Euphoria Kids

by Alison Evans

  ‘Hey, Moss.’ I smile, then hand her a plastic container with some leftover lasagne. ‘That’s for you and Clover – Mum said we wouldn’t eat the whole thing before it went off.’

  ‘Oh.’ Moss takes the container, surprised. ‘Thank you.’

  I want to ask her if she knows Iris is the most wonderful person in the world, and if they Iris shot up so they were as tall as Moss in one day, or did it take time? I want to know everything about them. But I don’t ask, because there’s plenty of time.

  Chapter Three

  The Smoky Quartz

  Saltkin sits on my shoulder in the garden. I should be doing homework, but instead I’m sitting at the big wooden garden table that Moss built, staring at the moon roses. The sun is reaching them, and they shine luminescent under the rays. Sometimes I wonder if they’re not petals, but instead are made of moonlight, or water, or satin. But always, when I get up close, I can see they’re just plant, like me. I can see their veins.

  Clover has planted a few different kinds of lavender. Some will have white flowers, some pink. Some will have two purple wings up the top. The bees love them, and so does Saltkin. When she was planting them he buzzed all about her, leaving sparkles in a trail.

  Now he’s walking around them with some of the other faeries, discussing the new lavender. I don’t recognise all of his companions, but I know Elvie, Nidhogg and Eitri. They’re a small crowd of bright colours, blending into the garden as they start to flitter about.

  Elvie comes over and kisses my forehead before hovering in front of my face. She doesn’t have wings; she’s not as showy as Saltkin, but she’s just as vain. ‘Saltkin told me the spell worked. You still have the stone.’

  ‘There are other stones, I know, but this one’s my favourite. So I took it.’

  ‘Good.’ Her voice chirps like a tiny bird. ‘He was so happy when you chose that one. It means love, you know.’

  ‘Babs had one in the shape of a heart.’

  ‘Extra.’ She flutters up and down, blue sparks streaming behind her. ‘That’s good. Very good.’

  ‘Just like the lavender.’

  ‘And spring.’ She closes her eyes for a second, relaxing in midair. ‘There’s more to come.’

  ‘More of what?’ I ask.

  ‘More of anything.’ She flits away, and I scowl.

  Faeries don’t lie, though I know they’re able to twist the truth like I can hardly imagine trying to do. Sometimes they just won’t tell me things.

  I stand up, leave my homework on the table and walk over to Saltkin. He’s still at the lavender, and I bend down to get to his level. ‘What did Elvie mean?’

  He pauses in his appraisal of the lavender. Clover’s left the tags in the ground next to them, and this is the one that will bloom pink.

  ‘I shouldn’t tell you that. You’ll find out.’

  ‘Saltkiiiin,’ I whine, but he shakes his head.

  ‘Something is happening in the forest. We can’t spoil it for you, Iris.’

  I nod. ‘I suppose. How soon?’

  ‘Soon enough.’

  I leave him to the lavender and go back to my homework. It’s for maths, and it’s things we mostly covered last year. I skim through the problems, and they’re easy enough. I like working with the shapes, I like that I can see how they make sense. I like graphs. Saltkin hates it; the other faeries didn’t particularly like maths once I told them about it, but he hates it especially. He thinks these things don’t need to be explained. I guess he doesn’t realise that humans need maths to build bridges and homes; we can’t eat flowers and live off sunlight.

  I finish the problems, and I close the book. The tea I made earlier is cold by now, even though I only drank half the cup. I’m always bad at remembering to drink it. As I start to walk back into the kitchen a breeze picks up, and the eucalypts above rustle and chatter.

  I feel like I have to go to the forest.

  Saltkin with me, I step out onto the path beside the road. There is bush all around us, but to get to the walking tracks and the paths, the river, I have to go slightly further.

  ‘Didn’t you want to stay with the lavender?’ I ask Saltkin.

  He swoons a bit. ‘I feel like today is a good day to be with you.’

  ‘Is something bad going to happen?’

  ‘Something is going to happen.’

