Excerpt:

We went through into a small, poky hallway. It was dark, and there were a lot of boxes and stuff stacked along the wall. The whole place smelled of dust, dirt, sweat, smoke and shit. My guide was pretty much invisible, only distinguishable because he was a solid dark shape moving in the more diffuse gloom of the hallway. His breath sounded loud and husky in the murk. A cat watched me bitterly from on top of a box, its eyes flashing green in the darkness. Not for the first time, I wondered what the Hell I was doing here. I was uncomfortably aware I’d forgotten to tell Te Aroha where I was going.

I figured we were at the front of the house, just where the front door was. Outside, it was a pretty pleasant day, the sun shining weakly but still shining, the clouds lifting and the birds singing. All that was just a couple of metres away, but here I was, trapped in this filthy darkness, totally without a clue about what I was doing, or how much trouble I was getting myself into. And on top of the growing unease, I was uncomfortably aware that I really needed to pee.

My guide opened a door I hadn’t even noticed in the darkness. Pale, wan light trickled out of it. He turned to look at me, the light half illuminating his heavy, slack face, the pattern of the moko standing out eerily clearly in the darkness.

“He’s in here,” my guide said, his voice hoarse and rasping. He was standing back to let me through, but I still had to slip past him to get through the door way. I could smell beer and stale smoke on his breath, on his clothes, the sour, acidic smell of his armpits caressing me. He chuckled as my rump brushed against his overhanging gut. “Once you’ve finished with Jake, you come looking for me, darling,” he wheezed. I reached behind me to pull the door closed, more interested in sealing him on the other side than about what might be in the room with me, but he was already pushing it closed on me, shoving me into the room in an awkward stumble. Something tangled my legs, almost tripping me. I reached out wildly, found the wall and tried to keep myself on my feet. The air in here was almost solid with the odour of unwashed flesh, countless cigarettes, piss and dampness. I swallowed hard to keep from retching.

A low chuckle froze me.

The room was dark, but the darkness was leavened by a dim light – about as bright as a kid’s nightlight – on a low, or box, against the wall in the far corner. The windows, like I’d seen from the front, were boarded over. A few beams of frighteningly bright white light, like miniature searchlights, spilled through gaps between the boards, cutting across the darkness in seemingly solid rays, somehow not dispelling the darkness around, but just emphasizing it.

I looked around, my eyes flitting from corner to corner, but it wasn’t until something moved that I discerned the source of the chuckle. Involuntarily, I shrank back a bit, as a massive block of shadow detached itself from the pool for darkness behind the feeble glow of the lamp, and came clattering towards me.

The network of little beams of light illuminated parts of what was coming towards me, an eye here, matted dark hair, massive hands flexing, the glisten of metal reflecting the sunlight that had pushed in through the boards. Jake O’Brien was a giant of a man, but a giant trapped in a wheelchair. His arms, torso and head were build like a buffalo, but his legs ended savagely at the knees, the stumps barely poking out under his massive belly.
When he reached the middle of the room, he stopped, his hands resting on the wheels, squinting up at me. “Come forwards,” he wheezed, his voice barely above a whisper. I couldn’t bring myself to obey. “Come on, girl,” he said. “I won’t bite you. Ain’t got no fucking teeth left for that.”

Reluctantly, I stepped away from the safety of the wall, into the room. My mouth was dry. I licked my lips. It didn’t make any difference. I knew that if I tried to say anything, my voice would come out as a nervous squeak or a whimper.

Jake was shaken by a fit of coughing that made the wheelchair lurch as his massive frame bucked. He was a big man, but he’d grown bigger, running to fat on a gargantuan scale. He seemed to spill over the sides of his wheel chair. He smelled rancid, the already too familiar aromas of stale sweat, smoke, beer mingling with something lower, sensible but indefinable, the scent of a body so mired in its own dirt that it has become its ingrained odour.

“Come over here, by the light,” he said, his voice a bit stronger after his coughing. I followed his instruction. He chuckled again. “Billy said you were a nice piece. Not wrong, either. Watch out for him, when you leave. He’s likely to want to get a bit friendly.”

