The Centaur's Wife

by Amanda Leduc

  Aura had been with him that day, years ago, when the girl and her father had come up the mountain. The two of them had been alone and basking in the sun, and suddenly there were human voices coming closer, carried to them on the wind. They shrank into the trees and watched the father and the girl climb up and stop in a small clearing on the path. Watched them sit down and open their packs and begin to eat.

  Aura moved toward the humans first. That is what happened.

  He still doesn’t know what alerted the father to their presence, whether it was Aura passing through a shaft of sunlight, a sound. But he looked up from his meal and straight at her, no longer quite as hidden in the trees. Then the girl looked up too, and gasped.

  He can close his eyes and see the scene in detail all these years later. The shock on their faces. The joy and the terror. Aura was close enough to touch, and the moment the father realized this, he stood and reached out, likely expecting something magical to happen.

  “Hello,” the father had breathed as he took hold of Aura’s wrist. She jumped back, startled, but he tightened his grip, turning to the girl. Estajfan couldn’t hear what he said to his daughter, but he watched betrayal bloom over her small face. As the father turned back to Aura, she yanked her hand away with such force the man pitched forward and wobbled, unsteady on the mountain rocks. And then he lost his balance and tumbled over the side of the mountain.

  Estajfan was almost in time, lunging for the man’s outstretched arms, his fingers brushing the father’s fingers, but he was gone, no time for screaming. They heard the impact in the trees so far below, then nothing.

  The girl stood frozen. He felt as if she could reach into his chest and know everything there was to know about him—the longing, the fear. Her shoulders began to heave and she opened her mouth. He was terrified that she would scream, that the mountain centaurs would hear her and come running and toss her off the mountain too. He scooped her into his arms before she had a chance. Then he was running down the path, the girl’s tears hot against his shoulder.

  He ran until they were at the base of the mountain, until they were in the forest, until they were outside the girl’s house. It took a long time. It took no time at all. He bent and put her on the ground; he expected her to collapse, but she stood firm.

  “How did you know where my house was?” she whispered. It was dark now, and her face was a collection of shadows.

  “I didn’t,” Estajfan said, because it was true. The house had called to him, alive with the girl and her memories. He’d never forget where it was.

  “What’s your name?” she said.

  “Estajfan.” A light came on in the dark house. “Don’t ever come up the mountain again,” he said. “You, or anyone else.”

  The girl nodded. He could see that she was still shivering—still waiting to scream. Somehow he knew that she wouldn’t tell anyone about it—Aura, how her father had died. He thought of Aura, whom he’d left alone on the mountainside.

  “Forgive me,” he said, finally. And then, “Forgive him.”

  He saw the girl’s fists tighten and he turned around and ran for the forest.

  The scream, when it came, reached him anyway.

  * * *

  Before the man fell, Estajfan had never dreamed. The first time it happened he woke up screaming, to find the mountain centaurs massed around him, silent and suspicious. Aura had come running too. “It’s all right, Estajfan,” she said. “It’s just a dream. It will go away.”

  She was wrong—the dream came back. It was always the same: the mountain, the father, the fall. The look of hurt on the child’s face. That tiny slice of time when the father’s fingers brushed his and then were gone. That tinier sliver when Estajfan had hesitated. These humans, climbing up into his home without asking. Touching Aura like she was something they owned.

  Expecting magic from them, like it was something they were owed.

  He didn’t dream of the girl. He didn’t need to. After her scream followed him back up the mountain, he felt her every day—a presence down below, a shadow that moved through the halls of her home. He knew that she was hurting. Though her pain dulled in time, every now and then her grief would spike, the swell of it so huge that Estajfan would have to stop and close his eyes.

  She had gone silent, lost her words. He could feel the worry of everyone around her. No one knew what to say, what to do.

  He did not know what to say, or do. As the anniversary of the father’s death approached, her silence grew loud and desperate. He felt her mind whirling up here, looking for him, as she trudged from school to home and back again.

  He woke on the morning of that first anniversary with a pain in his chest that wouldn’t go away and the remnants of a dream—this time of the girl, standing at the edge of a cliff. He paced the mountain path alone, wandering lower and lower, until he reached the spot where they’d picnicked a year ago.

  The flowers were as bright and red as ever. Beneath them, he saw the father’s knapsack, toppled on its side and crusted over with dirt. Animals had long ago eaten whatever food had been inside.

  He picked flowers until his arms were full, then slung the knapsack over his shoulder and made his way down the mountain.

  * * *

  Before he reaches their home on the mountain, another centaur stops him. Mossy green-brown eyes like his father’s. Hard like the mountain in everything else. A female palomino with white-blonde hair, like Aura’s.

  “The humans are ending,” she tells him. “You should not be going down the mountain anymore.”

  “I can’t leave them alone,” he says.

  The mountain centaur shrugs. “The more you try to stop what is happening, the more it will hurt.”

