A Shiver of Blue

by Everly Frost

  Racehorses. I pictured Cloud and the way he’d burst into a gallop at the slightest indication, his elegant hind legs propelling us forward without any effort at all. It made sense now. No wonder our horses were the best.

  “They only moved out here when Mom was pregnant with Samuel and the doctors said she needed to rest. But the life they used to live. Oh.” Her chest rose and fell with a deep, indrawn breath. “Dad still has a lot of friends, and they’re all coming here. Well, not here to the house, not all at once—but to town. Meggy said everyone’s talking about it. Isn’t it amazing?”

  “Uh-huh.” I stared at my painting, my stomach filled with fear. “It’s great. Aunt Alice, you said it would be a proper dance. Will you teach us to dance? Because I don’t know how.”

  Alice nodded, but her expression was reserved. She’d watched me the whole time Rebecca was talking, assessing my reaction. “I know it’s a lot to take in, Caroline, but your lives can be so much better than they are.”

  I swallowed. “What about Edith? What does she think about all this?”

  Alice pressed her lips together and for a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. “Edith understands it’s necessary.”

  I chewed my lip, trying not to shake my head. Alice’s response told me that Edith didn’t like it either, but somehow I suspected Edith had negotiated her own terms. Unlike me. I was going to be swept along with what other people wanted, whether I liked it or not.

  I frowned at what I’d painted.

  The mess I thought I was making had taken shape while we talked.

  It had formed into the shape of a cloaked figure racing through the night, a snarling dog at its heels. The painting was red and black. There were sharp teeth and claws that ripped, an icy cold heart, and a shadow blade.

  Do you see the shadow? asked the other me.

  I gasped, dropping the paintbrush, but Alice and Rebecca were back in deep conversation and didn’t notice.

  I said, “I need some fresh air.”

  “Yes, of course, dear.”

  I left before they saw the painting, taking it with me. I gulped fresh air outside the room. Before I drew breath, Mrs. Drew’s voice projected down the hallway, saying something about “enough potatoes.”

  I rushed to avoid her and bumped into Edith instead. I quickly turned the painting away.

  “You’ve heard the good news?” she asked.

  I nodded and realized that for the first time we had something in common. “I’m supposed to learn to dance.”

  She scoffed, not quite looking at me. She wore a new pearl necklace around her neck, placed against her collar. Matching earrings dropped from her ears. A sash rested elegantly around her waist in the curve above her hips.

  She tilted her long neck as she said, “Well, better you than me.”

  She wafted away to intercept Mrs. Drew, and I blinked at the three small flowers pinned above the elaborate curls at the back of her head. She started harassing the older woman about something to do with Samuel’s room, and I hovered there in the shadows of the hall, halfway between light and dark.

  Do you see the shadow?

  I wanted to slap my hands over my ears. I wanted to run to the stables like I would have in the past, but a pang of terror struck me, more real than my fear of the voice at the back of my mind.

  Going to the stables meant returning to the place where I found out about Cloud; it meant remembering that he was dead.

  I pressed my hand to my heart, at the pain that squeezed my chest. I hadn’t gone back to the stables since the day I collapsed.

  Forcing one foot in front of the other, I approached the sunlit door and headed down the new pathway around the side of the house. I stopped at the trashcan and threw the painting into it.

  In the distance, the stockyards were busy. Dad was in the middle of selling one of the herds, and the whole place was filled with the cusses of men and braying beasts. I was glad to turn away and head to the quieter horse yards.

  When I arrived, the stables were almost empty and most of the horses were out. I wandered out through the back, my boots tapping against the pavement.

  I paused outside Cloud’s stall, taking a deep breath before I looked inside. It didn’t look any different, but I was glad to see it was clean. A splash of color drew my eye to an object at the end of the stall: a horseshoe painted gold hung there like a tribute.

  I exhaled slowly, spilling out the last of my sadness, releasing it before I continued through the back of the stables.

