passenger seat of one of them and looked at the picture of a young woman on the drivers licence. She’d been trying not to smile when the photo was taken. I put the purse back down and closed the door. I stood on the road instead, looking around. There was nothing to see. The wind whistled down empty streets and somewhere something banged in a draft. I expected tumbleweeds to come spinning down the middle of the road as they would in a movie.

I didn’t look in another car after that. Just put my head down and walked beside Esmeralda, following the road out of town.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Where do you find stables, oats and hay, in a city? Even out in the suburbs, the lawns were tiny.

We needed to stop. We'd been walking since early morning and both of us were tired, worn out from stress and fear. I was shivering, the horse was taking great blowing breaths; we needed to get off the motorway, find somewhere to rest and have something to eat. I was starting to feel light-headed.

The city fell further behind us. I walked backward a few steps, looking at it. The Sky Tower still stood, but smoke rose from different places. I didn’t know how they would have ignited – I was sure there was no electricity in the city, but the evidence was unmistakeable. I was living in a nightmare.

Every part of my body ached and my head hurt from the gash I'd gotten scrabbling away from that awful boat. The next motorway off ramp was St. Lukes and we took it, putting one foot in front of the other past the Museum of Transport and Technology towards the Public Gardens. The whole city was a museum now, every aspect of its technology lying useless, artefacts of a world suddenly gone. I needed to sit down.

We walked through the park, to a little white gazebo. I lifted the saddle and bags from Ezzy and put them out of the rain. We needed to find somewhere better to stop than this but I was exhausted. I needed to sit down for a few minutes. I let Ezzy wander free, convinced she wouldn't go far. We needed each other. Fanciful perhaps, but I didn’t care. She stayed close anyway, cropping at the grass beneath the rotunda where I sat. I pulled some fruit from one of the bags and ate, staring out into the rain.

I must have slept, sitting up, fatigue overtaking me. I woke with a start, seeing the bloated white body of the yacht careening toward me again. I heaved in a breath, waited for my heart to slow. My limbs ached when I stood and stretched, looking around for the horse. She was close by, standing with one leg cocked up, sleeping. She must have been exhausted too. I rubbed my sore neck. Where could we go so that we could both get dry and warm?

There were plenty of houses around, of course. I could have broken into any one of them, helped myself to food from the pantry, dried off with towels from the airing cupboard, tried on clothes from the drawers of strangers, sat in their easy chairs and stared at the blank television screen.

No. I didn’t want to see the personal clutter of lives suddenly gone. A motel would be better, no intimate details to confront. I just wanted to rest.

It was cold. As though summer had disappeared along with humanity. It matched my mood but I was shivering badly now, my clothes wet and body stiff and sore. I needed to find somewhere now.

I called Ezzy awake and she came to me, moving slowly. I didn’t think she would want to be left in the park on her own and she needed care and attention too. Food, grooming. Anything that would reassure her as much as me. I hated doing it, but I put the saddle on her and tied on the bags. I could tell she was exhausted, but she was the only one able to carry the load.

Where to go? We walked back to the road; I wasn’t about to get on Ezzy’s back, as big a relief as that would have been to me. There was a motel not far down the road, but it was circled in gravel. I stroked Ezzy and looked over at it. It wasn't suitable. Ezzy's needs were just as important as mine. I’d seen all those apocalyptic movies, the heroes running around concentrating on getting the technology up and running, toting guns.

But that wasn’t me. I was a woman with a horse.

It was still raining and I guessed it was now late afternoon. There wasn’t a person or animal in sight. All was eerie silence except for the hiss of the rain. The zoo was not far away; I wondered about the animals. Looking at Ezzy I decided we would check it out tomorrow, though I didn't know what I would do if I found lions and tigers and no keepers.

But we needed shelter and we needed it now. There had to be somewhere we could go and at last I thought of just the place. There was an historic house not far from here, restored and open to the public. It would have stables. Warm, dry stables and depending on how authentic they were, there might even be straw there for Ezzy to rest on. I oriented myself in the rain and we crossed the road.

The house was up its own long driveway, gabled with tall, English trees. We plodded over the cobblestones and around the drive and I hoped I was right about the stables. I gazed around as we walked, thinking how much I'd always loved the old houses, their long and comfortable history.

There were stables all right, clean and dry, old saddles and brushes hanging on the walls. Ezzy followed me in and peered into the stalls with me. Sure enough there were small square bales of hay there to make it authentic. If I hadn’t been so tired I would have congratulated myself. Instead I simply relieved Ezzy of her load and lead her into the biggest stall. Digging out her nosebag and the last of her cereal, I set it up so she could eat while I gave her a quick brush down. She warmed up under my hands while she ate. I spread straw thickly over the floor and let myself out, whispering promises to be back.

Outside the shadows had tucked themselves in close to the house. The house itself leaned its weatherboard flanks over me, windows blank glassy eyes. I skirted around the drive, looking for a way in, having second thoughts. I thought of the anonymous motel room, comforting at this moment in its very blandness.

I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. Reminded myself of my enduring appreciation of period architecture. And the huge bloody fact that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. After all, the worst threat – people – well, there weren’t any of those anymore. We seemed to be pretty much extinct. Why? I was too tired to think about. And if the house was as haunted as it looked, hell, the company might be nice.

The front door was heavy wood. No glass. Impregnable. Damn it. Every muscle in my body screamed for rest, a soft bed. I hitched the back pack over my other shoulder and went looking for a back door. The day was grim and grey and the trees hustled the shadows closer as they crowded round.

The back door had a discreet little sign ‘manager’s office’. That would do for me. I thought of Ezzy back in the stables and hoped she was comfortable. I’d done my best for her.

A handy rock and I was in. No alarm went off. Nothing moved, nothing stirring in the corners, nothing slinked away in the shadows. I had an irrational desire to call out. Hi honey, I’m home! I giggled and stifled it immediately.

The manager’s office consisted of two small rooms and I thought they’d probably do for starters. I poked my head through the door leading to the rest of the house, and listened uneasily to the silence. A motel probably would have been a much better idea. I thought of the bleak main road, deserted but for a few abandoned cars. There was no comfort to be found anywhere tonight.

I stripped my wet and dripping clothes off, hanging them around the room, hoping they'd dry overnight. I took the towel out of the tiny bathroom and used it on my hair then pulled on fresh clothes, starting to feel human again. Finally I sat down with the first aid kit I'd found in a cupboard. The cut on my forehead had crusted over and I cleaned it with gingerly probing fingers. Thank goodness it didn't need stitches. I didn’t think I’d manage sewing myself up very well. I’d need a bottle of scotch to get the nerve and then of course I’d be passed out.

It was getting dark in the house. I sat on the tiny couch and yawned. I’d had another meal of fruit. What would I give for a hot meal? I’d have to find somewhere to stay a few days soon I thought. Raid a vegetable garden, cook some proper food. How many days had it been so far? Four since the world changed, I calculated. Meat from a deep freeze would probably still be good tomorrow. That was a plan. I needed some nourishment.

The couch was uncomfortable and I was exhausted. I wanted a bed. The thought of going upstairs and finding one in this house freaked me out. For starters, when was the last time any bed here had been slept in? Could be a hundred years for all I knew.

What was I afraid of? Ghosts? I pulled myself up. No time in this brave new world for ghosts. I pulled open the door and walked into the house proper. The house smelt of age, lemon cleaner and the rain outside the window. A strangely comforting mix.

I crept through the rooms and up the main flight of stairs, hand on the silky smooth banister, heart thumping uncomfortably. Upstairs the silence seemed to be waiting for me and my footsteps on the rugs were muffled. All around me the house contracted, pulling itself inwards, locking me in.

I took my head in my hands and tugged at my hair. Have to stop being fanciful. A deep breath and I calmed enough to move on. There was barely enough light to see now, so I chose a bedroom and closed the door behind me. Looking out the window I saw nothing but trees, rain, shadows. There was no one about. Anywhere. And this house was just a house. A dusty relic from times now long past. The only thing there was to fear was a repeat of whatever had wiped the country clean of practically every person and animal. And I was too lonely to be afraid of that.

I pulled back the heavy quilts and sat on the bed. It smelled surprisingly fresh. It seemed strange that laundry would continue to be done, sheets changed, beds made, just for display. But I wasn’t complaining. I lay down under the covers. Despite everything, or maybe because of everything, I was asleep almost as soon as I closed my eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Light woke me, shining through the dainty lace curtains. Morning had come, the night passed with no disturbances. I lay a moment gazing up at the testers on the bed, feeling the house around me, and outside the empty world. If only I could just roll over and go back to sleep, to stay forever in the tender arms of slumber.

The genteel surroundings must've been getting to me. I threw back the covers and stepped onto the rug. Drawing a blanket from the bed I draped it over my shoulders and padded over to the window. The sun was out, the sky a watery blue but a pleasant change from the day before. The lawn stretched below the house, grass waving in the breeze while the trees crowded the edges, jostling for the early morning sun. I stared a moment and frowned.

The house echoed around me as I left the bedroom and found my way back down the stairs. I was looking for a way onto the veranda, and found finally a set of French doors leading from a dining room. The table was set as for a sumptuous meal and my stomach rumbled at the thought but I ignored it. I unlatched the door and stepped outside.

The lawn was unkempt, the grass reaching perhaps as high as my knees. The formal plantings in the garden were a tumble of overgrown shrubbery. But it was the trees that made my heart lurch in my chest. They leaned forwards towards me, their branches reaching twigged fingers over the grass and shrubs, jostling each other for space.

The lawns and garden were an overgrown tangle.

I stood on the steps leading down to what was once lawn but now more resembled paddock. The grass rustled in the wind and I withdrew my foot, unwilling to touch that bright greenness. I looked over the horizon. In the distance I could still see the Sky Tower and clouds of smoke hung to the north. Other than that however, trees dominated the view. I shook my head. Perhaps I was imagining things; I had after all, barely taken any account of the gardens the night before. And the lawn would not have been mown for several days now.

What other explanation could there be?

I went back inside and closed the door. There was no point kidding myself. The grass hadn’t been half that long last night. I closed my eyes and clutched the blanket closer, chilled.

The changes hadn’t finished yet.

Perhaps, after all, the changes had barely started. Perhaps the disappearance of people and animals was just the first stage. I groaned. How could that be? How could any of this be? How could there be a first stage of anything unless there was someone planning it all?

But what did I know? Maybe somewhere in the world there was a mad scientist rubbing his hands together in glee. And who was to say that any country other than New Zealand was in this position? With no communications I couldn’t know anything.

I looked out of the window again and shivered. Something was going on, I just didn't know what.

It was hopeless. If I knew anything about anything I’d be heading to some major communications post and pointing satellites around the world and talking to the United States asking them to come pick me up. But where would I find a place like that, and how would I know how anything worked? There was no one to ask. I was on my own.

But the word satellite flipped a switch in the dimness of my mind. Weren’t there such things as satellite phones and satellite homing beacons or some such thing? I needed an electronics and communications shop or something. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and headed to the manager's office thinking about this new idea.

I got lost trying to find the way. I opened one door and an enormous room spread out before me. It was just a ballroom but I slammed the door shut. There were more empty rooms than I could bear. I shuddered and decided it was time to start thinking straight and get out of this museum of a house.

I remembered the grass scratching against the steps of the veranda. Perhaps I would skip breakfast on the veranda today.

My thoughts were a mess by the time I found my way to the manager’s office. I used the toilet, which was no longer flushing and stripped off the leggings I’d slept in. I dressed in the clothes I'd stolen yesterday then tugged my boots on. They were still damp. I rolled up my coat and tucked it away along with my clothes from yesterday. Everything was damp and for a moment I considered leaving them behind, but in the end I repacked everything.

I wanted a cup of coffee. Just a cup of coffee for the love of God. I sighed and sat down, head in hands. I had to start thinking straight, come up with a plan, decide what to do. I lifted my head, thinking breakfast would be a good start. I looked around the office but there wasn't much there, except everything to make a coffee. Without hope, I flipped on the electric jug. Nothing happened. Chewing my lip I wandered out of the room and in search of the house kitchens. There was a glimmer of hope in my mind. The house would have a coal range, or even an open hearth.

It had both. And because every effort had been made to be authentic, there was coal in a bucket and kindling in a basket. I glanced up at the chimneys. Did I dare? For sure. Another look around however, ascertained that there was no food. The fruit in the bowl on the table were made of wax. I needed to go get some food.

Outside, the gravel crunched under my boots and I couldn’t avoid noticing the weeds growing everywhere. There was no way they should be growing this quickly. I averted my eyes and walked into the dim light of the stables. Ezzy nickered in greeting. I rubbed her head and reminded myself that she would need some water. I hadn’t given her any last night and kicked myself now. So much to think about and nothing as easy as turning on a tap anymore.

Opening the stall I led Ezzy out. She shook her head in the sunshine and took off when she saw the green of the lawn/paddock. I stood and watched her run and kick up her heels. She slowed at last and approached me, nipping at my hair before taking off again. She began cropping happily at the grass, tail flicking as she concentrated. She would be all right for a time, while I did the job I had in mind. I went inside and slung the backpack over my shoulder. Then I was off down the driveway, watching the horse. At least she didn’t seem concerned about the increased vegetation. That was good. It wasn’t poisoned or anything then.

I found a restaurant not far down the road. Breaking in, I didn’t even cringe at the sound of glass shattering. There was no other noise except the singing of birds and insects. It could have been peaceful if it wasn't so unnatural.

The restaurant had a walk in freezer and it was still chilly in there. I wanted something substantial for my breakfast. Some protein for energy. If I was going to make a fire then good, I would cook something worthwhile over it. And God knows when I would be able to eat meat again. This lot wouldn’t keep for much longer and what was I going to do- trap birds? I didn’t even know if there were any possums anymore.

I filled my backpack with steak, sausages and bacon. More than I needed for breakfast, but I figured why not make enough for the day? I wanted to hit the road again, I wanted to go home. So, breakfast, and plan the day.

Outside I looked around the deserted street. Across the road a falcon perched on the power lines. How out of place it looked in the suburbs. It cocked its head to the side and stared at me. I had a mental flash of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ and flattened myself against the building. But the falcon just sat there a moment longer before launching itself into the blue sky and flying away.

A sudden clattering rebounded in the air and I jumped almost out of my skin. The noise came again; metal clattering, rubbish bins perhaps. Weird, I thought, wondering what could possibly be making that much racket. It was coming from around the back of the restaurant. I edged back inside and walked through to the kitchens at the back, picking up a carving knife as I went. The windows were grimy but gave a view out the back. Two rubbish bins lay on the ground, their contents spilled on the concrete. There was movement behind one of the bins, and I peered closer to see what it was, my heart pushing against my ribs.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I was hoping for something furry with a wagging tail, or a cat, starved for both food and affection. Heaven forbid it would be a person. That was my top choice but there was no need for a person to be clattering around in rubbish bins. Not when the whole of the city lay spread out like a smorgasbord.

More clattering as another bin lid cart-wheeled away. I moved closer and stared in astonishment. Two kaka, native bush parrots, waddled comically into sight. The green and gold of their feathers gleamed with health and they squawked and tossed through the rubbish like this was a normal, everyday occurrence.

I don’t know when the city had last seen these birds outside of the zoo, but I was betting it would be a hundred years or more. I blinked, rubbed my eyes and stared. What on earth was going on?

The ground vibrated under my feet and the birds threw themselves into the air with a clumsy tumble of bright feathers. I gripped the bench. Another earthquake? Or something more? It was impossible to tell in this upside-down world. I remembered Ezzy, alone in the garden back at the house. Would she run again, in a panic? I didn’t want to spend the whole day combing the city for her. I really wanted to go home.

Smoke was still drifting over the city. I looked around at the dirty, deserted streets and shivered, despite the sun. I would head further out west, go home to my parent's place. I thought of the flat I'd shared with Hemi and my knees threatened to buckle under me. Hemi wouldn't be there. I didn't want to see the place if he wasn't going to be there. I'd go to my parent's place instead. At the very least, they had a fantastic vegetable garden.

I’d set up camp there; make myself a base - somewhere to cook meals, wash and rest. Then Ezzy and I could explore the city; try that communications idea I’d had.

It was good enough for me. The ground trembled again as I hurried down the road back to the horse. Every house I passed had its drapes drawn, the windows blank in front of the curtains. There were no signs of life, except for the birds. My footsteps sounded hollow in the empty street. I clutched my back pack and ran, as the ground lurched again. The image of the yacht hung behind my eyelids. That must have been near the epicentre, perhaps. In which case, these were only gentle disturbances. In which case I still wanted to get out of the city while the going was good.

I was panting by the time I’d run up the shaded driveway to stand on the overgrown lawn. Looking at the grass it occurred to me that every lawn I’d seen had been in need of mowing. But never mind that – where was Ezzy?

I called her and looked wildly around. Called her again. Had she panicked and taken off? Was she okay? Lost, wounded perhaps in her frenzy? I forced myself to calm down and called her again, walking farther down the lawn as I did.

She cantered into sight around the side of the house. I was so relieved I doubled over, feeling dizzy. She walked up and nuzzled my shoulder and I rubbed her nose. Suddenly I didn’t want a cooked breakfast, I just wanted to pack up and move out. I gave her a pat and told her I’d be right back. She followed me up to the house and stood outside the door when I went in. I wondered how much worse this would all have been without her.

In the manager's office I repacked the meat, wrapping it in newspaper. The date on the paper and its headlines overwhelmed me with homesickness. Choking back sobs, I wrapped up the food, using the whole newspaper, thinking I would read it over later, soaking up the last words ever printed.

I eyed the coffee longingly, but drank down a bottle of orange juice instead. My stomach was unsettled, my appetite gone. The ground was moving under my feet again, the tremors increasing in volume though nothing as violent as the day before. Ezzy followed me over to the stables and stood patiently while I strapped the saddle and bags on her. Hitching the backpack onto my own back I pulled myself up into the saddle. Ezzy shook her mane and moved willingly down the drive into the deserted streets.

I set a course to head west, down Dominion road, wanting to get as far away from the harbour basin as we could manage in one day. I thought about whether it would have been safer to stay up north. But no point back-tracking. I thought of Hemi and my chest contracted in a quick clutch of anguish. But no time to think of him either. I couldn’t afford to, I was overwrought enough as it was.

A piercing cry rang out over the city and the birds in the trees and hanging about on the power lines went into a frenzy. Feathered pellets zigzagged through the sky. I pulled Ezzy to a halt and listened. The cry came again, inhuman yet tortured. The hairs on my arms stood on end. My mouth dry, I asked Ezzy what could possibly be making that sound.

The cries were coming from the direction of the city zoo. I remembered thinking yesterday about the zoo, about checking it for survivors. Now I knew. There were survivors and they sounded hungry.

That decided me. They would be starving now, gone this many days without care. I would go to the zoo. Do what had to be done. I was the only person left to do it. We turned back towards the zoo and listened to the wild cries grow closer.

The gates were closed of course. I leaned over and rattled them. Flakes of rust came away in my hands but the lock held. I chewed on my bottom lip and surveyed the surrounding walls. They were all high, designed not to be climbed over.

The cry came again, much louder now we were so close. What sort of animal was it?

There was no choice; I had to get in somehow. I sincerely doubted my sanity and suspected I hadn’t thought this through in the slightest, but really, what choice was there? I couldn’t leave an animal to suffer without at least trying to do something about it.

I urged Ezzy nearer the gates and took my feet from the stirrups, clinging to the gates and balancing on her back. I climbed my way precariously over the gate and jumped down the other side.

‘Stay here, Ezzy,’ I told the horse and turned away into the depths of the zoo.

Examining the map on a huge board I grimaced. The zoo park was huge and I'd already wasted so much time. I wanted this over and done with. The ground still vibrated under my feet at regular intervals. I didn’t know what was going on there but I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

Sighing I checked I had my hunting knife and set off round the enclosures.

They were empty. No giraffes, zebras or antelopes in the plains enclosure. No tigers and lions that I could see in the pride lands. They may have been inside somewhere but it was fast looking like they had disappeared along with most other inhabitants of this island.

So what was making the noise?

It wasn’t an alligator or hippopotamus. The meercats’s burrows were empty. I was shivering by this time. The shadows in the empty enclosures seemed haunted, twisting up the sides of the trees and rocks. The orang-utan's swing moved on its own in the empty cage.

I avoided the seals and penguins. I’d never liked visiting them even when they were there. Something about the cold blue pools they swum in excited my nervous imagination. I used to have bad dreams about swimming pools, their water cold and stagnant. I decided without checking that those animals would be gone too.

I looked at my wrist for the time, worried that too much of the day was passing. Of course, I wasn't wearing a watch. I had Hemi’s still in my back pack, the time stopped at three o'clock. I stood and closed my eyes against a morning that was feeling more and more like a bad dream.

Something cried out again, piercing the air with its whooping scream.

I wondered where the hell the aviary was. It could only be a bird. There wasn’t anything else left. Even the great tortoise in its heavy shell was gone.

I found the aviary and read the sign on the entrance. Native birds. Of course. I thought of the kaka hopping around the rubbish bins. As if in confirmation, the cry sounded out again. I pushed at the gate but it was locked. It really would have been more convenient I thought, if the change had happened during the day when everything was open. I was still shaking, feeling abnormally cool here in the shadows of native trees that made up the aviary. How was I going to get the gate open?

A pair of wire cutters was what I needed, but even if I could find the maintenance rooms or suchlike, they too would be locked up. I rattled the gate.

I stood back and peered into the giant cage. If I left them here, would the birds be all right? I didn’t have the slightest idea, and my head was spinning. I rolled my shoulders and moved away, blinking against the sudden harsh sunlight. Then I had another thought. There were kiwi and tuatara somewhere here too. All of a sudden, I was convinced that if I were to look in their enclosures, I would find them there. Not disappeared into thin air, but there in all their glory.

Native animals. I stopped at the thought. Was I right? Were the only animals left the ones native to this country? What about me? Ezzy’s? We were a glitch in the system?

I closed my eyes against the light, my head pounding. I wasn’t feeling good. What to do about these birds though? Could I do anything? I looked back at the aviary and reached for the knife at my belt, maybe I could lever the bolt open.

A blackness passed in front of my eyes and I fell to my knees on the path, covering my face as my head roared with sudden red and black pain. Screaming, I knelt there and an awful wind gathered round me, tearing at my clothes, whipping me over onto the ground. I clutched my head and drew my legs into foetal position. The roaring and the wind grew to fever pitch. I scrabbled onto elbows and knees and vomited.

Slowly the wind and noise subsided. I inched up my head and opened my eyes. The darkness was gone and speckled light shone through the branches of the trees. The pain in my head was gone. I climbed to my feet, a little unsteady, but no longer nauseous.

There was a great gash in the netted ceiling of the aviary. It was ripped apart as though something had exploded through it. The front gate was blown open, hanging on its hinges. I staggered back and gripped my head again, this time in disbelief. I flicked my head around, looking for the knife. It lay on the ground where I’d dropped it. Backing away, I scooped it up. Then I turned and ran and the shrieking of newly freed birds followed me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My legs were too weak to carry me far at a run. All that happened was that I got lost. I stumbled around in a blind panic, following first one path then another, lost in the maze of empty exhibits. Eventually I staggered out into the open back by the front gates, dazed and weak. How I was going to climb the gates again I couldn’t imagine.

But they were standing open. Ezzy stood calmly by the zoo shop, looking around with her version of equine interest, her ears flickering in the sun. She saw me and trotted toward me, nickering gently under her breath. I collapsed against her side and leaned there, breathing in the hot smell of her pelt. This was all too much for me. I decided I needed a nap. Or perhaps I was already having one and this was just a bizarre dream.

Something clanged in an errant breeze. I lifted my head, reluctant to see what it was but compelled nonetheless. A barred gate leading into a low, round building swung open and shut. I sighed and walked on unsteady legs towards it. Ezzy followed me and I steadied myself with a hand against her neck. She shook her head and snorted.

It was the Kiwi and Tuatara House. I couldn’t bring myself to be surprised. But I didn’t want to go in there. It was dark in there. The birds would probably be dead by now anyway. Surely? I tried to count how many days since the Change. Change with capital C. That’s how I was starting to think of it.

‘Got any candles?’ I asked the horse. Christ, I had some down the bottom of the saddle bag. I’d stashed them there back in Orewa. Damn. I was going to have to go in there. And tuatara, they bite, don’t they?

‘Tell me they don’t bite,’ I said out loud. Madness. The first sign of madness is talking to yourself. But then, I was talking to the horse. Perfectly acceptable. I dug around in the bag for the box of candles. Why oh why had I been so damn organised?

I fumbled with the lighter and the candle shook in my hand when I finally had it lit. Just an exploratory trip, I decided because I didn’t think I really needed to be doing this. Except the gate was open and I couldn’t just walk away. Why couldn’t I just walk away? I gripped the candle tighter and wax dripped onto my fist. Stifling a sob, I made for the entrance.

The candle wasn’t as good as a torch. It the set shadows dancing and crawling up walls. The path curved into the building, glass frontages allowing glimpses into a dark forest-like habitat. I searched around for signs, discovered kiwi on my left, tuatara on my right, not that I could see either.

This was ridiculous. Even if I found the animals, what was I supposed to do with them? Tuck them under my arm and carry them triumphantly off to a new home? I was too tired for this. Too tired and upset. I needed a nap. Needed things back how they were supposed to be. And most of all I wanted to get out of the damn zoo. Something had happened earlier, and I was struggling not to think about it, knowing that when I did, I wanted to be somewhere safe. Not here, not in this dark building while outside something with enough strength to rip apart iron gates was wandering about.

Half way down the path I discovered doors on either side of the habitats. Both of them swinging open. Like a trap. I went in one anyway and walked through to the rear of the kiwi house. Here was where the keepers accessed the birds. Terrific. Now I had no choice.

Even better there were carry cages, like those my mother used for transporting her two cats to the vets. I dripped wax onto a ledge and glued the candle there so my hands would be free. Opening the cages, I looked quickly around for gloves. I didn’t fancy being nipped or scratched or whatever mad starving kiwi did. God, I wanted out of here. Why couldn’t I just get on Ezzy’s back and head west into the setting sun, never casting a backwards look?

I remembered hurting and puking on the path by the aviary while something huge, shadowy and powerful, ripped through the meshing. I didn’t want that after me. I wanted far away from that. I straightened, pausing to think about it. The gates and doors had been ripped open. This wasn’t just a case of my natural sense of fairness and not being able to walk away from birds, animals, whatever, in need. I was being manipulated. I shut my mind down on the thought. I’d think about it later. Maybe.

There were hinged doors in the back wall. I assumed they led to the birds and when I opened them they swung easily on oiled hinges.

I counted five birds huddled together in the nest box. They blinked but didn’t move. I stood looking at them, hand over my mouth. The poor things were starved. Another problem. It wouldn’t be enough just to get them out, they needed to be fed. I didn’t know that much about kiwi but I assumed they ate bugs and worms. These poor fellas wouldn’t have the strength to go foraging. What was I doing? Where was I even going to put them, for crying out loud?

Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward and scooped up the first one. It waved its beak at me but felt so fragile through its feathers. I bit my lip and placed it gently in the carry cage. Added another and another. Spread them between both boxes. Two in one cage, three in another. Made sure the cage doors were secured properly and stood, one in each hand, looking at the candle. Also unlike a torch, one cannot carry a candle in one’s mouth when hands are full. My back to the wall for security, I edged out into the main corridor and towards the light.

