No Man's Land

by A. J. Fitzwater

  Izzy’s face loomed too close. Tea shrieked. The parted lips, the question in Izzy’s face. The darkness. Izzy caught her in a grip tighter than her fear for the gun in her brother’s hands. There was the whisper – who had told her such a salacious thing? – that a look and a touch like this had killed her father. But he’d been lost to the chemical beasts of the Great War, hadn’t he?

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Izzy looked hurt.

  “I thought I heard something,” Tea said, thick and slow.

  Izzy had retreated, but her hand was right there. Wrong there. On her arm. Was Izzy that weird wolf Robbie warned her about? Not a real wolf, but a predator the girls whispered about in Physical Education class at school.

  And then Izzy’s face changed. A smile took the whole of her eyes, making her tough angles handsome. Mum used the word to disparage a girl’s ankles, but now Tea understood its true meaning. A man should be handsome, but a girl could be, too.

  It had been a look of kindness. That’s all. It meant nothing.

  “Of course you heard something.” Izzy narrowed her eyes and cocked her head, as if inspecting something deep behind Tea’s eyes. “It’s … the eels. They speak to you.”

  With that, Tea broke free of the spell. “Eels can’t talk!” she laughed.

  Izzy finally removed her hand, nodded, and folded her arms. “Good. I wasn’t wrong about you after all. You really are Robbie’s sister.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tea continued to laugh. She had to. The short burst of relief had been taken over by something much darker than the night. “Of course I’m Robbie’s sister!”

  Before Tea could turn Izzy’s meaning into something real, before she failed to resist the riptide that pulled her towards the creek, another sound intruded on their camp. A thunk of hooves on grass.

  One of the horses must have wandered over to investigate. The dogs looked up sleepily, unfazed by the new guest.

  Big ears flicking, a long, sandy-coloured head eased out of the dark, nodding over short-stop legs.

  A relieved giggle burst from Tea’s lips. “I didn’t know the MacGregors have a donkey.” She stroked the soft petals of the donkey’s nose, and like the other farm animals it didn’t shy away.

  “They don’t.” Izzy propped her chin along the L of her fingers, elbow on knee.

  “A bit of a wanderer, hey? What’s your name, honey?” Tea crooned.

  Izzy eyed the donkey, and it bobbed its head like the silly animal was giving Izzy permission.

  “Grant,” Izzy said.

  “You named the donkey after Grant? That’s mean!”

  Tea reached out for a reassuring pat, but the dirty-soft face wasn’t there.

  “No,” said a quiet, pinched voice. “I am Grant.”

  Tea gave a little screech. The boy eased between them, reaching for the billy. Was he … was he naked?

  Tea leapt up. “Where did you come from? Where did the donkey go? Where are your clothes?”

  “Tea, sit down,” Izzy ordered, refreshing a mug and holding it up.

  “No! You tell me what’s going on here now or I’m going straight to Mr MacGregor!” Tea shook as she gave the order. She’d never been so straightforward, even with her mother when she was nursing Grandad. It wasn’t very ladylike. But now wasn’t the time for ladylike things, other than looking away from Grant’s skinny nakedness.

  Izzy shrugged and passed a blanket and a tin plate of leftover damper to Grant. “Here, eat up. Changing quick must hurt.”

  “It does.” Grant tugged the blanket around himself, flexed his red-knuckled hands, and glanced sideways up at Tea. He shoved the damper in his mouth like he hadn’t eaten his fill of dinner. “Come on, Tea. Sit down. I’m not going to bite.”

  “I thought you went to the dance.” Tea kept on her feet out of sheer perversity. Grant wouldn’t hit her, no. Izzy might, if she followed through with her threat.

  Grant shook his head and kept shovelling in food. Where did it all go on a body that was all bones?

  Grant gave Izzy a look Tea couldn’t comprehend. Something old and weary. “I thought you were going to do it,” he sighed.

  “Fine. Hold on.”

  Tea backed away a step.

  An eel splashed in the creek.

