Chapter 5 Miracle
Miracle
A strange tingling passed through Tāwera, tightening his chest and confusing his mind.
He’d suffered a similar upheaval on the day he’d become encased in stone.
He had no clue what was happening now, and a healthy slice of fear trickled through him, mixing with the turmoil already bombarding his body.
Sharp, ominous, high-pitched screeches filled his ears, and they reverberated inside his head.
Snap! Crackle! Pop!
With each torturing shriek, a shard of pain burrowed into his body, his head. Tāwera struggled to avoid the phantom weapon, and each writhe increased the agony assailing him.
He was vaguely aware of the woman entering the room. He sensed rather than witnessed her run inside and shove open windows. The instant rush of breeze brought a delicate feminine fragrance to him. Her scent.
Without volition, he reached for her. Yet another booming crack, and Tāwera gasped.
He’d swear a draft tickled his skin. His naked skin.
He rotated his body, and the abrupt explosion had him freezing.
Although pain still debilitated him, he forced his eyes open.
His limbs and torso shifted with more fluidity and less constraint.
His heart beat so fast he worried it might leap from his chest.
Shock. Joy. Excitement. Fear.
Emotions buffeted him as he tried to understand how or why the stone encasing him was breaking off in large chunks.
A rush of energy pulsed, and this time Tāwera embraced pain as he flung around his arms and legs with far more vigor than he’d ever performed a haka. This was no war dance. This was a battle for his freedom.
Something had changed. Tāwera didn’t know what, and he didn’t care. If liberty tiptoed in his direction, he’d seize it and worry over the how and why later.
Tāwera pushed and shoved, and suddenly he was flowing freely like a patch of mist. Expanding and solidifying.
The woman—Nyree—croaked and backed up, her eyes wide.
Tāwera cleared his throat, his gaze now on a par with hers. Unlike most people of his long-ago acquaintance, she was almost as tall as him.
“Don’t be frightened. I won’t hurt you,” Tāwera said.
When she stared blankly, he realized he’d spoken in Māori. He switched to the English taught to him by the missionaries.
“Nyree, my name is Tāwera. Please do not fear me. I promise I will never hurt you like the Ari-man.”
Nyree gaped at the transparent man. Was he a genie? Did she get three wishes?
“What are you?” she muttered, too astonished to experience fear even though the man was tall and muscular and bore tattoos on his face. “A ghost?”
“No, I am Tāwera.” He held up his arm and scowled. “A taniwha.”
Nyree glanced over her shoulder to check outside her windows. Not a person in sight. “You can shift to a dragon?”
“Yes. At least I used to shift as much as possible without anyone learning of my true nature.”
He’d spoken to her in Māori before switching to English. While she understood Māori, she wasn’t fluent in her national language.
Before she reacted, he said, “You keep your identity a secret too.”
“True. There are dozens of taniwha where I live, but most people ignore the old mythology and legends. They consider them interesting stories. In the world I come from, it’s not safe to be different.”
Tāwera frowned and slowly stretched. Although he was still see-through, she distinguished his form without difficulty.
He brought to mind a warrior with his long black hair and full facial tattoos.
He wore a piupiu tied around his waist—a garment made from individual strands of dried flax that swung and swished as he stretched.
A cloak decorated with feathers hung around his shoulders, baring much of his chest. Her gaze drifted down to his bare feet.
She inhaled and caught the same scent that had upset her taniwha so severely when she’d first entered her home.
It wasn’t as concentrated this time, but it was every bit as seductive.
She stepped closer without conscious thought.
He was slightly taller than her. Taller than Ari.
The flash of memory brought a wince, and she shoved Ari and the associated guilt and pain to the back of her mind.
Instead, she focused on Tāwera. His skin color indicated Māori descent, but was he truly a taniwha?
“Are you frightened of me?” he asked, his voice husky and masculine, his golden brown gaze intense.
“No,” she said without hesitation. It was the truth. While the situation was startling and unusual—magical—he didn’t scare her.
His broad shoulders relaxed at her reply, and this time it was him who closed the gap between them. “Where am I?”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head.
“We’re on South Georgia, which is near to Antarctica.” His blank expression told Nyree she’d confused him. “I’ll show you on a map. How did you get here?” Her stomach rumbled a hunger pang that was loud enough for Tāwera to hear.
