Lessoc Fountain - a fairy-creature tale

Ch. 9 Loneliness Limps

Cocot was knitting a sock on the bench under the window when the old black horse came limping along the dirt lane.

One moment, she was lost in the tangle of brown wool threaded through her fingers and the spiky circle of four knitting needles, and the next the fine hair on her neck stood on end. Then she heard a few unsteady tum-tum-thuhhm-tums of its steps. Horse's hooves. She craned her neck to peer down the path and through the trees.

A sorrier animal was not to be seen this side of the Alps. He was a draft horse, a working animal. A horse that, in his prime, could be hitched to a plow and made to pull all day, every day for weeks on end and never bat an eye. This horse, however, would collapse if a stiff breeze came along. His wide chest hung in folds of drooping skin, there were black scars and raw sores on his legs and flanks, dirt and clay clung to his coat, but the worst, in Cocot's opinion, were his eyes.

They were filled with grey scum.

She stood up, her knitting tumbled forgotten from her fingers to the stones on the ground. The horse immediately shied and stepped backwards. Even though he must have weighed twenty times her weight, he was frightened of her.

"I won't hurt you," she called, trying to make her voice gentle and carry the distance at the same time.

The horse hesitated, standing sideways in the lane.

"Are you lost?" she asked. She stole softly to the gate.

Are you lonely? The unspoken question echoed through her bones. She recognized loneliness when it came limping to her door.

"You can come and stay a while, if you want. I have carrots and a few old apples." She was fairly certain horses liked apples and carrots. And oats, but she didn't have any oats.

The horse swung his head between her and the road. He stamped a hoof. It had an oozing, pus filled sore on it.

"Can I come closer?" The animal was so skittish, he could be dangerous. Perhaps if she had one of the bendy carrots from the bin before she got closer. But if she went inside, the horse might leave. She ripped up some grass and dandelions at her feet and reached for the gate latch.

A puff of breeze fluttered her hair and the faint buzzing of electric lights made her jump.

"Don't," Soufflé said, sharp and urgent. "It's evil, that horse." The jumbled colors of Soufflé's clothes and his hoary head appeared at the corner of her eye. He landed on her shoulder.

He had disappeared for six days and arrived only now when she had a chance to see and talk to the horse. She shook her head once, and her face tightened in a frown. "He's old and sick."

"I know that horse. Believe me, he is a thing of darkness. Nothing but a beast." He grabbed onto a lock of hair to steady himself. "Go inside where it's safe and I'll make him go."

"No. He couldn't kill a fly with his tail," Cocot said. She twisted her head to face him eye to eye. "How evil could he possibly be?"

"Trust me, little girl. It would be best for you to leave that creature alone. There are too many of its victims haunting its shadow."

She shook her head again, hoping the fairy would lose his balance and fall. She turned back to the horse in the lane.

He was gone. The lane was empty; the horse had vanished without making the slightest noise.

"You see?" said Soufflé. "A beast of evil."

"A beast of evil, really? Is that all you saw? You picked a wonderful moment to finally show up here again!" A bitter taste rose in Cocot's mouth and she wished she could find the flyswatter to smack him with it then and there for the black spider he was.