At the Races

My father’s barn was always a mysterious place with soft, warm shadows filling the corners and strong animals with glistening muscles and flashing hooves that won shiny trophies and danced with impatience in their stalls. My sisters and I were always warned — in cold tones that left us shivering in the summer and huddled together at night — to stay away from the barn if we weren’t with our father.

My father would take the entire family with him when those horses raced. It was always a grand event, where we would all dress up in our very best clothes — shiny silk dresses for all the girls and for the men, European suits that hung just so, even on the youngest boy. I remember the first time I saw one of the horses race. It took a long time to get him into the starting gate. He bucked until there was foam around his bridle, snarled and screamed at his handlers like they were trying to brand him. The other animals rattled nervously in their gates, their eyes rolling behind their blinders. My father came up to the horse and whispered something into its ear, and just like that, the horse was quiet and walked right into the gate. That horse soundly beat his competitors.

When I was eight years old, I heard voices coming from the barn. I was alone and sitting under a tree, petulantly ripping grass from around the roots of the oak. I was a sulky, pettish child with the ability to hold a grudge far beyond the time it should die and often left me alone in the fields. I was grabbing for another handful of plant matter when someone said something.

“It’s no use, Carter. The man won’t let us finish our contract. We’re far too valuable to him.”

I frowned at the unfamiliar voice. Only a few men graced our homestead, and only Father and Jenson worked in that barn with their brassy confidence and iron-clad voices. This voice could not be theirs. This voice lilted along with gentle edges and questionable corners. I edged closer to hear more.

“He has to; he knows he’s no match for us.”

“We won’t ever be free of him. Our word has bound us entirely to him.”

The voices were quiet again, and I crept closer in the sunny grass, watching small bugs flee for cover as I disturbed them from their hiding places.

Something hit the barn wall next to me with a bang.

“Fuck this.”

I wrapped my tiny brown fingers around the edge of the doorframe, straining my eyes to peer into the barn. Three boys stood in the middle of the barn with matching angelic gold hair. Their slight frames made long pillars of shadows across the straw. One of the boys was shaking his hand around as he walked away from the wall, his delicate features crumpled into a mask of rage. I had never seen boys like this — that’s if they were boys. They were too pretty to be boys, but they sounded like the boys from school. Their eyes were too wise to be young, but they were bright and darting like mine.

One of the horses screamed in their stall, and the closest blond boy hissed in the horse’s direction. The horse screamed again.

The boy seemed to have no fear of the larger beast, walking over to the stall and glaring into the shadows where the creature stood. He whispered something, and all was quiet. He leaned back against the stall and fiddled with a piece of straw.

I was afraid.

I stayed far away from the barn after that. Even when father asked if I wanted to join him as he walked the barns, I would feign some excuse. Eventually, he stopped asking. Eventually, he stopped asking anybody.

We were all afraid.

When I turned 17, that changed. I moved out, went to college, studied biology. I had this dream that I would eventually find those little boys again, maybe convince one to let me look him over, and I would discover something no scientist could dream of.

That changed as well. I met boys, girls, people who changed how I saw the world and how I saw myself. I changed my major — science was frustrating, and after I tried writing, I found myself in love with the art. I wrote incessantly.

And I was happy.

I stayed at school for the summer. I was taking one class, some creative writing bullshit that everyone has to take and maybe two people actually enjoy. But it was July, and I was young, and the air was hot, and I would spend my days writing, learning and lying out under the sun on soft grass or prickly leaves, wandering wherever my feet took me. One particular day in July, I found myself lying on a friend’s porch. They had put an overstuffed sofa out there for the summer, strung some lights across the ceiling, and it was one of my favorite places to write, with my head on the arm or somebody’s lap. I wasn’t writing right then; I was busy making out with my summer fling. She was tall and thin and prone to wearing clothes that left little to the imagination. I liked how she sang when I drove headlong down the highway, the radio blaring obnoxiously loud over the win. I liked how she made me feel beautiful.

Her lips were soft and teasing against mine as she leaned down to kiss me, and I could feel her fingers brush across the exposed skin of my belly, where my shirt had ridden up.

My phone rang.

She kept kissing me, deeper this time, like the feeling would drown out the sound.

My phone rang again.

I glanced down and groaned. She pulled her hair back behind one ear and frowned.

“It’s my dad,” I explained, already sitting up and swiping to answer.

“Jenny.”

“Father.”

“I booked your flight to Atlanta. Bring something nice. It’s supposed to be beastly hot but dry at least.”

I frowned.

“Make sure you get your nails done before coming, too. It’s this Saturday, and I want the whole family there when Beast wins the triple crown again. It’ll be groundbreaking. History in the making!”

I frowned harder.

“Jenny.”

“Father.”

“Did you hear me?”

I paused. “Yes.”

“Then I’ll see you Saturday.”

