CW: violence, blood, discussion of animal harm.
Vesper was not a horse girl. It was not for lack of trying. She wished she loved horses as much as her ex-best friend, Holly. Holly, with her graceful legs, and a perfectly rounded head that looked good in any helmet. Bike rides be damned, Holly looked like her head was made to be protected, whereas Vesper felt like her skull was too elongated, too narrow, for any helmet or hat to fit.
It was Holly who taught Vesper how to kiss when they were thirteen. Not that pecking bullshit. Vesper had thought she knew. Everyone did by then, right? She certainly thought so. But Holly had demonstrated for Vesper, walking up the doorframe of her bedroom, Vesper sitting rapt on the floor, tugging gently on the orange shag rug she knew Holly had stolen from Bed, Bath & Beyond before they went out of business.
Holly leaned against the doorframe, the wood now acting as her latest suitor. It had no chance. Her breasts—breasts Vesper prayed for on the daily because my god just look at them—pert, one slightly higher than the other—pressing, pressing against the doorframe. Then Holly kissed the grain, simple at first then messy and loud. Her tongue lapped against the door frame, and Vesper feared for Holly’s tongue rubbing against the sharp edges of wood.
Vesper was overcome, in awe and helplessness. She wanted whatever Holly was giving, whatever she had. She wanted to be the doorframe and Holly. She wanted to be inside Holly’s skin and at her back, pressing, pressing. What was that hot iron feeling in her chest? Where did the giddiness and confusion come from? Later on, she’d have words for it. Her parents would have words for it—nervous as they were—but at thirteen, descriptions and labels might as well have been spellwork, or a blurry creature from the depths. And Vesper was a part of those depths, the cool murkiness. Holly, to Vesper, was solid ground in the sun.
Vesper wanted to tell Holly as much. She had to try. Maybe Holly knew what these feelings were, like she knew what kissing was. But Vesper had hesitated. Her brain stuttered. They weren’t alone, after all. All around Holly’s bedroom, there were eyes upon her, staring. Big, bulbous eyes. Equine and long lashed.
Knowing.
You see, Holly was a horse girl. There were at least a dozen posters on her bedroom walls to prove it. Black Beauty. Secretariat. These were the only ones Vesper recognized. My Little Ponies stood in a tight herd, staring at Vesper from a cherry oak shelf. Statues and figurines, plushies and pillows. Words in delicate cursive splayed across Holly’s wall just above her headboard: “There is much we can learn from a friend who happens to be a horse.”
Vesper found herself jealous of those words. What about her? What could Holly learn from Vesper?
The horses in Holly’s room all stared at Vesper accusingly.
“It’s not my fault,” Vesper wanted to say. She wasn’t the one exploiting them, racing them. She wasn’t running them ragged or forcing them to jump, jump, jump.
By then, Holly had finished her epic kiss and turned to stare, smiling, at Vesper.
“What do you think?” she’d asked.
Vesper looked away from Black Beauty, shook herself back to the moment.
Radiant. Magnificent. Transcendent. Perfect.
These would have all been better descriptors. Any of those words, Vesper realized later on, would have pleased Holly. Would have kept her close.
Instead, Vesper had nodded hurriedly and said, “You kiss like a horse.”
• • • •
It was like an eye, the middle. The surface of the water, as still as glass. Surrounded by a boardwalk that seemed to hiss with each drag and pull. It had been easier before the boardwalk. She was told you could wade through it, like a snake in the desert.
The cloth tangled in her teeth. The shoulder bit against the top of her mouth. But occasionally . . . oh, occasionally, through the cloth, the stiff shoulder, rivulets of sticky sweetness. She put her jaw to the sticking place. Hold. Hold! Wait. Wait! She was taught not to rush. Her parents said to hurry was to stumble. To stumble was to die.
Wait.
She’d reached her destination in time, her wildwood privacy. She could bite down soon. Harder. She could nestle and settle and share.
• • • •
Ten years later, Vesper had done her best to leave her confusing adolescence behind. She ran from northwest Illinois to Albany. Really, it was more like a hop, skip, and a jump. After high school, she hopped south to Chicago for art school, skipped to New York City for graduate school, then landed in Albany.
She told her parents she drew renderings for a technology company, which was a half-truth. In reality, she was a UX designer for a video game development company, which sounded impressive on dates but boiled down to designing web pages and menus that were mostly discarded or left for the end of the development stage. Unimpressive but decently paid.
Vesper told herself that selling sketches and paintings of Evil Horses under a pseudonym on Etsy was a form of therapy. A coping mechanism, to process and release the horrors of what came after Holly’s kissing demonstration.
Drawing them in a horrid glory was better than thinking about them. Making them ravenous beasts—fanged, bloody, you name it—made up for the fact that an ill-advised compliment had made a gauntlet of her teenage years. Vesper Jackson-Pollocked red paint over most of them, even on the frames she chose, antique gilded ones from local salvage shops. Some of the art she held a candle to and burned a portion of it. Buyers liked that. A review: “I loved the rustic look the burn has! Metal.”
Some, Vesper painted and did not sell.
Some, she threw out. Let oblivion have them.
Vesper was drawing her latest Evil Horse in a small Albany coffee shop when she first heard about the deaths of horses at the Saratoga racetrack. This particular Evil Horse was inspired by Artax from one of her favorite childhood films, The Neverending Story. What if Artax had resurrected from the bog? What if he had climbed out of the mud, eyes glowing red, putrid and angry? After all, Atreyu should have tried harder. Artax was the horse of a warrior, and the warrior had given up.
Vesper took a red pastel to the eyes, circling, circling. Red eyes, like all her Evil Horses. Cliche but catching. Her buyers loved it. Switching to charcoal, she wrote a caption beneath the horse: Mourn me.
