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tamantha [mc]tavish
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« Thread Started on Jun 24, 2009, 10:36pm » | ![[Quote]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/quote.gif) |
I'm just stopping by...
So weird. It's the first time I've logged in since -- well, since the site closed -- and I forgot my login for a minute there. Anyway, to those of you who still pass by now and again to check on dear old wellingtonrpg.proboards.com, if you need to read some horsey fiction, I've the perfect thing for you.
I'm finishing up a novel I started writing in November. It's a rough draft, but it's based on an old character from the site, so I've been wishing for the old forum back, so I could share it with you all.
Well, anyway, that's obviously not going to happen, so I thought I'd just leave it here. Maybe some of you will stumble upon and happen to like it. If you do, please comment, and I'll post more. I'll place the prologue and the first chapter or so in the following posts.
By the way, The Circular Path is copyrighted to me, and if you attempt to plagiarize, I will cheerfully beat you to death.
And, speaking of plagiarism, the cheerfully beat you to death is from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, so credit where credit is due, I did not come up with that 
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It Sounds Easy.
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tamantha [mc]tavish
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Karma: 7 | | Re: want something to read?
« Reply #1 on Jun 24, 2009, 10:41pm » | |
As a side note, if you want to offer any critique, please do. It's much appreciated.
The Circular Path
“…if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison’,
it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.”
–Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Prolepsis
Grace Kensington was flying. Stiletto beneath her was churning out speeds of forty miles an hour, her spidery legs gracefully covering ground at a pace that blurred the faces in the stands, the other horses and riders, everything but the dozen towering jumps spread out across the arena. They were flying.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Grace registered the announcer’s voice booming over the speaker. She didn’t bother to decipher his words; she didn’t care what he said. She couldn’t find the will to look at the time left on the clock or even read the body language of the crowd. The outcome of this night no longer mattered to her. She would only live in the moment now and not think about the five angry women waiting for her or the cold hospital room in New York or the millions of other reasons why her life was over after tonight. She would only think about Stiletto, about the five foot obstacles in front of her, about flying.
Grace could ride the course blind, she knew it so well. It was instinct to turn the corner from jump ten, let Stiletto have her head, and gallop the final yards to the eleventh and final fence. She focused on riding steady and straight, and Stiletto, as usual, found the best distance to the four foot nine wall. Grace eased out of the saddle, helping the mare defy gravity as she propelled herself effortlessly over the top rail. For one split second, nothing mattered except for the rush of air against her face, Stiletto’s neck beneath her hands, and the pure liquidity of the jump. There was only wind, and power, and horse.
As Stiletto’s hooves hit the ground, Grace was dragged under a wave of emotion. The buzzer sounded loud and clear, but it did not disturb her haze; the sound only meant that Stiletto had faithfully carried her over the finish line, and Grace could not care less. It didn’t matter what the clock read, and it didn’t matter if they hadn’t touched a single rail. Had she really thought that money, ribbons¯¯glory¯¯was winning? She had won nothing ever, but she had lost something along the way.
Around her, too bright flashes of camera bulbs flickered away, slowly penetrating the darkness that encompassed her mind. Little by little the scene reappeared in front of her. Somehow, Stiletto had managed to get her out of the ring, and Brielle was peering up at her.
“Grace, hello? You okay, hon?”
Grace barely glanced at her trainer. Her head craned around, and her eyes found what they were looking for. The paramedics, on scene and alert, under the ambulance’s light, and beyond them, a quite familiar beat up two-horse trailer. Even the five girls walking through the parking lot seemed to stand out from the crowd, their faces severe. Grace’s breathing stopped altogether. In one fell swoop, she had lost everything, and it was all her fault. Yes, she certainly knew who had won here and who had lost.
The brilliant light of the ambulance, glowing predominantly in front of her eyes, began to swim, and everything went black.
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It Sounds Easy.
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tamantha [mc]tavish
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Karma: 7 | | Re: want something to read?
« Reply #2 on Jun 25, 2009, 3:07pm » | |
Note: The next chapter will probably be up either Thursday or Friday of next week. I'm trying to make this a weekly-ish thing.
Chapter One - Once Upon A Time
To Grace Kensington’s seven-year-old eyes, Happy Apple Farms was heaven. The rows of red-painted cedar stalls, the line of horse heads peeping out over their doors, and children playing freely with their horses all added up to every little girl’s dream come true. Grace, in particular, watched the scene with an utterly captivated expression, her blue eyes wide and her small, pale fingers twisting absently through the thin strands of hair tickling her shoulders. She stood motionless at the barn door, watching in awe at the girls in jeans and scuffed boots who were presently feeding the horses out of their palms or running fat brushes over their sides or leading them with ropes through the walkways. How funny, she thought, that someplace so magical could exist so close to dirty, overcrowded New York City.
A girl about Grace’s age passed right in front of her, walking with a fat, white pony. The dark-haired child wore blue jeans much like Grace’s and a pair of ordinary tennis shoes. A woman walked beside her, paying close attention to the horse, and Grace immediately thought of her mother.
The scene was strange only in the fact that it wasn’t strange at all. The girl was doing activities very much like all the others, and she was just a normal girl. She wore the same clothes Grace wore, was the same height Grace was. They were very much alike, and it struck her as strange that someone so normal could be found here, in this dreamlike setting. What was so special about her that she got to be around the horses? Grace stared after her wistfully.
A tall woman appeared out of nowhere, looking all business. She wore a collared dress shirt, tucked in to strange, thin, beige pants that clung to her legs; on her feet were shiny, laced black boots that came just below her knee. She smiled widely at Grace and began speaking to her in a bubbly voice.
“Well, hello, young lady! Are you here to ride the horses?”
Grace opened her mouth hesitantly, tempted to say yes but knowing that lying was wrong. She didn’t have the chance to speak; her mother intercepted her quickly.
“No, no. Gracie doesn’t ride. This is actually her first time being so close to horses! We’re here to see her friend ride- Isabel de la Mancha…?” Cynthia Kensington trailed off, looking expectantly at the woman.
The lady knew exactly who Cynthia was talking about. She smiled knowingly. “Bell? She’s in her lesson right now. There’s only one riding ring, and it’s out back. You just walk down this aisle until you’re outside the barn and look to your left. It’s fenced off in white; you can’t miss it. I think Isabel is on Smiles today, so look for a palomino pony.”
“Thank you!” Cynthia threw over shoulder, already heading down the path the woman had pointed out. She grabbed Grace’s hand and walked faster, saying, “Come on, honey. We don’t want to miss her on the horse.”
Like the lady in the barn said, the riding area was pretty easy to find. There were two horses in there, and Grace had no idea what a palomino was, but she spotted Isabel sitting atop a small yellow horse with a pretty blonde tail that matched Grace’s hair. Isabel’s cocoa skin and waist-length black hair, plaited into two long braids, stood out against the paleness of the pony, making her easy to find. She was dressed similarly to the woman in the barn- a formal button-down tucked in to tan tights; the only difference was that her polished boots came only to her ankle. The pony she rode stood still at the fence, and Isabel sat at ease on his back, intensely conversing with her mother.
“Isabel Lucero de la Mancha, you listen to me!” her mother growled. “If I don’t see your heels down for the rest of the lesson, I will make you practice at home for twice as long every night until you finally keep them down!”
“I’m trying as hard as I can, Ma!” Isabel nearly whined.
“Obviously not, if you’re heels are still coming up,” she replied coldly. “You’re rear-end is coming out of the saddle when you canter, too. Maybe we can just have you in lunge lessons all next week; we need to fix that before I take you to see Jacques.”
The conversation made no sense at all to Grace, but she could see that Isabel was hanging on her mother’s every word.
“Nina!” Cynthia sang, approaching the beautiful woman and interrupting the serious moment. Cristina de la Mancha turned around, and her appearance transformed. Her face brightened, softened into a completely different person. Her white smile gleamed, and her silky, dark hair bounced around her face as she leaned forward to embrace Cynthia. Grace eyed what she could see of her perfectly straight, blonde locks and wished desperately for Mrs. Nina’s hair.
“¡Hola, chicas!” she called merrily in what Grace often heard referred to as Mrs. Nina’s “Madrid accent”. “Finally! You’ve come to see Isabel do her stuff!”
“Grace, just wait! I’m gonna jump in a few minutes, and you’ll see what me and Smiles and can do!” Isabel’s face showed her excitement, and Grace felt a flash of jealousy. She wanted to jump, too.
The other girl in the ring, who was older than Grace and Isabel by several years and on a much taller horse, was jogging her mount toward a white pole raised off the ground. The horse jumped over it and then continued to trudge lazily along in a straight line toward another raised pole, this one slightly higher. The second jump required a little more effort, and for one fleeting minute Grace could see only absolute beauty in the shoddy creature. His frumpy, shaggy body perked up as he took formation in the air. His ears flew forward and his legs pressed closer to his chest. In him, she saw the countless fairytale horses, saw that they were far from fictional.
And just like that, it was over. The tall, black animal was nothing more than ordinary- cute, but nevertheless unspectacular.
The shock of losing such a beautiful moment was interrupted by Mrs. Nina tsking her tongue quickly. “The horses and riders here have absolutely no potential. This is why we are going to see Jacques; his is a much more appropriate environment for you.”
Isabel said nothing but gave her mother a meaningful glare; Nina ignored it.
There was a woman standing in the center of the dirt floor whom Isabel identified as her trainer Susan. Susan was a plump, short woman with a gentle face who mostly told the girls what to do, waited with patient smile while they completed the task, and then congratulated them on how well they had done it regardless of actual performance. But Grace couldn’t be too positive about this fact, as she didn’t really know whether or not the rider was doing something well. She felt like she could spot when something was off, but then again, she really knew nothing about stuff like this. For all she knew, they really had made no mistakes at all.
