by Alison Evans
Sometimes they’re kind. They can be very cruel.
There’s a hiss, past my ear. Sounds like it’s coming from the rock. Iris stops closer to it, but I tug the boy’s hand. ‘Don’t do it, Iris,’ I say. ‘It’s a trick.’ They’re the kind of faeries that’ll take you for what seems like ten minutes, but it’s been years.
The sun goes out, and the boy grips my hand. I grip it right back, knot-tight. I can feel a tall, spindly creature beside us. Its limbs are so long, like a spider’s; it crouches as it walks. It’s blue-grey like a storm cloud. I can’t see it with my eyes, but I know what it looks like. The coldest vacuum comes from it, trying to suck us up. It keeps pace with us, side by side with the boy, and I just keep pulling us along.
A tiny ray of sunlight breaks through, then the dark is gone. The spindle creature is gone, and we’re out of the pass.
‘It’s not usually like that,’ I say, trying to keep my hands from shaking. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I’ll have to ask Nova why so many are out here.
The boy still hasn’t let go of my hand.
‘It’s never gone dark before, I didn’t know they could do that. We can go another way home. It takes longer, but there’s a bus back to town.’
‘That sounds better,’ he says. He goes to sit a little away from us, on a fallen log, to catch his breath, find himself again.
‘What was that?’ Iris asks me.
‘Cold fae. I didn’t know they’d be so interested in us. Usually I can feel them a bit, but like, that one was so close.’
‘Maybe it was me.’
‘You can see them, can’t you?’
‘Yeah, but I’ve never seen them before.’ Iris shudders. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘Have you been in the realm a lot?’
‘Um.’
‘That’d be why, they don’t cross to our world heaps.’
‘Scary.’ But they’re smiling. ‘I’ve never met anyone who could see faeries. I’ve been keeping it secret my whole life.’
I don’t know what to say to that, so I grab them into a hug.
When we let go, Iris smiles again. ‘So, where are you taking us?’
‘It’s amazing. You’ll love it, both of you.’
We walk for a few more minutes, and the boy recovers as we start to come across flowers growing between the trees. These are like the ones in the meadow, glowing softly under the sun. Some of them are small and in tiny bunches, like clusters of stars. Others are yellow, orange, peach – then every colour, some I didn’t know flowers could be. The bright-blue ones, like cornflowers, shimmer like an oil-slicked road.
The butterflies are back. They swarm all over me, tickling my face, their tiny tornados ruffling my hair. I put the basket down, raise my hands. Some land on my fingers, and I can’t help but laugh, twirl, forget that anything else exists. But the butterflies have to move on, and so I bend to pick up the basket. As we keep going, the flowers and the butterflies become more dense. The trees are still eucalypts, there are still tree ferns, but it’s a different kind of forest. Dew glitters like crystals over everything, setting off rainbows.
Eventually, I realise Nova is walking towards us through the trees. Their camouflage is almost too good. ‘Babs,’ they say on the wind, ‘it’s ready for you.’
I grin at the others, knowing they’re going to love it. ‘This is Nova. They’re a dryad.’
The boy swallows. ‘I can see that.’
‘You’re from very far away,’ Nova says. ‘You miss your roots.’
He nods.
‘And you know Vada,’ Nova says to Iris. They pause to breathe and sway. ‘They told me all about you. You’re very lucky.’
Iris nods, but I can see they’ve got no idea what Nova is talking about.
‘Come.’ They gesture, wood creaking.
‘Did you, er, know that this would happen?’ the boy asks Iris. ‘Like you can see the tree person. Right?’
‘I can. I’ve met another one before – that’s Vada. I’ve known them for a long time. They helped me realise what my gender was.’
‘A tree?’
‘They’re dryads. But they don’t have human genders.’
‘Well, that makes sense. Why would they.’ He laughs and pinches himself. ‘I hope this is real.’
‘This is totally real,’ I say.
‘I can introduce you to Vada. Or the faeries that live in my garden. Well, Clover’s garden.’
