“There.” I point to the far left where a shabby, run-down building sits alone in the tufted grass. “A church.”
Shadow cranes his neck to look at me. His stormy grey eyes betray his amusement. “You want to go to…church?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “If you think I won’t muzzle you, think again.”
Shadow muffles his low chuckle and trots to the church. I dismount him at the porch, take his reins, and lead him to the double doors.
Inside is an improvement on the out. Where the peeling walls had bubbled from the heat, and the porch riddled with splinters, the inside is freshly-painted—the fumes burn the back of my nose—and the glossy floorboards were laid not so long ago.
Pews fall down to the altar in rows, where a crucifix is nailed to the wall ahead.
“Is that supposed to be ironic?” asks Shadow, eyeing the crucifix.
Before I can respond, a man in black garb storms out from the confessional box. His bushy white eyebrows flutter above his wrinkled, alarmed eyes.
“You cannot bring that…that…that beast into God’s house!” He takes brisk strides towards me, around the pews, and sputters, “Get out! Get out or be damned by Christ!”
With a sigh, I lean my cheek on Shadow’s neck and watch the manic human. Will he tire himself out, I wonder?
His robes flap as he rushes toward me. “Did you hear me, girl?”
“I am no girl,” I tell him, my voice lazy like the days before rest. “And your god cares more for my ‘beast’ than he does for you.” I tilt closer to him before I whisper, “You’re the damned one.”
Somewhat true.
I’m damned to be a Horserider for all eternity. But this frazzled, irritating little human need not know those details. It would dampen the point I’m trying to make.
The point sinks in.
Pieces fit together behind his eyes. Wrinkles around his mouth deepen. His eyes shift from me to Shadow, Shadow to the doors.
Shadow leans closer. “Boo.”
The priest gasps. He grabs his robes and flees the church.
The doors slam behind him.
I turn to Shadow. “Was it something we said?”
Shadow stares back at the doors.
I wander to the altar.
“Strange isn’t it?” says Shadow.
I hop onto the dais and run my fingers over the podium. “What is strange?”
Shadow’s hooves clop against the floorboards. “The priest’s book—the one he lives by and clings to—speaks of you. The Horseriders.”
I sniff a goblet of vinegary wine. It crinkles my nose. “So?”
“It seemed he recognised you,” says Shadow. “Or at least had his suspicions. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t he have welcomed you as a hand of his god?”
My smirk reaches Shadow as I dump out the wine dregs. By the smell of that putrid liquid, I am saving someone by discarding it.
“Humans care about the book when it doesn’t affect them,” I tell him. “They’re all supportive of prophets and messengers of their god, until it impacts them.” I jump off the dais and wander the pews. “In theory, they support the end of days. But will that support remain firm when we begin to destroy them?” I shake my head. “Humans want to be saved, not sacrificed. They want to be worshipped as gods, not treated as they are—mere experiments gone wrong.”
Before I can wander down another row, a sound stops me. The faintest of squeaks. A whimper, I suspect.
Slowly, I draw away from the pews and look over my shoulder. The confession box is behind me.
I creep towards it. My hand outstretches, my fingers curl around the handle—
The door bursts open and hits me so hard, I stagger back.
A blur of red dashes out from the box. It heads for the doors, but Shadow is quicker.
He gallops there in two strides, then throws up his front legs.
Red covers the human. A cloak, not unlike the priest’s robes. But this one is smaller.
I race forward, to block the little one in. It’s trapped between Shadow and I.
It moves to jump over the back of a pew. I lunge after it and snatch the back of its cloak. It shrieks as I yank it back.
Legs catch onto the hem of the cloak; it stumbles, then trips.
It lands on its bottom. The hood of the cloak slipped off during the tussle.
Looking up at me with watery eyes is a human child. A young girl with tear-streaked cheeks and wobbling lips.
With a brief hum, I crouch down beside her. “How much did you hear, human?”
