Chapter Two Adela
I open the matching hut’s door a crack, removing my mask to look up, but all I can see is the quiet, starry sky. I hope whatever creature roared is now far away.
I leave behind the lantern so I can move unnoticed through the snow-dusted meadow toward the warm glow of village. The light of the large, pale moon is enough to navigate through the jackalope warrens.
I creep out quietly and quickly, firmly closing the door on the softly glowing phoenix skulls and cursing my own impulsivity. Why can’t I just ignore the horrible ideas that pop into my head, rather than run headlong at them?
But I push away the thought, scooping up Bartholomew’s abandoned mask and cloak. I shove them beneath my arm with my own mask, moving swiftly across the meadow.
A jackalope hops out of a nearby buttonbush, and I pause. They’re adorable—rather sweet and loppy bunny-like creatures with round faces and soft fur. But their antlers are as sharp as razors, and they can be aggressive, especially when strangers get too near.
I am no stranger. I’ve been traveling back and forth between the village and the matching hut for seventeen years. They tend to be shy around me because they don’t feel the need to protect themselves.
Not tonight.
I am barely twenty steps away from the matching hut’s safety when I hear the muted thud of many soft paws on the frozen ground behind me.
I look over my shoulder to find a pack of twenty or so.
They are close on my heels, with their velvety noses pointed toward the ground, aiming their sharply spiked heads at my legs.
I walk faster.
So do they, hopping quickly to match pace. I hear a familiar weeping from one, and then another farther away. The call is hypnotic and disorienting. I want to stop, to look for the woman making the sound. But I know she is long gone. This is a distraction method of jackalopes and a bad sign.
I speed up. One dashes forward, catching my skirts.
I jump away and hear fabric tear but don’t look down.
It’s a warning strike. If they really wanted to catch me, they could.
I cannot outrun the jackalopes, or any of the valley’s creatures, but for the moment they seem more interested in herding me back toward the village than nibbling away at my flesh, thank the Spinner.
Above me, I imagine I hear the faintest rush of wings. I flinch and glance up, but see no movement in the bright night sky. Surely there is nothing dark and dangerous hunting me from above.
I am practically jogging now, clutching the masks and Bartholomew’s cloak to my chest and gulping down the frigid air.
I silently curse myself for not joining Cecelia on her morning runs more regularly.
But I am round, with a tummy and breasts that bounce and jiggle and thighs that rub.
When I push too hard, as I always do, running hurts.
Unfortunately, at the moment, breathing hurts, too.
I slow down, and this time I am certain I hear the telltale whoosh of very large wings above me. I look up to see a section of stars blotted out, but whether it is a gryphon, a dragon, or a pegasus in the air above my head, I can’t tell.
Not that it matters. They are all predators, and all delight in a chase.
I stop hurrying. Or at least, I try to stop looking like I am hurrying. Instead, I walk in an exaggerated, quick-paced stroll. I am terrified, but I begin to sing a drinking song my cousin Melinda once taught me. I am big. I am unafraid. I am not prey.
The jackalopes swarm around me, biting at my hems and rubbing rough antlers on my legs.
It hurts, but my cloak and skirts offer protection.
The small creatures aren’t doing any lasting damage, and I am safer with a herd of angry jackalopes poking at me than meeting a flying beast. I let them chomp away, pulling at me as I get closer and closer to the edge of the village, which is eerily quiet.
But it is late. I stayed in the matching hut much longer than I had planned.
When I cross the invisible threshold into the village, the jackalopes stop and gnash their pointy teeth at me in a show of dominance. They were gentle with me, considering the size of those teeth and their sheer numbers. They could have done much more damage.
I check the air over the meadow I just traversed, but whatever was following me is gone. I am safe.
“Dad?” I call out, even though I can see the hook at the back door that should be holding his cloak is empty. I set my mask and Bartholomew’s things on a small table. I’ll clean and return them to him after all of the ceremonies this week are complete.
Before I can take another step into the quiet house, the back door slams open, and Dad walks in, soaked in green-black blood.
In his arms is a small kelpie—half-horse, half-fish–like creature—with a tangled seaweed mane.
Her mouth, lined with rows of knife-sharp teeth, gulps for a breath she can’t find out of water.