I put the birds in the darkness just inside the gate. I would have to come back to them and decide what to do. Meanwhile, there were a couple of big lizards waiting for me. I didn’t know, but I suspected that lizards didn’t need to eat so often, so make that a couple of big, potentially frisky lizards. Who volunteered me for this job?

Ezzy was cropping grass beside the building. She was an enormously good horse, I decided. Digging another candle out of the saddle bag I lit it with shaky hands and headed back into the black hole. It was much the same setup in the tuatara’s side of the building, but this time there was no sign of the quarry. Coming back out and around I peered through the glass looking for them. The sign said three of them, in separate compartments of the habitat.

It felt like hours before I found them. And hours more as I crawled around in the dark, scratching my face on branches, terrified of squashing one of the lizards under my knee, trying to reach them. I was glad the sign had said nothing about babies. I lifted their surprisingly heavy bodies into carry cages. I was sweating and clammy by the time I finished, and relieved beyond belief when I walked out into the sunshine carrying a very heavy cage full of prehistoric lizards.

Ezzy let me onto her back and I balanced the cage precariously in front of me. We went out the ruined gate, which swung in a twisted mess of iron and around the road at a trot, to the park. These would give the ducks something to talk about. Providing of course, that there were still ducks around. I was too tired to think about it. I unloaded the cage in a shady spot of undergrowth and opened the door. That was it for me; they could come out on their own.

But I was worried about the kiwi. Rolling my shoulders and rubbing my neck I slid down off Ezzy, back at the kiwi house. What was I going to do with them? Somewhere in the zoo I knew there would be food for them, whatever it was they ate. But it would be locked away.

I almost laughed then. I looked up at the sky, calculating the time. Afternoon. By horse, which I now knew to be only a little faster than walking, I worked out we could be out west by dark. I sighed and looked at the kiwi in their cages. It was the best I could do. I stroked Ezzy and led her to the fountain. It was no longer working but there was plenty of water. And all over the bottom of the fountain, coins lay gleaming in the sun.

I broke into the café and helped myself to potato chips and warm Coca Cola, finishing up with an orange, the little sticker on it telling me it was all the way from California. There wouldn’t be any of those next year.

We set off after lunch, the sun following us as we turned toward the west.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The ground shivered with an almost gentle aftershock as we walked away from the zoo, passing through its shattered gates and down the road. Ezzy shook her head but stayed steady. I swayed against her, fatigued beyond my limits. We headed west through the suburbs towards the other harbour, where I had grown up, where my parents still lived in a house clinging to a bush clad hill.

That wasn’t true. I dug out a water bottle and held it to my lips. The water was warm. Thinking of my parents, I knew they no longer lived there. No one lived there. Looking at my own continued existence, I figured there were people still around, somewhere. But chance was not on the side of my mum and dad.

Ezzy’s hooves echoed down the street. I thought about my family until dizziness threatened to overcome me. I leaned over Ezzy’s neck and rested my flushed head on her neck. I was worn out, physically and emotionally. I pulled myself upright and set myself the task of lookout along our route. Somewhere there were others. Others like me who had survived the change. Others even like my horse. It only made sense that there were others.

I would think about these survivors. I would not think about my family. About Hemi, who I missed with an intense physical longing. I slipped my hand into one of the saddle bags, pulled out his watch and slipped it over my wrist.

The streets were quiet. Windows were shrouded with closed curtains. There were no cats hunting in the suburban gardens, slyly creeping up on their prey. Every house I passed stared blankly back at me, opaque and closed up, hunched over its secrets, stewing in the heat. I wiped a hand across my forehead. Getting fanciful, I warned myself. I pulled the brim of my hat down tighter.

There was barely a breeze now, no fingers of warm air stirred the litter in the gutters. What there was, were birds. Fat korero sat in lush green foliage. Others I was sure were robins and tui, flitted from branch to branch, the world theirs. If I’d stopped to examine garden stones, I was almost sure I would find lizards basking in the sun, moving only to avoid the hawks and falcons that circled high overhead.

I looked back at the closed facades of the houses. They were another reason to head homewards. There wouldn’t be so many brooding, empty houses to confront. At least in the bush, the birds would look as though they belonged.

The kiwi in their cages bumped against my knees. It was awkward carrying them, but it was just for a few hours, then we would be there. I patted Ezzy as she walked, infinitely glad of her strength and company.

The afternoon wound on through the sun. The ground tremors grew fainter the further away from the city we walked. We stopped for a rest in New Lynn, searching for a shady park. With the expanse of concrete and asphalt at the shopping mall, there wasn’t much choice. We walked past the mall and past the shops and stopped when we reached a wide grass verge and shaded streets crowded with trees.

I lifted the kiwi cages down and checked their inmates. They were looking dehydrated. We wouldn’t stop for long. My legs and back were aching from Ezzy’s swaying gait and she looked pleased when I unloaded the saddle bags and let her wander and eat wearing just the saddle. I stretched out under a tree and closed my eyes. My face felt hot and puffy, my eyes sore. I needed a rest, feeling like I could sleep for days.

But we couldn’t stop for long. It wasn’t too much further to go now. The birds needed attention and the sooner we reached my parent’s house, the sooner I could attend to them. And the horse, and myself. I was feeling a little unsteady on my feet and knew I should be eating something, but I just couldn’t rouse the energy or the appetite.

We set off again, the road steeper now, but overhung with trees. We followed the broken white line in the middle of the road, the birds and I on Ezzy’s back. I leaned forward and promised her complete rest for the next few days. In perhaps an hour we were in Titirangi Village and Ezzy’s hooves echoed though the empty streets where nothing stirred except for the birds making mocking, unconcerned music in the trees. We didn’t stop, though I knew we would probably be back within days for provisions. Indeed, we would have to go further afield for some of what I had in mind. But I’d think about that later, right now, I just wanted to get to my parent’s place.

We headed downhill, following the twisted route to Laingholm. Friends of my parents had kept a couple of horses in a paddock at the bottom of this hill. I wondered if they would still be there. The horses, that was – I held almost no hope of finding people. Or the horses, for that matter. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Ezzy and I were nothing but a bizarre fluke. There was a sudden scuffling in one of the cages and I urged Ezzy on.

There were no horses at the bottom of the hill. Indeed, it seemed that since I had last been home, the paddock had been sold for development. Land here was at a premium, in the years since my parents had first moved here as a young couple, the area had gone from remote with the odd bach on bushy sections, to almost every inch of it developed and overdeveloped. And they were no longer building baches. The houses were big, showy and as we walked past, I was certain they were all empty. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about my parents giving in to pressure to subdivide anymore.

We reached the house with perhaps an hour or so of sunlight left. I climbed down from Ezzy at the bottom of the driveway and stood holding her reigns, staring up at the house I’d grown up in. There wasn’t much of it visible, with the native trees crowding the frontage. But my heart pounded painfully in my breast anyway. I wiped away hot tears and moved slowly, leading the horse up the gravel driveway.

Mum came running in my mind to greet me, wearing her favourite emerald and white tie-dyed skirt. She wrapped me in consoling arms and Dad joined her, smelling of his familiar patchouli oil. I was sobbing now, tears blinding me and I stumbled in a pot hole in the driveway. The image of my parents faded.

We stopped in the back garden, where vegetables were overflowing in the raised beds and native trees and ferns created shady grottos around a brilliant green lawn. It was perfect. I lifted the kiwi cages down to the ground and stripped Ezzy of her burdens then gave her a pat and sent her into the greenness to eat. There was a small pond somewhere back there, hopefully she would find it and have a drink. She kicked up her heels and set off to explore. Maybe she would stray, but it probably wouldn’t be today, if she were half as tired as myself.

Now there were the birds to deal with. My parents were avid organic gardeners, and out here in this verdant garden were all the things I could think of to make a kiwi nest, complete with room service, or so I hoped.

I had a headache and my body felt heavy and tired. I picked a few pea pods from the garden and ate them whole while I looked around for a suitable spot for the birds.

I found the perfect place in a fernery. It just needed something for them to sleep in. I found an old wooden crate and lined it with moss and fern leaves. Then I set about organising the room service with a dish of water from the pond.

In a corner of the vegetable garden stood a worm farm. With a grimace I reached bare hands in and pulled out a handful of bright pink worms. Gagging I dropped them into a bucket and carried them to the new kiwi bed. They would make a fine main course. The birds themselves were still in the cages. I hoped they were okay. I didn’t know about nursing birds back to health. How do you force feed a kiwi with that long beak?

Carrying the first cage to the spot I opened it and pulled out three curled up birds, who blinked against the last hours of daylight and managed, despite their weakened state to make quite a fuss. I backed away before they decided to scatter and fetched the two birds from the second cage. Amazingly, I returned to find the birds had already discovered the pile of worms. I put the two under my arms down and watched them revive at the sight of a meal. I smiled at them and turned back to the house. I needed something to eat too and after that, a rest.

My joints were aching, my muscles burning, my head pounding. I hoped it was just over-exertion, just fatigue, nothing more. Now wasn’t the time to come down with something more. I forced myself to keep to my feet.

I filled the bucket with the last of the horse oats and set them out for Ezzy, who came over flicking her tail and buried her nose in them.

I hadn’t been in the house yet. I’d avoided even looking at it as I attended to the animals. But there was no putting it off any longer.

I couldn’t bear the thought of breaking a window to get in. I rooted around in the garden instead, looking for the spare key. It was still there and I clutched it in my hand like a piece of precious treasure. It slid into the lock with barely a protest and I swung the door open. The familiar sights and smells hit me with a physical force. I doubled over and turned tail, vomiting hot bile into the garden. Wiping my face, slick with sweat, on my sleeve I stumbled back to the house on shaky legs.

My father had liked to work with wood, and evidence of his delight was everywhere in the kitchen. I ran my fingers over the silky kauri table he made when I was only little and around which all of us gathered every night for Mum’s vegetarian meals. I’d started sneaking out of the house and eating at MacDonald’s when I was fifteen.

The living room looked as though my parents had only popped out for a moment. My mother’s knitting lay on the couch where she’d left it before going to bed. A book on hydroponics lay on the floor, and more books were stacked haphazardly around the room. My parents were great readers; I’d been suckled on words from a babe. There was no television; a record player took pride of place instead. I wiped away silent tears and checked the rest of the rooms. My parent’s bed was rumpled, indentations from their heads still visible in the pillows.

I made the bed and pressed the pillows to my face, breathing in their familiar scents while tears rolled down my checks.

It was almost dark and the house settled down to the shadows. I went back to the kitchen and found some candles. I needed to eat, then see if I could get some sleep. I didn’t have the energy to light the barbeque outside and cook myself a meal, but on the other hand, I desperately needed some proper food. I sighed and took a candle outside to examine barbeque.

This was why I’d come home. My parents had been almost self sufficient, for food at least. They were modern hippies, I guess, and didn’t believe in gas barbeques, preferring instead the natural warmth and cooking power of real fire. The barbeque was a cooking pit designed by my father. I poured charcoal bisques into it and lit a couple of fire starters. Within minutes it was blazing away and Ezzy came over to the patio to see what was going on. I gave her nose a friendly rub and ached inside for my parents even while just being here settled and consoled me.

There were cooked lentil casseroles thawing in the freezer. I opened one and sniffed. It smelled okay to me. I tipped it into a pan and put it on the grate over the fire along with a pot of water for coffee. Oh my God, did I want a cup of coffee. I set the plunger on the table on the patio and sat back, nibbling on peas from the garden. I would eat, drink and then sleep.

Tomorrow, I would think about what to do next. Meanwhile, night birds shrieked at me from the trees.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I slept in my childhood bed, encircled by goose down comforters. My dreams were filled with flocks of birds and the groaning and twisting of trees as they wrenched themselves from the soil in unnatural growth. I woke in a half-lit room, tinted green from the plants pressing against the window. My head was heavy and throbbing, and every square centimetre of my body ached. I lay squinting at the emerald morning, my mouth dry with a raging thirst.

I padded on unsteady legs through to the kitchen. Here too, the morning was strangely strangled in verdant light. I pushed open the French doors that led, not to the patio, but to the deck around the front of the house. Stepping out, I looked down to the road. Except I could barely see it, the shrubs, trees and ferns were so overgrown. Shaking my aching head, I wondered that I hadn’t noticed that yesterday. It must have been a good growing season. Part of my mind wanted to remind me of the quick growing grass of the day before. I shook the thought away and my head throbbed.

I needed water and paracetamol. Water, I knew immediately, was going to be a problem. My mother didn’t believe in buying plastic bottles of water. There weren’t any in the fridge, which was warm and growing mould on the leftovers now, and there wasn’t any in the cupboards. Neither did any come gushing from the cold tap over the kitchen sink. I twisted the hot tap and water spilled out. I reached promptly for a tall glass. There wouldn’t be any wasting this; it wouldn’t take long for the hot water cylinder to empty.

I drank greedily and refilled the glass. Rummaging in a drawer I came up with the paracetamol and swallowed two with another gulp of water. I sank down at the table and rested head in hands. I needed more sleep, a weeks worth at least. Perhaps I’d make a quick check on Ezzy, then go to bed for an hour.

Ezzy was nowhere in sight. Wearing nothing but knickers and tee shirt, I walked down the back section, calling her. Finally there was a crashing in the undergrowth and she appeared out of the bush and walked up to me, bunting me playfully with her nose. She was wet and smelled of salt water. The tide must be in down below the house. There was a track leading from the back garden down to a tiny beach, where my brother and I had spent many happy hours as children. I would go for a swim there too, later. Later. Now I was shivering though the morning air was silky and warm against my skin.

Ezzy followed me back to the house and rubbed her back against a convenient tree. She looked pretty happy. I turned on the step and watched her a moment. Should I tie her up, or lead her down the road to a conveniently fenced property to make sure I didn’t lose her?

I got up and went inside. The horse was free. I wanted her to stay around. I needed her to stay around. But I wouldn’t force her. This was a different world and it needed a different philosophy. My head ached and I couldn’t develop the thought further. I grabbed a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and reminded myself to clean out the old food later. Then I headed back to bed.

I spent the day in bed, feeling steadily worse. At first, I thought the cramping deep in my belly was from the orange juice. Perhaps it had spoiled. I staggered out to the kitchen and tipped the juice out, refilling the bottle with water. The cramps worsened as I stood, supporting myself against the bench. I cried out in pain and slid down into a huddle on the floor.

My panties turned red. Another wave of cramps and I whimpered, watching the red blood smear my thighs. My period was early, and heavy. I staggered to my feet, caught up the bottle of water and headed, doubled over in pain, to the bathroom.

I sat on the toilet for what felt like ages, the cramps coming and going, the menstrual blood coming in great clots. Eventually I managed to clean myself up and grope my way back to bed.

I stayed in bed for the next few days. The sun rose and set and I lay feverish and sweating, raving with delirium, my belly cramping, everything hurting. Every now and then during a lucid moment I would drag myself from the bed for more water, more paracetamol. Then back to the heavy dreams, to be smothered again by the weight of illness and isolation. Crying precious salty tears for everyone I’d ever met and loved.

Finally I woke with clear thoughts. I lifted a hand to my head and my skin no longer burned there. The fever had broken. I was thirsty, hungry. When was the last time I had eaten? Pushing back the covers I levered myself onto the floor, alarmed at the weakness in my limbs. I ran my hands over my body, marvelling at the bony protrusions and angles. Not large to start with, I was now skin stretched over bone. There was a buzzing at the back of my mind. Lie back down again, it said. Sleep some more.

I stood up again. Tottered my way to the kitchen and pulled a glass of water from the tap. Drank it down again, turned the tap and splashed my face with some of the precious water, feeling my skin, thin and papery beneath my fingers.

I went outside onto the back patio. The moon leaned down from high in the sky, coating everything with cold, metallic light. From the trees a morepork called mournfully, echoed from another tree. Down in the darkness I could hear the tide against the beach and smell its salty breath in my nostrils. I looked around again and backed away inside, slipping back down the dark hallway to bed. I wrapped the quilt around me and lay there staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows upon it, blocking my ears against the crying of night birds and the muffled scuffling of trees against the walls.

I woke with the dawn; testing my head for clarity and lack of fever I left the bed, thinking vague thoughts of washing the stale sweat out of the sheets. My period was finished, but it had been so heavy, I figured the sheets would be better thrown away. Running a hand through my hair I decided I needed to wash myself first. I backed out of the bathroom before I’d even taken two steps inside. The toilet was overflowing and stinking. Obviously I’d been using it during my illness, and equally obviously it hadn’t been flushing.

The last few days were just a series of hazy impressions. I grabbed my mother’s towelling robe from the back of the door and a roll of toilet paper, then padded down to the kitchen.

Where I stopped and gaped.

The doors to the deck at the front of the house were buckled and the glass lay in shards on the floor. Through the doorway to the living room, I could see that the entire far wall was gone. I looked down at my feet. The floorboards were twisted, their warm sheen replaced by a hundred years of neglect though no hundred years had passed. Holding a fist to my mouth I walked back down the hallway, pushing open the doors to the bedrooms. Everywhere the same view. Missing walls and broken windows. Except in the room I had been sleeping in, sleeping and dreaming delirious nightmares of encroaching forests.

It had been no dream. Trees, saplings, thin and whip-strong, crowded the house, pushing their way through the windows. And they were being muscled aside by larger brutes, kauri and beech, breaking through the very walls.

I was whimpering. My legs were suddenly hot and wet as my bladder let go and I turned tail and ran back to the kitchen, flung open the door to the back patio and rushed out, deeper into the nightmare.

The world had turned green and brown. As I stood there, a great tearing noise ripped though the morning. A crash followed in the near distance and I jumped. Somewhere, another house was giving way to the new kings of the jungle, the trees. I collapsed onto a chair, unable to close my eyes, unable to take my eyes off what I was seeing.

On either side of the house, trees crowded round, some obviously young, others already looking tall and strong and mature. The driveway was gone. The side of the house was gone, and I knew most of the front was too. I felt suddenly like I’d woken up in one of Grimm’s fairytales. I’d loved those stories when I was young. I was having a huge change of heart about them now.

I gripped my knees and rocked back and forth, making those strange little noises again. The patio here was intact; the fire pit as I’d left it. The vegetable garden was still there, in rows of raised beds, lush in its productivity. If I could ever manage to swallow again I would still be able to eat.

I wrapped the robe around my wet legs and walked past the garden into the clearing at the back of the property. It had been a pretty lawn, now it was a grassy clearing, its edges blurring into the bush. A korero, bush pigeon, sat on a low branch, looking at me, head cocked sideways, fearless.

My father kept a small workshop in a shed at the back of the property. I had spent many enjoyable hours as a girl, sitting on a chair in there, a notebook and pencil in hand, scribbling stories while my father worked, turning wood on a lathe, measuring and sawing, building small pieces of furniture. I still loved the smell of sawdust and linseed oil. I walked over to the shed. Trees encircled it, jostling up against its old weatherboards, reaching tentative twiggy fingers towards the glass in its windows. Ferns perched in the ground on either side of the door, almost civilised. I leaned my head against the door and shut my eyes. Took a few slow breaths. Then I walked back to what was left of the house.

I opened a container of biscuits in the kitchen and ate five, standing back on the patio. I didn’t like it in the house anymore. I could feel it swaying on its foundations, or imagined I could. I crushed one of my mother’s oatmeal biscuits in my hand and threw the crumbs on the lawn for the birds, an almost unconscious gesture – I’d been feeding the birds with my mother since I was old enough not to eat the crumbs and seeds myself.

Where was Ezzy? I gazed around at the greenness and knew I’d probably lost her for good. I couldn’t remember how many days I’d been in bed sick, but I wasn’t surprised she’d moved on. I sat down again. It wasn’t the same without the horse. The forest noises pressed against me, bird noise, insect buzzing, whispering trees laughing with the breeze. I let my head fall onto the table.

And opened my eyes to a wet nose pressing at my face. Ezzy! I stood up, a grin splitting my face. Oh Ezzy! Unbelieving, I wrapped my arms around her neck, burying my face on her mane, wetting the both of us with tears. She butted me and nibbled on my robe, pleased, I hoped, to see me too.

Seeing her again made the difference. I didn’t want to let go of her, but she soon grew bored of clutch and soak and wandered off to nibble at the vegetable garden. I stood on the wooden steps grinning like an idiot, feeling life rushing again in my veins.

‘Ezzy,’ I croaked. ‘I love you.’

I fetched a towel, soap and my clothes from inside, tip toeing gingerly down the hallway. Stuffing them in my backpack I went back outside and took a moment to orient myself with the new landscape then headed in the direction on the path down to the beach. I found it no problem; from the looks of it, it was one of Ezzy’s favourite walks. I followed in her tracks, only occasionally having to push aside a twiggy extrusion.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The tide was in, the water cool and clear. I waded in and sat down. The water was not deep, it was only an estuarial beach, but it felt good against my grimy skin. I don’t think the soap achieved much in the salt water but it certainly made me feel better. I rinsed my greasy hair out too, wishing I’d remembered the shampoo. But just the water over me was better than nothing, washing away the sweat from the fever.

I towelled myself off standing on the small crescent of beach, the sand cool under my feet. The waves dribbled over the stones and shells and the sun spread warm fingers down my naked back. For a moment peace reigned. For a moment the day was sublime, beach, bush, sky, the way the world was made, the way it was supposed to be.

Then I saw a boat out in the distance, where estuary met harbour and the spell broke. I watched in a weary sort of horror as the boat followed the mercy of the current and came aground on the rocks, tipping its bow up in the air while water slowly swamped and dragged it down. I turned away and stepped into my clothes, damp hair hanging over my face and blocking the view. I breathed in and out and picked up the backpack, stuffing towel and soap in and walked up the track without looking back.

Ezzy was dozing in the shade of a tree. She looked fat and healthy, her hair gleaming in the speckled light. I wondered about the kiwi and took a quick look around for the nest I’d made them, but couldn’t spot the place. Everything had changed with the new growth. I hoped they’d survived.

I sat down at the patio table again and stared unseeing into the bush. Listened to my breathing. Listened to Esmeralda snorting gently in her sleep. Listened to the birds squawking companionably in the trees.

It was time to make a decision. Should I give up? I only had paracetamol, but I could break into a pharmacy and get something stronger; or use the knife.

Or should I keep going, keep fighting, find a way to live, find others?

A bowl of polished pebbles stood in the middle of the table. I sifted them through my fingers, idly reading the words printed on them. My mother had started collecting these a year or so ago.

‘Mum,’ I whispered. I dug my hand into the bowl and grabbed two of the stones, smooth and flat in my palm. Turned them over and read the words, closed my eyes and shook my head. Strength and Hope. I rubbed my thumb over the words and placed them on the table. Closed my eyes. Touched the stones and decided.

I’d start with some breakfast. A cup of coffee, eggs, bacon, toast. Coffee I could do and porridge or cereal as long as I didn’t want it with milk. It was a shame there wasn’t a handy cow that had survived the Change. I’d have to give the question of food some serious thought if I was sticking around.

There was a grinding noise, and the house shifted. I stumbled back out of the kitchen, coffee jar in my hand. Food wasn’t the only thing that needed consideration. It was going to be a long day. But first, I really did need to eat something. I was going to need all my strength. The house shivered again, under pressure from the trees. I lit the fire with fumbling hands and boiled water, cooked porridge, spooned it from a bowl with maple syrup and no milk.

A bed was the first consideration. I hoisted the mattress from the bed in my old room, averting my eyes from the other rooms, the gaping walls plugged with bush. With sweat pouring down my face and back, I dragged the mattress down the hallway and outside, almost toppling over getting it down the patio steps. I dropped it on the grass and collapsed on it, out of breath, head throbbing. I didn’t have the strength for this sort of work yet. I turned on my back and looked up at the green fringed sky. I didn’t think there was going to be time to wait to get my strength back. I went back inside for the base, then the blankets. I heaved and dragged and swore as I moved everything to Dad’s workshop.

I set the double bed up in a corner, shifting the lathe out of the way as best I could; clearing out everything else I thought would be of no use. I sidled back into the house and took clean sheets from the linen closet, and a supply of towels. Then I spent an hour or more raiding the kitchen and brought out everything edible. There were jars of preserved fruit and tomatoes, packets of rice and lentils, pasta. A decent stock, but I knew I would need more and would have to go further afield for it before it was too late.

I manhandled a small table and two dining chairs into my new house. Dragged in a wooden chest that had been my mother’s pride, carved for her on her wedding by my father. I stocked it with blankets. By late afternoon I was exhausted. I picked a handful of blackberries and ate them, followed by a handful of peas. Then I drank some cranberry juice I’d found in one of the cupboards. The different diet was taking its toll on my system and I went into the bush with trowel and toilet paper. Came back and slept the rest of the afternoon while Ezzy stood outside the open door of the shed, looking companionably in.

It was dusk when I woke. I lit a candle and carried it to the patio table. Aching all over I lit the fire again with the rest of the charcoal. Firewood was going to be an issue. I looked toward the house, where my reflection in the French doors stared back. I gazed at it a moment, and getting up, opened the doors and went inside. I lifted the mirror off the drawers in my old room and carried it outside to the shed, placing it carefully down in a corner. I would hang it tomorrow.

I opened a can of soup and poured it into a saucepan, setting it on the rack above the fire to heat. From the garden I made a salad of lettuce, spring onion, carrot and peas. Ezzy came over and I shared the carrot with her. This reminded me that I would have to move Mum’s seeds to the shed to keep them safe. The garden was going to be an important part of my life.

I made coffee with the last of the water from inside and lay back in a sun lounger. I tried to ignore the house creaking behind me, hoping the patio and fire pit would stay intact. If it did, then this was an ideal spot, as long as I could find fresh water. There was a stream somewhere; if I could find that it would be great. Tomorrow. I closed my eyes.

Ezzy heard it first. She whinnied in alarm and stomped hooves against the ground. I was on my feet in a flash, reaching out in the darkness for her. The candle was out, the fire almost.

In the bush something moved and the darkness congealed. The horse wheeled round, blowing air heavily through her nostrils. Leaves rattled and the trees raised shivering branches in a sudden swirling wind. I grabbed at Ezzy, keeping my eyes fixed on the shadows lurking in the bush. Something was there. I was sure of it. Goose bumps crawled across my skin and the shadows shifted as something moved, a deeper darkness, a presence as tall as the trees, stalking the edges of the bush.

My hands convulsed in Ezzy’s mane and I felt my heart trying to escape my chest.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The trees shivered and rustled again, the sense of presence grew stronger. I watched the darkness, straining for some idea of shape, form, intention. A wind sprang up, gusted, touched my face, stinging my eyes with dirt. I turned my face and Ezzy danced away, twisting her head from side to side.

Then it was gone. Whatever it was, it turned away, looked elsewhere again. I shivered as the adrenaline slowed in my blood, my legs trembling as I reached for the horse. I gave her a pat and stumbled back up the steps to the fire pit, thinking of the day at the zoo. The same presence, I was sure of it.

But what was it? And why was it interested in me? Why was it watching me?

I didn’t want to think about it. I’d been pushed beyond endurance already. I wouldn’t think about it. I poured myself a glass of wine I had liberated from the house. It looked like blood in the light from the fire. I chided myself for letting my imagination run away from me. Far better to be dense and implacable; unimaginative, not thoughtful in the least. I toasted the idea and proceeded to put it into practice, drinking the whole bottle in a series of toasts of growing incoherence. Then I stumbled to bed in my new home in a garden shed with the wild white moon shining overhead like an ancient totem.

