The Butcher's Daughter

Chapter 1

Mabel Tavington's childhood fused with her adolescence like two metal barbs on a fence. By the time she was sixteen, Mabel was untouchable. Not cruel, but certainly resilient. Smart as a whip, Mabel had an uncommonly short stay at Waterford High before testing out during her sophomore year.

She wouldn't miss the rude snickers of her peers each time she opened her show ribbon-lined locker between classes. Especially the heavily lip gloss'd girls who never missed a chance to sneer at Mabel's knee-high riding boots and competition-ready ponytail. She wouldn't miss her elders, either, with their never-ending commentary about how much she looked like Marigold or how "strong" she was, being able to attend school so close to where the Casey Schoolhouse once stood.

Training horses for show was all she knew. Like a mare who had been whipped and spurred into perfect form over the course of many years, Mabel was an exemplary rider. Trophies colonized nearly every flat surface in the farmhouse like clusters of stagnant, golden bees in a wooden hive. Ribbons and certificates masked the yellow damask wallpaper that Marigold had hung when she was still strong enough to do so. Mabel's name was dreaded and respected by prospective and returning competitors throughout the southern states. There wasn't a sport that she didn't excel in, except for the steeplechase.

The sporadic quake of the horse's canter, the wind, the grass and the water from the ponds conjoining into a cyclone and pounding down in a torrential rain should have thrilled her. The sensation of flight as each sprint becomes airborne; this is what most riders crave! But not Mabel. To her, there was nothing quite so beautiful as the order and discipline of dressage. And so, it was to dressage that she devoted her life even though the lack of accolades as a steeplechase rider crushed down on her soul like an iron weight.

When the lacking became too much to bear, Mabel hitched Buttercup's trailer to her truck, drove to the course and trained day after day for five whole months. At night, while nursing her injuries and sore muscles in a lukewarm bath, she would curse her lack of improvement when her time stopped improving.

"I am nothing if I am not victorious!" She would mumble to the dissolving grains of Epsom salt as they scratched beneath her bare feet. When she was certain that there were no footfalls in the hallway or shadows creeping out from underneath the door, she'd slap the surface of the water with force. "I advance myself only through victory!" Victory, victory, victory. The word embedded itself into her brain, poisoning her mind like a victory-shaped tumor.

One night, Giselle the Eavesdropper, intervened on her brooding teenage goddaughter's pity party. "Bumblebee," she pounded on the door, "the pizza is getting cold."

"What did I tell you about pizza?" As Mabel rubbed a warm washcloth over her eyes, a blade of grass pricked her eyelid. "Pizza is 70% grease. Grease makes you sluggish. I will not be sluggish, I will be-" She moaned and pulled the shower curtain around the footed tub when Giselle cracked the door open.

"Victorious, schmictorious. You're killing me, Smalls." Giselle glanced in the mirror and fiddled with her curls before heading towards the muddled form of Mabel as she hunched over her knees in the tub. "Tommy Martin is downstairs."

To this, Mabel peeked her head out from behind the opaque curtain with a bright yellow rubber ducky design. Yet another obvious relic from her mother's reign in the farmhouse that Giselle didn't have the heart to discard of. "I hate him!"

"What an ugly word to come out of such a pretty gal's mouth!"

Giselle handed her a slice of semi-warm Hawaiian pizza on a napkin. With some reluctance, Mabel started to dab the grease away and took a bite of the cardboard-flavored morsel. "I fucking hate him." She repeated with her mouth full. "And I am going to stay right here, in this tub, until he leaves." The curtain was shut again with such force that the metal rings performed an elongated tap dance against their pole.