The Silver Mare

It was the summer of ‘43 and the pond was frozen solid…

I suppose it all started with a horse.

I had never seen a wild horse before. My family had only just moved to the countryside, and the only horses I ever saw were on merry-go-rounds at the fair... but they were nothing like this.

This horse was beautiful, a young mare in the prime of its life. Her long silver mane floated weightless on the air. She was completely free. It was everything my father could do to miss her when she crossed the highway in front of us.

The impact was a violence I had never known.

I felt it in my bones. I felt it in my soul.

Our old truck took the collision better than expected, but my father was bleeding from his forehead and my mother was holding her arm in pain. Somehow, we had all survived the crash.

The body lay on the road, so still… its chest then rose in shallow strained breaths. My father stumbled from the car and knelt beside it. The pale thing was sullied with streaks of blood, and it was clear that its legs were broken. My father took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood from his forehead,

“Oh lord,” he said, “not like this.” 

My mother shrieked when she saw the body on the road and tears fell from her eyes. The horse lay whimpering. My father looked on it and sighed, he then pulled the revolver from his hip and held it to the horse’s head.

It all happened so quickly and the blast of the gun so loud that my voice was nothing more than a whisper. He had killed her without even thinking about it. I was in shock, I could barely breathe.

After what seemed like a lifetime, we managed to clear the road and leave in our truck, which was somehow still running. My mother insisted we go to the hospital. My father refused,

“This truck won’t make it to the hospital.”

That night, I dreamt of the horse and where it had come from, where it was going. I dreamt of riding it through open fields on a summer's day with nothing in our way but clear skies and sunshine.

It was a good dream.

Our farmhouse was old and full of holes, at least holes big enough for wind to squeeze through and fill my room with dust. I never knew how it got inside, I always kept the window sealed shut and swept the floor everyday but still, dust. I guess that’s just country life for you. My father called it ‘salt of the earth’ and it’s what gives country folk their ‘flavour'.

I didn’t like the sound of that. Not at all.

“Henry!” called my mother, “Henry!”

“I’m up, I’m up!”

My father was already outside working the field, I could see him through my window riding his tractor across the acres of land surrounding the house. We hadn’t spoken much since moving from the city. I was still mad at him for taking me from my life, from my friends.

“There’s a war on,” he had said, “We all have to make sacrifices.”

I thought of the silver mare… It’s easy to make sacrifices when the gun is in your hand.

My mother went into town to run errands. She left me behind to do chores, and for that I was grateful. The only place duller than the farm was the town… if you can even call it a town.

So, I finished my chores as quick as I could and came back to the house to read my comic books. I sat at the kitchen table reading until my father came inside and pulled a jug of water from the icebox. He poured himself a glass and sat down beside me,

“Henry,” he said, “Son, I’m… sorry about how all of this worked out. I need you to know… that I…”

I didn’t look at him, I kept my eyes on the page in front of me.

“Damnit!” he continued, “Can you even hear me?”

I stayed silent, I couldn’t speak. The words were bubbling up, getting stuck in my throat. My father stood up to leave,

“I knew this was a waste of time.”

He slammed the door behind him and returned to the field. I put the comic down and looked out the window. He was stepping up to his tractor.

I followed after him.

Our farmhouse backed onto several acres of hayfield, currently littered with the silent pillars of freshly wrapped hay bales. My father’s tractor was already mid-field by the time I reached the edge.

“Papa!”

He was too far away, the engine of his tractor rumbled under him.

My eyes were then drawn to a glimmer of light at the end of the field. It began to move along the tree line. Boy, it was fast! The object began to take shape… It was a horse. The same as the one we had hit with our truck. A mare. Glorious silver and taking long powerful strides with perfect healthy legs.

She was alive!

The horse then stopped and turned its eyes towards me. She whinnied once before disappearing into the trees of the forest.

There was nothing for it, I had to follow… like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t resist the lure of the horse. I ran across the field as fast as I could. The freshly cut grass crunched under my feet and the sun was at my back. I thought maybe I could still see silver reflecting in the forest.

I made it to the woods and slowed myself to a jog. I was only a few steps inside when I saw the horse once again.

The mare stopped for a moment then ran deeper into the forest. I followed. She led me this way for miles until finally I came upon a glade. The summer sun shone down onto green grass and my eyes were drawn immediately to the silver horse standing at the edge of a pond.