‘Faeries?’ He raises his eyebrows.
‘You just learned dryads are real,’ I remind him. ‘Plus the cold fae you just felt.’
‘Good point.’
We come to a clearing that overlooks the river – very blue, and very sparkling. I feel like it’s not exactly made of water. Nova will never give me a straight answer about it.
In the middle of the clearing are a few tables that look like they were grown from the earth. There’s bunting strung between the trees, and there are hundreds of balloons in every shade of green.
‘It’s a birthday party!’ I clap my hands, can’t help it. ‘Because we’ve never had our own ones, really.’ I take the basket to a table and start unloading the food and plates and things.
‘Babs! How did you do all this?’ Iris asks. ‘Everything from my drawing is here.’
All the food they drew is here, or I tried to make sure it all was. The boy had green balloons covering his entire page, and now he’s staring up at the real ones. I take his hand, and he squeezes mine briefly. ‘Let’s eat,’ he says, grinning more hugely than I’ve ever seen him do. Piece by piece, he can build himself, like we did.
As we sit, a few creatures join us. There’s another dryad I don’t know, and Vada comes along. They’re busy in deep conversation with the unknown dryad and Nova, and they wave at Iris. There’s also a whole cluster of faeries, and some of them come up to say hello to Iris. They introduce me to Saltkin, the faerie who was in art class. And there’s another one, Zinnia, who is rosy shades of red and deep pink. Zinnia flits around like a butterfly, jerky-sharp movements. Then there are other creatures I haven’t met, and I don’t know what exactly they are, but I asked Nova to invite everyone.
‘I can’t believe this is real,’ the boy says. ‘Babs, everything’s delicious. Wait!’ He puts down his fork. ‘Aren’t you like, not supposed to eat faerie food? Could we get trapped here?’
‘It wouldn’t be so bad,’ I say, grinning. ‘But me and Mum made it all, so it’s okay.’
‘Okay.’ He picks up some fairy bread. Hundreds and thousands are stuck to the sides of his mouth as he eats.
‘We should do cake,’ I say after a while.
We’re the only ones who know the song. Iris and the boy both have lovely voices, ones that loop and brush up against each other in sweet fairy-floss harmonies.
I pick up the knife and hand it to the boy. ‘You go. You’re the youngest.’ I’m not sure when the other two were born, but the boy is so green and fresh. When he cuts the cake, the little chocolate drops spill out from the middle, like a rainbow volcano. As we eat, popping noises come out of our open mouths.
Saltkin flies over to us, pinballing back and forth, clouds of peach fog following him.
‘Saltkin!’ Iris laughs and he plays with their hair. ‘What’s happening?’
‘This!’ Peach-coloured sparkles join the clouds. ‘The spell worked, it worked so well!’
‘Saltkin helped me with a spell for friends,’ Iris tells us.
Saltkin reaches out and takes a handful of Iris’s cake. ‘I’m so glad you found them,’ he says to Iris.
‘How much of Babs’s food did you eat today?’
‘So much.’ He turns to me, bows his head. ‘You and your mother are very good bakers. Thank you.’
I nod back. ‘Any time.’
He flies away to speak with someone else, t
hen we lie in the sun next to the river. I know this sun won’t burn us, somehow, and it’s peaceful. Butterflies land on me, and I see fat purple-headed bumblebees on the shining flowers nearby.
I close my eyes. I knew this would be a good idea.
Chapter Nine
The Story of the Sun and the Moon
The day Clover and Moss met, the moon was full and in the sky in the middle of the day. So was the sun, but that was more usual. Clover was sitting in a cafe, or rather she was sitting in the backyard of a cafe, shoes off. She had a pot of tea next to her and a book in her hands.
Moss says it was like walking into a dream. Clover’s dress was spread out all around her. It was the middle of summer and the cicadas were just the right amount of loud. The flowers in the garden all seemed to lean towards her.