  He’s so tired of hearing them say this. They could all go down. They could help the humans find food. They could—he thinks of the way Heather’s father’s face erupted in joy at the sight of them so long ago—carry flowers right into the houses. The humans might be frightened at first, but beauty could bring them happiness too.

  Don’t they deserve that, at least?

  Doesn’t Heather?

  “You should stop thinking about what the humans deserve,” the centaur says, “and focus on what you deserve.”

  “No one deserves what’s going to happen next,” he says. He’s unsure what that is, exactly, but the rage deep in the ground makes him uneasy.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen either,” the centaur says. “And I don’t need to know. The mountain has given us what we need. Stay here, and let that be enough for you, too.”

  She isn’t being unkind—none of the mountain centaurs are unkind to him and his siblings, exactly, but they don’t understand him, and they don’t care to.

  That night he climbs to the top of the mountain and sees the palomino standing with another centaur. Watching for what, he doesn’t know. The stars pinwheel over their heads in a slow, constant circle. Estajfan goes to the three old willows and lets his heart reach deep into the ground.

  Da, he says. Show me what to do.

  His father has been dead for more years than he can count. And the mountain, if it has any wisdom, refuses to give it.

  * * *

  On that first anniversary the girl had found him in her backyard, half hidden in the trees. He’d dropped the knapsack at her feet and held the bouquet out to her.

  “What are those for?” she said. The first time he’d heard her voice since her father died.

  “They’re…for you,” he said.

  “Flowers aren’t going to bring him back.” But still she took them from him. She was thinner than she’d been a year ago. And taller, as though grief had stretched her out. She sniffed the flowers. “Why are you really here?”

  “You’ve been silent,” he said. “I was…worried.”

  The girl cleared her throat. “How would you know?
Have you been spying?”

  “Spying?” he said, confused. “I don’t know what that is. I can feel your silence.” He took a step closer. “Why aren’t you talking?”

  The girl shrugged. “I don’t have anything to say.” She put the flowers gently on the ground and then picked up the knapsack and sniffed it. “It still smells like him,” she said, surprised. “I thought it would smell like the mountain.”

  He looked up at the house. He could feel her mother in there somewhere, sleeping. “Your mother worries about you,” he said.

  She mulled this over. “Does she worry about you? The other…”

  “Centaur,” he said, giving her the word. “Sometimes. She’s my sister. She always worries.”

  The girl smiled faintly. “I don’t have a sister. No one worries about me except for my mom.”

  “Everyone worries about you. I can feel that, too.” He spread his hands. “If I could take anything back—”

  “It wasn’t your fault he fell.” She looked down at the flowers, cleared her throat. “The flowers he grew are dead now. My mother wouldn’t let me take care of them. She said the greenhouse was too close to the mountain. She’s afraid I’ll go back up.”

  “Will you?”

  The girl looked straight at him. “I miss the mountain. I was afraid of it, but I miss how it made me feel—strong.” She dropped her eyes as she whispered. “Was he right?”

  “You are not meant for the mountain,” he said. “The mountain will not save you. You do not need to be saved.” Her head went up at this, her gaze puzzled and hopeful as she tried to understand. “But,” he said, relenting, “I can bring you flowers, if you want.”

  He could tell that it wasn’t what she wanted, but she nodded. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Heather.” She looked back down at the flowers, then swallowed hard. “How come I’m the one that survived?”

  He thought of the way she made her way through the halls at school. The uneven, inexorable stride. And then he thought of his father, building their life on the mountain alone. “Maybe you were ready to survive,” he said. “Maybe you’ve always been ready.”

  “My father used to tell me stories,” she said. “No one’s told me stories for a year.”

  “A year,” he repeated, slowly. When she looked at him, he only shrugged. “Humans are like the stars that fall in the sky,” he said. “Everything about you is so quick, and then gone.” He cleared his throat. “I can tell you stories. My father used to tell us stories too.”

  “I would like that.”

  They stood for a moment in silence. Estajfan cleared his throat. “What kind of story would you like to hear?”

  She moved forward until she was standing directly beneath him.

  “Tell me where you come from,” she said. “Tell me about where you live.”

  * * *

  In the morning he wakes with a jolt, the air around him hushed and still, another dark dream about that day receding. The mountain centaurs are gone and he is alone on the summit.

  The air is clear here. It is so easy to believe that life on the mountain can continue exactly like this, forever.

  The red-haired man, he knows, is the father of her twins. Each day he tries to rebuild the city while Heather walks through the trees alone.

  She tells her daughters stories. She tells stories to herself. She doesn’t say his name.

  She is safe, at least for now. She said that she doesn’t want to see him.

  But he can keep her safe. Even if he can’t help everyone else.

  THE DOCTOR

  The doctor is invited to the mother’s second wedding. She toasts the beautiful blonde bride, the humble, happy farmer with his homely face and capable hands who is her new love. There is wine and good food, and the villagers are happy to see the doctor again, though there’s no denying that they’re also uneasy—they need her, but she reminds them of monsters. But there is nothing to worry about this time around. The new husband has lived here all his life—he went to the village school, spent his summers tending fields with his father. Great swathes of corn and acres of strawberries, row upon row of giant orange carrots and great purple beets. This was the kind of magic the villagers relied on. This was magic they understood.

