Euphoria Kids

by Alison Evans

  While the dye soaks in we watch some telly. His family has pay TV, so we put on a cooking channel. There’s this show about a married couple in the UK who make lollies, and we watch them make some magic-looking honeycomb and chat away to each other about their lives. Their connection runs deep, and their love shows in their food, and then at the end of the episode when they share it with their friends.

  I look at Babs and the boy, both captivated by the lollies on screen, and I feel that same kind of warmth for them.

  An alarm on Babs’s phone goes off: time to rinse out the dye. The bath runs green with it, a dark fern-green like Babs predicted. Then the boy gets out a sleek black hair dryer. My hair’s normally too thick to use a dryer properly without spending five hundred years holding it up, but he’s done in a couple of seconds, it feels like. When he runs a hand through his hair, it parts like silk, and it’s definitely a shade that could be mistaken for black in the right light.

  ‘Exactly what I wanted,’ he says, smiling at me and Babs.

  Mahmoud has to work late, so we don’t get to see him. Babs and I catch the bus home and I get off at the stop before her as usual. Before I get off, she hugs me and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  Tiny flames spark out and warmth spreads to my toes.

  She laughs and we wave as she moves away, safe in the belly of the bus, under the blue lights.

  I walk home; this time it takes a long, long time, more than I’m used to. Maybe this is the longest it’s ever taken.

  There’s a note on the fridge to say Clover and Moss have gone out for a dinner with a couple of their friends. They could have texted me, but I like how they leave me notes sometimes. There’s some leftover red curry in the fridge from last night, and Clover says I can have that or make whatever I want.

  I decide on the curry and heat up some garlic bread in the oven as well. I put some rice in the cooker, because there’s none left, and wait in the kitchen while everything heats up. It’s still raining, and thunder rolls out again. It shakes the glasses in the cupboards, clinking them against one another.

  The house is stuffy from the past couple of days’ heat, and so I open all the windows. A breeze that smells like electricity and promise runs through the house and combs through my hair, tugs at my limbs. I laugh, spin.

  In the kitchen I have the best view of the lightning that crackles across the dark-blue sky, racing through the clouds. A fork hits one of the gum trees in the backyard, and I yelp. It leaves burn marks all the way down the trunk, and flames start up, but they’re small. Soon the rain dampens them.

  A peach flickering catches my eye, and Saltkin appears in the kitchen after flying through the open back door.

  ‘Hey, Saltkin.’ I wish he was large enough for me to hug. ‘I found something.’

  He cocks his head. ‘What?’

  ‘A magic book.’ I don’t know why I haven’t shown him until now. Maybe I’m jealous of his magic; I wanted something secret of my own. But now I want to share. And maybe he can help me fill in all the blank pages.

  ‘What’s it about?’ he asks.

  I dig through my schoolbag and bring it out.

  His eyes widen, and he flitters so he’s hovering over the book. ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘Under all the free books in the op-shop box. Outside. But like, the box was a lot bigger than it should have been; it was deeper than it looked.’

  ‘This book wanted you to find it. It’s very old, and no one’s sure who wrote it. Not even sure if it was humans or one of us, or something else. I never thought I would see it again.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘It pops up every now and then. There are several copies, all gravitating towards magic users. And you’re one of us now. It must want you to learn. You have a pure heart, sprout.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’

  ‘Magic can be used as a weapon, so this book could be used in the same way. But it doesn’t have to be. I don’t think it would be dangerous for you.’

  He sits on the salt shaker opposite me, thinking. Sparks fly out from him, cascading down. His colour moves from orange to pink and back again, in a slow gradient. ‘You must be part fey, somewhere,’ he says. ‘I think that’s why. Oh!’ He claps his hands together. ‘This is wonderful. There’s so much for you to learn, Iris!’ I laugh as he disappears, joyous, into a cloud of peach sparkles, then reappears. ‘The world will open to you in different ways, if the magic is awakening in you.’ He disappears again. ‘It’s like you’ll be reborn into a new life, just wait and see.’

