by Parker Foye
“I can’t see what you’re thinking,” Benjamin said. “This feels too much like a dream. Like I followed the horse on the beach into the water, and this is some fever dream of the afterlife. I want to ask you something, but I need to see your face when you respond and I can’t.”
Rez found Benjamin’s hand and guided it to his cheek. “You can touch my face. Maybe that will tell you what you need to know?”
Benjamin sat up and brought his other hand to Rez’s face. His hands were huge and warm and precise. Benjamin had been a master carver and craftsman before the military, and some of the wiring work he did on the ships required almost as much dexterity. Those nimble fingers brushed Rez’s hairline around to his ears, ruffled his brows and fluttered over his eyelashes.
Benjamin explored the bones of Rez’s face, not in a romantic way, but like he’d confirmed a carving against his design.
“It is you, Rez. I’ve never touched your face before, but it matches what I remember. What I’d sculpt. You’re really a kelpie?”
“Yes.”
His fingers felt for the truth, ghosting over Rez’s lips, the tension around his mouth, his stubble. “And you’ve marked me for this sacrifice, which will allow you and your—band—to continue protecting people on the sea?”
Rez tightened up at this. “Yes.”
“So, what’s the problem? Take me back to the beach. I’m ready to go.”
* * *
Benjamin touched Rez’s face, and it reassured him that his friend, at least, was real. The rest of what Rez was saying... That sounded fucking insane.
He didn’t believe in unicorns or kelpies or whatever. But Benjamin believed in Rez, who’d always been the best at everything. Even at bringing out the best in his people.
Rez had some shallow grooves on his forehead from frowning hard—probably at Benjamin.
He had no idea how to make Rez happy and keep his own mind and soul intact. It didn’t seem possible.
“Rez. Let me go. I have no purpose, no life, no family. I could do something good by helping your people, I mean, kelpies. What is a blind ex-military man supposed to do when his life skills all involve vision? I’m not a kid. I can’t just start over. You know, they tried to pair me with a seeing-eye dog. They thought he might help with the navigating and perhaps some emotional support. He was brilliant. I couldn’t see him, but he felt like a Labrador—a medium-sized dog with a big blocky head and coarse hair.
“The instant that looked like it might be a possibility, I began to sneeze and break out in hives. Do you believe that shit? I mean, it’s been a while since my last dog, but when did I become allergic? The Lab seemed like a great dog. It might have helped. I don’t know.”
Rez sighed, but it was a strained sound. Choked. “I need to leave soon, Benjamin. One of the shamans might know how to remove the mark, so I must consult with her. But being blind isn’t the end of the world. It’s just a change. A really major fucking change, but you’re strong enough to get over this.”
“No, I don’t think I am.” Benjamin didn’t want Rez to stop speaking, because the feel of Rez’s face, his jaw, was a straight-up miracle.
“Well, you’re not alone anymore. We’ll figure something out. We could visit your dad in the nursing home, even if he doesn’t remember everything.”
That was another stab to the gut. Yeah, Dad was still holding on, but in a home for people whose dementia made them unsafe in society. He’d staged three raids on the pharmacy and held a nurse hostage while in the grip of one of his fearful fantasies. Benjamin could visit him, but what would his father remember? Would he remember Benjamin as a blinded failure?
Maybe Benjamin could remain a war hero to him if his father never saw him. He didn’t want to be a blind dependent. His father had also become increasingly bigoted and hateful with the deterioration of his memory. Their last visit, before Benjamin’s injury, had been Benjamin’s dad versus the world—and there were a lot of enemies. The government, the queers, the Vietnamese, the Russians, the liberals, minorities, the “sheeple”—a word he’d picked up from talk radio and loved. It, of course, meant anyone who didn’t think just like him.
At this point in his dad’s life, Benjamin didn’t know that there was anybody who thought like him.
“You can just go on, Rez. I’ll sit here and sulk.” Benjamin forced himself to stop touching Rez’s face.
