Broken Lies (Te Tapu Gothic Book 2)

In a village held hostage by lies, the dead refuse to be silenced.

1964, Te Tapu Village, Aotearoa New Zealand 

When eighteen-year-old Maggie Carrie follows her best friend into the glade behind the primary school, she knows it will be a mistake. The older boys joining them are trouble. One is an O’Regan… and that makes him dangerous.

But what she doesn’t know is that some mistakes are inescapable. Some must be lived again and again, night after night, decade after decade, until those she loves are hurt, too. 

2015

Something has changed at Te Tapu Primary School. The presence of a mysterious plaque on the caretaker’s shed seems to have awoken an evil long thought put to rest – a watchful presence, hungry for retribution.

Natalie Sullivan, a fiercely headstrong teacher, senses the darkness immediately. When a troubled child with a special gift joins her class, she knows she must protect him. But in doing so, she must confront her own family’s tangled past – even if that means hurting the people closest to her. Every truth unearthed reveals the lies that have poisoned Te Tapu for generations. 

Because in this village, the past isn’t buried… it merely waits.

Broken Lies begins where Unspoken Truths ends, delivering a haunting, contemporary gothic mystery with generational secrets so powerful that love and hate transcend life… and death.

Get your copy now and curl up with your next all-night binge read!

Read the Prologue of Broken Lies here!

Prologue

Whoomph!

Natalie jumped, her hand knocking the mug of cold coffee on her desk. It teetered for a second and splashed a brown stain onto her planner.

Shit.

She smeared it with her palm, knowing as she did so, it wouldn’t help.

Turning away from the lesson planning on her desk to the sliding doors on the other side of the room, she focused on where she had heard the impact. She homed in on the blemish where the thing had hit, and let out a sigh. Her lesson planning could wait. The storm behind her right eye had grown worse as the afternoon rolled on. Now would be as good of a time as any to call it quits for the day. The second van had already come and ferried the last students back home. Only adults were left on site. Natalie was free to leave whenever. She’d just make sure she was in early the next morning to finish preparing her lessons, before the kids arrived.

Natalie shuffled her planner and the surrounding papers into a pile on her desk, closed down her laptop and placed it on the stack. She took one glance at her coffee. A thick film had gathered on the surface of what remained. She should tip it down the drain. Actually, what she should do was take it back to the staffroom and put it in the dishwasher, but right now it felt like too much work.

Rubbing her eyes, she tried to cajole her headache to behave or at least wait until she got home before turning into a full-on migraine like she expected it would.

Natalie sighed and grabbed her bag from the cupboard behind her, slinging it over her shoulder. Jean jacket in hand, she gave it a jiggle to verify her keys were inside the pocket. They were.

At the sliding doors, she turned the inside lock so it would fasten itself behind her. About to step onto the deck, she paused at the sight of the small, plump body of a bird lying there. She could have stood on it.

Something pinched inside her. Poor thing. Bending down, she saw its chest still rising and falling gently. With her jacket over one arm, she cradled it in her hands. Its body was still warm although its head hung limp and its chest barely moved at all now.

It was a fantail.

She brushed away a shudder. As a little girl, she’d heard from her grandmother how some people believed fantails, or pīwakawaka as they were indigenously known, were harbingers of death, particularly if they flew inside.

Which this one hadn’t, she reminded herself, although not for a lack of trying.

Others believed they were the messengers of those who had passed. Natalie stifled the sudden jolt of electricity prickling up her spine.

A memory floated to mind of her standing on a stool at the kitchen bench beside her grandmother. Natalie must have been about eight at the time. They were making caramel scrolls, one of her grandmother’s favourite afternoon tea treats. It was summer. The silk tree outside the window was blossoming. Delicate pink, fluffy petals floated to the ground as the tree quivered in the breeze, and she watched them drift lazily to and fro on invisible air currents. Then the pīwakawaka appeared, making Natalie cry out in surprise. It flapped its wings against the window as if in a panic to enter. Finding no way in, it danced and flitted back and forth. Natalie had been mesmerised, and for an eight-year-old, it seemed fully believable that behind its unblinking eyes it was trying to communicate something to her. Although she wasn’t sure what.

