Pakuu asked for what seemed like a one-hundredth time, "tell me Kura, why did you breach the prohibition at the waterfall?"

  Kura sat on a seaweed-covered log answering his Tohunga's questions, while listening to the incoming tide slowly fill the rock pools inside Pakuu's home. More jellyfish than man, the Tohunga lived in a cave on the Western shore of the island. "We didn't know there was a restriction on Ulu Waimate, Pakuu."

  Beside him, Sukey and Ngara waited for Pakuu to complete his questioning of the three of them, so they could travel back to their own tribes, to pass on the news of Tea's abduction.

  "And did you know of the Baby Eater yet? Had you been warned?"

  "Yes Pakuu. I told you the slave named Iosia had shown us the way to the falls but left us before we got there."

  Pakuu dragged his feet over sand and then the fire itself and stopped in front of them.

  All three stifled laughs before Ngara spoke up, "Au Tohunga! You keep walking through the fire!"

  "What?" Pakkuu replied, his dead eyes searching the ground below him. "I forget, so rarely do I have any visitors down here."

  Ngara added, "your feet are all black and burned. Like you're trying to be a slave too!"

  "And what's wrong with that Ngara? Some of the finest men and women across the seas of Lapita were once slaves. Look at Howaru."

  "Yeah, but he is also half a god, so it doesn't count."

  Pakkuu turned his deadened face to Ngara. "And I am half dead, so what does it matter if I get a little ash on my feet? I might as well go all the way and cover myself in it and become a slave for all the work I'm doing getting the story out of you three."

  Sukey spoke up this time, "please Tohunga Pakkuu, we have been here all day, and I need to hoe back to Kafiki soon. My father will be waiting to escort me to Ahukai."

  "He can wait. I need my answers. Kura back to that day. Iosia left you but didn't say why he wasn't going to the falls?"

  Kura got up, frustrated with having to explain it again, and kicked at the sand in front of him. "He might have mentioned the prohibition, but it was because of the Taniwha, not Baby Eater."

  Pakkuu nodded and said, "yes, that's right, rock Taniwha have been seen in that area, and we didn't want children disturbing them. But you ariki (noble) children think you own the islands. Free to roam where ever you please. And now look where it's gotten one of you. Teā is important, don't you know?"

  Kura eyeballed Sukey first, then Ngara, and when neither of them spoke up, he decided to ask, "why is Teā important Pakkuu?"

  "Because he is…" Pakkuu paused, then he slowly turned before stepping through the fire again as if he needed more time to think of the right words, "Tea has is part of a prophecy, 'the white robin,' and the beginning of events which will destroy our way of life on Feke and on Kafiki islands too."

  Ngara yawned and looked bored, but Sukey seemed to perk up at the mention of the maka-Taniwha, her favourite subject, and now the talk of the destruction of Kafiki, her second favourite topic. She stood now and stepped around the fire towards Pakkuu. "Please Tohunga, is Teā the one mentioned in the prophecy, 'a lost bird singing in the dark under the stars of a foreign sky'?"

  "Yes. I believe so, but some of the other tribal scholars differ in the interpretation. We do not know if Baby Eater is part of the prophecy or something else entirely."

  Kura wondered aloud, "Teā is from Matavai region, he's the son of Watea the god of the cosmos -"

  "You don't know that!" Pakkuu interrupted. "Just because his mother is well respected around Kafiki and her tribe of slaves worship her, because she has a gift for birthing, doesn't mean what she says about Tea's ancestry is true."

  "What do you mean Tohunga?" Asked Sukey.

  "It doesn't matter but just know that Teā has the pale skin of a white robin but it doesn't make his father a bird, understand?"

  Kura wasn't sure what Pakkuu meant but nodded anyway. "And when Teā climbed to the second level of the falls do you know if that was part of this prophecy because he told us nobody in the tribe had ever done that before."

  "That twig Teā being the first to climb Ulu Waimate? You noble children are too much sometimes. The slave children have been climbing up those rocks for a hundred years. Why did you think we put the prohibition up in the first place?" Then he laughed a high-pitch cackle and added, "it wasn't to keep you lot out of there that's for sure. Now answer this, when you climbed to the top and found the cave, was there anything that made you think the place was the home to more than just taniwha?"

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  Kura tossed some driftwood onto the fire and stoked at it with a stick before sitting again, shrugging. "I dunno?"

  Pakuu turned to Sukey, and she replied, "No Pakkuu. We saw the Taniwha and remembered the prohibition and left soon after that."

  "You didn't enter the cave?"

  "I wanted to," Kura said. "I wanted to search for him but I…"

  "It's okay to speak the truth Kura. You were afraid of the taniwha and what might be waiting in the dark of the cave. I understand. Everyone understands that what you three did was the correct thing. You left and alerted us as fast as you could. But I don't care about that. I want to know if there was anything about the cave that made you think it could be the home of Baby Eater. "

  "The smell," said Ngara.

  "What about it?"

  "It stunk like death Tohunga, Ngara replied then added, "a bit like this place aye."

