A piece of jewelry for the holiest part of the body. From a seemingly simple comb, the award-winning novelist and playwright Whiti Hereaka creates a reflection of reverence and beauty. Her text is divided into nine sections: "one part for each tooth and one part for every gap between them." The pieces tell stories of love, loss, and longing. They recount tales of whales, from whose bones objects were made. About a carver who creates a comb. They speak of Māori gods and the power of women. Of colonial whalers who hunted their prey in the South Pacific almost to the extinction of the animals. They also tell of a writer who cuts her hair and travels through worlds to weave connections.

Whiti Hereaka is a novelist and playwright of Māori and Pākehā descent. Her iwi affiliations are Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Tuhourangi, Ngāti Tumatawera, Tainui. She lives in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, and is the author of four novels: The Graphologist's Apprentice, Bugs, Legacy, and Kurangaituku. Together with Witi Ihimaera, Hereaka published an anthology of Māori myths - Pūrākau - in 2019. Her latest work, You Are Here, was created in collaboration with artist Peata Larkin and is set to be published in 2025 by Massey University Press as part of the Kōrero series.