Night Mares in the Hamptons

by Celia Jerome

  Letty’s father turned, saw us coming toward him, some with guns drawn. Then he looked out to sea, ready to make a run for his raft. But coming ashore, dancing on the water in one of Paloma Blanca’s skipping steps as if they were the corps de ballet, were twenty white mares, side by side by side, blocking his path.

  Then someone shouted from above: “He’s got the girl! The snow man’s got the girl!”

  “Hold your fire!”

  “Froeler, drop the gun.”

  He was trembling. “I need the horse!”

  We heard a bullhorn from above. “Lewis, let the girl go. You cannot escape.”

  Lewis must have dragged Letty to the edge of the cliff. We could see him, and the gun to her head.

  “Get me a way out, or I throw the girl over.”

  I shouted “No!”

  Froeler was shouting that the whole thing was Lewis’ idea, that the snow man shot Snake. He organized the drug drop offshore. He sold it throughout the East End. “I have proof. I can tell you his supplier!”

  “I’ll kill your daughter,” Lewis screamed again.

  “What do I care about that cripple? She’s not even my daughter. The rich widow needed a father for her kid, is all. I got money for my lab. But not enough. It’s the horse I need now. With the creature’s mental power harnessed, I can create the mind drugs of the century. I can have everything I ever wanted. I can rule the world.”

  “Father, no! Let the colt go!”

  “Shut up, you little twit. You’re my ticket out of here,” Lewis shouted, shaking Letty.

  We heard gunfire. The walkie-talkies all blared. “He’s shooting at us, so we can’t get a bead on him without hitting the girl. He’s headed toward Kelvin’s truck.”

  Froeler fired upward, at where Lewis had been. “You bastard, leaving me here after all I’ve done for you. You were nothing but a two-bit felon.”

  The mares stamped.

  “Wait, Kelvin’s kid is moving the truck.”

  “He’s eleven. Can he drive?”

  More shots. I guessed so.

  “Get down, K2.”

  Then Lewis screamed. Letty screamed. The cops and the agents screamed. “Snakes!”

  I screamed, even if I was nowhere near.

  Lewis came back to the edge. He had no way out, and he knew it. He shot down, at Froeler. The German fell off his rock and landed flat on his back, not moving.

  The mares were on solid ground now. They pawed at the loose stones, sending vibrations I could feel through the soles of my shoes. I tried to tell them no, but it was too late.

  The cliff started to cave in, beginning with the overhang. We all ran back, away. Lewis came hurtling over with the chunk of ground he’d been standing on, to land on the rocks below. He didn’t move. More of the high dune started to crumble.

  Letty!

  I saw her at the top, trying to drag herself back from the new edge with her arms, but the earth beneath her was slippery from all the rain, and giving way. I heard shouts from the men above: “Stay back, it’s going.”

  K2 was howling. Someone must have grabbed him, most likely his father from the cursing, because his cry suddenly turned into a sob.

  And Letty started to fall, shrieking.

  Ty pulled my head to his shoulder, so I couldn’t see.

  Then his arms fell to his side and I looked up. A horse, a bigger, stronger, brighter white horse had appeared in the air, in the capriole that was airs above the ground. Only this one, who could only be the stallion, the ruler of the herd, truly was airs above the ground, yards above our heads and right beneath Letty. She landed across his back.

  He winked out of existence, then reappeared on the beach near us, as sand and mud and rocks pummeled down onto the shore of Bunker Cove, burying Froeler and Lewis.

  Connor rushed to take Letty from him, and hand the unconscious girl to Doc and Susan and Grandma Eve. “She’ll be fine. No broken bones or internal injuries.” Then Connor raced back to where Ty was already digging at the landslide that covered the bunker entrance.

  H’tah!

  CHAPTER 38

  I JOINED THEM, PAWING AT THE HEAP until my nails were all broken and my fingers were bloody. Someone pushed me aside so stronger hands could do the work. Bill the telekinetic could move the smaller stuff out of their way, and Bud and Elgin worked to keep the breeze blowing the waves back so that the others could work on dry land.

  Grant was on the walkie-talkie, trying to get his men down the hatch where Froeler had appeared.

  “Shoot the fooking snakes! Get the horse.”

