Outback Spirit

by Nicole R. Taylor

  “You’ve hurt people before? By accident?”

  “Why do you think I’m alone?” she hissed.

  Kyne was silent for a while, his brow creased. He seemed to have his own problems, but who didn’t?

  “You’re not alone, Eloise,” he told her. “Not anymore. I…” his jaw tightened, “I can help you.”

  “I don’t even understand what an elemental is.”

  “Being an elemental is to be with nature,” he explained. “Knowing the five elements—earth, air, fire, water, ether—and how to manipulate them.”

  “What’s ether?”

  “Ether is something like spirit. It’s the fabric of the universe that binds everything together.”

  Her breath caught and she lowered her gaze. “Is that… Is that why I do things to people when I touch them?” The mind erasure, the changes in perception…was this ether at work?

  “I think so.”

  “And you’re immune because you’re like me?” She said it more to steady her swirling thoughts than for clarification.

  “My talents lie with the element of earth,” he went on, “I can manipulate the others, but only on rudimentary levels so I don’t usually bother.” It explained why he was such a good miner. Hardy had mentioned Kyne brought in the best opal.

  “So I have a talent with one element, too?”

  He nodded.

  “Can you tell what it is?”

  “No. It’ll take some trial and error before we can figure it out.”

  “How?” Eloise doubted it was like having lightning bolts fire out of her fingertips or glowing balls of magic from in her palms.

  “Instinct.”

  A part of her wanted to believe everything he was saying, but another was skeptical. She’d been in Solace for a handful of days and had known Kyne for less than one. What did he know about her? It was too easy.

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You said we’re half-elemental.”

  “Elementals like us have one human parent and one full-blooded elemental parent. We’re cast out at birth, left to fend for ourselves.”

  “We’re abandoned? Why?”

  Kyne shrugged, unable to meet her gaze. “Elementals aren’t human. They don’t have the same emotions humans do. Life has different meaning.”

  “Why have children with humans then?”

  Kyne coughed and drank some more beer.

  “So, it’s a perverted fantasy?” she asked. “Like in Greek mythology? Gods sticking their bits wherever they wanted, setting up demi-god franchises all over the Mediterranean?”

  Kyne snorted. “Something like that.”

  He didn’t know much more about his origins than she did. They were both orphans to a creature who saw them as an unwanted side-effect of a human tryst. Like a scratch they couldn’t itch, the elementals wanted to dabble in their sexuality, damn the consequences.

  “It makes me so mad,” she said, gritting her teeth. “They just threw us away like rubbish.”

  Kyne tossed his empty beer can into the esky. “At least we lived long enough to grow up.”

  Eloise rose to her feet and ran her hands over her face. “I need to be alone for a while.” She snatched up her new hat and slapped it on her head.

  “Don’t go too far,” he warned. “It’s easy to get turned around out here.”

  All she could do was grunt as she strode off into the outback, her heart and mind overwhelmed.

  Eloise walked out into the scrub, keeping the camp and the mine at her back.

  Solace was full of supernatural beings. She’d survived a cave-in that should’ve killed them because Kyne was an elemental.

  She was an elemental.

  Technically they were half-elementals, but there were none around to correct them. Abandoned. Unwanted.

  Make paths by walking. Coen’s words came back to her and she snorted. She’d been walking all right.

  Were these the answers she was looking for? Kyne had no reason to lie. She had nothing for him to con out of her except her van, and even that was currently broken. It wasn’t like he could fake what he’d done underground, but she didn’t quite believe him about her being the one who stopped the rock from crushing them, either. It was a lucky miss. A pocket of air stuck beside another solid bit of stone. They’d just fell into it, that was all.

  Wasn’t it?

  She sat underneath the shade of a scrappy tree, the earth warm. Burying her fingers into the dirt, she closed her eyes and listened. She heard the wind rustling the plants around her and her heartbeat, but nothing else.

  Picking up a handful rocks and grit, she squeezed her fingers around it, willing it to melt together…but when she opened her hand, they just tumbled back to the ground, the same as they were before.

  Kyne had the answers she’d spent years looking for, so she went back. It wasn’t like she could walk all the way to Solace.

  He was cooking over the campfire when she approached. A cast-iron frying pan full of chopped vegetables and several fat sausages sat in the coals. The contents sizzled as they cooked, emitting an aroma that had her stomach rumbling.

  He’d also set up the tent.

  “I hope you’re not vegetarian,” he said, flipping the sausages.

  “No.”

  “Good. I’d hate to waste a good sausage.”

  He sat back in his camp chair and nodded towards one he’d set up for her. The esky sat between them, and as she flopped down in the chair, she reached for some water, leaving the beer for another time.

  “I was sixteen when I first realised I was different,” she told him. “I’d touch people and they’d change. They’d either hate me or forget I even existed. I skipped school and forged notes from my parents to get out of sports. I went from popular to the most hated kid in a matter of weeks.” She lowered her gaze and stared into the fire. “I locked myself in my room and wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even my parents. One night they forced me out of my room and demanded I talk to them. It… There was an argument…a really bad one.” Her throat tightened. “I touched them and… I’ll never forget the look in their eyes, just pure hatred.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kyne murmured.

