Chapter Six The Rose Boy

On Monday there’s a new boy in science class. He’s tall and gangly, thick black hair just past his chin, light-brown skin. When the teacher introduces him, I know from how he shies away from her that it’s not his real name. He takes a seat in the front row by himself.

His books and uniform are all new. The shirt still has creases from where it was folded in the packet. When he leans forward a bit, I see he’s got shaved sides.

I look at Iris and know they’re thinking the same thing: this boy, he’s like us. I trace a sigil on my thigh and concentrate on the air around him to see if it reveals anything, but he’s mysterious, not giving anything away.

Throughout the lesson I hope we’ll split up into groups so I can go talk to this boy, but we’re on a new topic – rocks and rock formations. We’re just reading and answering questions in the textbook.

Maybe if I had any control over this curse, I could disappear from everyone else except him, and we could have a chat. Maybe I could even extend this to him. He looks like he needs someone to talk to. He looks lonely.

The boy stays hunched over his books the whole lesson. His sleeves are too long for him and he holds the ends in his palms. As soon as the bell rings, he packs up everything, quick as, and leaves without looking at anyone. Before we met, Iris would do this. Just leave.

There’s a twinge in my guts as I walk down the hall. ‘Hey, can you hear me?’ I ask Iris when the twinge happens again. They don’t respond. I think of just going home, but then I wonder if maybe the new mysterious boy is in my next class, or maybe we could find him at lunch. Maths is next, though, and I don’t want to go.

I trace a sigil on my forearm for clarity and decide instead to go to the library. The twinging seems to have stopped – I reckon I might be visible again, but I really don’t want to go to maths. On the way, I see the new boy. He’s taken off his jumper, and on the back of his arm, just under his shirtsleeve, a small rose is pinpricked into his skin.

‘Hi,’ I say.

He startles and whips around, all long limbs and floppy hair. ‘Hello,’ he says, clutching his books to his chest.

‘I’m Babs.’

He tells me the name the teacher said, but it doesn’t match his face at all. It drops out of his mouth like a pebble to the bottom of a river.

‘That’s not your real name, is it.’

He stares at me. ‘How did you know?’

I shrug. ‘Magic,’ I say and smile. ‘I use she pronouns, by the way.’

‘Babs,’ he says, rolling my name like a lolly in his mouth. ‘I’m not sure what I want my name to be.’

‘You don’t need to, not right now. I can just call you boy, if you want.’

‘I mean, I would like to.’

‘I can help you. And Iris too – they’re non-binary. They’re really sweet.’

‘Thanks.’ There’s a pause, and we look everywhere but each other. ‘Um, I’m supposed to get to the B building, where is that?’

I take him up a flight of stairs and down a few hallways. We pass people in classes, but no one bothers to check why we’re just wandering. ‘If you want to sit with us at lunch, we’ll be near the gym. Under the paperbark. Iris has really short hair, usually sits cross-legged. Will probably have a cheese sandwich.’ I don’t tell him I might be invisible – I guess he’ll find out soon enough, and he should be okay as long as he can sit with Iris. ‘Oh, we’re in the same maths class,’ I realise when we get to the door he needs. ‘The teacher’s really cool, I reckon you’ll have a good time. She won’t care that you’re late.’

‘You’re not coming?’

I shake my head. ‘I’ve got . . . something else.’

He frowns a little but doesn’t bug me about it. I wave goodbye as he goes into the classroom, and he sits alone up the front. I watch him for a sec as the teacher talks to him. He nods and smiles politely. I could go hang out in Eaglefern, but maybe I shouldn’t leave him alone. He was all alone in science, too. I sigh, then open the door. No one notices me walk in, and the teacher doesn’t notice as I sit down. The boy looks around. ‘Are you invisible?’ he asks as he leans towards me.

I nod. ‘Sometimes. It’s hard to explain. I was cursed by a witch.’

‘Huh.’ He takes it in. ‘My dad did say we’d have an interesting time here.’

‘It’s an interesting town.’

‘Does the witch who cursed you live here?’

‘Some do. Not this one. I can’t find her, though sometimes I try.’

‘To lift the curse?’

I nod.

‘How come the teacher doesn’t notice when I’m talking to you?’

‘Not sure. The curse seems to like, cover people I’m in contact with. And it’s like, I’m never marked as absent from class. And even if they can’t see me during a test, they’ll take my finished paper when I offer it to them. I don’t get it.’

The teacher asks us to do problems from the textbook. I don’t really understand graphs much. I can do anything else. But graphs confuse me. And I never have anyone to ask, really. Iris is in a different maths class, not learning this stuff.

I watch the boy as he gets out his ruler and starts to draw the axes. ‘How do you do that?’ I ask, and he shows me with steady hands how to figure out where the dots go, how to connect them with a line. I still don’t quite understand by the end of class, but then the bell rings for lunch and I disappear from him. ‘Boy?’ I ask, and I can see his confusion, the way he looks right through me. The way he can’t see my pencil case or books on the table anymore. ‘I’m still here,’ I say, though I know he can’t hear me. ‘You should go sit with Iris. They’re lovely. They’ll love you.’

