Chapter 50
Shawna
My room looks like a cleaning service came through it. Nothing’s on the floor, the bed is smooth and tight at the edges. The curtains are pulled back and the windows are open, making the air inside as fresh as the October day beyond the screen. This isn’t the room I remember from Saturday night. It’s been flushed and scrubbed and disinfected.
I shower, dress, and dry my hair, and when I look in the mirror, I’ve changed from zombie back to dork. But the dorky girl looks better than I remember from the old Las Vegas days. “Hmm.” So Deirdre is jealous of me. “Interesting.”
“Are you ready, Shawna?” Kay calls down the hall.
For what? I wonder. I grab a sweatshirt and walk to her office. “I thought you said I wasn’t going to school today.”
“You’re not. We’ve got an appointment with my lawyer. Your mother’s agreed to give me legal custody, so we’re going to get the papers ready and send them right away…” She comes from behind her desk. “…before she changes her mind.”
I know Kay’s right. Jackie changes her mind more than she changes her underwear, but ugh. . . another trip to Sacramento... in that truck... with my silent driver.
I’ll go see Magic, give him his apple and his vitamin, which he missed yesterday. Just a minute with the old boy, and I’ll be ready to take on Kay and her truck.
“Meet you at the truck,” I say halfway out the office door, before Kay can tell me we don’t have time.
I don’t cut up the apple this time. I slice it in half, dump two vitamin pills into the palm of my hand, and run across the field to the fence.
“Magic!”
I climb the fence and throw my leg over the top like always and wait. “Magic!” I call again. “Where are you, you ornery old horse?”
I shield my eyes with both hands and scan the pasture. Not a horse in sight.
I jump to the ground, run to Floyd’s barn, and rip open the doors.
Empty.
I try to keep my breathing steady, but I can’t. I feel the same way I did the morning I found Mom’s note and the ticket with Kay’s name and number on the back. That cold numbness pours over me, finds its way into my stomach, and makes me sick.
I have to do something. I have to... get my grandmother.
I charge back across the field and hurdle the fence, run to the house, up the back steps and through the kitchen door, letting it bang closed behind me. I run down the hall to Kay’s office. “Magic’s gone!”
She stands up from her desk and comes to me. “Magic?”
“My... Floyd’s black horse.” I’m trying not to shriek.
“Magic,” Kay repeats. “Did you check Floyd’s barn?”
“Yes. He’s not there.” Saying that makes my stomach knot up tighter than before. “There’s not one horse anywhere out there.”
“Come on. Let’s ask Kenny if he knows what’s going on.”
I jog behind Kay to the barn, where we find Kenny in the tack room.
“Floyd’s horses,” Kay says, “they’re gone.”
Kenny looks at her like he’s not heard what she said. “Thought I saw something going on there this morning. Strange truck. Just reckoned it was the new people, comin’ to check out the property.”
“Did they have a horse trailer?” Kay asks.
“Yep. But I didn’t stay to watch what was happening.” Kenny nods toward me. “Had little Missy here to check on.”
“How about Casey? Was he around?”
“He was driving into Floyd’s when I came out of the house, but I didn’t see him after that. Figured he did his chores, then went to school.” Kenny walks outside and looks across at Floyd’s. He rubs his chin like that might make him remember more about what he saw earlier. “Dang. Shoulda’ gone over when I saw that truck... that truck . . .” He faces us. “It had Texas plates.”
“No!” I cup my hands over my ears. I’m choking. I feel like something has me by the throat and is pressing the life out of me. The fingers are tight and growing tighter.
Sharp pins of light dance across Kay’s face. The barn, Kenny, Floyd’s shack across the field—all whirl around like a crazy Ferris wheel. Or maybe it’s me. I’m whirling and everything else is fixed.
Then dynamite’s exploding in my head. Bam! Bam! Fingers slip away, and tears rush down my face. I don’t care if Kay sees me crying. I don’t care if Kenny sees me either.
Kay grabs my shoulders and pulls me to face her. “I’m not promising anything, but if we can get Magic back . . .?”