“Oh, you too?” A voice said over her shoulder.
Vesper jumped in her seat, coming back to the coffee shop where she sat. Her coffee had long since cooled in its cauldron-shaped mug. Her apple turnover sat forgotten. This happened sometimes, when she drew the horses. Time seemed to melt away from her.
A woman stood behind her with stunning white hair braided into a perfect bun. Perhaps she was a ballerina when she was younger, or a yoga instructor. The woman clutched her throat, staring at Vesper’s drawing.
“It’s ghastly what’s going on there, isn’t it?” the woman asked Vesper.
Vesper must’ve looked confused, because the woman’s cheeks instantly pinked, and she laughed.
“I meant the horse deaths at the Saratoga track,” she said. “I figured you were coping, too. I can’t help but cry when I read about another one being put down.”
The woman sniffed, her eyes turning glassy. It was so sudden that Vesper wasn’t sure if it was a joke. Could any human be this quick to emotion? Vesper said nothing at first, her thoughts blurring. She had taken on the habit of being slower to respond. What horse deaths? Vesper never kept up with the news. But an opportunity had presented itself that was better than the actuality—no one wanted to hear her sob story, and saying the drawing was just an Evil Horse was more uncomfortable to the average person than not.
“Yes,” Vesper said carefully. “Of course.”
The woman seemed relieved and appeased. She nodded at the drawing with an earnest look, saying she’d leave Vesper to it. Her coping. Vesper thanked her, and as soon as the woman was out of sight, she took out her phone and searched. “Horse Deaths at Saratoga.”
She’d never been to the racetrack, hadn’t even realized it was about forty minutes from her apartment. But there it was, a baker’s dozen of death. Avoiding the shitty AI description and the initial headlines, Vesper found what she was looking for: Lists.
Data was a beautiful thing. Vesper could have gone into statistics, her parents certainly would have loved that, but she preferred data as a treat. Something to stumble upon, like a foal on gangly legs, when least expected.
And this data was beautiful to Vesper. She knew she ought to feel like the stunning woman who clutched her throat, staring wide-eyed at her drawing. Ghastly, the woman had called it, and it was. But this was a list of surety. This was a list of no return. Even the title held a level of awe: “Equine Death and Breakdown.” It listed the type of incident, horse name, trainer, and even the weather conditions. Vesper understood that even a broken leg could mean the death of a horse, and she couldn’t help but reach under the table and rub her knees with her palms as she read. Grateful. Confident. She could run. She had run home from Holly’s house and kept running. And she could do so much more than that. Nothing had made her falter yet. Not since—
Clear. Clear. Cloudy. Overcast.
Vesper looked outside the coffee shop. Partly cloudy.
She looked at her Evil Horse, which gazed back at her from the tabletop. She wanted to whisper apologies to it, for being so distracted by the data on her phone. Soon. Soon, she’d post it on her Etsy page. Soon it would sell and go to a good home that would understand its wrath, its origins.
She’d draw water in the background for this Evil Horse, as she so often did. A lake. A river. A bog. Like Volo Bog, where she grew up. A hop, skip, and a jump from Holly’s house, and that haunting equine bedroom. Bodies of water reminded her of home, and it was the one thing of home that didn’t make her cringe—like a paper cut in her sternum—thinking of the past.
As she looked back at the list of equine deaths, an idea struck her. A lure that hooked her by the throat.
Vesper would go to the racetrack.
She had to behold the place that so many horses ran to die. Surely, it would act as both inspiration and closure.
You kiss like a horse.
Horse girl!
You’re the horse girl!
Vesper shook herself from the memories, her chestnut hair falling over her eyes, which she blew away with a prolonged exhale from her nostrils.
Enough, she told herself. It was past time she left the coffee shop.
Best to get back to her unassuming apartment first. Her place (nothing felt like a true home lately) sat west of Albany in Voorheesville. Her bedroom window had a sliver of a view of the Black Creek Marsh Wildlife Management Area, skimming the tips of the red maple marsh. Vesper told herself she could smell the protected wetlands, its sweet putrefaction and fermentation. The mineral makeup that was so priceless to life on Earth. In that, her parents at least approved of her proximity to nature, though she’d bet they’d snort at her view. She’d told them she was “close enough” to the area to put them at ease.
She refused to let them come to her. Because she knew. She knew. As soon as they stepped into the sterile cube of her current life, they’d scream. They’d roar.
A prickle at the back of her neck.
Another person stared at her Evil Horse drawing in the coffee shop. Vesper turned slightly in her seat and saw a little boy waiting in line with his mother, clutching her hand. Staring, staring at the drawing, wide-eyed. Perhaps Vesper’s version of Artax would haunt his dreams, beckoning him back to the bog. Anything with red eyes had to be evil; it was common knowledge from every child’s birth.
Then this child’s wide eyes turned to Vesper, and he blinked, squinted, and blinked again. Vesper sighed. She hated to be seen like this.
Don’t touch me, Vesper willed the thought to the boy. You might lose your hand.
She pulled back her lips to bare her teeth. The boy yelped and leaned into his mother.
“What’s wrong, honey?” his mother asked, and the boy pressed his face into his mother’s waist, whimpering.
Vesper felt the feeling again, the burning sensation. She was pleased.
As she packed up her art tools, she heard the mother’s concern turned wry and teasing.
“What’s wrong?” the mother asked again. “You looked like you’ve seen a monster.”
• • • •
Cloudy. Rainy.
That’s what Vesper would have catalogued. The journey to Saratoga was pockmarked with strips of fog and scattered raindrops. Vesper inhaled the air and smelled worms in the mud. Maybe not directly beneath her feet but somewhere close, surely. There was a stench to worms, unmistakable, like fish. Their slithering mucus-soaked bodies gyrating beneath the surface. Rain called them out. Out, out. Like a siren song.