  My job? Picturing the rocks flying away, so the mares didn’t trample the diggers. The stallion stood at the head of their line, watching. I kept my mind going like a camera on automatic, shot after shot of progress, rock by rock, inch by inch. “We’re trying. We’re going as fast as we can without causing another cave-in. H’tah, if you can hear me, if you can sense me, your mother is here. Your father, too, I think. We’re coming. Hang on.”

  The prettiest picture I ever saw was right there in my mind, my tree, with leaves. “Yes!”

  The mares must have seen the same picture, or one of their own. They pranced. The stallion snorted and pawed the ground. Ty started chanting to keep them from starting another landslide. He sang in time to the rocks he heaved. Now the men worked faster, in time to his beat, in concert.

  As last I could see the rusted metal doors of the bunker, bent out of shape and not touching in the middle, so Ty and Connor had to put their backs to them to push.

  “Wait!” Big Eddie yelled. “I smell explosives. Lewis must have booby-trapped the entrance to blow.”

  Oh, God.

  Ty and the rest stepped back. “Do we have a bomb squad?”

  What did Paumanok Harbor need with a bomb squad? And the Feds were all up at the top of the hill. Grant quickly called his agents back from the hatch.

  I couldn’t explain bomb to the night mares and their mate. I pictured fire, more things flying, with sound effects. I guess they didn’t have WMDs where they lived.

  The stallion didn’t care. He charged ahead, bashing the doors with his front hooves.

  Ty and Connor hit the ground.

  Now the mares understood: fire, noise, metal and concrete and rocks flying. They shrilled their distress. Everyone on shore clapped their hands over their ears, but the sound of terror tore through us, through our minds.

  Ty and Connor seemed oblivious to the mental pain. They rushed past the stallion, through the fire, into the bunker.

  My heart in my throat, I pushed the other diggers aside, took a deep breath and followed them. “H’tah?”

  I heard the two cowboys fumbling around in the smoke and the dark. The space was bigger than I would have expected, going deep into the hill. I bumped into a ladder that Lewis must have used, and some duffel bags and cartons that were smoldering from the explosion at the entrance. Then I heard him.

  “Willow.”

  “This way! He’s here. He’s alive!”

  The two men lifted the poor baby, all limp, ragged, and dirty. He struggled, but I put my hand on him. “Not monsters. Friends.”

  Then we were outside, in the fresh salty air, gulping.

  Someone ran forward with a blanket. They laid the colt down. Connor ran his hands over H’tah and shook his head. Too weak.

  The mares keened in distress, pushing forward to circle us, but then the stallion stood over his son. He lowered his great head to H’tah’s and he breathed into his face.

  H’tah lay still.

  I started crying. I could hear weeping behind me, and sorrowful whinnies. Someone patted my sleeve, and someone else put wet blankets over Ty and Connor, to smother the smoldering embers of their clothing.

  The stallion kept blowing air onto his son, their foreheads touching. Ty nodded as if he heard and understood words no one else could hear. He sang part of the ancient song that welcomed the Great Horse Spirit, and proclaimed him brother.

  And
H’tah raised his head. The mares raised their heads and bugled their joy. H’tah stood, shook himself, and took a tottering step. Then another, firmer this time. His broken rear leg was suddenly straight and unmarred; his blue eyes were clear. He butted heads once more with his sire, then pranced proudly toward me, a bedraggled prince, but a prince for all that.

  I held my arms out, and he came to me. I lowered my head until we were forehead to forehead, like he’d been with the stallion.

  “I and thou, Willow. I and thou.”

  I only sensed his words, but I spoke back out loud. “You and me, kid, you and me.” I kissed his satiny nose before he bounded off to greet his mother and his aunts. They disappeared into the night sky.

  When I turned around, the stallion was forehead to forehead with Ty, then Connor. I hadn’t noticed how bloody they were, gashed from the explosion or burned by the fire, but the cuts and raw skin disappeared and their rasping breaths eased. They bowed to the stallion. He bowed back.

  He spoke, in our words, but in our heads. “Your kind has done great harm. And great good. My family should never have wandered where they were forbidden. Now they are returned to me. I pay my debts.”

