by Alison Evans
No reply.
I roll my eyes. Fine.
So I keep trudging through the trees, my tummy not happy about it. But if Nova’s sent someone to get me, it must be important.
The forest is moving with something, I don’t know what. Maybe if Iris was here, they could tell me what was going on. Instead, I just keep following the raven, trying not to worry too much. It’s not working.
My footsteps are dampened and the mist through the trees makes my skin crawl. There’s the occasional bird call, but no other noise. I’m alone. I’ve never been in the forest when it’s so quiet.
I walk and walk and walk and I think about telling the raven where they can stick it. Then we suddenly come to the clearing, but the dryad who’s here isn’t Nova – they’ve got pine needles and crackly bark. ‘Vada?’
‘Yes.’ The raven flies to Vada where it turns into sticks, reattaches itself to their body. ‘I saw you at the party, Babs, and Iris has told me about you.’
I don’t know what to say. If I was talking to Nova, I’d maybe have a go about sending ravens for me so early in the morning.
‘Nova didn’t want me to tell you this, and I wasn’t sure if I should. I know you and Iris are finding your place in the world. I thought about telling them, but then I didn’t want to give them the burden of deciding to tell you or not – they’re too young.’ A pause. ‘Babs, the witch is here.’
For a moment I’m floating in space, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling like I’m just a mind. Then I come crashing back, my feet pressing into the earth, my muscles pushing me away from it. ‘What?’
‘I’m not sure when she arrived, but it’s been some time.’
‘Something is happening, that’s what the faeries and Nova kept saying.’ I try to focus on my breathing, keep it slow. My head feels light, too light.
‘I don’t know if you’re in any danger. But I thought you should know.’
I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.
‘Nova didn’t want me to tell you.’
‘They never want to tell me anything.’ I spit the words. ‘They think I’m a child.’
‘They’re just trying to protect you.’
‘I don’t care.’ I cross my arms. ‘Will you get in trouble?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Have you seen the witch?’ I wonder what she looks like now. Does she know I’m here? Is that why she’s here?
‘I haven’t. She’s far away.’
The birds start to sing, the meadow flowers shine their ethereal light.
‘Okay.’
‘I don’t think she means any harm, to you or the forest. But we’ll see.’
‘Does Nova know you’re telling me?’
‘Not yet.’ They seem to decide something, because then they start herding me away from the meadow. ‘I’ll walk you back to the path. Try to come to the forest less often.’
‘That’s not gonna happen.’ I ball my fists. ‘It’s like asking me not to breathe.’
Their eyes crinkle up in a smile. ‘Well, be careful.’
In less than five minutes, I step into a backyard brimming with plants. They’re spilling from the garden beds and onto the paths. This is Iris’s house, and this is Clover’s garden. I could spend all day looking at everything, but I want Iris to show me. So I walk up by the fence to the front yard, where I see the boy climbing out of a car. I wave to him, and he smiles in relief. ‘I always get worried that somehow I’ve gone to the wrong place,’ he says. He waves to someone in the car – his dad?
‘Habibi, the food!’ The man gets out, waving around a bag. The boy takes it off him while he shakes my hand. ‘I’m Mahmoud,’ he says, his grip warm and firm. Immediately, I like him.
‘I’m Babs,’ I say, smiling.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ the boy says.
‘I’ll pick you up later.’ Mahmoud kisses the top of his head. ‘Be safe.’
As Mahmoud gets back into the car, the boy turns to me. ‘Always bring food,’ he says, gesturing to the bag. ‘That what my dad says. Typical Arab dad.’
‘What’d you bring?’ I peek at the bag: a whole bunch of things – not Homebrand, either; there are real Doritos. ‘Awesome.’
We knock on the door and Iris opens it, eyes wide. ‘Hey,’ they say, puffing a little. They must’ve run to the door.
‘This is from my dad,’ the boy says, offering Iris the bag.
‘Yummm, thank you.’