Clover looked up as Moss walked over, her bright brown eyes like pools of chocolate.
‘Are you Clover?’ Moss asked. They were supposed to be meeting a friend there, who was running late. Moss knew the friend would be late, but she couldn’t bring herself to be late as well. Even though she knew Clover was coming and they hadn’t met before, which made her stomach flip and turn.
Clover nodded and patted the grass next to her. ‘Or would you like a chair? I just thought the lawn looked too good not to sit on.’
Moss couldn’t understand this way of thinking at all, and she hadn’t sat on a lawn since maybe primary school. But she sat, and she took off her shoes, just like Clover.
‘How do you know Lisa?’ Clover asked as Moss undid her shoelaces with a precision that Clover later told Iris she thought was too cute.
‘I’m not sure,’ Moss confessed. ‘I feel like one day she just appeared in my life, like magic.’
Clover nodded. ‘I understand that. I can remember a time before she was in my life, but I can’t pinpoint when she entered it.’
Moss laughed, and she noticed how Clover’s face lit up at the noise.
One of the staff came out with Moss’s coffee, black. She took a sip, sighed with satisfaction and closed her eyes.
Clover remembers at this point it was like time stopped.
‘This place is so lovely,’ Moss said, ‘and I live close by. Why haven’t I come here before?’
‘Maybe Lisa dreamed it up,’ Clover said, pouring herself a new cup of tea. The brown liquid sparkled in the sun as Moss watched her.
Moss noticed that her stomach had stopped churning; now it was alive with butterflies.
They kept chatting, and then Lisa arrived. She’d been on a tram that had broken down. She’d got a lift from someone, but they’d heard the suburb wrong, so then she had to backtrack to a train station. On the way she’d seen a friend she hadn’t seen in years, and they had got talking. Eventually she’d hopped in a taxi and made it to the cafe.
Clover thought the most unbelievable part was that Lisa had only been an hour late, and she said so.
‘Well, me too!’ Lisa exclaimed, and she told them she’d been on the way to be early. ‘The universe must have conspired against me, because I’m never on time. I couldn’t upset the established pattern, you see.’
‘Maybe that’s why time stopped,’ Moss said.
Clover looked at her in surprise, because she had been thinking the same thing.
Lisa, catching the looks between them, was glad she’d been so late. Maybe she should have been later, she thought, but she stayed for one coffee. Lisa has told Iris that she had a feeling they would like each other. But she hadn’t known that Moss was a lesbian, so it wasn’t like she was necessarily trying to set them up. (Moss hadn’t known either, until that day, and then it seemed as obvious as the existence of the sky.) Lisa just knew there’d be a nice connection there; whatever it turned out to be, it would be nice.
Clover and Moss went to pay for their drinks. By this time Lisa had left, but they discovered she’d paid for everything. So they both still had a little money – they were both studying and working jobs that gave them just enough to get by – and they walked down to the ice-cream shop. They each got strawberry, and then they kept walking together. They weren’t sure where they were going, and they ended up walking along a forest path. Tiny star-like flowers were dotted along the ground, pink and purple and blue.
Moss hadn’t known that this forest existed so close to her house; it was as if it had just sprung up that morning to make sure she’d have somewhere nice to walk with this girl who was turning into her sun.
Clover noticed that Moss was dressed like the moon, and she said so. Silver and grey and black, that was what Moss was wearing.
Moss realised that Clover’s dress wasn’t white but rather a pale yellow, and her earrings were sparkling orbs of light.
They walked until the forest ended, and the path led straight to Moss’s house. Clover stayed there that night, and she rose with the sun the next morning. Moss was woken by the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. They both had to go to work soon after, so they caught the train together. Clover took Moss’s hand during the journey, and a whole new world awoke in Moss. It was like fireworks were coming from her chest.
As Clover was getting off at her station, they made plans to see each other in a few days. And then that day they made plans to see each other in a few days, and then that day they made plans to see each other the next day. And then they became near inseparable, each in the orbit of her own life, but grounded by the gravity that kept them close.
