Still standing and sipping on my coffee, I began to notice other things in Ryder’s garden: Fat bumblebees hauling their chubby arses through the plantings, squatting on flowers, and drinking their fill. Dragonflies hovering above the ugly flower stems of some large tropical-looking plant with shiny leaves the size of a small car. Tuis flying in and out of the large flaxes, sucking the nectar from reddish buds with their long curvedbeaks. And a blackbird glaring at me from beneath a rosebush like I was fucking up its plans.
I raised my coffee cup to the bird. “My apologies. I’ll be on my way.” The second I moved, the bird hopped onto the lawn and started trolling for worms. I offered a low bow and said, “You’re welcome.” The blackbird studied me with beady eyes, then gave a flick of his head and hopped back toward the cottage.
Continuing toward the chicken shed, I crossed into the water garden and made my way around the pond. Ryder had mentioned that he pumped river water through both it and the glasshouses, so I figured there must be pipes I could follow back to the source. I made for a narrow gap in the hedging on the far side, and when Ziggy bolted ahead and disappeared from view, I guessed I was on the right track.
On the other side of the hedge was a small pumphouse. I followed the pipes down a steep, muddy track to a surging boulder-strewn river at the bottom. The Korimako. I shouted at Ziggy, who was already standing in the shallows, barking, but my voice was lost to the roar of the water. Scrambling down the last few metres, I secured him under my arm, then ditched my jandals and clambered awkwardly onto a large flat-top rock and set Ziggy on my lap.
As I took in the thundering space, an excited thrill ran up my spine. The energy was exhilarating, and it wasn’t long before I noticed a strange hum running through my body. I set my palm on the stone beside my hip, my eyes widening at the power of the river’s current passing through it like a shallow tremor. Passing throughme.
The river. The rock. Me. Ziggy. All four of us connected.
From the safety of my lap, Ziggy watched the tumbling waters, mesmerised, his occasional yaps drowned out by the roar that circled the tall, overhanging banks like an echo chamber.
I couldn’t hear myself think, and so I didn’t. I sat, and I watched, and I lost myself to the booming rush and constant roll of the water—sunlight sparkling in ever-changing patterns on its churning surface. Shadows passed in and out and through the electric dance, and the clacking and plinking of stones shifting in the shallows added a lighter note to the constant boom. Whirlpools formed and dissolved. Branches and storm debris passed on their way to the sea.
On and on, I watched and listened until my eyes fluttered closed and the booming, rumbling rush of the river was all that was left. That and the thrum of my heart beating in my ears, slow and sure, finding rhythm with the river.
Ziggy settled in the crease between my thighs, like he too had succumbed to the witchery—submitting to the wash of sound and the feel of the deep waters running through his body. I laid my hand on his back and felt the river tremble in his flesh. Comforting. Beckoning.
How long we stayed like that, I had no idea; the world beyond softening into oblivion. When I finally opened my eyes, the forest shadows had lengthened into long limbs that stretched across the water to swallow my feet. Cold stone numbed my butt. The river roared back into my head. Everything the same, and yet somehow, not.
I rolled my eyes to the thinning blue sky above and grumbled, “Enough with the weird shit, you hear me?” I looked back down and caught movement in the darkening bush on the opposite bank. A flash of white, and then nothing. Was that?—
Ziggy stirred and lifted his head, sniffing into the breeze blowing across the river from the other side. A low growl rumbled in his throat.
“You too, huh?” I ran a hand down Ziggy’s back, feeling his muscles tense. “Good to know I’m not losing my mind.” He leaned forward, then shot to his feet, yapping madly. I grabbedhim before he fell off my lap and quickly scanned the opposite bank. At first, I saw nothing, but as my eyes adjusted, I thought I could make out a pair of eyes staring back at me from the shadows.
“Hey!” I yelled, hoping the animal might startle and show itself, but nothing moved. The eyes I thought I’d seen became obvious as nothing more than lighter patches in the gloomy shadows, leaving me wondering if I’d seen anything at all.
Except that Ziggy was still staring intently in the same direction.
I lifted him up and kissed his warm face. “Thank God for you. I fucking knew I wasn’t imagining it. I’m going to get to the bottom of—” I stopped, my head jerking toward the sound of a large truck heading up the road toward the cottage. “Oh, shit.”
Ziggy immediately started barking and wormed free of my grip. He scooted effortlessly down the rock and raced for the track.
“Ziggy, wait. Shit!” I half slid, half fell off the rock, scrambling to catch up, but before I even reached the track up the hill, Ziggy was gone.
“They’re here! The council!”I shouted into the phone as I raced to where a large flatbed truck was busy trying to edge into Ryder’s driveway, a tiny miniature dachshund going bananas alongside the driver’s door and way too close to the vehicle’s huge tyres.
Ryder cursed. “How many and what sort?”
“Just one truck, and how in the hell do I know what sort?” I grumbled. “It has a grader thingy on the back. What do you want me to do?” I slowed as I arrived at the truck parked at the end ofRyder’s driveway, my lungs burning. I hadn’t run like that since I was a teenager. I scooped Ziggy into my arms and stepped away, glaring at the driver.
“I’m on my way,” Ryder said. “Delay him. Keep him busy. I’ll get hold of Tim.”
“Delay him?” I scoffed. “How do you propose I do that? And if you say Tiananmen Square, I might have to kill you.”
Ryder snorted. “I know it’s asking a lot, but just do what you can. We don’t have much to work with.”
“Shit. Okay, I’ll try, but you’d better be quick.” I ended the call and held the phone out to film while simultaneously balancing a wriggling Ziggy under my arm. I moved closer to the driver’s door, my chest still heaving. “This driveway is private property and you’re trespassing. You need to leave.”
The middle-aged driver looked me up and down and shook his head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His reddish-blond hair fell over a pair of angry eyes, his thin, pale face wrapped in a sneer. “Turn that bloody thing off.” He made a grab for my phone through the open window, but I jumped back just in time, his rough fingertips sliding off mine.
“Not a chance,” I shot back, my heart hammering in my chest. Here we go again.Bloody Ryder. The man had a knack for dropping me in it. “Not until you get your truck off Ryder’s premises and get the hell out of here.”
“And why would I do that?” Hard hazel eyes drilled into mine. “I was warned about you lot. Well, guess what? This ain’t your land, and you can’t stop me for shit. It took two hours to lug this grader up here from the city depot, and I’m not taking it back until I’m done. This here is a paper road. The council has every right to use it for whatever they want. You have no right to stop them, or me.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I agreed affably. “But this driveway isn’t part of that paper road. The road runs throughthere.” Ipointed beyond the pile of landscaping rocks blocking the truck’s advance. “You can’t set one wheel on this property, not even to turn around.”