Vesper shook out the raindrops in her hair. The Saratoga racetrack was closed for the season since it was just after Labor Day, and the last race and recent horse deaths had given enough of a ripple effect. Yet Vesper noticed a slew of cars near the entrance. TV stations and newspapers. The logos were magnetized to the side of cheap sedans and rusty trucks. News never paid anymore. Undervalued but needed. Like the woman in the coffee shop. Ghastly news was even more important. People hungered for it, their mouths watering for grief that wasn’t their own. It always fascinated Vesper, how ravenous people were for stories, even if they were untrue.
Hey horse girl, why don’t you jump for us?
Kiss us like a horse!
Holly had made sure that story spread like a poison in the blood. Classmates that Vesper had never spoken to, had never even noticed, suddenly now wanted to know about her.
“Why would you tell people that?” Vesper had whispered desperately to Holly, who kept trying to walk away from her in the hallways of their school. Whispers followed in their wake. Vesper remembered sweating, dripping with it, as if she were breaking from a fever.
“Why would you say that?” she asked Holly again.
How could you, she wanted to say instead. How could you turn my honest mistake into something so cruel? Vesper knew she’d hurt Holly, but she didn’t know the extent to which Holly would take her revenge.
“What? That you kiss like a horse?” Holly sneered. “That you have kissed a horse? That wasn’t me, Vesper. That was you, remember? Remember?”
She remembered it all vividly, even as she now stared at the entrance to the Saratoga Racecourse, the bone-white fountain surrounded by pictures of jockeys. The carefully managed flowers, the blooms standing straight as soldiers.
She didn’t recall walking up to the entrance, only suddenly finding herself there. The fountain did not spew water; there were no races scheduled for the day. Had it been repainted? It seemed to glow white even beneath the overcast skies. Vesper had to squint at it.
“Are you here with the rest of the press?” someone called from the ticket booth.
Vesper looked up, seeing a man in shadow. She couldn’t tell if it was an employee from the course or a journalist. He wore a hat that covered his face, but she could see the outline of a beard beneath the bill of the hat. The hat had an embroidered logo of a horse jumping over a carnation. Vesper wondered if he was a trainer.
“Yes,” Vesper said. “I’m here to ask questions.”
The man harumphed. “You and everyone else in this state.”
He turned around as if to leave but stopped. Then he whirled back on her.
“This isn’t who we are, you know,” he said, his voice cracking. “Most people want nothing to do with this, the poor creatures.”
Vesper couldn’t help herself. Her jaw seemed to elongate to form the words.
“This course has more than one million paid attendees a year,” she called back.
The man’s hands went to his hips, and he leaned back as if punched.
“Yeah, well that’s not everyone, is it?”
Before Vesper could respond, to ask him what he was waiting for, and why the hell did he care what she thought . . . the person disappeared, probably back into a booth or office somewhere. Vesper itched her nose with her forearm and held out a strap of her bag. Her sketchbook was still there, the most recent Evil Horse staring at her from amongst the detritus of art supplies and candy wrappers. She’d drawn another version of Artax that morning, waking up in a cold sweat, the tang of blood in her mouth. She’d bit a chunk out of the inside of her cheek in the night.
To hesitate was to stumble. To stumble was to die.
Her cheek throbbed as she walked through the front gates.
Boot prints in the muddy horse path led to the Paddock area, and sure enough a crowd had gathered. Vesper saw the flash of cameras and heard murmuring. An occasional raised voice. How easy it all seemed, she thought. If interrogated she could say she forgot her press pass, or claim she was a freelance journalist, which was only partially untrue.
A nicker in the distance. A squeal. A scream.
Vesper’s head jerked toward the sound, so fast that she felt a pop in her back.
Were the horses still there? Had they not been moved or transported back to their homes?
She stopped walking, her shoes gathering in the mud, sinking, sinking.
A single drop of rain splattered on her nose.
She rubbed at it with her forearm and continued walking. Forget it. It was a sound, only a sound. A speaker somewhere. A television. They were probably replaying the news or race coverage somewhere. There were grills and clubs all around, filled to the brim.
“Vesper? Vesper Calpa?”
That jerking motion again, turning sharply toward the sound. To avoid another pop, Vesper turned with her whole body, swinging her weight. She nearly tripped and fell onto the muddy path.
Vesper would know that hair anywhere. That perfectly sculpted head. The head that could wear any hat or helmet, even a jockey helmet, and look made for it. But Holly was too tall to be a jockey. So instead, she became a horse-racing journalist. Her face was plastered over all the horse magazines these days, cheeks shiny from the glossy pages.
Vesper forgot how red her hair was.
Holly clutched a notebook and recorder in her arms, eyes wide. She wore a pencil skirt and ruffled blue blouse, but she was smart enough to wear polka-dot rainboots, likely skipping around stables and muddy paths. Holly was nothing if not prepared. She also wore glasses, which she never had in school. Wouldn’t have been caught dead in such thickly resined green frames.
Vesper didn’t know why she hadn’t thought Holly might be here. She didn’t know why the idea had never presented itself until that very moment. Then everything made sense—of course she’d be here. Holy hell, what was Vesper thinking?
Vesper took a step back, then another.
A squeal in the distance—did no one else hear that?
“Wait,” Holly said, lurching forward. “Don’t go. Are you here about the deaths, too?”
Vesper could do nothing but nod.
Holly’s face seemed to crumple.
“It’s awful, isn’t it?” she asked. “I can’t put my finger on it.”
I can, Vesper wanted to say. I know exactly what’s happening. You’re killing them. You’re killing them all single-handedly and I bet you don’t even know it. With your red hair and perfect face and perfect body and perfect voice. I bet you’d blame it all on me, too.