  Kura nudged Ngara with his elbow and frowned. Ngara shrugged.

  Pakkuu sniffed the air. "Tell me truthfully then, what does this place smell like children?"

  Sukey coughed and smiled, "It's not as bad as the cave at Ulu Waitmate but there is a slight smell of decay."

  "I see." Pakkuu dragged his dead body back to fire but stopped in front of it this time, sniffing the air. "As long as my spirit lingers this shell remains. I have been dead over seventy years now. Did you know that? This body must be rotting in some way, but I have become accustomed to it."

  Kura felt bad for Pakkuu and said, "It's only noticeable in here Pakkuu. When you are up on the meeting house or when you roam into the village you can't tell."

  Pakkuu sighed. "I told care if I smell like dogshit boy, that's not what I want to know. But if the Baby Eater has been taking children into that cave to hide his foulness, even he won't notice it lingers around him. The stench of death!"

  Pakkuu smiled for the first time that day, as if realising something, and dragged his body towards the end of the cave where he had piled gourds and pots and baskets of ingredients for magic. He began to search in an ancient-looking basket for something. "I think I know now what might be happening and yes, this is part of the prophecy I am sure. That cave is the dark and foreign sky and Teā the white robin sings inside it. For his mother and father I'm sure."

  "But will he be okay Pakkuu?" Asked Kura.

  "I'm not sure." Pakkuu procured a handful of leaves from the bag and added, "But you three can go now because I need to consult with Feke and seek clarity."

  Pakkuu slid his body around the wall of the cave and was gone as if he disappeared into the island itself, leaving Kura wondering if his friend Teā might already be dead.

  Out of the cave they walked to the shore where Faturaki waited, sat in the prowl of a waka while four warriors from Ahukai, stood beside it.

  "Hurry up e hoa!"

  Sukey tied her travelling cloak. "I don't know when I'll see you next Kura."

  Kura said goodbye and Sukey removed her necklace, tied to a greenstone pendant.

  "Here. For protection. You can give it back to me when I see you next. On the side of Takali Foto. In my village this time."

  He reached out and hugged her. "If Ahukai will welcome me I will try and get across to Kafiki soon. But I want to go back to Matavai to help in the search." The red _____ feathers were soft and warm and they touched noses before she splashed into the shallows and climbed into the waka.

  Kura turned to Ngara who nodded at Sukey and flashed his eyebrows. "My cousin is keen au." They pressed noses. "Keep safe my bro!"

  "See you when you get back over."

  "Are you going straight back to the forest?"

  "I have to if I want to get on the hunt as well. Whitu and Waru are going to take the eagles into Matavai and I want to go with them."

  "Do you think they will be enough for Baby Eater?"

  "One pokai can lift off the largest Moa. Two will tear that monster apart, trust me bro. The Autara tribe will take care of it before Howaru even has a chance."

  He nodded, and his friend turned and hopped in the waka before the warriors climbed in and Faturaki led the call. Soon the waka was a twig in the ocean headed towards the Kafiki.

  As he walked back towards the main village he passed two kids of ten or eleven, flying kites on the beach. "Kura! Come here!"

  Kura walked over to them, "Who made the kites?"

  "Our dad."

  "They're bigger than my ones."

  "Yeah, he took the design from some he saw over Kafiki at Unusi tribe."

  "What was he doing there?"

  "He was trading octopus."

  "Oh that's right. He's the best fisherman in Feke now."

  "Yeah."

  Kura carried on walking while the kids walked beside him.

  "So are you Howaru's son?"

  "What?"

  "Mum said Pakkuu and Faturaki were talking on the shore, before you and Ngara and that girl from Ahukai went into the cave-"

  "She wears the flash clothes."

  Kura frowned and turned to walk away, regretting stopping. "Her name is Sukey."

  "Yeah. They said you might be Howaru's child because he rooted heaps of girls on Feke and probably your mum. Is that true?"

  Kura shrugged and began running to the sand dunes towards the village path. "I have to go now boys. I don't think that was me they were talking about."

  But the two chased him, dragging their kites alongside.

  "Are you going to marry Sukey aye?"

  "What!?"

  "No. He can't!"

  "My cousin lives in Ahukai with her cousin and she said she likes you and that she wants to marry you."

  Kura sprinted and yelled behind him, "why are you still following me? Go play with your kites!"

  The boys stopped then, to argue. "No he can't marry her. Chief Ailani won't let her."

  "Why not au?"

  "Because!"

  Kura heard something about 'captives to Autara' as he climbed over the dunes and began to worry, what if what they heard was correct and I am Howaru's son? At the feast, Kura was shamed when Howaru had turned his way. But was that what they were talking about? He remembered Howaru had not looked impressed and the heat returned to his cheeks. If I am his son, he didn't acknowledge it that night. And then it occurred to him they were probably talking about Teā and who was with him on the day he disappeared. But, if he is my dad, I should go to Kafiki and guide him to Ulu Waimate and maybe even fight alongside him. Prove that I must be his son!

  "Back to Kafiki then!"