We take off our shoes and leave them by the front door. ‘Can I make a tea?’ I ask. ‘It’s been . . . a strange day.’ I swallow. For a second I’d almost forgotten.
‘What’s up?’ Iris asks as they flick on the kettle.
I sit at the table and get my phone out because I can’t bear to look them in the eye. I scroll through things without reading them. ‘I dunno. I can’t say it yet. Soon.’
‘All right.’ Iris exchanges a look with the boy, who shrugs.
As Iris brings the teacups over, the boy sits opposite me. He sits up straight, shoulders back, looking around the kitchen curiously. He lingers on something behind me. ‘Are those the moon roses?’ His voice is so steady.
I turn and see some pearly-white roses in a vase on the windowsill.
Iris says, ‘Yeah, come on. I’ll show you.’
We grab our shoes and tea and head out through the laundry to the backyard. How am I supposed to tell them both that the witch is back, that I don’t know if she’s hunting me, that maybe it’s a coincidence but I’m still scared?
There’s no mist here; the sun is gentle and there’s a slight breeze, just enough to notice.
Iris takes us to the moon roses, and the boy’s face flushes as he looks at them. Iris and I sit down at some rickety metal chairs as the boy wanders around the garden, gaping at all the plants.
‘What happened this morning?’ Iris asks me.
I take an extra-long sip of tea, Earl Grey with a little lemon. ‘I should wait till the boy gets back.’
‘When I woke up the air felt different,’ they say.
I watch the boy, delicately reaching for flowers and smelling them, moving plants out of the way so he can pass without damaging them.
‘Vada told me something,’ I say, staring into my cup. I hold it with both hands, clasped firm on either side so I can’t tell if I’m shaking or not. Feel like I might be. ‘They sent a messenger to take me to the realm this morning.’
‘Which one is Vada again?’ the boy asks as he sits down with us. He takes a sip of his tea. ‘This is perfect, by the way. Love the lemon.’
Iris smiles, but they’re still frowning at what I said. ‘Vada is the dryad I know,’ they say. ‘Nova is the one Babs knows, and the one you met.’
‘So are they all non-binary?’ the boy asks.
Not now, I want to yell, but I don’t. I just stare at the tea. This is important.
‘I don’t think so,’ Iris says. ‘I mean, they all use they pronouns, but they don’t have gender in their society, it doesn’t make sense to them. Vada said they had to really work a lot to actually understand what humans were talking about when they first made contact.’
‘You said before that’s how you figured it out?’ the boy says.
‘Yeah.’ Iris frowns when they see my face. ‘I thought about it for a while, then I asked them if humans could be the same as them. And they said not the same, but they told me about how they had known genderqueer people before. Anyway, Babs, what do you need to tell us?’
I smile gratefully. ‘It’s to do with the forest . . .’
They both look at me, wanting me to say more. I don’t know if I can.
I shiver. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Iris takes my hand and leads me to their room; the boy follows with my tea and his. Iris’s room is filled with things: rocks
, sticks, books, flowers in vases, plants, posters on the walls. The walls are white, but the ceiling is a lovely pea-green. I lie on the bed, and the others sit cross-legged beside me.
There are three ferns on the windowsill. One’s a Boston, one’s a maidenhair, but I don’t know what the last is. It’s got dark, delicate leaves. I’ve never seen a fern like it.
‘The witch is in the forest.’
Neither of them say anything.
Iris takes my hand again, rubs their thumbs across my palm. The boy shifts so his leg is pressed against mine.
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘What do you want?’ Iris asks.
‘I don’t know. I wonder if she could fix me. Or make it worse.’
‘Maybe she could. You don’t have to do anything now.’
‘But she’s here,’ I say. My voice cracks. ‘She’s here and she could find me first. Nova didn’t want to tell me, but they’re supposed to be my friend.’
‘They probably just wanted to keep you safe,’ says the boy. ‘They didn’t want you to worry.’
‘How am I supposed to prepare for that?!’ I remind myself again to breathe slower. I close my eyes. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t yell. I’m afraid.’
