by Alison Evans
1.Make something that represents us, our selves, our souls, our stories.
2.Explore a theme from the list attached, and link it to our own creative process.
3.Choose a favourite song, movie, book, etc., and represent it through art.
The list attached has words like ‘love’, ‘anger’, ‘sadness’: emotions as tiny words. I don’t understand how I could put one single emotion into a single work. Each of my emotions is tied to another. Like jigsaw pieces they all fit together, and any one couldn’t survive on its own. I don’t know if it would mean anything by itself.
So I think about the first suggestion. I know my self, sure. I don’t know if I believe in souls; I don’t think I do. Clover and Moss are both non-religious and so they brought me up that way too. And my story, I’m not sure what that is.
Grown from a seed?
The third suggestion seems unnecessary. It’s already a work of art, why would I make another one?
I draw a line on my sketchpad to represent the ground. I draw a little circle and colour it in, and that’s me, as a seed. I get the dark-green pencil and draw a line of moss on top of the other line. It seems very underwhelming. How am I supposed to convey the safety I felt, under the ground? Or the blooming of the moon roses, and how they glow in the night? I tap my pencil against the paper.
Babs has disappeared again, and the boy is deep into his sketch. There are a lot of colours; I’m not sure what he’s drawing.
Miranda comes over to me. She sits in the empty chair opposite me, the one next to Babs. It’s strange how none of the teachers seem to comment when Babs disappears, or when she doesn’t show up to class weeks at a time. ‘Having a bit of trouble, Iris?’ Miranda smiles. She must be a parent; she has that mum smile. The reassuring one, the one that means safety.
‘I’m not sure which one to do.’
‘Which one would you like to learn more about? Yourself, your feelings, or the art you like?’
‘Myself,’ I say right away.
‘For me, art is all about learning about yourself. Do you think that’s true?’
I shrug. ‘I just think it’s fun. It’s my favourite class. I don’t have to think too much.’
‘So it’s more of a relaxation thing for you?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘It’s okay.’ She smiles the smile again. ‘There aren’t any wrong answers here. I just want my class to be a place where you can be whoever you need to be.’
I don’t know what to say to that. I keep silent.
‘From what we’ve been talking about, I think you should pick option one.’
‘I think I was going to. But I tried –’ I gesture to my drawing. ‘It just seems very . . . underwhelming. How can I get the, like, the magic across?’
‘Maybe that’s something you can explore in your folio. It’s a place where I want you to explore your creative process, to really think about the decisions you make while you’re creating art.’
‘Hm.’ I frown. I don’t know if I’m capable of that.
‘I think your folio would be very interesting,’ she says. I do think she says it to everyone, but I also think she means it. She pats the table and stands. ‘You can always send me an email if you need any help outside of class. I don’t want this to be homework, I’d rather my students only do their work in class, but if you need to, email me about it.’
‘I will, thanks.’
She goes off to someone else who looks as lost as I did. I still feel a bit lost, but now it’s more okay that I feel this way.
I pick up my pencil again, and I start to write around the picture in the blank space of the sky.
When I was a seed my mothers would tend my soil; they would ask the rabbits and snails and everything else to please stay away from me when I grew, so that they wouldn’t eat my tiny green new leaves. I needed a strong beginning. The moss above me was like a blanket. At night, it would keep the warmth in the soil. I was growing through winter, I was born in spring. The nights were long and cold, and sometimes Clover would come sit beside me in her winter jacket, holding a warm steaming cup of hot chocolate. Moss would bring her inside when it got too cold. Sometimes they would sit together, but Moss still had to work when this was happening. Clover worked sometimes, but she had to take a lot of time off to make sure I was okay.
The dawn was pastel when my first leaves came out from the soil. I remember the gasp Clover made when she saw me growing there. I don’t think she could believe it. I don’t know if she can believe it now. Sometimes I catch her looking at me with the same disbelief.
They planted a rosebush over where I grew, once I was out of the soil. Now it’s as tall as me. It grows huge roses every year, the petals thick and delicate. They are a luminescent white; they sparkle in the sunlight if you get close enough, and they shine out under the moon in the night.
I wonder if Miranda will read it and think it’s all a metaphor. Possibly. I guess it doesn’t matter what she thinks, I know it’s real.
That’s how I might feel about gender, now. It’s upsetting when people misgender me, but it’s exhausting to get upset about it every time. I’m not sure I can do it anymore. Babs knows, the boy knows, my mothers know. The cafe lady knows.
I write all this down, too.
Babs reappears. ‘I think I’m disappearing again,’ she says, her face straining like she’s making an effort to stay visible. ‘Meet at Eaglefern later?’
‘Yep.’ I nod.
The boy looks up, wrenching himself from his work, but Babs is already gone.
‘Do you want to go to the cafe after school?’ I ask him.
‘I’ll have to ask my dad.’ He smiles softly. ‘I would like to.’
The good thing about Clover and Moss is that they don’t mind so much where I go, I only really need to check with them if it’s somewhere I’d have to be picked up from, or if we’re going out. They just want me to tell them where I’m going, so they don’t worry.