  The mother and her new husband invite the doctor to stay with them. She sleeps in the old back room, the one with the fireplace, which they’ve converted into a bedroom with a view of the gardens. The table is gone. The floors are new, pale wood, smooth under her feet, scrubbed and sanded clean.

  The mother seems quieter now, her blonde hair slightly dulled. The doctor isn’t sure why she didn’t give the house to someone else, or even burn it down, but she doesn’t say this. Instead she toasts them at the wedding and wishes them nothing but the brightest kinds of happiness. She dances with the village boys. They laugh at the clomp of her boots, but she’s a good dancer, better than most. When the night ends, she stumbles back to the house alone and falls into bed, leaving the mother and her new husband in the wedding tent.

  In the middle of the night, the doctor wakes and hears footfalls outside her door. At first she thinks it’s the newlyweds—they’ve forgotten something, or maybe they need another blanket for the tent. But the steps pause and then someone softly turns the handle. The doctor leaps out of bed and grabs her satchel, searching for her favourite scalpel, polished and sharp. She finds it and holds it in front of her as the door swings open. She says a wordless prayer. She doesn’t believe in the gods, but the night is cold and she is alone and the gods, in this moment, are better than nothing.

  Solid darkness enters the room. The scalpel slips from her hands and clatters to the floor. “You,” she says.

  The husband—the first husband—cocks his head at her. His face is the same: the anguish hasn’t left him; the shadows are still there. He is quiet in the same way that the mother is—a silence that came in the wake of the children. This is not the first time that he’s been there—the doctor can see that right away. She’s also sure that the mother doesn’t know he comes at all.

  He is so much bigger. She wants to stare at the rest of him—the great black legs, the gleaming flanks—but that would be impolite. The doctor has been many things in her life, but she’s never been rude. She keeps her eyes on his face.

  “Me,” he says.

  How much pain fits in a word? She wants to cup her hands and catch it, throw it away from him the same way she’s disappeared so many other hurts. But there is no way to fix this. She can’t help it—she looks at the rest of him, at the body she doesn’t know.

  “I took them back,” he says. “To my home. I tried to save them.”

  How terrible, she thinks. The babies all dead.

  He sees this in her face and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I asked the mountain to make them human so I could bring them back. Instead,” and he indicates the new body she’s trying so hard to ignore, “it matched me to them.”

  The doctor doesn’t know what this means, the mountain, and she doesn’t want to ask. She takes a step closer to him. “So the babies survived?”

  He smiles. “Yes,” he says. “They are alive, and they are beautiful.”

  The rush of happiness almost makes her dizzy. She steps forward again and takes his hands—at first she isn’t sure that he’ll let her, but he does. She is a tall woman in a nightshirt, sleeping in an almost-stranger’s house. The events of a year ago feel like a dream.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she says. “They’ll come back soon.”

  “I saw her. In the wedding tent. With her new husband, and the villagers. I saw them all.”

  The doctor doesn’t let go of his hands. “You’ve built a new life for yourself. She has to do the same.”

  “The mountain is very beautiful,” he whispers. “I think—I know that she would love it.”


  The doctor shakes her head. “That doesn’t matter now. This is no longer your life.” She looks up to meet his eyes. “Your children need you. You can’t leave them alone.”

  “They’re so much like her,” he says. “So impulsive, so angry.”

  “And you’ve never done an impulsive thing in your life? You’ve never been angry or sad enough to tear the world apart?”

  He smiles again, a little. “Perhaps.”

  “I would love to see them again.”

  He shakes his head, pulls his hands away. “They are on the mountain now,” he says. “They will stay on the mountain. It is safer for them there.”

  “I won’t hurt them,” she says.

  “You are of the human world, and that world will hurt them if it gets too close. I can’t let that happen.”

  The doctor lets it go, and backs away. As she does, she steps on the scalpel and bends down to retrieve it.

  “Were you going to attack me with that?” he asks, amused. “It looks sharp.”

  It is. The doctor’s father made a set of these for her after she’d finished her schooling. It is its own work of art—polished steel, the handle traced with tiny stems and flowers. Her hands are steadier when she works with this knife. It is her favourite tool.

  This is the one she used to cut the mother open a year ago, here in this very room. She watches the first husband remember this and look away from her.

  “I’ll go now,” he says. “You’re right—I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Wait,” the doctor says, almost without thinking. She reaches into her satchel, finds the drawstring bag where she stows her knives for safekeeping. She slips her favourite tool into the bag and removes the others. “Take this,” she says. “This knife brought you your children. Look at it and remember—from pain, also life. From death, another life.”

  He hesitates, then takes the bag. “Thank you,” he says. He ducks back through the door.