  ‘That’s what Elvie said.’ I sigh. Everything and nothing is real to him, I think. Or maybe nothing is true. I am still figuring it out.

  We get to the start of the forest tracks, a car park. There are too many cars, too many people, chattering and thrumming away. It’s the weekend, the first warm one in a while. Across the road, away from the main trails and the cafe, there is a smaller track. This one’s nicer, and the river is there. No tourists seem to realise this, plus there’s nowhere to have a picnic; it’s all over­grown scrub.

  We start to walk into the valley where the river lies. As we go down, it gets cooler – wet, misty. Saltkin drifts off the path, leaving a trail of peach-coloured sparks. He’ll be back, or he won’t be.

  The forest is quiet. A bellbird’s peal rings out, and there’s the chatter of tinier birds. The wind runs through the leaves, sending whispered messages my way. They’re too quiet for me to make out any meaning except that they’re welcoming.

  Sometimes the forest does not want people in it. I can tell, which means I’m safe. I worry about others, but nothing too bad ever happens out here. It’s too overgrown for people to stray off paths, unless some kind of magic is involved. But they’re safe today.

  The ground under my shoes is soft, still cold from the winter months. The baby’s tears and moss are still everywhere; they’ll stay during spring, and summer, but they won’t be as green or as spread out. I brush my fingers against some moss, and it knows me. It asks how I’m going. I haven’t been out in a while. It doesn’t use words, but the vague idea of them. I tell it about my loneliness, and about the moon roses. I tell it about Babs, and how she disappears sometimes. I tell it about the witch. It takes this all in, then I stand and move on.

  Last night I decided the rose quartz should be on a necklace, and Saltkin wove me some rope. I’m not sure what it’s made of, but I know it won’t break. I want to tie it all together today, so I’ve got the quartz and the rope in my pocket.

  I go down to the riverbank even though people aren’t supposed to. There are signs saying how dangerous it is, that you could drown or get lost, that there are crumbling rocks, but the trees tell me where it is safe to stand. This whole area is safe, and I don’t plan on swimming. I just reach down and dip my fingers in.

  The river never knows who I am exactly. I can’t talk to it and it moves too quickly to remember. If I came here more often, maybe it could; the tree by the bank, with the twisted trunk that loops right over the water, told me this last spring.

  I drink from the river and I can taste the mountain.

  Further along, just off the path, is a flat rock. There’s enough room for a few people to sit down, and it’s usually in the sun. It’s my favourite place in the forest, and no one seems to go there, ever.

  A crackly voice comes out of the trees. ‘Sprout.’ It’s Vada, one of the dryads.

  I turn and smile hello. Vada is a pine dryad, and their bark is cracked deep. When I met them, we talked a long time about how they weren’t a girl. Dryads don’t have the same gender system as humans. They had laughed for a long time before choking out, Why on the mother’s earth would we? And then I asked if I could not be a girl too. They nodded. ‘Dryads don’t have a claim on this,’ they told me. ‘Hundreds of years ago, I met a person just like you. They didn’t know, just like you. But dearest, you’re like me.’

  I’ve since learned there’s an English word for this feeling, this strange and wonderful amorphous
all-consuming wonder. Non-binary. It’s not like this for everyone, and it’s not like this for Vada, but they were the first contact I ever had with someone who didn’t identify as a man or a boy, or a woman or a girl.

  I asked Saltkin about this, and he confirmed that some faeries aren’t men or women, but they are rare. And he has changed his gender many times over his life, and it doesn’t seem to matter in the same way at all in faerie places. It’s a quirk, like someone’s hair colour. I tried to explain how it was ingrained into human life, in every respect, from birth, and I don’t know if he believed me, or if he was capable of understanding how lost and trapped I felt before that day in the forest with Vada.

  ‘Vada!’ I stray off the path and go to them; they embrace me, and we stay there, unmoving, just breathing in-out-in-out. There are blossoms in my rib cage.