The pond... surrounded by unmelting snow, I couldn’t believe it, the waters were frozen solid.

The silver mare stood watching me, waiting for me… I walked slowly into the clearing. The horse didn’t move, but with every step I took I could feel the warmth of the summer slipping away. By the time I reached the snowy pond, I could see my breath fog the air in front of me.

The horse exhaled steady breaths into the chilled air and looked at me with black eyes. She then looked back at the pond. I knew she was telling me to walk out onto the ice.

“On… the ice?”

The mare pushed out an unsympathetic snort. I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw.

The first steps were easy, the ice felt solid under my feet but each step closer to the centre felt less certain. I reached the middle of the pond and looked back at the mare. The horse stamped one hoof on the ground beneath it. I looked down at my feet.

I saw a black form deep below the surface of the ice, a vague shapeless mass blurred beneath the frozen water. I knelt down to get a better look, wiping the frosted surface with my sleeve.

I lifted my head back up to find that the silver mare was nowhere to be seen. The glade now seemed terribly quiet.

When I looked back down into the ice, the black mass suddenly quivered with life. I let out a scream and sprang to my feet. I couldn’t get any traction and could see the figure shifting slowly beneath me. Finally, I found the edge of the pond and ran back through the forest to the field and the farmhouse.  

I reached our door having only noticed then that the sun was now very low in the sky. I must have been gone for hours. I pulled open the screen door, dreading the squeaky hinges would give me away.

Once inside, I saw my mother and father sitting around the kitchen table. She was crying. 

“Mama, what’s wrong?”

She continued to cry while my father comforted her, rubbing her back.

“I can’t lose you Henry,” she said between sobs, “I can’t lose you.”

She must have worried all day.

“I… I’m sorry Mama, I didn’t realize the time.”

She stood abruptly from the table and left the room, her sobs fading down the hallway. It was only me and my father left at the table. He didn’t look at me,

“Since your brother left for Germany... You're all we have left."

“But you don’t understand, I saw the horse! She’s alive! Then a black monster was moving in a frozen pond and –“

“God! Why must you do this!” He pushed the chair back from the table and it fell to the ground with a loud thud. Tears were in his eyes. I had never seen him cry before, I didn’t think it was possible.

He left me there alone in the kitchen and followed after my mother. I went to my room and found the same familiar layer of dust waiting for me. I started to sweep it away and felt a rage build up inside me. My eyes were swollen from holding back burning tears. I let out a scream and threw the broom against the wall.

That night, I dreamt of the black shape beneath the ice. The figure was twisting and writhing, as if in pain, it then formed a hand from the blackness and slowly reached out for me.

I woke up covered in sweat and dust. It was barely dawn.

I felt a renewed fire burning inside me. If my father wasn’t going to believe me, I would bring him the monster and throw it in his face.

I suited up with my toughest work clothes and grabbed my heaviest parka, I knew it was going to be cold. Lastly, I took a spade from my mother’s garden shed and headed out to the glade, to the frozen pond.

When I entered the glade there was still no sign of the silver horse, I feared I would never see her again… But now was no time for fear. I stomped towards the centre of the pond and stabbed the ice with my spade. A crack spread across the surface.

I could see the black figure start to move closer under the frozen water, I raised my spade once more into the air and sunk it deep into the ice.

The ice gave way beneath my feet and I plunged into the waters below. I opened my eyes and found that I could see clearly, the water was full of bright light.

The black mass had moved away, it seemed less scary now. I swam towards it, determined to bring it back with me. As I drew nearer, the shape began to change before my eyes. It was now two dark figures floating still alongside each other.

A boy and a horse.

I then saw the shape of a man kneel down beside the boy,

“Not like this.”

The mass changed to the boy asleep in his bed, the man beside him,

“Can you even hear me?”

The form then became a woman crying beside the bed,

“I can’t lose you.”

Finally, the man on his knees, his arms stretched out to the sky,

“God! Why must you do this!”

I knew now what had happened and opened my swollen eyes…

I was back in my bedroom, my parents asleep in wooden chairs beside me. I sat up with a groan, a dull pain throughout my broken body. My parents' opened their tired eyes to see me looking back at them.

... and beyond my window, I swear I could hear a horse neigh in the distance.