Into the River Read Free

river rushing off the cliff top and tumbling into a deep black pool. The two boys stood in the billowing spray, and stared into its swirling surface.
    It seemed a special place. Dark and dangerous. A place of death. There was no way of continuing. The cliffs on each side were sheer and made of crumbly yellow clay.
    “I’m cold, man,” said Wiremu, his arms across his chest.
    Te Arepa looked at his own body. It too was covered in goose bumps.
    “I wonder how you get up there.” He pointed to where the river surged over the cliff.
    “Want to go back. This place gives me the creeps.”
    “There’ll be a way up. Let’s just go a bit further into the bush, see if we can find it.” Te Arepa turned and said proudly, “This is where our people ran from the Ngapuhi, they must have got up somewhere.”
    “Who cares, let’s go back.”
    But Te Arepa, sensing that he was in charge now, made his way deeper into the bush: Wiremu had no choice but to follow.
    Away from the river it was different. The cicada noise dropped to a distant buzz as they broached a stippled world of shadows and thin shafts of light. There was little to slow them now, except fallen branches. It was soft under foot, just mosses and a carpet of damp leaves. Then they found it: a break in the cliff where hundreds of years ago some earthquake or landslide had brought it all down.
    “This is the place!” said Te Arepa triumphantly.
    Wiremu said nothing for a moment: he was staring off into the bush.
    “Yeah, but what’s that?”
    About a hundred metres farther on a flat shape jutted up from the forest floor. It was hard to see in the gloom, but something about the angles looked wrong, man-made. For a moment they stood where they were, not knowing what to do, torn between going on, going back, or exploring the thing. Without discussion, they cautiously approached.
    As they got closer it began to reveal itself. Only the straightridge gave it away from the natural forms that surrounded it: even this was softened by years of fallen leaves and a thick coat of moss. You could tell that before long it would melt back into the forest.
    The boys stalked nearer, low and tense, as if it were some sleeping monster about to jump at them. Circling carefully, they found the front, gaping at them like the mouth of a cave. The interior was so dark that only when they had crept within a few metres could they see that it was full of shadowy forms. They loitered just outside, each waiting for the other to make the first move, both caught in a pulsing silence. The air became colder and the goosebumps stood out on their arms. Te Arepa nodded at the entrance. “You,” he whispered.
    Wiremu shook his head and looked determined. This whole thing wasn’t his idea. Yet the doorway beckoned, as though begging them to come inside, to squeeze within its mossy confines, into the underworld. Te Arepa thought of Hine Nui te Po and glanced about for the massive, crushing thighs. The mesh of stories that held him back was finally burned away; he was maddened and desperate with curiosity.
    Leaving Wiremu wide-eyed and frozen, he crept inside.
     
    As his eyes struggled with the darkness, familiar objects took shape. A huge old metal bed, the fireplace, the table, a chair lying on its side, the faded pictures on the wall, something hanging from the roof … and then, some dark bulk at the back that muttered, and struggled to stand up. Te Arepa’s mouth opened to scream but no sound came. For a moment his movements were so slow he thought he would never reach the gleaming square of doorway. He had the terrifying thought that he was trapped now, in this dark place with the ‘thing’. But slowly, with feet fighting to gain purchase, he barged out the entrance.
    As he burst from the little cabin, he collided with Wiremu, who had just stepped up. A moment later both boys were tumbling androlling among the leaves and twigs outside. Without a word or sideways look they picked themselves up