Me losing didn’t necessarily equal Jasper winning.
The last stripes of sunlight disappeared from the sky and night came plummeting down. Track lights bloomed, garish, eye-searing. Every spectator became a ghost and the limerunners’ eyes lit red, like gators’ eyes in the cypress swamp a bare quarter-mile to our north. The loudmouth Northern boy Faran Humphrey used as a race-caller was talking, but my ears turned elsewhere, seeking Eel’s pulse and the breathing of Sandy, Will’s limerunner, and the unfamiliar girl beneath Tim. I sank inside myself, shut the doors that housed Ma and Mr. Greeley and Tim and the trappers, and sought loopholes. Cracks to be driven wide, weak flesh in which to sink teeth.
The starter’s bell sounded, its deep, echoing boom a world away from the high-pitched shrill of the Thoroughbred track bell. In the same moment, without so much as a wink of warning, the sky opened up. The dust-lit air of the track became rainlight, the lamps spaced along the outer rail sputtering and hissing. Eel leapt forward. His neck pumped and strained against my hands, and I leaned in, forcing my weight down to check him. Sloppy track was no concern for limerunners; in fact it was a blessing, or would’ve been, had not all limeys been mud freaks by birthright. If the sudden slick surface let Eel run faster, well, it was helping his fellows, too.
The first turn in a Thoroughbred race was where jockeys began talking, wasting breath on chiding or encouraging their mounts, calling insults and threats to one another. Limey riders had nothing to say on that first turn, nor in the arrow-straight lane into the chute. The only people on the track not talking, us riders. The first turn signified nothing but that your mount was still going. The wire might’ve been yards away, but we still had miles to run before passing beneath it, the shape of the race somewhere between a classic Thoroughbred mile, a human triathlon, and the wild hunt limey riders ran down in the Everglades. The cheers and howls of the bettors followed us up the chute and into the woods, the flat accent of the race-caller sinking into bark, muffled by pine needles and sand underfoot. The rain, I could tell, would be a cloudburst and then naught.
A body slammed into us, and my right knee wrenched. Will and Sandy had started off on our right down the track, but once in the woods there was no semblance of order. As long as the limerunners stayed on the path, fair was fair. No lanes, no protocol, nothing but race-riding. Wan moonlight flashed on Hank Fremont’s teeth as he pressed his mount close to Eel, and I decided right then that whoever won, it wouldn’t be Hank. It was time to go to work.
I slipped down Eel’s side, my legs wrapped hard around his barrel and the rest of me flopping, loose, one arm hooked through his mane, to grab a twisted root. It tore at my palm as Eel bolted forward, and the root rippled up, tangling in the hooves of Hank’s limey.
The yelped “Dumb cunt!” meant my mean trick had worked. I didn’t look over my shoulder when the pressure of the faltering limerunner left our side.
The woods were as familiar as the stone bench in the back garden at home, or the squat pine-board school where a succession of teachers had been sure they’d be the one to get me talking. Despite Ma’s bet—despite the trappers and the scent of the corpse flower not yet washed from my nostrils by rain—I felt better than I had all week. When all was said and done, this was what I was good for, good at. If I could’ve been in the woods all the time, in the low, dense hammock where water horses thrived, I would’ve.
“Bea!” Tim hollered, somewhere off to my left. “Bea!”
I lay down along Eel’s withers, his neck hot and wet beneath my hands. I wasn’t sure what Tim was shouting about, but better not to be a target. As I shrank down something whipped across my cheek. A stray branch, innocent, or a purposeful smack from another rider, it hurt all the same. The path broadened as it turned toward the river, wide enough for three limeys to run abreast. Jasper and Hank flanked me; I let up on Eel’s mane, twisting my fingers in the way he hated. His muzzle snapped sideways, greedy of freer movement. Water horse teeth were nasty, unnatural as Reverend Anson said, glaring down at Ma and me from his pulpit; they were no prey animal’s teeth, for limeys were not prey. Eel’s sank into the cheek of Hank’s mount, barely missing the throat latch. When I saw blood well I snatched him back in hand, dragging his head up, and concentrated on the river in front of us.
As Eel’s chest hit the surface and water washed over my legs, I glanced back. Hank stood on the shore and his mount half-knelt, its front knees buried in sand, and blood darkening the thin river tide.