Susan, who had been working with the other girl in the ring since Grace and Cynthia’s arrival, finally let her have a break. She turned to the group gathered by the fence and called, “Okay, Bell! Your turn!”
“’Kay!” Isabel called, and her yellow pony turned into the center of the ring. “What am I going to do?”
“Get Smiles into a canter and then take the inside vertical to the outside line, come around to the inside line, then the other outside line, and then finish off with the other inside vertical.” The words meant nothing to Grace, but Susan pointed freely to each jump or set of jumps she referenced and Grace felt as if she was beginning to understand the barn lingo just a bit.
So “palomino” meant yellow, and a “line” was just like what it sounded- jumps in a straight line. The outside jumps were on the edges of the ring, parallel with the fencing next to them; the two inside jumps and the one inside line were set on a diagonal and located in the middle of the ring. Grace nodded to herself, hoping she was getting all this right.
Each jump had to be at least a foot off the ground, but Isabel didn’t look at all phased. Grace supposed this was because Isabel had been riding since she was. Grace didn’t know when the training sessions had actually started, but she did know that Isabel had been riding seriously for a while. In first grade, one of her show and tells had been several smooth as silk, neatly pressed, brightly colored ribbons she called rosettes. Isabel had explained how she had earned each one of them, as well as what place they stood for. Most of Isabel’s ‘rosettes’ were blue; riding was in her blood. Her grandmother had apparently been a top trainer in Spain, and her mother had been a competitive rider until she had gotten pregnant for Isabel. Although Mrs. Nina never went to horse shows anymore, Grace had heard Isabel go on and on about how her mother still had two horses out in the country that she was saving for Isabel’s true competitive career. Grace had seen Isabel’s photo albums and videos full of the horses that would someday be hers. They were beautiful, graceful, athletic. Fairytale horses.
Grace knew she would never have her own horse, so she had put off coming to see her friend ride. She’d rather not know what she was missing out on. But the pictures Isabel painted proved impossible to resist, pictures of running carefree on a horse’s back, of jumping fences fearlessly, of feeling the wind in her hair… It seemed too good to be true.
But when Grace looked up, she saw that Isabel had not been lying in the least. Smiles was running now, his small legs stretching out in front of him as he glided over the air. Bell was leaning forward in the saddle, her hands in his hair; she was part of him, part of the movement. Though she sat almost perfectly still, it was like she was running, too.
When Nina growled, “Check your lead,” as they passed, it didn’t even interrupt the spell.
Even the stories about jumping were true. One by one, she and Smiles flew over the course. Either he was less lazy than the bigger horse or Isabel was a better rider than the older girl, because they recreated the earlier magical moment of the other pair, effortlessly. This magic was not fleeting, either; from the time they broke into a run until the time they came over the last jump, they were unfailingly beautiful. It was like the classical CDs her mother sometimes played at night, only put into physical, graspable beings.
Suddenly, Grace had to be a part of the music. It didn’t matter to her that she could never have what Isabel would. She had to try.
♦♦♦
“No,” Cynthia Kensington said firmly, shaking her head.
“But, Mom-”
“I just don’t think it’s such a good idea, honey. It’s time consuming and expensive and kind of dangerous.” Cynthia didn’t even bother looking up at her daughter as she said this, still keeping her nose buried in the Neiman Marcus catalogue. She flipped through the pages quickly but with acute attention, highlighting this or that as it caught her fancy.
“Just once, Mom!” Grace pleaded, her blue eyes widening. “Just one time! A birthday present! All I want is to go once, and I’ll never mention it again!”
“You’re birthday’s not for another two months,” Cynthia said passively, circling a pair of Manolo Blahniks.
“That’s okay,” Grace replied hastily. “I can wait until May! Just tell me I’ll be able to ride!”
But Cynthia shook her head again, pressing her lips tightly together. “We’ve had this conversation a thousand times, Gracie. The answer is no.”
“What if Daddy says yes?” Grace pulled out her last tactic, knowing it would probably make her mother angry. But she needed to get on a horse. Just once.
Cynthia remained surprisingly calm. As if she’d been expecting this, she had an answer prepared. A sarcastic smirk turned her lips up as she said, “Okay. Get your father to agree to drive you to buy all the things you’ll need to ride, drive you to the lesson, and pick you up from the lesson. Oh, and also make the call to schedule the lesson. Get him to agree to do all that, and you can go.”
Grace frowned, knowing her father would never agree to that. He wasn’t even home enough for her to have time to persuade him. She let it go for now.
But she did not let it go for good. She bugged her mother constantly for weeks, and with each argument Cynthia got more exasperated – and therefore more likely to cave. It had worked with everything else Grace wanted in life, so why shouldn’t it work now? It was just taking forever.
It was April 1 when her mother finally gave in.
At first, Grace thought it was an April Fool’s joke.
“You know what, Grace?” Cynthia snapped after her daughter had begged and pleaded in a five minute long soliloquy after passing a guy riding his horse on the street. Her whining had been getting more frequent and more powerful with time, and Cynthia had had enough. “I will let you get on that stupid horse if you will just shut up about it.” Her hands tightened around the steering wheel as she delivered the last line.
Grace hadn’t seen that one coming, and with the condition, she really hated to say anything, but she felt the need to respond. “Really?” she asked quietly.
“Yes,” Cynthia replied with a straight face. “Just. Stop. Complaining. You’re driving me crazy.”
Her mother’s cool mask made her wary, and Grace remembered the date. “Oh. I get it. April Fool’s. Ha ha, very funny, Mom.”
“No, I mean it. I’ll call Nina de la Mancha tonight, and see what her opinions are on getting you scheduled in lessons.”
Grace didn’t miss the plural, and this made her only more sure that it was a joke. “Lessons? Not just one?” Despite her certainty, there was a faint hope in her voice.
Cynthia gave her a look. “If I sign you up for just one, you will keep whining until I get you more. I might as well give in with as few migraines as possible.”
Grace stared back at her doubtfully. “If this is an April Fool’s joke, it isn’t funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
True to her word, as soon as they were in the house, Cynthia picked up her phone and called Isabel’s house. She would not put the phone on speaker, so Grace only heard one side of the conversation.
“Bell, honey, is your mother home?” A pause. “Great. May I speak with her?”
There was another pause as she had to wait for Mrs. Nina to pick up her line. Cynthia explained about Grace’s endless pleading and how she had finally caved. It sounded kind of immature to Grace, when she heard it put that way. The little blonde wondered idly if Isabel’s mom was in on the joke, too, or if this really was going to happen.
“So, what’s the best approach, do you think? Should I call Happy Apple or do you recommend someplace else?” Cynthia tilted her head thoughtfully as Nina replied. “No, no. We’re not going to do this competitively, I don’t think. She just wants to ride.” Grace’s mom raised a golden eyebrow at something Mrs. Nina said, but she sounded calm when she replied, “All right, Happy Apple it is, then. What’s their number?” She jotted their phone line down quickly, thanked Nina, and then hung up.
But Grace didn’t really believe her mother until two days later, when she actually made the call to Happy Apple Farms. Grace woke up to the sound of Cynthia’s voice floating up the stairs.
“Yes, ma’am, Grace Kensington.”
There were footsteps up the stairs, the sound of a door opening and, a few seconds later, closing again.
“Okay. The second week of June is fine with us. Do you recommend lessons before then?”
The footsteps- clicking of heels across the polished wooden planks, to be precise- traveled across the upstairs hallway. Another door opened, and the next time Cynthia spoke, her voice was muffled.
“All right. Forty? That’s really not too bad… What times do you have available?” The pause was much shorter this time, and Cynthia appeared to be interrupting the other speaker when she asked incredulously, “Fifty? For half an hour?” She seemed to think better of arguing, though, because she broke off. “All right, then. We’ll see you in a week. Is that all she needs? …Great. Thank you so much. Buh-bye.”
Cynthia’s voice was right outside Grace’s room now, and all of a sudden her door burst open. Grace jumped slightly.
“Get up,” her mother said bluntly. “We’re meeting Mrs. Nina and going shopping.”
Grace glanced incredulously at the clock; it felt too early for a shopping trip. 8:15. She was right.
“Why?” Grace asked, half annoyed and half curious.
Cynthia threw some clothes onto her daughter’s bed and headed for the girl’s closet to find a pair of matching shoes. “You have a riding lesson next Friday, and you’re going to need a few things.”
Just like that, Grace was up.
Apparently, Grace would need to buy a few things at a “tack” shop before she could ride. The woman at Happy Apple explained that these things weren’t necessary, but according to the de la Mancha’s, they really were essentials.
Unfortunately, Nina’s favorite tack shop was over an hour away from the city, and under any other circumstances Grace would have complained about boredom. But Isobel had brought a stack of textbooks from her house to help fill Grace in on the long ride. They bore titles like The Horseman’s Guide to Tack and The Fundamental Principles of Equestrianism. They seemed complicated and a little boring to Grace, but Isabel was enthusiastic and honestly seemed to understand most of what they said. On the one hour and fifteen minute long trip, she filled Grace in about the basics of riding clothes, horse tack, horse care, and even riding itself. Some parts sounded so easy, others way too complicated. Grace was sure she wouldn’t remember half of it, but she was willing to try and learn.
Isabel had just begun to explain the proper method of untacking and cooling down a horse after a riding lesson when Mrs. Nina pulled into a little parking lot off the main road. There was a pretty brick building sitting before them, with a metal plaque reading THE TACK BOX: EQUESTRIAN APPAREL, TACK, AND ACCESSORIES. As they walked through the door, a small bell clanged.
“Ah, hello, Nina!” exclaimed a wrinkled old man behind the wooden checkout counter to their right. He shuffled around the desk and hurried around to give Mrs. Nina a kiss on the hand. Grace wrinkled her nose.
“And little miss Isabel, too, of course!” he continued, winking at Bell. “I see you’ve brought friends!”