“Okay, that doesn’t sound like the Benjamin I know.”
“Well, I don’t know how to fucking knit, and I’m not going to be able to sleep.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got a lot of shit on my mind. Mostly old stuff on replay, since the ol’ viewing screen is blank, but I have a few new audio tracks. Also, you kissing that other guy. I mean, I have nothing against men being with other men...but I would never have thought that you were into that.”
Rez hummed. “I like both, but haven’t found anyone that I want to keep forever yet. Kjell was putting on a show for you. He couldn’t make you watch, but he could make sure you didn’t mistake what was happening.”
“I know, and maybe that made it worse. Because Kjell could just grab you and you seemed to ignite. Both of you, from the sounds. It was hot, and I don’t really know what to do with that, either.”
“It’s okay.” Rez’s hand smoothed over Benjamin’s hair, down to cup Benjamin’s neck in his huge palm.
Rez pulled them together until their foreheads met, then he pulled back, and Benjamin felt soft, hot lips brushing the spot on his forehead where they’d touched. Rez’s warm breath brushed Benjamin’s cheeks and eyelashes, and Rez found Benjamin’s mouth. The kiss was soft and compelling in a way Benjamin didn’t understand, but it felt reassuring, and it comforted him.
Benjamin sighed. The contact was something so lacking in his life since the accident. He wanted...more. He wanted.
Rez pulled away as Benjamin decided to see where the warmth and connection might lead.
“You’re confused.”
Disappointment flooded Benjamin, followed immediately by shame.
“No,” Rez said. “If I take advantage of you, even to kiss you like I want to at this point, I’d damn myself all over again. I’ve already failed you, and I’m going to set that right before I screw up your life more. I’ll get you released from the mark. Somehow. I won’t toy with your emotions too.”
Toy with his emotions? What? Benjamin touched his forehead, then his mouth.
“Please stay here in bed and rest if you can, Benjamin. You need to recover your strength, and sleep will help. I’ll put on the TV in the other room so you can listen to ESPN. When I come back, it’ll probably be around midday, though it depends upon the ocean current and the weather. I’ll bring something to eat, though I’ll leave some snacks and water by the bed. You think you’ll be up to that?”
Rez thought all he could do was sit around and listen to the television? How fucking depressing. They used to go skydiving together. They used to rock-climb and cliff-dive. Maybe ESPN would play golf or goddamn table tennis. That’s more the kind of guy Benjamin had become.
Unable to create his own adventures. Destined to be a passenger in his own life.
Benjamin wasn’t sure he wanted Rez to come back with an answer, a reprieve of any kind. This impaired state wasn’t what he wanted. The pain was starting again, and even though the doctors told him it wasn’t real pain, not in a physical way, they’d given him some pretty stout pills.
The pill bottle was one of the random objects he’d put in his pockets hoping it would weigh him down, but he knew enough about buoyancy to know those small pilfered items wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to anything except his resolve. Good news? Now he had his meds, when he had nothing else.
So Benjamin downed a couple of painkillers and zoned out in bed. He tried not to think that
he might have been interested in kissing his best buddy—that he might have been a little disappointed that it stopped where it did.
Chapter Six
Rez jogged to the beach. A couple of strides before the water’s edge, Rez began the change. As an adult kelpie, he shifted from human to water horse in seconds and never faltered. It was a survival skill.
His left foot hit the ground, and in the next instant, it was a hoof, not inverted as the legend said. That would have made travel near impossible.
His body, his spine, lengthened, and as he leaned into the salt spray, his hands were hooves, meeting the earth.
Normal horses weren’t built for diving. They could swim—a powerful movement like “passage” in the water, but for diving, they were prone to belly-flopping. This was where the brain of the kelpie and the man—though Rez wasn’t exactly horse or human—came into play. The one time horses dove naturally was at birth. Their front hooves emerged from the birth canal, with the muzzle of the foal tucked against the front legs. The shoulders, hips and back legs followed. That move was what he approximated as he leaped over a cresting wave and knifed down into the choppy water. He followed the tide until he reached a spot where the sea floor dropped off, then he took a breath and dove hard for the portal to the One Water far, far below.
