Outback Spirit

by Nicole R. Taylor

  Vera gestured for Eloise to help her lift the postcard stand and they heaved it upright. “Well, there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

  “I was adopted as a baby,” she admitted, hardly understanding why she was opening up to Vera of all people. “I always knew I was, my parents never sugarcoated it. I guess it made an impression on me.”

  “I bet. What about your real parents?”

  “I was told they died, but that’s all I know.”

  “What about your adoptive parents?”

  She shrugged. “We don’t talk.”

  “Oh… I’m sorry.”

  “What about your family? It’s a long way from Ireland.”

  “They’re dead,” Vera stated.

  Eloise’s cheeks heated. “Oh, I…”

  Vera laughed and shook her head. “Welcome to the sad orphan’s club. There’s a lot of that around here. Mining is a lonely business…as lonely as the outback itself. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for romance, let alone families.” She ducked behind the counter and dumped the ruined postcards into the bin. “I guess that’s why I like it here. It’s a simple life. Usually.”

  Eloise looked out the windows at the empty road and wondered if it really was that simple. It seemed Drew’s problems was going to suck everyone in Solace into the whirlpool around a plughole leading to a showdown with the Dust Dogs. She wondered what he’d stolen.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Vera told her. “They won’t bother you. Drew will work it out.” She seemed sure of it…despite the potatoes she’d thrown at him.

  The door opened and Hardy appeared out of thin air, his gaze flickering between the two women. He seemed startled to find Eloise there, but it was so fleeting she began to think she’d misunderstood.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Vera replied. “They just wanted to ask a few questions.”

  Eloise raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  Hardy looked at her. “You okay, Eloise?”

  “Sure. No problems.”

  “I’m so sorry you got caught up in all of that,” Vera said, wiping tomato sauce on her denim shorts. “Especially since I waxed poetic about Solace.”

  “Like I said,” she replied, “people are the same wherever you go.”

  They were silent for a little too long for Eloise’s liking and old anxieties began to rise. So far, they were the nicest people she’d ever met, and that was saying something. It didn’t take much for anyone to hit a high score.

  “Well then,” she said, sliding open the ice cream freezer. She picked out a Pine Lime Splice—vanilla ice cream with an icy pine lime shell on a stick—and held it up. “I’ll take one of these for the road.”

  Chapter 5

  Hardy looked over Eloise’s shoulder as she ground a piece of potch into an oval.

  She hadn’t taken the skin off her fingertips on the wheel so far, and her shapes were pretty accurate for a beginner.

  He leaned back against the counter and supervised her cutting, thinking back on what happened the day before.

  After Eloise had left the Outpost, Vera admitted what she and Drew had done while he was in the shop with Eloise. They’d broken into Eloise’s van so the witch could trigger her vision, but what she ended up seeing was peculiar to say the least. A black mountain, a figure, and three knocks.

  Then Vera had sprayed her with a potion that’d been masked in her famous vanilla fly repellant. ‘A little something to loosen her tongue,’ she’d told him. Despite her magic, Eloise still seemed to be tightlipped, though Vera had found out that she was adopted after her birth parents had died and wasn’t on good terms with her adoptive parents.

  Two clues that didn’t seem to add up to anything.

  “How’s this?” she asked, holding up the potch she’d been working on.

  He held out his hand and she dropped the stone onto his palm, careful not to touch him. A third clue.

  Inspecting her work, Hardy nodded. “Good. It’s a nice shape, few marks from the grinder… This’ll polish up well. You’ve got a natural talent.” Perhaps a fourth clue.

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  “I am,” he told her. “Tell me, how long have you travelled in that motorhome for?”

  She shrugged. “A few years.”

  “You must have seen parts of this country few others have.”

  “I guess so.” She deflected his questioning easily and he knew it was a well-practiced tactic. “What about you? Have you always been around opal?”

  Hardy smiled. He couldn’t exactly tell her the real story behind his journey to Australia, not yet.