“You bitch,” Jasper said conversationally as we swam the limeys. “Figure you’ll win thataway? There’s tricks you can only play once.”
It was easy to imagine Eel’s teeth in Jasper’s throat. I’d seen a limerunner kill a man.
“Some kinda score to settle,” Jasper continued. The river lapped my waist, warm as blood. The tide was negligible at this point in the Tocobaga. No one, not even the hungriest bettors, wanted to see what would happen if the limerunners were turned into a rapid river, what the current would do to their pulses. Jasper’s seat on his mount was firm, his hands steady. I hated to see it. “How you believe Tim’d keep you around? Fish-mouthed whore.” He leaned just far enough over, keeping his elbows well away from Eel’s head. “Men like to hear a woman scream. So what’re you good for? How’m I supposed to know you like it?”
Talking distracted people, I’d observed over the years. They focused on the sound of their own voice. If Jasper loved the way his words fell like spring hail, well, maybe he wouldn’t notice me plucking a strand of trailing amaranth from the water. I crushed the flowers just a bit and tucked them into my belt.
The far shore grew larger in my sight. I counted off the new odds in my head. Me and Jasper, more riding with us than most people had figured on; Tim and his wild-card girl; Will and Sandy. All else being equal, I would’ve preferred not to do to Tim what I was about to.
Eel’s hooves hit sandy river-bottom and dug in, his flexible feet grabbing for purchase. He and Jasper’s limey were running before their riders’ legs had cleared the water, the most difficult part of the race, for my money. I’d fallen off that way more than once, the water’s drag and the mount’s speed a bad combination for balance. I darted a look over my shoulder as Eel picked up pace. For this to work, I needed Tim closer than he was. But if I lagged back, Jasper would get the lead, and that was no good either.
I let Eel have his head and he slammed forward. I threw my weight to the left and he veered into Jasper, clipping his limey’s heels. The forest pressed in around us again, oak fingers reaching for loose hair. Eel and Jasper’s limey tangled, snapping at one another, and my heart galloped. If Eel could just stay clear—if Jasper’s mount wasn’t too vicious—if Tim would just hurry his fool ass up—
The wet roan coat of his limerunner flickered on my periphery. I dug the strand of amaranth from my belt and tossed it over the rump of Tim’s limey when she pulled up on our right, then rolled Eel’s mane up tight between my hands. The scent of amaranth on a girl limey’s hide would hit Eel, too, he sure wasn’t immune. But I was expecting him to berserk, and Jasper wasn’t.
Jasper’s mount flailed sideways, no longer interested in sinking his teeth into Eel. He dove for Tim and the girl, and dumped Jasper in the process. For that I was grateful; no one liked to be between a male and female limey when the male had an idea.
Gleaming coats collided, black and pale roan, and more yellow teeth than I cared to look on. For the second time that day Tim went sprawling, and Will’s mount stepped on him as they came up.
The crunch of hooves on ribs hit the air like a shot. My heart clawed up into my throat, but I kept Eel moving. Jasper’s cursing followed us while Eel ran down behind Will and Sandy.
The trail narrowed again, tree roots sinking away and smoothing out the closer we got to the track. Will rode silently, his attention on the water horse. My face was wet, from the river or sweat or tears, I wasn’t sure, and the only sounds were the night sounds of a forest and the hot breath of lime
ys laboring.
When the track lights appeared ahead, Will called, “You know, I ain’t heard why these bastards go crazy for love-lies-bleeding.”
I’d heard, or at least I’d heard Mr. Greeley’s nephew Ronnie hold forth on the topic. Ronnie of the bottles and jars, caretaker of the pawn shop’s back room: He had a theory for everything, figured taking a few science courses at Flagler made him a regular alchemist. Amplifies them natural phero-mones, Bea, he’d told me once, watering the amaranth his aunt kept in a hedge along the front porch of the shop. Why, it’s just like a lady putting on perfume.
I’d forgotten, somehow, the common name for amaranth. Love-lies-bleeding. I hoped they would be fast about getting Tim out of the forest.
My arms were wrecked, muscles strained noodle-weak and about useless. Riding a limerunner was hard enough from the get-go, them not being a species naturally given to domestication. Racing one was that much harder, keeping it on the straight and narrow, guiding it, holding it from savaging its fellows. Riding one as I had, nastily and with motives beyond winning…I didn’t like tonight, didn’t like what I’d let Eel do, what I’d made Jasper’s mount do. I felt like coffee grounds used twice, my mouth just as sour.
