Free Taniwha's Tear by David Hair

He led them towards the Turanganui River. The landing site where Cook and his men had arrived was on the north side of the main rivermouth, whilst they were on the south side. Three bridges spanned the rivers—a rail bridge closest to the sea, a road bridge just beside it, both straddling the Turanganui, and then another road bridge upstream on the Taruheru, before it met the Waimata. It was towards the rail bridge that Mat led them—it was barely used, even in daylight, and deserted at night.
    There were plenty of people about—clumps of teens looking for fun, adults walking hand in hand, old couples walking dogs, and tourists everywhere. Gisborne was a provincial city, with only a handful of night spots, but it was a place with a relaxed attitude and an eye for fun. The annual Rhythm and Vines music festival, held during the three days leading up to the New Year, was the hottest ticket in New Zealand. The city was filling up in readiness.
    A balmy warm evening was settling over the city, with next to no wind, and heat radiating from the roads and footpaths. There was no one else on the rail bridge as they went across, laughingly walking the rails, joking about trains coming. It was only sixty metres long and they wereover inside a minute, into the marina where the well-to-do had their yachts and the fishermen their boats. Mat pointed at a monument, topped by an obelisk, which was just to the seaward side on a small grassy knoll. ‘That’s the place. Cook’s Landing.’
    ‘Yeah, built to commemorate the first shooting of a brown guy by a white guy in this fair land,’ Riki sniffed.
    ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’ Damien said.
    ‘Well, it’s kinda true,’ Mat put in. ‘Cook brought some of his men ashore, just over by the base of the bluff, where the beach used to be. The Maori came to meet them, and a whole bunch of warriors were suddenly swarming round them, trying to take their guns off them to look at, not knowing what they were. It got out of hand; a soldier panicked and shot one of the warriors.’
    Damien pulled a face. ‘I suppose you reckon that was the soldier’s fault?’ he said to Riki with a grin.
    ‘Of course! He should have known he was supposed to bring a gift. A bit of koha, to sweeten the meetin’.’ Riki poked Damien in the ribs. ‘What’s ours is ours, an’ what’s yours is ours, Pakeha.’
    Riki went to the monument and read the politically correct inscriptions in Maori and English aloud, but Damien just looked at Mat, shaking his head. ‘You really say you’re going to take us to another place?’
    ‘Yes. Do you still want to do this?’ Mat asked him.
    The tall boy paused for a long time before nodding. ‘Who could say no?’ he breathed.
    ‘Then think about this. Where we are going, mosteveryone you meet is dead.’ He let the word ‘dead’ hang in the air until it had sunk in.
    Damien nodded with Riki, their faces finally serious. Mat decided that was a good thing, and continued. ‘I don’t know how or why it is, but Hakawau and Wiri say that the Ghost Land remembers things—places, people, stories. It’s like parallel worlds, if you want to go all science-fiction about it. Sometimes people can pass between, in certain places, or if they have certain abilities. But that doesn’t happen a lot. Just because we’re still alive here doesn’t mean that we can’t die there. If some thing goes wrong, we may never come back. Do you still want to do this?’
    The other two looked sober now, all excitement draining away, replaced by a more serious demeanour. They both nodded though, still keen.
    Mat sighed, and looked around. ‘Let’s go this way.’ He led them towards the foot of Kaiti Hill, where the site of a former cottage, dating back to the first settlement of Gisborne, used to stand in the lee of the hill. They left the road and climbed a little until they stood in a shadowy glade, amidst some old pine trees. They could still see the big loading gantries of