It took Natalie a moment to notice her grandmother’s posture beside her. The rolling pin hovered above the pastry, no longer rocking in lullaby motion. Natalie watched, unease growing, as her grandmother slowly lowered the rolling pin to rest with a shaky hand. Her eyes were locked on the bird at the window.

“Grams?” Natalie asked.

Shaking herself from her reverie, her grandmother turned to her.

“It’s okay, my moko,” she replied. “It’s just a little pīwakawaka, come to tell us something …” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes followed the bird flitting in front of them. She tilted her head slightly as if listening to words unsaid.

“What’s it saying, Grams?” Natalie asked, though thinking back she couldn’t recall the bird making any sound beyond its wings flapping against the glass. Strange, since fantails were chatty wee things.

The older woman’s eyes shone, the pale blue of her irises growing misty.

Grams turned to Natalie, pulling her close to her side with an arm wrapped around her shoulders. There was nothing as nice as the warmth of being hugged by her grandmother.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said. “A spirit has come visiting.”

Grams brushed the top of Natalie’s head with a kiss.

“It’s the way of the pīwakawaka, to travel between worlds, to tell us of the passing of another. It’s just a spirit. Come, let’s finish with our scrolls.” The spell was broken, and Grams sniffed and wiped an eye with the back of her hand. She picked up the rolling pin again, and the fantail gave a last flap at the window before flitting away beyond the silk tree.

Only a little later, Jerry, one of the farmhands, knocked on their door. Natalie watched curiously, peeking down the hall from the kitchen doorway, as Grams opened the front door. She remembered whispered voices. Her grandmother’s petite stature did little to block Jerry’s form filling most of the doorway. From behind them both, a loud sob strangled the air, and Natalie’s mother pushed her way between Jerry and the door frame, brushing away Grams’s outstretched hand, as she ran down the hall towards her. As time slowed, Natalie took in every detail of her mother’s face. Her hair was wild and unkempt. Mascara streaked her cheeks like war paint. Grief twisted her face into something unrecognisable. Natalie shrank back further behind the doorframe, still watching. Even at eight, she had seen her mother in a wide array of emotional states. She’d become somewhat attuned to her mother’s ever-shifting moods, but this … this was new.

At her bedroom, her mother threw the door open and disappeared inside. She then slammed it shut with such ferocity the hallway pictures rattled on the walls. A deep mournful wail from behind the closed door made Natalie cover her ears, her mother’s pain like fingernails dragging down her spine. Something was wrong. Worse even than when she’d broken up with the shearer from the next town over. The heaviness in the air, the leaden weight of grief that had now found its footing, Natalie realised, had been brewing even before her grandmother had opened the front door.

It was only later, much later, after Jerry had left and her mother’s sobs had died down to muffled whimpers from behind her bedroom door, that Grams told her what had happened.

It was the neighbour. A friend of Natalie’s mum. Maybe he had been something more. Natalie had noticed the comings and goings of many men in her short life.

Grams had told her plainly. There had been an accident on the farm. Jerry had seen it happen but hadn’t been able to do anything. The tractor had driven too close to the ditch and had rolled. And just like that … the fantail had come fluttering.

Shuddering again at the memory, Natalie peered down at the small body in her hands.

A gentle bluish tinge coloured the poor thing’s eyelids. How peaceful it looked, she thought, just as its chest gave one final undulation and stopped.

Natalie swore under her breath and swallowed back a lump. Her brain raced to sort the practicalities of the moment, and as she glanced around, her eyes landed on the green rubbish bin at the end of the deck.

No. It didn’t seem right. She needed to bury it. Only moments before, it had been a living, breathing thing. She couldn’t just discard it now.

The school was quiet. A couple of cars were still visible in the car park across the other side of the court: Victoria’s rusty-red hatchback, which meant she was likely in her office, and the new girl’s white Swift. Newbie was often one of the last to leave. Trying to score points with Victoria, Natalie thought spitefully and grimaced at the sudden rush of hate.