Her eyes dart to my steed, then back to me. Her face crumples as she makes to speak—to lie.
My hand raises. “Don’t,” I tell her. “Your eyes say it all.”
If she lies to me, I won’t be inclined to help her. Not that I can do much for her.
“You’re her,” she whispers. “You’re the one from the pictures.”
Creases slit my eyes together. I share a suspicious glance with Shadow.
“What pictures?” asks Shadow.
For a moment, I expect the girl to shriek. After all, it’s not often humans meet talking-horses. And to them, that’s all Shadow is. A horse that speaks.
He is much more than that. More than a human mind could fathom. But this girl, I think, might be beyond her kind.
She looks at Shadow.
A mixture of fear and awe swarms in her teary eyes.
“The ones online,” she says, her voice a dry leaf in gales. “Of the two of you.”
I frown. “What line?”
Her lips part as she looks at me, her brows furrow to match mine. She hesitates before she pulls something out from her inner cloak. Something that resembles the gadgets that I saw earlier back in town.
“This.” I snatch it from her and roll it between my fingers. “I have seen this. What is it?”
“A fone,” she tells me. Her finger taps against the top. The black mirror-screen lights up. “You don’t know what a fone is?”
My narrowed eyes slew to her. “Of course I do, child.”
I hand it back to her.
“Though,” I add, “say I didn’t know what it was…”
She taps her thumbs against it. “It’s a way for us—people from around the world—to talk to each other.”
Shadow looks at me and voices my thoughts, “Our bond.”
So, this device is a bond of sorts. Though, their minds are infantile compared to ours, which led them to other methods of communication. A strange feeling surges through me. Am I … impressed?
Of course not. Meaningless toys for a meaningless species.
“It’s all over the internet.”
I nod, as if to pretend I know what an internet is. Then, my gaze finds it. Finds…me. And Shadow. On the fone.
We both move in closer to the girl. She tenses, the fone shakes in her hand. Shadow and I inch in some more until we’re looking over her shoulder at the picture.
It’s of us. At the beach—the first beach, when we awoke, not far from the coral reef. I’m washing Shadow’s coat and my armour is bunched at my feet.
I’m not ashamed.
“There’s another one,” whispers the girl. “Quality is a bit off. I reckon it was filmed with a security cam.”
She slides her thumb and—my head cocks to the side. This picture moves.
“It’s a video,” she whispers.
I’m small in this one, as is Shadow. We look far away. But close enough to catch video-me strolling up the row between grapevines. Close enough to see the grapes wither and spoil.
“I look majestic,” I say, a smug smile on my lips. “Powerful.”
The girl makes a face at me. By the look of her, I doubt that was the reaction she’d expected from me.
Fascinated, Shadow still watches the moving picture.
In it, our video-selves both turn our heads to our real selves.
“You’re looking at the camera.” Girl must sense our confusion. “Then…”
We va
nish. I mount Shadow and we disappear.
“Everyone thinks it’s a hoax,” she says.
I study her.
Children have never interested me, much. Not even when I was human. They’re gooey. They cry a lot. They complain.
But I don’t exactly dislike this particular child.
Should she have to die for the sins of her people, I wonder?
I can’t answer that. But I do know she doesn’t have a choice. Nor do I. We are both destined to play out the wishes of Them.
It’s not within my power to save her.
Once my plague is released, it follows Famine’s lands, not my wishes. And she—this human girl—must fall to it, to redeem whatever is left of humanity. There is no Jesus Christ coming to pay for the sins of humans.
Now, humans must learn to pay their own dues. As I have paid mine. At the end of it all, we are mere pawns on Their chessboard.
I stand, my gaze downwards, burning into the girl’s damp face.
“Who are you?” she asks, looking smaller than she did before.
Curious, I say, “Who do you think I am?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Monster.”
۞
For some mysterious reason, that word stings me.
Monster.
I am a Horserider. A divine being. A messenger of Them.