Mrs. Nina gestured to them, perfectly at ease with the short, freckled face old man. “Ernest, this is Cynthia Kensington and her daughter Grace. Grace, Cynthia, this is the owner of the store, Ernest Wright.”
The man stepped forward and reached up to shake both Cynthia and her daughter’s hand. An easygoing smile lit up his face. “A pleasure, really, ladies. Nina is one of our most beloved customers; she’s been a friend of my business for years. Now is there anything in particular I can help the four of you with today?”
Nina took the liberty of answering. “Actually, there is. Grace has her first lesson next week, and we’re here to purchase a few things.”
“The starter kit,” Ernest said with a nod and a knowing smile. “That would be the essentials, the basics: breeches, boots, maybe a shirt… You’ll probably want a helmet, too, if this isn’t just a one or two time deal; lice is always an issue with borrowing helmets…”
Cynthia shuddered slightly. “A helmet it is then.”
The man nodded and called over his shoulder, “Emma, did you hear what these ladies are looking for? Come show them around.”
A tall teenage girl with choppy, brown hair appeared quickly around a line of shelves. She nodded jerkily, and her hazy eyes looked as if they were having trouble focusing on the group of people in front of her. But she said simply, “Mmmkay,” and gestured the four of them farther back into the shop.
As Grace took a hesitant step forward to follow her, allowing the others to go first, she heard Ernest call quietly after them. “Ah, and Nina, I have some special shipments just in… I’ll have to show you.”
Nina either did not hear the comment or did not have a response; she just kept walking after the salesgirl, explaining to Cynthia in a hushed voice certain things they were looking for.
When they turned around another line of shelves and into an open section in the back corner of the store, Grace’s eyes lit up. In front of her was an endless sea of pristine boots. She had always been a shoe person and, seeing the box after box open to display the glorious leather heels, she thought she had died and gone to heaven.
Cynthia, the source of Grace’s shoe obsession, eyed the boxes speculatively, as if contemplating buying a pair for herself.
Emma gestured toward the shelves. “Here’s our boot selection.” Her dead words slurred a little.
“It’s a general rule that riders don’t get tall boots until they’re about twelve and their feet have stopped growing,” Nina elaborated, casting a dirty look at the salesgirl. “But any of these short boots here-” she gestured toward one of the sections– “would be fine.”
They spent about double the amount of time in the boot section as they did in the breeches, shirt, and helmet sections put together. Cynthia, who couldn’t resist the opportunity to compose a new outfit, helped tremendously with Grace’s selection. In the end, they brought to the counter a pair of black boots, tan breeches, a couple of horse-printed tees, and a plastic black helmet. Grace had honestly wanted brown boots, but they hadn’t been able to find a brown helmet, and Cynthia would not have her daughter clashing. But it didn’t matter to Grace, not really. Not when she that much closer to being able to ride an actual horse.
“One hundred and fifty dollars, Gracie?” Cynthia asked, eying the register and the stack of clothes now being bagged. “You’re costing me a lot of money, I hope you know that.” She smiled though. “At least you’ll look cute!”
While Emma was packaging the helmet and the boots, Ernest stole Mrs. Nina to look at some new shipment he had got in. As soon as her mother was gone, Isabel disappeared behind a curtain of riding jackets, looking like Alice in Wonderland as she got swallowed up by the huge wave of material. Grace followed after her quickly, eager to more of her opinions on everything else the store had to offer.
“What are you looking at, Bell?” she asked, startled to find Isabel looking absolutely enchanted by a strange looking coat. It was black, with lots of buttons, and those things called “tails” in the back that were on her father’s formal tuxedos- only this tuxedo jacket was Isabel-sized.
Her friend’s gaze didn’t break from the coat. She ran her fingers gingerly along the simple wool fabricate as if it were the finest cashmere in the world. Her head titled slightly to the side as she touched the six round buttons one by one.
“It’s called a shadbelly,” she replied after a minute in absent voice.
“Cool,” Grace said, although she couldn’t understand the adoring look on Isabel’s face at the moment. “Are you getting one? Do you already have one?”
“No, neither,” Isabel said softly, and Grace identified the longing in her voice. She hated to press the issue, but…
“Why not? What do you use it for?”
“You wear it if you ride dressage, but only if it do it really competitively.”
Grace heard how her voice softened on the unfamiliar d-word, probably only because she was so focused on the new sound. “Druh-sahj?” She tried to pronounce it out like Isabel had, but she just couldn’t get it right.
“It’s a type of riding; the word’s French. It’s like dancing, but on horses. Sometimes they even ride to music.”
The word music stopped Grace’s heart in its tracks. She remembered Isabel’s lesson all those weeks ago, remembered the intangible music that had been embodied that day. She wanted to see it, this equestrian dance.
“Can you do it at Happy Apple?” she asked suddenly, avoiding the unpronounceable word at all costs.
“No. That’s why my mom is bringing me to Jacques. Well, that and Happy Apple doesn’t take a seven-year-old rider as seriously as my mom and I do.”
Grace was started to get used to needing things explained. “Who’s Jacques? And why are you still at Happy Apple if you can’t… do what you want there?” She avoided the strange word.
“Well, Jacques is the only trainer that will work with me so young- work with me seriously. The other competitive trainers just want me to do equitation, stick to the flat classes and build my foundation. But my foundation’s solid, so my mom won’t waste money or time going to them. And Jacques won’t take anyone under eight. Even then, it’s a long shot. He has to evaluate me, to see how I ride.”
Though the alien terminology was hard to keep up with, Grace grasped pretty much what her friend was saying. And from the short exhibition she’d seen, Grace couldn’t imagine any trainer in the world thinking Isabel wasn’t good enough.
Paying more attention to the “shadbelly” as Isabel continued to finger it enviously, Grace caught a sight of the price tag. There were a lot of digits after the dollar sign. “It’s expensive.”
“Yeah, but Mom will buy me one, if I can only make it into Jacques’s program…”
Grace just stared at her in amazed silence, until they were finally interrupted.
“Isabel, honey, let’s go!” Nina called, her head appearing over one of the racks of clothing. If she noticed her daughter’s preoccupation with the black dressage coat, she didn’t show it. She waited impatiently for the girls to hustle out of the clustered corner, and the four mothers and daughters walked quietly out of the store.
♦♦♦
The week passed slowly for Grace, but eventually Friday came. Her friends at school hounded her all day about her lesson and pestered her with questions. Although she had eaten a huge breakfast that morning, the nerves had set in about midday, and she had scarcely touched her lunch. Her lesson was right after school, before dinnertime, and Grace’s stomach was full only of butterflies as she got into Mrs. Nina’s car that afternoon.
Her lesson wasn’t until five and it was only three now, but Isabel spent a lot of time at the barn. Bell’s lesson wasn’t until five-thirty, right after Grace’s, yet she insisted on stopping home only to change before leaving for Happy Apple. Isabel was perfectly content to spend pointless hours at the barn, and Grace didn’t mind. She wanted to take in as much as she could before finally getting on the horse.
The thought sent a thrill through her mind. She couldn’t wait for five o’clock!
Dressed completely in her new riding outfit, Grace didn’t feel at all out of place as she walked through the bright red doors of Happy Apple. She did notice how only the much older girls wore breeches and boots, while the girls her age stuck to tennis shoes and jeans. She didn’t care, though. Isabel said this made her look more advanced.
They still had an hour before her lesson. Grace couldn’t see how they would pass the time, but Isabel merely shook her head and said, “Trust me. There are always things that have to be done with horses.”
Mrs. Nina had left just after dropping them off, but Isabel didn’t seem at all uncomfortable barging into the barn’s office. Grace recognized the woman in there as Susan, who had given Isabel’s lesson the last time she had been here. Susan smiled at them now.
“Hello, Isabel! Who’s your friend?”
“This is Grace. She has a lesson at five. Do you know who she’s riding?”
The woman flipped through a stack of papers on her desk before pulling one out and scanning it briefly. “What’s your last name, sweetie?”
“Kensington,” Grace answered promptly, her eyes not on Susan but on the pictures of horses and riders framed on the office walls. She recognized Isabel in one of the group pictures, but that was it.
“Oh, that’s right,” the woman said, nodding to herself. “Your mother came by this morning to drop off your check and sign your release forms.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Grace agreed.
“Okay now, Grace… You’re going to be riding Briggy today.” Her lips formed a small smile as she said the word ‘Briggy,’ and Grace couldn’t help smiling in response. Briggy. Somehow, her horse having a name made it all the more real.
Isabel nodded, as if Susan had been talking to her. “Do you want me to help her tack up and everything?”
Susan cocked her head and pursed her lips. After a second, she said, “You’re welcome to help out, but since I don’t have anything more pressing going on at the moment, I think I should show her around for her first time. Adult supervision is always good for these things- not that I don’t think you can’t handle it.” She winked, and Isabel’s face fell just a bit.
The woman led the girls- well, Grace, really; Isabel seemed to know where Susan was going and what she was going to do- on a tour of Happy Apple. It wasn’t too big, really. They had a dozen or so stalls of horses, an office, one ring, and a fenced in field they called a paddock. The final room they saw reminded Grace of The Tack Box, which was why she wasn’t surprised when Susan held her hand out and said grandly, “And this is the tack room.”
It looked like The Tack Box, kind of, only much more organized and with much less stuff. Saddles and bridles lined the wall, each marked off for what Grace assumed was a specific horse. The tags ‘Smiles’ and ‘Briggy’ confirmed this guess.
A metal bin was on the nearest wall, and from her position Grace could see the dusty helmets inside of it. She thought of her own brand-new and perfectly clean helmet and was grateful.
There were also a ton of things that Grace didn’t recognize- things that reminded her of the squeegee her father used on his car window, some gauzy type bandages all rolled up, and other odd objects that Grace could never have placed as something a person would use on a horse. Susan was saying something about the tack now, but Grace couldn’t seem to tune in until she picked up Briggy’s name among the string of words.
