Equus

by Rhonda Parrish

  “Nothing lives forever, Demy,” Bear said, his voice gentle. The jukebox had quit playing twenty minutes ago, and since the roadhouse was empty except for the two of them, a zombie waitress, a kittenified waiter, and a self-absorbed couple in the corner, no one had started it up again. “We’re not meant for it.”

  She sighed and shook her head. She knew he was right, but she was tired of losing people she loved. The bike’s breakdown felt like another loss.

  “I could make the bike live forever,” she muttered.

  “What’s that?” Bear leaned in, a quizzical look on his face. Demy shook her head again, glad he hadn’t heard.

  “Nothing. I think I need some more fries, or you’ll have to just leave me here to sleep in a booth.”

  Bear snorted and went to get another basket of fries.

  As a horse-crazy girl, Demy had read every book about horses she could get her hands on. It didn’t matter if they were famous race horses like Man O’War, fictional horses like the Black Stallion, or even mythical equine creatures like the Pegasus and hippogriffs. Despite the Dutch surname bequeathed them by an ancestor silly enough to get married, the Van Zant witches were Irish through and through, and Demy had grown up on stories of kelpies, each uisce, and pookas.

  Demy had never known a Van Zant who wasn’t crazy about animals, but they’d never gone in for familiars. Demy had always been a little wistful about that as a girl; she’d wanted a pony familiar that would follow her everywhere and be her faithful companion.

  When she finished her fries, Demy drained her ale and stood up.

  “You all right?” Bear called from the other end of the bar.

  Demy just waved. She was fine. She just wanted to be under the stars again. She was getting twitchy in the stuffy bar.

  Once she was out in the biting air, the parking lot dark except for a single security light, Demy’s chest loosened a little. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and feeling the air stretch into her lungs.

  She missed Brenna. She missed having a family. Bear and Jack were great, but they weren’t family. They weren’t familiar. She’d talked to Bear about the magic, but she wasn’t sure how much he believed. And she’d never even tried to tell Jack.

  The wind slipped through her hair, tugging it out of the ponytail she’d tied at the nape of her neck. Demy shivered happily and unzipped her jacket. It was a windy, wild night, and she loved it. Leaves whispered in her ears and naked branches scraped against each other in a creaking secret language.

  Demy?

  She straightened, jerking her head around to search for the person who’d called her name, but the porch of the roadhouse was empty. Jack’s garage was dark. No one stood in the parking lot but Demy herself.

  Her heart started thumping in her chest. She had a sudden, visceral certainty that her sister was close, maybe watching her, maybe reaching out spiritually to her, but—

  The wind swelled, skidding a raft of leaves across the gravel to swirl around Demy’s feet, and the sense of Brenna’s presence faded.

  Demy lifted a hand to curl against the side of her neck, where her pulse still pounded. Then she realized she was looking at the Triumph, parked where she’d left it in front of the garage door.

  She crossed the parking lot without letting herself think about what she was going to do. What she knew Brenna would do if she were here. When she reached the motorcycle, she rested her hand against the fuel tank.

  “Live,” she whispered. She closed her eyes against the swelling joy of magic in her blood, the pins and needles of long-unused talents blooming back to awareness. “Live.”

  Her fingers shook against the gas tank. It had been so long since she’d channeled the magic, it bucked like an untamed horse, but Demy exerted her will. She visualized the thrown rod, the resulting hole in the cylinder. It was like a compound fracture, she told herself. She’d seen her mother use the magic for healing often enough. She ought to know how to heal this.

  But magic was a living thing, and after being ignored for so long, it held a grudge. It twisted in Demy’s grip, stinging her fingers and snapping away from her. The rod shot out of the engine and crashed into the cinderblock wall of the garage.

  Demy swore. “You’ve been trying to get my attention,” she snapped. “Well, you’ve got it. I give in. Quit fighting me.”

  She didn’t have to give herself entirely to the magic, after all. She could coax it just enough to fix the bike, just enough to make it quit calling her out on the road to escape it.