Vesper cleared her throat. “It’s not safe.”
Such a simple statement.
Holly shook her head solemnly.
“You’re right,” she said. “It’s not.”
Holly looked over her shoulder, back at the crowd that gathered and cameras that flashed.
“They all think they’re asking the right question,” Holly said. “But they’re not really looking, are they? They want attention and front-page headlines.”
Vesper didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.
Holly turned her gaze back at Vesper, her cheeks flushing.
“I’m not like them, Vesper,” she said, almost whispering. The wind picked up, and Holly repeated the words again, a little louder.
“I’m not like them,” she said. “I’m better than I was. And I think I know what’s causing all of this. But—”
Holly looked down at the ground, shuffling her adorable rain boots in the mud.
“People will think I’m crazy,” she said. “But you won’t, will you?”
“How do you know?” Vesper asked suddenly. “What if I think you’re crazy? What if I think you’re out of your damn mind?”
It was Holly who laughed then, full-throated and unnaturally loud. So much so that Vesper saw a few people from the crowd in the paddock turn around. Vesper hunched her shoulders and wanted to gallop away.
“Oh Vesper,” Holly said. “I’m so glad you’re here. It’s like fate, isn’t it? I can atone for what I’ve done, and you can atone for yours.”
What the hell am I atoning for, Vesper wondered.
“I don’t owe you shit,” Vesper whispered, taking another step back. Holly’s smile wavered and fell at Vesper moving, her eyes going wide.
Holly hummed, neither confirming nor denying.
“But don’t you want closure?” she asked. “Isn’t that why you came here tonight? We both know you’re not a journalist. You ran far away from anything horse-related, and that’s probably my fault.”
Probably.
Vesper thought of the Evil Horse drawing in her bag, and she pinned it closer to her side.
“Meet me at the Denny’s near one of the entrances to the Black Creek Marsh Wildlife Management Area,” Holly said. “Tonight, at six. You know the place?”
Holly asked as if she already knew, and how was that possible? Of course, Vesper knew the place. She ate there weekly with its breakfast deals and loads of greasy food. Her parents said she ate too much—her eyes were bigger than her mouth—but she never seemed to gain a pound beyond the round curves of her ass. Her thighs remained mountains of muscle, yet her calves and shins were so brittle. Her body needed sustenance, and she gave in to it. Like ants to a sugar cube.
She ought to refuse Holly. Vesper had spent years practicing the art of refusing Holly whenever this situation was presented to her. She’d daydreamed of Holly on her knees, licking her lips full of snot and tears as she begged Vesper’s forgiveness. And Vesper would refuse. Refuse and then some. Refuse and so much more. Whenever she dreamed about it at night, she didn’t want to let the dream go. She snoozed her alarm. She went back to sleep.
Instead, Vesper said nothing. She finally turned around and headed back toward the front gate, the bone-slick fountain. She breathed hard through her nose, deep and throaty, so much so she snorted and snorted and snorted.
“Tonight at 6 p.m.,” Holly called after her. “I’ll wait for you, Vesper Calpa! I’ll wait for you!”
• • • •
Vesper shoveled apple cinnamon pancakes into her gullet. Better to scoop and tear at the soggy pastry than meet Holly’s eyes across the table. Perhaps she did eat like a horse. She wondered if asking Holly would elicit a satisfying reaction. Maybe Holly would blanch or turn white with fear and guilt. Or maybe, knowing Holly, she’d laugh. She’d somehow turn it back on Vesper, flip the coin.
Best not to kick a dead horse.
Vesper winced at the thought. A bit too on the nose.
“Vesper Calpa, you have always loved food,” Holly said fondly. Vesper allowed herself to glance and was surprised to see Holly smiling. She’d been smiling since she walked through the door and found Vesper waiting in a booth, drinking iced tea and trying her damndest not to seem like she’d been there since five thirty. Her legs ached from the day, the tension, the return trip to Voorheesville. Night enveloped the sky, and there were no stars.
Cloudy. Rainy. Cool.
Cool despite still being September. Usually, September clutched summer in its fist, holding on for dear life.
“Holly Smith, you have always been a picky eater,” Vesper said, keeping her voice warm. Holly grinned.
“Touché,” she said, looking down at her chicken tenders and French fries, drowning in ketchup. Vesper could smell the sweet sauce from across the table and felt her nose scrunch up a bit.
Holly ordered chicken tenders whenever they’d gone to restaurants as kids. It didn’t matter what the restaurant was known for, she’d order chicken tenders. It seemed the habit followed her into adulthood.
“It’s weird,” Holly said. “I enjoy food but it’s more that I don’t trust other people to make food for me. I’ll make anything and everything at home. You should come over sometime.”
Vesper swallowed. “Maybe.”
Holly laughed again. So much laughing.
“You’ll never set foot there, will you,” she said, then shrugged. “I don’t blame you.”
Holly’s hands were in her lap, and she raised them to rest on either side of her plate. She made no motion to eat more food, not as Vesper kept shoveling mouthfuls. Her stomach growled even as she filled it, yearning for more. More.
For a horrifying second, Vesper thought Holly would reach across to take her hand, possibly even both hands. Vesper was sure she’d bolt then, so she froze mid-bite, watching.
Holly noticed the pause, and her hands fell back into her lap.
“Is it—is it too late to apologize?” she whispered.
Yes.
No.
Absolutely.
Never.
Cloudy. Raining. Cool. Getting cooler by the minute.
Vesper chewed.
Swallowed.
“Tell me what we came here for, please,” she said.
Holly blinked.
“I’m ready to hear what your ideas are,” Vesper said, urging on. Urging her forward, because truth be told, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what would help or hurt at this moment. She didn’t want to think about it. She just wanted to eat.
