Page 1

Chapter one

A sh stood in an alleyway. He’d never been here before, which was a pleasant surprise. He thought he’d been everywhere. He’d seen hundreds of alleyways. Tokyo, New York, Dublin, every big city had its share of them, all uniquely flavoured to the city they belonged to.

This one though, it didn’t feel like any of those places. It felt alive, buzzing and strange. The graffiti scrawled over the walls told him nothing. He didn’t recognize the languages used.

A large image of something like a frog covered part of a wall, but it had too many eyes and he’d never seen a frog that particular shade of pinkish purple.

Ash turned in place. He was looking for something. What was it?

The alleyway stretched into the horizon in two directions. Above him were windows, some open, some shut, one boarded up. The ground was uneven, paved with mismatched stones, some marble, some granite, some carefully cut into cobble shapes, some wedged in to fill gaps. A few feet from where he stood was a shiny flat paved area of concrete. Further on was a place where the paving had eroded away and grass and weeds were growing.

Then he caught sight of someone. A shape, a man, yanking on a door handle that didn’t budge.

Ash moved towards the person. He had an idea to ask about where he was, but the movement wasn’t something he could control. He was drawn to them.

Whoever they were, they were someone he needed to know.

As he got closer, the shadows cleared. He saw a slight figure, slim, with baby pink hair. Male, probably, from the build. They wore tight black pants made of something shiny, and a thin, billowy white shirt.

“Excuse me.” Ash stopped a distance off, not wanting to startle them.

They turned and locked eyes and Ash was struck to the quick. Huge green eyes fixed on his, peering out of a face so beautiful, so delicately perfect it made him want to cry.

A feeling of longing so powerful it knocked the wind out of him seized him.

He’d never believed in soulmates, but now? This? How else could he explain it?

The man with the pink hair reached out to him.

“Attention passengers, the captain has signalled we are beginning our descent. Please return your seat backs to the full and upright position, ensure all tray tables are folded away and your personal items are either in the seat pocket or tucked under the seat in front of you.”

Ash Harrison came out of the dream as if struggling his way out of a deep fog. Confused, he tried to make sense of the plane seat he was in. The alleyway had felt so real it was as if the last leg of a long-haul flight was the dream.

He rubbed his hand over his face and groaned. Beside him, the woman who’d been reading a book the entire time gave him a withering look. Hopefully he hadn’t leaned over and drooled on her while he’d slept.

He pressed the button to get his chair upright, folded back the headrest flap and bent down to pull his shoes back on. He hadn’t taken anything out of his backpack except a pen to fill out his arrival card and a paperback novel he hadn’t even opened. Both of those were in the seat pocket, so he settled back, pulling his headphones from around his neck and put on some music.

Outside the window, Aotearoa New Zealand came into view.

On instinct, he snapped a few pictures. His photos of coming in to land were a popular series. One of those paired with the arrivals gate would make a nice post.

Should he be happy to see it?

Probably. It had been many years since he’d left.

Instead, he was numb. The familiar green coastline, the way the plane lifted and dipped with the winds off the Auckland isthmus, it was home, theoretically.

It should feel like coming home.

His sister was going to meet him at the airport. He was looking forward to seeing her. He wanted to reconnect. But he didn’t want to stay.

He should want to stay.

He should want to set down roots and become a member of the community and see his father. Visit his mother’s grave.

He was forty-four for god’s sake. His career of ‘travelling everywhere and somehow making it financially viable’ had meant to be what he did in his twenties. But he’d been good at it. People had paid him to write about the places he’d been. He had a very successful travel social media presence. He was even called an ‘influencer’ which wasn’t a term he liked, but he got sponsorships and money out of it so he wasn’t going to complain.

But now, it was over.

He’d been everywhere. His followers asked him to go back to some of their favourite places, but he didn’t feel it. He was burnt out and winding down. He had a thousand beautiful memories but he didn’t want to recreate them. He wanted.... He didn’t know what.

So, it was time to go home and grow up.

Time for the next chapter whatever that was. Maybe put together some of his better essays into a book, and see if anyone would publish it. Settle down? Buy a house? Get a “real job” and a partner, maybe have kids?

His stomach clenched.

The seat belt light came on with a bing . Around him the other passengers rustled and moved, packing things away. The service staff did a last rubbish collection and Ash leaned his head back.

Who was the pink-haired guy in his dream? Why had he seemed so real? So vivid?

What had he dreamed?

Probably just a random collection of memories blended and remixed, dropped into his head. It didn’t mean anything. Dreams never did, but the feeling of yearning lingered within him.

To do list: Customs, passport check, baggage carousel, biosecurity.

Biosecurity made him laugh. In a lot of places he’d visited they didn’t care much. Aotearoa cared deeply.

Ash knew why. New Zealand’s native plant and bird life were delicate taonga, sacred gifts that had to be protected. The benefit of being a tiny island at the bottom of the world was that its isolation had allowed all sorts of unique species to thrive. Introduced predators had a devastating impact on those species groups, and introduced plants might harbour pests and so on. Aotearoa had to be careful if they wanted to protect the land.

He walked through a carved Maori archway and was surprised to hear native bird song, and sound effects from insects and frogs. Now he felt like he was coming home. Bird calls he would have said he’d forgotten but his brain provided the names for: bellbird, piwakawaka, kiwi.

Nostalgia for his childhood welled up in him. He remembered his father taking him on walks through the native bush. Family trips to Taupo or north to Kaitaia in the summer. Beaches and sand between his toes.

He’d visited a lot of beaches, and he had his favourites. The crashing waves of Santa Monica, a hot dog in his hand. The endless stretch of blue water outside Fukuoka. Muri Lagoon in Rarotonga… There were a lot of beautiful beaches in the world.