I woke with that thought echoing in my mind, or at least the word totem. Something about it was nagging at the recesses of my mind. But far more pressing was the headache pulsing against my temples. I groped for the bottle of water on the floor beside the bed, cursing my stupidity. My mouth was so dry. The water was gone after a few gulps. All the water was gone. That had been it. I wanted more? I had to go looking.

I dragged myself from the bed and outside, squatting under a tree, unselfconscious now, so quickly had the veneer of civilisation left me. Finishing, I walked over the dew wet grass to the blackberry bush and stood pulling them off the bush and eating them, blinking in the early sunlight. Ezzy was still dozing under her favourite tree. I pushed a few more berries into my mouth and stared round the clearing and into the trees. Nothing was there but for birds fluttering in quick strobes of colour.

I pushed my feet into a pair of sneakers and walked down the track to the beach. The tide wasn’t in, brown mud lay exposing its belly in the sun. I’d have to wait for a wash. Turning, I trudged back up to the house, ignoring the branches that picked at my hair and poked at my skin.

Ezzy was helping herself to the spinach again when I got back. I pushed her away and looked at the garden. Some of it needed harvesting. It was going to be an interesting job figuring out how to keep what I couldn’t immediately eat. I sighed and went to get dressed. My clothes needed to be washed. I only had two pairs of anything. But first things first. I dry swallowed two paracetamol, grimacing at the chalky taste and sat down on the bed to strap on my boots. I pocketed my Zippo and buckled the knife around my waist.

Ezzy was drinking from the pond when I came back outside, carrying the empty saddle bags. She finished and eyed me suspiciously. I walked up to her and stoked her neck, explaining the situation. Attaching the bridle, I tethered her to a handy tree and hoisted the saddle onto her back, trying to figure out how many days it had been since we arrived here. I added the saddle bags, pulled on my backpack, set my hat on my head and led her through the bush crowding what had been the driveway.

The road was still visible, snaking away into the trees and hills. The asphalt was broken on either side, pushed aside by roots and strong young trees thrusting themselves upwards. Urging Ezzy to stand still, I mounted and settled in the saddle, my muscles protesting. A flick of the reigns and we were walking through the shady lane back towards what used to count as civilisation.

Over an hour later by my estimation, we gained the crest of the hill and looked at the village of Titirangi. Sweat dribbled down my back. The heat was cloying; trapped in the undergrowth the air seemed almost at boiling point. I desperately needed water.

The village was unrecognisable, as I’d feared on the long trek up the hill, passing the tumbled rubble of houses, half absorbed already into the voracious growth of the native forest.

The buildings on one side of the road were almost entirely gone. They’d fallen down the bank, and in a heaving of the earth the bush had swarmed up and over the remains. The small supermarket, everything, gone. In its place, trees. Trees, vines, ferns. Trees swelling almost visibly beneath their bark; and birds crowing triumphantly from their many perches.

On the other side of the road it was only a little better. Windows were broken and walls collapsed under earth and branch, resembling hobbit holes more than modern buildings, but at least still there.

Ezzy and I stood stock still in the middle of the road. All around us the bush had come calling, a great swarming march of trees, as though they’d picked up their roots, gathered their children and rolled forward on a carpet of fertile earth. Civilisation as I knew it was being subsumed back into a primal landscape.

I didn’t have much time.

I dismounted and led the horse down the street, oblivious for once to the whistles of the birds. I gave a panicked glance behind us. Would we be able to find our way back? Would there even be a way back?

Leaving Ezzy a moment, imploring her not to go away, I ducked into the gaping mouth of a cave that used to be a café. The floor was uneven under my boots and I walked gingerly, listening to the trickling fall of dirt from what used to be the ceiling. The building was set to collapse at any moment. My breathing quickened, chest tightening. Any moment now it would collapse and I would be buried alive, suffocated under a great weight of soil and plant. Out, out, I had to get out. But first there were bottles of water in a small fridge on a counter squatting amazingly intact in the middle of the floor. I tugged open the fridge door, scooped out six of the bottles and began my retreat. There was a cash register on the counter, its tray open and from the wad of twenty dollar notes grew a pale orange and white toadstool. I stared at it, mesmerised, then turned and fled.

The trees either side of the road seemed to reach out for us, green brown fingers waiting to snag my clothes. There was no footpath anymore, and any house to be seen was in pieces, jigsaws made of rubble. A month or so, I estimated, and there would be nothing left of them at all. We carried on. Under the canopy of reaching trees, the air was hot and warm and still. I drank down a whole bottle of water, went to throw away the bottle and thought better of it. And for the rest of the walk to the mall I couldn’t decide if I didn’t throw away that bottle because it would be useful to me, or because I was afraid there might be new littering laws in this strange and horrifying world.

The concrete expanse of the mall car park was no longer quite an expanse. It too was broken up as though the earth had given herself a good shake, dislodging some of the heavy weight of civilisation upon her back. I gazed around at the buildings. What sort of shape were they in?

I left Ezzy tethered to a new young rata tree outside the great sliding doors to the mall. The tree had broken the glass doors and I stepped over the mess of glass, giving the horse a pat. I didn’t want to risk her wandering off around here.

Inside the mall it was still mostly untouched, depending from which vantage it was viewed. The back walls of many of the shops were broken down. I guessed the whole building was now inherently unstable. I ought to be quick.

My boots crunched over the broken glass and gritty dust that lay everywhere. I checked my mental list and made my way first to the pharmacy. I fought down the urge to grab armfuls of stuff from every direction. There was no way I could transport huge amounts of things. And what was the point? It was time, I decided reluctantly, to give up on materialism.

I went straight through to the back of the pharmacy, and taking one of their large shopping bags I looked over the shelves. Penicillin first. Every bottle of it on the shelves. Then painkillers. After that I took bottles of anything with a familiar name. The bag grew heavy.

I skirted round the gaping hole in the wall and the thrusting manuka tree growing there. Toothpaste, soap and shampoo went into the bag until it was full. I took them out to where Esmeralda stood flicking ears and tail, clearly nervous. I gave her a pat and told her not much longer. I was nervous too. I disappeared back inside, urging myself to hurry.

I found a clothing shop and ignored almost everything on the racks. I snatched up a packet of tee shirts, another of knickers, and two pairs of jeans and two of cargos. I liked their pockets. I was getting too much stuff and I hadn’t even started on the food. Chewing my lip I thought about a shopping trolley. Was there a way I could rig one of those to tow back? Impossible, I decided; the wheels simply weren’t made for rough ground.

But that gave me an idea. Putting my clothes in a pile I left them there and walked out into the mall, trying to orient myself in the dimness of the interior. Somewhere, I thought, there was a baby shop. I wanted a pram. One of the ones with big wheels.

It took at least ten damn minutes to find the shop I wanted. It was surprisingly intact and over in the shadows at the back was a row of pushchairs. I looked them over. The type with three wheels had the right sort of tyres, but they wouldn’t fit much in. One of those big old-fashioned sorts would have been more useful. There weren’t any of those, but eventually I did notice that one of the three wheeled types had a bassinet that strapped in for when the baby was small or something, I guessed.

It wasn’t as big as I’d hoped, but better than nothing. There was a bag strapped over the contraption that I could fill up too. I wheeled it out of the store, past all the racks of tiny clothes in blues, pinks and lemon.

I picked up my own clothes and packed them into the pram. I selected two pure wool jerseys as well. Not the season for them yet, but who knew if there’d be any around by winter? They all took up more room than I was happy with; I put one of the jerseys back. I would hunt through the ruins of my home and find more there. If I could bear to.

I went to the supermarket. This was the worst. All the aisles were blocked with collapsed shelving; food lay everywhere. And the whole building stunk of rotting meat. I retched and tried breathing through my mouth. I grabbed bags of rice and a few packages of soup mix, some cans of something I didn’t stop to read the labels of then I ran for the exit.

Ezzy was dancing in tight circles, ears flattened against her head. I spoke to her, calming her as best I could. Her nervousness was contagious and I was hurrying now. I opened the nappy bag strapped to the pushchair and tipped the bag of drugs into it. The toiletries and first aid gear I wedged in among the clothes and food. Now I just had to figure out how to tow it all. I laughed then, a spooky sound that seemed to bounce off the broken walls. My backpack and the saddle bags were empty. There was no point coming all the way here and not returning fully laden.

Now that it came down to it though, I couldn’t think of anything else I needed. Ezzy was getting even more skittish but I was determined it would not be a wasted trip. I would fill those bags, just not from the supermarket. The smell in there was too much. There must be another way of getting things I needed than from there. I stood indecisive, then dashed back inside and grabbed clothes. I could grow food, but I couldn’t grow clothes. I filled the back pack.

I unhooked Ezzy and led her away from the mall, back up the street headed towards our home in the bush. I held her reigns in one hand and pushed the pram with the other, peering into the shops lining what was left of the road. Ezzy kept tugging on the reigns. Ignoring her I found a hardware store at last, with creepers carpeting much of the walls and floors. Tying Ezzy up again I assured her I wouldn’t be long. Inside the shop it smelled earthy and moist. I took a plastic basket like any ordinary customer and headed up and down the aisles. Rope went into the basket, and fishing line and hooks, anything I could think of that might be useful. I snatched up two long lengths of thick doweling. Near the door on the way out I stopped and looked at a display of weed killer. I took a bottle.

I loaded up the saddle bags and discarded the basket. I tied the doweling to either side of the pushchair, securing it tightly with the rope, and getting Ezzy to stand still, I knotted the other end to the saddle. Testing it, I thought it would hold. We now had a little trailer to tow.

‘Time to go,’ I told the nervous horse.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The rumbling came sneaking on stealthy feet behind us. Ezzy danced under my weight. Calming her I walked her in a wide circle, looking back down the hill with the city on the horizon. And as we watched, the cityscape changed as the rumbling turned to roaring.

The Sky Tower sank to the ground in a horrifying parody of grace. It slid down in skirts of dust. One moment there, the next gone. The ground began rippling under us as though someone was shaking a giant rug. I swayed in the saddle, gripping Ezzy to keep her still and gaping at the space on the horizon where just moments before the tower had stood. Ezzy stamped her foot, impatient and worried and I let her go, walking us back up the road. But all the way I kept turning around, fixing my eyes on emptiness.

Ezzy’s head was drooping by the time we arrived back. My back was aching as I unhitched Ezzy from the makeshift trailer and took her saddle off. I stood a moment leaning against her then patted her rump and she moved off to graze upon the delicate piko piko fern buds. Dark clouds were congregating overhead, tucking the sun from sight. I hurried to unload the pram. I took the dowel rods off and stood them in a corner of the shed then wheeled the pushchair in as well. It would be useful to keep. Sifting through the bottles of pills in the nappy bag I swallowed some paracetamol and sat on the side of the bed.

I shouldn’t have drunk so much the night before. I was tired, strung out and every time I blinked I could see the Sky Tower sit down in clouds of dust. Outside I could hear the sea against the beach below and the first fat drops of rain fell against the corrugated iron roof. Ezzy would be moving among the trees for shelter. More rain fell, heavy, insistent, hypnotic. I lay down and pulled the blankets around me, listening to the rain drumming against the roof. There wasn’t anything else to hear.

It was dark when I woke, mouth dry, thirsty. I opened another bottle from my small store and listened some more to the rain. I had been dreaming of rain. Walking through a landscape covered in rain, the only other thing to be seen the ruins of a tower. I shook the memory from my mind and looked at the bottle of water in my hand.

Getting up from the bed I picked up two of my mother’s largest mixing bowls, I took them outside and laid them in the bird bath to collect rainwater. Soaked already I looked around in the darkness, listening. Nothing but the darkness. Nothing but the rain. I went back to my little house.

Stripping my wet clothes off, I dried myself with a towel and sat on the bed again, watching the candle flicker in a draft. Reaching for some of my mother’s cereal I leaned back against the pillows and ate from the box, staring at the blackness of the window, catching every now and then a look at my own reflection. Later I slept and dreamed again of the tower. Dreamed that something else was there with me, something tall and ancient, watching me, always watching me.

When I woke in the morning it was still raining. I stood in the doorway looking out. All this new growth would go crazy with the rain, I thought and laughed, a harsh, bitter and lonely sound. It was already crazy. The whole thing was crazy. Ezzy came crashing through the trees, startling me before she came up for her nose rub. She seemed quite content to stay round me. But then, horses, like humans, were social animals. And we only had each other now.

I thought about that, watching the rain. Somewhere, I was convinced, other survivors were standing watching the great silver sheets of rain, thinking about how we could find each other. I didn’t know how to go about it. The whole idea of the communications room seemed ridiculous now. Even if I could find such a room intact, nothing in it would work.

I shivered. The day was cool. I pulled a woollen jersey over my head and took my post at the door again. I needed to think of things to do to keep myself going until I could find those other survivors.

Perhaps I should head back to the city to scout around? I had an advantage with Ezzy; it wouldn’t take too long to get there. But an image of the tumbling Sky Tower replayed in my mind. Then there was the heaving sea in the harbour basin. The earthquakes were centred there. No way was it a good idea to go looking back there. For better or worse, I needed to hunker down here for a while and concentrate on building a shelter for myself until things stabilised.

But I didn’t know what those other hypothetical survivors would be doing and I was full of doubts again. Perhaps I should travel around looking?

The trees were scraping against the walls of the shed. They needed to be cut back. I chewed my lip and watched the grey sky and the silver rain. I would do both, I decided. Consolidate my shelter here, then go looking. It was the best plan I could come up with.

Today, though. What could one do in rain such as this? I pulled on my pants and boots, lifted hat and Dad’s old rain poncho from the hook on the wall and put them on. Going back to the days of the outhouse was a pain in the arse, I decided as I stumbled around in the bush, spade and toilet paper tucked under one arm. Something moved in the underbrush and I fell backwards, thighs wet. Scrabbling with my pants I peered through the gloom, trying to see what sort of animal had startled me. There was another flash of brown feathers and curved beak, streaking through the ferns. I shook my head, not sure what I’d seen. It had looked like an overgrown kiwi. I picked up the spade, heart thumping. The toilet paper was sodden from the rain. I headed back to camp, casting worried glances back at the bush.

Most of the house had collapsed now. It lay strewn on the ground, becoming part of the ground as the earth heaved itself around it and trees grew over it. I wondered how long it would be before any trace would be gone. I feared it wouldn’t be long.

The barbeque on the patio was still under cover. The back wall of the house stood, French doors leading almost to nothing. Overhead, rain fell on the clear plastic roofing that sheltered the patio. I emptied a bowl of water into the kettle and lit the fire, feeding the flames with dry driftwood I’d collected down at the beach. I held the coffee plunger in the rain to clean the old grounds out wishing that the supermarket trip had proved more lucrative.

There was movement in the undergrowth again as I set the kettle to boil. I left it there and walked over to the edge of the lawn, which was now of course, more of a clearing in the eternal bush. The bird was gone. I wondered if it were one of my kiwi. But they were smaller, and nocturnal. I rubbed at my arms and went back to my fire. Nothing was predictable anymore. Kiwi had quite likely morphed into moa. I wouldn’t have been surprised.

The rain fell in a steady roar as I drank coffee and stirred a pot of porridge. The sound filled my ears. It filled everything. There was only the rain and the clearing and me. I closed my eyes and imagined leaning against Hemi, just leaning against him like so many times before, feeling his warm strength against me, the soft heat of his breath on my neck. I opened my eyes and stirred the porridge. My skin was covered in goose bumps. I poured my breakfast into a bowl and added honey. I was getting used to eating it without milk. It wasn’t too bad as long as you made it runny enough not to glue your mouth together.

The fire was burning down. I added a few more branches and it burned with a low crackle. I washed my pot in the rain and filled it with more water, thinking I really needed to find the stream soon. I added lentils this time and dug up a few potatoes from the garden, standing in the rain to wash the soil off them. I cut them up and added them to my soup. Set it all on the cooking pit and went back to my little house.

I set my back pack on under the rain poncho and slipped the knife into one of the side pockets, then put my hat back on and stepped out into the rain again. I didn’t bother to lock the door. Visitors were welcome. I stood in the middle of the clearing and looked around. Ezzy grazed under a tree, eyeing me consideringly. I turned and walked down her track to the beach. By my calculations, the tide should be out.

It was and I walked around the coast line, scrambling over the occasional fallen tree, glad I was wearing sturdy boots on the sharp shells. It wasn’t a long walk; not that time meant anything anymore. Days lasted from dawn until nightfall.

I eyed a flash of blue in the distance, the ruined hull of the fishing boat, looking already as though it had lain on the rocks for years.

Sea birds whirled overhead, grey bodies against grey sky, slicing through the rain. I reached Laingholm beach and looked around. The beach curved in a gentle crescent on one side of the estuary. Follow the coast around like I had just done and my tiny beach was at the tip of the tidal waters. To the right of Laingholm beach, lay the entrance to the harbour. My brother and I had kayaked up the coast one night, oars dipping into black water as we skimmed along. I had been worried about sharks, exhilarated nonetheless as we raced each other to the next beach. We’d had to turn around and paddle straight back, I remembered, the only way to get home again. That was when the exhilaration had faded and the night air chilled the sweat against my skin and my imagination ran on overload, as it conjured sleek silver shapes beneath the surface of the blackness. But we made it back of course, pulled our kayaks up to the very beach I stood on now, collapsed laughing and exhausted on the grass in our wetsuits and lit a joint, lying there for hours laughing and dreaming out loud. I would give anything to do that night over again.

I pulled myself back to the present and looked around. Over the years, the narrow valley in from the beach and the sharp hills on either side had sprouted or blossomed or however you wanted to look at it with a multitude of fashionable houses, digging their foundations into the land that had once been a haven from the rush and dirt of the city.

It appeared now, however, that nature was having the last laugh. I stood and looked, dumbfounded. The houses on the hillsides were gone. Impossible. So I looked again. They were gone. As though the earth had opened its mouth wide and swallowed them. I had no explanation for it. There was no explanation for it. The hills were richly carpeted in green. The bush covered everything. Everywhere was the damp smell of soil and plant life, the scent of a living, breathing earth.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

I stared at the new world around me and forgot what I’d come for. I forgot everything in the landscape before me. I forgot my name. With no anchor in the world I was adrift, a castaway on an island worlds away from anywhere. No hope of rescue. The hills rose above me and pressed inwards on me. I turned around and went back to the beach, sat down facing the water. The rain plunked into the rippling tide.

How long was it before I stirred? I’ve no idea, except that when I came to, the tide was well in, my route back home almost cut off. I’d lost most of a day in blankness. I stood up and the bush, dreadful in its lushness pushed in on me again. Standing, hands clutching head, fingers rigid in ragged hair, I looked and looked. I wanted to scream and yell, call for help. The words crowded into my throat. I bit down on them. Brought blood to my lips. If I started screaming I would never stop. Never. I wiped the blood from my lip and stood staring at the vivid red on my hand.

I sank to my knees, strange whimpering noises welling up inside me. I called for my mother. Crying out loud. Voice falling flat in the still air while the sea whispered at my back. Insidious, plotting whispers, planning my downfall. And why not? Why not just turn and wade into the tide until the current caught me in its clutches, dragging me out, dragging me under, tearing at my clothes, forcing my mouth open, forcing it way past teeth and tongue until I stopped struggling, until I never had to think or see again?

A harsh cawing sounded from within the bush. I looked up, holding my breath, wondering what had made that noise and scanned the bush to my right. From between ponga trees a large bird, plump body bristling with grey-brown feathers, stared back at me, intelligent eyes peering at me. Moa.

I straightened, slowly, not wanting to scare it away. How the fuck could this happen? A moa, for Christ’s sake. Impossible – they’d been extinct for hundreds of years.

Yet there it stood. Just a small one, maybe a meter and a half in height. It wasn’t nearly the height and majesty of the ones I’d seen in museum displays, but neither was it a kiwi by any stretch of the imagination. How, how could this be happening? It was as if time was slowly unravelling, the pages of time flipping backwards, the world in rewind. With me somehow a glitch in the process.

The bird cried out again. I found my feet, still staring, still unbelieving. We eyed each other. There was a movement behind the bird and it turned a moment before looking back to me. Something stood behind the bird. Something big, so very big. I swayed on my feet. Something indescribably ancient stood there in the bush behind the bird, its attention focused on me. I could see nothing, but oh God I could feel it. So old. As old as the land itself. I closed my eyes and waited for my end. I could hear the tide behind me, smell the rich fecundity of the bush, and over it all I could feel this enormous presence and I was insignificant, out of place. I dropped to my knees again, bowed my head and offered my neck in sacrifice.

I waited an age in darkness, helpless. Wandering in my mind, witless, cowering from the thing in the bush. The god who walked between the trees. Time was gone, I was following.

Something brushed against my cheek. Wet, warm, it blew against the back of my neck, nudging, pushing me. It snorted warm air on my cheeks. I opened my eyes and Ezzy pushed her nose into my face. I staggered to my feet and held onto her solid body.

The moa was gone. The other was gone. Behind me the waves lapped at my very feet and in front of me the clouds nested in the trees cladding the hills. My body ached and my clothes were caked in sand from my grovelling. I leaned against the horse and stared bleakly ahead. I was still here. Still here and breathing in and out. I practiced. In and out, in and out. I was going crazy. I closed my eyes and gave a tired snort. Can’t be crazy, I thought. Crazy people think they’re sane.

Ezzy shifted and gave me another nudge with her nose, like a mother urging her baby to stand. I got the hint and stood again on my own two feet. Swayed slightly, but stood. Ezzy led the way and I followed her off the beach, and walked across what was left of the road to what was left of the little Laingholm store. One foot in front of the other, breathing in and out.

It was a small wooden building, unchanged for more years than I could figure. The bush crowded up against it, stroking it with knuckled branches, but so far, leaving it intact. I had bought my first packet of cigarettes here when I was fourteen. I’d hidden in the bush until the school bus had left without me, until my parents were out of the way off to work. Then I’d sneaked back home and savoured the quiet. I’d grabbed a book to read and swiped a pack of chocolate biscuits from the cupboard; made coffee, then decided a cigarette would be just the thing.

I rubbed at the dirty glass and peered inside. It was dim in there; the light tinged green as though the whole world was organic now. I peeled back my lips in a kind of smile, thinking about myself at fourteen, walking the same way I’d come this morning, around the high tide line, into the shop, asking for a pack of Winfield Red because they were the brand my grandfather smoked. Taking them home, sitting outside and lighting one, choking and coughing on it and wondering how anyone could smoke something that tasted so bad. I’d stubbed the cigarette out and buried the packet in my bottom drawer and forgotten about them.

I looked around for Ezzy. She’d wandered away and was paddling in the waves, the tide fully in now. How much time had I spent on my knees? Casting a quick glance at the bush I turned back to the store, grasped the door handle and turned, not for one moment expecting it to open.

The door swung inwards, creaking on unoiled hinges, a horror movie creaking. I stood looking at the doorway. The door should have been locked. I thought of all the other shops I’d had to break into, all the windows I’d smashed over the last few weeks. All the houses locked up tight, drapes drawn. The roads empty except for a few cars. The door should have been locked.

I walked in anyway. It was dusty and a thin layer of dirt, dry soil, covered the floorboards. I listened to it crunch under my boots. The rain had ceased and dim sunlight strained to reach through the unbroken windows. I walked over to the counter. There was dirt over the top of this too. Running a finger along it I left a visible line. I looked around and lifted a box of candles off the shelf, took one out of the box and lit it. I dripped wax onto the counter and set the candle into it and the yellow light stretched outward, sending shadows in flurries to the corners.

There was an eclectic mix of goods on the shelves. Food items, that was good. Only two freezers - even better. No meat products. Drinks in one, ice creams in the other. Melted now and smelling of sour milk. I took a bottle of Coke out of the fridge and unscrewed the cap thinking that the sugar and caffeine were just what I needed. Holding the bottle I wandered back outside and circled the building. The bush stopped about a foot from the building. I puzzled over it as I drank down the Coke and squeezed between the trees and the wooden walls. I could walk the entire way round. There was no explanation that I could think of. Why was this building intact and the rest gone?

Back inside I ripped open a package of chocolate biscuits and helped myself. Hardly a balanced diet but what did I care? I’d soon be living on roots and ferns.

There were torches on the shelves too. Picking one up I flicked it idly on and off. It didn’t work. No batteries. I found some batteries and tried them but still no joy. That would have been just too good. Behind the counter a radio stood on the window sill. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. It was one of those transistor radios that has radio bands left right and centre. I stood holding it wishing I knew more about things - things other than books. I put batteries in the empty slots, taking out the power cord and rolled the switch to on. I scanned through all the bands but there was nothing, not even static. It was no real surprise. I put it back on the counter and helped myself to another chocolate biscuit instead.

The milk in the fridge was off. It stank. I gathered the bottles and took them outside, wrinkling my nose. One by one I emptied them and watched the milk seep into the dark brown ground. Then one by one I stood on the bottles and squashed them. They were good for nothing, reeking as they did. I didn’t know what to do with them after that so I placed them all carefully in the rubbish bin outside the shop. It was jammed up against some sort of tree with spiky leaves. I wished I knew more about my native trees. I reckoned that when I’d eaten all the food in the building, I would be glad of the knowledge.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

I sat on the shop floor with my back against the wall, facing the bush outside where the moa and…It had appeared. I couldn’t see outside though and I didn’t want to. I just sat and stared at the wall. It was dark now, the tide would be far enough out for me to make my way back home but still I sat there. I didn’t want to go back outside where the bush crowded around everything, obliterating houses as though no one had ever lived there.

I could feel it breathing. I could feel the bush swelling and growing around me. I could feel the trees stretching their branches, joints popping, barked skin swelling and stretching. They were overtaking everything. And somewhere amidst it all, something walked. I rested my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I was being fanciful again. I couldn’t really feel anything, I told myself, trying to make the voice talking in my head sound convincing.

I stretched and stood up, wanting my bed. My joints were aching from being tense all day, from cowering on the beach. I looked out the window, seeing only my reflection from the candlelight, hair curled in sweaty ringlets, eyes bruised in a pale face.

There was movement outside and I slid suddenly boneless to the floor. I held my breath and the blood rushed through my ears. I let go of the air trapped in my lungs and breathed, until I could hear again, and Ezzy whinnied. It was just Ezzy, just the horse, just my most faithful friend. Could I go outside to her? She was snuffling around the building, looking for me. I found my feet and crept to the door.

Pulling it open a crack I stuck my head out, listening, peering out into the blackness. Nothing. No walker in the woods, no ancient shadow stalking me. No pressure in the darkness. I pushed the door open and stepped outside, still cautious. ‘Ezzy,’ I whispered.

She stepped out of the darkness and nuzzled into me. I stroked her warm, solid neck. We were a pair, her and I. We needed each other. She turned her broad body to me and pushed against me. I patted her again and she pushed, more insistently this time.

‘Nuh uh, Ezzy, no freaking way,’ I whispered.

But she pushed and I held her steady. Giving in. Telling her to wait, I walked on rubber legs back into the shop to get my backpack. I grabbed a couple bottles of water and Coca Cola, some more coffee and another pack of chocolate. Then back outside, I pulled the door quietly closed.

Ezzy was waiting. Shaking my head in the dark, sure this was a bad idea I climbed awkwardly from the step onto her bare back. I entwined my fingers in her thick mane and decided I had to trust her. We were a team. Hadn’t she looked after me plenty of times already?