  “I came to this country from Britain when I was a boy,” he explained. “I moved around a lot until I settled in the outback. Working underground didn’t suit me, but I was interested in opal more than gold. You can shape and polish it, revealing more than anything you could smelt with gold. The income is more stable than mining.”

  “And safer, I bet.”

  Hardy laughed. “Sure is.”

  Whatever had happened with the Dust Dogs yesterday had emboldened her enough to give her the courage to cut out from behind her hard, outer shell. Vera had told him she’d stood up to one of the bikers, but the witch hadn’t heard whatever she’d said to the guy to get him to back down.

  Hardy wished he’d been there—he should’ve heard the motorcycles with his enhanced senses, but he’d been too engrossed with the black opal Kyne had brought in. Miners got opal fever, but so did the polishers. Uncovering the hidden flecks of colour was a thrill he never seemed to tire of.

  “Well,” he added, “better get back to it. I’ve got a bucket of black you can have a go at later.”

  Her eyes widened. “Black?”

  “The potch I cut off the stuff Kyne brought in. Give you a bit of variety.”

  Her expression soured. “He seems a bit…abrasive.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s grumpy, but he’s a good guy under it all. Miners like him get their back up when they’re on a good thing underground.”

  “So, he’s paranoid someone will find his claim?”

  “Sure. Ratters prowl the scrub all the time.”

  “Ratters?” Eloise asked.

  “Thieves,” Hardy explained. “They’d rather nick stuff than do the hard yards themselves.”

  “Seriously?” She scowled. “People really go into other people’s mines and dig out opal?”

  “I wish I was pulling your leg, but unfortunately, I’m not.” He opened the drawer behind him and took out the ziplock bag containing the black offcuts. “Here. Give this a crack, eh?”

  As Eloise selected a nice-looking bit of black potch, he sat beside her and watched as she began to grind the edges. Every so often she’d glance at him looking for guidance, but she didn’t need any. Her instincts guided her with a precision he’d rarely seen.

  A fifth clue.

  Eloise was an elemental, he was sure of it. It just seemed she had no idea, even though she understood she was different.

  He wanted to help her, but he knew nothing of her kind—not to mention telling her he was a vampire would be a step too far. She seemed like a good person. Interesting, though reserved. Intelligent, yet unsure.

  There was only one person who could give her the answers she needed.

  It was time to convince Kyne to come back to Solace.

  When the sun set in the remote outback, the only light came from the moon.

  The landscape disappeared into pitch-black, the kilometres of scrub and low-rising hills vanished, and another world awoke. Nocturnal creatures came out to forage and explore—lizards, snakes, bandicoots, and dingo packs—though all sound seemed to cease unless a breeze rose.

  Kyne was sitting by his campfire when he saw a pair of yellow headlights approach through the scrub.

  Groaning, he leaned back in his camp chair and picked up his rifle. If it was a ratter, they would’ve turned off their lights. Most likely, it w
as Hardy coming to stick his cold, dead nose where it didn’t belong.

  The car’s engine hummed, disturbing the tranquility, and as it pulled up next to Kyne’s camp, he saw it was Hardy’s beat up 4WD Jeep.

  He didn’t bother getting up to greet the buyer as he hopped out and stepped into the firelight.

  Hardy glanced at the rifle in Kyne’s lap. “Problems?”

  He sipped at his beer but didn’t let go of the gun. “Are there?”

  “Only if there isn’t a beer in that Esky for me, mate.”

  Kyne shrugged and set the rifle down on the ground. “Help yourself.”

  Hardy opened the cooler and took out a can, sitting on a rock beside the campfire. A log popped, sending a billow of sparks towards the sky where the Milky Way glittered, millions and millions of stars shining in the vacuum of space.

  They sat in silence for a while, drinking and watching the flames flicker as they devoured the wood. Whatever the vampire wanted, it had nothing to do with opal, but Kyne wasn’t about to send him away. It wouldn’t take much for Hardy to snap him in half if it came to blows.