  The horses were running in the yards, and Jack hung on the wooden fence, watching the bay mare, Magenta, do her paces. I crept up beside him. I was worried that he wouldn’t want me there, but he reached out to ruffle my hair like he did when I was a little girl—just to annoy me.

  He stopped when he realized my hair was full of pins. His eyebrows went all the way up his forehead as he leaned back, still suspended with one hand on the fence, to study my hair and dress.

  “Who did that to you, Miss Caroline?” Then, he laughed. “And why did you let them?”

  I rolled my eyes in response, resisting the urge to climb up onto the fence and perch there as I would have done only months before. I hadn’t healed that much yet and I couldn’t get away with it in stockings—the rough wood would tear a hole in them in seconds.

  “How’s she going?” I asked, waving in the direction of the bay mare.

  Jack’s perceptive eyes returned to Magenta. “Nathan says she could be a race horse. He’s convinced your father to let him train her.”

  A racehorse. “Dad doesn’t like being told what to do with his horses.”

  Jack’s grin split his tanned face with white teeth. “Yeah, but Harry hasn’t owed anyone a debt for the life of his daughter before.”

  It was my turn to be surprised. Jack ignored me, watching the animals again. I peered over the fence, taking in the man on the horse.

  A flood of memories washed over me: intense eyes and tanned skin, strong arms, a voice full of emotion.

  Nathan rode over to us, halting Magenta in front of me so I could stroke her nose through the fence palings, tracing the flecks of white around her jaw, focusing on how soft it felt. I was suddenly too scared to look up.

  “Hello, girl,” I said to her. “It’s been a while.”

  Finally I looked up at Nathan to find him watching me with those eyes. Somehow I found my voice. “Jack said you’re going to train her.”

  “Yep. She’s strong and fast. With training, she could be even faster.”

  “Have you trained racehorses before, then?”

  He shrugged, broad shoulders rising and falling. “A bit.”

  There was a curve to his lips, a smile that suggested he’d worked with racehorses more than just a bit. He dismounted and led Magenta to the side gate and back toward the stables. I followed slowly, watching as Jack and Nathan talked. When I reached the stables, Jack disappeared and Nathan unsaddled Magenta and brushed her down, talking to her all the while. I sat on a nearby bale of hay just inside the doors and watched him with the horse.

  The late morning sun glinted off his bare arms. He was tall, but not overly so. I studied his hands. They were strong, large, and weathered in a good way. I glanced at his face. He was looking back at me with a smile.

  “Do I pass?”

  I laughed. For the first time in a very long time, it felt like a real laugh.

  “I’m sorry.” Then I struggled to explain. “It’s just that there are snatches—pictures—in my head. Moments I can remember and others I can’t. I feel like we’ve met, but we haven’t really.”

  He reached out his hand. “Hello, I’m Nathan.”

  I laughed again. It felt good to laugh. I took his hand, sensed warmth in his fingers and the brush of skin on skin. Just like before, as soon as we touched, there was nobody in my head but me. She was gone.

  “I’m Caroline.”

  He let go of my hand too soon and looked at me with that same curve on
his lips.

  I asked. “Where did you work before you came here?”

  He shrugged and went back to brushing Magenta. “A lot of places. I started in Omaha city and worked my way out here.”

  “That’s a long way away.” I wondered why he would want to leave a place like that.

  He seemed to read my thoughts. “The city’s not for me. I’d rather have space.”

  He finished brushing Magenta and led her away to her stall for a feed. I wondered if I should go. I stood up when he didn’t reappear, waiting another moment before turning to the big doors.

  His voice reached me. “Caroline?”

  I found him standing there. He seemed unsure of himself for the first time. “When you want to… I mean, when you feel ready… would you like to come for a ride with me?”

  My stomach turned into a thousand dragonflies.