Holly nodded, blinking rapidly as if she were avoiding crying, which for some reason Vesper wanted to laugh at but held it in. She reached to her side, where her purse sat, and pulled out a weathered notebook. An old Lisa Frank notebook with a rainbow unicorn on the front. Vesper nearly bit her cheek again at the sight. Fuck me.
Holly opened the notebook, flipped through some pages before she stopped. A Post-it marked her place.
Holly took a deep breath.
“Well, I’ll just come out and say it, then,” she said. “The racetrack is cursed.”
Vesper forced herself to continue chewing, the food becoming a slush in her mouth. She ought to swallow, get it away from her grinding teeth before she started to chew her into her inner cheek.
“Cursed?” she asked through her food.
Holly nodded, her eyes taking on a different spark. Something separate from the light Vesper remembered, the light in her eyes when she kissed the doorframe. This was more eager.
“I’m sure of it,” Holly said. “It’s all here. You can track the times of deaths . . . always a six in the number. The deaths seem random, but they all suffered.”
Of course they did, Vesper thought. Of course they suffered. They were being trained too hard, or the conditions weren’t right, or the track wasn’t kept well. You don’t need a curse to cause death.
But the thought intrigued Vesper. She wondered if this was what a chain reaction felt like, the spark in Holly’s eyes skittering to Vesper’s brain and then . . . and then . . . there. The possibility created from curiosity.
Vesper’s nostrils flared. “What do you think caused the curse? What is the curse?”
Holly sighed, her smile lopsided with relief. She seemed like she was ready for Vesper to tell her off, to roll her eyes. Perhaps every single person she’d told before Vesper had reacted that way, and the thought that Vesper was the first—the only—for this, was like filling a hole in the ground with rich, new soil. Like a drained bog being refilled again.
Over the next hour, Holly pulled forth printouts and articles, some from reddit and others from horse forums and chat rooms about the paranormal. Apparently, there was a whole subset of people who believed in curses, cryptids, and the like, and Holly was a part of it. Holly was more than just a horse girl, Vesper realized with a strange sort of glee. Vesper hoped Holly could see Vesper again as an equal again.
“The first horse that died on the track is rumored to have been as far back as 1913, but there are no official records to prove it,” Holly said, leaning over the table. “The horse’s name is also unconfirmed, but it had “heart” in it. Great Heartspoke, or TheHeartGoesFirst. There are too many variations, but it all boiled down to a young horse who was forced to work in the rain, broke its leg, and had to be put down. Ever since then, horses have been dying there.”
Horses are dying everywhere, Vesper almost said aloud. But she didn’t want Holly to lose her momentum.
“Rumor also has it that the body of the horse in 1913 was buried in Black Creek Marsh.”
Vesper did swallow at that, her throat constricting around a bite of bacon that was much too large. She felt it scratch its way down to her esophagus.
“Black Creek Marsh?” she asked, pointing out the window their booth butted up against, which had a view of a line of thick trees. “That Black Creek Marsh?”
Holly smiled again. “Yes,” she said. “And I think we need to go find out if that’s true. I need someone to come with me, but I’ve never mentioned this to anyone before, and you know people online can be serial killers and stuff. The Internet is good for information but not for meetups.”
“Best to choose the monster you know,” Vesper said in a deadpan tone, and Holly laughed.
“Exactly!” Holly said, laughing. “You’ve always gotten me, Ves.”
Vesper physically jerked at the nickname, unable to help herself. No one had called her that since before Holly ran her out of her bedroom. Her parents never gave her a nickname; it was always Vesper, because she was born in the evening, the stars were rising, and she arrived in her “splendor,” as they said. She hated when they told that story, as if she had a destiny to fulfill. A purpose. She’d fought against that idea for so long. But now? Now she was going to Black Creek Marsh, likely at night. It was like her trips to Volo Bog in Illinois all over again. A boardwalk across thick, dark waters. Crickets and cicadas screaming all at once.
“When do you want to go?” Vesper said. She pushed away her plate. It was empty, scraped clean. Holly had barely touched her chicken tenders. She had nibbled off the crisp, leaving the white meat beneath. Like gnawed bones. Holly’s skin flushed from her cheeks down below the neckline of her shirt. A blanket of red, like the carnations on the floral blankets draped over the winning horses. Vesper wondered if Holly’s blush bloomed in her cleavage as well, down to the dip in her waist. Had she blushed like this when she’d kissed the doorframe?
“Whenever.” Holly shrugged, and Vesper could sense she was holding back hope. She’d go right now if Vesper let her. But wait. Wait.
“Tomorrow,” Vesper said.
“Tomorrow?” Holly said. She slapped her hands on the table. “You’re shitting me, you’ll go with me? Seriously? Oh my god, Ves, I love you.”
Vesper made herself roll her eyes. “I know.”
“We could solve everything!” Holly said. “If we find the body in the marsh and make an offering? It could heal the track. We could save so many horses.”
Hell, Vesper thought. Holly really believed it. Vesper could tell by the glassiness in her eyes, the spark, the flush of her whole body. In any other instance, she’d think Holly was high, but she remembered Holly’s fervor talking about Black Beauty. Vesper would never admit to Holly that she had actually read the book, eventually. She always thought of the line: “We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.”
Vesper had underlined the words. She memorized them. And even after she returned the weathered book back to the library, where she was scolded for underlining it, she still remembered the line to this day.
She thought of the Evil Horse, nestled in her purpose. She made up her mind to add a full marsh in the background, down to the sphagnum moss. Then she’d put the ghostly Artax-inspired horse up on Etsy, and she anticipated it selling immediately. Maybe even overnight.
“Meet back here at six?” Vesper asked.
Holly laughed again, as if she couldn’t believe her luck. “Oh my god, yes, Vesper. Yes.”
