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.
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.”
He was looking hard at Tea. What? Grant? No, he was a nice boy, and useful in her letters back to Mum, but, no!
“You harness up Clarissa, I’ll get the sled and tools,” Grant said, veering off to the shed. Orders never sounded like orders from him.
Tea dragged her feet.
“You have a problem with that, girl?” MacGregor barked. A murmur came from the washroom, but he ploughed on. “Ol’ Clarissa smell a bit too much for your delicate sensibilities, is it? We can always send you back home to Mummy if you like.”
“No, sir. I mean, the smell is fine, sir. I was—” Tea bit her lip. She’d almost gone too far, her tiredness making her tone slip.
“What is it, girl?”
Tell him, Robbie said somewhere in the back of her mind. “I was going to read.”
“Read what?” MacGregor scoffed. “There were no letters for you in the post.”
“No sir, I—”
That strange Virginia Woolf book Carmel and Alison had been giggling over all week teased at her mind. She’d tried to read it once before, but Mum had thrown it on the fire before she’d even read it a quarter of the way through. Grandad had been incandescent in his silent rage at the waste.
“The tractor manual, sir,” Grant pitched in, halfway across the yard. Do mules have as good hearing as dogs? “I lent her the manual because I was going to teach her how to repair the tractor.”
“Huh.” MacGregor scratched his chin. He sized Grant up with that slow rake-over that still made Tea shiver. “All those technical terms might be a bit much for you, girl. But go ahead, try if you want.”
With that he went back inside to his cup of tea. Her mouth dry, Tea wished she could have another, too.
Mrs MacGregor lingered a little longer on the veranda, watching them until they dipped below the hillock into the second paddock. Tea didn’t need to look. The air did the shivering thing again as Mrs MacGregor moved it with her eyeballs and breath.
They were almost at the break along the creek, near the charcoal remains of the fire, before Tea could find her words again.
“Why did you do that?” came out in a rush, not at all the accusations and interrogations she had planned.
“I didn’t lie to Mr MacGregor.” Grant sounded as even as always, though he gave a little cough. “There is a tractor manual in your future.”
“Stop it!”
Clarissa, nodding between them, thudded to a stop. Tea swore the Clydesdale sized them up. Would the placid old beast take Grant’s side because of his equine-ness?
“Stop what?” Grant dragged the bag of tools off the sled. He could usually heft it fine, but it was the end of the day.