I feel like I’m a tiny flicker, the dying embers of a fire.
‘Why don’t we just talk about other things.’ I try to make my voice light as birds, but there’s a heavy lump in my throat. ‘What’s for dinner?’
‘Roast veggies with feta,’ Iris says, ‘and other stuff but I’ve forgotten. Me and Clover went shopping this morning to get everything. She’s a great cook.’
That makes me smile, though the lump is still there, getting heavier.
I smile and laugh through dinner, but I’m glad we’re not sleeping over tonight. I want to be home so I can tell Mum everything.
Moss drops me off and I thank her. Mum’s in the lounge room watching something, Sadie’s head resting in her lap. At the doorway I look at her for a few moments, seeing her laugh, clap and sigh.
‘Babs!’ she says when I start to walk into the room. ‘How was Iris’s?’ She’s smiling so much I don’t want to tell her.
‘Yeah, it was really nice. Their house is so cute, and their mums are nice. But I’m tired, I thought I might go lie down.’
‘Sure, sweets.’ I lean over so she can kiss my head. ‘Your hair looks great.’
In my room I turn off my light and put on the star lamp, the one that rotates the night sky on my walls. I open the window and the warm night breeze drifts through. I touch the wicks of some candles and they flare up not with orange but with my own butter-yellow light. I lie on the floor, watching the stars dance over my bookshelf, the wardrobe, the outline of the door. Maybe I could just stay here forever, watching them.
There’s a scratch at the door, and I get up to open it. Sadie walks in, her grey snout pushing into my hand. She huffs at me.
‘You’re right.’ I sigh.
I blow out the candles and climb into bed. She curls up beside me and I listen to her big lungs through the night.
Chapter Eleven
The Deep Water
It’s hot, so after school we don’t go to the cafe. Instead we catch the train a few stops until we get to the one with the milk bar, near where the boy lives. We haven’t been to his house yet, and I’m excited to see what it looks like.
I’ve got the op-shop book in my bag. Leaving it at home felt a bit off, so I’ve been keeping it in my schoolbag, in my locker, and then I bring it out at night and look at the blank pages. It’s been a couple of weeks since I found it. There must be something there; why else would it call out to me?
The milk bar has all kinds of weird ice creams, ones I’ve never seen before. They’re all rip-off brands, like Roads instead of Streets, and super cheap so me and Babs don’t have to worry. I get an icy pole that has ice cream on the inside, Babs gets a cup of vanilla ice cream with a spoon, and the boy gets a fancy one with a chocolate-and-caramel coating.
We sit out the front as we eat them. Me and the boy sit on the windowsill that juts out, and Babs is leaning against the rubbish bin.
‘So, what movie are we gonna watch tonight?’ she asks. ‘I can’t do scary movies.’
‘We can have a look, my dad has heaps of DVDs.’
The boy’s neighbourhood is very respectable, the kind of suburbia I imagine people dream about when they want to get married and have children and take them to a nice school. Everything’s pretty clean, and the council gardens are all neat and trimmed. We walk past a primary school with no graffiti on it anywhere.
The boy’s front yard has a cute picket fence, a line of neatly trimmed rosebushes behind it. The house looks like it’s pretty new; its paint isn’t cracked or anything. I wonder why he’s going to our school when they could afford something better.
We take our shoes off as we enter. The boy has a wooden shoe rack just inside the door, which I think is very cute.
‘Lunchbox!’ he calls down the hall.
Babs looks as confused as I feel, but then we hear a jingle and a huge fat ginger cat comes running down the hallway. It runs right up to the boy and purrs so loudly I can hear it as if it was sitting in my lap.
‘I named him when I was little,’ the boy says, lifting Lunchbox into his arms. He moves closer to us, allowing us to pat the cat if we want. His fur is thick and soft, and he mews in delight as we stroke him. ‘Lucky day, Lunchbox, three people patting you at once.’