  With a creak like the Nor’wester through the pines, Izzy’s flesh and bones folded inwards. Fur as black as her hair sprung along her spine, spreading rapidly over her hands and feet. Fingers and toes coalesced into claw-tipped paws. The star-freckles of her nose scattered into the bib and paws of the dog that had been following Tea that first day. Izzy’s mouth opened wide in a toothy dog grin, and her pink tongue rolled out along with the bitter-sweet scent that had dogged Tea all week.

  The scent of starlight.

  Tea slapped her hands to her mouth to hold bile and scream in. “Dear God in heaven,” she whispered. “You’re a weird wolf!”

  “Tea, we’re—” The word Izzy said through her fearsome mouth was too mangled for Tea’s comprehension. It frightened her. It sounded Māori.

  “Like you are,” Grant said, trying to sound reassuring, but Tea could only taste in her mind’s eye the white skin he hid under the blanket, the animal he hid inside himself. “For some strange reason, the power runs in your family.”

  Izzy padded forward as if to greet her anew and that was it for Tea. Slipping on the crackle-dry grass, she turned and ran back towards the only other light for miles around.

  4.

  As the minister droned on through a prayer, Grant risked a glance down the pew. Careful had to be the natural state of things. Girls had misread these glances, and God was always watching.

  Wedged between Mr MacGregor and Alison, Tea cut her stare through the edge of her eyes, the angle of her jaw taut. Grant dropped his gaze and tried to massage warmth into his knuckles. The country church exuded chill even on a sunny spring day.

  Calculations danced through Grant’s head. Tea hadn’t dobbed them in to the boss, but she was using him as some sort of shield. He couldn’t quite explain the sadness such distance infused him with. He had hoped they would be friends.

  The minister swung into the sermon, making words about the sacrifice of New Zealand’s good young men and how everyone had to do their piece on the home front. Grant clenched his toes. The stolid church stones mumbled to him about all the eyes that flicked over him. He was one of only a handful of men his age in the church; two of them were recuperating from injuries suffered in the line of duty, another proudly robed up in his uniform ready to depart at any moment, and the last was Mrs Mulligan’s son Dwayne, a sweet man with the mind of a five-year-old.

  A strange dance ensued on the ride back to the farm. Freed from the constraints of church silence, Alison and Carmel chattered about the post bag, who was and wasn’t at church, next week’s dance. The usually loquacious Izzy kept her peace while Tea kept her distance. Tea was still learning to handle her horse, Morgan. Grant sent soothing vibrations down through the ground in the pony’s direction. Tea didn’t have to know.

  What did Tea see when she looked at him? A skinny boy with a cough and pale cheeks that burned too easy?

  She’s one of us.

  Three, now four. Maybe three again. Maybe two, if … No, don’t think like that.

  Thinking of Robbie made him weave together all the times they’d ridden to and from town, even made him miss Robbie’s favourite joke, how he called him a mule atop a horse.

  Pull yourself together, boy.

  The stones told Grant when Tea’s eyes latched onto him, as if she could hear his thoughts. This wasn’t just about survival; it was buried deep in his mule-ness, knowing where and when to be, where people were, what they needed. A blessing and a curse – his equine abilities lent him a strength his body wouldn’t otherwise have.

  Tea tugged at her gloves and fiddl
ed with her reins, but Grant could feel her turmoil through the minute vibrations in the stones. Always the ground talking to him. He wished, endlessly, that he could tell the ground to shake something up for the boys over there, but fine control was not in his command; he was a beast of burden. It didn’t stop his joints from aching, his chest tightening up when it was cold, but it was something. It was enough.

  Lunchtime proved equally tense. Tea caged herself between Alison and Carmel. Meals weren’t always this quiet, no matter what Tea thought of the stern mask the boss put on. Did she know about the boys the MacGregors had seen off to the front? The Missus hadn’t spoken of them since they left, like she was afraid uttering their names would bring a curse down on them. A rough way to do it, but that was the Missus. Ed and Bert were good, hard-working boys, though they’d had more time for the amiable Robbie than for him.

  Down the table, Izzy put on her best face. She’d better be careful. Being quiet could give her away. Mr MacGregor constantly reprimanded her for being a chatterbox, but sometimes they all needed the silence filled. Izzy had the right words. Usually. But not today.

  “Right, you lot.” Mr MacGregor’s voice punched through the tension. “Down to the shed with you.”

