Paranormally Yours: A Boxed Set

by Alisha Basso

  “There are record books in Lerom.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  The horses were not speaking to him, so he stood. He could not tell if she communed with dead or living horses, or both, but the fell bearing of a warrior ready for battle wrapped her like a hauberk.

  “We can still reach the inn tonight—”

  “I must stay here.”

  Leinos set to ordering their things, started a fire, and brewed a strong pot of tea. The chilly wind that had driven rain and sleet in their faces had eased, but the rest of the night would be cold if they did not get dry.

  “Are you not worried about Pindar?”

  She stood, wiping her hands together. “He’s near.” She whistled. A single answering whinny floated eerily on the damp breeze. She nodded as if this was exactly what she expected.

  They ate in silence. He kept a wary eye on her, but she appeared to be absorbed with the visions within and only stared into the flames, her deep, brown eyes luminous. He spread their sleeping furs and noticed part of the seam holding them together had split. Whether they slept on the plain or continued to the inn, he could take a few moments to repair it.

  “When Pindar returns and eats some grain, we can continue,” she said.

  He didn’t bother wondering when she thought the horse might return, for it did not matter. They would wait. She started to hum. He could not decide whether she was recovered or only hiding her distress. For a change, her hands were still. She held nothing, did not fidget, had not picked up a piece of wood to tap while she thought.

  With the fur across his lap, he began to sew.

  From across the fire, she observed him for a time, her gaze slowly becoming more focused. “I’m curious, Supreme Guardian,” she said. “You cook, sew, save lives with aplomb, wield crossbow and stave equally well, and have some other hidden power I don’t understand. You make a good pot of tea. You’d be quite a catch where I come from. Is there anything you can’t do?”

  He stabbed himself with the needle. “Ebro’s blood!”

  “Perhaps I spoke to soon? Who is Ebro?”

  An unfamiliar feeling of pleasure laced with annoyance made him cross. He did not get cross. And that vexed him even more.

  “Indeed, my lady, there are many things I am incapable of.” He sucked his injured finger, then added. “Ebro was the first Horsecaller.”

  Her brows drew together, and she looked at him very hard for a long moment, then smiled a small and enigmatic smile, and turned to stare into the middle distance. He finished the tight, even stitches with a knot, and asked, “What do you see?”

  Without turning back to him, she said, “I met The All at the spring.”

  He had suspected as much. An uncharitable stab of envy caught him unaware, but he resisted the urge to deny the possibility. His emotions had never been so close to the surface as they had since Lauren’s arrival.

  “If I were in my own world,” she continued, “I would be drinking a glass of wine and reading a book. My cats would be snuggled up with me.” She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them.

  “Tell me about your life there.”

  She sipped tea. Her eyes held a hint of bitter amusement. “It was small,” she said.

  “Small?”

  “Um-hm. I made sure it was. Safe. Small was…right. Big was wrong.”

  He did not pretend to understand, but nodded.

  “My mother always said that my father liked to ‘live big,’” she explained. “That’s why he left us. She was so sad and lonely. I concluded that big was wrong and vowed to live small.”

  She shivered. He lifted the fur, she got next to him, and he draped it around them.

  “I was five,” she said. “I remember him as joyful and exuberant. He was big, in his way, and he loved us—in his way. Leaving wasn’t right, but I missed him. Missed his bigness, but swore to stay small so I could never hurt anyone like that.”

  Another shiver took her, and he put his arm around her. He understood how children could get things wrong and carry those ideas all their lives.

  “And now?” he asked.

  “I’m not so sure. There were good things about him. All of a sudden, my whole life is big. Really, really big.”

  “And frightening?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “Nothing is either all good or all bad.”

  She leaned against him. He had not spoken the truth, he realized. Some things were all good.

  “But I was so convinced,” she said. “So sure.”

  She sighed and relaxed more deeply into the safe—and very big—embrace of the Supreme Guardian.