  “How could I explain it to them?” she went on. “They would never have understood. I couldn’t even understand it.”

  “Ether,” he said. “That’s what did it.”

  Eloise snorted. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Of course, it matters.”

  “It was ten years ago. I left that night. I packed a bag and climbed out my bedroom window and never went back. I’m a coward.”

  “You’re not,” he told her. “You were a kid, Eloise. A frightened kid on her own with no way of knowing what you’d done.”

  She wiped at her tears. In some ways, she still felt like her sixteen-year-old self, sleeping rough on her first night as a homeless teen. “I’ve never been able to touch anyone in all that time. There have been accidents and times I’ve had to defend myself, but it always ended the same way.”

  “Until now.”

  She snorted. “Yeah. Until now.”

  They sat in silence for a long time. They ate dinner, drank another beer a piece, and listened to the nocturnal sounds of the outback.

  Eloise looked up at the stars, the last of the sun smearing the horizon a deep blackish purple. Vera was right. It was a simple life.

  “Kyne?”

  “Hmm?” He lifted his hat off his face and raised an eyebrow.

  “Will you teach me how to use my powers?”

  “You want to go down in the mine again?”

  “No way in hell,” she retorted. “I think I’ll stick to polishing.”

  “I don’t blame you.” He chuckled and settled back in his chair. “I’ll teach you what I know, but I can’t make any promises.”

  Eloise nodded. It was as good as she was going to get.

  Chapter 9

  Kyne drove Eloise back into Solace the next morning.

 
; There wasn’t much for them to say, not after the day before. He’d told her most of what he knew, and the bits he didn’t were for her own good. She was on the verge of discovering her powers and all the good things they could do. Kyne wasn’t about to ruin her already hard life.

  This whole mess was a set up. Taking Eloise out to his mine, the crack in the ceiling, his powers resurfacing. It’d taken a while to realise it, but Hardy and Coen seemed to be in cahoots with one another, even if they didn’t plan on it. Two birds, one stone.

  He pulled his ute into the driveway next to Wally’s garage and killed the engine.

  “So…” She squirmed, her gaze shifting awkwardly.

  “I have to get that opal out,” he told her. “But I’ll be back.”

  Her lips thinned, but she said nothing. She believed she wasn’t good with people, but when she forgot about herself, she opened right up.

  “I’ll pay you back,” she said, “for the boots and hat.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I could do after my mine caved in on your head.”

  “Kyne, I…” She wrung her hands together. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  She seemed stuck to the seat and he regarded her for a moment, trying to make out her tells. Her anxiety was making her power pulse. It was just a little flutter, but now that he was aware of what she was, it was unmistakable.

  “I need to have a word with Hardy,” he told her, unclipping his seatbelt. “I’ll let him know what happened.”

  This seemed to get her moving. She undid her seatbelt and hopped out of the ute. He climbed out and slammed the door shut.

  Taking her backpack out of the tray, Eloise smiled and took a step back. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Any time.” Surprisingly, he actually meant it.

  Kyne lingered, watching as she unlocked her van and slid open the side door. Another elemental, huh? There weren’t that many of them around, at least those who knew what they really were.

  Sighing, he went across the road to Hardy’s shop. The door was locked, so he went to the Outpost.

  Hardy and Vera were talking at the front counter when he walked in. He noticed Drew was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t anything new. That kid’s head wasn’t straight at the best of times.

  Vera peered at him as the door slammed shut. “He’s smiling…on the inside.”

  “How can you tell?” Hardy asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Magic, duh.”

  “You’re back early,” Hardy said to Kyne.

  “There was a problem with the mine,” he replied. “It, uh… It caved in on us.”

  “What?” Vera exclaimed.

  “Don’t,” Kyne warned, not in the mood for her attitude. “It’s fine. No one got hurt.”

  Hardy grinned. “Your power came back.”

  “And not a moment too soon.” He narrowed his eyes at the vampire. “Your little plan worked, old timer.”

  He smirked. “Who said I had a plan?”

  “Who put that crack in the ceiling?”

  “You did in your desperation for opal.”

  Kyne opened his mouth to argue, but Vera sighed and twirled a lock of red hair around her finger.

  “So?” she asked. “We’re waiting for the answer to the million-dollar question.”

  “You were right,” Kyne said to Hardy, much to the witch’s annoyance. “She’s an elemental.”

  “And?”

  “She’s not a threat,” he added, “just lost.” It wasn’t his place to tell them her story. That was private and personal…and had taken a great deal of courage for her to confide in him. He wouldn’t betray it, no matter how salty he felt about his own tale. Trust was precious to her.

  “Did you tell her about the seal?” Vera asked.

  Kyne shook his head. “No. There was a lot to explain and until we know if she’s staying or leaving, it’s best not to.”

  Hardy nodded. “I agree.”

  Vera held up her hands. “So, I reckon now is the time to tell you Drew and I broke into her motorhome.” Kyne and Hardy turned to glare at her. “Don’t look at me like that. You were sulking,” she said to Kyne before she pointed at Hardy, “and you were busy polishing your precious black opal.”