  Carmel stacked the last of the dishes away with a mock groan, and Tea pulled on her boots silently at the back door. The shearing gang trooped from their cottage – they always ate separate – carefully pinching off the ends of their thin tobacco rollies, stomping into their boots. Dogs milled like a black and white storm. The war didn’t stop for Sunday.

  Sheep bleating. Izzy bellowing. The stink of male sweat mixed with hair, lanolin, and the sweet-sharp glow of the girls. Grant could separate each of the men by their scent alone. The gap in the scent palate left him fumbling with his pencil and clipboard for a moment.

  A warning stitched into the air. Izzy glared at him over a bundle of freshly shorn wool she tossed onto the table for grading. He was exuding too much again. He coughed, the stuffiness of the shed making his chest tighten. Did the Missus have enough of those nice herbs dried for tea?

  “You stupid girl!”

  Mr MacGregor’s bellow startled the shed into a portrait of frozen wonder, the gang boys leering, Carmel’s face twisted in pain and surprise, a sheep all tits-up.

  Then, a burst of action. Carmel’s shears twanged into the floor of her run, and she shrieked. The sheep bolted for freedom. The shearing gang laughed. Alison flailed her arms in a wild attempt to block off the sheep.

  The strange hot twinge flared in Grant’s knuckles at the same time Tea made her move. Girl and mammal went down in a roll of legs and hooves. The sheep mah’d its discontent as she wrestled it back into the run. Her face set in stone, Tea snatched up Carmel’s shears, locked right leg and left arm into the correct position and clipped away. The gang boys scoffed harder, then fell silent as Tea clipped smooth and steady.

  Only the disgruntled sheep waiting in the gates made a sound.

  Grant watched, fascinated, as Tea kept the ewe calm, muttering under her breath, the shears almost an extension of her hand. She’d been taught well, her technique smoother than Izzy’s, who often treated the sheep like the eye dog she barely kept harnessed inside herself.

  “Alright, stop gawping,” Mr MacGregor grunted. He narrowed his eyes at the gang boys, and they looked everywhere but at the boss or Tea. “Carmel, gittup to the house and see the Missus about that hand. The rest of you, gitton. These sheep don’t shear themselves.”

  Hand wrapped in her handkerchief, Carmel sniffled and hurried away. Grant kept his silence – the gang boys placed him only just above the land girls in respect – and went back to grading the wool, picking out imperfections, notating bale weights, all the while keeping an eye on the smooth job Tea performed upon the now relaxed ewe. She had a way with the animals, that was for sure.

  Within nine minutes by the shed clock the fleece fell away from the ewe in one clean piece. Faster than some of the shearing gang.

  “Attagirl!” Izzy whooped, punching the air.

  Ignoring the praise, Tea pulled another sheep into the run and set to. Izzy threw the fleece on the table, and Grant checked it over. Tidy edges, even clip. Izzy gave him a tiny nod. The girl had style.

  After eight more sheep, Tea wasn’t exactly smiling, but there was a straightness to her back that hadn’t been there before. Grant watched her as she went to wash up for dinner. Her stride seemed longer, too. She’d made a decision.

  Returning to the solitary of the men’s cottage – Buck up, cheerio, it’s not for long – he checked his kit once more. He wanted to be prepared in any case for what Tea’s decision might be. He had to be.

  How could he give this up so easy, especially on the whim of a girl? This was all he had. There was no going back south to Gore. This was home. It was safer here; at least it had been, before the war.

  *

  Tea had smelled the way Grant looked at her all through Sunday, a far too pleasant mix of dust and hay. The air shivered with it, an aptitude all at once familiar and unfamiliar for its normality. She’d always been able to tell when Mum was opening her mouth to speak, or when Robbie was sneaking through the house, by the shift of the air. Now that she knew it was magic, the pull of it sat ungainly around her face, the air rough with too much possibility.

  Questions squeezed her brain and chest as she tried to wash off the sheep muck in time for dinner. Carmel and Alison called back and forth, the slight injury of the earlier afternoon almost forgotten. Strangely enough, Izzy remained quiet, though her presence pressed large against the air, making Tea feel like she was gasping for breath.