Yet, to her—to this human girl, so naïve—I am what she says.
I turn my cheek and look to the altar. “I have many names. Some are right, some are not. What name do you have, child?”
She holds the fone at a strange angle, up at me. “Allie.”
“Allie,” I say, softly.
At my gesture, she climbs to her feet and faces me.
“Allie,” I begin. “I give you a choice. I can kill you now, where you stand. Trust me when I say, this will avoid suffering beyond your imagination. Or,” I add, Allie’s eyes bulging, “I can let you live, only for you to die the most horrid death later. It could be within days. It could be within weeks, but one thing is certain—it will bring immeasurable pain. The choice is yours.”
“I want to live,” she sputters.
It isn’t until she speaks, choking on her words, that I realise how terrified she is of me. I don’t enjoy the fear of a child. Only a monster would.
Monster…
I offer her a sad smile, but the tension in her doesn’t soften.
“That is a fault of your kind,” I say, and pat her head. “Too many wants, not enough gives.”
Allie flinches as I graze past her to Shadow. She backs into the pew, her breaths suddenly hitching.
I don’t need to look back at her to know she fights sobs.
As I stroke Shadow’s neck, I can’t help but say to Allie, “When the sickness comes, hide. Underground. Have enough staple to wait out the plague. Don’t eat farmed foods. And whatever you do, trust no one. I have seen the ugliness within humans when faced with death. It is a gruesome truth of your kind, one you shouldn’t see.”
I tug on the reins, then jump up onto Shadow in one fluid motion.
My hand flicks at Allie. She catches my meaning and races for the doors—she shoves them open. As Shadow and I leave, I bid the girl one final farewell.
“Do not get sick, Allie.”
What I told her wasn’t much, but it was more than I should’ve given her.
Minutes pass as we gallop ahead, and I already feel the burn of Famine’s anger. She knows what I have done. She knows I have warned a human of fates to come. And she knows that I shut her out by closing the bond.
Shadow doesn’t hide his thoughts; “You wonder why Famine hates us. Then you pull nonsense like that. What were you thinking, Pessie?”
Honesty comes from me, a raw truth that terrifies me for a breathless second.
“That’s just it, Shadow. I wasn’t thinking.”
Chapter 6
The bottom of the island nears us when I see it in the sky. Something I have never seen before. It reminds me of the modern carriages, but with a black tail and a spinning wheel above it.
A machine-bird.
I wouldn’t have paid it much mind if it didn’t seem to be following me. It can’t see me, of course. I’m on my steed. But, it circles the open grassland as though searching for something. After seeing the pictures, I suspect that ‘something’ is me.
Did Allie tell of her encounter with me?
She’s a child, of course she did. They love to talk. But who did she tell?
Priest surely told someone. Did that spark more interest in me? In my purpose?
“It’s different this time,” says Shadow, tracing my thoughts. “It almost feels … risky.”
Rubbing his shoulder, I soothe him. “It’s unusual. But risky? The humans pose no threat to us. There is nothing they can do to us.”
The machine-bird is gone by the time we reach the end of the island.
A harbour is stretched out before us.
Shadow and I wait by the white kiosk with a sign that says, ‘BARNABY’S BOATS’.
As we wait, we watch humans gorge themselves on fish and chips, milkshakes, and ice-creams. After one particularly snotty-nosed child drops his ice-cream, his screeches send shivers through me.
Bristled, I bare my teeth at the child. I only relax when its parents take it away into their personal carriage. That is a child I will never be inclined to help.
Dusk inches closer.
I must dismount Shadow. Though, I wait until the scattered crowd thins before I do.
Time is in my favour. As the last human-herd clears, I jump off my steed and land right in front of the ‘BARNABY’S BOATS’ stall.
The man in the kiosk smells of fish. Strange, given that he has been in the stall all day.
Shadow sits down beside me. Poor steed hasn’t enjoyed much time to gather his energy since we awoke. Normally, we hole up for a few days and study the humans. Shadow mostly spends those days basking in the sun, or by a roaring fireplace.