  Ty held up his hands, unscarred, unburned. “You have, sire.”

  “That was nothing.” He turned to look at the others, gathered a little distance away. He singled out Letty. We all heard his voice, in our minds. “You tried to stop this madness. I saved your life. I would make you walk, but I cannot. You are not of our common ancestry.”

  “The ride was enough.”

  “You will ride my kin here in your world. That I can see to. They will hold you safe and cherished above all others.”

  Then he fixed his blue eyes on Connor. “You are brave and true, son of my ancient friends, but troubled. You see illness and cannot cure it, which tears at the tender heart you try to hide. I cannot help you fix your people. But I can give you the power to cure mine. You will be the best healer ever known among my kin.”

  Connor slid to his knees, there in the muck, and bowed his head. To hide his tears, I thought.

  The stallion—the king of his kind, I knew, even if Ty had not called him sire—searched for Grant. “This is not your home range.” He shifted his gaze to me.

  Grant shook his head. “I know.”

  “Yet you are brave and true also, dedicated to keeping peace between our worlds. I give you the words. Words so you may speak when the need arises. Words so we may speak.”

  I heard the sounds and saw the images that made up the language of the night mares’ world. I heard the translations, and I saw Grant repeat them back to the stallion, in reverence and in perfect memory.

  “I thank you, great H’ro.”

  H’ro—if that was the stallion’s name and not a word for king or gift-giver or sire-of-many—took a step toward me. My knees turned to linguine.

  He towered over me, but bowed until his head touched mine. “Bravest of females, you gave me back my son, the future of my people.”

  “No, I am not brave,” I told him, my voice quavering with nerves. “Ask anyone. I just tried to help a lost baby.”

  Do horses smile? This one did, or maybe I felt the warm feeling in my soul. Ty and Grant both grinned.

  “I cannot give you your heart’s desire, because I do not know what that is. You do not know what that is. But I can give you my promise that your children will never be sick. Your sons will never be broken or lost. Your daughters will know no despair of losing a child.”

  He might be a king, but I kissed his nose, the way I did Little Red. “Thank you. You have given me a future to build my dreams on.”

  At last it was Ty’s turn. He’d lost his hat, his hair was singed in places, and his shirt hung in tatters. He’d never looked better. Or happier.

  “My brother.”

  “My friend.”

  “This is not your home range either, you know. Not your hills to roam and fill with sons and daughters of your blood.”

  Damn, they both looked at me again.

  “I wish. But I know. I’ll be leaving soon.”

  “Yes, you must. But not without my gift.”

  H’ro blinked out of existence before he said what his gift to Ty was. We were all bewildered, and drained, as a matter of fact. We’d have to face digging out bodies, dealing with the mess of Froeler’s plots and unraveling Lewis’s smuggling operation. The mayor was already helping Letty forget her father’s last words, to remember only that he tried to cure her.

  Then we heard a noise, a horse’s high-pitched squeal. Not of pain, not of fear, but something else.

  “That’s Paloma Blanca.” Ty started to run toward where he’d left her, but then he stopped and smiled. That slow grin started at his mouth and traveled to his eyes and caught my breath in my throat.

  I felt it, too. A wave of desire so strong that I wanted to leap into his arms. I guess everyone else caught the stallion’s emotional projection, too. Connor and Susan disappeared behind the rocks. Grandma Eve and Doc climbed into one of the boats and let it drift out of sight. Rick and Bud and a bunch of others decided they needed to get home. Their wives would be worried. Grant held his hand out to Martha from the real estate agency. “We need to talk about the renovations at Rosehill. Your ideas were wonderful.”

  So was the smile she gave him back as they hurried down the beach.

  I wasn’t jealous in the least. I was in the bunker, on a pile of blankets, not caring if the roof collapsed on us or the lingering smoke made my eyes tear. Or was that joy and love and Ty’s lovemaking?

  We might not have tomorrow, but tonight—that was another gift from the magic horses. Not just the lust of a rutting stallion or a mare in heat, not just the relief of living through a harrowing experience, not just repaying a debt, but love and fellowship and wanting to share one’s heart and soul.

  We did.

