Chapter 19
19
N othing changed at Rainshadow for a few long strange days. Darkness seemed to linger well into the morning, never really retreating, and the afternoon gave way to night again, a gray mouse swallowed by a black cobra without struggle. Flora worked the horses, cared for the barn, and even took care of Sylvia, who seemed some days to improve, and other days to breath in such slow increments that Flora had to stand, watching her, her own breath held, to make sure she was alive at all. She helped herself to Sylvia’s closet now, and her drawers. There was an enticing little safe, no larger than a mini fridge, that Flora wondered about. What treasures would a woman like Sylvia have? Jewelry? Cash? Maybe something more interesting, more valuable, that a girl like Flora could not even imagine.
It was early in the afternoon when the truck came trundling up the driveway with a horse trailer attached. Flora was working Mars in the arena when she saw it, stopped the horse to watch the truck rumble up and stop just before the barn.
She dismounted and met the driver, who held out a clipboard for her to sign.
“I don’t know the details,” he explained. “I’m just an animal transport service.”
“Where did this… animal… come from?” Flora asked, peeking through the slats in the trailer to see a pale face with huge black eyes gazing back at her.
“This horse is from… uh… Austria…? Long way to send a horse. Must be pretty special!”
The man looked around at the farm, then at Flora, his eyes darting up and down, as though appraising her. Was she, he must be wondering, worthy of such an expense?
He smirked at her. “Your father must love you very much,” he said.
Flora blushed, furious, but didn’t bother to correct him.
She helped unload the horse, white as a cloud, muscular, as graceful as a swan and as strong as a heavyweight boxer. She ran her hands along its beautiful flank and helped it into Bane’s former stall. It was a male horse, exhausted from travel most likely, and she filled its water tank from the hose and hurried to get him a bucket of oats.
She watched him eat, feeling a sense of protective ownership that surprised her. Ethan had bought her a horse, a horse from Austria, a horse with impeccable breeding that had probably already begun training with masters of dressage and horsemanship. She petted the beautiful horse, smiling and talking to him like he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. He probably was. She decided she would call him Astor.
When she saw Ethan that evening, strolling down the slate-stone path to visit her at the end of her working day, she ran to him and threw herself into his arms.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her lips pressed to his ear. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
He looked at her, utterly surprised. “What are we thanking me for?” he asked, smiling his most charming, rakish smile.
“For the horse,” she said, indicating the barn. “He came today. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Horse?” He looked up at the barn, still confused.
“He’s not for you,” came Sylvia’s voice behind them.
Flora startled. She looked behind Ethan, and saw the horrible, limping form of Sylvia coming up the walk. “Sylvia,” she whispered, as a horrible feeling grew in her belly, a feeling of pure hatred.
“It’s not your horse, Flora. I sent for him. He’s mine.”
“Oh,” Ethan said, as though that settled everything. “It sounds like Sylvia sent off for a new horse!”
Flora looked back and forth between Sylvia and Ethan. “You’ve got to be kidding!” She was sputtering, furious, and most of all, embarrassed. “You can barely walk, much less ride a horse!”
“I wasn’t so sick when I sent for him,” she said, brushing past Flora to make her way into the barn. “And maybe I’ll get better. I’m certainly more motivated now.”
“But—” Flora cried, not knowing what to say.
Sylvia moved closer to her, so that Ethan could not hear what she said next. “That’s a fifty-thousand-dollar horse, Flora. Not a toy for a simpering horse girl.”
Flora felt like throwing up. She felt rage, utter humiliation, and betrayal, because Ethan, still smiling, seemed amused at the conflict. She looked at him, and he gave her a sympathetic look.
“Darling,” he said when she went to him. “Don’t let her get under your skin. She was so broken up over that last horse, whatever his name was.”
“Still,” Flora seethed, speaking through her teeth. They both watched Sylvia hobble through the barn door. “To let a woman who is barely able to walk buy a horse like that?—”
“I don’t let her do anything, Flora. She’s my partner. She manages my finances entirely.”
Flora was so shocked at those words she couldn’t even speak. Ethan seemed amused by that, too.
“I told you I couldn’t just leave her!” he said, chuckling.
“But she’s barely functional!”
“I think she’s rather more functional than you give her credit for.”
Flora realized she was being teased and simmered with frustration. She thought she had gained the upper hand with Sylvia, but now she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t return to being Sylvia’s supplicant.
She just couldn’t.
That night, she and Ethan slept together again. Now they were barely trying to hide it. He lingered downstairs after Sylvia went to bed, fingers tapping the table elegantly, watching Flora with a seductive intensity. Sylvia had watched them, their flirtatious glances and their affectionate touches, brushing against one another as they moved about the kitchen and then the dining room. Flora thought it would make her feel powerful, forcing Sylvia to watch them together, but the amused smirk on Sylvia’s pale lips, like she still knew something Flora didn’t, was driving her crazy.
“I love touching you,” Ethan growled later, his hands on her hips, thrusting into her from behind, her face pressed helplessly into a pillow. “You’re so young, so fresh.”
Fresh?
She looked over her shoulder to see him, his face twisted with pleasure, his lips peeling back to show his teeth. In the shadows of the dark room, they gleamed, sharp and threatening, and for a moment Flora felt like she was going crazy, crazy with need, crazy with frustration. She reached for herself, pulsed her hands, feeling more and more desperate for relief. She looked again and Ethan’s face was serene, his mouth shut tight, a straight, serious line of concentration and he came. She did too, shuddering, feeling tears spring to her eyes at the release. Her feelings were so darkly confused, and she was so close, she thought, to getting what she wanted.
The next day, though, she woke up and went to the barn by ten to find Sylvia already there, saddling her new horse.
“I’ve decided to name him Mithras,” Sylvia said, looking at Flora with bright, mocking eyes.
“Oh, ok.” She wanted to say that “Mithras” was a stupid name, that she hated it, and a beautiful horse shouldn’t have a weird, made-up name. Instead she went to work mucking the stalls.
She watched when Sylvia took the horse into the arena for the first time. If she had been hateful toward Sylvia before that morning, seeing her on the new horse, so skilled and confident, so elegant, so beautiful, even in her diminished state, was like torture. She was, Flora knew, a master horsewoman, something she herself would never be. She had Ethan, though, didn’t she? She wanted to scream out “I’m fucking your boyfriend you stupid bitch! I won!” But of course she didn’t.
No. She only watched, her eyes narrow with hatred, as Sylvia danced around the ring with otherworldly grace, like the horse was not even a living, breathing thing, but a manifestation of grace and exquisite beauty. Sylvia, a light smile on her pale lips, seemed to be in a blissful dream.