  “There’s several things I’d like to bring to your attention,” Hardy began.

  “Should I be taking minutes?” Kyne drawled.

  “Hilarious.”

  “What is it, Hardy?” he asked. “I know driving thirty minutes on dirt tracks in the pitch-black is a piece of cake for a vampire, but even so—”

  “The Dust Dogs finally came looking for Drew.”

  Kyne snorted. “I warned Vera about taking him in. Whatever trouble he’s gotten into with the Dogs will become Solace’s. It doesn’t matter if our hands are clean.”

  Hardy snorted.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘our’.”

  “So?”

  “They trashed Vera’s shop.”

  “Define the level of ‘trash’.”

  Hardy sighed and looked to the darkness surrounding Kyne’s camp.

  “I just want to be left alone.”

  “That’s the thing, Kyne… You’re in this just as much as the rest of us. You can’t just decide not to care about the seal.”

  Kyne ground his teeth and stared into the fire. How was he supposed to find his powers when he kept getting interrupted?

  “I don’t remember putting my hand up to be the leader of the Exiles, Hardy. I never wanted it.”

  “Which makes you the perfect person for the job.”

  “Reluctant leaders get killed first. Besides, I’m in no position to lead anything.” His powers had abandoned him, and his head wasn’t screwed on straight. The only place he’d lead those people to, was disaster.

  “You’re the only person the fae will listen to,” Hardy went on. “Things between Vera and Finn are hanging by a thread. The Dust Dogs are coming back. And then there’s Eloise…”

  Kyne looked up and scowled. “That stray you took in?”

  Hardy nodded. “I think she’s an elemental.”

  “Excuse me?” Kyne sat up straight and eyeballed the vampire. “Bullshit. If she was, I would’ve sensed it.”

  “Would you, though? You just said it yourself. Your powers—”

  “Shut up.”

  Hardly curled his lip and looked over the miner. “This attitude of yours is getting old, you know. Everyone has problems.”

  “Not everyone is as old as you.”

  Hardy ignored him. “Vera sprayed her with one of her potions. Fly repellant.”

  “This ought to be good.”

  “Adopted, no knowledge of her birth parents, on bad terms with her adoptive parents, has been travelling in that motorhome for several years. She’s searching for something.”

  “Answers,” Kyne muttered. Just like everyone else.

  “Vera said she couldn’t get anything else out of her. It was like she was unknowingly fighting against the potion.”

  “So, she was adopted. I don’t see how that makes her an elemental.”

  “You haven’t seen how she handles opal, Kyne. It’s like…” He paused and held out his hands, his face screwed up as he searched for the right words. “She knows exactly where to cut.”

  “It’s just beginner’s luck.”

  “No. It’s more than that. No one picks up opal and gets it right the first time. No one.”

  “It means nothing.”

  “Stop being dismissive, Kyne. You don’t even know her.”

  He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, regretting the day he’d found that bloody seal underneath Solace. He just wanted some peace and quiet.

  “I don’t think she realises what she is,” Hardy murmured, “or what else resides in this world. She knows something is different about her, something supernatural. I feel like she wants to understand but doesn’t know how to ask for help.”

  “Can you blame her?” Kyne asked with a snort. “It’s not like she can be honest about the things she can do…which are still unknown, by the way.”

  “That’s why we need to help her.”

  “What’s this ‘we’ business?” He tossed his empty beer can into the cooler. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you help her?”

  “I’m a vampire, Kyne. Maybe we should ease her into it. Go with someone she’ll bond with.”

  “Bond?” Kyne laughed. “You want me to bond with her?”

  “It’s not a euphemism. If she’s an elemental, then who better?”

  “Providing she’s one and actually wants help.”

  At that moment, a dark shape burst out of the darkness and leapt over the campfire. The kangaroo landed in front of Kyne, knocking him backwards off his chair. He was on his feet in a flash but stilled when another shape approached the ring of light.

  Hardy started to laugh as the kangaroo bounded away. “Coen, you’re a sneaky bugger, aren’t you?”