Appraising the rest of her surroundings, Natalie decided the gingko would be as good of a place as any to bury the critter. Around the side of her classroom block, a giant gingko tree stood resolute, its green leaves fanning out over part of the playground. She could dig a hole by its roots; the kids never dug there. Although an occasional climbing spot and a shady place to rest while lining up for the pool, something about it was held in reverence. A perfect place for a bird burial, regardless of how ridiculous people might think it.

The small body was still warm in her hands as she walked with it along the deck, past her class and the other junior room, turning right around the corner of the building until she was under the shade of the gingko. Finding the perfect spot, between two raised roots and close to the trunk, Natalie placed the bird on the ground. This would be its resting place. First, she’d need to dig.

She let out a groan and placed her bag and jacket on the ground beside the bird. It seemed like a hell of a lot of effort for something so small. She’d need a shovel or something. It had been a dry few weeks, and the ground was hard. She wouldn’t get anywhere using her hands alone.

She’d go rummage around the caretaker’s shed to see what she could find, as long as it wasn’t locked. Otherwise, she’d have to rethink her plan.

With one final glance at the bird and her belongings, she cut across the back field to where the small wooden caretaker’s shed stood alone in the corner.

In all of her five years of teaching at Te Tapu she must’ve visited the shed maybe just as many times. She rarely had to attend to anything herself, requiring tools or gardening equipment. The few occasions when she did, there was usually someone else she could fob the job off to. More recently, Liam, for one. Gritting her teeth, she pushed the thought of him aside.

What was she thinking? She needed to get home. Her headache was now sending needles through her right eye. It was a bloody bird. If she didn’t want to chuck it in the bin, she could throw it into the native garden, let nature do its thing. Only, it didn’t feel right.

She strode across the field to where the caretaker’s shed stood stoically in the corner. There wasn’t much to it. Peeling paint. No windows. The main classroom block held a cleaner’s cupboard with other caretaking supplies. This was simply a storage space for the outside stuff. An old iron wheelbarrow leaned against one side of it. She doubted anyone besides Liam ever went in there now, particularly since he was back in town and had taken over the caretaker duties for the school.

She felt a familiar ache in her chest thinking of him. Only, it wasn’t really him that did it to her. It was who he reminded her of. Anna.

Sniffing, Natalie tried to push the memory away. Not now, she scolded herself.

The door was held shut by a Brenton bolt though the padlock looped through it hung open. Natalie sent a silent thank you to whatever god was listening. It wasn’t like Liam to be careless, but it was a small school, a safe school. She’d never known there to be any theft. Not in the time she’d been around anyway. That was the thing with small rural communities. Everyone knew everyone. For better or for worse. And you didn’t go shitting in your own backyard.

Natalie threaded off the padlock and slid back the bolt. It took a little tug on the door to make it open. Enough light for her to see by came in through the open door, and she was able to quickly trace the shadowy form of the shovel hanging on the wall beside an array of tools. She grabbed it and turned to leave.

Strange, she thought. She’d spent a mere second in the shed, and yet as she left, it was like hours had passed. Concrete-coloured clouds had obscured the blue sky and crowded out the sun. The air smelt different too. Rain. Not that there had been any sign of it before. The farmers would be happy, though.

With the sun hidden by heavy clouds, the temperature had dipped. She stifled a shiver and paused as the hairs on the back of her neck rose in warning. She’d felt this before. It wasn’t the change in weather that accounted for the icy chill on her exposed skin. It was that she wasn’t alone.

Standing in the doorway, shovel in hand, she peered out across the field where the back of the main school block stood with white cladding and tall windows up high.

All was quiet. As far as she could see, she was alone.

From her vantage point, she saw the lights were off in both the office and the new teacher’s room. To her right, she made out a hint of her own car. She couldn’t tell if the others had left, hidden as their vehicles were by the angle of the main building.