Out from the cover of the bush the clouds had cleared and the stars were out. A million of them, wheeling in the sky, brilliant silver against inky black. So intensely beautiful. I tilted my head back in wonder. Ezzy walked steadily and I looked at the stars. I hadn’t seen them this bright for years. The earth under the horse’s feet shrank down to size – just a tree covered rock in the vastness of that – that whirling glowing, spectacular universe. To be part of that, no matter how small a part – it took my breath away.

Ezzy cut into the bush and took my view away. I shivered and hunkered against her. Kept my eyes wide, trying to suck in any bit of light. I could only make out shapes as we followed some sort of track. The road, I realised. Ezzy was taking the road.

Except of course, it wasn’t a road any longer, just a track in the bush. I swatted an overhanging branch away and crouched down lower. I wanted to close my eyes the way I’d used to as a little girl in the car at night, blocking out the dark night speeding by, but I kept them open, senses preternaturally alert, listening for anything that might be walking in the bush too, stalking us in the bush. I started shaking and clung on tighter.

The night was alive with sounds. Birds calling, a breeze stirring in the tree tops, rustling in the undergrowth as small animals, no, more probably reptiles as I don’t think this country had any native mammals, went about their business. But nothing detached itself from the shadows, pulling them inwards like a shroud. Nothing walked with us. I shivered again, couldn’t believe I was letting Ezzy walk me through the night forest. My imagination cast shadows, accessing its own primal origins, searching in the darkness for danger, for the hungry wolf, the ambush. I decided I would be better off closing my eyes.

The track wound upwards and Ezzy’s swaying body gradually comforted me. Never though, had I been so glad to get home. Familiarity, they used to say, breeds contempt. But I’ve always thought more the word should have been comfort. Ezzy stopped in our clearing and I could hear the distant surf. A morepork hooted and Ezzy snorted softly. I slid from her back and hugged her. Where would I be without her?

She moved off under her favourite tree and I knew she would sleep now, one leg lifted onto the tip of the hoof, head down. I opened the door to my shed and slipped inside.

I decided during the night. Lying in bed sleepless, listening to the noises outside my door. Decided I couldn’t carry on like this.

I needed to find other people.

By morning I had something resembling a plan. Half hearted and half assed maybe, but a plan all the same. My hands were shaking as I lit the fire and made my coffee. I kept my eyes fastened on the task at hand and my hair hung over my face, shielding me from the bush, from anything in the bush. I looked at the packet of Winfield Red I’d taken from the shop in a fit of nostalgia. It lay on the table top and when I’d made the coffee I picked it up and ripped it open, fishing a cigarette from the packet and lighting it. I coughed as the smoke hit my throat, but inhaled anyway. Why the fuck not. I had a whole shop full of the stuff and no one to complain about second hand smoke.

I was being crazy; I knew it but I didn’t care. A crutch, that’s what it was, something to help me cope. Smoking was probably better than alcoholism.

I spent the next few weeks preparing. Getting my strength back, working in the garden, pulling weeds and harvesting potatoes and pumpkins, keeping my back turned from the bush and my eyes down. In the afternoons I went for a swim, floating in the calm water, staring up at the sky. Waves of isolation crashed over me and I shifted my gaze to the beach instead where Ezzy waited like a faithful dog. Was there a dog somewhere? Any people? I sighed and heaved myself from the water. Dried myself on the beach and stepped back into my clothes. Looked around for firewood to carry back and walked up the track home without a word.

One morning I was packed and ready to go. Nervous knots twisted in my stomach but I ignored them. I had packed the saddlebags again with tent and sleeping bag. Packed food for the trip, enough for a week on reduced rations, I hoped. Surely I would be able to find more. I hung a billy pot from the bag to cook the rice in. I filled my pockets with lighter and knife then picked up my hat and fitted it on my head. Ready to go now. I patted Ezzy, standing patiently, burdened with saddle and bags and looked around at my little home. I’d prepared as best I could. I just hoped we would be able to find the way back. It was possible we would get lost. I didn’t think the city could be there anymore. Not like it was anyway. Maybe I would never see this place again.

The road up to Titirangi village was a road no longer, it was just a barely discernable path through the trees. I sat hunched over on Esmeralda’s back, trusting her to pick her way along the path and up the hill to the remains of the village. There were odd bits of asphalt on the forest floor. The sun cast speckled light over Ezzy’s smooth, muscular neck. It took a good couple of hours, I think, to reach the ridge where Titirangi village used to sit. The path widened and I brought Ezzy to a halt, looking around. I slid out of the saddle and leaned against her, shaking my head.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

I almost got back on the horse and turned around, headed back homewards. That’s how bad it was.

There was nothing there anymore.

The village, so familiar to me all my life, where I’d come for swimming lessons as a child, where I’d always imagined bringing my own children for swimming lessons, it was gone, all gone. The village was a curving green ridge, grass almost glowing with health in the sun. Trees covered the basin of the valley beneath us and behind us. There was no sign of any buildings. It didn’t look like there had ever been any.

My stomach revolted and I leaned over, retching. Staggering, I straightened and leaned against the horse, closing my eyes against the view. It was hopeless. I breathed in the dusty scent of horse. It was useless. With everything gone, how was I supposed to find anyone?

I took another breath and willed myself to straighten. There was always a way, I told myself. And I would find it, and I wouldn’t take the time for doubts. I stood taller and looked around again. This was, for better or worse, my new world. I would walk tall through it.

The lecture helped. Leading Ezzy, I walked forward along the grassy ridge. The breeze was cool here and raised goose bumps on my bare arms. I ignored them, staring out over the valley and taking in the view.

The view was spectacular. Every hue of green represented, an emerald world, and birds, so many birds. Wheeling through the sky, crying out in the joy of freedom, or dancing from branch to branch, singing their little love songs. An ecologist’s wet dream.

I wondered if this is what the land had looked like before European settlers started logging and stripping and burning. It was lush and vibrant. The trees were big already. I dug into one of my pockets and pulled out the tiny but powerful pair of binoculars I had lifted from the sports shop in Orewa. I scanned the bush.

Already I could see that the whole ecosystem was restored. The various layers of bush were intact, as though it had been growing here for thousands of years. I tugged in a breath, reminding myself of the need to breathe. It was a breathtaking sight.

A korero, a wood pigeon, flew across my shoulder, startling me. I brought the glasses down and watched it swoop downwards into a near tree. Its feathers shined iridescent in the sun.

But bird watching and tree spotting weren’t what I’d come for. I chewed on my lip as I considered the next step. I’d decided to head towards the city, however little I relished that proposition.

But the city was gone. I knew it. For starters, I could see a little way in that direction and all there was were trees, trees and more trees. I needed some more ideas. I looked around the ridge I stood on, thinking, mind working feverishly.

‘Okay Ezzy,’ I told the horse who flicked her ears briefly in my direction. ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do.’ We walked along the ridge. ‘We need a better view,’ I said, filling the horse in. ‘We need to see over that way better.’ Indicating southwards, towards the city. A stand of trees grew at the far end of the ridge. I wanted to see past them, but I wanted the height that standing on the ridge gave me. I was going to have to climb one of the trees.

I was never a particularly tom-boyish girl, preferring a good book in general. But I’d built my fair share of huts, scaled my share of trees. Living in the bush as a kid it came naturally. Ironic really, considering the fact that the whole bloody country was now bush. I looked around for a suitable tree.

I picked a good sized beech, its trunk heading straight upwards, piercing the sky. I was going to have to get creative to reach its lowest branches though. Fortunately I had Ezzy. God knows how a horse had survived the Change, but I was profoundly grateful she had. I climbed back into the saddle and urged her closer to the tree. When she was in place and standing quietly I stood up. Balanced on the saddle I could wrap my hands around the branch. But was I strong enough to pull myself up?

My arm muscles burning I gave a little jump and heaved myself upwards. From there it was easy, clambering from branch to branch in an ever higher spiral. I found myself grinning. I looked down; Ezzy was far below, chewing on a fern. I whooped and she looked up, her expression wondering what the crazy woman was up to now. I laughed and climbed upwards again, hauling myself from branch to branch, feeling my muscles work, realising just how fit I’d become in the last month or more.

It was spectacular from up here. I could see for miles. In the distance the blue water of the Waitemata Harbour glistened in the sun and all around me the land undulated, carpeted in green. I fumbled one handed in the pocket of my pants, groping for the binoculars.

The Change wasn’t complete yet. The Sky Tower was gone for sure. And scarily, so was the harbour bridge. Either that or I was simply in the wrong place to see it from here. My heart pounded in my breast at the thought though, remembering the eventful trip Ezzy and I had made across it. We’d been lucky for sure, if it was gone now.

Here and there though, I could see vestiges of the civilisation I had grown up with. There were still pockets of buildings. Here and there the gleam on a wall, or light reflecting off an iron roof. The binoculars were hurting my eyes I was holding them so tightly against my face. I lowered them a moment, considering. Where was the best place to find other people?

I shifted position, arm wrapped around the trunk of the tree and put the glasses back to my eyes. There must be somewhere that made sense to find others. One thing was for sure – it probably wasn’t stuck out in the little valley I’d been living in.

Then I knew. Of course! Central, elevated, unlikely to be coated in trees. I scanned the horizon, looking for it, for the familiar dome of hill, maybe even for the obelisk. One Tree Hill. I would make my way there, scope out the lay of the land, it was the ideal place, I was sure of it.

I couldn’t make out the dormant volcano from here. If it was still dormant, of course. With time seemingly topsy-turvy, maybe the volcanoes all over the city would wake up and vent their fiery fury. I peered through the glasses, estimating the spot where the Sky Tower had once thrust itself upwards in all its phallic glory and then I swept over to the east, where One Tree Hill, should still be, perhaps still without its one tree, or probably more likely with a whole crop of them.

I stood up, grabbing at the tree to steady myself. There was something. I could see something there.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

I leaned forward, still staring intently through the field glasses, almost losing my balance. Yes, I was sure of it. Almost sure of it, I amended. Sure enough, I argued. I took one last look then put the binoculars away and turned, scrabbling down the tree, grinning like a lunatic chimpanzee. I wondered if there were chimpanzees in the world anymore. I nodded to myself as I reached a booted foot out for the next branch. Probably more apes than people, I decided. I snorted. Not that any of it made sense at all. I cast the silly thoughts away and hung from the bottom branch, flailing around for Ezzy, calling her closer.

I let go and collapsed onto her back, teetering for a moment on the edge of falling off and hitting the ground. I swore and grabbed a hand full of mane. The horse startled and reared a half a metre. Shit. I clung on and rode it out and she danced a moment then quietened. It was still morning and I’d had too many adventures already.

I felt drunk. Dizzy drunk, grinning away and jabbering to the horse as I sat up and put my feet in the stirrups. I pulled a water bottle out of the backpack and took a swig in between ravings. Ezzy shook her head and pawed at the ground, shying sideways and turning around until we were facing the way we had come just a short while ago.

Oh God, I could feel it now too. An enormous shadow cast over the sun, pulling at the edges of my mind, darkening everything with a raw, damp sense of primal energy.

Ezzy took two backwards steps and stood, ears flickering. I stared across the ridge, toward the tree line, where the track to Laingholm came out, where we had walked not an hour ago. I stared, mesmerised, pulverised. There was movement, or even just the sense of movement, I didn’t know for sure. I sat, slumped in the saddle, breath screaming in and out, waiting. I closed my eyes and visions crowded my mind. Rivers, trees, mountains, a landscape so vast and old I thought I would die from vertigo. I groped for the reigns, forcing my eyes open with a strangled gasp.

A moa wandered out from the trees and walked casually across the grass. It stopped and lowered its long neck, pecking like a chicken for grubs in the grass. I stared at it, hypnotised. It raised its head again and looked straight at me, its eyes large in its brown head. Behind it the pressure built, behind my eyes the pressure pushed at me. With a sudden, panicked movement I dug my heels into the horse’s side and twisted her away. She came more out of fright than anything and we were crashing through the bush, heedless of branches whipping against us, plunging through the trees and down the side of the ridge.

Behind us, the shadow waited for a different time.

Eventually Ezzy slowed her headfirst plunge down the steep sides of the ridge. She didn’t have much choice – the bush was thick with undergrowth while above our heads, tall trees bent and waved. We moved ahead at walking pace, the reigns slack in my hands as Ezzy picked her way through the trees.

There was a smell of salt in my nose and the trees cleared. We came out of the bush at a beach. I tried to figure out which beach, thinking we probably hadn’t gone too far. Reading the map in my head I decided this was Wood Bay. We walked along the beach and took a look at the situation. At either end of the beach the land swept upwards into small cliffs. Unfortunately, there was no way to keep moving in the right direction around the waterfront. If I hadn’t Ezzy with me, I could have kayaked around the waterline, provided I found a boat. I contemplated it anyway.

There was still a small boatshed standing. I pulled the horse to a stop and slid off her back, stumbling when my feet hit the ground. I leaned against her a moment, legs weak. I looked back at the trees. Had we been followed? I could see or feel nothing. No heavy sense of power lurking in the shadows, no moa standing in the sun looking at me. I shook my head and went to investigate the boatshed. It was padlocked, but I was sure I could break it open. The weatherboards were silver with age, the paint curling like old orange peel.

A dilemma. Ezzy was cropping at the grass, only the nervous flicking of her ears letting me know she was still rattled after our headlong plunge through the trees.

I couldn’t leave her, even if paddling was the quickest way. Even if it meant finding other people that much sooner. I couldn’t in good conscience leave her. We had been through so much together. She was loyal to me. The least I owed her was the same.

I looked out over the beach, wondering how to go about this. With little in the way of roads now, it was going to be a substantial trek over to One Tree Hill. Paddling round to Onehunga would be so much quicker. I sighed, walked back to Ezzy and swung myself back into the saddle.

We walked the rest of the way down the beach then headed inland a little where we climbed the hill, making zigzag tracks through the trees that jostled each other for coastal views. Then we headed back down onto the beach again, this time thinking it must be Green Bay. We were able to stay on the beach for longer this time, and I started to think that maybe we would be able to make good progress after all. I kept casting nervous glances behind me, feeling again and again the prickling itch on the back of my neck that felt like eyes watching me. But I never saw anything. We kept moving. The tide began to slide back from the beach, leaving reluctant trails of seaweed behind like a promise to come back. I forgot myself and looked at my wrist to check the time. Nothing but a smattering of freckles there. I’d finally taken Hemi’s watch off when it kept slapping heavily against my wrist when I was chopping wood. I closed my eyes briefly and chased away his memory. There were some things I couldn’t afford to think of.

I checked the position of the sun instead. Only coming up noon, I estimated. We should have been further ahead. I did not want to spend the night in the bush. I frowned over the presence back in the trees at Titirangi. It was the same one I’d seen/ felt there on the beach at Laingholm. And I had a suspicion we’d met before at the zoo. I shivered despite the sun and rubbed Ezzy’s neck just to feel her warmth. Cast a nervous glance into the bush. I was being stalked. But by what? What did it want from me?

I wished suddenly that I had decided after all to go by boat. I’d be half way there by now. I urged the horse to move faster. Ezzy flattened her ears against her head but picked up her pace.

There was a sudden movement behind us and a bird flew up into the air, squawking in protest. I looked and the branches vibrated where the bird had left them, but I couldn’t see anything. Something tickled at the back of my mind. Not the same pressure as before, but more of a tickling, a few light footsteps. I looked away, not wanting to think about it.

I didn’t let us stop for lunch, just pulled an apple from the backpack and ate it while we moved. The apple tree my parents had planted when I was born was still standing. Not being any sort of a native plant I’d checked it every morning until I’d decided it wasn’t going to disappear. The pear tree to commemorate my brother’s birth was still standing too, the golden fruit ripening nicely. Sitting on Ezzy’s rolling back I thought about the fruit trees and vegetable garden, the clearing where I had my shed to live in. It was almost as though I was being allowed food and shelter. I squashed that thought in a hurry too. The idea of being fed and fattened only led to one question. For what?

It was time to head back inland. This was going to be the hard part. If we could find the remains of a main road, we’d be better off. With that in mind, I urged Ezzy forward.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

I cursed the thick bush and thought about going back and doing it by boat after all. I’d seen a kayak through the gaps in the boat shed. I was hot, tired and sweating. Insects were whining around my neck and face and I was getting tired of swatting them away. Ezzy was struggling too. I was trying to keep the sound of the sea to our right, but all I could hear now was the heat in my ears and the buzz of insects. The ground just here was swampy, Ezzy’s hooves sinking with each step. Both of us were hot and discouraged. And I kept imagining eyes upon me, something in the bush watching me. We had to get there soon, simply had to.

The ground began to rise finally and grew solid again. Ezzy was heaving great breaths in and out and when we’d gone a little further on firmer ground I brought her to a halt and climbed down. She needed a rest. I took the bags but left the saddle on. I could hear the sea again. I put the bags down and gave Ezzy a pat, then walked a little way to investigate.

We were still close to the harbour all right, just as I’d planned. Somewhere round where? Lynnfield? Hillsborough? Not as far as Hillsborough yet, I decided. Perched on top of a cliff I looked out over the Manukau Harbour, gazing over towards Managere. There were trees everywhere. Everywhere there wasn’t water, there were trees. I was sick of the sight of trees. I turned back to go find Ezzy. We were on the right track, at least.

I flung myself down against another tree and fished a packet of crackers out of the back pack. We would stay here for another five minutes then get moving again. I looked up at the sky; it was clouding over, the sky turning grey between the top branches. We had to get there before dark. What time was it now? The sun was coming from the west already which made it afternoon sometime. It was taking longer than I’d expected.

There was no way I wanted to spend the night out here in the bush. I rubbed the back of my neck unable to dispel the thought I was being watched. My imagination was working in overdrive; there was no pressure, no tickling presence in the back of my mind. Whatever it was, its attention was elsewhere and that was just the way I liked it. That was just fine by me. I leaned back against the tree and closed my eyes. I could hear Ezzy snorting gently to herself, no doubt castigating herself for being crazy enough to come along on the trip with me. Oh jeeze. I wiped a hand over my face. I was going nuts. Attributing thoughts to the horse. I needed people. If I didn’t find people soon, I really might start to lose my mind. If that thing in the bush didn’t have me for dinner first.

This wasn’t the way to be thinking. I stood up and called Ezzy. Sitting amidst a swarm of bloodthirsty insects arguing with myself was neither healthy nor productive. It was time to get moving. I had to get to One Tree Hill and the smoke I was sure I had seen rising from the old volcano. I sure as hell hoped it was a cooking fire not an eruption. I swung awkwardly into the saddle.

We trekked up and down hills another hour before I realised the air had cooled and the insects had started to leave me alone. I sat up straighter and looked around. Where the hell were we? I hadn’t been paying attention.

I pulled Ezzy to a halt and sat there, listening. I could hear the horse breathing, I could hear the wind rasping in the never ending trees, but that was it. Nothing else. I couldn’t hear the sea. We were inland.

I rubbed my hands across my face. My eyes itched as though I hadn’t blinked for a month. I tried to think back to my last coherent thought. I remembered stopping for a break, looking over the cliff at the harbour. I remembered clambering onto Ezzy’s back again and cursing the insects. But that was it.

I peered up through the trees. The sky was dark slate, the bits of it I could see though the spider web of fringed branches. Sometime during the past hour or two the weather had changed. I shivered. Rain was on the way. Rain was on the way and I didn’t know where we were and I didn’t know what time it was but I suspected a good part of the day was already gone.

Taking a deep breath I looked around again, wondering for the hundredth time where all the houses had gone, how it was possible for them to disappear so completely. And in such a short time too - a month, six weeks? My mind felt foggy. With a rising sense of desperation I thought again of our destination, and that thin rill of smoke rising from the obelisk that amazingly had still risen in phallic supremacy from One Tree Hill. That was where I needed to be. Because there was someone there, I was sure of it.

But where was I now? It was impossible to tell, stuck here in the middle of a great green forest. Ezzy stood patiently underneath me and I gave her a pat. It wasn’t her fault I’d blanked out for a while. If it wasn’t for her I would have gone crazy long before.

‘Okay, okay, don’t worry we can do this.’ My voice was husky. Feigning nonchalance, I dismounted and pulled a cigarette from the pack in my pocket. Lighting it with a flip of the Zippo, I took a deep drag and looked around. It was darkening, shadows starting to throw their little shadow parties in between the trees. I was going to have to climb one of the damn trees again. I was starting to hate trees. There must be parts of the country not covered in the bloody things. When I’d found the people at One Tree Hill, maybe we could stage an exodus to untried parts.

I ground the cigarette under a heel and started climbing, shoulders and muscles straining as I made my way farther and farther upwards.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

I was a little girl again, running around in bare feet and a home-made dress. My mother was laughing, the sun kissing her blond hair and my father was there too, following me around with a big grin on his face and the video camera in his hand. I dived towards a hole leading under the house, never minding my chubby knees on the dirt. The cat had given birth to her kittens under there and I wanted to see the stripy balls of fluff.

‘Kitty kitty kitty, come here kitty,’ I called.

And woke up, disoriented. There was a loud noise, what was that? My head was splitting, pounding, a cacophony of pain. And somewhere, something else was hurting. I shifted, and felt the rise of nausea. Rolling to my side I retched. And hands smoothed my face, and held something, a bowl.

I was dreaming. Had to be. Dreaming. Lying back, the hands didn’t leave. Warm, dry, they brushed against my skin, pushed my hair back from my face. Hands, real. I forced my eyes open.

She was smiling down at me, hands reaching for mine reaching for her. A real live person, here. Oh my God, I was grinning too, I could feel it, and tears, there were tears in my eyes. I held up a hand and touched the face above me. Real, it was real.

‘You’re real,’ I croaked out and the face broke into the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.

‘More real than anything else round here,’ the face said. ‘As real as you. Good God but I’m pleased to see you. And especially glad you’re still alive. What happened?’

I was confused. What had happened? ‘I fell out of a tree,’ I said at last. ‘I feel sick.’

She held the bowl again for me. Charming way to make a new friend.

‘You’ve got a huge bump and gash on your head,’ she said. ‘A whopping concussion too, would be my guess. I’ve patched up your head as best I can, but you’re not going to want to be up and about any time real soon.’

I groaned; that explained the nuclear war going on inside my skull. ‘My foot hurts,’ I said.

‘Yeah, you did some damage there too. I think it’s only a sprain. I hope it’s only a sprain, ‘cos I’m not a doctor. Don’t you know better than to go climbing trees these days?’

That was a bit much. ‘I was looking for you,’ I told her. ‘I saw smoke.’ I tried to look around. ‘Where are we? How’d you find me?’ I looked at her again. ‘What’s your name?’ I groped around for her hand and held it tight. A wave of elation overwhelmed me. A real live person. I wasn’t the only one! She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

She was grinning back at me. ‘I’m Pania, pleased to meet you,’ she said.

‘Cass,’ I said. ‘I’m Cass.’

‘And I’m just going to empty this bowl, then I’ll answer all your questions. Rest a moment, okay, I’ll be right back.’

She disappeared. I closed my eyes, felt desperately sick. But there was still a smile on my face, I could feel it. I could feel it there as I drifted off.

‘Wake up.’ She was shaking gently at my shoulder. ‘Wake up. You have a concussion, I don’t know exactly what you’re supposed to do for those, but I don’t think I’m supposed to let you sleep.’ I tried my best to pry my eyes open.

My brother had a concussion once. Last day of high school, his mates dropped him home after what had obviously been quite some celebration. He was shaking Dad’s hand, grinning drunkenly when he let go and fell backwards, smacking his head onto the floor and that was it, out for the count with an egg growing on his head.

‘I can sleep, but you gotta keep waking me up and checking I’m still ok.’ I shrugged and my head howled in pain. ‘Not that we can do much if my brain’s bleeding or something.’

Her face was a look of horror. ‘That’s it. No climbing trees or anything else dangerous.’

I closed my eyes and smiled. ‘Do you have any painkillers?’ I asked. ‘Then you can tell me how you found me.’

She gave me two small tablets and held me while I swallowed some water with them. ‘These are yours. You carry the good stuff, I see.’

I grinned feebly. ‘Codeine. I raided every pharmacy I could find. Before they all disappeared.’

She nodded, matter of fact. ‘I did the same.’

I looked around. ‘We’re in a tent. Where’s Ezzy?’

‘Ezzy must be your horse? You wouldn’t believe what it was like to see that horse materialise out of the rain.’ She stopped and shook her head at the thought. Her black hair swung around her shoulders. ‘It was something out of a dream. Then I realised, she had a saddle on. A saddle but no rider. And she was agitated.’ She shrugged. ‘Are you warm enough?’ she interrupted herself.

I nodded, then cringed. I’d have to take a few more pills before I did any boogying. ‘Ezzy’s all right?’

‘She was just outside when I went out there before. I’ve unloaded her and taken the saddle off.’ She laughed and it was the most beautiful sound ever. ‘This is your tent. You were too badly hurt to move, so I just set up camp around you.’ She stopped talking and stiffened. An owl hooted and she relaxed again. ‘Your horse led me here,’ she said. ‘She led me straight to you. If it wasn’t for that horse out there, I don’t know what state you’d be in.’

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

I came around in the morning, head swimming, to the sound of more rain, and closer, the sound of Pania’s breathing. Never have I heard a sweeter sound. I decided to experiment with movement and pulled myself onto my elbows. My head sloshed terribly on my shoulders and the world went momentarily black but my vision cleared and my head settled down to a steady pounding I decided I could live with.

Pania was lying beside me, curled up under her share of the sleeping bag. She hadn’t wanted to leave me to fetch her own sleeping things from her camp. I hadn’t wanted her to go either, so we’d shared. She was rolled tight on her side, black hair gleaming quietly in the shadows, coffee coloured skin beautiful in the light. I wanted to reach out and touch her, make sure she was still real.

My bladder was pressuring me to empty it. How the fuck I was going to manage that I hadn’t a clue. Sitting up properly I caught sight of my foot. Which I now realised was similar to my head - throbbing like a bitch. Smothered in pristine white bandages, it was twice its usual size. This was going to make things supremely difficult. The pressure increased and it was either make a move or wet my pants. I didn’t fancy the latter option so groaning quietly so as not to wake the woman sleeping next to me (a real live person!) I manoeuvred myself onto my knees, stopping then to check whether I was going to faint. The greyness passed and I unzipped the tent. Damn, I needed a walking stick; I was never going to get to my feet otherwise.

Out of the rain something warm and wet nudged me and Ezzy’s great head pushed lovingly against mine.

‘Oh Ezzy,’ I whispered, stroking her nose, ‘Ezzy I heard what you did. You saved my life, you beautiful girl.’

There was movement behind me and Pania appeared at the gap in the tent. ‘You should be lying down,’ she said.

‘Call of nature,’ I told her. ‘Urgent. I need a stick to lean on or something though.’

Pania shook her head. ‘Don’t have one of those. You’ll have to lean on me.’ She stood up and offered me her arm.

‘Good grief this is going to be undignified,’ I muttered and she laughed.

‘Who the hell cares? I promise not to tell anyone I had to help you pee.’

I spluttered and next thing we were giggling and laughing as the rain came pouring down between the trees, soaking us as we stumbled around in the undergrowth, the horse following us, ears flickering at our noise.

Back in the tent I collapsed in a sodden mess. My head was pounding and I tried not to notice I was getting everything wet. It was cold too. Pania must have been thinking along the same lines.