  ‘How have you been, my sprout?’ they ask, once we are separate again. ‘You have grown.’ They place a hand on my heart. ‘A lot, so quickly.’

  ‘It’s been so long, I’m sorry,’ I say, realising that I haven’t seen them since the summer. I breathe in the pine smell of them.

  ‘I was away,’ they say. ‘I wandered far, I felt like I was lost. It’s not often that dryads do.’ They smile at me sadly. ‘But we don’t have our roots here.’

  ‘Did it help?’

  ‘Somewhat.’ Still smiling, they put a hand on my shoulder. Vada told me how they were taken from their roots far away, brought here. But they don’t know how to get back, so they wander here. Just watching everything, not interfering.

  I hug them again. Their body is never hard exactly, but never as soft as flesh.

  ‘I found someone like me,’ I say. They’re leading me deeper into the forest, and I follow them without hesitation. I don’t know where we’re going, and I could never get back on my own, but they have never done me any wrong.

  ‘A human? Plenty of you around.’ They look over their shoulder and grin at me.

  ‘Ha-ha.’ I pause to step over a tree trunk that’s fallen across the path. It’s covered in slippery moss, and I take extra care not to slide. ‘She’s trans too. A girl, so we’re not really the same. But she understands.’

  ‘From your school?’

  ‘Yes. She lives near here. Her mum cooked us lasagne yesterday. I think she’s a witch.’

  ‘Her, or her mother?’

  ‘Her mother. Well, maybe both.’

  ‘Sprout, that’s so wonderful.’

  ‘She’s made of fire.’

  ‘Be careful,’ they warn me. ‘Fire burns, and when it catches, it can go quickly.’

  ‘Saltkin said the same thing. I’ll be careful.’ Vada is made of wood, so I guess it’s a sensitive topic for them. ‘How long were you in the snow?’

  ‘All through the winter. I got back today, and I wanted to see you. I’m glad you got my message.’

  I remember the chattering eucalypts above my house.

  Vada says, ‘I have something for you.’ Then they fall silent again.

  I’m curious, but I decide to let them tell me in their own time.

  We get to a huge tree, so wide I could never put my arms fully around it. Sometimes, I wish I could be sucked into the trunk and be absorbed until all I would think about is the sunlight on my leaves, so high above the ground. When I hug it my arms stretch out either side of me, I can barely feel the curve.

  The tree welcomes me, breathes in my breath.

  ‘Here,’ Vada says, pointing to the base where there’s a tiny cave, sheltered from the rain and the wind and the general violence that exists in the world.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, reaching down. There’s something cold inside. I draw my hand out, and it’s a crystal point. I think it’s also a quartz, smoky-clear.

  ‘From the snow mountain,’ they say. ‘It will be best if you pick it up yourself.’

  I clutch it to my chest. ‘Thanks, Vada.’

  ‘Any time,’ they say, smoothing hair from my face. ‘I’ll take you to your rock now.’

  The forest is denser than usual, but Vada convinces the plants to move out of the way just a smidge. We get near to the human path, and the rock is just around the corner. Vada stops right before we reach the path; they hug me goodbye, squeezing my arm before letting go. ‘Good travels, my sprout.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ I say, and they return to the forest, melting into the trees and the ferns, the spiky bushes down near my shins.

  The rock is in the full sun. When I sit down, it’s warm against my bum and legs; I pause, close my eyes, let the light warm my face. The smoky quartz makes a little clunk as I set it on the ground in front of me, and I get out the rose quartz and the rope Saltkin made. I start tying knots over the quartz, making a net to keep it safe as it hangs around my neck. Saltkin made the rope long enough so that I can pull it over my head and keep the stone under my shirt. I wonder if he created it with magic, his hands, or both.

  I slip on the necklace, put the smoky quartz safe in my pocket and lie on the rock. Its warmth radiates into my back, and the sunrays are on my front. I feel like I’m floating in soft fire. The rays are filtered by the gumleaves, so they’re not burning hot.