“…and that’s her stuff right there, so just grab it and we can go put it up by the crossties, where we’ll keep Briggy so we can groom her.” She gestured to the saddle and bridle on the far wall. It looked heavy.
Isabel already had a large quilted cloth in her hands, but she helped Grace with Briggy’s saddle anyway. It was heavier than it even looked.
While Isabel and Grace got the tack situated at the crossties, Susan went to go get Briggy.
The sound of hooves clipping the cobblestone ground sent Grace’s heart racing and she craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of the horse as she came around the corner. For a couple of seconds, she couldn’t really see anything, but then came Susan loosely leading the animal.
Grace stared at the horse for a few seconds, in shock.
Briggy was beautiful, adorable. She looked like the wild horses they had in movies, like a mustang that ran in a herd and lived perfectly free. Her coat was a thousand different shades of gray, even forming cute little circles of white on some places; her mane and tail were long and untamed. She had large, innocent brown eyes that watched Grace carefully, measuring her movement. But what Grace noticed most of all was her size. She stood much, much higher than the stumpy little pony Isabel had kicked around the jumps weeks ago. Grace hadn’t been prepared for her height.
“She’s huge!” she exclaimed,
Both Susan and Isabel burst into giggles.
“She’s not even a horse, Grace,” Isabel informed her. “She’s a pony- fourteen point one hands on the dot.”
Grace was used to the confusing horse words and was prepared to shuffle that information aside, but Susan somehow knew to explain. “We measure horses in hands; each hand is four inches. If they’re under fourteen and a half hands, they’re considered a pony. Briggy’s a pony; she’s really not that tall.”
“So she’s only a baby?” Grace asked, reexamining Briggy. She didn’t look like the baby horses she had seen in pictures or movies.
Isabel rushed to explain. “No, a pony isn’t a baby horse. A foal is a baby horse. A pony is pretty much a horse, just shorter. Briggy’s all grown up. She’s like eleven years old, isn’t she?”
Susan nodded. “Just about eleven- oh, look! She’s telling you hello!”
Grace gasped in surprised as the large pony craned her neck forward to nibble on a lock of Grace’s hair. She shied away at first, afraid of her massive size no matter what Susan or Isabel said, but couldn’t help giggling as Briggy’s lips tickled her shoulder.
Susan reprimanded her softly, but let the mare go about eating Grace’s hair until she had had her fill. Then, she handed her to Grace and said, “Okay, let’s tie her up, tack her up, and then we can go have our lesson!”
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It Sounds Easy.
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tamantha [mc]tavish
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« Reply #3 on Jul 1, 2009, 11:05pm » | |
Chapter Two - Music
The first month or so of lessons passed too quickly for Grace’s liking, and in her mind, they all ran together. It became a routine. Saturday through Thursday she would count down the days until Friday. Then Friday would come around, and she would tick off the hours and minutes to three o’clock. They could get to Happy Apple later now that it didn’t take Grace so long to tack up; she had learned pretty quickly, although she stilled needed Isabel’s help. Isabel would sit patiently through Grace’s half-hour lessons, and Grace would watch Isabel for an hour, just as awestruck as that first day. Week after week, Grace rode Briggy, and Isabel rode Smiles. Routine.
By now, Grace could walk and trot with some confidence. She posted sometimes, but it mostly felt like bumping around on Briggy’s back. And steering… Well, she had some steering issues, and Susan always blamed it on “too long reins”, but Grace still felt like she was hurting poor Briggy’s mouth whenever she pulled back. And while Grace’s lessons were fun, there was never any magic. She watched it happen every week in Isabel’s lessons, saw the dance and practically heard the music, but she was never able to experience it firsthand.
She wouldn’t give up, though. The handful of rides she had had was enough to keep her begging for more. She loved her too short lessons, her afternoons at the barn, and, most of all, Briggy. She loved that pony with all her heart, like any girl loved their first horse. And the magic would come eventually; she was convinced. It would take time, as Isabel had explained to her several times already. Everyone started out rough. It took a year to clean most people up.
A year. Grace wasn’t sure she could wait.
The thrill of being able to ride began to wear off, and as the initial joy faded, Grace grew unspeakably jealous. She rode for half an hour once a week, and that never seemed to be enough. In a couple of months, her parents would let her upgrade to an hour, but she wouldn’t be able to ride more than once a week. Isabel rode for an hour at least three times a week, and the difference seemed immense and completely unjust to Grace. But her parents wouldn’t cave.
It wasn’t that unreasonable, was it? Was it really selfish to love something so much that she wanted to do it day after day? She couldn’t understand why her parents got so angry when she pressed for more. On her birthday, though, she might have pushed things a bit too far.
“You don’t seem too excited about your present,” her father commented over the top of The New York Times. “I thought you liked riding horses.”
Grace eyed the embellished cardstock announcing that she would be attending Happy Apple Horse Farm’s Summer Riding Camp from June ninth through the thirteenth. “I do, I do! It’s just that… I’m going this one week?”
“Yes,” her mother interjected from the kitchen. There was the tap of heels on the stone floor, and then Cynthia appeared suddenly, peering into the dining room at Grace. “Yes, you’re going that week. What’s wrong? I thought you’d be so happy.”
Grace frowned, knowing what she said would be taken the wrong way. Still, she said it anyway.
“Well, Isabel is going all four weeks…” She ducked her head, waiting.
Her father’s head finally emerged from The Times, and though he removed his reading glasses calmly, Grace could see that he was angry. “Four weeks? You’re mad because we’re generous enough to pay five hundred dollars so you can go ride some pony for only one week? I’ll tell you what, Grace Olivia, you’ve got a lot to learn about—”
Cynthia interrupted just as his volume had climaxed. “Now, Daniel, don’t get so upset. She’s young; she’s never had a job or spent her own her own money, and God knows she’s spoiled. Yes, she has a lot to learn, but she doesn’t understand it yet. She’s only eight.”
Grace bristled at the words ‘only eight’ as well as her mother’s patronizing tone, and she saw that Cynthia didn’t miss this. Though the woman’s eyes never left her husband, she gave a warning frown to her daughter.
“Spoiled is right!” Danial roared, his face darkening a shade. “She’s going to learn to appreciate what she’s given; I’ll tell you that much!”
But Cynthia merely patted his shoulder. She said serenely, “That’s right, we will. But not now. We’ll talk about this later. Maybe you should leave for work, it’s starting to get late…”
Muttering under his breath, Daniel Kensington excused himself from the table, grabbed his briefcase, and stormed out the door. Grace watched him leave, glad that he was headed off to work. Even on a normal day, it felt like that’s where he truly belonged—in the office.
With her angry husband out of the house, Cynthia turned on her daughter. “Grace Olivia Kensington!” she hissed. “I have never met a more ungrateful child in all my life! Your father and I give you everything you want, and you knew this was going to be too time-consuming for us to keep it up more than once a week. We talked about this! And you complain about a birthday present that allows you to ride more? I don’t understand it, Grace. You have a lot of growing up to do.”
Grace couldn’t believe she was being attacked for this! She had only stated a fact! Of course she was jealous of Isabel! Of course she wanted to go more than one week! She was only human!
Bitter tears stung her eyes, and though Grace tried to fight them back, a few overflowed down her cheeks. She yelled back, “It’s not fair! Isabel’s parents do just as much as you! How come she can ride more?”
“Isabel doesn’t ride for fun, honey,” her mother shot back. “They call it training for a reason; Miss Nina wants to make a competitive career out of it. But you’re not going to be in the Olympics! You’re not going to be this big athlete! So you can either accept what we give you, or you cannot ride at all. Do you understand me?”
It physically stung to hear those words, to know that her mother could and really would take it all away. There was no hint of a bluff; she would rescind. Just like that.
Grace took a deep breath, clutched the card tighter in her small hand, and forced out a thank you for her present before skidding upstairs to her room. She needed to be alone.
♦♦♦
The music started three months later.
One week of camp really had been perfect for Grace. She rode for two hours every day and spent the rest of it in the barn, learning how to take care of the horses. She also learned a little bit about herself—such as the fact that she had muscles in her armpits, her feet, and all over her body that she hadn’t realized existed. By the end of the week, she was depleted both physically and mentally, but she was a better rider than she had been.
By the time August came around, Grace had hit the transitional stage between a sack of potatoes thrown on a horse and a beginner rider. Her balance was much improved. She had nailed posting, as well as checking and changing her diagonals. She usually remembered to keep her heels down, her eyes and thumbs up, and her shoulders back. She could steer well at both the walk and trot; she did circles, straight lines, figure eights. She was even starting to get bored with that same old routine- walk, trot, walk, trot, walk, trot.
But she was neither prepared for nor expecting what came next.
It was the second week in August. The sweltering heat made Briggy lazy, and Grace had to work to keep her moving. All the same, Susan had Grace get Briggy into a swift trot. She sat on the fence surrounding the ring and called, “Faster. Faster. Faster.”
Grace kicked and kicked and kicked until Briggy broke into a run.
The mare’s nose stretched forward and her legs began to rock back and forth. Panic seized Grace as she began to toppled forward. She tried to pull on the reins, but she needed to leave her hands on Briggy’s neck for support. She struggled to sit up, knowing that one wrong move would land her on the ground.
Briggy was cantering. Just like Smiles did with Isabel. Why didn’t Susan say something? Did she really want her to be doing this?
“It’s okay, Grace!” came the voice from the fence finally. “Keep your leg on! Hold on to her mane, and don’t pull back on the reins!”
Apparently, that was a yes.
And Grace realized that she was safe. With Briggy, she was never in any danger. Briggy loved her, too; Briggy took care of her, too.