The trip took longer than he’d expected. It was already morning when Rez reached the small island in the warm Caribbean. For the last few hundred years, the grotto was their wintertime refuge.
Kelpies rose from the water, left their huts and congregated when they saw Rez.
Kjell wasn’t among them, but there were the other stallions. Two foals, babies by either horse or human standard, pranced up to Rez, played their “I’m a baby, don’t hurt me” routine, which looked like them chewing or biting at the air near Rez.
He nuzzled them. They were precious to their band’s survival. They were the last foals of the great old stallion who had recently been killed. The lead stallion’s death was part of what had kept Rez from coming to check on Benjamin sooner.
Unless the remaining bachelor stallions got busy and mated, kelpies were at risk of extinction. They weren’t invincible or immortal. They were just hard to find and kill.
Kelpies could and had been hunted. They were susceptible to certain illnesses. They could be trapped in their horse or human form if caught with an enchanted bridle, and without the ability to change, would age normally as members of either species.
Rez pushed the babies along, and they frolicked in the water.
A beautiful chestnut mare, young and likely fertile, approached Rez. She was the shaman and had inherited her magical abilities from her mother and her mother’s mother before her. The medicine mares used to abstain from mating and breeding, but the kelpies were at a point where everybody was required to avoid bloodlines dying out.
Dagny had made a play for Rez a year before during her vicious heat cycle, but Rez respected her too much to tie her to a loveless mating. She was special and deserved more.
“I come to you needing the wisdom of the mother-herd.” Rez spoke the ritual words.
Her eyes widened, and she shifted. Rez also transformed.
Dagny, naked, was even more beautiful as a woman. “What are you asking, Rez?”
“Has the sacrifice mark ever been removed?”
She sat on the beach and gestured to the sand beside her. “Of course. It disappears once the herd accepts the sacrifice.”
“Once they’re dead, you mean?”
“No, that’s your interpretation. The saying from the mothers is ‘once the sacrifice is accepted by the herd.’ Historically, it has been when the sacrifice is dead and delivered to the kelpies to feed. The mark disappears from the body—it dissolves away. But are you looking for another way? I can check the texts.”
“That would be great, Dagny. I owe the man who bears the mark a debt of honor, so I need to remove this curse upon him.”
“How strong does the bond of your debt, or your relationship, go? Are you willing to replace the sacrifice mark with a mating mark? If you could, if the herd accepted him, it would release him from the sacrifice. But you have to take him as a mate, and you have to replace him for the ritual—soon—tomorrow night.”
“I know. I’m not certain Benjamin would agree to a mating. He’s not gay. Plus, am I not needed to produce foals?”
She sat calmly, blinking slowly with a distinctly equine expression. “We need foals. Yet you have not mated to an appropriate female. I have wondered why. Perhaps this man is the reason.”
“I don’t know, Dagny. I know my duties, my responsibilities, but I haven’t felt the call of the heart with any candidate in our herd yet. The closest was with Kjell, but then two stallions would be removed from the breeding pool.”
“If we survive as a species, we cannot survive at the expense of the love and joy that allowed us to move beyond our ways when we killed for sport and tricked people into the water. One sacrifice each solstice is awful enough, but it is much less than before—and we can love and protect the humans. I believe we will overcome this infertile period. But I also believe you need to consider the man as a mate if you want to protect him. That’s the best option. Otherwise, I can consult the oracle, but sometimes I think she’s just old and senile.”
“Fucking amen to that,” Rez said. “It’s why I wanted to talk to you. I run from her whenever I see her.”
* * *
When Benjamin woke from his sleep, he didn’t sense that Rez had returned. He felt around near the bed and found folded clothes.