  “Wolf in sheep’s clothing on one side, mule boy on the other,” she muttered to herself, splashing water on her sweaty face and neck. “And now I think eels can talk to me? Why didn’t you tell me, Robbie?”

  Because there’s no way you would have believed me. You have to see everything for yourself, you stubborn goat.

  She paused, hands plunged in water that was still painfully cold even after being humped up from the creek. The water tried to whisper a reassurance over her skin, and she flinched. Now she was imagining her brother’s voice as well as the hissing voice of this strange magic Izzy and Grant claimed she possessed.

  Like them.

  No. She couldn’t be like them. Especially Izzy. A wolf that talked to her, looked at her like a man would a woman. Was she becoming too mannish already with all this man’s work? Mum had said to be careful of that. Men wouldn’t want to marry a mannish woman. No man wants another man. She’d once said this too loud in front of Grandad, and he’d got this expression that pushed so hard against the air. Tea had been so confused by the whole altercation, and ashamed too, of her blunt fingers, her desire to hold shearing clippers as competently as her brother.

  The banging of the dinner bell startled Tea back into the real world, and she rushed to dry off and dress. The inadvertent soak hadn’t been enough to remove the dirt settled under her fingernails.

  Oh my gosh, the shearing, they let me do it! The thought tingled along her skin like cold water, buzzed around her teeth and lips, warmed her belly. It was a mark of how the work was getting under her skin.

  Had it only been a week since this all started? Yes. And no. And forever.

  I can’t go back home now. I can’t fail at this, no matter whether Izzy wants to turn me into some sort of man. Or beast. I don’t know what I’ll do with this magic, or them, but I’ll do it for Robbie.

  Good enough for the time being.

  The creek hissed at her as she made her way to dinner. The sound followed her everywhere now, had been following her for as long as she could remember: water in the pipes; the small creek near her house; the waves in Dunedin harbour that should have been too far away to hear; her menses, she knew when her body was ready each month; even the tidal lock of her blood to her brother’s.

&
nbsp; Izzy’s blood too, now. Tea could scent her following at a safe distance. Safe was good.

  As she dug into the mutton that tasted like triumph, Tea suddenly realised she hadn’t even thought of turning Izzy and Grant in to Mr MacGregor since that panicked run the night before. Dobbing them in would essentially be dobbing Robbie in, too, and she couldn’t do that.

  “Where d’ya think you’re goin’?”

  Dishes done, Mr MacGregor’s bark caught Tea halfway down the veranda steps. She clasped her dirty, betraying hands behind her back and turned, having to look up and up to meet his gaze. He frowned. Was there anything that would please this man?

  “Back to the cottage, if that’s alright,” Tea said as patiently as she could.

  MacGregor’s frown deepened. No, the boss wasn’t about to allow her to relax.

  “There’s still daylight, girl. Daylight means work. Miss Twidle and Miss Atkinson are doin’ their vegetable work.” He flicked his head in the direction of the extensive gardens behind the house. “There’s a fence down by the creek that needs mendin’. Jump to it, before some sheep decides to drown itself and we’re down a few bob I might have to dock off your wages.”

  “But sir, Mr MacGregor, I—”

  “You what, girl? Speak up. Don’t want no lazy mumbling around here. Use your words, girl.”

  Tea’s cheeks burned harder. That was what Mum said, and the words always fled her under such scrutiny. She hated the impotence of her manner.

  “I … I don’t know how to mend a fence, sir,” Tea said, barely above a whisper. For everything else there’d been Izzy to show her, or she picked it up by copy-cat.

  MacGregor huffed something that could have been a laugh, could have been disgust. The shape of Mrs MacGregor hovered at the washroom door.

  “You knew well enough how to shear earlier.”

  “I can show her how,” Grant said, stomping into his boots. “I know the break you mean. We can check the traps while we’re down there, too.”

  Tea froze. She couldn’t back out now without coming off a fool. MacGregor squinted at the sun, glanced to his wife, then scowled at the two young people. “Yer lucky that daylight saving’s been made permanent. Make sure you’re back before sundown. No shenanigans after dark, y’hear? Or ya both be out on yer ears, no pay.”