‘We have to get out of here,’ she decided. ‘It’s too wet to stay here; I want to take you back to my camp so we can get some dry clothes and something to eat.’ She crouched in the doorway, chewing her lip. ‘If I can get you on the horse, do you think you will be all right? It’s only about fifteen minutes away.’

I could only nod. And that was a mistake. I rolled over and retched again. Fortunately my stomach was empty.

‘That settles it. You’re not really in any state to be moved, but we can’t stay here either. I’m taking you back to camp. We’ll just have to be real careful.’

‘Do you know how to put Ezzy’s saddle back on?’ I croaked.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ Pania said. ‘But it’s not like it’s rocket science, right? I’ll figure it out.’ She backed out of the tent. ‘Stay here,’ she added.

No problem. I lay and listened to the drumming of the rain on the fabric of the tent. Outside I could hear the rise and fall of Pania’s voice as she sweet talked the horse. I closed my eyes. I’d done it. Found someone. I wasn’t the last of my kind after all. I sighed.

Pania woke me. ‘We’re all set. Just need you now.’ She helped me sit up and I touched my bandaged head with a tentative hand. ‘I need my hat’ I said.

She handed it to me. ‘It’s not going to fit properly,’ she warned me. ‘Come on, this rain isn’t showing any sign of easing so we might as well get this over and done with. I’m going to leave the tent here for now. I’ll come back and get it later if that’s okay?’

It was fine by me. I crawled painfully out of the tent and Pania helped me up onto my one good leg. My right ankle hurt even if the leg was merely jarred. I was no expert on these matters, but I didn’t think I’d be walking on it anytime soon. On top of that, my head was aching horribly. ‘Can I have some more codeine?’ I asked.

‘Shit,’ Pania said, ‘I should have thought of that to begin with. Damn it. If we can get you on the horse, what’s her name? I’ll get you some painkillers straight away.’

Ezzy was standing patiently by a tree. Her saddle was on her back, with the bags attached. I gave her a tired smile and leaned against her flank a moment.

‘You’re going to have to hold my knee and boost me up,’ I said to Pania.

She did just that and Ezzy stood rock solid until I was perched on her back, somewhat precariously, but hanging on all the same. I gave the horse an encouraging pat and smiled down at Pania.

‘Ready when you are,’ I told her.

I don’t know how the woman knew where to go, it seemed like an aimless wander through the woods, but I did have my eyes closed for a good part of the trip. Eventually though, the rain came harder and louder and I opened my eyes and looked around. We were out of the trees and winding our way up the conical hill that used to be called One Tree Hill. The concussion must have made me soft in the head because I called down to Pania.

‘We could rename the whole country if we wanted to,’ I told her.

She gave me a weird look and laughed. She wiped water from her face and nodded. ‘Change the name of this place definitely,’ she said. ‘Nothing whatsoever to do with trees.’

I couldn’t help but agree. The higher we climbed the better view we had of, well, trees. And just to make it more interesting, more trees.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

‘This is a cosy place you have here,’ I told Pania as she fiddled around with a gas cooker and kettle. ‘What made you pick One Tree Hill as a place to stay?’

She was pouring hot water into a coffee plunger now. The smell was fabulous. ‘How do you have your coffee? Milk? Sugar?’

I gaped at her. ‘Milk?’

She shrugged. ‘Well yeah, it’s only powdered stuff but it’s okay.’

‘I don’t have any of that at home,’ I said, thinking of my meagre stockpiles. Why didn’t I have any powdered milk? I couldn’t think of a good answer to that one.

‘Where is home, as you put it? Pania was asking me.

‘Laingholm,’ I told her. ‘My parents lived there. I still have their vegetable garden and, unbelievably, fruit trees, but the house is gone. I live in the garden shed.’ I was lying on a camp bed in a tent. I had to admit it was large and comfortable, and from what I could tell from where I was lying, she had it amazingly well stocked. Lots of gas canisters and food. I wondered how she had transported everything up here. ‘What made you pick here?’ I asked again.

She gave me a strange look. ‘Central,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I built a bonfire and kept it lit. I figured if there were anyone else out there, this would be an easy place to see and find.’

It was so sensible. For the second time, I wondered what I’d been thinking the last couple months. ‘It’s the perfect place,’ I agreed. ‘I should have done the same, I guess.’

She shrugged again and passed me a mug of coffee. ‘We found each other anyway, so it all worked out.’

I tried the coffee, it was delicious. ‘Sure, but it could have happened weeks ago.’

‘Don’t worry about it. The important thing is what we’re going to do now.’

I shook my head and immediately regretted it. I touched the bandages. Pania leapt up.

‘Let’s change these bandages and have a look at the damage. Then you can get some rest. That’s probably the best idea for now.’

I was already in clean, dry clothes and Pania’s plan sounded a good one. Despite the coffee I was tired and my ankle throbbed painfully. She tended to me with a firm touch, and there was no gasp of horror at the state of my head under the wrappings so I deduced I wouldn’t quite be dying anytime soon. With two more codeine tablets safely in my stomach I lay back and closed my eyes. Later, I thought, later I would find out all about my new friend. There were shadows in her eyes. But they probably matched the ones in my own. With that thought I slept.

I woke to a hissing yellow light and the fragrant smell of food. For a moment I thought I was dreaming, back at Mereana’s house up north, and any moment now Hemi would come swaggering at me, his grin making me weak at the knees.

Of course, it wasn’t Hemi busy over food. The sun wasn’t shining, I wasn’t up North enjoying surf, sand and sex. I never would be again. My head ached and tears glistened at my eyes. Pania turned and looked at me. She must have seen something in my face because she came over and kneeled beside me.

‘I thought you were someone else,’ I said. ‘Just for a moment I was dreaming.’ I made a feeble effort at a smile.

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘I know what you mean.’ She opened her arms and I sat up into them. ‘Still, you know,’ she said, trying to laugh, ‘this is a hell of an improvement on being the last goddamned person on the planet.’

I nodded and sniffed.

‘You want to tell me about it?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said eventually. ‘I’m sure we pretty much know how it goes, right?’ I swung my legs over the edge of the cot. ‘What’s cooking? It smells amazing.’

She moved back to the little stove. ‘Fried rice and damper,’ she said. ‘It’s almost ready. I’ve a bottle of wine too but I don’t know if that’s such a good idea since you’ve been chewing codeine all day.’

I giggled. ‘Sounds perfect to me. But right now I gotta use the ladies room. Is it still raining out there?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah. Here - I made this for you while you were sleeping.’ She fetched something from the corner and brought it over. A walking stick.

‘You made this?’ I asked. “It’s beautiful.’ Cunningly carved from a sturdy branch, it was decorated with interlocking whorls.

‘Carving used to be a bit of a hobby of mine,’ she said.

‘Wow, you’re very talented.’ I put my weight on it and stood. It was the perfect height. ‘This is going to make life easier for a bit,’ I said. ‘And I’ll treasure it even after.’

She smiled. ‘Rain gear’s over there. You going to need a hand?’

‘I’ll yell if I need you,’ I said.

‘Okay. Food’s almost ready.’

It was incredibly dark outside. The rain was an insidious drizzle, forcing me to hurry about my business. Afterwards, I stood a moment, leaning on the stick, peering into the darkness. The tent glowed softly in front of me but all around was blackness, silent except for the hum of rain. I picked my way back to the tent, squinting at the ground, hoping not to trip on anything.

The ground moved and I went sprawling. Lying prone on the wet grass I felt every undulation of the earth beneath me. I kept my eyes on the tent as it swayed in front of me. The ground dipped and heaved crazily and I wanted to be sick again.

Finally the ground slowed its movement and settled back to feeling solid again. I swallowed and lifted my head. Pania was at the door of the tent, screaming my name.

‘It’s okay,’ I croaked out. ‘I’m over here, I’m okay.’ I pushed myself back up on unsteady legs. Pania materialised at my side.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I thought we’d had the last of those. Are you sure you’re all right?’

She didn’t have a coat on, was getting wet. ‘I’m okay, let’s get back inside.’ I leaned heavily on her and limped back to the tent. Stripped the rain gear off, realised my hat was outside on the ground somewhere and couldn’t be bothered worrying about it.

‘How many of these have there been?’ I asked, remembering- God how could I not? Remembering the awful day crossing the Harbour Bridge.

Pania was shaking her head, face buried in a towel. ‘They were happening every day,’ she said, ‘then none for a few days.’ She poured two glasses of wine with a shaking hand. ‘I’m not happy about them. Something’s brewing, and if it’s what I think it is, then we are in seriously deep shit.’ She passed a glass to me and took a deep drink of her own.

I sat on the edge of the camp bed. ‘I haven’t felt any of these where I’ve been. There were some terrible ones when I was in the city which was what, couple months ago, but honestly, I haven’t felt anything out west.’ I stopped and took a swig from my own glass. Red wine; it was good. ‘So what’s happening? What do you think it is?’

Pania moved back to the stove. ‘This is ready, she said. We have to eat. I’ll tell you while we’re eating.’

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

The food was good, and I was hungry. But when Pania started talking in earnest, I put down my fork and reached for the wine instead. She was right. Deep shit.

‘I’ve been keeping an eye on it for the last few days. At first I thought I was imagining it.’ Pania shook her head. ‘At first I thought it was another person. Down by the harbour, you know, I thought they’d lit a fire.’ She rubbed at her neck. ‘I went down there to have a look. Of course. Though if it was a person I couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t seen my bonfire and come searching for me.’ She stopped to take a breath. ‘Anyway. It wasn’t a person. And I think I knew that all along.’ She shrugged and we poured more wine.

‘The city’s taken a bit longer to be overrun by the trees,’ she continued. ‘There are still lots of buildings. Bits of buildings, rather. It’s a really creepy place.’ She took a sip of wine and looked up at the roof of the tent. ‘The smoke wasn’t coming from a fire. It wasn’t smoke at all. Out in the harbour basin, there’s steam rising from the water. Something’s under there and it’s real hot. Down at the harbour side, the ground is moving, lots of little tremors. Not so many that you can feel up here. Up here you only feel the bigger ones.’

She stared at me over the rim of her glass. ‘I think it’s a volcano.’

I wanted to grab my stuff and hustle us out the door right there and then. I closed my eyes briefly. Hadn’t there already been enough upheaval?

‘I haven’t felt any earthquakes out at Laingholm,’ I said. ‘I think we should go there. If there’s an eruption, we might be far enough away.’ I looked at her. ‘Would we be far enough away?’

Pania shrugged. ‘Possibly. Probably. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this shit. I make jewellery for fucks sakes.’

‘But this is serious,’ I said. ‘I don’t think we should stay here. I think we should get out of here as soon as possible.’

‘Yeah, that’s fine. But where are we going to go?’

‘How much time do you reckon we have?’

Pania shrugged again. My mind was working furiously. What were our choices?

‘I don’t think we should head south,’ Pania said after a while. ‘The whole volcanic plateau heads down that way. Taupo’s nothing but a huge volcanic crater. Wellington’s probably the most dangerous place in the country and we’d have a bloody hard time catching a ferry across Cook Strait just at the moment.’

‘We’re not going to make huge progress whatever direction we go in,’ I said. ‘That bush out there is thick.’ I chewed on my lip, thinking hard. ‘We would need to be organised. And we don’t have time for that. Do we?’

Pania shrugged again, lifted her glass to her lips. And promptly dropped it as the ground underneath us rippled like waves at the beach. Pania’s face was white. ‘I don’t think we have long,’ she whispered as we stared at each other.

When the trembling stopped, we agreed. ‘We leave in the morning. Head back to my place, take whatever next steps we need to from there,’ I said. ‘I hope Ezzy is still around,’ I added.

We were up as soon as the day began to lighten. There had been two more tremors during the night, but for now everything seemed more or less calm. I hobbled to the door of the tent and peered outside. It was still wet out and cold. I realised how far through the year we suddenly were. Autumn was just around the corner. Then Winter. Hibernation time. Where would we be hibernating this year? Hell, what would we be eating?

I thought about my little garden shed, my pile of firewood, the stores from the shop. It was better than nothing. I shook my head. It was a start, that was all. And if we were to survive, our best chances would be to settle somewhere and hunt, fish and garden.

The ground slid underfoot again, undulating almost gently for a second or two. I tightened my grip on the walking stick. First things first, I decided. We were getting out of here. I stepped outside and called for Ezzy.

A few minutes later she appeared over the edge of the hill and walked up to me for a pat and nuzzle. I obliged on both scores then attached her bridle and hooked the end of it around a tent pole. I couldn’t take any chances of her wandering away. Pania came and stood beside me.

‘I wish we had a way of taking all this stuff with us,’ she said.

I had to agree. She was incredibly well stocked. ‘We’ll take as much as we can, but it’s only going to be what we can carry.’ I looked down at my bandaged ankle, wishing I could walk better on it. ‘If I could walk better, we could load Ezzy with more,’ I said, thinking out loud.

The ground lurched underfoot and we clutched at each other. Ezzy rolled her eyes and backed away. I grabbed the reigns. In the distance, something rumbled, deep throated and ominous. Pania and I looked at each other.

‘We’d better get on with this,’ she said.

The rumbling continued throughout the morning as we readied ourselves to leave. Or rather, as Pania got ready. I wasn’t much help. My ankle was still incredibly sore and it was as much as I could do to hobble around with the aid of the walking stick Pania had carved for me.

I could tell Pania was uncomfortable with having to leave everything behind. I thought of my own small place with a mixture of relief that it was there and anxiety to get back to it. In the end she simply packed up her clothes in a backpack, along with a few things that obviously held personal significance.

‘I’m just about ready,’ she said, breaking into my thoughts. ‘Can we take some of this food, do you think?’

‘Some of it at least,’ I agreed, though poor Ezzy was already looking overloaded. I would have to walk some of the way, I thought.

There was the horrible rumbling outside again, but this time the sound didn’t grumble to an end. It grew louder, a roaring that didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before. We rushed to the door and outside, straining to look down over what used to be our biggest city.

The harbour basin had erupted. The noise carried on as we watched in dumbstruck horror as a fountain of volcanic material was thrown upwards into the sky. Smoke and steam crowded the horizon. The pressure under the earth’s crust must have been immense; even from this distance, we could see the eruption gaining strength, the jet of rock and fire gaining in height, the sky around us falling prematurely dark as clouds of ashy smoke filled the sky. There was a smell of sulphur in the air.

‘The wind’s blowing over the harbour,’ Pania said, clutching at my shoulder in shock. ‘Devonport’s going to get the worst of it. For now,’ she added.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said, turning to her, immensely relieved not to be on my own. ‘You ready to go? This is way too much for me.’ As if on cue, the ground slipped and slid underneath our feet as another quake shook the very foundations of the hill. ‘I hope volcanoes aren’t contagious,’ I added. ‘Seeing as how we're standing right on top of one.’

That was enough to get us moving. Ezzy still stood tied to the tent, rolling her eyes in desperation to be gone. We knew exactly how she was feeling.

I reached for her. ‘Hush, sweetheart,’ I said to her, stroking her in an effort to calm. ‘We’re going now; it’s going to be okay.’

She calmed enough for me to clamber awkwardly into the saddle. Pania hefted her pack onto her back and I handed her my walking stick. She led the way down the grassy flanks of the hill, heading for the tree line at the point we’d come out of it just a day ago. In fifteen minutes the trees blotted out the sight of the blackening sky.

CHAPTER THIRTY

We moved in silence through the trees. When we came upon the clearing where my tent still stood, Pania busied herself packing it away without a word. I passed down the bag for her to put it in and when it was secured, we moved on again, heading toward the coast. Hopefully.

The noise of the eruption was less here in the green embrace of the forest. Ezzy picked her way between the undergrowth with concentration, and Pania walked in front, head down, her black hair gleaming in the shadows. I sat hunched over the horse’s neck, feeling my body cramp from the uncomfortable position.

‘This is slow going,’ Pania’s voice interrupted my gloomy thoughts.

‘It’ll be easier once we get to the harbour. We can walk round most of the beaches.’ We lapsed back into silence again.

‘Are we going in the right direction?’ I asked suddenly an hour or so later. I’d been so busy feeling miserable and worried, I’d just let the horse follow Pania without giving it a thought. I mentally kicked myself. There was no excuse for not paying attention.

Pania turned back and shot me a grin. The whole day suddenly brightened at the sight of it. She held up something. ‘I didn’t forget the compass,’ she said. ‘I reckon we’ll hit the beach real soon. Be interesting to see exactly which beach though,’ she added, shrugging.

I was happy enough with that. ‘How about we stop for something to eat before we go surfing?’ I asked, stifling a giggle.

Pania rolled her eyes at me and grinned. ‘I forgot to bring my board. But lunch sounds good.’ She turned back to watch where she was walking. ‘Have you noticed it’s a lot quieter here?’ she asked. ‘The ground’s not moving like syrup either.’

We kept going. Plodding along, heads down, Pania checking her compass every now and then.

The tide was in. We walked out of the trees with the smell of salt water making us giddy. I had to stop Ezzy from wading right in. Pania held her and helped me down from Ezzy’s broad back.

‘Which beach do you think we’re at?’ Pania asked, pulling a sheet of paper out of a pocket. She smoothed it out and I saw it was a map. She frowned over it. ‘At least the coastline hasn’t changed. Not that I’d be able to tell, anyway.’

I leaned over her shoulder and looked too. Then peered around the narrow strip of beach and out over the water. I pointed to a spot on the map. ‘We’re here,’ I said.

I could see Pania frown. ‘How do you know?’ she asked.

I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed out over the water to our left.

‘Holy shit,’ she said. ‘How could I have missed that?’ She shivered. ‘Looks freaky from here, doesn’t it? I hate how things look when they’re deserted.’ She turned to me. ‘Oh boy am I glad I found you.’

‘You and me both,’ I said, and my knees really did feel weak with the relief of it. We turned and looked back at the dirty white bridge that still spanned the harbour over to Onehunga.

After a few minutes Pania broke the silence. ‘Do you think we should go that way?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘You yourself said we shouldn’t head south. And I need to get this ankle better before we go anywhere.’ I looked back at the sky towards the city. There was nothing from here but a black smudge against the sky that gave the unsettling appearance of spreading.

‘Yeah,’ Pania said. ‘It’s just it’s like the yellow brick road, you know? It’s there so we should follow it.’ She shrugged and turned back to the beach in front of us. ‘How ‘bout that lunch?’ she said. ‘While we plan the next step?’

We perched on a low stone wall and Pania rummaged around in one of the bags. She drew out two cans of peaches and a can opener. ‘Not much I’m afraid, without being able to cook.’ She delved back into the bag again, and brought out some of the damper from the night before.

‘Looks like a feast to me,’ I said, not exaggerating.

We sat and ate. Ezzy nosed around, pulling at the grass, having some lunch of her own. We would have to find her some fresh water soon.

‘So do we wait for low tide, or try our luck back in the trees?’ Pania squinted out at the water and checked the sky for the sun. ‘I reckon the tide will be on its way out shortly, but it’s already a lot later in the day than I want it to be. What do you want to do?’

‘I think we should keep going,’ I decided. ‘I know most of the trip can be made in a day and I really want to get as far away from the city as possible.’ Let’s just keep going.’

Pania nodded in agreement and we packed up and moved back on out, me hobbling along the ground, giving Ezzy a break while the path was relatively flat. I looked back at the dark smudge spreading across the sky, then forward at the tangle of bush in front of us. Shivering I thought of the moa, risen from extinction and the strange god who walked between the trees.

Was I leading us somewhere safer, or just further into the heart of the nightmare?

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

It was late by the time we made it back to my place, plodding onwards through the trees and the shadows, stalked by winged creatures in the branches above our heads. It was a relief to finally arrive.

We didn’t do much more than turn Ezzy out and cart the gear into the shed. Pania looked approving as she stood inside, surveying the room by candlelight. I stood in the doorway, suddenly nervous.

‘Bit cosy for two of us, I know,’ I said. ‘But for some reason, this shed is still standing, so better than nothing, I’d say.’ I cleared my throat.

Pania turned and smiled at me. ‘I’m beat, and I am definitely not sleeping on the floor.’ Her smile turned to a grin and she let out a loud whoop and ran for the bed, launching herself onto it and bouncing about on her knees. ‘A real bed! Woo hoo!’

Her laughter was infectious. I hobbled over and dropped onto the mattress, letting myself be bounced around as she jumped. We laughed louder and harder and collapsed in a screaming, hiccupping heap. Pania wrapped her arms around me and we lay there, locked together.

We weren’t alone anymore.

We took half the bed each and I slept soundly for the first time since the Change, lulled by the sound of someone breathing on the pillow next to me.

Morning dawned grey behind the window of the shed. I lifted my head and squinted at it. There was a faint, unfamiliar flavour to the air I couldn’t place. I lay back down and looked instead at the arm flung round me. Pania lay sleeping next to me, face peaceful on the pillow and dark hair massed around it. I thought of Hemi, and for the first time the memory was sweet, regretful. Things had changed so much since then. Literally, everything had changed.

I sighed and slipped out of the warm bed. Pania stirred, turned, but didn’t wake. That was okay. I tested my foot against the floorboards. Still unable to take my weight. I grimaced and hopped over to my clothes and pulled a jersey over my head. The mornings were getting chilly as the earth wheeled around into a new season.

Leaning on the walking stick Pania had carved for me, I opened the door and stepped out into the early morning, coffee on my mind. I looked around and drew the door closed behind me.

The wind had changed and with it had come ash, fine grey ash coating everything it touched. The grass was grey, almost black in places where the dew was heavy. The vegetables in the garden were coated in a greasy grey skin. I stepped out onto the lawn and the smell hit me again, stronger now. A hit of gas and sulphur. I coughed in disgust. Squinting up at the sky, it was grey too, smudged a dirty charcoal. I coughed again and drew up the neck of my jersey, breathing through the heavy wool. It wouldn’t pay to spend much time outside today. Or indeed until the wind changed again.

I grabbed the spade and loo paper and hobbled into the bush, mind already working overtime. There would be no travelling with the fallout from the eruption. Even if I’d been in any state to travel with my sprained ankle. We needed to stay here and dig in, at least for the winter. If there were any other survivors out there, they would be doing the same. Wouldn’t they?

Ezzy found me as I came back into the clearing. She too held a light dusting of ash and she snorted and shook her head at the air. I stroked her mane. Was there any shelter she could have, other than under the trees? God’s sakes, there was too much to think of. What had I been doing the last couple of months – living in a dream world?

Overwhelmed already, I decided to be practical. Break it down into tasks in the order of priority. And get Pania’s input of course. There would have to be a lot of pulling together. I stumbled on my ankle and cursed it. This was the worst time to be even partly out of action. I gripped the stick tighter and marched over to my cooking area. The clear roof was layered with ash and later in the day I would have to sweep that off. I’d read somewhere while Ruapehu was erupting in ’06 that ash was heavy and abrasive and buildings needed to be swept regularly clear of it.

But now, the first task was coffee, and breakfast. My water supply was still where I’d left it, and I poured water from one of the bottles into the kettle. Holding it and the coffee makings, along with two mugs, I hobbled back to the shed. We would use the wood stove in there today and at that moment I could have kissed my father for the self-sufficiency he’d always preached.

But coffee first, and I set to making it on the little gas stove Pania had packed the day before. I poured the two mugs full and took them over to the bed. Pania was awake, watching me with her large, dark eyes.

‘Thanks,’ she said, hoisting herself into a sitting position and taking the mug. ‘What’s it like out there?’ she asked, nodding towards the window. ‘I can smell sulphur.’

‘There’s ash everywhere,’ I said. ‘The wind changed during the night and it’s drifting right over us.’ I took a swallow of coffee and wished for a cigarette. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I started, ‘We should dig in here for the rest of the year. I don’t see how we're going to survive if we go out there. What would we eat?’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I like our chances of finding anyone else anyway. Anyone in their right mind will be busy staying out of the road of that damned volcano and making themselves a safe base and thinking basic food and survival.’ I stopped talking and took another mouthful of coffee. It tasted bitter, and somehow grey.

But Pania was nodding. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We have to think about our own survival first. We need food and shelter, stuff to get us through winter. There’s no choice but to dig in as you say, because it’s going to be an awful lot of work just making sure we have what we need.’ She warmed her hands around her mug. ‘There aren’t any supermarkets anymore. Everything we need we are going to have to find a way to produce ourselves.’ She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t going to stay put much longer on One Tree Hill. I was looking to pack up and head back down Coromandel way, where I come from. Go back to the marae, rebuild it if necessary, plant food, fish, keep on singing the sunrise.’ She shrugged and looked at me.

‘I’m glad we’re together now,’ I told her, and I’d never said anything truer in my life. I looked toward the window. ‘There’s so much to do, I’m overwhelmed just thinking about it.’

She patted my hand. ‘We can manage,’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it. We already have a good base here, not that I’ve seen much yet. But there’s a garden, and fruit trees, and hell we even have a horse!’ She laughed. ‘What about starting with breakfast though? You can whip us up some sort of fantastic spread while I go see to the call of nature.’

She came back grimacing. ‘First job’s going to be digging a long drop.’ She put on a fancy accent. ‘We require a certain standard of living even out here in the colonies, darling.’ She made the bed and sat down on it. ‘Smells good, what the hell is it? she asked when I handed her a bowl of what looked suspiciously like gloop.

I rolled my eyes at her. ‘Porridge,’ I said. ‘Brought over here by the finest of my stern Scottish ancestors.’

She sniffed at it. ‘Where’d you get the milk?’

I held up the carton of long life milk and she shrugged and dug in her spoon. ‘I take milk in my coffee too,’ she said.

‘So do I. But supply is limited and I can handle black coffee.’ I sent her a smile. ‘What do you want to do this morning?’

‘Have a hot shower,’ she said. Her eyes glazed over. ‘There has to be a way we could rig one of those, you know. I’m pretty handy with stuff like that.’ She looked around the shed, taking in the piles of wood and tools I’d shoved into the corners. ‘What was this place used for anyway?’

‘It was my father’s shed. He used to come out here and build furniture.’

She sent me a look of sympathy. ‘Maybe this place has real potential after all. It means there are tools and stuff here.’ She nodded at me and brought her porridge bowl over, setting it on the table. Then she took my face in both palms and gave me a resounding smack on the lips. ‘We’re going to be great,’ she said.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Later, Pania went exploring while I tried my best to organise the shed. I carted a small pile of wood and lit the fire, standing back in satisfaction when it proved the chimney was clear. Now, while the ash was falling outside, we could cook in here. And if I kept the vents closed and the fire burning low, it wouldn’t even get stifling hot.

All the time I worked, I thought about Pania. I listened for her step outside; I imagined I heard her voice talking to Ezzy. She had gone out with a cloth wrapped around her face, to keep from breathing the ash in. I’d pointed in the direction of the stream, and the track down to the beach. She winked at me and laughed when I told her we had our own private beach.

The day was muffled with the falling ash. Every now and then a dark, deep rumbling would come from the invisible distance, and I would stop what I was doing and listen, my throat dry and convulsive. But here there was nothing more than ash, drifting on a gentle breeze, darkening the air and smothering the sun. I pulled some vegetables from the garden for our meal and stepped gingerly along the path Ezzy and I had made to the stream. Ezzy had gone with Pania, I thought they’d headed down to the shop.

I’d told her about the shop, how it was still standing even while the bush pushed and tangled around it. I didn’t say what was really on my mind though – that I half suspected it was being left intact for our use. There would be time later to tell her of my paranoia and my strange imaginings. She hadn’t mentioned any similar experiences, and it all seemed much like a dream.

