The Lost Tohunga by David Hair

combed her hair out, she looked like one of those Maori women from early colonial photos in the museum, servants or wives of the early settlers.
    I wonder where he got it all. Weird stuff for an old guy to own. Be careful here, girl.
    When she went out to the kitchen again, he stared a little and his breath seemed to catch, as though remembering someone else. ‘Where’d you get these relics, Mister Jones? I feel like a museum exhibit!’
    He handed her one of her own ciggies, and tapped out his pipe. ‘Come on out the front and I’ll tell you.’
    He led her down the hallway, which led past the one bedroom and the lounge to the front door. They went out onto the small veranda. The front lawn was smaller than the back yard, with two goats cropping the grass, and the lake was only about fifty metres away, partly obscured by willows. There were a few dark shapes on the water, canoes or something, but she didn’t look closely. The dark shape of the hills loomed beyond the water, out towards Acacia Bay on the far side. She went to sit down, and then her eyes registered what she was seeing, and her brain flipped.
    Where are the houses across at Acacia Bay? I oughta be able to see them from here …
    And while we’re at it, why are there only Maori waka out on the lake?
    She got down off the veranda and walked through the treesto the jetty. She heard Jones follow, but her eyes were drawn to the gradually unfolding view of Taupo. She felt her knees quiver. She turned back to Jones and the words fell out of her mouth. ‘What have you done to Taupo?’ She turned and looked again, just to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. She wasn’t. Taupo was gone.
    In its place was a pa, a fortified Maori village behind rows of wooden palisades. There were wooden European buildings too, outside the pa walls. She could make out people walking and riding, and black-clad soldiery filing along the waterfront. On the shores, clumps of women of both races were washing clothes, and children ran along the shore. Men on horses ambled along the road where there should have been trucks and cars, and the road seemed to be a ribbon of pounded dirt. There were no telephone poles or power lines or street lights, either. Smoke billowed from chimneys. Only one boat wasn’t a waka: she only recognized it because she had seen it before — it was the sleek white Barbary , a 1920s fifty-foot yacht once owned by Errol Flynn, which operated as a lake cruise attraction by a local company. Evan had promised to take her on it one day.
    She turned to Jones. ‘Where’s Taupo gone?’ she asked, unsure whether this was some prank or something a whole lot stranger.
    He rubbed his chin. ‘Well, lass, it’s a long story …’
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    The sun was past its zenith, and her stomach had gnawed away breakfast, but she listened as the old man talked about the ‘Ghost World’: Aotearoa, where legends and the long-deadwalked. It seemed impossible, but she could see the waka and the pa and everything else. Her eyes couldn’t lie! She had no choice but to believe.
    â€˜When can I go back?’ she asked tentatively, suddenly afraid that he might never let her go, like some hermit who kidnaps a princess in a fairy story.
    â€˜Oh, soon, lass. Godfrey and I just thought it best to get you off the streets for a while, to somewhere your man can’t reach. Don’t worry,’ he added as though he had been eavesdropping in her head. ‘I’ll take you back when you want to go.’
    Godfrey the dog looked up at her with sincere eyes, and her doubts melted.
    â€˜This is so weird,’ she said, shaking her head. Bizarrely, amidst all this strangeness, the one thing she did feel was security .
    Suddenly she heard a body brushing through foliage, coming from the direction of the Taupo settlement. She got to her feet apprehensively as two shapes appeared at the edge of the trees and walked