Truly Elemental: And Other Retro Faerie Tales

The Bleeding Boy and the Bruja

July 1946

White sand folds beneath me. My hooves dig half-moons where I walk, leaving a drunken trail in my wake. You can follow them; lace imprints fringing the island's squiggled coastline. Since dawn I've scouted—trotting where the tide recedes, splashing through pools and skirting the marshes. Since dawn, I've worked it out: where they'll come from today, the men. I know where the scow will float in. Where the riders will depart. Where the herds they hunt are hidden—

The air pulls warm around me. A storm is coming. I taste the damp on my tongue and my bones ache at the thought of rain. Grey sky winks in and out beneath the stand of trees I keep to. Scraggly pines paw at my hips, brambles tickle my barrel and claw my knees.

I keep walking.

Trotting.

Walking.

The world sizzles in suspense. The ocean thrums inside my cupped ears, a hush, hush that crackles along my nerves like St. Elmo's fire—blue sparks jolt my heart. My muscles tremble and the skin on my haunches wrinkles as I tense. Around my knees, seagrass whips in the breeze, edges harsh and bared like lions fangs. Even the birds can't keep still. Flocks rise in bursts and settle again, uneasy.

I am myself this time. I've been myself for ages now. Except for once, when a mangy lad paddled the straight to shuck choice clams on my beach. He smelt musky and curious; anxiety and desire. Young people smell funny all bravado and fear. When he slipped on the rake and cut his hand, the wound called to me. I was Jane Russell that time. Tall and soft, fierce and wanting. Voluminous bay curls, eyes like a deer, and a neckline that sank coyly on my breasts. I was barely decent.

He was barely dessert. Too skinny.

I prefer myself natural. I have a good form. Solid. Lofty. The ponies. The hunted ones. They're short and round as wine casks on spindle legs. Their coats are thick in winter—shaggy hair salt-spun into whorls and kinks—and mud caked in summer to stop the flies. I am angled shoulders and supple flanks. My cannons were lauded by Caesar as iron. My blue-black coat is satin. My muzzle cinnamon on velvet. I am beautiful.

My path crests a dune. I pause at the top and heave a snort. My thin-skinned nostrils puff and tremble as the wind plays with my forelock, teasing my vision. I lift my chin to sniff, to learn. Confidence. Excitement. Blood. The sweaty air brings me news: waves slapping a rusty hull, saddle soap, chaw. I drink it again, the stirred heat, and pick out the sweet hues of cocoa. Chocolate.

I met a man once who called it choclit. An old local. His accent bit into his words and devoured half his vowels before he could say anything at all. I had to listen hard to 'catch his drift,' and I know Latin.

St. Elmo's fire snaps my heart again and I stand up on my back legs, a live wire. My knees clutch my chest and my hocks strain under the weight. The stretch in my ribs thrills me. I dance for a moment on the dune, a wicked shadow against the white. A phantom beneath an angry sky.

Charcoal clouds circle, muting the sun. I rush for the tree line again, galloping back into the stunted forest.

The sea hushes after me, "he is coming."

October 1606

They think I am a woman.

They always do.

This time, I wish they saw me as my natural self. Then they'd put me with the other horses.

The ship lolls and I press my ear to the spongy wood. I can smell the brine—close. I touch the sea as it tries to touch me. Dribbles of cold water squeeze between the knitted planks, trying to get in. My fingertips go numb with pleasure. I almost snort, but it won't sound the same with my human voice so I don't do it.