But back in the bush by the stream, I shivered and cast glances into the shadows. Something rustled in the ferns and I fell backwards, startled. I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out as my foot caught under me and my ankle screamed in protest. Frozen, I stared into the undergrowth.

It moved again, and peered out at me. Brown feathers on a fat, rounded body, with a curved beak and warm brown eyes. I almost cried in relief. It was only a kiwi. I couldn’t recognise it as one of the ones I had rescued from the zoo, but it may well have been. That day at the zoo seemed so long ago. I watched in wonder as the bird looked me over then turned and disappeared back into the undergrowth. I wondered if all my zoo friends had survived.

Sighing, I picked myself off the ground, wincing at the renewed pain in my ankle. I swiped up the clean veges and limped back to camp.

Ezzy was grazing in the clearing when I came back, and I leaned a minute against her as she nuzzled in my hair. In the shed, Pania was feeding more wood into the fire. There was a bowl of water warming on the top of the tiny stove and I sat down, grateful to get the weight off my ankle.

Pania took the vegetables and laid them on my father’s work bench. She looked me over with critical eyes. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘You’re as white as a bloody sheet, and girl, you were pretty damned white to begin with.’

‘I was washing the vegetables down at the stream when I tripped and fell on my ankle again. Hurts like shit,’ I added.

‘Okay then, let’s take a look at it. I’ve made a poultice for it anyway. Can’t have you hobbling round when there’s work to be done.’ She gave me a friendly poke between the shoulder blades.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘A poultice?’

‘Yup. Can’t you smell it?’

‘I can, but I didn’t want to say anything in case that was our dinner you were brewing.’ I giggled.

‘Cheeky bugger,’ she said. ‘Now, give me this foot.’ She sat down on the second chair and gently drew my foot onto her lap. Her fingers, long and thin, plucked at the thick woollen sock I’d pulled on that morning. I winced in anticipation.

‘Don’t be such a baby,’ she said, putting the sock aside and unwinding the bandages.

We stared at my ankle. ‘Well,’ said Pania. ‘Looks as if someone went crazy with the Crayola.’ She swept her hands lightly over my bruised ankle and grimaced at me in sympathy. Twisting in her seat she drew closer the small bowl from which the damp potent smell was emanating. It was strangely warm where she spread it paste-like over my ankle. The skin sizzled underneath.

‘What’s in it?’ I asked.

‘Eleven different herbs and spices,’ Pania joked. ‘Actually only three herbs and a light paste of clay. My kuia – that’s my grandmother, if you don’t know your Maori, she taught me some simple herb lore when I was a kid.’ She wrapped a fresh bandage around my ankle, and wriggled the sock back on with an exceedingly gentle touch.

I lowered my foot to the floor, impressed. It felt better already.

‘You should keep that elevated,’ Pania decided. ‘Prop it on this chair. Time for part two of my little plan.’

I put my foot up on the chair. ‘Plan?’

She shrugged and grinned at me. ‘Not much work we can do today. And we’re snug and cosy in here, so I thought we could have a bit of R&R.’ She brought over the bowl of water from the stove. ‘Let’s just rearrange you a bit. I’m going to wash your hair.’

I raised an eyebrow but did her bidding, turning the chair until my back was to the table. She leaned me back and swept my hair into the bowl. Warm water lapped around my head and I swear never had anything felt so good as her fingers massaged my scalp. She leaned over me and even that was comforting, the warmth of her body close.

‘I’ve missed being touched,’ I opened my mouth and said. I felt Pania nod.

‘We were made to be lovingly touched,’ she said. ‘It’s human.’

I closed my eyes and sank back against her hands as she massaged shampoo into my overgrown hair and rinsed it out. Added conditioner. Rinsed again. It smelled of roses. I leaned forward so she could wrap a towel around my head.

‘Doesn’t that feel better?’ she asked as she began to dry my hair. It felt wonderful.

‘Thank you,’ I told her.

‘Will you do something for me?’

I nodded straight away. I would do anything for her.

She smiled and drew me up out of the chair and led me to the bed. ‘Will you read to me?’

I sat down and made myself comfortable, smiling. ‘Sure. What do you want me to read? There are a few books over on the shelf there.’

‘I’ve seen them,’ she nodded. ‘Which one’s your favourite?’

I coloured slightly. ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover,’ I admitted.

She surveyed the shelf. ‘That’s by this D.H. Lawrence guy. You have lots of his. Is it any good?’

‘Beautiful.’

‘Okay. Lady Chatterley it is then. I’ll pour us some wine too, shall I?’

We settled on the bed, Pania sprawled across it, head in my lap. I stroked her hair idly as I read. She was warm under my touch.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

It started raining. Soft, ash-laden rain, plashing against the window. We refilled our wine glasses and I read a few more pages, until the room became too dark for me to see the print on the page. I lay the book aside and took a sip of wine.

‘When I was a kid,’ I said, ‘I used to take a chair outside and sit listening to the rain. It was like some magical symphony and I always felt, listening to it, that the world was a magical place and I was a particular and special part of it.’ I laughed. ‘I was a pretty fanciful kid.’

Pania leaned on her elbow. ‘My auntie used to tell me stories of the old times, how lovers were always being parted by war, and no matter how wounded the warriors were, if their women cried over their bodies, their tears falling like rain, they were healed.’

We sat a moment, listening to the rain against the tin roof. ‘Almost like music,’ Pania said with a sigh.

‘Do you play an instrument?’ I asked her.

‘Did,’ she answered. ‘The guitar. Don’t have one anymore, of course.’ She flung herself on her back. ‘I’m really going to miss a world without music.’

I leaned over her. ‘You’re pretty handy with your hands aren’t you? I mean, you must be, if you’re a jeweller.’ She narrowed her eyes at me and I grinned. ‘I bet you could work with wood if you wanted, right?’

‘Get to the point.’

‘Somewhere over there in those cupboards, if I remember rightly, are all the bits of a guitar!’ I grinned wider. ‘My dad had some harebrained scheme once to build a guitar. He never finished it, so the bits must be here somewhere, because that man did not throw anything out. Ever.’

Pania stared at me. ‘You’re joking, right?’

I shook my head. ‘Nope. And I bet there are strings and the other bits and stuff in one of those drawers.’

Pania leapt up, sending me tumbling. ‘Cass, you’re bloody brilliant! I love you!’ She grabbed me and kissed me smack on the lips. Again.

The room went quiet, but for the rain showering across the roof. Pania’s face hovered inches from mine, her eyes steady, so clear I felt I could float in their dark depths. She lowered her face, not taking her eyes from mine and pressed her lips to mine, just a whisper of a touch this time. Then, pressed more firmly. I raised my hand, put it on her shoulder, then twined it around her neck and kissed her back.

We rolled over, on our sides, face to face. Her hand stroked my cheek, lips against mine again. I twisted her thick hair in my fingers, and pulled her closer, pulling the warm, heavy length of her against me. I stroked the back of her neck as she explored my face with her lips.

Drawing back slightly, she looked at me, a question in her eyes. I nodded. ‘Here’s to being the last two people on earth,’ I whispered, and she kissed me again. Her hand left my face and travelled over my shoulder, skimming the outline of my body, covering the curve at waist, grazing my breast. I gasped, body suddenly alight, burning. Her hand slipped under my shirt and tugged it up. I sat slightly and she pulled my shirt over my head, rolling me onto my back.

The candle we’d lit earlier flickered in a stray draft, sending shadows over Pania’s eyes. She lowered her mouth to my neck and trailed her tongue over the curve of breastbone. I shuddered as she found my breast, sucked on my nipple, flicked her tongue back and forth across it. I groaned and pushed my hips up against her where she straddled me. Her mouth moved over me, back to mine and I buried my fists in her hair as we bruised each other’s lips and she slid a hand own my belly and between my legs, fingers pushing into the slick, hot reaches of me. I bucked against her, climaxing within seconds.

I could feel her smile against my cheek and she whispered something incomprehensible in my ear. I simply held onto her, the waves of pleasure still pulsing through my body. Coherent thought was impossible. I slid my hands under Pania's shirt, demanding that she take it off, and when that was done tugged her pants down as she had done mine. I wanted to feel the hot silk of her skin against me. I didn’t care that her body was an unfamiliar shape under my hands, I didn’t care about anything but her breath against my neck as I stroked her and felt her wet as she spread her legs for my fingers. I pulled her tighter against me, tears in my eyes as I heard her low moaning. I lightened the pressure of my fingers and her moans increased.

I pulled her up, lips against mine again and pushed my leg between hers. She twisted in my grip and turned over pressing her buttocks against me. I put my arms around her, hand on a breast, nipples between fingers, mouth on the tender pace at the nape of her neck and other hand massaging between her legs. She pushed back against me and let herself come. We cried out together.

The candle had gone out. It was still raining. I pulled the blanket over us and we lay side by said, not speaking. It was taking a while for my breathing to return to normal. I lay staring at the smear of water against the dark window. I wondered vaguely what the time was. Late afternoon, I imagined, the day prematurely dark.

Pania moved her hand, lay it tentatively across my bare stomach. I felt her roll onto her side to look at me. I placed my hand on top of hers and squeezed it, stroked the back of fingers. I was about to turn to her when a scream ripped through the air.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Pania said, voice shaking.

‘Ezzy, oh my God, Ezzy!’ I leapt from the bed, tripping over my thermal pants which were bunched around my ankles. My hurt ankle screamed as I jumped around the floor, pulling my pants up, trying to drag my jersey over my head, rushing out the door.

‘Ezzy!’I screamed into the dark rain. I tasted it on my face, bitter with ash. ‘Ezzy!’I screamed again, lurching out into the clearing, peering into the ashen gloom, looking desperately for the horse.

I turned in a circle. ‘Ezzy?’ I asked, voice cracking. ‘Ezzy, where are you?’ There was nothing. No reply. Just the rain hissing from a smudged sky. The shadows around me convulsed as I continued to turn in a circle, ever more unsure. I grabbed at my face, as the darkness fractured around me. ‘Not again,’ I croaked.

There was movement behind me and someone grabbed my shoulders. I stumbled. Pania caught me and we clung to each other.

‘What the hell is happening?’ Pania gasped in my ear as I collapsed and we fell to the ground. ‘What the bloody fucking hell is that?’

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. Groping around, I grasped Pania’s hand. Pulling myself to my feet I tugged her along with me. We weren’t staying around to see what was going to happen this time. A pang of guilt struck me. I should have told Pania about this before I brought her here. The wind picked up and I decided I didn’t have time for guilt. Ash and rain slashed against my face now, driven by an evil wind. I reached out blindly and felt wood under my palm. The shed.

Pania was screaming into the wind behind me and our hands were slick with the rain. Tightening my grip I tugged her along with me, gritting my teeth, ignoring the pain in my ankle.

Ignoring too, the unmistakable presence that swirled into the soaked air behind us. Even so, it slammed into my consciousness, huge and ancient, pushing into my small human mind. I wanted to fall again, block my ears. I found the door and fell against it, scrabbling at the doorknob in growing panic. I glanced back at Pania behind me. She stood frozen, her hands over her ears, a look of horror in the shadows of her face. I grabbed her by the wrist and shoved her inside. Slammed the door behind us.

We cowered under the table, huddled together on our knees, wet heads touching. I wrapped my arms around her and in my head I chanted nursery rhymes against the raging god that pushed at my mind, threatening to break it. I whispered the words out loud, conjuring an image of my mother reading them to me, Little Jack Horner sat in the corner eating curds and way along came a spider. No, that wasn’t right. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. I felt Pania begin to shiver and suddenly, just like that, the pressure was gone.

I raised my head. It was clear. It had retreated again. Vanished back into the trees or wherever it came from. Tears mixed with the rain that dripped from my hair.

‘It’s gone,’ I whispered to Pania. ‘It’s okay, it’s gone.’ Then I remembered Ezzy and crashed out from under the table. Flinging open the door again I skidded outside.

‘You bastard! What’ve you done to Ezzy?’ I swung round. ‘Ezzy, Ezzy!’ I screamed her name. There was no neigh in reply, no warm, wet nose nuzzling against me, no strong broad flanks walking out of the darkness. I stood in the rain but she didn’t come. I limped back inside, head down.

Pania had lit a candle, several of them. She stood facing me, pale, hands clenched.

‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Sit down right now and tell me what the fuck is going on.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘Sit the fuck down and explain yourself.’

I wanted to go look for my horse. Surely Pania knew about the god in the trees too? I looked across the room at her. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t felt that thing before?’ I shook my head. ‘There’ve been no dark shadows watching you? Following you? Nothing in the bush that made you look backwards? Of course there was. It’s what this is all about.’ I rubbed at my face. I wanted to go look for Ezzy.

Ezzy. The fight went out of me and I sank into a chair, put my head in my hands. ‘I’m sorry, okay?’I said to Pania, still standing pale-faced, staring at me. ‘I should have said something before we came back here, but where the hell was the opportunity for that? First I was bloody well near dead from a knock on the head then we had to get away from a fucking volcano.’ I shook said head. It sounded lame, even to me.

‘I haven’t felt anything like that out there,’ she replied. ‘Sometimes I’ve felt like I was being watched, but I just put it down to getting spooked. There’s been nothing like what was just out there. You should have said something.’ Her voice was rising. ‘You could have said, by the way Pania, maybe we should take the bridge instead because there’s a bloody freaking scary terrifying bloody thing in the bush that’s been stalking me!’ She slumped against the wooden work bench. ‘Oh my God, what on earth is it?’

I sighed and got out of the chair. Reaching for a towel I passed it to Pania. ‘Let’s get dry and warm again, okay? Then I’ll tell you everything I know. Which, by the way, is bugger all.’ She stared at me, but took the towel. I put some more wood into the stove and tipped some water in the kettle. I needed coffee. And a smoke. I dug my pack out of a drawer and cast a glance at Pania. She was pulling off her wet clothes. I caught the dark gleam of her skin and walked to the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m just going to stand right out here and have a smoke. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Smoke inside.’

I shook my head and opened the door. Closed it behind me and leaned against it, half sheltered in the tiny overhang and lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply. Just needed a few minutes to myself. Christ, what a mess.

The air outside was worse than the cigarette, the rain greasy with ash. I wondered what the time was. Unable to see much past an outstretched hand, I guessed it was late enough. We’d passed a fair amount of the afternoon reading and well, in bed.

Taking another drag on the cigarette, I closed my eyes and felt the last of the adrenaline leave my system. I was exhausted. Too much excitement for me. It was a nightmare. Life had turned into a nightmare. Suddenly I longed for my mother; staring blindly in the direction of where their house had stood, I would have given anything to wake up in the morning in my old room, the smell of blueberry pancakes cooking and my parents chattering as they started the day.

I blinked, but the blackness stayed the same. Finishing the cigarette I turned back to the shed. Get out of my wet clothes, get off my ankle with was throbbing abominably, have a hot cup of coffee. And face Pania. I wanted to sleep. Just sleep.

She was making the coffee, back to me. I dried my hair and peeled off wet jersey and leggings. Found a dry shirt and socks, pulled them on, sitting on the bed. My ankle hurt. Pania was fussing round the stove. I lay down, watched her, she had a cream coloured jersey on and her long hair billowed around her shoulders. I closed my eyes and slept.

I opened my eyes to a day still smeared with rain. Pania stared at me from the other side of the room. She sat at the table, eyes bruised. I smelled coffee and cigarettes.

‘Boy are we going to have a hard time when the smokes run out,’ I said.

She looked at the cigarette in her hand, almost in surprise. ‘I quit before. I can do it again.’ She shrugged.

I sat up, tested my ankle. It was surprisingly good. ‘Your magic poultice seems to be working. Even after last night’s workout.’

‘Yes,’ Pania said, her voice flat. ‘About last night. Perhaps we could discuss it. When you’re ready, of course.’ Sarcastic.

Jeeze. I wasn’t going to get away with this. ‘I need to take a leak,’ I said. ‘Is there any coffee left?’

She just shrugged and I stared out the window as I worked my feet into boots. Didn’t bother with jeans, they would just get wet. It was easier to dry skin than denim. Then I threw a jersey on, plucked a cigarette out of the packet and left.

Ezzy wasn’t in the clearing. She wasn’t down at the stream. I limped along the path, called out to her a couple of times. No horse.

I took care of business then stood against a tree, smoking. Pania didn’t look like she’d slept at all last night. I had a flash of her hands on me and felt my cheeks grew warm. I’d never made love to a woman before, unless you counted practising kissing with my cousin when we were kids. But I’d been desperate for touch, warmth, love. Still was. I knew I had to make peace with Pania. We needed each other. I took another drag of the cigarette and threw it down, rubbing it out with the toe of my boot. I went back to the shed.

She was sitting in the same place. I didn’t exactly know how to go about things. Do whatever felt right, I told myself. I closed the door and went over to her. She didn’t move. Resting my hands on her shoulders I leaned down until our cheeks were touching.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘Let me sort this out, let me make it right. We have to stick together.’

Her voice was fierce. ‘It’s not me keeping secrets. I am so glad I found you, not just that you were anyone either, but you. Do you get what I’m saying? I like you, but not if you’re going to keep secrets.’

I pulled her chair around to face me and kneeled in front of her. I stumbled over what I wanted to say. ‘What we did last night. I’ve never done that before. I’ve never…never been with a woman before.’ I pushed her hair back from her face. ‘I know we haven’t known each other long, and these are far from normal circumstances, and it probably would have happened between any survivors…’ her eyes narrowed but she nodded, and I carried on, ‘but I’m glad it was you too, okay. I’m glad it’s you.’ And I kissed her.

We stayed for a while, silent, arms around each other. Then, with a smile, we drew apart and I poured coffee while Pania opened a packet of my chocolate biscuits that she’d found.

‘I need the sugar fix,’ she apologised.

I pinched one out of the packet and sat down at the table. ‘Guess we’d better talk about our other business then.’

‘What was it, Cass? What was it last night?’

‘And where’s Ezzy?’ I added. ‘I’m going out looking for her as soon as we’re done here.’

Pania cupped her hand over mine. ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said.

‘Okay.’ I sighed. Where to start? ‘I first felt it at the zoo. Except I didn’t know it then. It was just something weird in amongst a whole lot of other weird shit.’ I took a sip of coffee and snagged one of the biscuits. Took a breath. ‘I rescued a bunch of kiwi from the zoo. Those and other native birds were the only living things left. I brought them here, let them go. They were half starved, wouldn’t have made it much longer if I hadn’t come along. Anyway, the thing is, when I got to the zoo, everything was locked up. I didn’t even have anything I could use to break the doors and gates down. You know the Change happened sometime during the night?’

She nodded and I carried on. ‘So it was all locked up. I was at the aviary and all these birds were flying madly about, starved, unable to escape. Then it happened.’ I closed my eyes. ‘Something ripped through the place. Literally. Flattened me, I was lying on my back on the path. And the netting over the aviary was torn open and the birds were free. When I went back to the kiwi house, the door was swinging open.’

Pania shook her head. ‘I don’t get it. If it, whatever it is, could rescue them itself, why hadn’t it done that before the birds began to starve?’

‘Wouldn’t have a clue. Maybe because the kiwi needed help. And the lizards. Oh good grief I’d forgotten about them.’ I grimaced. ‘Tuatara. They freaked me out. I let them go at Western Springs, at the park there. But the birds needed looking after. I brought them back here. My parents had a worm farm. Ready- made food.’ I laughed. Then shook my head.

‘But that’s just by the way,’ I said. ‘It’s been watching me. Not all the time. But I think it tracks me when I go away, and I think it followed me all the way here.’ I stopped and took a deep breath this time, the thought crystallising. ‘I think it wanted me here. I think it would have made sure I came here if it had to.’ I looked at Pania. ‘I don’t know why though.’

Pania was staring at me. I could almost hear her thinking. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

I shifted in my chair. ‘When I let myself think about it, I call it the god who walks between the trees,’ I said at last.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

We scrambled down the track to the beach, heads wrapped like Bedouins to keep from breathing the ash that still drifted with the rain. Pania had bandaged my ankle, and it felt steadier than ever. I was managing okay with the aid of the walking stick and Pania’s shoulder. We’d timed it right – the tide was out.

Picking our way through the mud I breathed through the cotton shirt and worried about Ezzy. She had to be here somewhere; I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. I wondered about it as I climbed over a fallen tree. How had she survived the Change? How had Pania and I? There didn’t seem to be any reason for it that I could fathom. If there were more of us, then maybe we could see some sort of pattern. But two women and a horse? What sort of pattern was that? I just didn’t know.

Pania reached out and grasped my hand, as if picking up on my thoughts. I squeezed back and concentrated on getting to the beach. Reaching the tiny bay I looked around, wary, remembering what had happened last time. There was no sign.

But there was no sign of Ezzy either and I slumped down on the stone wall, realising how much I had counted on seeing her here.

‘Don’t give up yet,’ Pania said. ‘I reckon she’s here.’

‘How’s that?’ I asked?

‘Maori girl voodoo,’ she replied and I gaped at her. She laughed. ‘C’mon. We ain’t going to find her sitting on our arses, pretty as they might be.’

I followed her across the remains of the road and we stood outside the shop. How incongruous it looked, its gaudy advertising coated in fine grey ash, but still bright against the green and brown that were the colours of our brave new world.

Pania was shaking her head. ‘I can’t get over this place still being here like this. Why is it still standing? What else was here?’

‘Houses, up both sides of the gulley. Houses down on the flat here, falling back from the shop. It was pretty built up.’ I looked around. ‘You would never believe anything was here, would you? How could it happen like this? If we were to dig, would we find all the broken bits of house, or have they just disappeared like all the people?’ I stepped away. ‘Ezzy!’ I shouted. ‘Ezzy! C’mon girl where are you?’

Nothing. I looked at Pania. ‘You still think she’s here?’

Pania nodded. ‘Dat voodoo talking to me girl,’ she said, walking past the shop and peering into the trees. ‘What’s back here now?’ she asked in her normal voice.

I shrugged. ‘Trees, I imagine.’

‘Smart arse.’ She walked on, calling for the horse. I joined in.

But I was nervous, and I could tell Pania had a case of the jitters working up too. It was the bush. And what we both now knew skulked around in it. There was no way I wanted another close encounter. Part of me knew though, that was asking for too much.

‘Shh,’ Pania gestured for me to stop. ‘Heard something.’ She crept forward under the trees.

I kept glancing around. My breathing was coming rapidly. I couldn’t seem to help it, I was getting seriously spooked. ‘Pania,’ I whispered, chest tight. ‘I don’t like it here; I have a really bad feeling.’

Pania reached behind and grabbed my hand. ‘There, look.’ She dragged me forward and I heard it too. A low whinny.

‘Ezzy!’ I lunged forward and the horse materialised through the trees. ‘Oh Jesus, Ezzy. Look at her. Pania look at her, is she all right?’ I was clinging to the horse’s neck, tears blurring my eyes.

Pania’s voice came back in a couple minutes. ‘She looks just fine Cass, but holy fucking shit, you gotta come look at this.’

Oh God, what now? I edged around to where Pania stood. She looked at me.

‘Am I seeing things? she asked.

I nudged Ezzy out of the way and knelt down to reach out a hand.

The dog whimpered and licked my outstretched hand.

‘Pania,’ I said ‘It’s a dog. It’s an honest to goodness real, living, breathing dog.’ I stroked its head.

Pania knelt beside me and reached out to the dog. ‘Hey there old girl,’ she whispered to it. ‘How’d you get here then?’ She ran her hand down its back. The dog whimpered and curled around. ‘It’s not going to be a real living, breathing dog for much longer, Cass. I can feel her bones. She’s starving.’

‘It’s a she?’ I asked, falling in love with it already.

Pania leaned back and looked at the dog, a tangle of black and white fur on the ground. She took my hand. ‘It’s a girl all right, and she’s going to have puppies real soon, I reckon. If she lives that long. Look at her; who knows what she’s been eating.’

I put my arm around Pania and gazed at the dog. ‘There’s dog food back at the shop. Can we get her there? It would be better if we could get her back home, but at least to the shop for starters.’

Pania nodded. ‘I’ll carry her.’ She stroked the dog again, then slipped her arms underneath and lifted her up. The dog gave a feeble wriggle and licked Pania’s face. We turned back the way we’d come.

Ezzy was waiting out of the trees, ears flicking back and forth. She nosed at the dog in Pania’s arms and whickered at her. I gave her a stroke.

‘Thanks Ezzy,’ I told her. ‘You’re some horse. More angel than horse. We’re just going to help the dog, okay?’ I gave Ezzy a pat, then followed Pania into the dusty interior of the shop.

Pania had her jersey off and the dog was lying on it. ‘I don’t like the way she’s panting,’ Pania said when I walked in.

I looked at the poor animal. ‘What’s wrong with her? Have you given her something to eat yet?’

Pania shook her head and I scanned the shelves, selected a can of dog food, and opened it with a can opener I found on a different shelf. I scooped some out and put it on a plastic plate.

The dog whimpered and sniffed at the plate. I thought she was going to eat it but she just lay back down.

‘Did you say she was pregnant?’ I asked Pania.

‘Yes. And her pups are coming.’ Pania looked at me, then around at the shop. ‘It’s not very warm in here.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think we have time to move her back to the shed. The pups are coming now, look at her. I’ve seen dogs birthing before. They’re coming, all right.’ She sat down on the floor and the dog put her head on Pania’s leg. They sat like that, silent except for the dog’s quick breaths.

I moved away and explored the shelves. Looking for animal products this time, never having given them a second glance before. Something bumped against the window and I gave a start. ‘Jesus, what was that?’

‘What was it?’ Pania asked, alarmed.

‘Shh.’ I crept up to the window, holding my breath, had a quick look. ‘Oh Jesus, oh fuck,’ I let my breath whoosh out.

‘What is it Cass? What’s going on?’

I started breathing again. ‘It’s only Ezzy. She’s trying to look in the window.’ I suppressed a highly inappropriate giggle and waited for my heart to resume normal beats.

I found quite the haul and carried them over to Pania and the dog. ‘How is she? Here, I found these, better than your jersey. You’re right, it is cold in here.’ I lay down the various dog beds I’d found. ‘Are any of them big enough?’

Pania lifted the dog into the biggest bed. ‘What sort of dog is she?’ I asked.

‘Border Collie,’ Pania replied, stroking the poor creature’s ears. ‘I had one just like her when I was a kid.’

I patted Pania’s head. ‘What’re you going to call her?’

Pania looked up at me and grasped my hand, kissed it. ‘Let’s call her Aroha. After the one I had when I was a girl.’ She looked back at the dog, labouring on the cushion and I smiled.

‘Aroha it is, then. It’s a pretty name.’

By late afternoon Pania judged all the pups had been born. ‘There’s not much we can do if some are still inside her,’ she said. ‘But I think she’s had them all.’

I didn’t ask what would happen if she hadn’t birthed them all. It was pretty obvious. I leaned against the counter and Pania came over, her face streaked with silent tears. I was the same as we looked back at Aroha in her bed, licking her dead pups.

‘She was too starved,’ Pania whispered. I wrapped my arms around her.

‘We’ll have to take them off her,’ I said. ‘We can bury them outside. It’s too heartbreaking to watch her with them.’

Pania sniffed, nodded. ‘Besides, she needs to concentrate on the live ones.’

‘They’re beautiful,’ I said, gazing at the three small puppies wriggling at their mother’s teats. White, with black splodges. ‘They’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.’ I buried my face in Pania’s hair for a moment. ‘I’ll take the dead ones,’ I said. ‘See if you can get the new mum to eat something. I opened a carton of long-life milk too. She’s going to need all the strength she can get with that lot.’