We galloped back onto the track and passed beneath the wire half a length behind Will and Sandy.
The cacophony that greeted Will’s win told me everything I needed to know. My eyes slid to the three men on the rail, the disgust dragging at their eyes and their mouths muttering. I wasn’t too worried about them coming for me. Eel was sweating and shuddering, but there was enough of him left to get between me and them. It sure wasn’t my fault they hadn’t thought of putting in a contingency, what would happen if neither Jasper nor I won.
Curses and catcalls and questions followed me as I turned Eel toward the gate. I was usually the safe bet, after Matt Hancock. Those who somehow hadn’t heard the gossip were flabbergasted, annoyed, out money or goods. I was slightly more concerned about the townspeople; I had to live with them every day, after all. I didn’t bother waving to Will or Faran Humphrey or Mr. Greeley, who was about the only spectator looking half-pleased. My concern was Tim, whether his limey or Jasper’s had savaged him, whether the kicks from Will’s had done too much damage—
A figure, familiar as life yet alien in this setting, caught my eye. My mother stood a little way off, her eyes fixed on me and Eel. Whether guilt or morbid curiosity had driven her to the track tonight, I didn’t much care. It hadn’t been love, that was certain.
“My girl,” she began when I led my limey over, “it was what seemed best. Goodness, if only you’d seen those—heard them talk, such oaths as would turn the preacher’s ears blue. I knew—” She shook a finger. “Oh, I had faith in you, Bea. Didn’t I know you’d find a way? And now the pollen will go to Mr. Greeley, it’s only right. Such a debt owed.”
She removed something from the pocket of her church dress. The lace edging the kerchief told me it was one of her nice ones, one of the Irish-woven hankies intended for my hope chest, before everyone had agreed there would be no need of one. “Still and all, I know he can’t be expecting something for nothing. Carry that to him.” She pressed the knotted kerchief into one of my hands, holding my wrist for a minute. “My Bea. What a miracle, a sharp little thing like you. Who would’ve thought…?”
She spoke sweet now and then. My mind was having trouble with the words, exhaustion and sorrow clouding my ears. The sounds which should have carried meaning seemed out of sync with Ma’s mouth. A soft kind of rage grew, throbbing in my skull like a headache from sun exhaustion. Ma, the small god of our homestead, surrounded and equivocating, and me the only tool to her hand. Me, nodding and riding and ruining my reputation. Me, using Tim as Ma had used me.
The kerchief in my hand sat like a fishing weight, the pollen within slivers of lead.
I thrust Eel’s reins into Ma’s hand and stumbled away, blinking to clear my vision. Mr. Greeley was clear enough by the fence, his face expectant, but at the last moment my feet swerved toward the ambulance blocking the gates. The doctor stood with Mrs. McDonough and Faran Humphrey in the open gates of the track, and a stretcher stood there too, mounded with a sheet-draped form. An arm drooped beneath the sheet, limp against the stretcher’s frame. Tim’s freckles were visible at a distance, ink blots on death-pale skin and blood smearing his elbow. My mind much preferred Tim’s arms in other modes: veins standing up with the effort of holding a limerunner, bare and relaxed alongside mine in white sheets.
“Bea!” someone called, and I saw Mr. Greeley waving. Then it was Bea from all sides, faces blurring together with one popping out now and then, Will’s eyes dark and reproachful or Kathleen Montgomery’s mouth wide and red. The track still swarmed with gamblers, questioners, folk who’d seen a thing and wanted to talk about it.
Sometimes I stood in the shallows of Low Springs or braced against a cypress, and let a water horse swim from me. Sometimes there was a choice; sometimes, between bills owed and blood to be paid, there was room for mercy.
I went up to the stretcher and pulled the sheet aside. I didn’t know how the corpse flower’s pollen worked, didn’t even know if my mother was telling the truth about its properties. The handkerchief sat light in my palm after I tugged it from my pocket. The pollen drifted over his face, waxen and rigid, lips slightly parted, until the specks were barely distinguishable from his freckles.
I wondered if I should kiss him, like a fairy tale princess. I wondered what debt it was we owed Mr. Greeley in the first place, that such a power as this would cancel it, whether it was true my grandmother had asked him to have her husband run out of town. I wondered what Mr. Greeley would do to me in a minute, how I’d make it up to my mother without a stack of cash—and I wondered whether any of the other limerunners had dragged themselves out of the woods, if I’d ever race again or if even this, my lone skill and shabby claim to livelihood, would be taken from me—and the only answer I found was that it needed to be me Tim saw, when he opened his eyes again.
***
Diana Hurlburt is a writer and librarian in Florida. Some of her short works can be found at The Toast, The Prompt, witchsong, Kaaterskill Basin, and Body Parts, and in the anthologies Beyond the Pillars and The Queen’s Readers. Connect with her on Twitter and Tumblr.
A Complete Mare
Tamsin Showbrook
Family, I reflect, as my big sister Pen scrabbles at the stable door, is overrated.
“What the fuck are we going to do now, Vez?” She wipes her forehead on her arm, rubbing chaff into her eyebrows, then slumps onto the nearest bale and buries her head in her hands. “Shit,” she mumbles. “Mum’s gonna kill you if we ever get out of here. This is your fault. I’m supposed to be avoiding stress. And what about Saqib? My baby needs its dad.”
She rubs her belly. Eight months gone. She’s right, she doesn’t need this, but she’s always been a bloody drama queen. Five years ago, when I found out what I am, she was straight on her mobile to her mates chatting shit about it and when her mobile stopped working—when all mobiles stopped working—she threw it against a wall.
I ignore a distant scream from outside, tongue another grain out of the barley stalk I’ve been working for the last ten minutes or so. “Whatever. Least we’re safe.”
“So you say.”
A grass seed must’ve wormed its way into my t-shirt: my chest feels like someone’s tickling it with wire wool. I pull my collar wide, brush at the spot, but there’s nothing there. Pen’s shoulders have started to shake as though she’s sobbing. Shit.
“Pen, we’re gonna be okay. This is my safe-house, remember? Onkel promised.”
“He’s not my ‘onkel.’ I’m not the freak…”
That’s true. I am Verity Marshall and I am part Norse deity. Say it enough at support groups, it gets easier.
“…And you’re really going to trust someone who spends eternity bullshitting?”
He really does, the bastard.
“
…That door’s the same one we came through to get in, why won’t it open now?”
Gods, she’s not going to shut up? I halt her flow. “I’ve got a clean line—nothing but Sleipnir blood got in the mix. I’m not a Jumble. He’ll be protecting me because he knows if me and the rest of his descendants go, that’s curtains for him too.” He also told me he might need me for something, but he can fuck right off if he thinks I’m sticking my neck on the line for him.
Penny gives a bitter laugh. “More likely he’s trapped both of us so we roast nicely before them outside get us. Bet he’s watching us cook right now.” Apart from the beach-ball shaped lump under her t-shirt, she looks like the pictures of her very mortal dad: thin and tall, pale gold eyes, mouth like a razor slash, wild hair.
I don’t. I’m descended from a line of shape-shifting horses Onkel set going several thousand years ago. What idiot god pisses Odin off, then tries to solve the problem by turning into a mare to distract a stallion from its work and gets knocked up in the process? Loki, that’s bloody who. So he as she-the-mare gives birth to this eight-legged, four-headed horse, Sleipnir, who Odin then claims as his steed. Sleipnir’s descendants break up marriages for kicks. Or that’s what Mum and Pen say. My dad charmed Mum in a club on one of her mates’ hen dos, the bastard. She cries when anyone mentions it.
Like I say, family is overrated.
Loki said I was to call him Onkel; he says all his descendants call him Onkel. As well as trying not to think about the fact that a lot of people now want me dead because of my heritage, I try not to think too much about how Sleipnir mated with a mort, because that must’ve been what happened.
I’ve still got human form—others weren’t so lucky when the bloodlines activated—it’s more…sturdy, I get called, but with “graceful lines”. My neck even has this arch to it and my eyes are huge. I hate them, but there’s been a couple of people I’ve had to avoid on the estate because they keep telling me they’re amazing and then they just stare: gormless full-mort prats. They stare even more at my hair because it’s silver and dead straight. Tried dying it with beetroot from the garden once. Didn’t work. Nothing works. Mum cut it short last year, along with Pen’s, because the lice got bad again: too many of us living in the main Hall. Grew back. Overnight.
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