She doesn’t finish her question, but I know what she’s asking. Will I be Shawna Stone for real? Her granddaughter? Marta’s friend? The AP student? There are a lot of questions inside the real one: Will I change?
I step away, out of Kay’s reach and look into her eyes. I’m looking to see if they’ll say she’d just as soon buy my ticket back to Vegas and be done with me. That she doesn’t want to have to stand suicide watch every day and night. That being my legal guardian isn’t how she wants to spend the rest of her life. That she’s tired of my weird Monster fantasy, my foul mouth. That I’m a disappointment to her. I expect something like that to be there, staring back at me.
But it’s not. What’s staring back are eyes that say I understand how you feel, losing something you love. I love you and I don’t want to lose you, too.
I feel a lot of things right now. I feel scared for Magic. I feel scared for me, and I have this new, strangled feeling in my chest. Something I’ve never had before. Then I hear my own voice rising out of that strangled mess. “I will love him. I will love him. I will love him.”
I can’t believe it—now, Kay is crying. Big fat tears roll to her chin, and she doesn’t bother to brush them off. “Oh, Shawna,” she says. “I love you so much.”
She pulls me to her and we cling to each other, like we’ll fall into an ocean and drown if either one lets go.
“I tried to catch up with them and stop them, but they had too much of a head start. I thought you ought to know they’re heading down Highway 99.” Casey looks at me. “I’m really sorry, Shawna.”
There’s no anger in his face, no “it serves you right” in his voice. He would have stopped the truck and brought Magic back to me, because he’s always known I had that black horse tucked under my heart. I want to tell him he was right from the beginning. I want to say something to let him know I’m sorry, too... for a lot of things.
“Mrs. Stone,” he says, handing Kay his truck keys, “take my truck. It’s faster.”
“Thank you, Casey.” Kay turns to Kenny. “Hitch up the trailer. Most truckers stop at Santa Nella, so I’m betting these guys will too. I’ll go ahead and try to stop them. We can keep in touch by cell.”
“You plannin’ to hijack that truck?” Kenny asks.
“I’m planning on saving those horses. If it takes hijacking, so be it.” Kay grabs my arm. “Go in the house and get the truck keys for Kenny.” She pushes me toward the house. “They’re on the kitchen table. Get going or Magic’s going to be at the other end of the state.”
I take the steps by twos, snatch the keys, and run back outside. I toss the keys to Casey, who grabs them and then takes my hand. “When we get Magic back to the ranch, let’s talk, okay? And I mean talk—not fight.”
I manage a nod and that seems to be the right thing, because now Casey smiles and wipes a tear that’s trickling to my chin. Before I make it around the side of the house to Casey’s truck, he and Kenny are maneuvering the horse trailer into place to hook it up.
Kay has the passenger door open, and is already behind the wheel. She’s disconnecting from a call on her cell.
“Yes, cancel this afternoon’s meeting. I’ll be in first thing in the morning about the custody papers.”
I climb inside and buckle up my seat belt—another first, I think. I’m going over to a whole other side of the world.
Kay slides the gears into reverse, whips around, and spins the wheels over the
gravel. The ride down the road is the worst, and I’m clinging for my life to the door, the dash, the seat. At the “T” where she has to turn left, she doesn’t stop to look both ways. She is a rule breaker today, and, at this moment, I see the girl she used to be—reckless, full of energy, strong-minded.
She hangs a right at the next corner, and shoots across two lanes of traffic to make a quick left onto the highway. I’ve thought about dying so many times, that it’s a surprise not to want to die now. If I die now, so will Magic, and I want him to live very much.
A tight, hard feeling squeezes the breath out of me. I’m sad and excited and scared, all at the same time. But now there are no more shakes. I’m steady inside, like I haven’t been since I was five. Since the woman I knew only a little while, in some motel I can’t remember came to me.
She wore her hair in a single long red braid, and propped me up on pillows and fed me ice cream, and let me lick the spoon...