  Kyne scowled. “What are you doing here?”

  Coen chuckled, his eyes flashing. “Marlu brought me. Blame him.”

  Hardy glanced at Kyne, who shrugged and righted his chair again. Coen followed spirits during the night, only appearing when he decided he was ready to talk to someone, which wasn’t often.

  “I see Min Min,” he told them, squatting by the fire. He held out his hands, warming them. “They led me this way.”

  The Min Min were unexplained lights that haunted the darkness of the outback. They often led the unsuspecting on lengthy chases into the wilderness or followed and harassed travellers. When challenged, they vanished without a trace…or so the stories went. Kyne spent a lot of time out here on his own but had never seen them. Mostly they were signs of remote human habitation, but on the odd occasion they were something else entirely. What, was anyone’s guess.

  “I thought you said you were chasing the kangaroo?” he asked.

  “I was. Marlu chase the Min Min.”

  Hardy chuckled and shook his head. “Never a dull moment, eh?”

  Coen grinned. “They want me to come here.”

  “Not you, too,” Kyne said with a groan.

  “That’s right,” Hardy mused. “You spoke to Eloise last night.”

  This was news to Kyne. He looked at the young Aboriginal man in a new light. Coen was on a walkabout and didn’t come close to town unless he wanted something, which was rare—the land gave him everything he needed to survive—but speaking to outsiders was rarer still.

  “She’s looking for her mob,” he told them. “She’s on a walkabout without even realising it.” He held up his hand and swept it across the sky. “I see.”

  “Have the ancestors spoken?” Hardy asked.

  “The land calls her,” Coen told them. “The marlu found her on the road by her broken van.”

  The vampire stilled. “She’s drawn to Solace like the rest of us?”

  Coen shrugged, but Kyne wasn’t so sure. It was true that supernaturals gravitated to Solace, though it was still unclear if it was because of the seal. Even without it, he knew this land was full of ancient magic. That�
��s why the fae had set up their camp outside of the town—their power faded without access to external magic. Others like Vera and Wally found community amongst other magical beings when they had no other place to turn.

  But was Eloise an elemental? If she was…

  The poor woman, Kyne thought. Her questions were only going to be answered with more heartache.

  “She walks her path without knowing,” Coen said, looking dreamily up at the stars. “She carries a burden on her heart. She can fly but won’t open her wings.” He stood and stamped his bare foot on the fire, sending a chaotic tornado of sparks spiralling upwards.

  “Watch your feet, mate.” Kyne stood, ready to push him out of the fire in case he fell into it.

  Coen laughed and thumped his heel on the ground. “Tough as old boots.”

  “What do you mean fly?” Hardy asked.

  “Fly like Bunjil. He turned himself into an eagle to watch over the land.”

  “Never heard of him,” Kyne said.

  “He lives in the south by the sea.”

  “Fair enough.” Kyne picked up a stick and began fixing the mess Coen had made of the fire. Coen meant ‘thunder’ in his mob’s language, and he certainly knew how to make a big noise when he decided he wanted to be heard. Unfortunately, his current wisdom was lost on the opal miner.

  Hardy, however, was deep in thought. His expression was all scrunched up, his strong hand closing around his beer can until it’d crumpled inwards.

  “It’s not a coincidence her van broke down here,” the vampire finally said.

  Coen chuckled and looked up at the stars. “Jupiter is Bunjil’s campfire, like ours. He watches us like you watch below.” He put his hands on the ground.

  “I have no idea what you’re on about,” Kyne grumbled.

  “I think he’s trying to say Eloise is like Bunjil,” Hardy told him. “She creates nature but hasn’t learned how to fly. She watches us, like we watch what lays below Solace.”

  In other words, an elemental who wasn’t aware of her true powers…but was suspicious of everyone around her.

  Kyne glared at Coen. If the guy would stop chasing bloody kangaroos in the dark, it’d solve most of his problems—the major one being the constant interruptions he seemed to be suffering lately.