We spend the rest of art class in silence, and I try to figure out how to capture that magic in the picture. I wonder if maybe I could use actual magic, but then I’m not sure how that would work, and how I’d get away with it without Miranda asking too many questions. I’ll ask Saltkin later, or maybe Wendy. Whoever I see first.
Maybe the book would have an answer.
After lunch, I skip maths and hang out in the library, waiting for the bell to ring. I should be doing other homework, but instead I’m trying to figure out how to draw a seed. I borrowed some gardening books, and they’ve all got lots of pictures but none of them really show the seeds. They just show seedlings, new leaves pushing through dirt. I wonder what I looked like, a tiny seed or a big one, round or pointed. I should ask Clover and Moss, though I don’t know if they would have seen me before I was a seedling.
I start to sketch out some leaves breaking through dirt. I can’t get the bright fresh green that I want, but I make a note of it for my folio, and keep going. Maybe I could try something else, glitter or cellophane – stick stuff onto it, do something weird. I think Miranda would appreciate that.
The bell that means the end of school sounds out, and I grab my things, head to my locker right before the rush of everyone trying to get their bags out. I don’t wait for Babs or the boy, the rush is too much, so I just start walking down the hill, away from school, and then wander up the main road.
It’s not Livia at Eaglefern today, but a staff member with short, spiky pale-lavender hair and a lot of earrings. They’re wearing a denim vest and their arms are pretty buff. This must be Bec. When they bring over my coffee, I stumble over my thank you, and they smile at me before going back up to the front.
I bring out the old book, and its pages are still blank. It wanted me to find it, Saltkin said so. I know that much. I open to a random page and put my palm flat against the paper. I
t’s rough, thick, old. I start to hum the way the book was humming when I found it. Just one note at first, but then I slip into a song I was listening to.
The pages hum in response. Joy bubbles up in me, and I keep humming, as ink spreads from under my hand across the page. The page stops humming eventually, and so do I. When I take my hand off, a sigil is revealed. The text tells me it’s for safe travels to make sure wherever the sigil-wearer goes, they will be protected.
I trace the sigil on the paper with my finger. Normally I draw them on myself with a makeup pencil, but I don’t have one with me. Saltkin usually draws them anyway.
I grab a marker out of my pencil case and I start to draw the sigil on my thigh so that my school dress can cover it. When it’s complete, a layer of shimmery light flashes across my skin. It kind of feels like pins and needles, but the sensation is so fleeting I don’t know if it is real.
I try to hum other pages to life, but none of them want to appear. I put the book back in my bag and run a hand over the sigil. The skin is raised. I look closer; it’s scarred into me.
It didn’t hurt, but still the thought sends a chill across me like the flash of shimmers.
‘Hey!’ Babs says. I jump in my seat; she’s already sitting opposite me. I’m not sure when she came in or if she was here this whole time and I just hadn’t seen her. She’s out of her uniform and has a t-shirt on that says Did you do it? ‘Sorry about art class. I reckon it’s going to be a cool project, though. I’m gonna do my favourite song. It’s got the cutest girl singing; she has like this clear voice that just really swims over the music, ya know?’ Babs continues to tell me about the cute girl singer until her coffee arrives. She stumbles over her thanks to the barista, and even blushes a little bit.
‘Is that Bec?’ I ask her.
‘Yep. She’s a lesbian like me. She’s really cool, she’s in a band with some other people and they sing about queer stuff. We’re not old enough to go to their shows – they’re always eighteen-plus. But I have their CD, I’ll give it to you.’
‘I love her hair.’
The bell to the door tinkles and the boy comes in, holding a couple of books close to his chest. He goes up to Bec, orders and comes to sit with us. He’s on the couch opposite, his knees close together. It’s like he can never relax, and I hope he learns how to. He deserves to take up space. It’s a hard thing to learn.
He has an Earl Grey tea; he gets a slice of lemon, too. After a bit, he opens the lid of the pot to check how it’s steeping. Then he takes out the leaves, puts them on the saucer, pours himself the tea, pours in some milk, some honey, squeezes in some lemon. His movements are very precise, and I realise that me and Babs are watching him. He blushes when he notices. ‘I just like it.’
Babs giggles. ‘Yes.’
‘Where did you go?’ he asks her. ‘After art class.’
‘I thought I could get through the whole class,’ she says, frowning as she looks out the window. ‘But then I just couldn’t hold on. I did some of my folio, but then I went to the park and lay in the sun and listened to the album my song’s on. The one I’m doing my project on,’ she explains to the boy. ‘Then I came here to see you. I’ve been thinking about the witch.’
‘Saltkin’s been very weird,’ I tell her. ‘He keeps telling me something’s going to happen but he never says what. Don’t know if it’s about the witch. I think you both met him in the forest?’
They nod. I’m glad Babs made that birthday party for us, so we wouldn’t have to explain anything to the boy. There’s none of that doubt that might cloud our friendship. I think he would have believed us, but then what if he hadn’t? I wonder how that would feel. I don’t know if it would be unreasonable to be upset, when it’s more or less widely accepted that none of this exists.
‘I don’t think I wanna see her,’ Babs says. ‘She’s probably dangerous. She might lift this curse but then she could make everything worse. Plus, if Saltkin got hurt . . .’