And she laughed and I laughed—
Epilogue
From the porch I watch Casey’s truck turn onto Kay’s arroyo seco and make the rodeo ride over those gullies and mounds that I’ve learned to love—the way home.
Kenny calls it “shock absorber hell” before he spits and gets out the shovel to fill in the worst holes. Kay used to vow to fix it soon, one day, next year. But that was before last week, when she spent the money set aside to do the roadwork. Now those repairs will have to wait.
Tucked behind other thoughts, I have a plan to help out with expenses—a job in the summer, maybe at Rural Supply—if Max will trust me with the cash register. If not, I can always wait tables at the café in Sweet River. I’ll find a way to help smooth out at least one road for Kay.
Casey pulls to a stop and gets out of his truck, October dust rising around him. He waves and walks toward me, holding up a bag in one hand. “Brought your order.”
I walk down the steps to meet him. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Max’s was on my way.” His hand brushes mine when he gives me the bag, and I freeze that moment, to save it for later.
I’m freezing moments a lot now, ever since last week’s high-speed chase down Highway 99. My feelings are so different—so alive, I guess I have to say—and I need to go over them a few times, to get used to what it’s like to touch people and not get the shakes. Get used to what it’s like to talk to somebody--you know, in real conversations. Me--Shawna Stone--saying things, and listening to what people say back.
Casey and I walk to the barn. I let him go a little ahead and enjoy the view of his jeans again. He turns to smile over his shoulder. “So how are your patients doing, Dr. Stone?”
“Better.”
I grab a tin pan from the bench near the door, open the bottle of pills Casey picked up at Rural Supply, and add water. Then I mash three pills into gruel.
“Want me to do the other two?” he asks.
“Sure. Their pans are in front of the stalls.” I hand him the bottle and enter the hazy light of the barn, the world of straw, droning flies, and soft equine noises.
There you are, I hear from the stall at the end, and my heart fills up with what I know must be flowers. Big yellow ones.
What? I just saw you this morning. You want me around twenty-four seven?
He eyes me. And your sense of humor has improved.
No. You’re just beginning to appreciate it.
You’re probably right, Shawna.
Magic scarfs down his pills while I stand, leaning against his side, soaking in his warmth and his smell, and the wonderful size of him.
He swings his head and nudges me. No apple?
I reach into my pocket and pull out the package of slices. You are one demanding horse!
I’m making up for lost time. He snuffles the apple from my palm, and I wish I could give him a hundred apples, just so I could feel him do that over and over.
So am I, Magic. So am I.
###The End ###
About the Author
A native Californian, C. Lee McKenzie has been a university lecturer and administrator. She has written and published non-fiction article, both in her field of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication and in general readership magazines. For five years Lee wrote, edited and published a newsletter for U.S. university professors who were managing global classroom issues.
These days she writes for young readers and teens, yet her book reviews show that her stories appeal to adult readers as well.
She lives at the edge of a redwood forest with her husband and assorted cats, and when she’s not writing, she’s hiking or practicing yoga.
Other Writing Credits & Books
Since she turned in her academic hat and began writing stories, Lee’s fiction and non-fiction works have been frequently published in the award-winning ezine, Stories for Children, and Crow Toes Quarterly has published her ghostly tales. Her young adult novel, The Princess of Las Pulgas is available on ebook through all major online distributors Her middle grade book, Alligators Overhead is now out to all major distributors as well.
Samples of her work and contact information can be found at https://cleemckenziebooks.com.
Sample Chapters of The Princess of Las Pulgas
Chapter 1
Last night I pleaded with Death, but he turned a bony back to me, pushed Hope into the corridor and shut the door.
Now we’re waiting, all of us. Mom in the chair next to Dad’s bed, holding his hand as if she can keep him with us as long as she doesn’t let go. Keith asleep on the rollaway a nurse wheeled in earlier. He’s on his side, his long runners’ legs drawn to his chest and his head resting on his arm. Me, scrunched down into a chair at the foot of Dad’s bed. I no longer feel like I have a body. I’m not even tired, just numb. Then Death. He’s backed into the darkest corner.