  I must have gone pale, because he backpedaled. “Of course, I understand if you don’t want to ride another horse yet, that’s okay. I know what it’s like to lose a horse… well, not the way you did, but I, um, well… Jack said you used to ride every day.”

  He’d spoken to Jack about me. I smiled, wishing those little critters would leave my stomach. “Yes, I did, every single day. So… when the doctor lets me, I’ll come for a ride.”

  I stopped for another moment. I wanted to tell him that I’d go right then, that I didn’t need the doctor’s permission.

  He smiled as if he read my mind. “When you’re ready, let me know.”

  Chapter 10

  THREE DAYS LATER, I ran my hand along the fresh, clean walls in the hallway, the path of my fingers broken here and there by a painting or two. I still hadn’t absorbed the changes to our house; the expensive originals on our walls, vases of flowers, and decorative pieces of furniture. The tattered chairs and scratched tables were gone—burning in the pot-belly stove. Even the panes of glass in the windows were new.

  I missed the fine mist of dust that settled in corners, muddy boots at the door, and dripping coats on rainy days. I even missed washing day when we would all converge on the laundry with our piles of dirty clothes and argue about who got to use the washing machine first.

  Rebecca and Aunt Alice never stopped painting, dancing, or discussing where a fork and knife were supposed to go in a proper dinner arrangement. They were in the sitting room right then, surrounded by colorful china and flowers, while the rest of the house was so white.

  The smell of paint caught in my nose. I scuffled in my new leather shoes and my hand moved from the wall to my face, to the scar that baffled the doctor. At his last visit, he gave me a disapproving look through thick glasses, as though he thought I’d deliberately turned him into a liar: the scar had not healed like he’d said.

  Since that night, I hadn’t told anyone about the shadow pressing into my wound, opening it up again. Even now, I convinced myself it was a dream. There was nobody in my room, no shadow voice, and no recently vacated chair, creaking back and forth.

  I reached the quiet living room and turned the corner, stopping when I saw Edith sitting at an easel with the sunshine outlining her figure. Samuel, always somewhere nearby, sat at a side table, scratching at a book with a pen, calculating mathematical formulae.

  I slid over to him and watched over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “Algebra,” he grumbled.

  I touched his shoulder, sensing the tension in his torso, and glanced at Edith. I held my breath, ready for a scolding for interrupting Samuel’s study. The light caught the pearl necklace decorating her neck as she shifted in her chair, but she remained fixated on her painting.

  Samuel turned his brown eyes on me. He glanced at the open door. In the distance, the cattle called, dogs yapped, and he leaned toward it all.

  He said, “Dad’s got a new bull coming in today. Timothy’s down there with him, moving the herds around.”

  Creeping across the room, I leaned out of the door, inhaling the scent of earth and fresh cut grass that glided with the breeze across the veranda. Samuel dropped his pen on the floor, picked it up, and I met his trapped face across the distance.

  I chewed my lip, wondering if I could somehow distract Edith long enough for Samuel to escape. She’d filled her canvas with golden shapes, an image of intricate lines and fair shadows that blossomed into trees—a forest of them wound together around a bright path.

  Stepping closer, I said, “I didn’t know you could paint.”

  “I’m rusty. But it’s coming back to me.” She started mixing another color on the palette, absorbed in the swirling paint. “Our mother taught me.”

  “She painted, too?”

  Edith gave me a don’t-be-stupid glance. “Of course she did. They all did.” The paintbrush fluttered in her strong hand. “Mom and her friends—back in the city. Before she… before…” Her brush stopped swirling. A scowl darkened her face. “I don’t appreciate being interrupted, Caroline.”

  I took a step back and glanced at Samuel. So much for helping him escape.

  That was when Collette stepped inside the room. “Miss Caroline?”

  I sighed beneath my breath. “Yes, Collette?”

  “Your aunt asked for you to join your sister for a piano lesson in the music room.”

  “Piano?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Really?”