He packs up his things and with a last look at where I was sitting, he heads out the door. I sit in the classroom till it’s empty.

I bring my arms up onto the desk and rest my forehead on them. I wish the witch had never found me, I wish I could be seen all the time. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on being solid, being seen. But I know it doesn’t work, somehow. I feel like a fog, like fairy floss, like I’m not quite real. A shadow, made of static.

I breathe in as much as I can, exhale all at once. Get up, Babs. When I try the door, it’s locked. ‘Come on!’ I yell, twisting the doorknob, but it won’t budge. It hasn’t not even got a little snib that I can turn to unlock it, which seems hugely unsafe.

I roll my eyes and think through all the spells I know. Any for unlocking? Mum’s probably taught me heaps. But then she says the most important part is intention. I press my hand to the door and focus really hard, trying to imagine it unlocked, me walking through it.

I try the handle again. Damn.

The window’s open a tiny crack, though, and there’s a big branchy tree outside. It takes a bit to push the window, an old heavy thing, open all the way. There’s a staircase underneath, concrete and bricks. If I fall, it’s not going to be soft.

I go back to grab my books and pencil case, then drop them out the window. They splay out over the ground. I take a deep breath and grab the closest branch, tugging on it gently to make sure it can bear my weight.

With both hands, I grip. Tight, release, tight, release. I can do this.

I let myself drop off the windowsill. My arms protest as I shimmy down the branch until my feet can reach the bigger one underneath, closer to the ground. The tree groans.

‘Oh!’ I stop moving.

The tree brings a few branches closer to me, and at first it looks like it’s going to flick me off like an unwanted fly. But the branches pause, and I reach out, and then they form steps to help me get down.

When my feet hit the concrete, I realise I’m shaking. ‘Thank you,’ I say, touching the trunk. That would have taken a lot of energy. A couple of leaves fall off the branches.

I sit with the tree for the rest of lunch, breathing next to it, hoping to transfer some of my energy back. I trace sigils on its trunk.

I jerk awake to the bell. Scrambling to pick up my things, I say goodbye to the tree and run off to art. It’s always the hardest to stay visible in this class, but hopefully I’ll get to see Iris.

I take a seat next to them and they hug me.

‘Sometimes I still can’t believe you can see me,’ I say as we get out our sketchpads. ‘I’m so scared you’ll stop altogether one day and I’ll be alone again.’ I pull out a red pencil and start to draw little squiggles, a network of them, feeding into each other.

‘We can still talk through the phone,’ they say.

‘Did a boy come and sit with you at lunch, by the way?’

Iris raises their eyebrows. ‘No? What boy?’

‘The new one from science. I said he could sit with us, but then I disappeared. Oh –’ I wave at the boy as he enters the room. ‘You’re in the same class! Sit with us.’

He sits opposite me and Iris, runs a hand through his hair. ‘Hey.’

‘This is Iris. And Iris, this is the boy. He doesn’t have a name yet.’

Miranda starts talking so we don’t say anything else, but Iris sneaks a couple of glances at him. I think they’ve picked up, like I have, that he’s not sure what he’s made of. I’m fire, they’re plants, but he doesn’t know. He’s new, like a bright dawn.

We’re supposed to start using whatever material we want to create something that describes our last birthday party, which I don’t really see the point of. The thing about art class, I guess, is that I don’t really see the point in general. This is the lead-up to our big project at the end of term, exploring ourselves and our feelings. Whenever Miranda mentions it, tiny sparks flicker and grow in my stomach.

The boy is staring at his brand-new sketchpad – he looks lost. I want to tie a rope to his leg because I feel like he might float away. ‘Are you okay?’

He has a new tin of the pencils we’re supposed to buy for school next to him. The plastic is still on them. I’ve got a bunch of pencils from the two-dollar shop, held together by an old hair tie.

‘I, uh, my last birthday party was –’

‘For someone who wasn’t exactly you?’ I ask.

He nods. ‘Kinda, yeah.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a birthday party,’ Iris says. ‘Except for when I was a baby. But then I guess that was more for my parents, instead of me.’

I laugh. ‘My last birthday was when I was still trying to convince myself I was a boy.’

‘I think we could just imagine what our like, ideal birthday party would be. And draw those. Otherwise we’re just gonna be sad.’

‘That does sound like more fun,’ the boy says. With a finger­nail he slices open the plastic covering his pencils, then he picks up the green. He draws an oval and starts filling it in.

I tap my pencil against the table. ‘I don’t know what mine would be.’

‘Do you have a favourite cake? Or like, kind of dessert?’ Iris asks.

I shrug. ‘I guess like, just butter cake. It’s so nice. Or maybe . . .’

‘What?’

‘Oh, I really love lemon meringue. But it’s so expensive.’

‘Clover, one of my mums, can make a really nice lemon meringue,’ says Iris. ‘It’s Moss’s – my other mum’s – favourite, so their recipe is perfect. Just say, at this party, I’d gift you a lemon meringue.’

I beam at Iris. ‘That’s really cute.’

The boy’s page is full of green balloons.