I twist my Sweet Sixteen bracelet around and around, counting the tiny links. Mom and Dad gave it to me in June before I learned how hospitals smelled at two a.m. or how I preferred nightmares to being awake.
I hate being here.
I hate what’s happening.
I want it over.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the vinyl chair.
No. I don’t mean that.
Two a.m.: The hands of the wall clock go around and around. Slow. Steady. Doling out the hours one-second at a time.
Three: I must have slept, but I don’t remember dozing and I still feel tired.
Three-ten: Something’s different and the shift is as sudden as it is subtle—a missed tick of a clock, an unexplained space in the air, a suspended drip over a sink.
A steady and high-pitched sound tentacles its way through the room. A flat line of green streaks across the monitor and the darkest corner is suddenly empty.
Keith sits up on the edge of the rollaway, staring at the floor. Mom rests her head against Dad’s still chest. Around me the room curls up at the edges like a late autumn leaf and I’m sure everything will soon crumble into tiny bits.
My dad was an important man in Channing. His investment counseling business had survived despite the economy, and all of his clients had names on doors with President or Chairman of the Board stenciled beneath. Dad had held just about every office on the city council and been financial advisor to the mayor, so the memorial service is long with speeches, and the church is crowded with VIPs.
Mom hired the caterer that her best friend, Maureen Fogger, always uses, so white-jacketed strangers armed with trays of perfect small food thread their way among the black or gray clothed guests. Our home fills with a hum of voices.
The mayor proposes a toast; the arts commissioner proposes a toast; three board members of Dad’s company propose toasts. By four, people who were silent and sad-faced earlier are now talking a bit too loudly, smiling, telling jokes. Maureen Fogger has one of Dad’s young partners cornered. She’s leaning in a little too close. The guy’s face is flushed and his eyes dart around the room. Nobody notices his silent cry for help excep
t me.
An hour ago Keith retreated upstairs. Mom stationed herself in the chair by the fireplace like a lonely planet, and the guests orbit her, taking her hand, touching her shoulder. I haven’t seen her cry since that night at the hospital, but I’ve heard her through her bedroom door. Now I think her whole body must be filling with tears while she waits for the reception to end and for everyone to leave.
Dad was always inviting people home. “Come for dinner, for the weekend, for Labor Day,” he’d say. He insisted on balloons and confetti for special celebrations. Confetti still turns up in the carpet from last New Year’s Eve. He had the barbeque ready hours before my end-of-year beach parties started, hours before Mom had a chance to tell him whether he was cooking hot dogs or hamburgers that year. We called him our party animal. If Dad were here, he would be moving from group to group, telling a joke, gently guiding Maureen away and letting his young partner escape. Dad would have loved this “party.”
I’m not in the mood to love anything about what’s happening, so as soon as possible I slip away to hide in my room where Quicken is curled up on my pillow in a tight purring ball. Even with the door closed, I’m not far enough away to mask the chatter of people downstairs. I slide open the window facing the beach, inviting the drum of ocean waves to enter. Their steady rhythm has always rocked me when I was uneasy. Today, the crashing waves are angry, not soothing.
Closing the window, I fall across the bed with my arms spread wide. Quicken arches her back, stretches, and then brushes back and forth along my side before curling up against me. In seconds her purr rumbles deep in her throat.
Disappearing inside my head, imagining a happy ending saw me through those months of Dad’s cancer, so I need for it to get me through tonight and tomorrow and the next day.
“Carlie, love. This is tough, but you’ll be just fine. I know it.”
Dad used to say that whenever I’d bring him a crisis. Then he’d brush my cheek with his fingers and kiss the tears.
I’m not so sure this time, Dad.
Chapter 2
This is first year since I learned about Jack-O’-Lanterns that we don’t have one for Halloween. Snaggle-toothed grins were Dad’s specialty. Mom turns out the walkway lights at dusk. We don’t answer the door for the goblins and witches.
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