  Lauren wanted to stay exactly where she was. Just the two of them and the fire. No flying bird-men, no sages or crones, no desperate need to find a missing herd before everyone died, and no goddess who might sink under the weight of unanswered prayers. Just the two of them and Pindar, who was drawing near.

  He’d become an extension of herself in the last couple of days. Or maybe she was an extension of him. Either way, their connection, which she had always thought strong, had become something much, much more powerful.

  This was big, all right. But it felt more right with each passing moment.

  She hoped Steven would understand.

  “I lived my fear,” she said, thinking out loud. It would take a while to tease meaning from all she felt. “Never engaged life.” Now, life had taken her by the throat and nearly strangled her. It had her attention.

  Pindar strolled into their camp, a blade of grass hanging out one side of his mouth, a white blossom from the other. She laughed and offered him water collected from a puddle, then grain. And tucked herself next to Leinos again to wait.

  “He is so magnificent,” he said. “And also so…”

  “Mysterious?”

  “Yes. That is the right word. How do you understand him?”

  “I don’t pretend to. I try to keep in mind the words of our God in a book called the Bible. In one part, there’s this guy named Job, and God decides to tell him a thing or two about how things are. ‘Do you give the horse his strength, and endow his neck with splendor?’ He asks.”

  “Sounds like the goddess. What else did He say?”

  She took a deep breath and recited with all the gravitas she could muster. “‘Do you make the steed to quiver while his thunderous snorting spreads terror?’” Lauren stopped, thinking how Pindar had participated in the fight, not just carried her through it.

  Leinos watched the horse peacefully munching grain. “‘Thunderous snorting,’” he said. “I like that. Is there more?”

  She summoned the rest of the verses. It was the only part of the Good Book she knew. “He goes on to say, ‘He jubilantly paws the plain and rushes in his might against the weapons.’” She pictured Pindar rushing across the Resting Plains into the dark unknown. He’d known what he was doing.

  “I don’t remember all of it,” she lied.

  She knew it by heart. The visions of the war that had dropped her to her knees came back full force like a gut-punch. Sights, sounds, and smells. She took a calming breath. The All’s counsel to choose love or fear echoed. She considered mystery like she never had before.

  And looked at Pindar with new eyes, recalling how he’d stomped the bird-men, and reciting to herself the next line God spoke of the horse:

  He laughs at fear and cannot be deterred…

  Chapter 17

  A lone, welcoming torch beckoned out of the dark and wet of a muddy crossroads, swinging and guttering in the wind. Gentle rain had started again when they reached the edge of the plain, and the bare trees to either side of the dirt road did nothing to slow its descent. Leinos strode unerringly through the night. She couldn’t see her feet let alone the way but liked being cocooned in the dark with him, soft drops pattering around them. She trusted him.

  The thought startled her.

  She hadn’t trusted a man in…she didn’t trust men, period, the
only exceptions being her brother and his sons. She had trusted Darren, and that had been a colossal mistake. Was she making another? Did she have a choice? No. Despite what Pheeso had said, she couldn’t turn away. Not now.

  They made their way slowly but steadily. Lauren didn’t want to risk Pindar slipping in the deep footing. Even though he didn’t appear to suffer any ill effects from the attack, there was no point taking chances. Her own body, however, was beginning to complain. She’d wrenched her back whacking at the flying bird-men, and most of her muscles felt pulled, overworked, bruised.

  She walked, Leinos beside her, and the continuous movement helped postpone the inevitable stiffness and pain that would set in after she’d slept. She also postponed examining the idea that someone was out to get her.

  It didn’t matter whether she believed. Someone wanted the Horsecaller dead and that meant someone wanted her dead.

  If Leinos felt anxious about their pace, he hid it well. For a change, she was the one who was impatient, frustrated with each step farther from the Bitter Reaches. They were now traveling south, directly away from the troubled herd.

  The talk with the horses had galvanized her resolve. Their essence, or spirits, or souls pulled at her, demanding justice, peace, reunion. They called her as surely as she must call them. The need to do this had become as essential as eating and sleeping. More so, for she would do without both to find Cirq’s horses. After that, well, someone had to train the people. That someone would be her.

  Her old life, all aspects of which she had considered important, if not necessary, four short days ago faded moment by moment, becoming the dream. Despite deprivation, uncertainty, fear, and fatigue, she didn’t miss it. Surely there was something wrong with her. For a while, she recited numbers to herself. Phone numbers, accounts, passcodes. Remembering them didn’t make the old more real than what was right in front of her.

  A certain grim satisfaction came to her, though, imagining Darren, baffled by her disappearance. He’d always accused her of being predictable. Visualizing the look on his face made her smile.

  Leinos told her about the Horseguard, who should already be at the inn, how a small contingent had always been retained, secret from their enemies. They spent their days keeping up the royal stables and cleaning tack, making Cirq’s saddles and bridles the most well-oiled leather in all the universe.

  He never offered anything of himself or his family except to explain that Guardians were chosen or could volunteer. He had picked his words carefully, reluctant or unsure how much to disclose. She grasped at any crumbs that would reveal his inner workings to her, to show what he hoped for besides finding Cirq’s horses and returning plenty to the land and its people.

  After Guardians completed their training in a distant place maintained by the sages and crones, they received their powers in a ceremony—secret of course—and took certain vows. She’d been about to encourage him to elaborate on that when the solitary light appeared, casting a golden glow into the damp air.

  It turned out to be a lantern held by a man peering into the darkness from beneath a dripping cloak. She thought it was Pheeso at first, but this man wore a stained apron dragging in the mud, and the rest of his threadbare clothes hung loosely from a small, bony frame.

  Leinos’s grasped the man’s wrist. “Belenn, old friend.”

  Belenn dipped his head. “Too long, Supreme Guardian, too long since we shared a cup.” His bald pate bobbed up and down in the wobbly light.

  “The Horsecaller,” Leinos said, inclining his head toward her.

  Belenn released Leinos and dropped to his knees in the mud.

  “My lady.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but was at a loss, overcome. Instead, he smiled crookedly at her and Pindar, revealing uneven, yellow teeth.

  Lauren took him by the elbow and encouraged him to stand. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

  Belenn returned his attention to Leinos, but the smile remained. “Everything is as you requested. Follow me.”

  He started off, holding the lantern high for them to see. “The stable is ready,” he said over his shoulder. “Long it has been since anyone stayed there. Except, of course, when guests sleep there, for a reduced rate, of course. But we have had no guests since, well, since the last time you were here. And that has been too long.” He hopped over a puddle. “Too long.”

  He led the way around the side of the inn, across a cobbled courtyard, and into a cozy barn.

  She untacked Pindar, put him in a large, well-bedded stall next to what looked like an ordinary cow. Such relief to see a familiar creature. The cow lifted her head and she and Pindar sniffed each other.

  Lauren inhaled deeply the homey and heady scents of hay, straw, and manure. Leinos and Belenn watched while she pushed the worst of the wet out of the horse’s coat with a brush. A bucket of fresh water took his attention. She poked around the dark recesses of the low-ceilinged building to find something for the horse’s back while he dried, Belenn skipping to keep up and hold the lantern so she could see.

  Another stall had been converted into a chicken coop where a few scrawny birds roosted.

  She grabbed a dusty blanket to shake it out and dropped it with a yelp. Two bodies—no. Malek and Armody jumped up, rubbing sleep from their eyes and blinking in the light. Malek saluted and swayed sleepily before the girl propped him up with a steadying hand.

  “What are you two doing here?” Lauren asked.

  “My little cousin insisted we wait for you,” Armody said around a yawn, “And I could not let him stay out here alone.”

  “A fine welcoming committee,” Belenn said.