  The corner of Edith’s lips rose in amusement. I tried to ignore her, focusing on Collette as she bobbed her head. “Yes, miss.”

  On my way, I passed through the hall and the open front door, pausing in the middle of a sunbeam shining across the floor. A small shadow passed by, flitting in and out of my vision—one of Edith’s new pups straying across the front veranda. She had a way with them, training the ranch dogs, so Dad always gave her the new ones until they were ready to work the ranch. When I looked again, the pup was gone.

  Like a call to me, music wafted from the piano room, and I couldn’t deny how amazing it was to have music in our house. But I hesitated with my hand on the doorknob, because the sneaky breeze delivered the earthy scent of the stables through the door and, like Samuel, my whole body strained toward it.

  There was no law that said I had to learn piano.

  Or, at least, not today.

  I glanced around, but Collette was gone. Filled with rebellion, I ran to the internal stairs and up to my room, changing into my old riding clothes. Alice wouldn’t approve, but there was no way I was going to wear the blue riding suit she’d bought me. Still, I put on my new riding boots and sneaked downstairs, out the back, and down to the stables.

  I sauntered up to the Lodge behind the stables, inhaling the scent of coffee and toast, and gave the door a good couple of thumps.

  Jack spat crumbs as he opened the door. “Miss Caroline.”

  I looked past him to Nathan, sitting inside. “Want to ride?”

  Jack scowled. Nathan laughed.

  He made me wait for him while he finished his coffee, and then we headed out past the dam and away through the pasture.

  We rode two of the lesser mares. Magenta was too valuable to be ridden for fun and I hadn’t bonded with any of the other horses. We chose a slow pace, since it was my first ride since the accident, and passed the thick woods along the way. I urged my horse into a trot to pass the forest, and at last we were into a good patch of open land, with very little shrub and bush.

  Nathan was mostly quiet. And then he said, “Your aunt doesn’t know you’re out here, does she?”

  I rolled my eyes. “She wanted me to play the piano. I’m too old to learn.”

  “Your sister plays.”

  “She plays and I ride. She doesn’t ride anymore and I wouldn’t force her to.”

  A twinge of guilt played in my stomach but I exhaled it away. The horses’ hooves thrummed in the thick grass. It was bright green after recent rain and engulfed my view. It made me think of grasshoppers and green candy like Mr. Daffy sold at his store
in town.

  “Rebecca has… changed. We used to want the same things and now… we don’t. These days, we’re a lot more different than we used to be.”

  I sighted across the land to a lone oak tree out in the paddock, trying to shrug it off.

  “Let’s stop under the oak,” he suggested, and I nodded agreement.

  When we reached it, I slid off my horse while Nathan took care of the mares. I perched on a log as he handed me a cup of water. We hadn’t brought any food, but I knew better than to go out without water. I reveled in the silence around us as we drank.

  There were no white walls out here. No pretty music to make me feel guilty.

  “Magenta’s coming along nicely. Your father wants to send her to the city in another few months, see how she does at the races. I think he wants me to go with her.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I think I’ll talk him out of it. Me going, I mean. I like training horses, but I don’t need to see the city again.”

  “You grew up there?”

  “Sort of.”

  I contemplated the cup I was holding, a thousand questions on the tip of my tongue. The one that emerged first was the one I didn’t know was there, waiting to leap out at us both.

  “Why do you care what happens to me?”

  He shifted, stared into his cup, running his finger around the rim. I watched it: round and round until my cheeks burned.

  “That day, when you came back to the stables and Cloud was gone…” He stopped. “No, it was before that. It was when I found you and you were alive. Nobody survives that kind of attack unless they’re meant to.”

  I scooted closer to him. “What did you see when you found me?”

  He gave me a concerned look, held my eyes with his. “Caroline, if you don’t remember, then you aren’t meant to know.”

  “But what was it? What attacked me?”

  “Some kind of wild dog. It must have been. You were all torn up. There were teeth marks…”