It was a sad job and Ezzy stood looking over my shoulder as I placed the tiny, lifeless bodies into the earthy cradle I’d dug for them. They’d never even drawn breath. I stared down at the small bodies, frowning as I wondered how long a dog’s pregnancy was. Ezzy snorted warm air on the nape of my neck and I bit my lip, patting the soil back on top of the tiny babies. I stood up, hugging the horse behind me.

‘But on the plus side,’ I sniffed, ‘our family has grown by four today. Thanks to you Ezzy. Where would we be without you?’

The day was darkening, the sky still ash-laden. The tide was retreating, leaving little suck holes of mud and sand behind. I shivered as the wind began to moan in the trees. I didn’t like being outside much anymore, I realised.

‘Pania?’I called out. ‘We need to get home. It’s getting colder and darker out there.’

Pania was smiling. ‘She had some milk and the whole plate of meat.’

‘That’s great hon, but we’re going to have to pack everyone up and get back to the shed. I don’t know what’s going on with the weather anymore, but it’s going to be way too cold to spend the night here.’

‘I’d prefer not to move them.’

‘So would I,’ I told her. The hairs on the back of my neck were prickling. ‘I want us out of here. We can carry the pups in one of these little beds. I’ll carry them, and you can take Aroha.’ I was stuffing food into the back pack. ‘I’m all right to carry the pups; can you manage the big dog?’

Pania was staring at me, worried. ‘What’s wrong, Cass? What’s the rush?’

I did up the buckles on the backpack. ‘Don’t know. Just want out of here, okay?’ I swung the pack on to save arguments. Scooped the pups out from under their mother and tucked them into one of the smallest dog beds. ‘Sorry Mama dog,’ I said. ‘I’m not hurting them, but we have to go. Pania, you going to be okay?’ I tucked the puppy bed in the backpack straps, so I could hold them with just one hand, then grabbed my walking stick. ‘Let’s go.’

Pania didn’t need to be told again. She took one look at my face and picked up the larger bed, cleaning out the newspaper she’d spread in there before the pups were born. Aroha sat looking at me.

I pushed up out the door, where the day was growing darker than ever.

‘What’s happening out here?’ said Pania.

‘Don’t know, but I don’t like it. Let’s go. I want to be back in our shed, with the stove going, coffee brewing, and the damned door locked.’

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

It was a struggle and it took far too long but we made it and I locked the door behind us. The wind was whipping in and out of the trees, they’d been bending over the path snagging at our clothes as we struggled toward the shed. Now they were brushing against the walls, tapping against the glass.

Pania was looking at me, faced creased with worry. ‘You’re seriously spooked,’ she said. ‘What’s going on? You’re obviously sensing something I can’t; I got nothing on these antennas.’

I unstrapped the puppies and put them in the bed Pania had placed in the corner by the wood stove. Aroha the dog immediately claimed them, licking them all over and feeding them. I looked at them a moment, then shrugged.

‘Just jittery for some reason. You know that old saying ‘someone just walked over my grave’? That’s how I feel. Nothing I can put my finger on.’ I looked out the window. If it was out there, it was keeping well back, but I was sure of one thing – it was out there. Watching, waiting. For what though? I didn’t want to know.

Pania looked at me a moment longer, then turned back to the dog and pups. I bit my lip and set to resurrecting the fire in the stove. We were running out of wood. Needed this damn rain to stop so we could get some work done. I made coffee. My head ached. Rummaging round on the table I found the pack of cigarettes and tipped one out.

‘Do you mind?’ I asked? My hands were shaking.

Pania shook her head. She stood up and reached for her mug of coffee. Picked up the lighter and held the flame out for me. I lit the cigarette and took a shaky breath.

‘Thanks.’ I tried a grin. It probably looked pretty scary in the candlelight because Pania gave me a strange look, then lit a cigarette of her own.

‘Calm down a bit, Cass, unless there’s something you’re not telling me?’

I shook my head. ‘There’s nothing happening like last night. I can’t feel a thing. I think we’re okay for now.’

She came around and rubbed my shoulders. ‘Do you want to read for us?’

I shook my head again. Had some coffee, another drag on the cigarette. Then stood up. ‘I need to bring some more wood in.’ I moved toward the door. ‘I won’t be long, okay?’

Pania watched me. I was scaring her, but I couldn’t help it. Hand on the door I turned. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘You’re right. It’s not out there, or if it is, it’s not close. I’m just jittery for some reason. I’ll get some wood because otherwise the fire is going to go out. Maybe that wind will blow the cobwebs in my head away.’ I gave a feeble smile and went outside.

What was I doing outside? The night was pitch black, thrashing around like a live thing. Even if I found the way to the deck, I would probably never find my way back. So instead I leaned against the door and closed my eyes. A warm nose bumped against me.

‘Hey Ezzy,’ I said, stroking her strong neck as she appeared out of the darkness. ‘Is it true, Ezzy?’ I stood up and ran my hands over the horse, feeling her beneath my fingers as a blind person reads Braille. Her body was strong and broad, muscles ropy, belly rounded. I patted her and stepped back. ‘Go find some shelter, Ezzy girl.’

Sighing I turned back to the shed and went inside. Pania looked at me with raised brow. ‘Too dark out there, I would have got lost in two seconds.’

She nodded. ‘I’m making us something to eat. You have to eat something okay?’

‘Sure. I’m going to get changed.’

Changing wasn’t complicated when you only have a few bits of clothing. I pulled off my boots. My ankle was throbbing again and I favoured it as I pulled my pants off. I grabbed a pair of thermal leggings and pulled them on instead. Got myself clean, dry and comfortable and lay back out on the bed while Pania cooked.

‘What’re you thinking about?’

I stared up at the roof of the shed. ‘Ezzy’s going to have a foal,’ I said.

‘What!’

Still staring at the ceiling. ‘The horse is going to have a foal. At least, I’m pretty sure she is.’ I rolled onto my side. ‘I don’t know much about horses, but she’s a lot broader across the middle than she was, and when I put my hand on her belly before, I felt movement. She’s pregnant.’

Pania set the plates on the table with a clatter. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Oh my sweet Jesus Christ.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Has a few fucking implications, doesn’t it.’ I sat up. ‘What were you doing at the time of the Change?’ There. I’d asked. No going back now. I looked at Pania. ‘I think, at the time of the change, I was conceiving a child. How about you?’

Pania went white and crashed to the floor.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

She’d fainted. I slammed the chairs out of the way and kneeled beside her, cradled her head in my lap.

‘Pania, Pania, wake up baby, wake up everything’s going to be all right, c’mon sweetheart, wake up.’

She stirred and moaned. ‘C’mon darling, that’s the way. Wake up. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, I promise.’ I stroked her hair.

She opened her eyes and immediately they were wet with tears.

‘Shh,’ I said. ‘Don’t cry, c’mon sweetheart, don’t cry. Let’s get you up and onto the bed.’ The dog was watching us while the puppies snuffled at her furry belly. Pania put her arms around my neck and I pulled her up. We limped over to the bed and Pania lay down, looking dazed. The food grew cold on the table.

There was a powerful gust of wind around the shed and the candle guttered and went out in a draft. Pania winced and I climbed over her and lay down beside her, drew the blanket over both of us. We lay there, clinging to each other while the night turned to storm outside, rain slashing against the window, pounded against the tin roof.

Eventually, Pania’s fingers sought out mine and they intertwined. I heard her take a breath.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Now that you’ve said, it makes sense. I could never figure out before why I survived. But now there’s you and me and Ezzy and Aroha and the pattern’s clear, isn’t it?’

I nodded and squeezed her hand. ‘I had a miscarriage. Only I didn’t know I was having one at the time. I just thought it was my period, heavier than usual. And I was sick so I didn’t really think about it.’ I kissed her hair. ‘What about you?’ I propped myself onto an elbow and looked down at her in the gloom from the fire. ‘What made you faint, Pania?’

She swiped a hand at her eyes. I heard her swallow. ‘I was raped that night,’ she said and she pushed me back down to lie beside her. ‘My girlfriend and I were jumped when we were walking home. We always walk home. It was never a problem until that night. Four guys, taunting us about holding hands. They can’t have been from around there, everyone at home knew us. We were accepted, you know? Not a problem.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, they beat me pretty badly, forced my girlfriend to watch while they took turns raping me. Then I passed out.’ She rolled onto her side away from me. ‘When I came round everyone was gone. Everyone. I don’t remember much about the next couple of weeks.’

What was there to say? I lay beside Pania and pulled her into me until we were spooning. I stroked her hair, tears in my own eyes.

We lay like that a few minutes, not saying anything. Then Pania rolled over, a sudden, fierce movement.

‘Now you know everything,’ she said. ‘That was the first time I’d ever had sex with a man. Not that it was sex.’ She sighed and relaxed. ‘I don’t know what I’m trying to tell you now. What difference does it make? There’s only us anyhow.’ I felt her looking at me in the darkness. ‘Does it make any difference?’

I didn’t know. Not in practical terms, I guessed. After all, like she said, we were the only ones left anyway. I leaned over.

‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ I said, hoping it was the right answer. She relaxed and we lay in the dark, arms around each other. My hand was against her belly. “Are you pregnant, Pania?’ I asked at last.

I felt her shake her head. ‘No. I got my period – late – a couple weeks ago. Like yours, it was really heavy though, so I think I might have been.’

I wondered why we’d both lost our babies when the animals hadn’t. Mine would have been Hemi’s child. I might have liked that.

‘We didn’t eat,’ I said after a while. ‘Do you want something to eat?’

Pania shook her head and her hair ticked against my neck. ‘I’m not hungry anymore,’ she said. ‘God, this is such a nightmare.’

I gripped her hand. ‘At least we’re in it together,’ I said.

Later, I slammed out of sleep, sweating, stifling a scream. Sitting up in bed I scanned the room, trying to slow my breathing. There was nothing wrong; in the corner the dog lay sleeping in her basket, the outlines just visible in the shadows. Next to me, Pania lay curled on her side. I lay a hand on her shoulder and she was reassuringly steady, her breathing deep and calm. Still sleeping. It was just me having nightmares.

I stumbled from the bed, groping on the floor, finding a jersey, not knowing or caring whose it was and pulled it on. I wondered what the time was as I found a bottle of water and drank half of it down. I should have been used to living without clocks by now, but it was hard. Around me the night was silent. I stood still and listened, but the wind had died, the trees were still and no sound but that of Aroha and Pania’s steady breaths. I tried to match them.

Lighting a cigarette I realised I needed to answer the call of nature. I did not want to go outside. The nightmare clung to the edges of my mind. I sank into a chair instead. Surely dawn wasn’t far away. I would wait. I lit a second cigarette and drank the rest of the water.

I’d dreamed Hemi had been making love to me again. I ran my hands over his silky skin, felt the muscles in his back flex as he lay over me. Golden light bathed us, falling in bright blankets from orange suns at the window. I forced my legs wider and arched my back as he plunged into me. My fingers kneaded the flesh on his back. Pleasure built in a wave as we rode together, and I gasped, climax close. Moving my hands I clasped his face and drew his lips to mine as we moved. And the warmth inside me turned to ice. Hemi lay on top of me and in his eyes the forest was reflected, and became a gaping chasm of ancient age and depths. His face shimmered above me and turned to nightmare and as I fell into the depths of a presence as old as the earth, I climaxed, screaming in pleasure and fear.

I was onto the fourth cigarette when dawn tore its ragged hole in the darkness at the window. I dressed quickly and quietly, determined not to disturb Pania. She deserved to sleep. I opened the door and looked back at the dog. Aroha got out of her warm nest, stretched, and followed me.

The rain had stopped. Everywhere everything dripped. The wind had fallen too, changed direction, taking the choking ash with it. Good. I skirted around the back of the shed and a few meters into the trees. Tugged down my pants and figured out why it’s called relieving yourself. Sheer, blessed relief.

The fresh air was good. I let the dog back in and walked over to the deck, passing Ezzy standing asleep under a tree. I skirted around her, she needed her sleep too. On the deck I built a fire in the old barbeque and sneaked back into the shed for the coffee. Our supplies were getting low. What was I going to do when the coffee and cigarettes were gone? I shrugged the thought away and concentrated instead on the mechanical task of setting water to boil, measuring out the coffee, add a teaspoon of sugar, stir well.

It was just a dream, I told myself for the fiftieth time. Just a goddamned dream. And even if it wasn’t, well what then? We were trapped. Stuck here, forced by constraints of food and necessity into staying here. Here at the mercy of whatever wanted it this way.

Trapped.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

Pania joined me as the sun lit the top of the trees in the clearing. The dog padded at her feet, sniffing at the damp ground.

‘What time is it?’ Pania asked. ‘I feel like I’ve been asleep for days.’

I shrugged. ‘Ten o’clock, maybe. Can’t tell.’

She looked at me. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked.

I shrugged again. Was anything ever going to be all right again? ‘Yeah, fine,’ I said.

She nudged me over and sat down. ‘Liar. Can I have some of this coffee?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Mi casa et su casa.’

‘Cute. What’s it mean?’

‘My home is your home.’ I got up. ‘I’m going to walk down to the beach. Maybe swim. Get this damned ash off me.’

Pania frowned at me. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Is it about last night?’ she stood up too, holding the coffee and spoon.

I sighed and shook my head. ‘Had a bad dream, is all. Still a bit spooked.’ I walked back to her and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I just need to think a bit, okay?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘And maybe after you’ve finished being the brooding loner, maybe we can get our act together and start acting like the team we’re gonna need to be to deal with all this.’ She waved the spoon in the air and turned her back on me. I limped down the path to the beach.

All the way down the path, holding on to branches because I’d forgotten the walking step, I muttered under my breath. Every swear word my brother had taught me when we were kids, and a few more pretty choice ones I’d learnt since leaving home. Then I stopped muttering and started chanting. At last, standing on the sandy little beach, I was screaming. Pulling at my hair with fisted hands I turned in circles screaming at the cliff, at the trees, at the sparkling blue water, at the whole fucking, shit damn buggering fucking world.

I got dizzy and toppled over, lay there on my back looking up at a still distantly- smudged sky. I closed my eyes as the world spun around me. Lifted an arm over my face and sand was glued down my cheeks in the tear tracks. I rolled over onto my stomach. The sand was only barely warm. I beat at it with my hands and swore again.

Sitting up I flung off my clothes and walked down into the water. It wasn’t deep here, no room really for swimming. I stood, thigh high and splashed water over my body. I’d lost weight. Bones jutted beneath skin. The water rocked me as I balanced on one foot. I knelt and put my head under the water. It was green close up. I listened to the world from under the water. Held my breath until my lungs were bursting.

And stood up, waded out of the sea. Pania was right. We had to act as a team. Whatever was going on, we had an advantage now. There were two of us, and even if that were of no practical use, if was a mighty big consolation. I pushed my wet hair out of my face.

Pania was standing on the beach, towel in hand. She passed it to me without a word.

‘Thanks,’ I said, and dried off, pulled my clothes back on. Dressed again I stood in front of Pania. Leaned my forehead against hers. We stood like that while overhead some bird, most probably a native, wheeled across the sky, crying out in a harsh voice. I looked into Pania’s eyes. They were steady. They steadied me.

I nodded. ‘You and me,’ I whispered.

She reached up and smoothed her hands across my hair.

‘You and me,’ she repeated. We wrapped our arms around each other and stood like that in the sun, feeling it warm on our heads.

Pania took my hand and we started up the path back to our place.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

We spent the day quietly, catching up with jobs we hadn’t been able to do because of the rain. I was still jittery; something inside me felt brittle, fragile. Pania took to touching me on the arm or back when she passed. Just a small, light touch, but it steadied me.

She found the shovel and headed down the end of the garden.

‘What’re you going to do?’ I called after her.

She flung a grin back my way. ‘Dig us a long drop!’ she called. ‘Find something to build the dunny house with, will ya?’

Well, Christ. A long drop. Okay. I scanned the bush. Birds were singing their little hearts out everywhere, bopping around the branches, but other than that, all was quiet. I chewed my lip, standing on the deck where I’d been stacking driftwood we’d scrounged from the beach. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, but it was nothing, just nerves. All right then. See if we could get the job done.

Now was the perfect opportunity to answer one of my questions about our new world. I looked over the edge of the deck, where the house had used to stand. Trees hustled their way up an uneven bank that sloped downwards to what was left of the road – an untidy stretch before the trees started again in earnest. I wondered if it were still a track all the way up to Titirangi. I would suggest we find out one day soon, mostly because I didn’t like the idea of our world contracting around us until there was only this small clearing.

Grabbing my walking stick I found the garden spade and struggled down the bank until I was standing over what used to be the house I grew up in. I scanned the trees again but still only birds, nothing else, none of the moa variety either.

I dug at the bank until sweat poured down my back. Swiping an arm across my forehead I stood back and surveyed the pocked moonscape I’d created.

There was nothing there. There was nothing left of the house. It had been subsumed somehow deep into the ground. Deeper than I could dig. Or else it had simply disappeared. They way the people did. I shrugged. If that was the case, then why didn’t it happen at the same time? When I woke up that morning after making love with Hemi in the bush, why wasn’t everything gone? I leaned against the spade and faced the fact that I just didn’t have a clue.

Back up on the deck Pania was draining a bottle of water. She was filthy and grinning.

‘What you been doing baby?’ she asked. ‘You’re as dirty as I am.’ She threw me some water. ‘I’m almost done. Any ideas yet about what we can build round it to keep the rain out?’

I shook my head. ‘Got a bit sidetracked, but there’s probably something in the shed. There’s all that wood and stuff stacked at the end there.’

She nodded. ‘Wish we could get the machines to work. Make light work of building if we had the saws and things working.’ She sat down and flexed her arms. ‘Hard work digging. What were you doing?’

I sat down opposite her. ‘Decided to see if there was anything left of the house down there,’ nodding towards the bank. ‘There was nothing. Absolutely no sign that there was ever a house there at all. I don’t understand it.’

Pania leaned over and put her hand on mine. ‘Do you expect to be able to understand it?’ she asked. ‘I can’t see any of it ever making any sense.’

I took my hand away, ran my fingers through my hair. ‘How can you just accept it like this?’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to know? To make sense of it?’

She stared at me. ‘Cass, we’re never going to make sense of this. Never. There isn’t any sense to be made of it. It wasn’t us who did this, there’s nothing we can do about it.’ She stood up and picked up her shovel. ‘All we can do is make sure we have food and shelter and that somehow we don’t go crazy.’

I groaned. ‘How are you managing to keep so together?’

She leaned down and kissed me. ‘You need me to. It’s amazing what you can do when someone needs you to do it.’ She cracked a smile. ‘It’ll be your turn soon, I’m sure.’

‘Team work, huh?’

‘Yeah. Now find something for us to build the dunny with, will ya?’ She cast a glance at the trees and I realised I wasn’t the only one nervous. ‘I don’t want to have to go into the bush anymore with my pants down, you hear?’

I found some suitable wood in the shed and Pania knocked together a seat and frame. We spent the rest of the afternoon weaving in twiggy branches and ponga tree ferns until we had the whole thing screened off. Every time I cut a branch from a tree to use, I felt like apologising to the tree and begging for it to be okay. At long last we stepped back and regarded our handiwork. It would probably attract huge amounts of spiders, but then, what old long drop didn’t?

‘That,’ pronounced Pania, ‘is truly awesome.’

‘It sure as hell is,’ I agreed. ‘I’d say we’ve earned a drink. There’s two bottles of wine left. Fancy a glass?’

She grinned at me. ‘You bet. Let’s take it down to the stream. I need a bath.’

The water was bracing, to say the least. We lay there, letting it wash the dirt and sweat away, feeling the sweet pull of tired muscles that mean a good days work done. A sensation not entirely familiar to me as Pania pointed out, teasing me.

‘We’ll build some muscles in those puny arms of yours yet,’ she said, bobbing closer, laughing.

I splashed her and lay back, looking up at the green canopy above us. Ezzy was cropping at the grass on the bank, flicking her ears every now and then in our direction. Finally, for the first time since the day before, I relaxed, and peace descended over me. I drank some more wine.

CHAPTER FORTY

Oh Jesus God. I jerked out of sleep again, clutching the sheet, jamming it into my mouth to stop screaming. Throwing myself out of the bed I flailed around, wildly trying to find my clothes.

‘Cass! What’s going on? Cass? Are you all right?’ Pania scrabbled round for the matches.

With the candle lit I dived for my clothes, not caring if the jersey I pulled on was back to front or not. I hopped round the room tugging on my jeans. Pania was out of bed pulling on her own clothes.

‘Cass, stop it right now! Tell me what’s wrong.’

I just looked at her, turned, tripped over the dog, found the door and pulled it open. I ran out into the darkness, screaming.

‘Okay you bastard,’ I yelled into the midnight trees. ‘Show yourself. C’mon, c’mon out into the open and show yourself!’ I spun round and grabbed Pania when she came up behind me. ‘I’ve had enough of this already,’ I told her.

‘Enough of what already?’ she asked, grabbing me by the shoulders. ‘Cass, you’re acting crazy. Calm down and tell me what’s going on.’

I spun round again. ‘We have to get out of here,’ I told her. ‘Pania we have to get out of here. There’s no choice.’ I lunged back to the shed. ‘I’m going to pack a bag and we’re leaving.’

Pania snatched at me. ‘Cass, stop it, just stop it.’ She swung me round and I tripped, falling against the wall of the shed. She grabbed my jersey and held me still. ‘We’re not going anywhere, Cass,’ she said. ‘There isn’t anywhere for us to go right now. You know that.’ She shook me slightly. ‘So for fuck sakes stop flipping out and tell me what’s going on.’

I collapsed against her. Buried my face in her shoulder and wrapped my arms around her. ‘I dreamed about it,’ I said. ‘Last night too. It won’t leave me alone. It wants us, Pania. It wants us.’

I felt her look around at the night. ‘What wants us?’ she whispered, but she knew already. She’d felt it that time.

‘What is it, Pania? Is it God?’ I put my hands to her face and looked her in the eye. ‘Do you know what it is? Did you ever hear any stories about this?’

She shook her head under my hands. ‘About what? Cass, I don’t understand? What do you mean is it God?’ She took my hand. ‘Let’s go inside, okay.’

I shook my head. ‘No. Have to stay out here. Have to keep watch. You go inside. I’ll be all right.’

Pania laid her head against mine. ‘We’re not leaving each other alone. Either inside or out here, but we’re sticking together, remember.’

I nodded. ‘Out here, then.’ I looked at her. ‘Just this once. I need to be able to see.’

She stared hard at me, the moon was out, she looked fierce. And worried. ‘Can we light the fire?’ she asked at last. ‘It’s cold out here.’

Ezzy came over to see what we were doing, and the dog slunk around in the shadows for a few minutes before coming and leaning against Pania’s leg. I sat hunched over the fire, eyes restless, canvassing the perimeter of the lawn. My palms itched, the back of my neck felt full of prickles. Nervous and on edge I knew I was scaring Pania, but I couldn’t help it. The dream lurked in the corners of my mind, I couldn’t shake it free.

Pania reached out and took my hand. We sat there by moon and firelight, hands clasped, chain smoking cigarettes, talking disjointedly in whispers.

‘I think I’m going crazy,’ I said, when an owl shrieked in the night.

Pania wrapped her arms around me. ‘In that case we both are,’ she said. ‘I felt it too, remember. You’re not the only one.’

‘Why aren’t you dreaming of it then?’ I asked, and looked out toward the trees again. I felt Pania shrug.

‘Maybe it’s trying to divide us. Whatever it is that it wants to do with us, maybe we’re too strong for it together.’ She fell silent a moment while I thought about what she said.

‘But Cass,’ she continued. ‘What is it?’

I took a breath before answering. Now maybe she would change her mind about my being crazy. ‘It’s a god,’ I said. ‘An ancient one, who walked the empty world, before people. He walks between the trees and covets life.’ I stopped.

Pania was silent.

‘That sounded nuts didn’t it,’ I said, and sighed.

‘Yes,’ Pania agreed. ‘But I believe you. You know why?’ she asked. ‘Because a couple months ago I woke up and there were no people anymore, except for me. Then a few weeks later there were no houses anymore and earthquakes heaved and volcanoes erupted. So why on earth wouldn’t there be old gods as you call them walking around now? Why the fuck wouldn’t there be because I noticed a while ago that things around here aren’t exactly normal anymore!’

The moon hung on the edge of the western sky as the sun rose. The day dawned in an ache of perfection that silenced us. The birds roused themselves to serenade the growing light and the trees glowed unearthly in their sudden beauty. The ash was gone from the air, instead there was the clean, bracing odour of salt water. Pania and I sat with hands entwined, my head in her lap and watched, waited and listened and the day birthed around us.

‘Do you feel this?’ Pania said, finally, her voice hushed.

I nodded, throat thick, sitting up. Pania tugged at my hand and I got up, followed her down the steps and into the centre of the clearing. She took both my hands and faced me.

‘Do you feel this?’ she asked again, raising our hands in the fresh, golden light. Spinning, she stood with her back to me, and I took her hands again. Facing the trees, the sun, sky, moon, she began to sing. Soft, delicate sounds that wove in and out of the bird song, words in Maori that I didn’t understand but fell in love with anyway lifted and floated on the breeze, streamed out into the world around us. Tears drifted down my face as her song lightened every burden.

We stood hushed into a reverent silence when she finished. I turned her round again to face me and looked into her eyes. And smiled. Kissed her, a soft pressing together of lips that seemed sacred in the early morning air.

She looked back at me. ‘You realise, don’t you,’ she said, ‘that if there are gods walking out there, then we are the goddesses.’ And she smiled. So beautiful. ‘Here we are goddesses on this new Earth. It’s ours.’ She shrugged and laughed.

Her laughter was infectious. We stood in the clearing, the sun on our right, the moon on our left and we laughed until tears streamed down our cheeks and the darkness of the night was banished from our souls.

And then we cooked breakfast and ate with a healthy appetite. Aroha came nosing around our plates but turned her nose up at the courgette and silver beet.

I indicated the dog. ‘What are we going to feed her when the dog food runs out?’

Pania wiped her plate with a crust of damper. ‘Fish,’ she said. ‘In fact, I could do with a feed of kaimoana myself.’ She put her plate down and stared into the distance, thinking.

‘Do you think that time has actually been turned back? Or that the world has just kind done this big roll over and dislodged a few things?’ She took a sip of water and reached for the cigarettes. Boy were we going to find it hard giving those up when the time came.

‘Does it make any difference?’ I asked, leaning back in my chair and turning my face to the sun.

‘Maybe it does, you know,’ she answered. ‘Because I don’t think that dude out there, is a god capital G, you know what I mean? I mean,’ she said, puffing out a breath of smoke, ‘I mean there was Rangi and Papa and their children, Tane Mahuta and Tongariro and the rest, but it doesn’t feel to me like we’re back that far, you know? It doesn’t feel that far back and it doesn’t feel legit.’ She sat back, thinking. ‘I don’t know if I’m making any sense with this or not, but I just get this feeling that this fella out there in the trees isn’t one of those big guys. He’s probably not supposed to be walking around at all, if you ask me.’ She shrugged.

‘Tane-nui-a-rangi, was the god of forests, trees and birds, which should be right for our guy.’ She waved the cigarette round, making inadvertent smoke rings. I leaned forward, focussing on her. ‘But you can’t tell me that’s who it is. Because that’s way too heavy for me.’ She subsided into her thoughts, squinting into the sun.