‘I mean, I’m not sure he was talking about her. He just kept saying it was dangerous out there, and that I’m young, and that I should stay safe.’
‘I wonder what Vada would say,’ Babs says. ‘I bet Nova wouldn’t tell me anything.’
I can hear Babs is a bit jealous, maybe. I think because Vada is younger than Nova, they’re more inclined to share things with me. Nova seems like the kind of dryad to keep more to themself.
‘We can look for the dryads later. But I know it can be hard to get them to come to you if you need something; time is different for them.’
‘Yeah, you’re right.’ She frowns again. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’
‘So . . . this witch cursed you when you were like, a tiny child?’ the boy asks before blowing away the steam coming from his cup and then taking a sip.
‘Yes.’
‘For no reason other than you walked near her cabin?’
‘Yes.’
‘I feel like you shouldn’t go looking for her. If she did this to you when you were a child and you found her by accident, imagine what she’ll do when you’re much older and intentionally looking for her.’
‘He has a very good point,’ I tell her.
She nods. ‘I don’t think I’ll do it.’
But she has an uncertainty about her, and her words are shaky like leaves in the breeze.
Chapter Fourteen
The Old Book
A few days later, there’s a butterfly-light knock on the door. When I open it the boy and his dad are here, the boy holding a plate of little sticky cakes. He smiles at me, and I can feel my fire in him.
Mahmoud smiles too, a warm crescent moon. ‘Hi, Babs.’
‘Hello.’ I put out my hand. I realise I did this last time we met. ‘Thanks for bringing him over.’
‘Not a problem.’
‘Did you want to come in? You can meet my mum.’
I show him to the kitchen where Mum is sitting, reading. ‘Mum, this is the boy’s dad, Mahmoud. Mahmoud, this is Wendy.’
She gets up and also shakes his hand. It feels too formal, but I don’t know what else to do – we don’t meet new people often.
‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘we have stuff to do so we’ll be in my room.’
I’ve already got a pot of tea ready to go, and I laid out a picnic set on my bedroom floor. We wanted an outdoor picnic, but it’s too windy. And with the curtains open and my big windows, it’s almost like we’re outside.
‘My dad helped me make them; they’re called basbousa,’ the boy says as he sits down and takes the cling wrap off the cakes. ‘I wanted to bring something.’
‘They look delicious.’
‘Can you do magic, Babs?’ the boy asks as he checks out my room. I’ve got some dried herbs in the window, a few crystals lying around, and a big cloth of The Moon tarot card on my wall.
‘Kinda,’ I say. ‘Not like Mum or Iris. It . . . scares me a little.’ I’ve never told anyone this before. ‘I don’t want to accidentally curse someone.’
‘I don’t know if you could do that,’ the boy says. He pauses. ‘Not by accident.’
‘Maybe.’
We sip our tea. It’s nice, being still with him. He’s so quiet. Maybe he is made of space. There’s no sound in space. Or I guess there might be, but we just can’t hear it because there’s no air. I don’t know how it all works.
There’s a knock on my door. ‘Yes?’
Mahmoud sticks his head in. ‘Bye, Habibi, I’ll pick you up later.’
The boy gets up to hug his dad, then Iris appears in the hallway behind them. ‘Hey!’ they say, and they plonk their bag on the floor. ‘I’ve got the book I showed you and your mum a while ago, Babs.’
Mahmoud heads off, and the boy sits back down.
We’re both quiet as we watch Iris take ou
t the book. It’s huge, yellowed with age, and has an embossed gold mushroom on the cover. They put it down in front of them and start flicking through the pages.
‘Wow,’ I say. Something in the air is different – my ears pop. That didn’t happen last time.
‘Saltkin reckons it’s really special.’ Then they take a deep breath. ‘Okay, so. Even for me this is a little weird. When I found this book, all the pages were blank. You remember, Babs? You saw them.’ I nod. ‘A few days ago I started to like, hum, because when I found the book it was humming, so I thought maybe it liked it? And then some pages weren’t blank anymore.’ They stop on a page with writing and pictures in black ink. ‘So I drew the sigil on my leg.’ They lift their starry-patterned skirt just high enough to show us.
‘Oh my god, is that scarring?’ I ask.
‘Nah, it just like, appeared,’ they say, pulling their skirt back down. ‘And then like, this wave of protection washed over me.’
‘That’s so cool,’ the boy says. He flicks through the book a couple of times. Every other page remains blank. ‘Maybe we can try a spell to reveal more pages?’
I nod. ‘There must be something.’
‘I reckon we give it a go,’ Iris says. ‘What do we need?’
‘Candles, for a start,’ I say. ‘Maybe some herbs. And I’ll get one of Mum’s books.’ I hurry off to the kitchen and grab the things I need, shove them into a reusable shopping bag.
When I come back, the boy is leaning over the book. ‘Maybe this can tell me how to find my name,’ he says.
‘I dunno if you should listen to a book about that,’ Iris says.
‘It’d be easier.’
‘Maybe, I don’t know, I think you’ll find it soon,’ they tell him. ‘And you’ll know when you do.’