  A thunderclap rolls out like a long whip, and then lightning scatters all over the sky.

  ‘I have to go,’ he says. ‘Make sure everyone is okay.’ He’s still shimmering, though at least he’s visible through the cloud of peach. ‘You never know, the forest is stirring strangely since the witch came here.’ He kisses me on the forehead, and it’s like a jolt of static electricity. Then he’s gone.

  I haven’t had a bath in a long time; they take too much water and too much time. Plus I always stay in them too long, and the water gets cold and I get all shivery. But now seems like a good idea, when outside it’s storming and dark. I light a few candles, and grab a cold Milo, and draw myself a bath.

  I sit on the edge of the tub, dip my feet in. They go further than the bath should, and I move them back and forth. The water is cool, like the dam one of Clover’s friends lives near. The water feels like the dam water too, though I’m not sure how I know the difference. The dam has always kind of scared me because it’s so deep, but I’m trying not to be afraid anymore.

  Goosebumps crawl up my legs. The water becomes greeny-brown as I lower more of myself into it, and it just keeps going. There could be anything down there, I suppose, considering it’s not my bathtub now. Platypuses, plants.

  I let go of the edge and slip in completely. I’m invisible to everything, I only exist in the quiet of the water. I watch as the air bubbles escape to the surface around me. Eyes open, quiet. Nothing else exists.

  As I let myself sink down deeper, my foot brushes against a submerged branch; it jabs me and I draw back, but no blood appears. The skin isn’t broken.

  Bubbles of silver light float up all around me, and I just keep sinking. There doesn’t seem to be a bottom, though I’m not afraid. I don’t seem to need to breathe. I keep sinking, but it doesn’t get darker. It’s as light as if I was right under the surface.

  Something is moving to the right of me. I twirl through the water and see a platypus. It sees me, startles, and swims off. Silver bubbles trail up after it, and I notice ducks swimming on the surface.

  Soon my arms start to get goosebumps too, so I swim up. When my head breaks the surface, I’m lying in a shallow bath. The candles flicker on the edge, the rain is still pouring outside, and there are still bubbles on the water.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Jar Spells

  ‘I don’t want to go to school today,’ I say to Mum as we’re eating our porridge at the kitchen table. ‘I have to tell you something.’ I put down my spoon, pick it up again. I can’t look at Mum so I look out the window, but then I have to look back at her.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks as she sprinkles cinnamon over her food, frowning slightly.

  ‘Vada sent for me the other day. They told me that the witch is here.’

  ‘Your witch?’ Mum drops her spoon – it clatters on the floor. ‘Babs.’ She gets up and hugs me. She smells like bed still, warm and comfortable.

  I let myself be held while I try to keep calm.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks, tears in her eyes.

  ‘Not, uh, not good.’ How else can I say it?

  ‘Do you think you’re in any danger? We can do some protection spells today.’ She sits again, but she leaves her spoon on the floor. ‘We can d
o something. What do you need?’

  ‘I dunno, Mum.’

  ‘Have you been in the realm since Vada told you?’

  I don’t look at her.

  ‘Babs!’

  ‘I have to live my life!’

  ‘There’s a difference between that and being safe.’

  ‘That’s victim blaming, and you know it.’

  I can see in her face she knows I’m right. ‘Just don’t go into the realm till we can sort this out.’

  ‘I’m going to do what I want.’

  ‘Babs, please, it’s not safe.’

  ‘You’re not the boss of me,’ I say, then wish I could take it back.

  Mum’s face hardens, then softens. ‘I just want you to be safe, Babs.’ She sighs and bends down to pick up the spoon. ‘Let’s go somewhere, yeah? We can do some shopping.’

  I can’t finish breakfast so I just go straight to the bathroom to get ready. I make clouds of purple and pink on my cheeks, over my nose, then use white liquid eyeliner to draw a smattering of stars across everything, joining them with connect-the-dots lines. I stare at myself and wonder why a witch would want to curse a child.

  She didn’t seem mean.