After some mild cursing, Benjamin had the T-shirt on correctly—right side out and tag in the back. It was a goddamn miracle. The sweats might be backward. He didn’t give a fuck. The layout of the condo and what was outside was fuzzy because his memory was as rooted in visual aids as his balance and perspective.
The hard way, then. Benjamin reached with his right hand until he found the wall, patted his way along it, scooting his feet slowly, so he didn’t kick anything or stumble. Eventually, he ended up at a door. He hoped it was not a closet.
It was cooler in the room beyond the door. Perhaps that meant it was closer to the outside? Following the wall again, he knocked over a small table with a lamp and ran into a couch. Or maybe an armchair. This shit would have been humiliating if someone, Rez, were here to see, but Benjamin didn’t want to just lie in bed waiting while life happened around him.
He either wanted to participate or quit. No in-betweens.
Quitting seemed much simpler. Benjamin had never been a quitter in the past, but he’d hit a point unimaginable in his previous life. Before, Benjamin was so busy that he didn’t stop to think much. He wasn’t a contemplative man.
Another door. It had a deadbolt lock and a safety chain. Outside door.
Well, Benjamin wasn’t a prisoner. The door was unlocked. Behind the door was another door—a screen, since he could feel the crisp air flowing through it. Actually, it was pretty brisk, and Benjamin thought maybe a jacket would be better than only a T-shirt, but he didn’t know whether there was one here and he didn’t want to go back and find out. So, he manned up and went outside. Beneath his bare feet were the wooden boards of a deck or porch. Nice.
Benjamin bumped into something and felt the outline of an Adirondack chair. With care, he found his way into the seat and put his feet up. It was cold, but the satisfaction of having done something warmed him for about half a second.
He hadn’t just waited for Rez to show back up while listening to sports he’d never play again.
He imagined the sun rising, maybe setting, over this barren seascape. Benjamin’s brain didn’t find the details as readily as it did when he had sight. Had he ever really paid attention to the beach before? He’d certainly not seen the view from this condo. Would it be different in summer,
or dreary all the time?
Was it dreary, or was that a reflection of his mood? Benjamin drifted as he imagined and tried not to worry about Rez’s mysterious quest. He’d been in the Navy. Drowning could be peaceful, or that’s what he’d heard.
It was already on his agenda, and he wasn’t concerned about what happened to his body once he was done with it.
His head hurt, so he opened one of the crinkly bags left by Rez. It ended up being potato chips. After he’d eaten every shard of chip, he took half a pain pill. He dozed.
After a while, a gentle hand lifted Benjamin’s chin, and he kept his eyes closed, just feeling.
“You’re shivering,” Rez said. “How long have you been out here?”
Benjamin shrugged. “No watch. Can’t read the clocks. No idea.”
“Well, you’re out here, so you’re not helpless. It’s almost dark. Sorry I took so long to get back. The currents were against me. I’m glad you got up.”
“You won’t be as glad when you see the lamp I broke.”
There was a rush of air, and Rez was crouching down or on his knees, which sent a jolt of confused heat through Benjamin.
Rez picked up one of Benjamin’s feet, searching with his fingers.
“I don’t think I stepped on any of the glass,” Benjamin said, but Rez picked up the other foot and checked anyway.
“Okay, you’re clear. This early phase of mobility will probably mean a lot of knocked-over objects.”
“Thanks, asshole.”
“No, I mean, it’s expected. I should’ve moved the lamp. I’ll move some of the furniture away, and the breakable stuff can go in cabinets while you’re here, while you’re learning. You can also tell me more about what the doctors and nurses said about adjusting to being without sight.”
“They sent me to a psychiatrist and a physical therapist. That’s pretty much it. Not a lot of compassion from the ones who treated me.”
Rez was quiet, crouched before Benjamin. He leaned in, grasping Benjamin’s upper arm.
Rez was close. Close enough that their breaths mingled. “I’m so damn sorry. It sounds trite, but it’s all my fault, and if I could trade places with you, I would. You deserve much better.”
