The Butcher's Daughter

Chapter 2

The silence between them was brief and weighted. Thomas shuffled through the options of what to ask her first, but Mabel beat him to the chase by asking the only question that mattered to her at the time:

"Have you seen my horse?" Her cold stare traveled from the lanky young man in front of her to the surrounding landscape. When she managed to sit upright, she found that the track, the crowd and the other racers had vanished into thin air. All that could be found was the river that she had been pulled from and its healthy, green semblance of riparian vegetation.

"Your... horse?" Thomas backed away from her, but only slightly. Baffled and intrigued, he tried to gain back Mabel's attention as her search for Buttercup began. Surely, he deserved more kindness and respect than she was giving him! He did just save her, after all! "Miss?" He continued, climbing over top of the damp, rocky terrain with far less grace and precision that Mabel. This embarrassed him slightly, but he wouldn't give that away as he proceeded to woo her. "You're going the wrong way. If your horse is out there, it's probably downstream. You were going that way when I saved you from the rapids."

Mabel stopped and turned on the platform of a tall, smooth rock. "Rapids" was an overstatement and they both knew it. Her expression changed from frustration to something that Thomas couldn't quite read. "Oh." She mumbled. Before he could interject, Mabel leapt to the ground and started heading in the other direction. "You're right!" Her sopping ponytail clapped against her back as she jogged towards smoother ground. She was disoriented and secretly frightened by the sensation of being one place in one moment and another in the next. The only way that she could remedy this fear, it seemed, was by remaining in motion.

"What does your horse look like?" He followed behind her like an eager, unwavering shadow. "I can help you find him! Two pairs of eyes are better than one!"

"Buttercup is a palomino and, for your information, she is a girl." Mabel explained without looking back. "She is easily the finest show horse in South Carolina and I am the finest rider. Neither of us should be running amuck in the wilderness, if you understand what I'm saying." When Thomas laughed, she turned and produced another seemingly heartless glare. "What's so funny!?"

"You can't be that good," he teased, as young boys often do when they are completely smitten, "to be thrown into the river like you were! Besides, you aren't in the wilderness! My family owns this land and I know its surrounding forests and waters like the back of my hand! If you're South Carolina's finest rider, then I am its finest guide!" Thomas caught up with her in the clearing and imposed an awkward handshake. "What is your name, Miss?"

"Uhm," her forehead creased the second their hands clasped, "Mabel. Hi. Look, not that I don't believe in propriety, because I do, but I am in the middle of something of a crisis here!" She allowed herself a few seconds to get a better look at Thomas, who was just as bewildered as she was. A few seconds was all it took. She knew him. If not, in a different form. "You look like Tommy Martin," she said, bluntly, pursing her lips once her thought was concluded.

Thomas retrieved his hand and crossed his arms. So, she did know him! And he knew her! But how? And they had met before! But when? "I thought I knew you from somewhere! And it's Thomas, but I'll gladly be 'Tommy' for you." He wiggled his eyebrows as best he could. Naturally, this gesture was merely awkward and darling... and anything but suave.

Several boys attempted to flirt with Mabel while she was growing up. She was smart enough to sense their intentions right away and was usually spectacular at finding something better to do and therefore, letting them know that she was both unobtainable and uninterested. The only means of avoidance in this case was to keep walking, and that's exactly what she did.

"Nope," she grunted with a sharp turn, "Thomas will do. It's the same amount of syllables, after all. Since nicknames were originally created to shorten the syllable count, I think it's silly that-" her train of thought was cut off in order to produce a shrill scream. A ghastly body of a fallen British soldier was enclosed between two boulders on the natural embankment below her feet. She fell backwards, right into Thomas and shook with terror momentarily before successfully pulling herself together. "Nice river!" When her fallback pillow of sarcasm failed, Mabel shot off, away from the embankment, the deceased, and her invasive companion.