  I grab some clothes out of my wardrobe, the softest, billowiest ones. They feel gentle on my skin and I wish I could just float away. My boots are by the door and I tie them to my feet to keep me grounded.

  Mum comes out with about a million green shopping bags. I take half and we go to the car. We’ve had it for as long as I can remember. Old and a bit rusty, but it never fails. I think Mum’s done some magic, though she always insists she’s just looked after it well. There are still stickers on the back-seat windows from when I was little – the bubble stars and the cartoon characters I didn’t recognise, but the stickers were cheap so we got them.

  Mum reverses out the driveway onto the road, and we’re off.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe to the Gate? I’d like to get some of those doughnuts.’

  Even though it’s not the closest shopping centre, it tends to be the quietest. When we get inside, it smells like lavender. The whole place.

  ‘Mum, it stinks,’ I say, wrinkling my nose. ‘Can you do something?’ She can do this spell that surrounds us with an air bubble. We don’t really use it except sometimes when we sneak into the tip to get stuff, but it’s handy in places like this.

  She shakes her head. ‘Sorry, baby, not today. It’s pretty bad.’

  ‘Should we sit down?’ I see her hand shaking on her cane. ‘I want a coffee.’

  ‘All right.’

  We sit and Mum reads the newspaper. She hates it, but she says sometimes you just have to know what other people are reading.

  I trace patterns in the chocolate-covered foam of my cappuccino. ‘What kind of protection spells can we do?’

  Mum has a think before looking up at me. ‘We’re going to need some supplies. But I’ve got a few in mind.’

  We sit for a while longer and let Mum’s painkiller kick in, then we’re off. I grab a trolley from the supermarket. We get fresh flowers, some herbs, lots of candles, and a few jars from the two-dollar shop. When we’ve got everything, we go to the doughnut shop and I order us four: two for now and two for home. I sit at the table and peel the sticky tape back on the paper bag, letting the smell waft out for a moment. ‘Which ones do you want now?’ I ask, though I know Mum’s going to say the banana cream.

  She does, and I hand it to her. I get out the pink iced for myself. I bite into the still-warm doughnut, the icing sticky-fresh, and grin at Mum.

  ‘Worth it,’ she says.

  When we get home, Mum has a nap and I take Sadie for a walk before cleaning the kitchen table. The cookbooks and the fruit bowl and the letters and the tablecloth – I put them all aside and get out the things we bought today.

  Mum wants to make jar spells and bury them equal distance apart, around the whole house. Jars are her favourite kind of spells, and I like making them with her. Usually she just tells me what to do because I can’t read the spellbooks half the time, and I always forget the ingredients she knows off by heart.

  I touch a few of the candles and they light, warming the table just a little. I wash all the jars and make sure their stickers are off, and separate the bundles of herbs into piles.

  I message Iris to say I can’t come to school today. It’s so hard to be visible, I think. And I’m scared, though I don’t want to admit it to Mum.

  When Mum’s awake, I bring her a cup of tea and sit next to her in bed. ‘How are you feeling?’ I ask her as she sits up.

  She looks at me, groans. ‘We’ll see.’ She picks up the tea from the bedside table and takes a sip. She sighs. ‘Perfect. I am . . . adequate.’ She smiles at me. ‘Ready to do some magic.’

  I hug her, careful of the tea. ‘Excellent.’

  She puts on her dressing-gown, then we start in the kitchen. I’ve got out the mortar and pestle, and she tells me which things to crush up. She lights some candles as I grind up some salt, cinnamon, lavender. She comes back to sit at the table with basil leaves.

  It takes a while to make enough for all the jars she wants buried around the house, and we stop for lunch halfway. The kitchen smells like cinnamon, warm and rich, and I breathe it in. I don’t know how much this will help, but it’s nice to be working with Mum. She normally does all this stuff when I’m at school.

  ‘I’ll bury them,’ I say, once the candle wax is cooled on the outside of the jars. ‘I think I should do it.’

