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Tapu

By: Anne Wilkins

The digger on our farm found them. First it was old tools. Then a broken waka. And next came bones.

“Shit!” said Dad. “Don’t want no bloody council holding up the development.”

Dad dumped the bones by the pigsty and told us to shut our mouths. “No one needs to know,” he said. “Besides, they’re dead already. The dead can’t speak.”

In the morning our farm animals were wailing and screeching in a hundred Māori voices. Pigs, cows, sheep screaming, “Tapu!”

Sacred.

Dad went as white as those bones he’d tried to bury.

It was a different type of development.

© 2025. Anne Wilkins

Anne Wilkins is a sleep-deprived New Zealand teacher who writes in her spare time. Her short fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Cosmic Horror Monthly, The Dark, Small Wonders, Elegant Literature, and more. Learn more at annewilkinsauthor.com.

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