The phone beeped, and I flung it petulantly against the dirty couch and lay down again, comforting myself in her heady odor.

“Was that your dad?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I didn’t elaborate, just grabbed a string sticking out of the sofa fabric and tugged on it.

“So, what did he want?”

“The usual. Prestige. Family. A good appearance to everybody else.”

“I thought you liked your dad.”

“I do.”

“Then… Why are you so angry all the sudden?”

I didn’t know.

Georgia was more than hot; it was a furnace. I was sitting outside with my sisters and mother, waiting. We were all dressed like you would expect a debutante — linen dresses, flounces, ridiculous hats, and enough makeup that even the heat couldn’t touch it.

I felt like a doll somebody had painted and dressed and set on a shelf for others to look at. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

My brothers were scattered throughout the party, each talking to some rich asshole that they wanted to befriend or gorgeous girl just as bored as I was with the situation. It was so incredibly predictable.

My father was standing nearby, talking to some rich couple. The lady was obviously into him, running her finger along the edge of her champagne flute and nodding emphatically at everything he said. The man wasn’t nearly as enthralled and kept checking his smartwatch when he thought my father wasn’t checking.

He was always wrong. My father only looks like he won’t see when he’s watching closely.

I stood up abruptly and shot some kind of excuse at my mother. Maybe I said I was going to bathroom, who knows, all I know is I delicately made my way through the crowd with their proper clothes and proper conversation and proper lives until I made it to the barns, and then I slipped out of my heels and ran to Beast’s stall. I was tired of trying to be the girl they wanted me to be, tired of being the same as my sisters, the same as my mother, and the same as her mother before her.

I stopped running when I got to the barns, some of my old fear returning to me. The blond boys weren’t here, and the barn where Beast was housed was strangely empty. All of the horses were quiet, almost as if they were afraid, hidden in the back corners of their stalls. I dropped my heels and approached the stall, straining my eyes in the dusty shadows to see the stallion. I put my hands on the door to his stall, debating opening the door because I still couldn’t see him.

SNAP!

Beast lunged forward, teeth bared and snapped shut where my hands had been a moment earlier. I gasped in shock. This was Beast? But he wasn’t a horse — He couldn’t be a horse! His teeth resembled a lion’s or a tiger’s, his eyes further forward on his head and his jaw wider. I took a step back, but not before I saw what I had been missing — a carcass in the corner and blood pooling through the straw. I took a cautious step backwards, eyes glued to the predator in front of me.

“What are you doing here?”

I glanced up at the silvery voice and backed up another step, my heart pounding through my chest.

“This barn is off limits. You need to go.”

“Understandable,” I breathed. The creature took a step backwards, then abruptly went back to its corpse. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and started towards the door.

“Hold up! Where are you going? Mr. Russell has to know about this.”

“My father doesn’t need to know anything,” I hissed at the odd boy. “I didn’t see anything, okay?”

He squinted, looked me up and down. I felt somehow naked, like he had stripped me down to the bare bones of my psyche and had found me… I shivered.

“Your father has a contract with us. Part of that contract is no one sees what the beasts really are.”

“Contract. What contract? You don’t need to tell him, not really. I’m not going to say anything — like anyone would ever believe me.”

“This is a blood contract, girl.” His eyes glittered menacingly. “Not so easily ignored.”

“How would one go about breaking a blood contract?” I let my words seep sarcasm into the air as they passed. They hissed acidly as they made contact.

He grinned. “Oh, I’m glad you asked.”

He dove forward, faster than my eyes could follow. I took a clumsy step backwards and felt a sharp sting on my arm. He licked the cut opening on my arm, wiggling the skin to draw more blood. I jerked away.

“Jesus!”

“His blood tasted good the first time, too,” the boy chuckled. His strangely old eyes never left mine. “Won’t my brothers be excited. Thank you, girl child.”

I flipped him off. “Fuck you, asshole! I’m going to tell my father to fire you.”

“No need. Seems our contract is over… His blood runs in your veins.”

He casually turned and flipped the lock on Beast’s stall open, his pearly teeth glittering in the indirect lighting.

“It was a pleasure, sweetheart.”

I tore my eyes from him to lock eyes with Beast, inches from me. His bloody mouth hung open slightly.

I closed my eyes.

---

HEATHER WILLARD is a journalist in Ohio currently working at the Athens Messenger. She has previously worked at the Sidney Daily News and at several publications while she was a student at the Ohio University Scripps School of Journalism, where she studied journalism and biological sciences. She has also worked for The New Political, College Green Magazine, THREAD Magazine, Southeast Ohio Magazine, and written freelance. Willard is constantly searching for ways to broaden her horizons. She has found that even cozy, little towns like Athens have hidden secrets. She plans on following her heart and working on projects she is passionate about and making a positive difference in the world.

#fall2017 #fiction