  She nods. ‘All right. I’ll clean up and then we can watch a movie?’

  I put all the jars in a basket and go out to the shed for the shovel. As soon as I’m through the back door, Sadie barks and bounds over, wanting a pat. The shed is little and rickety, and there’s nothing really in it, but Mum still locks it. I trace the sigil on the door, then pull it open. I grab the shovel and some gloves.

  The backyard is quiet today, it’s a wet spring day and the ground is soft with the night’s rain. Three rosellas chitter among themselves in the lemon tree as I walk to the edge of the yard. There’s no fence, so I guess where the national park starts and plant the first jar. Sadie helps by digging a hole next to mine. My shovel narrowly misses a few worms and I wince – I don’t want to cut one in half. I dig the next hole with my gloved hands. The ground is soft and rich; it’s like sticking my hands into flour.

  Sadie happily follows me, tail wagging. Sometimes she digs holes, and sometimes she doesn’t. I just want to crawl into bed.

  I stand up after burying the second jar and stare out into the trees. Would the witch even remember me? Maybe she’s cursed lots of children. Maybe she’s thousands of years old and one person means nothing.

  My hands turn into fists. How could she not re­mem­ber? She’s changed my life so much. I flicker into invisibility for a second, and when I try to catch myself, I can’t hold on.

  I guess it doesn’t matter because the only person I’m seeing today is Mum, but . . . it does matter. I cover my mouth with my hands and scream through my teeth – I don’t want Mum to hear. It’s not fair.

  I pick up the basket and my gloves, and keep going.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Art Project

  ‘This is the project you’ll complete as part of your final assessment for this term,’ Miranda says, and she seems pretty excited. I wonder what it’ll be, what we’ll have to use. She’s always either very particular or extremely open in her instructions, and I’m not sure what to expect from her tone. She walks around the room handing out photocopied pieces of paper, and on the first sheet there’s the assessment grid all the teachers have to give us. Scorings out of five for originality, dedication, things like that. My marks in art are never really that great for skill, but she alw
ays gives me a good enough mark for trying.

  Babs walked into the room at the start of class, but she’s disappeared since then, so I’m just sitting next to the boy.

  ‘How did you choose your name?’ he asks me.

  ‘This is the one my mothers gave me.’ I unzip my pencil case and get out a greylead. ‘I think they knew, somehow. They said they wouldn’t mind if I changed it.’

  ‘That must be nice.’

  I frown. ‘Is your dad not okay with you?’ I can’t believe a parent would act like that, though I know that they do.

  ‘No, no, he’s fine. I just mean, it’s so hard choosing a name. Some people seem to find it so easy, but I just can’t seem to find one that fits.’

  ‘You will,’ Babs says, appearing. ‘I chose this one because I feel like I always knew it was mine, and you’ll have that moment too. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.’

  He smiles then exhales a tiny tornado. I wonder if his ribs are big enough for how he feels. His body is radiating something, but I can’t tell what. Maybe he is made of fire like Babs, but in a different way.

  ‘It’s just . . . it makes me feel a bit lost, I think.’ He gets out his brand-new packet of pencils, different from the coloured ones he had last time, and pierces the plastic. He pulls out the lightest greylead. ‘Sometimes I don’t feel real.’

  Maybe he is made up of the space between the stars, of nothingness, the void. He could be yawning and wide, like the universe. ‘You’re real,’ I say. ‘You’re real and we’re here for you.’

  Babs nods at him. ‘I might not always be around, like physically, but text me, okay? I can always access that.’

  ‘Unless your battery runs out.’ He grins at her.

  She laughs, and takes out her bundle of pencils. ‘Unless that, yes.’

  ‘Come on, you three,’ Miranda says, without any malice.

  Babs looks up in surprise, but then gets right to work, sketching out something so rough I can’t tell what it is. I pick up the handout and take a look at what we’re supposed to do. It’s one of her open assignments, worth fifty per cent of our mark, and not due until the end of term. We’re supposed to create a folio as well, showing our process and how we chose to do what we did. We can: