Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits

by Robin McKinley

  She was also extremely pretty.

  Jane started calling her the Paragon. ʺCynic,ʺ said Miri.

  ʺThere has to be something wrong with her,ʺ said Jane.

  There was. She had two left feet. ʺI’m all left feet,ʺ she said. ʺI’m not just chosen last for volleyball or whatever, whichever team has to have me bursts into tears.ʺ And Mal was determined to teach her to ride.

  Mal wasn’t horse-obsessed like his mother and sister, but he (like Ned) helped out when they were shorthanded—which was, as with most stables, rather often—and was rarely cranky about it. He was also quite a good rider himself, to his sister’s considerable annoyance, because he had a natural gift for it and she had to work hard for every tiny scrap she learned.

  ʺDon’t worry about it,ʺ said Jane. ʺIt was just like that with my brother and me.ʺ

  ʺThe brother who made his first million when he was twenty-four and has a ranch in Wyoming?ʺ

  ʺHe’s never in Wyoming. He’s too busy earning his next million. You wouldn’t want to be like that, would you?ʺ

  ʺI’d get out to Wyoming more often,ʺ said Miri.

  But Mal, being a natural rider, didn’t have a clue how to teach someone who wasn’t. Jane and Miri assumed that teaching Leslie to ride would fizzle out: Mal couldn’t teach and Leslie couldn’t learn. But it didn’t. Mal kept asking if any of the beginner horses were free and if so when, and Leslie kept showing up looking determined, and trying to give Jane or Miri money, which they kept refusing.

  The afternoon that Leslie appeared in a new pair of riding breeches and riding helmet (she’d been using one of the stable’s helmets), Miri said, ʺOkay, look. This is silly. I’ll give you lessons. Mal couldn’t teach a tadpole to swim.ʺ

  ʺIt’s not him,ʺ Leslie said. ʺTwo left feet, remember? It’s me.ʺ

  ʺThen why do you want to learn to ride?ʺ Miri said with genuine curiosity.

  Leslie turned away and stroked the cheek of Rainbow, who had her head over her stall door, hoping for stroking. ʺBecause . . . oh, because I’m used to being good with animals. I’m resigned to being horrible at sports. I’ve always avoided riding lessons because I was afraid this would happen—because I knew this would happen—but I’d love to be able to ride, you know? I don’t have to be good—like you or Mal—just—oh, I’d like to be able to go trail-riding with Mal. And canter where there’s a good place to canter. And jump over the big log.ʺ

  ʺOkay,ʺ said Miri. ʺIt’s always good to know what you’re aiming at. I’ll teach you to ride till you can canter out on the trailʺ (to herself adding, on a carefully selected bombproof horse) ʺalthough I don’t promise any jumping. We’ll see how it goes. Okay?ʺ

  Leslie, to her surprise, hesitated momentarily. ʺHow much does—do you charge?ʺ

  ʺSave your money for a car,ʺ said Miri. ʺSo I don’t have to pick Mal up after any more parties.ʺ

  Leslie was hard work. Miri pulled every trick she knew about teaching riding out of her hat and Leslie still needed two bounces for every stride when she tried to post to the trot. She could drop her legs straight down the horse’s sides when her feet were out of the stirrups but as soon as she put them back in the stirrups she stiffened up and began to crouch. ʺLet’s play a game,ʺ said Miri. ʺLet’s pretend that you don’t know that you have two left feet. Let’s pretend you’re just an ordinary person who wants to learn how to ride.ʺ

  ʺIt’s hopeless, isn’t it?ʺ said Leslie.

  ʺIt is not hopeless, damn it,ʺ said Miri. ʺStop trying to make it hopeless, you know?ʺ

  ʺSorry,ʺ said Leslie, and sighed.

  Once Miri was (relatively) sure Leslie wouldn’t fall off at the walk, she took her out on the trail, thinking that a change of scenery would be good for both of them. Leslie was on the (bombproof) Peggy, and Miri on Balthazar. Balthazar was disappointed by all the walking, but he was accustomed to such disappointment. And Flame came with them.

  At first they did the baby loop which only took about fifteen minutes and you were never really out of sight of the barn. But Miri’s sharp eye took in that, out on the trail, Leslie occasionally forgot that she was all left feet and couldn’t possibly learn to ride, and relaxed. Once, when she’d forgotten for more than a minute, Peggy put her head down and blew.

  ʺThere,ʺ said Miri.

  ʺWhat?ʺ said Leslie. ʺDid I do something wrong? Isn’t she supposed to do that?ʺ

  ʺNo, you did something right. You stopped perching on her like a bird on a wire and she relaxed and started to enjoy herself.ʺ

  ʺOh, am I hurting her?ʺ said Leslie in deep distress.

  ʺOkay, I take it back,ʺ said Miri. ʺYou are hopeless.ʺ

  There was a brief tortured pause, and then Leslie laughed. ʺOh. I get it.ʺ

  ʺGood,ʺ said Miri.

  But after that Leslie did begin—just a little—to learn to ride. Miri stopped trying to teach her anything in the arena, and they went straight out onto the trails, leaving the baby loop behind and diving deep into the preserve. And Flame always came with them. Once, when Leslie began one of her (regular) apologies for how much time she was taking away from all the other more important things Miri should be doing (which would then lead into another attempt to pay for lessons), Miri interrupted and said, ʺYou’re doing me a favor. I’ve been worrying about giving poor Flame enough exercise.ʺ

  Flame, hearing his name, came lolloping up to them, tongue flying, his eyes so crinkled up from grinning that he looked almost ordinary.

  ʺI wonder what his background is,ʺ said Leslie, and Miri could see her immediately as the zookeeper to be: focussing on the strange animal she has been presented with. ʺThere’s a lot of sighthound in there somewhere—deerhound maybe.ʺ

  ʺVery likely,ʺ Miri said neutrally. He looked as much like a deerhound as he looked like any dog. Since she was the only one who brushed him, she was the only one who knew that he had not merely the common system of a longer coarser outer coat and finer softer undercoat, but a third coat beneath the second, dense and almost prickly, almost as if it might be suitable for repelling hellfire. He also had two extra pairs of ribs, disguised by the length of his back. If it had been only one extra pair she probably wouldn’t have noticed; but she’d thought, stroking him, that his ribcage seemed to go on a surprisingly long time, and so she counted, and checked the result with a helpful website on dog anatomy. She might have asked the vet about this, except that she had recently observed, while checking for ticks, that his testicles had regrown. He had, of course, been castrated at the pound. She didn’t want to get Ronnie in trouble for having released an unneutered dog, and if Flame stayed healthy, the vet might not notice the testicles. She wondered if the pound’s vet had noticed the ribs and the third coat, or if he’d just been totally distracted by the eyes.

  There were other anomalies. The last inch or so of his tongue had a narrow smooth white streak down the center, like scar tissue, as if his tongue had once been forked. He ate charcoal out of the fireplace. (He would have eaten charcoal briquettes too, only Miri felt sure that the chemical stuff that made them burn faster and hotter wouldn’t be good for anything to eat, even a hellhound.) She’d known Labradors that ate anything including charcoal, but Flame did not also eat bricks, shoes, houseplants and small pieces of furniture—just charcoal. And while he liked to lie in front of the fire like a normal dog, he liked to lie facing it, staring into it like a philosopher—or a hellhound. The flicker of the flames on his wide-open red eyes looked like the reflection of a forest fire.

  But he had perfect manners around the stable, the horses, and the clientele. There were one or two nervous parents who didn’t like him, but Miri simply learned who they were and made sure he was tied up under his tree when they were due to arrive. And he was now proving to have perfect manners on trail rides.

  It was still only Leslie, Miri and Flame. Miri had suggested they invite Mal some time—even that Leslie was ready to go out with Mal by herself—but Leslie said, ʺOh, not yet. Please. If
you can stand it a little while longer. I can almost relax now, when it’s just you, but I know I’ll stiffen up again as soon as anyone comes with us—especially Mal. But I’ve been thinking, what I’d like to do is tell Mal I’m taking him on a picnic for his birthday—and then tell him at the last minute it’s going to be on horseback. Is that a good idea, do you think?ʺ

  ʺIt’s an excellent idea,ʺ said Miri.

  ʺOh, I hope so,ʺ Leslie said in her earnest way. ʺI mean I’m trotting now and everything. You are so patient. I guess you have to be, to be a riding teacher, but it’s still pretty amazing. And I really don’t understand why you’ve put so much time into me. It’s not just Flame.ʺ

  ʺDon’t you worry about that,ʺ said Miri, who found taking Leslie for a trail ride twice a week a nice change from her nervous kindergarteners, ʺI’m going to get it out of Mal later.ʺ

  During this conversation Miri hadn’t been paying attention to how far they’d come. It was true that Leslie could trot, and Miri was considering whether it was time to risk a canter. It would be really great—not to mention having Mal in his sister’s hip pocket for the rest of his life—if his girlfriend could canter by the time his birthday picnic happened.

  And then Peggy, bombproof Peggy, shied.

  She didn’t shy very far, and she shied into Balthazar, who put his ears back and held his ground. Leslie, who was only clumsy and not a fool, merely said ʺughʺ and dragged herself back upright again; a good instinctive convulsive grab for Peggy’s mane had kept her in the saddle. Both horses were standing, tense and alert, looking in the same direction. Miri now noticed that Flame was standing right in front of them, looking in the same direction too, with his tail and his hackles raised.

  ʺDamn,ʺ said Miri. ʺI didn’t notice where we’d got to. I wouldn’t have brought you here, although it’s not usually as bad as this.ʺ

  ʺWhat isn’t?ʺ said Leslie.

  ʺOur haunted graveyard,ʺ said Miri. ʺDon’t tell me you haven’t heard that story?ʺ

  ʺOh,ʺ said Leslie. ʺI guess. But I thought it was like Pegasus and unicorns.ʺ

  ʺWhen I got old enough to answer back, I used to tell my parents that if they’re going to bring a six-year-old whose favorite bedtime stories are all fairy tales to a haunted farm then they deserved what they got. There’s still a rumor for anyone who remembers that my parents got the place cheap because of the graveyard, although the fact that the house only had electricity downstairs and the only indoor plumbing was the pump in the kitchen might have had something to do with it too.ʺ

  ʺWow,ʺ said Leslie.

  ʺYeah. We moved in the beginning of the summer so we had all summer to get a toilet and a shower put in. Mom and Dad decided I was old enough to have my baths in the pond but Mal had to have his in a plastic tub in the kitchen.ʺ She smiled reminiscently. ʺI don’t think he’s ever forgiven me. Anyway. I don’t know what the graveyard’s problem is and a lot of the time it’s perfectly fine, you can go in there and look around and nothing happens. There’s only six tombstones—all the same family—they all died within a few weeks of each other, in 1871. Probably flu or something, Dad says. It must have been awful for whoever was left, whoever buried them. When I started school here the kids all said that nobody had lived in the house since. It took me a few years to figure out that they didn’t have electricity out here in 1871.ʺ

  ʺYou mean,ʺ Leslie said, ʺthat it still spooks you.ʺ

  ʺYeah,ʺ said Miri, whose own hackles were trying to rise. There was a big tree to one side of the little path into the graveyard that led off the trail they were standing on. Every time she blinked there were, briefly, goblins sitting in its branches, chittering at her. ʺWho wouldn’t prefer unicorns? The only reason I know it’s usually okay is because Mal comes here a lot. He likes it. He likes it partly because his big sister is afraid of it—the big sister who got to have her baths in the pond when he had to have his in a big plastic tub in the kitchen, when she was six and he was four. But I think he really does like it too. He says the sky is bluer there or something. And he says if it’s having a bad day he goes away again. I never bring the trail rides this way—in case of bad days. Like today.ʺ

  ʺI thought we were still out in the middle of the reserve,ʺ said Leslie.

  ʺThat’s one of the things I don’t like about it, the graveyard,ʺ said Miri. ʺIt’s like you’ll be out in the middle of the reserve and then suddenly you’re coming this way. Usually I notice that time and geography have folded themselves up again and turn off before we get here, but I didn’t today.ʺ

  ʺDoes it happen to other people?ʺ

  ʺOh, yeah. That’s why the kids at school were so happy to tell me I lived on a haunted farm. And I know that a lot of people told Mom she’d never get a riding stable going here because of it.ʺ

  ʺI’ve lived here all my life and I’d never heard about it,ʺ said Leslie.

  Miri told herself to get a grip, of course there were no goblins. It was a bright day, and maybe she’d been staring into flickering leaf-and-sunlight patterns too long and too hard and her eyes were tired. ʺDad says even ghosts wear out eventually, like socks, and Mom says that the riding stable probably just sort of outnumbers it—them—now. You know, like when the development went up around the old Danforth house. When the first couple of houses went up the old Danforth place totally dominated. Now you can hardly see it. We’re the development.ʺ She swallowed hard, and forced herself to look away. But she looked back again almost immediately. Flame was still standing, staring at the path, and at the tree. As if he saw goblins in its branches. ʺBut if you go to the tourist center at the reserve and look at the map, there’s a red box around the boundary with our farm and down at the bottom it says that there’s something wrong with the earth’s magnetic field here and it’s easy to get lost so pay extra attention to the trail markers and don’t use your compass.ʺ

  ʺMaybe that’s it.ʺ

  ʺI don’t think magnetic weirdness makes horses shy sometimes,ʺ said Miri.

  ʺLook at Flame,ʺ Leslie said wonderingly.

  Miri was looking at Flame, and thinking about the way the guy who’d been bouncing her fender had thrown up his hands and screamed. She didn’t think Flame was reacting to the earth’s magnetic field either. And it wasn’t only Flame; both horses were staring straight at the little path that led only to the old cemetery. Some horses like to wind themselves up, so they can dance and act foolish; Peggy and Balthazar weren’t like that. If they were tense and worried, they were tense and worried for a reason.

  ʺLet’s get out of here,ʺ she said. ʺThere’s a good stretch for trotting up ahead. Have I taught you half-seat yet?ʺ

  Miri cheated, teaching Leslie to canter. She taught her half-seat at the trot, and one day, when she was nicely balanced, her head up and looking straight ahead, her hands lightly but firmly against Peggy’s neck, Miri said, ʺPeggy, canTER,ʺ and Peggy, veteran of many hours in the arena on a longe line, cantered. Balthazar, veteran of many beginner trail rides, kept pace exactly, in case some kind of rescue was required. But Leslie gave a little, quickly repressed squeak, and then settled down, keeping both her legs and hands steady. ʺAnd waaaaalk,ʺ said Miri at the end of the wide bit of path, and both horses dropped calmly back to a walk. Leslie turned a shining face to Miri, and Miri leaned over and patted her leg.

  ʺThat was terrific,ʺ she said. ʺPerfect. Now we’re going to go back into the arena so you can learn to sit the canter, and you are not going to stiffen up on me, and then you’re going to have the best birthday picnic ride that anyone has ever had, okay?ʺ

  The day of the picnic dawned grey and drizzly and Leslie was on the phone to the farm at seven, twittering about the weather.

  Miri had been expecting this, and had the portable in her pocket so she could answer at the first ring, before anyone had the opportunity to get testy about it. Everyone was usually awake by seven, but her father and brother would be pre-articulate, and cranky. Miri made suitable soothing noises to Lesli
e, including saying (truthfully) that it was burning off, and that the weather report had promised a fine day. She didn’t add that the weather report had also said thunderstorms moving in overnight—it was a lunchtime picnic, after all—nor did she add that she didn’t like the way Flame was behaving.

  To any riding stable without an indoor arena, the weather was of paramount, and frequently bitter, importance, and she and her mother grasped any straw of prediction. Miri had discovered that Flame predicted the weather rather well by the way he met it when they first went outdoors in the morning, for Miri to feed the horses. If he went out blithely, head and tail high, then there was a fine day coming; to whatever extent he was slinky and furtive, to that extent it would be a miserable day. She told herself that his present manner, which seemed to be that there was something coming to get him which was immediately behind him whichever way he stood, leaped or swapped ends, was probably his response to the approaching storms; these would be the first thunderstorms they’d had since she brought him home from the pound. She just hoped it didn’t mean the storms would get here early; she wanted Mal’s picnic ride to go well almost as badly as Leslie did.

  She let her eleven o’clock lesson warm up a few minutes longer than usual so she could say ʺhappy birthdayʺ and ʺhave funʺ as Mal and Leslie set off; also to run a falsely casual eye over Peggy and make sure that in her agony of perfection Leslie hadn’t done something like forget to tighten Peggy’s girth. When Mal graciously allowed a small giggling group of his admirers to wish him happy birthday Miri took the opportunity to take hold of Leslie’s heel and give it a vicious yank. ʺRelax,ʺ she said. ʺRemember relax? You’re already crouching and you’re not out of the stable-yard yet.ʺ