Tea took a deep breath. Earth, air, water. The elements. Did that make Robbie the fourth one, fire? “Alright. I’ll try again.”
“Good girl.” It didn’t sound condescending the way Mum or Mr MacGregor would say it.
Her eyelids lowered, sun-struck peach filtered through to show Tea shadows of the world moving around her. She focused on her skin and the sweat there, Morgan’s tail a-whisk on the back of her legs. She let her hearing reach out to the cicadas creaking in the gorse bushes, their symphony growing louder as Tea imagined stroking her fingers through the water in the air.
Hissssssss.
Water nearby, slithering under the air’s breath. Tea reached out to it, trying to pull on it, but something stuck in her chest, the hot day pulling the air from her lungs.
It was. Right. There. At the tip. Of her fingers. Whaiwhaiā. Burning cool as the water in the creek. A heat shimmer. But that block. An invisible shield. White as bone, white as the rocks.
HisssssSSth.
The wriggle of sound taunted her flesh, tapping against her skull. The morning heat bristled. Wide as the open fields, high as the looming mountains. Points on a map, openings on her skin. Find the cracks in the veneer, the joins where she was herself and eelself. Long breath in through the nose. Open mouth. Stick tongue out. Lick the air. Suck in the taste-scent of skin, fur, dirt, wool … Izzy. Pulling down. Deep with each breath. Skin opening thirsty mouths. Teasing edge brushing fingertips, jaw, lips …
No. Tea shifted in her saddle, thighs taut. Stop reaching that way.
Hssssthssss.
Rocks. Earth. Grant might find his solidity in them, but to Tea’s expanded senses they vibrated ever so gently, like the water was waiting, drowsing in its trap.
She poked at the idea of the rocks like a wound …
… then rocked back in her saddle as though she’d fallen face first into the ocean.
The idea of water flooded in, a jubilant sibilance. Streams everywhere. Along the sky, along the skin, along the ground, under the ground. Winding, pushing like blood in the veins, stretching out beyond her sight, reaching towards the ocean, then beyond … beyond all that …
Tea came to herself scrabbling in the bottom of a cut, pushing aside rocks she couldn’t have moved six months ago. Water pushed hard against stone beneath her hands, wanting out, wanting to be useful, wanting her praise. Wanting to take her to that beyond, where Robbie might be.
The water hesitated, afraid of the hot air turning it to nothing useful. Tea clenched her fists, then released them with a long outflow of breath. She pulled on the water like she had when she’d reached out to the eels, reeling in a rope made of silk, gentle, but firm enough to show love.
Izzy’s triumphant whoop caused Tea to step back in time. The little stream flared out, searching for a way to join the river, greet Shag Point, caress the South Pacific, touch the Southern Ocean.
Around and around, all water is one.
“Look at what you did!” Izzy cheered, dancing on the spot as she held both Morgan’s and Carmine’s reins. Unimpressed, Morgan let go a stream of pee.
Tea shrugged her aching shoulders. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? You pulled water out of the ground like Jesus!”
“Izzy! Don’t be blasphemous!” Tea couldn’t help but glance around the empty valley. “How can this be a gift from God if there are only three of us that have it?”
“Four,” Izzy reminded her, handing over reins and swinging back into the saddle. It took Tea three tries before she could make it up. “So, we don’t know exactly where this comes from, but I do know it’s something we need to make good use of.”
That word again: useful. Bringing her back down to the ground again. She heard it in her mother’s voice. What had she wanted, expected, from this? She hadn’t thought much beyond the first panic coursing through her veins.
Wasn’t this why she’d joined the land girls? To do something bigger while waiting and waiting and waiting for her brother to come home safe?
*
Panic rose in Izzy’s chest like a full moon. She reached out to the mustering dogs as she tried to reach out to Tea with her words; the dogs had control, her tongue did not. The more she spoke, the further Tea retreated into her water-carved cave, but she couldn’t stop.
“Imagine being able to find water even during the height of summer! We’d have the jump on the other farms. And you’d be able to touch the blood of lost animals. Less loss adjustment! And keeping the animals hydrated and the exact balance and time. Exact dipping and fertilisation, meaning less waste. Gosh, Tea. Your abilities are a gold mine for the farm!”
Maybe it was the wide-open space, being able to talk freely without the men looking down on her. Keeping herself to herself was so hard, even with Grant’s quiet understanding.
Hours passed with Izzy’s chatter falling like pebbles while Tea’s face became stonier. Izzy poked around the edges of Tea’s whaiwhaiā, but she didn’t have the range the other girl did. She could get nothing off her. What had she said that made her lock up so tight?
The hills provided a welcome coolness as the sun crept lower and the mustering hut beckoned respite. Even dismounting, setting up the campfire, and restocking the little tin hut, Izzy couldn’t stop her mouth running wild.
“I’m doing this for Robbie.”
The dam burst, and words fell out of Tea like rushing water. “I’m doing this for Robbie. All the boys can go off to war, but we can’t!”
Suddenly fumbling for words, Izzy stripped a saddle bag off Carmine with fumbling fingers. She’d never seen Tea this stormy. It didn’t feel right at all. “It’s not what women are supposed to do.”
“Forget supposed to,” Tea enunciated slowly as she curried Morgan down. “What about fair? Shouldn’t the world be fighting with every tool at its disposal? Aren’t women useful beyond looking after the land and the kitchen?”
Izzy sighed and leaned her forehead against Carmine’s sweaty flank. Fighting. Anger. Fists. She wasn’t allowed to show them. Her tongue like a knife, maybe, when the moment was right. But she couldn’t betray herself, her blood, like that. And neither should Tea.
“I know it’s not ladylike.” Tea’s voice swelled with waves of emotion. Her anger was a flood. “But I can’t be part of this war and be expected to keep smiling all the time!”
“You’re going too fast, Tea. I know it’s not fair. It’s horrible, and I want to make it better for you, for all of us girls left behind. But you need to learn how to use your whaiwhaiā, and how to temper it.” Izzy couldn’t bring herself to look Tea in the eye. “You can’t go full tit, or you’ll burn out. It will hurt you.” She started to say more, but she bit it back.