As soon as she relaxed into a slightly more natural position, Grace closed her eyes and let the rocking horse movement flow through her body. The breeze created by the motion kissed her skin, and a sense of utter peace and freedom filled her. She took another deep breath and enjoyed the moment.
This was the beginning of the symphony, the beginning of that magic spell, the ‘once upon a time’ in a fairytale. And Grace was the princess that got the happily ever after, as long as her horse was there to make it happen.
With the lapse of concentration went the pressure from her leg, however, and after a moment Briggy collapsed into a staccato trot. Grace’s eyes flew open, the illusion shattered. But she could still feel the remnants of the magic, like notes ringing in her ears after they had been played. She felt utterly sorry for the thousands of girls who would never have a moment like that in their lives.
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It Sounds Easy.
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tamantha [mc]tavish
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« Reply #4 on Jul 9, 2009, 6:16pm » | |
Sorry for the delay. Here it is. P.S. Check out the link in my siggy.
Chapter Three - The Octopus
By the time Grace was nine, she knew what it took, emotionally and physically, to be an equestrian. While she was still working on the physical stuff, she had the emotional part down. She said nothing to her parents, or even Isabel, about the caustic jealousy that came and went like waves; it was just a part of her life now, a part that needed to be kept silent. She could control her emotions around the horses, knowing that their own moods reflected hers. She could summon the strength to bear the more painful days in silence. She was able to separate her riding self from her actual self on any emotional level. That was what it took to be an equestrian.
Or at least, that was what she thought it took to be an equestrian, until The Octopus proved her wrong.
She met The Octopus on a Wednesday evening at Happy Apple. Isabel had been taken on part-time by Jacques, but the martinet of a dressage trainer thought Isabel still needed more training before being considered for a full-time client. Isabel now rode six days a week, and Grace came to watch her faithfully. On this particular day, Mrs. Nina had sent her running into the tack room during the middle of the lesson to fetch Isabel a crop; she had outgrown Smiles, and her new pony, Presto, was a bit more ornery.
Grace was stopped short, though, by a girl standing in the middle of the aisle outside the tack room. The strange girl took a deep breath, as if preparing herself, and then burst into a sprint. Grace watched in horrified fascination as she hurled herself straight into the wooden wall, only to be propelled back to the ground, landing loudly on her butt.
“What are you doing?” Grace asked incredulously.
The girl was standing up now, and Grace assessed her warily. She was older, probably twelve, with long hair that was precisely the same shade as one of the Happy Apple school horses’ tails.
“Proving that I’m an octopus,” she said, as if this were obvious and not in the least bit ridiculous. “Duh.”
“But you’re not an octopus,” Grace protested. She looked her over once again, though, just to be sure.
“How do you know?” she asked, shaking out her chestnut locks. “You don’t even know who I am. And I just proved that I was an octopus.”
Grace frowned. “How did you prove it?”
“I stuck to the wall,” she answered, blasé.
“No, you didn’t.” Grace’s frown deepened. “You ran into the wall and then fell backwards.”
“No, I definitely stuck to the wall,” the stranger persisted. “I can do that, because I’m an octopus. Octopuses have suction cups on their legs.”
“But you didn’t stick. And don’t octopuses have eight limbs, anyway? You only have four.” Grace’s frown lifted into a small smile. She had the girl at that, she knew.
But the octopus girl shrugged, undeterred. “I had four legs cut off.”
Texas, Grace realized, as the stranger tucked a brown strand of hair behind her ear. That was whose tail the girl’s hair reminded Grace of.
“Okay,” Grace said simply to mollify her; she couldn’t wait to get away from the weird girl. Grace hurried into the tack room, wondering if Isabel or Mrs. Nina would be mad at her for wasting so much time.
Apparently her new acquaintance didn’t get the message. The older girl followed Grace into the tack room, watching her maneuver about the piles of stuff to locate the crop she knew Isabel used.
When Grace turned around again, brown eyes were an inch from her face.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” the girl said suddenly. “What’s your name?”
“Grace,” she replied. “And I’ve been riding here for a year.”
“Hmmm,” the brunette pondered. “Wonder how come I’ve never seen you. I’m Courtney, by the way. And I really am an octopus. I’m not lying.”
“Okay,” Grace repeated. As she made her escape to the ring, she heard a sudden burst of footsteps and then a loud smack—Courtney throwing herself into the wall again.
Grace ran up to Ms. Nina by the side of the ring, handed Isabel her crop, and then blurted, “You know there’s a girl named Courtney slamming herself into a wall in there right?”
Mrs. Nina just frowned, not seeming at all surprised. In fact, she ignored the comment and told her daughter roughly, “Stick that crop in your inside hand, Isabel Lucero. You know better than that.”
Isabel smoothly switched the crop over as she answered her friend’s question. “You mean The Octopus?” she asked in a disinterested voice. “Yeah, we know. She’s been doing that.”
“Courtney’s going to hurt herself,” Grace said. She thought of her bouncing back against the ground and almost winced. Ouch.
But Isabel just shrugged. “What she’s going to do is scare the horses. They shouldn’t even let that lunatic on the property.”
Grace hoped she misheard that last sentence, as Isabel murmured it under her breath. But after a second, Bell added acidly , “And don’t call her Courtney.”
Grace chewed on her lower lip. “But she said that was her name.”
Isabel frowned. “Everyone just calls her The Octopus. No one actually talks to her.”
But Grace did actually talk to The Octopus, several times. She was there every Wednesday, and whenever Grace could find a moment to sneak away from Isabel’s judgmental eyes, she didn’t have to look far to find her new friend.
After their initial, strange encounter, Grace had been wary of the weird girl. She only approached her again because Isabel had said not to. But after she got over the absurdity of the girl, The Octopus began to grow on her.
She was interesting, to say the least, and knew what she was talking about when it came to horses. She had ridden from the time she was four until she was eleven. Her parents had bought her Texas for her eleventh birthday solely for the fact that his coat matched her hair. She rode him the first time, got bucked off five times in an hour, and never set foot in a stirrup again. She still loved her gelding, though, and came to visit him every week.
Grace loved spending the afternoon with Courtney and Texas. Courtney would let her sit on Texas’s back as he grazed; she let Grace feed him, and bathe him, and walk into his stall and just play with him. Grace spent time with Texas in ways she wasn’t allowed to do with Briggy. And no one could stop her, because technically, Texas belonged to The Octopus and her permission overrode the rules. Grace even rode him in a few lessons, and though she liked Texas, she still preferred Briggy.
On Texas, Grace felt further from the music. There was nothing wrong with him; there were just never any magical moments that created the music she had seen and, briefly, felt before. She could hardly even imagine it when she was around Texas; he was just so… ordinary.
Although, if Grace were being honest with herself, she knew that her and Briggy weren’t making strides in that department, either. In fact, after that one moment of connection nearly a year ago now, there had never been any more fairytale magic or tangible symphonies- not even a hint of a note in the air. But the memory of that orchestral moment was enough to keep her hoping, praying. She was capable of composing; she just needed to learn how to summon the notes.
The strange part was that The Octopus turned out to be a better mentor on how to make this happen than Isabel ever could have been. Of course, she never went right up to anyone and begged, “How do you make music happen when you ride? How do you capture that magic?” People would have thought she was crazy—although, with The Octopus, one never could tell.
But Grace could see the difference between her two role models. Isabel was the sterling silver image of perfection- polished, worthy of admiration, and invoking envy. She was the goal of Grace’s life, at least in regards to horsemanship. The Octopus, however, was not nearly as infallible. She was human; she wasn’t even a rider, really. She was just a horseowner who never happened to actually get on a horse. Grace didn’t feel the need to please her. With The Octopus, it was okay if she accidentally put the girth on wrong once in a while or forgot which side to lead the horse on. The Octopus didn’t care. The Octopus was The Octopus—nonjudgmental, all-accepting, and ever-helpful.
Okay, every so often the girl did run into a wall and claim to stick to it… But who was Grace to judge, when she could swear she heard music coming from horses’ hooves?
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It Sounds Easy.
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tamantha [mc]tavish
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« Reply #5 on Jul 17, 2009, 6:38pm » | |
Chapter Four - From Bad to Worse
It was a sad fact of life—a fact that Grace would not learn until many, many years later—that moments of happiness and joy cannot last forever, and as good times fade, harsh, cold times tend to take their place.
For a while, Grace swore she had it all. Her life was perfect in every aspect. She had good friends. She made good grades, belonged to several clubs at school… Material-wise, she had a lot of stuff—stuff other kids could never find a use for, but would undoubtedly want just the same. She had a generous mom and… a father. But Daniel Kensington was rarely ever home to be taken into account. And the most important part of her heaven was the horses. Grace had Briggy, she had her riding lessons, and she had her friends from the barn. She had more than any nine year old girl should have.
She realized, in one rare moment of insight, that people were actually jealous of her. It seemed weird. She had never thought of herself as being enviable. The thought of someone else being jealous of her almost made Grace laugh.
Of course, almost as soon as she had come to terms with this realization, it seemed that her life was sent spiraling into chaos. In a few short months, she lost nearly every single thing she had to be grateful for.
The demise started with a tea party.
“The van Burens are having afternoon tea next Saturday,” Cynthia announced one weekend. “They want you to come.”
Grace sighed. She hated her mother’s tradition of Saturday afternoon tea because she was always dragged along. The meal was stiff and formal, and she was usually the only person under fifteen there—sometimes the only person under thirty, if the older women didn’t bring their daughters.
“Do I have to go?” Grace asked petulantly. “It’s so boring!”
“Yes, of course you have to go.” Her mother’s reply had the tone of a rebuke. “You’re always expected to come when you’re invited.”
Grace sighed, already dreary with the prospect of sitting pretty and quiet and still for hours on end.
“Oh, cheer up, honey! We’ll even buy you a new dress.”