  “Indeed,” Leinos breathed on a tired sigh, but she could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Thank you,” Lauren said. “It’s good to see you. And look,” she pointed at the big gray hanging his head over the stall door. “Pindar is happy to see you, too.”

  They both went to the horse. Armody stayed back, but Malek put his hand on Pindar’s cheek.

  “You missed me, did you not, big one?”

  He let himself into the stall and examined the horse’s flank, running his fingers over the ridges left by the yekerk. Watching the boy with Pindar, something soft welled up in her chest, one part tenderness, one part contentment, and mostly, if she were honest, exhaustion, but a lovely feeling just the same.

  Belenn handed her a different blanket and she billowed it up and over the big horse’s back. Malek helped her pat it around him as if they were tucking him in for the night.

  “Will you take refreshment, Lady Horsecaller?” Belenn asked.

  Lauren shook her head. “I can sleep here. That’s all I want right now.”

  “He will be safe,” Leinos said, “I promise. I will put the Horseguard on watch once you are settled. And…” He tilted his head toward the inn. “There is a room upstairs with a bed.”

  “And a fire,” Belenn added.

  She could easily sink down right there and curl up in the corner to sleep. But if there was a bed available, who was she to argue? Still, she was nervous about leaving Pindar. Odd—she hadn’t worried about him running loose out on the rain-soaked plain in the dark. She put her hand on his neck. He wuffled softly, tossing hay from side to side, finding the best bits.

  “We will stay with him,” Armody said.

  Malek nodded eager agreement.

  “And take care of his needs in the morning. I know what to do,” the boy added. “You showed me. You should rest.”

  “That’s tempting,” Lauren said, “but I’ll be fine, really. You kids go inside.”

  Leinos studied her, his look measured, giving nothing away, and she realized that if she didn’t go, neither would he. He’d never complain or admonish her. He’d stay with her, damn him. Which was exactly what she wanted—his arm around her, his warmth, his comfort—more. She had a sneaking suspicion the bed upstairs would be hers, and hers alone. She would be apart from her horse and her…Guardian.

  Oh, but a bed
, what luxury. Sheets. A pillow. It would be dry and soft. Even if she could deny herself, she couldn’t do it to him. His joints creaked as much as hers in the morning, and she’d caught him kneading and rolling his right shoulder more than once, working out the kinks after rising, when she suspected he thought no one was looking. She was aware of him every moment, tasted him on her tongue like bittersweet chocolate, couldn’t shake him if she tried.

  She hadn’t.

  She sighed and gave a tired nod and followed them through a back door and up three flights of stairs to the top of the building where two rooms were tucked beneath the sloping roof. Hers was in the front, the larger of the two, the best in the house, she guessed. There was a fire and bed with a quilt, and suddenly getting into it was all that mattered.

  Leinos stared at his bed from a chair by the fire. Belenn had provided a flask of masava. Not his best vintage, but it burned a satisfying trail from lips to stomach and served to take the edge off his ill temper.

  He had successfully hidden his mood from Lauren, but Belenn left quickly, all too familiar with the result of provoking the Supreme Guardian when he took to drink, rare as that was. Then again, the innkeeper should be eager to grab what sleep he could. His day would start soon enough.

  He could not pinpoint the exact source of his dark thoughts. They had started the day before and been fueled by the yekerk attack and their detour out into the middle of the Resting Plains. After seeing Lauren to her quarters, he had roused the snoring Horse Guard. There had been a great deal of grousing until they saw who disturbed their precious rest. Pheeso was right. They had grown oversoft.

  Even that did not fully explain why he was on edge, more wary than usual.

  He could blame the Horsecaller. How her generous mouth quivered when she tried not to laugh and trembled when she was afraid. It always gave her away. The silver threads in her hair, and the web of wisdom around her eyes…when she smiled. Or her quiet acceptance of their demands. Her clumsy—and effective—attempt to provide comfort to him simply by staying near. The curve of her hip against his. The way her breathing fell into perfect time with his when she slept. Comfort. There would be none for him in what was left of this night.