• • • •
Vesper didn’t sleep well that night. The breakfast food churned and burned in her stomach, growling into the darkness of her bedroom. She sweat in her excitement, her back and legs slick against the sheets.
She’d taken off work the next day, and her supervisor responded with a surprised sort of glee. You never take off work! This will be good for you, and we’re already ahead of schedule on the latest project. Why don’t you take more?
Maybe she would.
Before getting into bed, Vesper had posted the latest Evil Horse, marsh background and all. Her wrathful Artex-inspired creature from the muddy depths, ready for vengeance. She’d even added blood dripping from its thick lips, bicuspids mortared with flesh. She’d hesitated posting it, almost too fond of it to let it go. That happened sometimes, but it felt right to let this one out into the world. She anticipated a buyer by morning. Her most loyal customers always checked in the middle of the night, or so it seemed.
Beyond her window, the marsh awaited. Light pollution from downtown Albany gave the tree line a glow, and it took everything not to call Holly and whisper, “Now. Let’s go now.”
But Vesper would wait. She had to. The right things take time, after all, her parents always said. She remembers them nuzzling her hair, ruffling it.
“When the time is right,” they assured her. “When the time is right.”
She had rebelled against them in all the ways that counted in her youth, in all the ways that enraged them the most, and in all the ways a young soul ought to. But she learned as well, and listened, even when they didn’t think she was.
She’d faltered but never stumbled. She stayed alive.
You’re the horse girl.
She remembered the hay stuffed into her locker in high school.
Pucker up, horsey! Whinny for us!
She recalled the grains stuffed in her coat pockets at the Homecoming dance, red carnations thrown at her, the stems stinging her skin. All the while, Holly pointed and laughed at her among her classmates, smiling too wide, too serenely.
But she was so sorry now, wasn’t she? So very sorry. It was as if her past was offering Vesper a door she could finally close.
Slam it shut, she thought. Lock it. Take a hammer and nails to it.
With that in mind, her Evil Horse drawing propped on an easel just beyond her bed, ever watchful and protective, Vesper slept, and she did not have a single nightmare.
• • • •
She shouldn’t have taken off work, because she had to wait until sundown to go to the marsh anyway. Holly had texted that she was bringing a shovel and a bucket, and there was no way any park rangers would allow digging, so under the moonlight it was.
To pass the time, Vesper drew another Evil Horse. Another half-dead creature rising from the marsh, red eyes and all. It was similar to her Artex-inspired drawing but also different. More shadows. Gorier, too, and that said a lot. Vesper’s drawing hand flew along the mixed media paper, the heel of her palm staining black from lead pencil and charcoal. This was a drawing she knew she could never sell. It wouldn’t fit her usual wares and might confuse her following. No, this one was for her, and she’d pour all of herself into it until it was time to meet Holly again.
The horse’s hind legs were wrong, and they were supposed to be. They sagged in the murky water, blurry. Were the legs conjoining? Were the hooves reversed, the keratin flimsier and paddle-like? Did it have, rather, a longer tail? Vesper canted her head at the picture, a grin forming. Oh yes, this horse was transforming, wasn’t it. A horse and yet not. Better. Stronger.
Before she could start layering more color, more blood, the sun had finally set. Vesper’s eyes were crusty and sore, as if she’d overslept. She could use some coffee, but that might make her too jittery for the evening’s escapades, and she wanted her limbs to be warm and controlled.
Her phone pinged. Holly texted she’d meet Vesper at the Denny’s parking lot, and they could walk to the marsh from there. It’d be a long walk, but they could “Catch up!” as Holly put it.
Vesper knew they’d have little to no service at the marsh, so she left her phone—left everything except the clothes on her back—on her bed, tucked daintily under her pillow. She touched the drawing of her Evil Horse on her desk, smeared with charcoal in a way that made Vesper feel proud. This drawing made her feel more like an artist—like herself—than she had in a long, long time.
What was it, she thought, when Holly had mentioned the curse? Horses have always been dying. But with this Evil Horse, she felt like she was resurrecting them one by one. Every data point on the list—fell, front left leg broken, euthanized; collapsed and died while training; collapsed, two back legs broken, euthanized; heart failure; medial basilar sesamoid fracture, euthanized; advanced joint disease, euthanized—was now overturned in her drawings. They would climb out the darkness, seeking justice. Wrathful. Hungry.
Her phone pinged again, and she lifted her pillow to see the final message
Ready! Holly texted.
She leaned down and tapped out the words. Coming.
• • • •
Holly was giddy as they walked up the gravel entry road to the marsh. Vesper said little, and Holly seemed fine by that. Ecstatic really, because she used the time to reminisce. She spoke of her love of horses, how she got into journalism school and started an internship covering the horse races at Saratoga. She worked her way up until she ran the beat, and now here she was. She had a boyfriend, Todd or Tommy, a name that Vesper instantly forgot. He was a pediatric nurse and wanted a “boatload” of babies, eventually. Holly was unsure, and she asked Vesper if she’d thought about having kids, to which Vesper shook her head viciously.
Holly laughed, nudging her in the shoulder. “Think of a child with your eyes, Ves,” she said. “I’ve never seen eyes so big. How did your parents say no to you as a kiddo?”
Vesper shrugged. “They weren’t really the affectionate type.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” Holly said. “I remember you saying they were strict. Kept to themselves. Hey, did I ever come over to your house?”
Vesper shook her head. She would have died if she’d let Holly see her house. She didn’t realize she said the words aloud, low and wry, and Holly laughed again.
“You were a mystery,” Holly said. “I think that’s why I envied you. Why I envied the way people looked at you.”
Vesper nearly tripped over a rock. “Envy me?”