I spring forward to help, but he gestures me away, grunting.
There are only two kelpies left in the entire valley, and they’re not easy to differentiate, especially if the light isn’t shining directly on them and illuminating the subtle color differences of their scales.
“What’s happened? Who is she? Why is she bleeding? Why is she here?”
“Duschwa. Fill the tub. Quickly, love.”
I do as he asks, bolting down the hallway and throwing open the spigots into our wide copper tub. The water is cold, of course, with no time to light the fires to warm it, but kelpies live in rivers. She doesn’t need warmth; she just needs water.
Water barely covers the bottom of the tub when he is there, straining to gently place the kelpie mare inside.
Much smaller than the horse that her head, neck, and shoulders resemble, she still barely fits in a tub that I can luxuriate in.
He splashes water over her, particularly on the gills at her neck, and gestures for me to do the same.
I do, soaking the tattered cloak I still wear. He notices the tears—Dad always notices everything—but just gives me a look that promises he’ll ask later, and continues to focus on his patient.
When it looks like she is breathing again, he says, “Found her on my way back from the barns. Bleeding out in the middle of John’s backyard.”
“And then you carried her here?”
He shrugs, as if carrying a full-grown kelpie is not an impossible feat of strength, even for a man who is strong from his work.
As head carer, he is in charge of the physical health and well-being of the community’s equine population—the horses, donkeys, and mules that we use for transport and as beasts of burden and, more important, the unicorns, pegasi, and last pair of kelpies left in existence.
“It was closer than the river,” he says, so matter-of-fact. As if it isn’t bizarre that a kelpie was inside the village, so far from the river, in the first place. “Now help me turn her so we can get to her wounds. This is too much blood to lose.”
The tub is nearly black with blood. I reach in where he indicates and push when he tells me to.
The kelpie snaps her sharp teeth at me. If she weren’t half-gone already, she could take my arm with one quick chomp, but this snap is more from fear than any malice.
Her eyes are wide and white like any other equine’s would be, and her gills open and close far too quickly.
Dad and I flip her over to find the cause of all the blood. Three deep gouges run the length of her torso.
“Get the sewing kit,” Dad says. His voice is tired, despairing.
“Dad—” I begin, and lose the words. There is no saving Duschwa from this. The wounds are deep enough that I can see rib through one gash. But he hears the rest of what I’d say in the tone of that single word.
Through gritted teeth, he replies, “I cannot lose two in one day.”
My heart stutters at the ominous words. Who else has he lost? But I get the kit.
I am holding the sides of Duschwa’s flesh together as he sews when I find the strength to say, “Not Etana?” I can barely whisper her name. I search his front, but if there’s any silver unicorn blood on his clothes, it’s hidden beneath Duschwa’s.
I pray to the Pupil for wisdom, to the Spinner for healing, but most of my silent prayers go to the Huntress, begging her to protect Etana and her unborn foal from death. Not that the Huntress is swayed by mere prayers. Still, I silently plead and promise a sacrifice once the matching is over.
While I would never think to contain or tame her, Etana is almost as special to me as Bartholomew’s dragons are to him.
She and I were born at the same moment, under the same falling star.
It’s an inauspicious birth date, especially for mothers.
I nearly lost mine in the birthing room.
Etana had had to be pulled from the carcass of hers.
And so, we were raised together, fed bottles of goat’s milk by the man standing before me, covered in blood and attending to Duschwa with the same strong, steady hands he’s used to help countless others.
All keepers have seen tragedy, and my father more than most. For reasons unknown, creatures’ birthrates have been declining for a century, and the unicorns, kelpies, and pegasi seem especially impacted.
They hardly ever breed, and when they do, at least a third end up losing the foal before or during the birth.
I think of the now-glowing phoenix skulls high up on the shelf in the matching hut and wonder if their decline was as profound.
After closing up the first wound, Dad finally shakes his head. “Not Etana. Just an ordinary mare. Donna. Heart failure from some sort of infection.”
None of Dad’s charges are just anything to him. He cares for the magical and mundane creatures of the valley with the same depth of feeling, and I know he’ll feel the mare’s death just as profoundly as he’ll feel Duschwa’s once the rush of these moments has faded.