  Saltkin returns, chattering away in another language that he’s forgotten I don’t speak. Or maybe he just doesn’t need me to understand. His bird-light bones mean I can barely feel him as he walks across my torso. Sometimes he flits up into the air and will appear on the other side of my chest.

  ‘You know I don’t know what you’re saying?’ I tell him.

  ‘I’m talking to the magpie,’ he says.

  I peek an eye open and see the bird sitting on a tree nearby. Its head is cocked. I wonder if it’s going to try and eat him. That happens sometimes.

  I say, ‘I love their warbles.’

  ‘I’ll pass on the message.’

  I close my eyes again as Saltkin keeps chittering away, his pitch up and down, warbling. He stops, the magpie sings something, then there’s silence. Saltkin lies down on my chest, right next to the rose quartz, and we doze off in the softened fire of the sun.

  Chapter Four

  The Other Realm

  The trees are soft today as they sway in the breeze. No school, I’ve got better things to do. This morning when I told Mum I wasn’t going, she asked if I could get her some flowers in the other realm. Sadie wants to come with me, but I’m not sure how dogs go there, so I told her to stay at home.

  I walk out of our backyard into official national park territory. Technically I’m not allowed to be in this spot, I’m supposed to stick to the tracks, but no one’s ever around to tell me not to. And I’m always careful not to snap a branch or step on a seedling.

  Now I have to get to the other realm. Sometimes it’s easy, but sometimes it just doesn’t want me there. Slippery, I guess, a bit like me. Maybe that’s why I find it easier than Mum.

  I keep walking, making sure I don’t step on any plants that aren’t supposed to be stepped on. Sometimes I watch people on the trails crushing ferns and flowers. I tell them off, but they never listen to me, really. Just think I’m a weirdo.

  I focus on my feet – the rhythm’s important. Focus on not-being present. I feel the squeeze, the change in the air. My ears pop, and I think I’m there. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, because lots of things look the same. When a purple bumblebee flies past, I know I’m in the right space. They don’t exist on mainland Australia, they’re from where the dryads and the faeries are from. Just like Mum’s flowers. She uses them in some of her spells. The petals stay purple for a really long time, longer than lavender, so they’re good ones to use as a replacement sometimes. They’ve got most of the same properties, but she likes the smell better.

  I get a nerve-electric zap up my arm. Nova’s close by. I wish they’d just use a phone o
r something to let me know, instead of zapping me all the damn time. ‘Nova?’ I hear the slow creak of wood moving. I scowl – I’m not going to look for them, they can come to me.

  The ferns and trees seem to part as I get closer to the meadow. It always takes a different amount of time to get here, and one time I swear I was walking for a full day. The sun’s in front of me and shines through the flower petals: red, purple, yellow, orange. Leaves light up too, and the fuzzy stalks of the poppies. Birds and crickets are singing, and a few bees are flying between flowers.

  Way better than school.

  I take off my backpack and leave it at the edge of the meadow. Then I walk through the long stalks of flowers, the grasses itching my legs a little as I brush past. Some of the flowers are the ones that we find in the regular world, like daisies and native flowers, but others are ones that only grow in the realm – ones that sparkle in the daytime. The ones Mum wants can be hard to find, sometimes the buds hide under their own leaves like secrets waiting to be unravelled.

  When I crouch down, the crickets stop singing around me. I peer through a few stems and find the first bud. I pick it gently, then put it in the jar in my pocket. It takes a while, and I get a few thorns in my skin, but soon the jar is half-full.

  ‘Babs,’ an old voice says, like wind rustling through reeds.

  When I stand and turn around, I see Nova. A birch dryad, they are tall and spindly. Some small marks on their bark, where branches have fallen or been torn off, look like eyes. The eyes are all over their body. Sometimes I swear I see them move.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ they say in their breeze-like way. ‘The realm isn’t safe for you.’

  ‘You’ve told me that one hundred times, Nova. It’s fine. I got it.’ I try not to roll my eyes, but I can’t help it. I screw the lid on the jar and put it back in my pocket.

  ‘This is different.’