The Hauraki Plains, 1897. The land is still raw
from the last war, its scars deep in the earth
and deeper in the people. Tane Rangihuna, a
Pākehā vineyard manager, takes up residence at
Te Kōhanga, a derelict estate on the edge of a
sacred marae. The soil here is black, rich, but
cursed—no vines thrive without blood. A local
elder warns him: “This ground remembers.”
Tane’s job is to restore the vineyard for a
British investor, but the land resists. Crops
rot, workers vanish, and strange symbols appear
carved into the roots. He finds a journal hidden
beneath the old cellars—its pages filled with a
Māori dialect he can’t read, but the drawings
are unmistakable: a woman, her hands tied,
buried under a vine. Her name, written in both
English and te reo, is Hinepō.
At night, Tane dreams of her. She walks the
vineyard, barefoot, her fingers brushing the
stalks as if coaxing them to life. One morning,
he wakes to find a fresh grave in the orchard,
untouched by tools or hands. Inside lies a
locket, its chain snapped. It bears a portrait
of a European woman and a Māori child.
The investor sends a new overseer—a young woman
named Elara, sharpeyed and quicktempered. She’s
there to enforce efficiency, not superstition.
But she recognizes the locket. Her mother wore
it before vanishing in 1872. Tane’s heart
tightens. Elara is the living echo of Hinepō’s
child.
They begin to work together, drawn by shared
secrets and the same unspoken fear. Their bond
grows, but the land reacts. Vines twist into
shapes of hands, the air thickens with the scent
of damp earth and decay. The marae elders demand
Tane leave, but he refuses. He knows now: the
vineyard is not a place of growth—it is a prison
for the dead.
On the winter solstice, the ground cracks open.
Hinepō rises, her body halfburied in roots, her
eyes glowing like embers. She reaches for Elara,
who stands frozen, torn between the woman she
loves and the ghost of her mother. Tane steps
between them, holding the locket out. The earth
quakes.
The vines snap back, burying Hinepō once more.
The land calms. The next morning, Elara is gone.
Only the locket remains, now clasped around
Tane’s wrist. The vineyard thrives—but only in
silence. The soil still remembers. And so does
he.
