The pounamu was taken from the riverbed at Te
Whare o Rongo, where the old ones said it slept.
Councillor Hēmi Tākina had it dug up under cover
of a storm, his men in work boots and rubber
coats, shovels biting into earth that hadn’t
been disturbed since the land wars. He didn’t
care for the stories—just the deed. The land was
worth $800k a hectare if the Māori claims got
buried under paperwork.
Three days later, his aide dropped dead at his
desk. No sign of illness. Just cold skin, and a
single green stone clutched in his fist—pounamu,
the councillor realised, still warm. He threw it
in the fire. The flames went out. The stone
didn’t burn. It hummed.
The next morning, the kōwhai trees along the
road to Te Puna had turned black at the roots.
Not rot. Not frost. Like something had sucked
the life up from below. The local iwi elders
didn’t speak. They just stood at the edge of the
road, watching. One old woman spat on the tarmac.
No one cleaned it.
Hēmi took the stone to his office. Locked it in
a steel box. That night, his dog howled until
its throat bled. He found it curled under his
bed, eyes wide, tongue blue. The box was open.
The stone was on his pillow.
He tried to bury it again. On the old marae
grounds. At dawn, the ground split open like a
wound. Roots—thick as wrists, black as tar—rose
up and wrapped his legs. He screamed. No one
came. The bush had gone quiet. Too quiet. The
birds had stopped singing. Even the wind held
its breath.
By week’s end, three more town officials were
dead. All with the same cold skin. All with the
stone’s mark on their palms—green, slick, like
oil on water. The council met in panic. No one
dared touch the box. The mayor whispered: “It’s
not cursed. It’s remembering.”
On the solstice, Hēmi went alone to the river.
He dropped the pounamu into the current. The
water didn’t ripple. It sucked it down like a
throat. That night, the flood came—not from rain,
but from the earth itself. Mud surged through
the town, swallowing the council chambers, the
church, the dairy. When the water receded, the
stone sat on the steps of the old schoolhouse,
clean, glowing.
Hēmi was found in the swamp behind the rugby
club. His face frozen midscream. His hands,
wrapped around a second pounamu—the one he’d
hidden under his floorboards. The first stone?
Still in the river. Waiting.
The bush didn’t grow back. It just… watched. And
the locals, now silent, started leaving their
children’s toys on the riverbank. Not to honour.
To appease.
The stone doesn’t kill. It takes what was stolen—
and gives back what was buried.