He wheeled himself closer to me, retreating into the corner he’d emerged from when I came in. A match flared, brilliant yellow and blue light, and I caught a weird glimpse of his face, shadows thrown the wrong way, dark lines under heavy jowls, dark pools of shadow under heavy brows, the eyes almost obscured by folds of loose skin, a thick black beard with a cigarette protruding from it, to which the match was applied by a hand with nails like chisels. The tip of the cigarette glowed bright red and the match was shaken out. Jaek O’Brien sighed as he inhaled, hacked up a cough, sucked in another mouthful of smoke.
The red point of the cigarette left his mouth, dangling in the darkness in one of hismassive hands.

“I’m Jake,” he said.

“I’m Donna Nga ...”

“I know who you are,” he interrupted. “You’re Donna Ngawhero. You’re a fucking psychic. You talk to dead people. I didn’t know that, you wouldn’t have got in here.”

“How ...”

He wheezed a chuckle. “I’ve got no fucking legs, but I’ve still got fucking ears, ain’t I? Got a fucking phone call. From Lizzie, telling me you were coming round. You think we let anyone in here that asks to see me?”

“Lizzie?”

“Lizzie Ropata. She called. Told me you were trying to help her with her little girl. Said you needed help with something. Said I would, because she’s still Kayne Ropata’s woman as far as I’m concerned and little Judy’s his girl. We look after our own. Though I’m fucked as far as looking after anything goes, even this carcass.”

The cigarette tip glowed at his lips again. His face turned slightly intot he light so he could look at me. The yellowish glow drained his face of all colour, making his skin gray, his beard a black mass that might have been solid, the deep lines across his forehead like canyons, the hollowness of his cheeks – testament to how sick he was, under his physical bulk – darker patches in the sickly gray pallor of his face. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said he wasn’t even capable of looking after himself.

I wondered how long it had been since he’d been outside. The wheel chair was too large to fit through the doorway of the room. I doubted even a large man like Billy could carry him, or that Jake would agree to being lifted. Pride is a strange thing. He’d have to crawl out, dragging himself across the floor, and he’d think that less humiliating than having Billy help him.

“So what do you want to know, Donna?”

I licked my lips – still dry – cleared my throat as best I could in the foul air of the room, and explained.

“I’m trying to find Judy. She skipped out on her boyfriend a couple of months ago. No word to her mother since. Police don’t think it is suspicious, no foul play or reason to worry. That she just upped and left. So they aren’t looking for her. Her mother – Lizzie – thought she was dead, but I don’t think so. But it’s tied up with another girl. Her name’s Nicolette. Fifteen years old, I think. Her family is part of your ...” I trailed off, uncomfortable about saying gang, at a loss to think what else to call it.

His massive head nodded, bobbing up and down against the swollen bulk of his shoulders. “Aaron Hokianga’s girl,” he murmured. “Never met her. But I know Aaron.”

“I’ve talked to her a couple of times. I think she knows something. But she doesn’t know it, if you see what I mean. But she won’t talk to me about it. Because I’m an outsider, she closes up.”

He nods again. I wonder whether to tell him more, or to leave it like that. Leave it.

“I’lll speak to Aaron,” he says. “Tell him to get her to speak to you. If it’s for Kayne’s girl. How old is she now ...?”

“Seventeen, I think.”

“Christ, how time goes. I’m stuck here in this chair, waiting for something else to give out on me. Last time I saw that girl she was eight or nine. Kayne was outside then. I had legs. You wouldn’t believe it, now, would you? Been years since I saw Lizzie. She used to be a good looking thing. How is she now?”

“She’s not too good,” I say, truthfully. “She’s not looking after herself any too well.”

“None of us are. It was different then, though. Then Kayne got into a fight with some jumped up little kid from the Warriors, stuck a knife in him and he died. So Kayne goes down for twenty years. Twenty years. And then the year after, I get smashed up and lose my fucking legs. And here I am,” he’s panting by the end of this, whether with emotion or exhaustion after delivering such a long speech I can’t tell. “How the Hell did I end up like this, eh?”

He heaves a sigh that ends in another racking cough. The red point of the cigarette rises to his lips again, glows brightly as he inhales a merciful lungful.

“I can help you, girl. I can speak to Aaron and get him to tell his girl to talk to you. But two things. You don’t go to the police with it. This is our business first. If it’s serious, if she’s done something wrong, we’ll deal with it. Maybe we’ll tell the police, if it’s to do with an outsider. But you come back to me, eh, and tell me what she tells you. If you blab to the police, on your head be it. Maybe you’ll get a visit from Billy one night. Not threatening you, girl, just warning you. That’s how we do things. If you want or help, it’s by our rules. Not anyone elses. Got that?”