‘Because if that’s who it is, then what does he want with us?’

I looked down in the clearing, where just a while ago Pania had sung and called us goddesses. Were we goddesses? I cleared my throat.

‘They saw the daughters of Men and thought them beautiful. So they lay with the daughters of Men.’ I reached for the cigarettes as Pania stared at me.

‘What’s that from?’

‘The Bible.’ I lit a smoke and inhaled, blowing it out through my nose as I spoke. ‘Angels, they saw the women on Earth and fell in love with them. Formed partnerships, shall we say, and bred a new race.’ Pania gaped at me. I shrugged.

‘Holy shit,’ Pania said.

‘Holy shit indeed,’ I said, unable to help but smile.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘No wanker god’s putting a fucking bun in my oven.’ She gazed out over the trees.

‘I don’t fancy the thought either,’ I said.

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

We struggled to maintain the peace we had found at dawn. By noon, it was pretty much in tatters and both of us were on edge again. The strain was taking a physical toll. I felt drained, physically, every muscle aching. The lack of sleep wasn’t helping and when I examined my reflection in the mirror, the shadows under my eyes made my face look like a stranger's.

We went together to the stream to wash our dishes and ourselves. Both of us too nervous to be alone in the trees. The day was still brilliant with sunshine, but in the bush there were too many shadows and though the birds hopped unconcernedly from branch to branch, our spirits were not so easy. I wished I’d never said anything. Pania was quiet, thinking I suspected, about the rape. I wanted to take her in my arms and promise never, never again.

And I would have too, if I didn’t have such a dread feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knelt at the edge of the water and splashed my face, holding hands to face, closing my eyes. I would have tried praying, but to whom?

We did no real work. Back in the clearing, I played at weeding the garden, and dug out the last of the potatoes, storing them in a sack, which for lack of a better place, I put in the shed. Pania was sitting on the bed, hands limp in her lap, staring down at the puppies. I wiped the dirt off my hands and sat down next to her. Pushing a strand of hair back from her face, I asked if there was anything I could do.

‘You could have shut up,’ she hissed at me. She burst into tears. ‘You could have not said that.’ She shook her head. ‘I would have rather not known.’

I slid down to the floor in front of her, looking up into her face. ‘That’s bullshit,’ I said. ‘If we know, we can fight.’ I grabbed her hands. ‘You’re a fighter, Pania. You can get through anything, you’re stronger by far than me.’ I held her face in my hands and looked her in the eye. ‘With you here I can handle anything. We stick together, remember. And we fight. Every day we get up and we do what we need to do to stay alive. And we figure it out. Whatever happens, us, our determination to win, that can’t be taken away from us.’ I was babbling, but I wanted the light back in her eyes. ‘We walk between these trees too. We’re goddesses on this Earth too.’

She looked at me. ‘Do you believe that, or are you just trying to make me feel better?’

I kissed her. ‘I believe it.’ I kissed her again. ‘I believe in you, in us. I believe we’re supposed to be here, together.’ Did I? Maybe, for all that, I did. I kissed her again, didn’t let go this time and finally she kissed me back.

‘You’re full of shit,’ she said finally. ‘But I love you for it.’

I sat back and grinned at her. ‘I love you too. Are you with me? From this moment forward, are you with me?’

‘I’m with you.’

We walked outside. ‘So,’ I said. ‘This fishing idea of yours. How’re we going to do it?’

She fell in with it. ‘Best way would be from a boat.’ I watched her think about it. We really would be lost without each other, I realised. When one of us fell the other picked them up. Didn’t matter which of us fell, the other was there. I had another thought.

‘There was a boatshed still standing, remember? Right on the water line. I guess no trees were going to grow there to knock it down.’ I didn’t want to think there might be another explanation. ‘I saw it on my way to One Tree Hill too, and I’m sure there are a couple of kayaks in there.’

Pania was nodding. ‘We could walk round and get them, paddle back. Go fishing every day if we wanted then. Wow, I sure would like some fresh fish!’ She grabbed my hand. ‘Your dad have fishing tackle here?’

We had fishing gear. I’d picked some up the day the Sky Tower fell. But Pania was still talking.

‘Even if he doesn’t, I have stuff to make hooks with, I have my jewellery making stuff with me – you saw the tools. I kept some silver and things; I could make hooks as easy as anything.’ She was on a roll, eyes gleaming again. ‘I want to go get the boats now,’ she said.

‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘Right now?’

She checked where the sun was in the sky. ‘Why not? It’s the perfect weather for it, and we still have hours of daylight left. Let’s check the tide; I don’t see why we can’t walk around the coast that way. It’s only a couple bays around the harbour, isn’t it?’

Wood Bay, I thought. And my ankle was much better. I nodded. ‘Okay,’ I said.

Pania looked down at my foot. ‘What about your ankle?’ she said, reading my mind.

‘It’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Besides, new policy, remember? We go everywhere together.’

We were in luck – the tide was just right. Turned and nosing its way back in, sunlight glinting off delicate little caplets. Pania grinned and we went back to the shed to bandage my ankle and force a boot onto it. We jammed hats down over our foreheads and set out.

Ezzy was determined to follow us. Even Aroha the dog trailed us down the track to the beach before slinking away back to her pups. I watched the white plume of her tail disappear and realised that somewhere along the way we had become a family. A rather strange one, it was true, but a family none the less. And one that had to be protected. I couldn’t ever go back to being alone. Never.

I closed down that line of thinking. Concentrated instead on picking my way over the rocks, the cliff throwing us into shadow and my walking stick slipping with every step. It was precarious going. Pania walked beside me, offering her hand to steady me. The air was alive with bird calls, whistling, chortling, cat-calls. Pania gestured out to sea; a large grey bird dove into the water, emerged with fish in beak.

‘Do you know what sort of bird that is?’ I asked Pania.

‘Some sort of bird, I think,’ she replied.

‘What does your name mean? Pania? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.’

‘I’m named after Pania, the seal-woman From off the shore Napier way. She married Karitoki and later transformed herself into an offshore reef so that his tribe would always have plenty of fish.’ Pania kicked at a rock. ‘My kuia named me, said she knew right from the start I’d love water.’

I splashed through a shallow rock pool. ‘We’re going to have to rename everything,’ I said. ‘I don’t know the names of the trees or the birds, or even some of the place names.’

She took my hand and we were around the first outcrop. ‘I’m the same,’ she said. ‘Let’s call things by beautiful names, okay? What’s the word? Evocative. Take that bird, for instance,’ she said, pointing to a fat thrush preening its green-black feathers.

‘It’s a thrush,’ I said.

‘Not anymore it isn’t.’ She nodded. ‘Now it is named Verdigree Satisfaction.’

I laughed. ‘That’s an absurd name. I love it.’ Laughed some more. ‘I thought you would name it something in Maori.’

She smiled up at the now fancily named bird. ‘Some birds shall have Maori names, and others English such as you speak. Our new country shall keep its bi-lingual status.’ She poked me in the side. ‘But you’ll have to learn Maori, in that case. I shall teach you the stories of our old ones here in this green place, and in return you shall tell me stories of other lands.’ She leaned against me a moment. ‘Places we’ll never know anymore except through your stories.’

I put my arm round her. ‘We don’t know that.’ I said. ‘We don’t even know what has happened anywhere else. The rest of the world might be unaffected.’

‘That’d hardly make any difference to us, lost in time and place like we are here.’ She smiled again. ‘What’ll we name that bird over there?’ she asked.

It was yellow chested. ‘The-Golden-Heart-of Pania,’ I decided. Pania giggled.

‘Golden-Hearts for short,’ she said.

My ankle was throbbing by the time we got to the right bay. I sat down on the grassy bank and lay back, wincing with the pain.

‘I think I may have over done it somewhat,’ I said when Pania leaned over me. ‘Ankle’s hurting like a bitch.’

She plonked a kiss on my lips. ‘You’ll live. Meanwhile,’ she said, eyeing the little wooden structure. ‘Get praying that there are boats inside that itty bitty shed.’ She unbuckled the backpack she wore and took out the hatchet.

‘Can’t pray,’ I muttered. ‘Now that we’re elevated to goddess status, I’d be praying to myself.’ Pania gave me a strange look. I shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t be right.’ I said and rolled my eyes. ‘Take no notice of me. I’m just waffling. Go,’ I said. ‘Break down the door. Let’s see if we’re going to have fish for our supper.’

Pania bared her teeth in a happy grin and walked over to examine the door to the shed. She was whistling.

‘It’s just a crummy padlock,’ she said. ‘And this door looks a hundred years old.’ She lifted the axe and crashed it into the door by the lock. Twice, three times. Then with a whoop of triumph she threw it to the ground and ripped open the door. Disappeared inside. Silence.

‘Well?’ I shouted, impatient.

She walked out, holding a paddle. Stuck it into the sand and leaned against it, cocking a hip. ‘Fish for dinner anyone?’

‘You beauty!’ I cried and struggled to my feet. I peered inside the shed. ‘Oh my,’ I said. ‘We’ve hit the mother lode.’

‘I know! Isn’t it cool,’ squealed Pania pushing past into the shed. ‘You’ve done this before though, right?’

I looked at the three kayaks stacked across the shed. The bright pink and purple of their fibreglass hulls was going to look out of place in our simple green and brown world. I grinned.

‘Yeah, gonna be out of practise though.’

Pania poked me in the ribs and handed me two more paddles. ‘Do you good,’ she said. ‘Build some muscles on that flabby body of yours.’ She turned round and looked at the kayaks. ‘You going to be all right to help me get them out?’ she asked.

‘It has to be done,’ I said, ‘so we’ll do it. How many of them are we going to take?’

‘All of them,’ Pania said. ‘One each. I’ll tow the third. I brought rope just in case.’

Pania had us organised in no time and the tide was cooperating, pushing its way higher up the beach. We’d timed it just right. Overhead the sun was slanting from its late afternoon position. The day was still clear, though from here I could see the smudge of the ash cloud over to my right. The ground felt solid beneath my feet though, and I gave the volcano little thought, it had obviously just been clearing its throat, not going for blast-off. Auckland wasn’t Auckland anymore. We would have to rename it as well.

Pania pushed off first and paddled out a short way, towing the third kayak behind her. She circled round and watched as I struggled to lower myself into the craft. Clumsy on my sore ankle, I almost tipped up, stuck the paddle in the sand, righted myself and pushed off. With salty grins we were soon skimming over the water, and Pania was singing again as we rounded the point and headed back to our home.

CHAPTER FORTY TWO

The breeze in our hair, the water cradling us, we paddled out in the harbour. I dipped the paddle one way then the other into the green water, straining to keep movements smooth and fluid. It felt good, I had to admit. The pull of the shoulders, the speed, oh yeah the speed. It had been a long time since I’d gone anywhere fast.

We passed close to the cliffs, and the shadows deepened the water, turning it a secret emerald. Pania stopped singing and slowed. I drew up alongside her.

‘Okay?’ I yelled across the water.

She nodded and resumed paddling, slowly, peering over the side into the water. I shivered. It was cold here out of the sun. What was she looking at? I glanced in at the water, realising suddenly how deep it was now. I looked around. My brother had used to kayak up and down this stretch of water. Testing out the kayaks he designed and built himself. We were possibly even sitting in ones he had built. But that wasn’t the thought that had me staring over the side again.

He used to talk of sharks. I made an involuntary groaning noise deep in my throat, and paddled, eager to keep the forward momentum going. Pania was just ahead, dipping her paddle into the green almost in slow motion, still looking over the side. I wondered what it was that was holding her attention. I thought again of the sharks, trying to remind myself that they were only a danger at night. Was that right? Unsure, I paddled closer to Pania.

‘What’s the matter?’ I called. ‘Why have we stopped?’

She looked up and met my eyes for a moment before peering back down again. I made that sound again in my throat and felt a sudden need to pee. Pania’s face was pale, eyes huge. I looked overboard again, desperate to see what was holding her gaze.

I couldn’t see anything. It was just green, shadowed, like old, almost opaque glass. I shook my head.

‘What is it? Let’s go.’ I nudged right up against her and tapped her kayak. She jerked her head up at me and stared as though she didn’t recognise me.

‘Whatever it is,’ I said, ‘leave it and let’s keep going.’ I kept my voice calm though inside I was screaming, all the hair on my neck standing up now, seriously spooked. I kept my eyes on Pania’s.

‘Let’s go now, okay?’ I repeated. ‘Time to go.’

She stared at me and her eyes flickered back to the water.

‘No Pania, don’t think about what’s down there, okay? It’s time to get going again. Ezzy will be waiting for us and Aroha will need to be fed. All right?’

Pania was looking at me again, and she nodded, eyes still wide and shocked. I pushed gently away and dipped my paddle back into the water, checking to see if Pania was doing the same. A sigh of relief when I saw her following.

We paddled side by side, swift strokes with the paddles sending us skimming along the top of the water. I kept my eyes forward, not wanting to look down at the water. My muscles strained and burned and from the look of Pania’s face, she was feeling it too. We were pulling through the water at Olympic speed while around us the beauty of the day slid down under the water and away.

I hit the sand at our beach right behind her and pulled myself out of the kayak as fast as I could. Pania was just sitting in hers, still, chest heaving. I fell on my knees beside her.

‘What happened back there?’ I asked, breath coming in bare gasps. I grabbed her hands and rubbed them between my own; they were stone cold.

She took a deep breath and let it out slow, slumping over. ‘Dunno babe. That was truly weird back there.’ She looked at me and I watched her struggle to smile. ‘Underwater,’ she frowned and shook her head. ‘There was a freak show happening underwater.’

I pushed her hair back off her face. ‘A freak show?’

‘Huh.’ She pulled herself out of the kayak, standing up and stretching. ‘Taniwha, water spirit,’ she said, frowning. ‘Never mind. I don’t know what it was. Let’s get these pulled up on the beach. Then maybe you can read some more to me. Do something normal.’ She shrugged.

We pulled the kayaks up past the high tide mark. I watched Pania, but she pulled together a smile and patted me on the shoulder. ‘Fish tomorrow,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely.’

I lay in bed that night, unable to sleep. I could feel eyes on me, watching from the trees, floating out in the bay. Watching, brooding, waiting.

It was only a matter of time.

Sleep was a long time coming.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

I don’t think either of us got much sleep that night. There were no nightmares though, just dreams clouded in a green haze, where I wandered the forest and the water, looking for someone, Pania I think. Walking on and on, through an everlasting maze of green. I woke no more refreshed than when I’d lain down to sleep.

I also woke to find Pania looking at me, lying on her side, hands tucked under her cheek.

‘You okay?’ I whispered.

She nodded. ‘I’m going fishing today,’ she said.

I lay back and looked up at the tin roof. ‘Fish would be nice,’ I said.

‘I don’t want you to come,’ she continued. ‘I mean, you don’t have to come. I’ll just be out in front of Laingholm beach, okay. You’ll be able to see me from the beach. I won’t go out of sight.’

I looked at her, not saying anything.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she said.

I closed my eyes a moment. ‘Okay,’ I said, looking at her again. ‘I’ll sort some of the stuff out in the shop.’

She nodded. We wrapped our arms around each other and lay there in silence.

The day was hazy blue. Startlingly beautiful again. While Pania made breakfast, I walked out to the edge of the promontory, just past the path to the beach. We were no longer sticking like glue to each other and I stood alone on the cliff’s edge, looking out over the harbour. Birds – Pania’s Golden Hearts – quibbled in the branches at my back and I stood almost without breathing. The view made my heart ache with a fierce physical pain. It was astonishing. The world had reverted to its fine, fierce primal beauty. I almost couldn’t take it. Closing my eyes I spread my arms and lifted my face to the sun. Felt the breeze caress my cheek, understood the simple joy in the birds song. Felt alive. Tears streamed down my cheeks. Alive, at least I was alive.

I opened my eyes and turned to go back to camp. Wiped the water from my face. I didn’t know what Pania was making for breakfast, but my stomach rumbled with renewed vigour. Surprisingly, I felt good.

From the track came a rustling of undergrowth. It would be Ezzy, following me, brown nose pushy and eyes always inquisitive. But Ezzy didn’t appear and out of the trees stepped a moa, gleaming brown and almost egg shaped as the sun lit upon it. I stopped dead still, eyes flicking between the bird and the trees behind it, waiting for the crippling presence to make itself felt.

The seconds ticked by, feeling like hours. The bird pecked around like an overgrown chicken, raising its head repeatedly to look at me. But nothing else happened.

Was Pania okay?

I edged round the bird, panic flaring at the edge of my consciousness. Pania. I had to get back to camp. Was she all right?

I ran as best I could, dragging my injured ankle behind me, tripping and stumbling in my panic. Branches swiped at my face, tangling in my hair like an impatient lover’s fingers. I pulled free and ran on.

Pania! Where was she? I reached our clearing, yelling for her, spun round, trying to find her.

‘Cass! What’s wrong?’

I slumped over, fighting down the panic, trying to find my breath, sucking in the air in heaving breaths. She was all right. Getting up from her seat on the deck and coming over, worry in her beautiful eyes.

‘What’s happened Cass?’ she asked, bending over me, arms around my shoulders.

I straightened up and gave a shamefaced grin. ‘Everything’s all right. I just scared the crap out of myself.’

‘I’ve made coffee. You look like you need some.’ She led me to the deck and I sank into one of the chairs, regaining some of my senses at the smell of the coffee. She looked at me. ‘So. Tell me.’

I shook my head. ‘Saw a moa. Whenever else I’ve seen moa it’s meant it was around, you know what I mean?’

She nodded and I took a sip of the coffee.

‘Well, when it didn’t appear, I thought it must be back here.’ I shrugged. ‘I ran back to make sure you were okay.’

She leaned over and squeezed my hand. ‘Nothing here,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t here.’ She shuddered and I watched her eyes cloud over. I took her hand and we sat that way awhile, not saying anything.

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

We waited for the tide to come in. Pania found the bits and pieces of fishing gear in the shed and sorted them out. I wandered over to the garden and pulled up the beetroot.

We ate lunch in silence, Pania’s eyes drifting back all the time to the fishing gear. I wondered what was going through her mind, but couldn’t find the words to ask her. She hadn’t told me any more about what she’d seen in the water the day before. Maybe there just weren’t the words for some things. I didn’t know. Taniwha, she’d said.

I let her have her silence. And kept my own. There was an air of terrified expectation to the day, and nothing I said or did made it go away. When at last we put the lunch things away and Pania picked up her tackle, I was almost relieved. Just about anything would be better than the terrifying expectation that hung in the air. But I looked at Pania’s preoccupied face and spoke.

‘Are you going to be all right?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘It’s only fishing,’ she said.

I trailed after her down the track to the little beach. We threw our gear into the kayaks, fishing gear into Pania’s, backpack into mine. We pushed off out into the estuary.

‘Have you noticed how much clearer the water is now?’ asked Pania as we paddled slowly side by side. ‘The pollution is gone.’

I looked over the side as the water deepened under us. Caught a flash of silver, a quick flickering of a fin catching the light then it was gone.

‘Just stay away from the sharks, okay?’ I replied.

She threw me a grin. ‘Not going out far enough for the sharks.’ She looked out to the distance. ‘One day we’ll go back to the Coromandel, okay? Then we’ll really do some fishing.’ I caught her sigh even as our paddles dipped in and out of the water.

‘You miss your home?’

‘Of course. You would too.’ She looked around. ‘There’s already so much to miss. But place is important, and I want to go home again someday.’

‘Okay,’ I said. I stopped paddling and turned to her. ‘That way to the shop,’ I said. ‘Can I get you anything? An ice cream?’ I tried on a flippant smile.

She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Sure, ice cream would be great. Catch you later, okay?’

I nodded and we paddled away from each other, me toward shore, Pania further out, nearer the entrance to the harbour. I hoped the current wouldn’t be too strong, but she knew what she was doing. Better than me, I hoped. I turned inland and the kayak grazed along the sandy bottom.

It was awkward getting out of the thing; my ankle was still weak and I hopped around one footed. I pulled the kayak up onto the grass and turned to look back at Pania. She was a couple hundred meters away and no longer paddling. Had dropped, I guess, the makeshift anchor she’d made. I sighed, gave her a wave she didn’t see then turned away.

I did busy work in the shop, wiping the dust away from the windows so I could see out, watch Pania, a colourful shape in the distance. The shop was something of a treasure trove, and I knelt in the dusty aisles, and couldn’t help but be grateful that it was still standing. I packed the backpack full with food to take back to camp and found a broom. I would sweep the floor; keep the place a bit tidier. I looked longingly at the radio on the counter. I missed listening to music. I would have to talk to Pania about that, I thought. Find the guitar my father had tried building. Get her to finish it. We needed a world with music in it.

I opened the door and swept the dirt and dust outside, automatically checking Pania out on the water. She was in the same place and the sun glinted off the holographic strip on the prow of the kayak. I stood, leaning against the broom and watched her. How would I be coping, I wondered, if we hadn’t found each other? Would there be any point to coping at all?

A moa wandered out of the trees, and my heart slammed into my throat. I threw a quick look at Pania; she sat as before out on the water. I looked back at the moa and edged along the wall of the shop, wondering if I should run back inside and lock the door.

With the wooden boards pressed against my back, I stared at the moa. It was about the same size as the last one. Was it just an innocent moa? Or something more? I forced my breathing to slow and biting at my lip, made myself step away from the building and out onto what used to be the road. I wasn’t going to run this time, I wasn’t going to hide. This was what I’d been waiting for all day, after all.

The moa stood on the grass, staring back at me, its eyes little brown mud pools. I felt the tears start in my own and moaned softly under my breath. I could feel it now, the presence, so much a part of the land, but so foreign to me. I felt the green bush shimmer and I swayed on my feet. I wanted to turn and shout to Pania, but my body stood uncomprehending, rooted like a tree to the spot. The moa stared at me.

There was movement in the trees and I whimpered, drawn to look but not wanting to. Wanting to run back home to my mother and father, to being a little child safe under the covers, listening in delicious thrall to bedtime stories, where the monsters lived between the pages of fairy tales and couldn’t hurt me.

But it was no monster that stepped out of the bush. It was no woodland troll or evil-staring goblin that stepped from the tress and looked at me. It was no monster who looked into me, right into me as though knowing me intimately.

Hemi walked out of the trees and stopped, looking at me. I put my hands to my face and moaned again. No, it couldn’t be. No, it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. ‘Hemi,’ I whispered anyway.

He stepped forward again, and the air shimmered around him. The moa turned and looked at him. I couldn’t take it in. Whispering again. ‘Hemi.’ Knowing it wasn’t him, but wanting, wanting so much for it to be. I fell to my knees and watched him come forward.

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

He smelled of fresh leaves and sap. He smelled wild, like trees and rivers and mountains and soft, fertile earth. I swallowed and looked up at him. The air around him swirled and gathered like a cloak and rippled when he held his hand out to me.

I was sobbing. He looked so beautiful. Tall and strong, flesh firm like carved, oiled wood. He stood barefoot, naked but for some sort of cloth around his hips. I struggled not to grasp his outstretched hand.

‘You’re not Hemi,’ I croaked out, licking dry lips. ‘Not Hemi.’

He looked at me, lips curving in a sympathetic smile. Without an answer, he stepped forward and touched my hair lightly with his hand. I closed my eyes at the touch and when I opened them again he had taken my hand and I was standing up.

The moa moved away, back into the trees. I stifled a sob in my throat and Hemi pulled me after him, turning back to the trees. I wanted to fling myself away, cry out to Pania, run. But Hemi kept my hand and I was drawn into the swirling, shifting air around him. Drawn into the dimness of the bush, where even the birds had fallen silent.

Hemi turned and smiled, his lips fuller and more perfect than ever. My fingers tingled in his grip. In here, in the shade, his skin was darker, the solid colour of aged kauri. He led me under the trees and between the delicate fronds of ferns.

In a tiny, grassy clearing, the beach no longer in sight, he turned and drew me, mesmerised to a stop. Reaching for me, he pulled me close, and my mind went foggy as his touch electrified my skin. The air between us sizzled and snapped and I felt as though I were falling, falling deep, deep into a dream.

He caught me, and lay me on the grass, slim, sinewy fingers undoing my clothes, holding me tangled in his limbs as he slipped them off. I lay back, helpless against his oak barrelled chest. He lay on top of me, and I looked up into his eyes.

And his eyes were ageless, depthless pools into which I fell, screaming.

I stumbled out of the trees, I didn’t know how much later. Except that the sun was streaking orange light over the water, turning Pania’s hair to a smouldering halo as she sat hunched over on the beach. I walked over to her, unsteady on my feet, feeling almost as though I had been drinking all afternoon. I fell down beside her and mimicked her position, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around.

‘You too?’ she said, not looking at me.

I nodded. Cleared my throat and tears stung my eyes. I squeezed them shut and lay my head on my knees.

Pania was crying. I listened to her and cried too. In a small while her cold hand crept into mine and I gripped it like a lifeline.

I cleared my throat again. ‘Where?’ I asked.

She looked out over the water. ‘In the water,’ she said. In the shallows.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Rima and I, we used to make love in the water.’ She looked at me. ‘It came as my lover.’

I nodded. ‘For me too. In a clearing. It looked like Hemi. The last time he and I made love it was outside.’

We sat in silence after that, hands still entwined. Around us the birds sang in harmonies and the air settled with scented light over the green hills and water.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Pania said. She wiped the tears from her face and stood, helping me to my feet. She smiled at me, tears still illuminating her eyes. ‘Our world can be quite a beautiful place, don’t you agree?’

I slipped my arms around her and we kissed. ‘Let’s go home,’ I said. We walked back around the empty beach, leaving the kayaks pulled up onto the grass. The light was fading from the sky as we reached our little shed. Ezzy nuzzled at our faces in greeting, and the black and white dog pushed her nose into our hands. The puppies scrabbled around in their bed and we lit the stove, opened the last bottle of wine and cooked our supper. There was nothing else to be done.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

Pania’s baby was born first, taking her first breath serenaded by the bird’s dawn chorus on a warm summer morning. She was perfect in every feature, beautiful dark hair like her mother, and even though I thought babies were always born with dark eyes, our first child was born with eyes that gleamed as green as the sea in which she’d been conceived.

Pania named her Rima after her old lover, looking askance at me as she held the beautiful child. I nodded. It was right.

Hemi was born a week later, sliding from between my legs, eyes open and squalling. We lay the children together in the crib we had made, hand carved from a young totara tree. Pania played the guitar, singing them lullabies, songs of the trees and oceans, songs of love and loss.

When they were older, we made them flutes from reeds, and the children played us songs of winds that carried laughter from one end of the country to the other.

As the years passed, we began to dream. Pania dreamed of returning to her home and the children dreamed of others, children like themselves, with mothers like us.

We made our decision when the children were eight years old and moved our family, horses, dogs, two children and two women, down the country, following the dreams back to Pania’s homeland. She kept looking at me the whole trip, her hair in a tight braid down her back and her eyes burning with love. I held her gaze, loving her as well as I ever loved.

Finally, we stopped atop a hill, looking down at the coastline where Pania had run and swum and laughed as a child. Our children stood in front of us, arms around each other’s waists, head’s together, looking. Pania stood beside me, tall, strong and beautiful and we paused just a moment, listening to the bird song and the sighing of the sea breeze, before walking down the hill to join the women and children we could see there.

* * * * * *

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