But none of them were the same as Aotearoa’s beaches.

He posted on Instagram while waiting in lines. Choosing the best photo of Auckland from out the plane window.

Landed home in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Updates will be a bit slower, not likely to be travelling again any time soon, but I’ll show you a bit of my home. #Travelfluencer #Aotearoa #kiwiboy

His stomach churned.

He got his passport checked, collected his bags, and walked out of customs and through the automatic doors into the airport arrivals zone. He had a large backpack on his back and a roller suitcase containing everything he owned in the world.

The crowd of people waiting scanned his face and then looked behind him, every one of them waiting for someone else. His sister had said she’d be there…

Someone moved aside and he spotted her. She saw him in the same instant and her face lit up into a huge smile.

Ash smiled back. He moved quicker, his long legs, stiff from the plane, were grateful for the movement. He dropped the handle of the suitcase as Willow threw her arms around him.

“Ash Harrison! Look at you!”

“Hey Will, good to see you.”

“Good to see you?” She squeezed him tight and then let go, holding him at arm’s length. “Hardly covers it. You got taller. You’re all… you have a wrinkle!”

Ash laughed. “I didn’t get taller. And I do not have a wrinkle.”

“Well, you can’t see how tall you are on zoom calls.” Willow tossed her long brown hair behind a shoulder, then hugged him again.

He held on tight.

There were many things he had been glad to leave behind. Willow was never one. His sister, older by two years, had been the hardest to say goodbye to. She’d also been the one he’d kept in most constant contact with.

“Are you starving? You smell rank, when was the last time you showered?” She took the handle of his suitcase and started walking towards the car park before he could grab it off her.“Uh, good question.” Ash racked his memory. “I think I last showered in Singapore airport?”

“How long ago was Singapore?”

“Two flights.” He chuckled. “I got used to it, I guess.”

They stepped out into the bright sunshine. Ash winced, patting his pockets for sunglasses that weren’t there. He’d probably stowed them in his backpack. Sunlight was brighter, harsher in Aotearoa than it was anywhere else he’d been. Probably because of the hole in the ozone layer. Was it even still a thing? They’d talked about it so much in the eighties and nineties. He made a mental note to look it up later, after he’d slept.

“Well, I’ll get you home and you can jump straight into the shower. What do you want to eat?”

“Nothing really, I’m all right.”

Willow tutted her tongue. “I’ll make you something all the same.”

“I’ll probably crash out.”

Willow stopped at the payment machine and fussed with her card. “When did you last sleep?”

“Just now, before I landed. I had a really weird dream.”

Willow made a sympathetic noise. “You can probably sleep in the car too. It’s a bit of a drive still.” She led him to a car he didn’t recognise, but why would he recognise it? He’d been away for so long. So much about her life had changed, and she didn’t always send photos.

They stowed the things in the boot and got into the car. Willow started driving out of the car park.

Ash bolstered himself to ask the hard questions. “So…the house wasn’t too damaged?”

She gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter. Maybe she’d wanted to keep talk of the recent storm to tomorrow’s conversations. “No. We were really lucky on our street, the water flowed right down it. No one got flooded.”

“But the rest of the neighbourhood?”

“Yeah the rest wasn’t so lucky. Some people lost everything, whole houses full of mud. The council is doing a run of special collections because people are putting whole carpets, ruined couches, all kinds of thing on the side of the road. The government has promised payouts but it’s taking forever.”

“Must have been scary.”

Willow sighed heavily. “Yeah. I was seeing these updates on social media, people in buses in knee-deep water, and the bus drivers just doing their best to get people out of the flood zones. People stranded, cars submerged. I knew Charli and I were okay in the moment, but I had no idea...it could have changed in an instant, you know? We lost power for a while, but thanks to Mum and her worrying I have a good emergency kit and lots of candles. Some friends made it to my place… our place and sheltered for the night. For a few days really.”

Ash looked out the window at the brilliant blue sky and cheery sunshine and struggled to imagine it. The intense storms, accompanied by flash flooding were all but unheard of in Auckland until the last five years. The storm a few weeks back had hit the family home’s neighbourhood hard.

It was one of the reasons Ash had returned, to help Willow out.

One reason, out of a handful.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure what else he could say.

“Well, you’re here now.” Willow patted his knee.

Ash felt like it was a life sentence. He was here now. The implication being he was going to stay. To put down roots the way he should.

Raise a family.

Spend his free time with Dad.

Maybe that was unfair.

Willow was saying she would be glad of his help. Ash shook off the dread and changed the subject.

“How’s the nibling?”

“Charli? At her dad’s for the week.” Willow directed the car onto the motorway and smiled fondly. “She’s great actually, you’re going to love her.”

“I liked her the times I spoke with her.” Ash felt more nervous meeting Charlotte in person than most of the other things he was going to do now he was back. Charli was twelve and cool in a way Ash had never been.

“She’s very excited to meet you, but I figured you’d probably want some time to relax before you were smothered by an excited tween who wants to hear every detail of your travels.”

“Thanks.”

They lapsed into silence. Should he try and fill it? Willow didn’t seem bothered, focusing on negotiating the traffic and getting them home.

Home was out West, as Aucklanders would say. Towards the beaches of the West Coast.

Ash leaned his forehead against the window and watched the motorway give way to suburbs. So much had changed. New houses had gone up, townhouses and apartment complexes. New businesses on the corners of new street layouts. But the landscape felt the same. There were still green hills in the distance. When Willow pulled the car onto the ridge of Hillsborough Road, he could see the flat bays of the Manukau Harbour. Something loosened in his chest.

Home.

This was home.

He closed his eyes to hide the tears welling up. It was because he was so tired, and it had been so long, he was sure of it.