“Yeah.” I’m glad my voice doesn’t betray me. It’s flat and cold, not a trace of panic in it. But I’m scared, oh boy am I scared. The need to pee is almost unbearable. Maybe that’s why I’m able to keep my voice calm. Concentrating on that stops me worrying about the import of his words.

"The other thing I want you to do, Donna, ...” He trails off for a few seconds, has another drag on his cigarette. “I want you to speak to someone for me.”

At first I don’t get it. Luckily, it’s dark and he can’t see the confusion on my face.

He carries on. “I want you to speak to someone. Someone who’s passed on.”

“Oh.”

This isn’t the ideal time, I think. I’m freaking out because I’m in a dark room in a tinny house with a crippled gang member and the only other human being I’ve seen here is a leering thug with a perpetual hard on. I’m scared out of my wits, and I’m within thirty seconds of wetting myself for the first time since high school when Dane Curtiss asked me out. I’d been nervous trying to use the Ouija board with Mrs Ropata, because I’d been uncomfortable then, but that was nothing to what I’m feeling now. Every part of me is screaming no, that I shouldn’t do this. I don’t need his help, and I should get the Hell out of here. I’m too stressed. If I tried, I’d almost certainly fail. And it might be dangerous.

So of course I say, “Yeah, sure.” Big mouth gets me into trouble again. Because, in the end, I know when someone really needs me, and I can’t refuse. That isn’t how it works. If I say no, then I’ll never be able to say yes again. Whatever gift I have will be gone. And Jake O’Brien, really needs me. It isn’t in his voice, which is too low and painful to convey much emption, but I know this is one of the times I have to try.

His head nods forwards on his chest for a few seconds. For a moment I think he’s gone to sleep. Then he speaks again and his voice is a little bit stronger. “When I lost my legs, it was in a car accident. Accident. Like it was something that just happened and no-one was to blame. It was all much fucking fault. I was pissed. I’d been drinking for three days. Three days. I’d come into some money and decided to piss it all up the wall, like an idiot. Then I heard about some boys having a party down in Leven. So I thought I’d be a clever bastard and drive down and see them. I was so pissed I was beyond sleeping, beyond seeming drunk. I guess people thought I’d slept it off, because I was walking and talking like I was sober. Christ. Walking. Last time I ever fucking walked. Can you believe it. I can’t even remember it. So no-one tried to stop me. Totalled the fucking car out on the highway. About twenty ks out of town, there’s a sharp right as the road comes round a hill, no barrier on the left side. The the ground falls away pretty steep, down into a river below. And I fucked it up, went off and down into the river. Probably as well for me, because otherwise I might have fired if the bloody car went up. Ended up in water up to my neck, with the front of the car against a stone that was bigger than it was.”

He paused and had another long drag on the cigarette.

“My boy was in the fucking car, though. He was fifteen. We were going to this party together. He was riding up front beside me. And when we went down that hill into that rock, he went out through the windscreen into the water.”

Some weird trick of the light, some change in the angle of the beams shining through the chinks in the boards, shines light onto his eyes, which are wild and staring, even though his voice is even enough. Thick, but calm.

“He shouldn’t have been there. I should have left him at home. Christ, it was a fucking school day, he should have been at school, not going to get pissed with me. But I fucking let him down, didn’t I? Every step of the way. Should have made sure the little bastard went to school. Made sure he didn’t think I was a fucking hero because I wore a gang patch. At least made sure he was wearing a seat belt, but I couldn’t even do that. Because that would have said I might have screwed up. That I wasn’t the big man who could do no wrong, eh? Jesus.”

“Six hours, I was down there, in the water, bleeding. Six hours. When they got me out, they told me straight away that my legs were gone. Didn’t tell me about Mark. They kept that back, or maybe they thought I knew. But I didn’t. I’d passed out, see. Didn’t know what had happened to him. Thought he’d managed to get out, gone for help. It was only after I woke up with no legs they told me they’d pulled his body out of the river. And that was that.”

I don’t say anything. I’ve never known what to say to people when they lay out something like this. And I’ve had it happen to me a lot, doing what I do. But I’ve discovered that saying nothing works pretty well. If they have anything more to say, they’ll say it without me having to butt in.