But Grace hated the constricting dresses that her mother made her wear to the afternoon teas. “I want to stay home,” she said, a bit more forcefully. “Mrs. Nina never takes Isabel along to the teas.”
Cynthia laughed sardonically. “Yes,” she said, the distaste clear in her voice. “But the de la Manchas do things… differently.”
“You’ve always encouraged me to be different,” Grace pointed out angelically.
“Enough, Grace,” Cynthia snapped suddenly. “Now get in the car. We’re going to The Mad Hatter and picking you out a dress for tea.”
Grace simmered on the drive to the small children’s shop, and by the time they were in the quiet store, she was more determined than before. She would not go to this tea.
If Cynthia suspected this when Grace would offer no opinion about any dress, her suspicions were confirmed when her daughter obstinately—and quite loudly—refused to try anything on.
“Grace.” The word was both a plea and a warning on Cynthia’s lips.
“NO!” Grace threw the dress her mother had forced into her arms on the floor. “I don’t need a dress! I’m not going!”
Cynthia glanced at the whispering salesgirls, a blush coloring her cheeks. She swiftly snatched the pearl dress off the floor. "Grace Kensington, you are trying this dress on, and you are going to this tea, and I certainly know that you are going to stop making a scene this minute.”
Her mother’s cold glare nearly made Grace cringe. But she held her ground, refusing to let the fear show.
“Make me.” The words slipped out of their own accord, sounding just as confident as Grace had intended to think them.
A slap across her pretty, pale face was all it took. The words dried up in her mouth, and Grace stared at Cynthia, frozen in shock.
Grace could feel the red finger marks tingling on her face, and Cynthia’s eyes softened ever so slightly. Still, she hissed, “Fine, Grace. Don’t go to the tea. I’ll never make you go to another tea a day in your life.” Her blue eyes grew colder, and she added frostily, “But I never thought I would see the day when you were a disappointment to the family name.”
Grace stood there, still frozen on the spot. A surge of emotions overwhelmed her. Anger? Yes. Definitely. Her mother had just slapped her! In public! And she didn’t look at all sorry for it, either. Fear? Of course. She hadn’t known Cynthia was capable of physical violence; her mother had never raised a hand to her before. She hadn’t expected to feel guilt, though, but it was there, just the same. Remorse. Because she knew that her family name was one of the most important aspects of her being. She had been raised to live as a Kensington would live, behave a Kensington would behave, think as a Kensington would think—even if her gut was telling her otherwise. To have brought any morsel of shame or disgrace to her family name was like that slap in the face times ten.
The two of them left the store and drove home in complete silence. Grace refused to apologize for her childish behavior, and Cynthia didn’t look like she regretted anything. As the alienation continued over the next few days, the mother and daughter grew further and further apart. They spoke, but said no more than was necessary. Their relationship was suddenly a cold one, although at times it seemed that Grace could hardly remember the reason for it all.
To make it all the worse, Isabel was also distancing herself from Grace. She spent time outside of school with other girls who rode with Jacques. Grace didn’t know them well, and she was rarely included.
With her two major support systems so inexplicably estranged from her, Grace found her only relief at Happy Apple Farms. She knew the horses well and could spend all day there, when her mother let her. She knew all of the staff members and riders by name. And as her relationships with her mother and Isabel declined, she leaned on The Octopus.
But even Happy Apple wasn’t a haven for long.
Grace swayed on Briggy’s back one afternoon, cooling her off after a lesson before bringing her in. Susan, who had been watching her carefully throughout the course of the hour, peered at her even more cautiously now. Grace knew immediately that something was wrong.
“Gracie,” Susan started off slowly. “There’s something we need to talk about… I have good news,” she continued on, her guarded tone rejecting that statement. “But I also have some bad news, too, honey.”
Grace automatically reached before her for her ponytail, tugging on a strand of hair as she watched Susan with equal caution. “Okay…?” she said uncertainly.
“Listen, Happy Apple is having a schooling show in about a month, and we’d love for you to compete on Briggy.”
Grace nodded. She felt the excitement flowing through her, and the anticipation as well, but she tried to control it. Susan didn’t exactly sound happy about whatever was coming next. Grace allowed herself to get her hopes up, though, just in case.
“And now, we don’t usually make such a production out of this,” Susan went on, sounding uncharacteristically uncomfortable, “but I know how attached you are to this pony, and I’d hate to have it comes as a surprise, but… You see, there’s a girl who rode here some years, and she rode Briggy just like you—but she outgrew her, and eventually bought her own horse. She’s been competing a lot and has really come a long way. She has a little sister, though, who’s five and is just starting to ride, and they’re looking into a pony for her.” Susan hesitated, and Grace inhaled deeply, trying to reinflate her crumbling insides.
She reined clutched Briggy’s reins tightly, as if that could stop the flow of words from her instructor’s mouth, as if that could halt time or change reality. But all it did was cause Briggy to back up a few steps, startled at the sudden pressure but always willing to give in. She was such a good pony, and Grace appreciated that all the more now because she knew what was coming.
Fate was an unstoppable force, and the words could not be kept from coming out of Susan’s mouth. “She’s really considering Briggy; she loves that pony as much as you do and knows her sister will love her, too. They’re still looking around, and they won’t make a purchase for another few weeks, but chances are that they’ll be taking Briggy to their farm.”
“No,” Grace moaned quietly. “No, no, no…” She dropped her reins altogether now, and threw her arms around Briggy’s neck. Grace pressed her lips against Briggy’s gorgeous dappled coat. She had to keep it together somewhat, to not totally have a breakdown in front Susan. How humiliating would that be? She wasn’t a baby.
That, and the fact that Briggy could pick up on her every emotion—that every wave of sorrow Grace felt affected Briggy as well… Those two truths were the only things that kept Grace from completely melting down on top of the pony. She was losing everything, one by one.
Slowly, deliberately, Grace removed her feet from the stirrups and slid out of the saddle, so Briggy wouldn’t have to have this all-consuming, bitter despair weigh her down as well.
♦♦♦
Things just went from bad to worse. Well, no. Things were already at worse. They couldn’t get much more awful, so Grace barely felt it when her parents had their fallout.
She wasn’t quite sure how it happened. She only remembered sitting in her room, wallowing in her loneliness, and being interrupting by her parents screaming at each other.
Well, that wasn’t new. It seemed as if whenever her father was home anymore, all he and Cynthia did was fight.
What did catch Grace by surprise was the sudden drop in volume. The sharp, earsplitting argument turned deathly quiet in just a split second. They were whispering now, talking much too quietly for Grace to hear, tucked away in her room as she was.
She could, however, pick out a few words… Her name here, her mother or father’s name there. She heard words like hotel and break.
Once, she even thought she caught a whole sentence. “Maybe it’s time we stop pretending, Daniel,” she thought she heard Cynthia say. But she couldn’t be sure. The statement was too muffled, and what would her parents have to pretend about?
Slightly disturbed, Grace tried to tune them out. She reached for the remote to her TV and turned the sound up, trying to drone their voices out of her ears and mind.
Grace was somewhat confused the next morning when her father did not show up for breakfast, but she just figured that he had gone into work early. When he didn’t come home for dinner, either, she thought that his company must have some big project they were working on that was sucking up his time. She didn’t mind in the least. His mood swings had gotten worse lately; instead of having his usual good temperament switch suddenly to a nasty one, his mean, cold moods were now the usual, and if there was any fluctuation to his former contentment, it was rare and fleeting.
So Grace wasn’t upset when she didn’t see her father for a few days.
It was only when those days turned into a week that Grace began to worry. She was used, at least, to having her mother mention his absence- or mention him at all, really. And Cynthia’s sudden reluctance to speak of him was what made her the most suspicious.
But when the truth hit, she didn’t see it coming at all.
“Is Daddy on a business trip or something?” she asked, attempting nonchalance.
Cynthia hesitated, looking uncomfortable. “Um, no, honey. He’s not.”
“Oh.” Grace paused, and then decided just to ask. “So is there some big project at the company he’s working on or something?”
Cynthia frowned. “Gracie… We need to talk,” she said, still discomfited.
Grace stared at her, waiting.
“Your father isn’t going to be spending too much time at the house—at least not for a little while.” Cynthia took one of her hands in the other and absently began running her fingers over her perfectly manicured nails. She stared at those fingers, reluctant.
“I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier. I should have told you… I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.” Cynthia took a deep breath, and tried to speak them now. “Your father and I, honey… Well, things haven’t been so good between us lately; I’m sure you’ve noticed. And, well… We just think that, maybe, we need some time apart.”
Grace froze. True, she had noticed the distance between her parents, but that wasn’t anything especially new. It had always been like that. Growing up, her household had not exactly been one of warmth and love. She had been sheltered from the worst of it, she was sure, but even knowing what she did… Grace had never imagined her parents not together.
“So, what? You’re getting divorced now?” She tried to keep her voice hard, but she couldn’t quite hold it together. Her voice cracked on the word divorced.
Cynthia took a deep breath. “No, Gracie. Not yet, I don’t think. We just need… time away from each other. That’s all. We’ll see if things get better.”
“Where is he now?” Grace whispered pathetically. She wrapped her arms around herself, thinking of Isabel, of the other girls at school, of what they would all think.
“He’s at the Ritz-Carlton downtown. I can take you to see him if you want,” she added quickly. “Anytime you want to see him, just say the word. I’ll take you to visit as often as you want.”
“No, thanks,” Grace murmured. “Not right now, anyway.” She clutched herself tighter, and one of her longer locks of blonde hair fell in her face. She tugged on it to give her fingers something to do.
Cynthia wrapped her hand around Grace’s and gently removed the girl’s hand from her hair. “Are you all right, honey?” she asked almost tenderly. “I know it’s hard. But everything will work out. Everything is going to be okay.”
Grace just nodded and removed her hand from under her mother’s. Her fingers found a different strand of hair now.