  “I was working with Eloise, just so you know,” Hardy drawled.

  “Anyway, I was being proactive,” Vera continued with a pout. “I wanted to get a vision.”

  Kyne sighed. It was too late to chastise her now. “And?”

  “She’s got a journal,” the witch began, but clicked her tongue when the boys glared at her again. “I didn’t read it. I just touched the cover, and low and behold, a vision!” She waved her hand across the top of the counter. “A black mountain made out of volcanic rock, a figure reaching towards her, and three knocks in the darkness.”

  Hardy frowned. “A black mountain?”

  “It makes no sense, but it has some meaning to her. Maybe that’s where her elemental parent came from.”

  Kyne shook his head. It could mean anything. In time, maybe they’d figure it out.

  “She’s…” Kyne frowned, his gaze moving to the window. Eloise’s van was hidden from view, but he imagined he could sense her presence.

  “So, if she’s an elemental who doesn’t like touching people, then I’m assuming she has a talent with ether,” Vera declared, satisfied she’d gotten away with breaking and entering. “You know what this means, right?”

  Hardy sucked in a sharp breath. “Altering the fabric of the universe is a dangerous gift.”

  “All the more reason she should stay,” Kyne said.

  Vera smirked at him, her gaze raking over his body. “But will she?”

  “This isn’t a romance waiting to happen,” he snapped. “It’s not about that. There’s plenty of witches in this world, but very few elementals.”

  “Unfortunately, vampires tend to spread like locusts when they get lonely,” Hardy drawled. “Luckily for me, I have Solace.”

  “No matter what Eloise is or isn’t, she needs to learn how to control her powers,” Kyne told them. “Small accidents are one thing, but pent-up energy this close to the seal…? I’m worried what might happen to it.”

  “Does this mean you’re checking back in?” Vera asked.

  “I don’t know what it means.”

  At that moment, a road train rumbled past, all three trailers shining as they flashed by. They rarely stopped, their final destinations much farther north than their little border town. Maybe it was an omen, or maybe it was just that time of day on a truckie’s regular run.

  “I’ll watch out for her,” Hardy said, once the sound of the truck had faded.

  Kyne clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll be back once I’ve got that black. I hope your bank account is overflowing, mate.”

  “Yeah, ready for a fleecing.” The vampire chuckled. “Shouldn’t take long now, eh?”

  He shook his head, catching a wicked glint in Vera’s eye. “No,” he said, “it won’t.”

  Leaning over the tiny shower in her motorhome, Eloise washed the last of the conditioner out of her hair and threw a towel over her head. The bucket she’d used to rinse out her mousey locks was full of grit from Kyne’s mine. The rest of the soap had drained down into her grey tank, where it would fester until she could empty it out on some poor patch of bush out in the scrub.

  Sitting on the stool, she looked out her open door at the fading light.

  Kyne had stuck around for an hour after he had left her—presumably with Hardy to fill him in on the gossip—before getting in his ute and driving off hell for leather without so much as a see you later.

  She tried not to read too much into it. They might both be elementals, but they didn’t know one another, no matter what she’d confided in him.

  Sighing, she squeezed as much water out of her hair as she could, then hung her towel over a tree branch to dry.

  Making herself a cup of tea, she sat on the step o
f her van and scribbled in her journal. Underneath the doodle of the mountain, she wrote several words. Elemental, earth, ether… She went over and over them with her pen as she thought about what had happened in Black Hole Mine.

  The money she’d lost by not helping Kyne dig out all that opal was a kick in the guts, but she was glad she wasn’t going down there again. She was still broke, but at least she had some answers.

  Answers that just led to more questions. Not just about herself, but of the myriad of people who called this place home. Vampire, werewolf, witch, fae, shapeshifter…

  She looked up as the sound of Wally shutting his garage echoed across the lonely outback. He was probably going to the pub for lunch—a place she hadn’t been since she’d run out of there her first day.

  Looking at her journal and at the stray spots of black loose leaf tea in the bottom of her cup, Eloise decided it was past time she grew a pair of lady balls and face her social anxiety with the same tenacity Kyne had used to face his lack of power.

  Solace was a different place now. It wasn’t just a sleepy outback town on the edge of forever; it was a safe haven for supernaturals with no other place to go. Supernaturals like her.

  She wrote one last word in her journal—supernatural—before snapping it closed, then made her way towards the pub.

  As she crossed the road, the same sensation she’d felt the first night vibrated up her legs. Pausing in the middle of the highway, she looked up and down, but nothing moved except a few wisps of clouds in the sapphire sky. No trucks, cars, or caravans in sight.

  She shook her head, putting it into the too hard basket, and went over to the pub.

  Blue was behind the bar when she walked in.

  “Hey,” Eloise said. “About the other night—”

  “Don’t mention it, love,” the publican told her. “So, you figured out our little town, eh?”

  “Kyne told me.”

  Blue raised his eyebrows. “Kyne, hey? Well, there you go.”

  “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  He leaned against the bar. “Kyne was Solace’s informal leader until recently. He went off somewhere a few months ago, but when he got back, he was different. Angry.”