To her left, the gingko tree stood dark and shadowy. Its branches gently swayed in a breeze that hadn’t been there moments before. The playground lay quiet, abandoned. The wide stainless-steel slide stood ominous, hard and unyielding. The worst type of playground equipment in her mind. Particularly in summer when the steel heated to searing temperatures. Two swings gently swayed back and forth, pushed by invisible hands. Leaning the shovel against the doorway for a moment, Natalie wrapped her arms tighter around her body, rubbing the sides of her arms to coax some warmth. Then she turned, grabbed the shovel again and stepped outside the shed. She paused. All her senses on high alert as the insidious prickling at the base of her skull again sent warning jolts through her veins. She was being watched.

With one hand Natalie closed the door, pushed the Brenton bolt into place and re-hooked the padlock. She’d lock it properly when she returned the shovel. Liam could thank her later, she thought. Ha!

The breeze picked up.

God, she felt it again. Like someone was behind her, over by the classrooms. Studying her. While she knew the feeling, it didn’t normally come with such heaviness. It was different to what she had experienced before. She stifled another shiver.

Pull yourself together, Nat.

“You want to know whether I believe in ghosts? Of course, I do not believe in them. If you had known as many of them as I have, you would not believe in them either.”

The words of a Don Marquis quote replayed themselves in her mind.

She turned around again slowly, giving a final scan of her surroundings before heading to the gingko tree.

How did it get so late? she wondered again.

She took a few paces away from the shed when her legs turned to stone and refused to take another step. What the hell was going on?

She pivoted, facing the shed again, searching for anything out of the norm, anything out of place to explain her strange reaction. This time, she could see slightly around the corner of the shed, and although it was draped in shadows, she caught a glimpse of something on the wall. She hadn’t noticed it before and couldn’t make out what it was. She tried to shrug off her curiosity and draw her attention back to the task at hand. She had a grave to dig.

She grimaced.

Ugh, a grave.

A heavy cloud of emotion settled over her though she couldn’t discern exactly what it was. Fear? Anger? It pressed behind her ribs, squeezing at her lungs.

The pinch behind her eye got tighter. She gritted her teeth against a bolt of pain that shot through her temple before dissipating into a dull ache. Torn between getting back to the ginkgo so she could get home and checking out what it was nailed to the side of the shed, half-hidden in shadows, she let out a sigh. Damn it!

She dropped the shovel and marched back towards the shed, this time moving around its side between where the long branches of an overgrown feijoa tree brushed against its walls.

Pushing a branch away she saw it in its entirety. It was beautiful. A marbled type of wood formed a round plaque. Two hands clasping a heart with a crown on top was etched into its surface. Like a Claddagh ring. She knew the symbol well. Grams wore one on her ring finger. A symbol of love and loyalty and the like, if she remembered correctly.

But why was there one here?

Words, obscured by the shadows were inscribed in its surface. Reaching up, Natalie traced the letters with her fingertips. Billy MacKenzie. Gwen Davies. For a second a wave of warmth spread through her chest, then, just as quickly, it was torn away by icy fingers. Anger seemed to erupt all around her. She swivelled on her feet searching for the culprit, knowing immediately where it came from. Across the way from her, the darkness grew, menacing, furious. A human silhouette emerged from the shadows against the wall of the school block, its attention homed directly on her.

Natalie felt it, the hatred like needles tattooing her skin. Her head pounded to the point she felt it might split open. Pushing the palms of her hands against her temples, she squeezed her eyes closed, willing away the pain, willing away the figure by the classrooms.

The light. Think of a white light. Surround yourself with light. Grams had taught her how to do it. With all her will power, Natalie imagined herself encased in a ball of white light where she was safe. Superstition, New Age woo-woo – it didn’t matter. The pain in her head eased enough to open her eyes again.

She could still see it. Like a mini tornado, the figure had morphed into a swirl of reds and blacks crashing in anger, pain and so much hostility. Whoever he was – and she knew it was a he – his anger and hatred were directed at her. Yet she stared it down, all the time imagining herself enclosed in white light. The man moved no closer, and Natalie held strong to her circle of light. Fuck you, she thought. Whoever you are, fuck you!

She flicked a glance once more at the plaque on the wall.

It was because of the plaque; she was sure of it. It had woken something.

Whoever had hung it there, they’d stirred something up. Did they have any idea what they had done?