  The next morning we drove the horse van through town and stopped to pick up breakfast at Joanne’s. Susan was there, beaming at everyone. “I’m cured,” she said, hugging me. “Free of cancer. Connor said so.”

  I rejoiced with her. Now maybe she could stop living as if she had to cram all her life into the next six months.

  Mrs. Ralston was there, too, picking up bagels. “It’s a boy.”

  I felt the damn blush cover my cheeks. “But it’s too soon, I mean, I’m not—”

  “Not you, dear.” She pointed to the horse trailer. “The mare. It’s a boy.”

  Ty grinned. “And here I thought last night was my gift.” He kissed me, right in front of half the town, it seemed. “It would have been enough, but this . . .”

  Meant more. I knew and didn’t mind. Not really.

  He appeared dazed by his good fortune. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to the Lipizzan registry.”

  I laughed. “Or to anyone else when your new stallion takes to disappearing. You’ll figure it out. You can do anything.”

  He kissed me again. “Almost anything. I can’t uproot a willow tree, can I, darlin’?”

  I might be pregnant, too, though it was far too soon to tell. The equine-inspired passion hadn’t left time to fumble for protection. Or to think about the future or the healthy children H’ro had promised. I knew Ty would offer to do the right thing, but I couldn’t marry a traveling horse whisperer on those terms, no matter how exciting and strong and brave and caring he was. He’d be leaving soon, and always.

  I knew he’d be back when the ranch was ready to be filled with his rescued horses, just like Grant would be back when the Royce Institute was ready to open its doors in Paumanok Harbor. But I had my own life to lead, my own dreams to follow.

  So I decided to go back to the city as soon as things settled down and start my next book. I already had the title: Fire Works in the Hamptons.

  Damn, were those sirens I heard?

  Coming in November 2011

  The third novel in the Willow Tate series by

  Celia Jerome


  FIRE WORKS IN THE HAMPTONS

  Read on for a sneak preview

  WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS? That’s the most common question people ask authors at book signings, writers’ conventions and library talks. The stock answers are: the idea fairy, dreams, newspapers, in the shower, or the idea mall, where an author would shop all the time if she had better directions or a GPS.

  But what if the writer’s ideas, especially those fantastical, off-the-wall ideas, actually come from another universe where magic abounds? Where trolls and elves and night mares and mental telepathy really exist? What if an author’s brilliant visions were nothing but presentiments of forbidden visitors from that unknown, alien universe trespassing on Earth?

  Then the world as we know it is going to hell in a handcart, and the author is getting walloped by the wagon as it races past.

  I needed a man.

  Last time I had a girl, then a boy and a troll. Now I wanted a man, a strong, heroic type. For my new book, of course. I’d sworn off real men for life, or until I finished my next book, whichever came first. After all, I’d known and loved two of the most wonderful, talented, intelligent, adventurous, gorgeous and sexy men—who weren’t right for me. What was left? A dull-as-dirt accountant? Been there, done that. And so what if I was thirty-five? If I ever decided to make my mother ecstatic by giving her a grandkid or two, I could always adopt. That’s what she did, with dogs. I petted Mom’s crippled Pomeranian, who now appeared to be mine. He sniffed my hand for a biscuit. Dogs were a lot easier than men.

  Don’t get me wrong; I like having a man in my life. What I didn’t like was them taking over my life, or them leaving. Picking up the pieces was too painful, so now my career comes first.

  I write books, illustrated graphic novels for the young fantasy reader, under the pen name of Willy Tate instead of my too girly-sounding Willow Tate. Kids love them, reviewers love them, my publisher loves them. How cool is that, getting paid to do what I like best?

  I write better in my Manhattan apartment without the distractions of the beach and the relatives and the small-town calamities that seem to occur regularly in Paumanok Harbor at the edge of Long Island’s posh Hamptons. I might—just might—be responsible for some of the recent chaos, so the sooner I get back to the big city, the better for all of us. I’ll leave the week after Labor Day, when my houseguest goes back to teaching middle-level science at a private school in Greenwich, Connecticut. I am happy to have my old college roommate here for the week, but I can’t write with Ellen in the house. I have to show her around, see that she’s entertained and fed, keep her company on beach walks and bar hops. That’s what old friends are for, isn’t it?