Holly took a couple skips ahead of Vesper, causing the bucket hanging on her forearm to clunk against her hip. She wore the worst possible outfit, Vesper noticed, a dress with red carnations on it, blooming and shedding petals to her knees. In the moonlight, it looked like wounds opening up. At least she wore tall bumblebee rainboots.
“Yeah,” she said over her shoulder. “You were so . . . I don’t know . . . ethereal. You never said the wrong thing. You watched. I wanted to be as cool as you.”
“Is that why you made everyone hate me?” Vesper asked.
This time, it was Holly who tripped, and she didn’t catch herself. She stumbled, bucket flying. She made a noise as she landed knees-first on the gravel, and Vesper heard her gasp.
Vesper caught up and knelt before her.
“Are you hurt?” Vesper asked.
Holly looked up. In the silver light, Vesper could see tears in her eyes, and rather than feel bad at her words, a quiet, hot rage boiled in her chest.
“My knees,” Holly said, her voice warbling. She rubbed at her nose with her forearm. “I just—I don’t know how many times I can say sorry, but I am sorry, Vesper. What I did to you was horrible.”
Unforgivable.
Vesper nodded, then looked behind her to where the road finally opened up to the marsh. Black Creek was mostly a freshwater wetland, Vesper knew. A railroad bisected the land, and she knew to steer clear of it because it was active. Wildflowers, sedges, dogwood, and meadowsweet surrounded and sprouted out of the surface of the water.
“I know, Holly,” Vesper said, staring ahead of them. There was movement in the tall grasses, likely a beaver or another animal. Marshes were full of creatures. “I know you feel terrible.”
“Could you ever forgive me?” Holly asked.
Vesper turned back to face her. Holly really was beautiful. Vesper was glad she wore a dress; however unwise it was. She wanted to tuck a strand of hair behind an ear of her perfect head.
Rather than respond, Vesper asked, “Do you still ride? Horses, I mean.”
Holly swallowed, lips trembling.
Let her think what she wants, Vesper thought. She was done talking about the past.
“Umm, a little. I don’t have a horse, but I have a friend who boards at a stable in Voorheesville.”
Vesper smiled. “Wonderful.”
She stood and offered Holly her hand, which she took and lifted herself up. Holly let go of Vesper’s hand immediately, as if it burned to touch her. She leaned over and brushed rock crumbs out of the gashes on her knees. One cut bled a rivulet beneath the edge of her rainboot.
“Should we turn back?” Vesper asked. “Get you cleaned up?”
Holly did not lift her head, eyeing her wounds, but she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “It’s only a few cuts.”
“It’s more than that,” Vesper said.
“I’m fine, Vesper,” Holly said. “I can handle it.”
Vesper remembered that steel voice. The voice that didn’t play games, and she felt her back straighten at the tone. She had to correct herself. You’re not a child anymore, stupid. She can’t hurt you. Then Vesper thought of her parents, their constant advice.
If you stumble, you die.
She had not stumbled. Holly had.
“Then handle it,” Vesper said, turning to walk into the marsh. She heard Holly’s small gasp, this time relishing the sound. Then Holly’s footsteps followed her own, crunching in the gravel until they moved beyond the road and into muddy wetland. Their footsteps quieted into squelches and gurgles. They walked in a single file in silence until Vesper was sure it was the middle of the night. Then she heard rustling of paper behind her, and she glanced back. Holly had taken a map out of a dress pocket. She limped.
“Here,” she said suddenly, stopping. “We’re close.”
Vesper carried the shovel on her shoulder. It was so light, she barely noticed it, and now she shrugged it off and dropped it to the ground with a thunk! Holly jumped, eyeing Vesper over the rim of the paper. They were near an edge of a small body of water in the wetlands, like a tiny pond. It smelled putrid when Vesper inhaled fully through her nose, but the surrounding plant life added a sweetness to it. The breeze lifted her hair, and, in that moment, it felt glorious. Full of anticipation.
“I can do the digging,” Holly said.
“But you didn’t dress for it,” Vesper pointed out. At least she wore shorts and a raggedy t-shirt. “I can do it.”
“I want to do it,” Holly snapped. “It was my idea, and I want to go in. I like wearing dresses, okay?”
Vesper held her hands up in surrender. “Whatever you want, Holly.”
Her voice came out slightly defeated, and Holly sagged at the sound.
“I’m—look, I’m sorry, Vesper,” she said. “My knees hurt, and I was so excited to be here and now it feels silly all of a sudden, you know?”
Vesper shook her head.
“Well, it feels silly,” Holly said. “To think I’ll find a decomposing horse in this little pond . . . but this is where everyone online said it might be. I want to be part of the discovery. I want to heal it.”
Vesper put her hands on her hips, staring at Holly. She wished she brought an equestrian riding helmet, just to see it on Holly’s head. Now that was a silly thought.
“I’m here to do whatever you want,” Vesper said, and Holly smiled at that. Beamed, really. Vesper couldn’t blame her. It was one of the most loving sentences in the world.
Before long, Holly had tied her dress in a knot at her waist, Vesper seeing that she wore sports shorts underneath, and waded into the water.
“Supposedly, the body was buried here, and if we can find a bone of some sort, we can give it a proper burial,” Holly said.
She explained more about the curse, about what she hoped to find, while Vesper waited on not-quite-dry land beyond the water. Vesper was only half-listening, her eyes following Holly as she sank deeper into the mud. Soon, the pond took Holly up to her waist, and she took awkward, knee-high steps, using the shovel as a sort of dredge. Minutes passed.
“Anything?’ Vesper called.
In the darkness, she saw Holly shake her head again. “Nothing.”
Thank god for the bright moon, not full but nearly there. Vesper crossed her arms, closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds. The soft movement of water as Holly waded through it. Flies and insects. Crickets screaming. A mourning dove lamenting in the distance.