They moved in together, and they graduated from their courses. That was separate; Clover graduated the year after Moss. Moss got a job as an electrician, and Clover got a job in a bakery nearby. And they were good jobs, and then they had enough to buy the tiny house with a huge garden so far from the city.
Moss fixed up the house, changing the electrics, putting in a new shower, repainting the outside and the in. Clover had always loved plants, and Moss was right about how the flowers all turned to face her: she was warmer than the sun to them, and to Moss. So Clover grew and nurtured their favourite plants, as well as a veggie patch.
Clover adored the huge wisteria in the front yard, and Moss built a table for them to sit at on the warmer nights, and they would have dinner there. They still have dinner out there sometimes with Iris.
Moss got a promotion, and then Clover lay awake at night. She could feel something had changed. The house was warmer, the plants were happier, the food was more wholesome, Moss’s coffee in the morning made her more awake. And then Clover realised something was growing in the garden under the moss.
At first she was unsure of what it was, but she asked the insects and the rabbits and everything else to stay away from the garden bed covered in moss. They did, but they never ate her plants anyway. Well, only a little bit. Things she could afford to give away. They never ate anything so that it died, or so that Clover and Moss went hungry.
And then a few weeks later, as they were both sitting outside under the light of the full moon, drinking tea and chatting about nothing, Clover realised that under the ground, under the moss, in the safe dark, was Iris, and they were growing.
She gasped, then she started crying.
‘Clover?’ Moss asked, putting down her cup. ‘Are you all right? What’s wrong?’
She took her hand, and Clover couldn’t stop crying. She was more scared than she had ever been in her whole life, she told Iris later, but she was also happier. It was like she was made of clouds and light, up higher in the sky than she had been before.
‘We’re going to have a baby,’ she said, her whole body shaking with the effort to hold this many emotions at once, and still speak.
‘A baby?’ Moss repeated, unable to believe that they could have something so precious and small and new. ‘A real baby?’ she asked, and whenever she tells Iris now that she asked this, she laughs. She says she couldn’t
have said anything sillier.
‘A real baby,’ Clover said, and then she couldn’t talk from the deluge of feelings that rocked her body.
They left the tea out as they went inside, and they lay in the moonlight the whole night, melding into one another.
Chapter Ten
The Strange News
I’m in that murky fog of sleep when something wakes me. I groan and turn over, but the thing keeps nudging me.
‘What, Sadie?’ I mumble, creaking open an eye.
It’s not Sadie. It’s a . . . I don’t know what they are. At first they look like a bird, but the lines are wavy, shimmery . . . then a faerie . . . then just a bundle of sticks. As I open both eyes, they stabilise into a raven. We stare at each other.
‘Hello,’ I say.
The raven caws.
‘Are you looking for my mum? She’s in the other room.’ Sadie’s probably in with her.
The raven caws again.
I sigh. ‘Fine.’ I swing my legs out of bed, make a doona cape and head to the bathroom.
The raven caws.
‘Yeah, yeah, just give me a sec, okay?’
I shower and look at my hair. Mum’s got colouring potions in the cupboard – she did some for a client a couple weeks ago, and these are the leftovers. A musk smell wafts out when I open the biggest jar. I part my hair down the middle, rub the dye into half. It takes a few minutes to set, so I put on some eyeliner, a pearlescent white, while I wait. I draw thin lines above my eyes, birds on my cheeks. As I do, I watch the brown hair turn to purple, turn to pink.
‘All right,’ I say to the raven as I’m tying my shoelaces. ‘I’m ready.’
The raven flies out my window and waits for me in the backyard. Maybe it’s come from Nova. Sometimes they’ll send messengers, but almost always to Mum. I’ve never got a raven-faerie-stick doll messenger, though.
As I step out into the national park, something in my gut twists. ‘Where are you taking me?’ I ask the raven, but they don’t reply. ‘I have to be back in time to go to my friend’s for dinner, okay?’