The vendor turns in the kiosk; he freezes when he notices me.
“Hello.” My greeting is distant; I’ve begun to eye the leaflets on a rack.
Vendor chokes on his ‘hi’. He looks from me to Shadow.
“I must take a voyage,” I tell him, fingers tracing down the line of leaflets. “Passage to the land of ice.” My hand drops to my side as I face him. “You have a boat, I presume?”
“I…” He hesitates. I suspect he’s seen those pictures of me. “Land…of ice?”
My lips pucker and I drum my fingers against the kiosk-table.
What do humans call the land?
Last time I was awake, it was called the Southern Lands. But there are no brochures for the Southern Lands on the rack beside me.
“The ice at the bottom of the world,” I say, doubt hitching my voice. “With the Emperor Penguins, icebergs and whatever else.”
“Antarctica?”
“Do you have a … picture?”
He reaches under the kiosk, but his eyes never stray from mine. From below, he finds a leaflet and offers it to me.
“That’s it.” It’s pinched between my fingers as I skim-read the blurbs. With a curt nod, I shake the leaflet. “Take me here.”
“You got it.” A smug grin tilts his face and he folds his arms over his chest. “For twenty grand.”
“Grand what?” I ask.
He frowns. “Thousand.”
“Twenty thousand what?” Then, it hits me. Humans. Money. Currency. “Oh, I see.”
It takes a moment for me to settle on a plan. I use all that I have to bargain with him. A smirk to match his lights up my face; I snatch out and grab his wrist.
He shouts and tries to yank his arm back, but I’m stronger.
“What you doin’?” he hollers. “You crazy bi—”
He feels it now.
My eyes touch to his. I watch it happen so fast that it almost seems to happen all at once. First, the shock. Then, disbelief. He can’t believe what he sees. But he sh
ould.
And he does.
“What the hell!” he shouts, pulling against me. He whacks my arm, he punches my wrist. But I don’t let go. “STOP!”
My fingers are coiled around his arm like rope. I drain the nourishment from him and replace it with pseudomonas aeruginosa—the very same I used to cripple the crops.
He is dying.
The swell of his stomach pushes against his t-shirt, he tries to breathe but oxygen won’t fill his lungs. His skin sags; it droops from the bones with withering fat. Cheekbones push out, the cheeks beneath now hollow and sunken.
“Please—stop,” he begs. Pain wets his eyes. He looks at me. “Please.”
“You will take me?” I ask, my fingers unmoved, unclenched. “We will leave now?”
“Yes—anything,” he cries. “Just—let…go.”
I lean over the bench. “If you try to turn back on our deal at any time, this will be your fate. But I will not stop next time. I will starve you. You will die. Do you understand me, human?”
He’s hunched over the bench, now. His cries are muffled by the painted wood. But I hear his whimpered answer all the same.
‘Yes. I understand … Just make it stop.’
I pull my hand away.
The man flips back and lands on the kiosk floor.
I peer into the stall at him.
On the floor, he tries to catch his breath. His hands roam everywhere, not sure where to soothe. Head, for his headache. Throat, for his thirst. Stomach, for his hunger.
It’s no use to hurry him along. His pain is quite terrible.
Shadow and I wait for the boatman.
۞
Dusk caves into night by the time we board the boat.
Barnaby, the boatman, has seamen he brings with him on these voyages. He tells me the trips are dangerous, the icebergs, the storms, the treacherous ocean. His eyes don’t meet mine when he tells me this.
Fear makes him cower. His head bows, his posture slumps. It reminds me of a time I reacted the same way. All it took was the sight of a whip.
I don’t bother Barnaby more than need be. He is uncomfortable around me.
They all are. Barnaby and the three seamen.
Two days on the boat, and they only talk to me when they must. Mostly, I’m left on the deck of the ship with Shadow. We both watch the water. For days.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 35