She heard Holly swear under breath, walking the perimeter of the pond again. And again.
Vesper opened her eyes, the hairs on her neck standing to attention.
As Holly neared the middle of the pond, she stopped.
“Vesper, did you hear that?” She asked, somewhat shrill.
“What?”
“That sound,” Holly said. “It sounded like hooves.”
Vesper shook her head. “The ground is too soft.”
“I swear, it sounded like a fucking horse walking on wood.”
Clunk! Clunk Clunk!
Ah, there it was. Vesper felt a prickle start just above her buttocks and climb upward toward her neck. She canted her head, pointing her ear toward the noise.
Clunk-Clunk! Clunk-Clunk!
Clunk-Clunk! Clunk-Clunk!
A snort, then air blown out between the lips. More clunking, then a draaaaaaggging sound, like pulling a sack of grain.
Clunk-clunk draaaaaaaaaaggg!
Holly had the shovel held over her head in both hands, as if she were stretching her arms, but even from the edge, Vesper could see the whites of her eyes. She was both excited and terrified.
“M-maybe that means we’re close, Ves,” Holly said. “We must be, and the curse knows it!”
Slowly, ever so slowly, Vesper shook her head. First she swayed her head to the right, then to the left. She leaned forward, arms outstretched until she calmly and quietly came onto her hands and knees.
Clunk-clunk draaaaaaaaaaggg!
“I don’t think that’s what it is, Holly,” Vesper said, her voice too loud among the din of noise.
Holly turned away from her, trying to follow the sound that seemed to surround them.
“Shush,” she said. “Not too loud.”
“Or what, I’ll wake the dead?” Vesper asked, then she laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed and snorted and grunted and blew and nickered.
Holly turned so fast in the water that ripples hurtled toward the edge around her.
“What are you doing?” Holly asked. She made to move forward but stopped, her body lurching.
“Vesper?” she said, her torso bobbing in the dark waters. “Vesper, I can’t—my foot is stuck.”
“It’s the mud,” Vesper said. She was on all fours now, continuing the movement of her head. Swaying, swaying. Back and forth, back and forth.
Horses are always dying.
When she’d posted the Artex horse on Etsy, she’d labeled it: THE FINAL HORSE. ETSY SHOP CLOSING AFTER SALE, THANKS FOR THE LOVE – CAILPEACH. The person who bought it offered twice the amount.
A sound rumbled in her abdomen. She let it climb up and out of her throat. Her mouth opened. Her ears elongated and pricked forward.
She whinnied.
“What the fuck, Vesper, this isn’t funny,” Holly yelled.
Her rump was swaying now, her back muscles, thighs, and legs tightening into thick mounds and curves. Oh, she was hungry now. Aye, aye, aye.
Holly breathed heavily. Loud. As if she couldn’t get air into her lungs. Even as Vesper swayed, hands and knees soaking wet into the drenched mud. The water of the pond seemed to spread, closer and closer to where Vesper crouched.
Cursing like a sailor, Vesper heard Holly mutter “fuck this” and tossed the shovel, going onto her belly. One leg came out of the water with a boot, the other did not. She’d left it there in the mud. Who knew when the boot would see the light of day again. Some bog and fen bodies lasted thousands of years in the muck before discovery, and they would either be without bones but perfect skin, or no skin and perfect bones.
Vesper cocked her head, smiling. Her teeth felt so large and right, weighing down her jaw until they were cubic, strong.
Holly stopped swimming toward Vesper, taking in her shape and mouth. Her own mouth opened but no sound came out. A silent reckoning.
The noise of hooves surrounded them, but they closed in on Vesper, and Vesper was ready. Her fingers melted together, along with her toes, morphing into strong protein keratin. Soft tissue and bone. She pawed at the ground, making a single gouge in the mud.
She shook her head, letting her jaw pop. Painful, but she’d gotten used to it over the years. Her parents had forced it upon her after Holly had broken up with her. Best to do it now, at the height of rage, then when you least expect it.
To hurry was to stumble. To stumble was to die.
Vesper had learned she had to take her time. She had to make plans.
She had to make Holly understand, in her own time.
The grooves of Vesper’s spine now spread and realigned.
She staggered toward the edge of the water, where Holly stood waist deep in the coffee-colored waters. Vesper wrung out her jaw again, making it pop. Ah, better.
She watched Holly, her eyes darting back and forth as the cogs of her mind whirred. Perhaps Holly thought that Vesper was the curse itself, and the light in her eyes, the dawning of it, made Vesper think that this was what Holly’s consciousness decided upon. A way to rationalize fear and awe.
Whatever, Vesper thought. Whatever it took.
As she closed in on Holly, it was as if Holly couldn’t help herself. She reached out, dead leaves hanging from her fingers like talons. In another life, she’d be a wetland priestess, collecting offerings and ushering forth creatures from beyond anyone’s imagination.
Vesper lowered her head, her form massive now, and let Holly stroke her neck, shivering at the touch.
She remembered Holly at the doorframe, young and confident, and maybe she’d let a moment pass where Holly could feel like that again.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Holly whispered.
She leaned forward, and Vesper did as well, closer and closer. They breathed hard. So hungry they were for resolution.
But Vesper turned at the last second, avoiding Holly’s lips. Her mouth opened, teeth aligning perfectly over Holly’s carnation-drenched shoulder. She felt Holly’s lips on her own neck, rubbing against soft hair. Vesper shuddered, groaning.
There are five shapes of tooth in a horse’s mouth. She anticipated the blood that would pool upon each, the twelve incisors that would cut and split supple flesh.
Because Holly had misunderstood Vesper’s heavy breaths, her longing. That adolescent hunger had evolved.
Raising her hoof, Vesper pressed it against Holly’s torso, and she bit. Bit down.