Soon enough, Jake speaks again. “And now I want to get in touch with my boy. I know it is the right time. You being here today. See, today, he’d have been twenty two, today. It would have been his birthday. So you coming here is like an ... an ... omen. A signal. Maybe he wants me to get in touch with him. Maybe he sent you here.”

I think of all the other things that brought me here, and I don’t think Jake’s idea is likely. But I let him think it, anyway. I’m already numb, a numbness that I recognise, the chill of the other side. I don’t think Mark’s spirit drew me here, but it has been waiting, alright. Waiting for someone. And now they are here.

***

He has no photo of Mark, but that’s not a problem. I sit in a chair in front of him. He holds up his hands and I clasp his huge, damp, soft paws in mine. I close my eyes even though it is dark.

I say, “Mark?” I repeat his name a few times. By the third or fourth time, I’m not sure if I’m saying it aloud any more. It’s resonating in my head, like the beat of a bass drum, getting louder and stronger each time I repeat it. I squeeze my eyes shut against the pain. Whorls of colours spiral around me, whether it is memories of light, the nerves of my eyes reacting to the pressure as I squeeze my eyes more tightly closed, or some manifestation of the spirit plane, I don’t know. I have a sensation of travel very fast, roller coaster ups and down that leave me reeling, though I’m always anchored by the great hands clutching mine.
The, with an impact I’m sure slams me into the chair I’m sitting in, I seem to slam into something. An image of red cracked with a spider web tracery of black lines fills my mind and my ears ring with something like the peel of a great bell. And I’m cold. Coldness rising up around me. I have a fraction of a second to think, and then I’m plunged into the utter coldness of my dream once again.

The water is cold. The water is everywhere. The water is my world. It is I my hair. It is in my mouth. It is in my nostrils. I can feel the cold leaking through my eyelids, though my eyes are closed. Each breath I take, I can feel the water flooding my lungs, I can feel myself choking on the ice cold water. I try to turn, try to move, but I’m too cold and heavy. Even my head feels too impossibly heavy to lift. I can feel the throb and thump of my blood, but I can feel my strength ebbing. My mind becomes more confused, more desperate, sending out signals to a body that isn’t responding, isn’t moving. I know I need to lift my head, turn it, get it out of the water, because I’m inhaling water instead of air. I’m drowning. All I have to do is move, but my body is deadweight, weighed down by the crushing weight of exhaustion. The chill spreads deeper, the process of thought less clear. I know that I am dying. But I can’t find the will to stop it happening to me. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I live?

***

Slowly, I come out of it again. Jake O’Brien pulls me out if it, his strong, rough hands pulling me out of the cold darkness of the nightmare into the warm dark of the tinny house, the rank odour suddenly less sickening because it is full of life. I concentrate on the sound of my breath, which seems to roar in and out of my lungs like an express train. I keep my eyes closed, gathering myself, trying to assimilate what I have learned.

At last, I think, I understand. At last. The dream. Not Lucy, Mark. Maybe his father was right. Maybe Mark had been reaching out to me. But to tell me that he has been trapped in the moment of his death for seven years? The thought chills me, the horror of that eternal moment of anguish to much to contemplate. How can I tell his father this? That his son is suffering, has been suffering every moment since he died?

Finally, i open my eyes. The pale brown light of the lamp seems incredibly bright, painfully bright. Jake O’Brien’s massive head is directly in front of me, the huge mane of dark hair framing a face that has been paled by years trapped in doors, and the guilt he carries around with him. He’s been suffering as well, every moment.

He croaks, “Thank you.”

I’m confused. I try not to show it. “ don’t know what happened,” I said. “When it happens like that, I’m ... somewhere else. Don’t tell me what you heard. It was for you.”

He nods. “He just said that he was okay. That it didn’t matter.”

I feel my heart break when he says this, my knowledge of the truth almost too much to bear. But maybe Mark’s spirit can find some release in this as well, maybe lifting some of the pain from his father’s shoulders will lessen his own.

I’m speechless. I can see tears glistening on his cheeks, silver streaks running down from the dark pools of show under the beetling brows, getting lost in the animal pelt of his beard.

“I’ll call Aaron for you, get it sorted out,” he says, his voice almost lost in his beard. “Give Billy your number so we can call you. He’ll be good with it, I promise. I’ll rip his balls off if he gets out of line. You can tell him that if you want. Not that I think he’s got any.”