The boy puts the cat down and we keep walking along the hallway. It has nice carpet, not worn through. The kitchen seems bare, but when he opens the pantry it’s full of food. ‘Is anyone hungry?’
‘A bit,’ I say, because I don’t want to eat everything they have. But looking at it all in the pantry, I feel like I could.
‘All right.’ He puts his bag down and reaches for a big Tupperware container. The lid comes off to reveal some baklava. ‘Dad made this yesterday, so it’s pretty fresh. Do you like baklava?’
Me and Babs nod so hard I feel like our heads are going to fall off.
He makes us tea as well, and we take it out to a table on the deck, protected by a roof of corrugated clear plastic and covered in lush pot plants. ‘Didn’t you only just move here?’ I ask, staring around at them.
‘Yeah, Dad really likes plants, so he went and got all these pretty quick. I mean, it’s been a couple months now.’
The house and garden look so perfect and clean. Kind of like an IKEA catalogue.
‘Your dad would like Clover,’ I say. ‘She loves gardening.’
‘He’d like you too,’ Babs says. ‘You big walking plant.’ She giggles into her tea.
It starts to rain, but we’re safe and dry on the deck. Through the plastic roof the sky is turning a dark blue; it feels like it’s almost night-time. Babs goes inside to use the toilet, and as she comes back out through the sliding glass door, a big roll of thunder tumbles across the sky. The boy and I jump in our seats, while she looks to the sky in wonder. ‘Are you going to colour your hair?’ she asks the boy. I realise she’s holding a tube of dye.
He blushes to his ears. ‘I was thinking about it.’
‘I think it’ll suit you,’ she says, nodding. ‘Dark fern-green.’
‘I’m not sure if Dad will like it.’
‘It’s okay, only you have to like it,’ I say. ‘Will he be mad at you?’
‘No,’ the boy says. ‘But I dunno about it.’
‘Do you think it’ll look good?’
‘Maybe. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.’ He gives one of his small smiles. ‘I do think it would look good. I’ve wanted to for ages.’
‘Let’s do it!’ Babs exclaims. ‘You wanna bleach your hair first?’
He has black hair so the colour�
�s either going to be really dark, barely noticeable, or if we bleach it first it’ll be pretty bright.
‘I wanted to just put it over, so like, it’s really dark green. I’m not sure if it’ll work.’
‘We can try,’ Babs says. ‘Let’s do it right now?’
He is hesitant, but he nods.
We finish our tea, watching the rain run in rivulets off the roof and splash onto the ground outside. The day was hot enough that it’s still warm on the deck.
Babs and the boy go inside and get everything they need, and when they come back out I help them lay flat some newspapers so no dye gets on the wooden floor or the table. I’ve never dyed anyone’s hair before, not even my own. It seems Babs is an expert on all things hair, because she knew what to do for mine. But I guess mine was pretty straightforward, all shaved off. It’s growing in again, and it’s fluffier and less spiky and irregular. I’ll ask her to do it again soon.
I squeeze the tube of green onto the boy’s head. He’s changed out of his school uniform, just in case, into some trackie daks and an old t-shirt that looks like it’s pyjamas and smells like it’s been slept in. Not in a bad way, just in a way that smells like him, and warmth, and night-time.
Lunchbox jumps up onto the table next to the dye, starts licking a paw, as Babs quickly spreads the goop around with a brush.
‘Will I get in trouble at school?’ the boy asks. Kids have been asked to take out piercings and not dye their hair and not wear jewellery.
‘It’s probably subtle enough that it won’t matter,’ Babs says. ‘One time I dyed my hair that blue that’s basically black and they never told me off.’ She doesn’t say anything about the pale sugar-pink in at the moment.
‘But also,’ I point out, squeezing another bit of goop onto the boy’s head when Babs indicates, ‘you are invisible half the time.’
‘You’re not wrong,’ she says. ‘But also. They did see me some of the time.’
‘I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,’ he says. He looks a bit nervous; he’s wringing his hands under the table where he thinks no one can see, but his shoulders are squared, determined.