  She glared at the bike and stroked one hand down the gas tank to press her fingers lightly against the now-cold cylinder. “Come on, maybe magic can’t make a horse or a person live forever, but it can make a bike run forever,” she said.

  Demy studied the bike, extending her senses to try to understand the failure in the engine, but ultimately sensing nothing except a broken rod and a hole.

  She pulled up a diagram of the engine on her phone to try and recreate the broken pieces with magic and noticed the time—almost one. “Shit,” Demy hissed. “Shit shit shit!” She’d missed midnight. She was so rusty with the talent, who knew if it would even work now?

  Over the next hour, she tried everything she could think of, forcing her brain through mathematical gymnastics, trying to translate the logic behind the engine into magic. By one-fifty-three in the morning, she was sitting in the gravel cradling her head and trying not to admit defeat. Her eyes were stinging.

  How would Brenna have done this? Her approach to magic had been fluid, almost musical, compared to Demy’s. For every theory Demy had slogged through to reach a logical conclusion, Brenna had blithely accepted the magic without explanation.

  Maybe Demy was making this too difficult.

  She shook the tension out of her shoulders and folded her legs, resting her hands on her knees. She thought about Foxy, about the bright russet of her horse’s hide, the curious quirk of Foxy’s ears, the surprisingly smooth trot, the way Foxy always greeted Demy by snuffling at her shirt pocket for a peppermint.

  Then she thought of something fiercer, a horse faster than the wind. She remembered the legend of the fíorláir, the true mare—the seventh filly born in a row to a single mare, the fíorláir could protect her rider from all harm and could never be stolen by the fairies. That would be a fine thing for a Van Zant witch, Demy thought, to have a fíorláir answer her call.

  For just a moment, Demy thought she heard the snort and stamp of a horse. Then it was gone and she was left with only the wind blowing across the parking lot.

  She sighed, her shoulders slumping. A moment later, something large sighed behind her. Demy froze and then straightened. She wasn’t alone.

  It wasn’t Foxy—Foxy had been a mortal horse, and when her time was up, she’d passed beyond, to whatever afterlife of tall, sweet grass that awaited faithful steeds—but it was some sort of equine spirit. She felt its breath against the side of her neck, accompanied by the tang of salt water and seaweed.

  Slowly, Demy lifted a hand, palm upward. “I don’t have much to offer,” she whispered. “Freedom and an open road. Warm stalls when they’re wanted and a chance to run under the sun.”

  Gravel crunched behind her, but she didn’t turn.

  “I know it isn’t much,” she added. “Maybe I can relearn the things I’ve forgotten. If you would teach me.” Maybe, she didn’t say, we can find my sister.

  Warm breath touched the back of her neck.

  Would you bind me, mortal? said a voice in her mind. It was ancient and filled with the roar of ocean waves in November. Demy felt a shiver trickle down her back—she hadn’t expected the each uisce to answer her call.

  “Not bind,” Demy said, thinking back again on the old stories. “Nor even tame like the hero Cú Chulainn. I would not ask you to fight any battles for me like the Liath Macha fought for him.” Cú Chulainn, in Demy’s opinion, had suffered from overwhelming entitlement.

  Nor like Féchíne of Fore? If you use a holy nam
e to command me, I will devour all but your liver, as I did him.

  Demy almost opened her eyes as her breathing hitched. “The stories say Saint Féchíne freed you?” The stories also said the each uisce came out of the sea each November and glutted themselves on cattle.

  There was no answer but a snort that sent shivers down Demy’s spine.

  “I revere the triune God, but I would never command in His name,” Demy said after a moment. “I would not command at all. I ask. I invite.”

  You offer me a new life, inside that metal steed before you.

  “For as long as you will accept it, each uisce,” Demy agreed. The stories also said a tamed each uisce made the finest steed one could wish for. “But no longer than you wish to travel beside me. I do not bind.”

  There was silence between them for several heartbeats. Then the each uisce spoke again. It is well you live so far inside this mass of land. If ever we journey together within scent of salt water, I will devour you as I did Féchíne, and I will feel no remorse.

  “We are each as our nature makes us,” Demy said. She felt the bitterness of the words as she said it. No matter how much she had tried to resist the magic, her nature made her a witch. Her sister had embraced it and paid the price. Demy had rejected it, and still paid the price. Whatever she did, the magic would have her.

  But her statement, bitter as it was, seemed to strike some chord within the each uisce. For several heartbeats Demy felt only an approving silence, and then the spirit spoke.

  Perhaps there is hope for wisdom in you yet. You can see no truth at all until you accept the truth of yourself.

  Hooves crunched softly on the gravel, and Demy couldn’t help opening her eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the spirit as it passed. But she heard the switch of a tail and a cloud of dust stung her face, making her eyes water.

  While Demy was still wiping away the tears, the motorcycle engine roared to life.

  I am Aenbharr of Manannán, and long have I sought a brave companion, the each uisce told her. We shall ride together. It is long since I had a true adventure. When the magic calls, we shall answer.

  ***

  Stephanie A. Cain writes epic & urban fantasy. She grew up in Indiana, where much of her urban fantasy is set.

  She spends her work time at a small museum giving tours of a Victorian mancave and serving as a one-woman IT department. A proud crazy cat lady, she is happily owned by Eowyn, Strider, and Eustace Clarence Scrubb.

  In her free time, she enjoys hiking (except for the spiders), bird-watching, and reading. She’s a World of Warcraft addict and visits office supply stores for fun. She owns way more movie scores and fountain pens than she can actually afford.

  The Last Ride of Hettie Richter

  Cat McDonald

  “Anse, get your rifle.”

  Hettie looked up from the table at her older brother, Hector, stern and broad-faced, his nose already starting to look like Pa’s and the arsonist look in his eyes exactly the same. He didn’t advance past the threshold, standing like an old tree in front of the door and blocking the light with his huge, dense body.

  “Why?” Hettie set her mending down for the moment. “What’s going on?”

  “Word from the courthouse. Uncle Ed’s gonna hang. Anse, get your rifle.”

  Hettie’s twin brother Anderson, who didn’t look a thing like Pa except that strangers always said he did, hurried out of his seat at the kitchen table. His rifle was, as always, hanging with the others by the door in case of trouble. Last time trouble had come to Richter Hollow, it had been Lee Stewart and his boys burning Big Geoff’s house and shooting Pa Richter in the shoulder. The time before that it had been Uncle Ed shooting Jeb Stewart, and the time before that it had been the Stewart boys come hog-thieving.

  “Anse, don’t you dare,” Hettie said, using the voice she’d learned from her mother. “You either, Hec. Ain’t nothing but the noose in it for you.”

  “Well, where’s old Lee Stewart on the gallows then? Uncle Ed was defending his own. Anse, hurry up.”

  Anderson looked back and forth between them for a moment, wide-eyed.

  “Anse, sit back down!”

  “Hettie, he’s right…can’t just trust the county anymore. Anyway, I like Uncle Ed.” Anderson was old enough to shave but didn’t have to, his arms not too much thicker around than his rifle. Everyone said he’d grow up like Hector and Pa some day, but Hettie didn’t see it. She and her twin brother still looked alike to her.

  Hettie stood. “Anderson Richter don’t you dare! What’ll Ma say when they send you to the gallows?!”

  “That we were men, Hettie.” Hector took Anderson by the arm to guide him to the door, “Kind of men who stood for their own and can walk tall in Heaven.”

  “Hec, I wasn’t talking to you, and you know damn well—”

  Hector turned his back on her and left, opening the door to sunlight and humid forest air and the sound of the wind in the timbers overhead. Hettie shrieked after them again but the door shut on her protests.

  For a second, she reached for her mending, her fingertips grazing coarse canvas and a tangle of thread and she bent as if to sit back down. At that tiny motion, that moment of contact, her stomach turned. She felt a fury spark to life and expand in her chest, putting pressure on her lungs and heart, and she clenched her teeth to stop it from coming out in a roar.

  Instead of screaming, she threw her chair aside and ran outside into the sun and wind. She could hear the rattling of the horses’ trappings out front, and ran toward the sound, teeth still clenched, heart still swollen with anger and panic, her own pulse pounding against the inside of her throat.

  When Hettie made it off the porch, her footfalls light against the long-trampled earth in front of the Richter home, she saw four horses saddled and ready, and her twin brother halfway into his saddle. Hector was mounted already, as were their cousins Pat and One-Eye, their horses shifting and stepping and pawing, eager for whatever would happen next.

  “Anderson, get—” she began to shriek. Her voice joined the wind in the leaves, and silenced a whole holler of birdsong.

  It didn’t silence the hoofbeats. Heedless of her screaming, her brother settled into his saddle and the four of them started off down the road together.

  Hettie chased after them. At first, the running was easy, and she could hold the riders in her vision as solid earth flew by beneath her. Her breaths carried in the scent of the nearby creek, bloated with summer heat and rot, and thick, wet summer air coursed in and out of her.

  But step by step, they drifted away from her. She bruised her feet on stones in the road, struggled to fill herself with air, wore her knees out, and still the riders drifted away. Hettie only managed to keep up with them—screaming until she had to choose between screaming and running—until the crossroads where her family’s lane met the main road.

  There, at last, hats and heads disappeared around a corner, shrouded by thick greenery. Without that fixed point in her vision to focus on, she collapsed. A pain leeched out of her knee to the rest of her leg, her ankle rolled under her, and she toppled to the ground, knees first, in a wheel-rut.

  “Damn you,” she whispered through the wreckage of her voice on heaving, desperate breaths. “Damn you both. Walk tall in heaven, my ass.”

  Dirt wedged its way under her fingernails as she tried to force herself back up, and brutal sunlight beat on her back. The rage that had drawn her out of the house still pressed on her insides, squeezed against her stomach. She fought for every breath, and coughed bitterly as her burning lungs failed each time.

  She coughed and choked. The burning rose up inside her, past her heart, under her ribs, and into her throat as a huge, solid mass. Another cough brought something thick and warm up to touch the back of her throat. She gagged as it slithered out over her tongue and fell to the earth in front of her, a huge black-red fleshy lump about the size of an apple.

  As she watched, it soaked into the ground at the crossroad
s. Spit and iron-tasting bile dripped over her teeth after it, and she sat there shaking for a few moments, confused and cold and slightly hollow. When she felt she had the strength again, she pushed herself back up to her feet and started to stumble back to her home and her abandoned chores.

  In the back of her mind, she could still see those riders.

  Hettie woke late the next day, her body heavy with aches and the streaming sunlight in the window heating her through. From her bed, she could see her mother in the kitchen setting aside fresh bacon and corn pone on a handkerchief.

  Pa sat in his chair, not far away, a great silent mountain man like a half-animated willow tree, shaggy and knotted and distinguished through the gin blossoms burnt onto his cheeks and nose.

  He looked down through the smoke of his corncob pipe, met her eye, and just about smiled.

  “Heloise,” he said, “there’s work to be done. Lee Stewart and Robert Miller been shot.”

  “Where’s Anse?” Her voice sounded like a stranger’s, hoarse and foreign.

  “He’s safe. Ma’s wrapping up some lunch for him and the other men.”

  “Oh.” Hettie sat up in bed, and even in that little shift, she felt her knees and hips resist. Her left foot throbbed and her chest felt empty.

  “I’m about to take it to them. Thought you might like to come.”

  She searched for the feeling she knew she was supposed to have, but couldn’t find it. Had she thrown it up? A memory of anger lingered in her throat, and something like sadness tried to kindle in her eyes, but now, in the moment, she didn’t feel anything. She’d dreamt of their flight deeper into the holler, of Hector’s whoops of triumph startling the effervescent dream-birds from the trees, of Anderson weathering the congratulatory shoulder-claps of his brother and cousins.

  “I think I’ll stay, Pa.”

  “Well, all right. Ma will be wanting your help with the cooking, and when I get home I need you to come help me run the still. Best be up and moving.”