Cynthia patted her daughter’s shoulder awkwardly. “I should have told you earlier,” she said ditheringly, as if she wished she hadn’t had to tell her at all.
“It’s okay,” Grace replied halfheartedly, clutching her hair tighter.
But of course, it was far from okay.
♦♦♦
In the following weeks, The Octopus became more a part of Grace’s life than she would ever have imagined, especially considering that she had once thought the girl crazy. But Courtney was as from crazy as a person could get—at least, in the insane sense of the word. True, she did like to pretend she was an octopus, but Grace could overlook that, because at the end of the day, she was sure Courtney knew she wasn’t. It was only stubbornness that made The Octopus so determined to prove her cephalopodity.
When she was so sick of her cold house, courtesy of her still-bitter mother, that she could scream, Grace would call The Octopus and ask to come over. The Octopus always said yes.
When Isabel was getting together with her new group of friends and Grace felt abandoned, The Octopus would always plan something the same day, to help ease Grace’s pain.
When she needed to lament over Briggy, The Octopus would listen like no one else would.
Grace Kensington was an only child, but she imagined that this was what it was like to have an older sister. The Octopus loved her like a sister would, looked out for her like a sister would. And Grace, playing the part of the adoring little sister, thought The Octopus could do no wrong.
She wanted to be just like Courtney when she grew up—except, of course, for the part where she threw herself at walls, and ate only fish, and announced proudly to the world that she really and truly was an octopus.
Yes, other than that, the girl was perfect in Grace’s eyes. And, after spending so much time with her, one could really start to ignore the octopus references.
When Grace was with Courtney, Isabel and her cattiness ceased to matter, Briggy was almost forgotten, and her parents’ troubles were left to themselves. Grace could just be a normal, carefree kid.
But that didn’t mean that her problems ceased to exist. Once she was out of The Octopus’s carefully constructed refuge, her dilemmas became all the more real, and in the real world, things were coming to a head fast.
One week before the horse show—one week before Briggy was trailered away—Grace’s father came back home.
Daniel and Cynthia had decided to try to work things out for their daughter’s sake. To Grace, things seemed on the mend. She even allowed herself to hope that everything would work as her mother had promised.
And for one peaceful week, everything was fine.
It was the morning before the horse show when Grace woke up to her mother sobbing. She lay perfectly still in bed, fearfully straining to her what was going on.
“Daniel,” came her mother’s heartbroken voice between sobs, “I just don’t know what else to try. I’ve done everything in my power, tried as hard as I could… And obviously that hasn’t done us one bit of good.”
Grace’s father replied a low, swift voice, devoid of any emotion. “Maybe there isn’t anything you can do, Cynthia.”
“Don’t say that, Daniel,” she sobbed. “We have a daughter, for God’s sake!”
“So?” Daniel Kensington threw back acidly. “Do you think this is doing her any good? Seeing her parents like this? It’d be better for her if we stopped this charade. It’d be better for us, too. So why are we still here?”
Cynthia’s sniffling stopped, and she seemed to have regained control of herself through something her husband said. She answered quietly, coldly, “I don’t know.”
There was the scratch of a chair against hard flooring, and the house fell silent.
That night, just before her bedtime, Grace’s father came into her room. They had one of their rare moments of communication, which always made Grace uncomfortable—and obviously her father, too, with the way he kept shifting his weight and his gaze. This conversation was no different than the one she had had with Cynthia weeks back. He was going to stay at a hotel downtown, he explained, because he and her mother needed to take a break from each other. He didn’t bring up the word divorce, and Grace didn’t ask because she was fairly sure she knew the answer. He kissed her goodbye and told her that she could visit whenever she liked; Grace was too shocked to do anything but agree. As he left her room, Grace followed him to the foot of the stairs and watched Daniel Kensington leave with the same set of suitcases he had only just unpacked days before.
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It Sounds Easy.
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tamantha [mc]tavish
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« Reply #6 on Jul 25, 2009, 11:10am » | |
After this, I'm taking a short hiatus from posting new chapters. I'll resume again August 27th.
Chapter Five - The Nows and the Nevers
The sight and smell and sound of Happy Apple Farm’s spring schooling show overwhelmed Grace’s senses. Adrenaline pumped through her body, aided by her speeding heart, and filled her cells, making it hard to concentrate on anything but the pure energy echoing through her and the all-consuming chaos frenzying around her. The turmoil was only a reflection of what was going on inside her head, she knew; in truth, the cute little horse farm’s show was small and running smoothly.
It didn’t seem that way to Grace, though, as she clutched the card reading 56. It was her first number, her first show. She was excited—but also scared out of her mind.
Her father had not come to see her; that had been expected even before his sudden departure last night. He had never come to watch her school plays, or her piano recitals, or her soccer matches. He had never once seen her on a horse before. He even tried to find excuses to get out of going to her birthday parties. So of course he would not be here.
But Grace had expected Cynthia to be here, so it hurt that her mother had called Nina last night and asked her to play the part of parent for Grace today.
Nina and Isabel had taken over with much too enthusiasm. Isabel, who had hardly spoken to Grace in the past month, was suddenly welcoming her to the de la Mancha collection of show jackets and oxfords and breeches and knee straps. Grace had come to the show that morning better turned out than her horse.
Of course, Nina and her daughter were quick to rectify that situation as well. After seeking permission from Susan, they regroomed Briggy, braided her tail, and combed quarter markings into her haunches.
Meanwhile, Grace had realized just what she had gotten herself into, and had all but frozen up from fear. It felt like there must be a dozen mammoth butterflies hovering in her stomach.
Grace’s class was late in the day, so she had plenty of time to watch the older, more advanced riders go. She saw Isabel get champion in both an equitation class and a small pony hunter class; this only set the bar higher for her. The Octopus sat on the sidelines, cheering on Texas and offering Grace a boost to her self-confidence.
She had plenty of time to get the gist of how the show worked, and as she stopped paying close attention to the competitors in the ring, she noticed other things—things she didn’t particularly want to think about. Like a tall brunette girl, and a shorter, younger child who must be her sister, talking to Susan and eying Briggy with interest.
Grace had thought she was prepared for this moment. Susan had talked to her about how the girls definitely were going to buy the pony now; they would take her away right after the show. Grace eyed the gray trailer the brunette and her sister walked over to, and contemplated, for a moment, messing up her rounds on Briggy on purpose. But Susan had told her that Briggy would be happy at her new home, maybe even happier there than she was at Happy Apple. And Grace couldn’t ruin Briggy’s happiness.
The mini-stirrup class came up all too soon, it seemed, and before she knew it, Grace found herself sitting on Briggy’s back, just outside the in-gate. Susan double-checked the tack, wished her good luck, and then opened the gate to let her in the ring.
The mammoth butterflies reawakened, and Grace nearly threw up on the spot.
But she could trust Briggy with her life, and she knew that. Grace took several deep breaths, consoling herself with that fact, and then gathered her reins and entered the spotless ring.
The moment the judge’s eyes were on her, Grace made herself focus. Channeling her emotions… All a part of being an equestrian. She blocked out her insecurities, her fears, her nerves. She focused on instinct, on being one with Briggy.
And the notes filled the air.
With each prancing trot step Briggy took forward, another note sang out. Grace couldn’t hear it, but she could feel it in her soul. As the music played, she didn’t need to focus on her equitation or keeping calm or controlling Briggy; this all came easily, naturally. All she needed to do was stay in tune with the melody, stay utterly connected with Briggy.
They circled gracefully and approached their first line. Briggy cantered out easily, landing on the correct lead and pace. The notes swelled.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. An even tempo, a perfect distance; these were not things that Grace had learned to control, yet she nailed them. It was all natural, all completely instinct.
The inside line was just as easy, and as they trotted the corner, the symphony followed them, slowing down and turning choppy, yet connected at the same time.
They danced over the outside line as if Grace had been riding for years and as if Briggy were a first-class show pony, instead of some overworked school horse.
By the time the last fence, an inside vertical, came around, Grace was so focused on the silent concert roaring in her ears that she wouldn’t have noticed if Briggy completely cut out on the jump. But they continued on flawlessly and finished with a courtesy circle that wound down the symphony and ended in a few beautiful, priceless notes.
Grace, slightly numb, exited the ring and dismounted while Susan held Briggy. She barely heard Mrs. Nina’s surprised congratulations or Isabel’s grudging compliments.
“That was number fifty-six, Grace Kensington riding Brigadoon,” she heard the announcer call. And Grace smiled.
The magic happened twice more, first in the second jumping class and then on the flat. The odd part was that Grace didn’t even focus on the course or the equitation at all. For those few precious moments in the ring, all there was in the world was a beautiful pony beneath her, a steady soundtrack of hoofbeats, and absolute escape from the real world. Isabel’s sudden air of self-importance, the fight with her mother, the horrors of losing Briggy… All this suddenly ceased to exist. When she was asleep, they would creep into her dreams; when she was awake, they could pop into the most unexpected thoughts. But when she was concentrating only on Briggy, these nightmares couldn’t touch her.
So she savored her last few moments with the pony she so loved, paying no attention to her riding.
As the competitors lined up in the center of the ring, Grace prepared herself for poor results. She was utterly shocked to hear the words, “Mini-Stirrup Course One, First Place… Number Fifty-six, Grace Kensington and Brigadoon.” Her heart stopped for a moment and she eyed the blue ribbon being passed to her with suspicion, as if she determining whether or not it was a joke. But it was no joke. She received another blue ribbon for her second jumping round, and a red second place rosette for the equitation on the flat.
Isabel, to her credit, was thrilled. “Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations!” she trilled when Grace finally caught up with her that afternoon. “You rode so well!”
Mrs. Nina nodded in agreement, looking slightly incredulous. “You made me proud! It’s a shame your parents weren’t here to see you.”
