Her first day at work. Her first day away from home.
The stares whittled away as Alison and Carmel took instructions for the next day. There were groans over thistle grubbing, race cleaning, and wood chopping. Tea volunteered for the wood chopping; something she knew how to do and was good at.
Not all the stares left her alone. Izzy narrowed her eyes when she caught Tea rubbing her fingertips together. Grant too kept making a fist. Tea could hear his large knuckles creak.
*
“What happened?”
Dishes done, Izzy had been instructed to introduce Tea to all the dogs.
“When?” Leaning over the gate of the dog run, Tea let the dogs sniff her before she entered their territory. It seemed the right thing to do.
“At the dinner table. When you dropped your spoon.” Izzy pushed into the dog run, inured to the nips and licks.
Wet noses pressed into Tea’s hands. “A wasp startled me, that’s all.”
“Are you sure?”
Was Izzy calling her a liar? Tea took the road best trodden. “Well, it might not have been a wasp, but some insect crawled onto my plate …”
Izzy straightened from opening the bitches’ box. She looked Tea up and down, but not in the way MacGregor had done earlier. Her age-old regard smoothed against Tea’s skin like moss on stone. At the moment Izzy looked away, the sun dipped behind the sheds, and Tea shivered.
Tea’s hand ached for the rest of the evening, the buzzing heat reaching her elbow despite the wriggling puddles of fur that soothed her attention. Latching on to the ones that would be her working companions was easier than she thought. They liked her scent, or so Izzy said.
Scent. For some reason, she could define each of the many dogs by their individual smells, which were not as unpleasant as she thought mucky dogs would be.
The other scent she sought from the starlight dog lingered on the breeze, but she couldn’t pin it down to an individual. Was it a stray? A wild dog? A weird wolf?
Dusk had well and truly set in by the time they finished mucking out the run and scrubbing down the boxes. Even though Tea assessed the dogs’ markings one by one, the pack was still one short. The night-and-stars collie that had stalked her earlier in the day was nowhere to be seen.
3.
“How much do you think she knows?”
“More to the point, I think, is how much does she feel it?”
“There’s a difference?”
“It’s not been that long. You don’t remember?”
“It’s been ten years. Might be easier for you. You were taught this stuff from the cradle.”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Even if they never become like us, those who carry whaiwhaiā feel it under their skin all their life. It will be there. Depends on how strong it is, what it does to her mind.”
“She’s … radiating. Working warm. And I don’t think she even knows it.”
“Yes, I can see it. She’s holding herself very tight. Too tight. She might break if she’s not careful.”
“She won’t be the first.”
“And not the first in that family, either.”
“Does she know?”
“No. And it’s not our place to tell her.”
“She needs instruction of some kind. And soon. Or she might Split. It was a close call the last time.”
“We don’t know her that well. It’s not going to be as easy as last time to bring it up. There were … extenuating circumstances.”
“Oh, hush you. She’s very close in kin to Robbie. Going untrained has its own dangers.”
“Robbie got a hold of it well.”
“Didn’t he just.”
“Is that jealousy?”
“Hush. Pass the tea. How strong do you think it is, when it runs in families? Do they share, you think? Or is it divided, like they’re twins?”
“There’s no such thing as sharing whaiwhaiā. It’s unique to each person. I’ve never seen it in families, but, well, here’s our first time. Its strength all depends on how much you want to accept it into your being.”
“Like God.”
“It’s nothing like God. Don’t you make that face at me.”
“Don’t you make that face at me. I swear—”
“Yes, I know. If I was any other girl and this was any other job. Cut it out. We’re in this together.”
“You know I don’t mean it.”
“I know. You’ve been fidgety lately. Your skin is raw. You really should stop rubbing it like that.”
“I can’t help it. There’s something happening. Over there. Where Robbie is.”
“Dear God. You feel those far better than me. Big?”
“Very. This whole war is a storm.”
“Hey. He’s going to be alright. He’ll come home. I know.”
“You can’t know that.”
“He’s tough.”
“And not. Come on. His skin can be too thin sometimes, when it gets too much.”
“He said he was ready, that he had to do this. He practised heaps.”
“And he’s also an excellent liar.”
“Aren’t we all.”
“This … this thing, between the three of us. Who is going to talk to the girl? She’ll have to know, and soon, or she’ll break.”
“It should be up to Robbie, really.”
“But he’s not here. And we can’t go to him.”
“Guess it will have to be my job, because I’m the girl. Don’t want to make it any more complicated than it has to be.”
“Make it quick. Because that storm? It’s coming our way. Going to overtake us all if we’re not ready.”
“Auē.”
*
Saturday night should not feel like this.
Rocks for shoulders. Splinters of agony up her neck. A hot pain in the sway of her back unlike anything she’d endured in her lady moments. Who knew each freshly shorn sheep skin could be heavier than the last? And they kept on coming. ‘Fleeco’ had sounded like such a romantic title until Tea discovered the lifting, throwing, sorting. And the laughter.
Another pain settled behind her brow, the heavy memory of the sheep she’d tried to shear after the gang boys goaded her into it. Her shaking hands. Izzy’s silent gaze. The boys shouting “See, girls can’t shear!” MacGregor’s yelling. Wasting time was as much a sin as a girl picking up shearing clippers.