“You are hungry. Eat food.”
“All right,” Nyree said, retreating. “Come with me. We’ll sit at the table. Are you hungry? I’ll share my pasta.”
Tāwera followed, silent with his bare feet.
She pulled out a chair at the scarred wooden table in her kitchen and indicated he should sit.
As she’d suspected, Carolyn had sent her a huge helping, so she heated it and split the contents.
Did ghosts eat? If that’s what he was because, given his transparency, he wasn’t exactly human either.
A taniwha ghost. No one would give her the time of day with this revelation, even if she tried to explain.
“That smells good,” he said, his gaze on the food. “What is it?”
“Pasta.” Once she’d heated a portion, she gave it to him while she microwaved hers.
When she went to join him, he was still staring at the food, and she realized she hadn’t given him utensils.
Nyree pulled two forks out of the drawer and handed him one.
“We make pasta from flour, eggs, and water. The sauce is creamy, and Carolyn has added vegetables and sausage.”
“Show me how to eat this,” he said, his tone imperious.
“Like this,” she said, demonstrating. “Asking questions or for examples is an excellent way to learn.”
“My friends, my father, they would never ask,” Tāwera replied, his tone blunt.
She waited until he’d taken his first mouthful. He chewed slowly, savoring before he swallowed. She hid a grin as his eyes widened, and he eagerly scooped up another bite. The food didn’t reappear, so she figured ghost wasn’t an apt description for him.
“Do you know how you arrived here in South Georgia?” she asked again.
“Yes.” He ate more pasta before he spoke again. “I come from Aotearoa, land of the long white cloud.”
“New Zealand,” Nyree translated. “That is where I live too. Where in Aotearoa did you live?”
“Kororāreka.”
“North or South?” Nyree asked. She didn’t recognize the place-name.
“North,” Tāwera said.
“Can you tell me the neighboring towns?”
He rattled off several Māori names, but she recognized none of them.
“When did you leave your home to come here?”
“1780.”
Nyree’s fork stopped several inches from her mouth. She set the utensil back on her plate. “1780? That’s hundreds of years ago.” But it explained his use of the Māori language and his garments. His full facial tattoos. Few men tattooed their faces these days.
She trolled back through her hazy recollection of early New Zealand history.
They had signed the treaty of Waitangi in 1840, and missionaries had arrived in the early 1800s.
Perhaps earlier. She needed to research on the internet.
The problem was access was patchy, given the variable weather and their remoteness.
She started eating again, her thoughts busy.
Maybe she’d email a list of questions to Emma.
No, Manu was the better contact since he was a taniwha, and as head of their tribe, he’d want this information.
“How did you travel here?” Nyree asked.
“I came on a ship with a sailor who hunted for seals and sometimes whales,” Tāwera replied without hesitation.
Okay. Sealers and whalers. They’d visited Russell in Northland to provision. They’d drunk and whored and earned Russell the name hellhole of the Pacific. She tried to recall the Māori name for Russell and failed. Another question to add to her list for Manu.
Nyree waited for Tāwera to tell her more, and when he didn’t, she prompted him. “How did you get on the ship?”
Tāwera sighed and scowled at the remaining pasta on his plate. “It’s a long story. I’d hate to spoil the first meal I’ve eaten since I can remember.”
Nyree smiled. “Fair enough. Eat. We’ll finish dinner, and you can tell me while we have coffee and a biscuit.”
Tāwera frowned again and glanced askance at her. “I don’t know this coffee.”
“That’s not important. You will learn quickly, although explaining your presence to Keith and Carolyn might be tricky.”
“I don’t wish to create trouble.”
“Eat,” Nyree said, and her calmness surprised her. She was sitting down eating dinner with a ghost who appeared to be holding down food and enjoying it. Peculiar. She had to tell someone, or she’d burst. Manu, it was, then.
Once they’d eaten, Nyree placed their dirty dishes and utensils in the sink and boiled the jug to make instant coffee.
Tāwera hovered nearby, watching her every action.
Although it might’ve been creepy, the open curiosity she spotted in his golden brown eyes relaxed her.
She opened a packet from her stash of chocolate biscuits and led the way to the lounge.
“This is coffee. It’s a hot drink. The biscuits are sweet and go perfectly with the coffee.”
“Thank you for sharing your meal with me,” he said, his manner formal.