The words sent a chilling shock through her, and her momentary joy cracked like ice. The disappointment started off slow, and then shattered the delight completely.
No. Her parents had not wanted nor felt the need to come see her today. They had missed her magical moment on Briggy, and probably wouldn’t care at all about her new ribbons.
But she couldn’t dwell on that for long. One of the Happy Apple workers was approaching and calling her name, some colorful, sheen fabric in her hand. “Grace!” she called as she finally caught up to the little girl. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! This ribbon is yours; you got Champion!”
Grace stared with awe at the blue, red, and yellow rosette that had been shoved into her hand. It was gorgeous.
“Oh, and come see for a second! There’s a woman here from Equestria that wants to talk to you.”
Isabel, in the middle of saying something to her mother, fell abruptly silent. Mrs. Nina’s head snapped up, too, as if she had found something in the lady’s words that Grace had not.
“Okay…” she said tentatively, and scurried off after the worker. She didn’t miss Bell and her mother trailing a little ways behind her.
The stranger was eye-catching. She was a large woman, probably six feet tall, with a distinctly professional look about her. She was obnoxiously thin, but instead of being skin and bones as she might appear from a distance, she had hard, lean muscles on her delicate arms and legs. Her skin had a strange, faint olive tone to its pale complexion, and her hair, pulled into a tight bun on the back of her skull, was extraordinarily red. Grace examined her wispy bangs that fell straight across her forehead, but could find no hint of a root.
The air of professionalism probably came from her outfit. Grace was used to the interesting outfits put together by the riders at Happy Apple. This woman’s ensemble was something else altogether.
She wore black patent leather heels and retro, high-waisted, wide-leg white pants which were spotless in spite of the grungy environment. Into those pants was tucked a crisp, white blouse. Over that, she wore an open, black denim blazer; to accessorize, she had an aquamarine scarf tied around her neck and a matching flower tucked into her bun.
Oddly enough, she seemed to pull the whole outfit off quite well.
She peered down at Grace and met her in the eyes, despite the drastic height difference.
“Well, hello,” she said, a hint of a strange accent shading her voice. “You are Grace, no?”
Grace could hardly find the words to speak, but somehow she managed to stammer out, “Y-yes, ma’am.”
The girl who worked at Happy Apple gestured to the other woman. “Grace, this is Hanna Virtanen. I believe she wanted to speak to you…”
She trailed off as Hanna cut in. “Yes, I would like to speak to her. Privately, if you please,” she added pointedly. The other woman nodded quickly and turned away, but Isabel and Nina still hovered impolitely, although far enough away to be mistaken as background.
“Grace, perhaps you have heard of Equestria…?”
Grace shook her head, and Hanna sighed.
“Oh well… I shall explain then. You see—” her unidentifiable accent got thicker as she struggled for words—“ Equestria Equine Facilities is a very… well-known equestrian academy in the region. Prestigious, if you will. They are recognized nationally. I have only just started working at Equestria, and they wish for me to take on… a younger generation of students. You’ve heard of green horses?” She paused to see Grace nod silently. “Well, they want the green students—blank canvases to work with—and they have sent me out here to look for such riders.
“You, I think, would be perfect for their new program. Your riding today was… promising. Equestria can work out the kinks, help you realize your potential. Just think about coming to ride with us, please,” she said as she slipped Grace a business card. “This is going to be a great new young rider program, and I think you are just the kind of girl we are looking for. So at least come check out the facility or schedule an interview; it would definitely be worth your time.”
Although it felt like Grace’s heart had stopped, she managed to nod and take the card that was handed to her. “Thanks,” she said uncertainly. “I’ll talk to my mom about it.”
Ms. Virtanen nodded, thanked her for her time, and turned to face the ring. She looked focused as she zeroed in on the rider in there now—Addison Lain, who was riding Texas. Grace figured she was still scouting.
As soon as Grace broke free of the woman, Mrs. Nina and Isabel rushed to her side.
“Did she really give you their business card?”
“What did she say about your riding?”
“Are you going to schedule an interview?”
“Is she still scouting? What are they looking for?”
“Why do they want green riders? Did she say?”
The flurry of questions bombarded Grace so quickly that she couldn’t tell who asked what. She didn’t feel as if she owed them any answers, either, considering they had probably heard most of it in their annoying stalking. But being Grace, she answered them anyway, just to be nice.
“Yeah, I got her business card,” Grace nodded, holding up the thin rectangle. “I don’t know why they want green riders or what they’re really looking for; she just said she thought that I would fit into their program. I might…schedule an interview; I don’t really know. I can’t think straight. But I guess I should at least go check them out, right? I don’t want to leave Happy Apple, though.”
She could tell this time that it was Nina who scoffed. “Grace, I have said this before and I will say it again—gladly, to anyone who wants to hear it—Happly Apple Farms is an insult to all serious equestrians. I think you should take the opportunity. If it’s your mother your worrying about, don’t. I will talk to her.”
Grace shook her head. “It’s not my mom. I really just don’t know if I want to leave or not. I don’t really care if I have a competitive career, and I really don’t want to leave all this behind.” She gestured broadly to the scene around her.
Isabel glared at her for reasons Grace didn’t have the energy to fathom, so she ignored the look. Let Bell think of her what she wanted.
Mrs. Nina remained calm, although the burning dislike showed in the set of her mouth and the way her arms crossed disapprovingly in front of her. “Grace, if I were you, I would at least go check Equestria out. It is, as Ms. Virtanen pointed out, one of the best stables in the area—if not the best. They have excellent trainers and horses, not to mention gorgeous facilities. It would be an interesting outing, just visiting the property. You should go.”
“I’ll at least check it out,” she promised, knowing she really meant it. Curiosity was one of her weaknesses, and she was dying to see this supposedly renowned barn. It couldn’t be all that different from Happy Apple Farms, could it?
She didn’t have long to think the question over. The day was a constant whirlwind, carrying her from one emotional depth to the next, and Susan was suddenly behind her. She looked uncomfortable. Grace swallowed, fighting against the sudden pain that filled her heart.
She knew why Susan was here.
“Grace…” she started off, her voice clouded.
“I know,” Grace interrupted, her words cracking. She managed to find the inner strength needed to look over her shoulder toward the silver trailer parked in the lot. She took a shaky breath, her eyes filling with tears.
“Did you want to say goodbye?” Susan asked softly, rubbing Grace’s shoulder.
The little girl shrugged the unwanted hand off. Did she want to tell Briggy goodbye? Did she want to hold the sweet pony’s face for one last time, knowing she would never see her again? Be captured in her gaze and hear her neigh, just to have it all taken away in front of her very eyes? Grace wasn’t sure she did. She wasn’t sure that seeing Briggy loaded and taken away wouldn’t break her already cracked heart swiftly in two. But she needed closure.
Her eyes glistening, Grace simply nodded. She could hardly manage to bend her head; she knew there was no way she could talk through the lump in her throat.
Susan led her over to a stout woman with a scowling face leaning against the side of the beat up silver trailer. Although her gray eyes were unreadable, she had crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest. She looked like someone who was perpetually unhappy.
Grace understood the feeling.
“Grace, this is Mrs. Marion Now. Her daughters, Jasmine and Lily, were the girls I was telling you about. They’re taking Briggy home with them today.”
The words felt like a lashing, and it took all of Grace’s self-control not to flinch against the pain; no need to look absolutely crazy in front of an audience.
“Hello,” she dredged out of herself.
Marion Now said nothing. She stared peevishly over the top of Grace’s head.
And then, Grace heard the quiet hoofsteps. She turned, and Briggy was behind her.
The pony’s small, pure face was watching Grace’s intently. She was being led by a little brunette girl younger than Grace; an older version of the same child stood on her other side.
“Lily,” Susan asked, bending down to the smaller girl, “do you mind if Briggy’s biggest fan tells her goodbye before you leave?”
“No,” the little girl answered confidently. She craned her neck to find Grace, eying her curiously.
The brunette offered the lead rope tentatively to the blonde. That was fitting; they were opposites—owner and ex.
Grace took it, brushing past the younger girl and stroking Briggy’s face.
The pony’s warm brown eyes gazed at her; perhaps Grace only imagined the wistfulness there.
“Thank you, Briggy,” she whispered in the equine’s perked ear.
Grace forgot entirely about her audience, allowing the tears to spill over. She threw both arms around the pony’s neck, clutching her tightly. “I’ll never forget you,” she promised her quietly. “Never. And I’ll always love you, even if you can’t be mine.”
Briggy pressed her muzzle against Grace’s cheek sweetly. Grace felt like she was five again, breaking down in front of people like this, but break down she did.
“I’ll miss you,” she whispered haggardly through the tears. “I hope you’re happy at your new home. I hope they take good care of you.”
And then she stood there, saying nothing, with only the sounds of her crying filling the air.
Eventually, she regained herself—not completely, but enough to pull away and break up the steady flow of tears. She was still sniffling as the Nows took Briggy back and led her up the trailer ramp. They slammed the door shut, and Grace pressed a hand to Briggy’s coat for one last time.
As the truck pulled away, hauling Briggy further and further from the only home she had ever known, Grace was haunted by Hanna Virtanen’s offer. Tears could not wash away the confliction within her.
There went the trailer, and Grace’s reason for staying at Happy Apple all this time.
Should Grace stay behind to be able to walk past the stall Briggy had kept, see her name above the empty tack trunk? It was a tempting thought rather than a repulsive one—like Briggy had died, not left, and as if her ghost would stay behind, bringing Grace relief from the longing.
Or should she leave too? Should she follow in Briggy’s footsteps and get away from the bright red barn in the little corner of New York City? Was there another home for her out there somewhere?
Grace had no idea.
But yes, she would do as she had promised Nina. She would at least check out this Equestria. When she was there, in a new setting away from all this emotion, the answer had to make itself evident—didn’t it?
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It Sounds Easy.
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