The Equestrian

Daniel Lee

I’d always known there was something wrong with Mr. Webber. It was his manner, the way he carried himself, a bit bow-legged, you know, from years of riding… but more so in his eyes, a subtle gleam that only someone with skills like mine would notice. It was in those eyes that I sensed rebellion, a strong-willed determination to break away from the constraints of mere racing and jumping. Mr. Webber, we all knew, wanted more. And it was only a matter of time until he got his way. The summer of 1986 was sleepy in the town of Northridge, the streets a sponge soaked with the same apathy as the United States. In our classrooms and offices could be felt the resonance of mutual resignation to whatever fate might befall us, a widespread belief that those in power must know what is best. I was a child then, and my parents, whom you know, had already left for their annual trek across Europe. I suppose fourteen was old enough to stay home alone, but I tell you now even then I was terribly frightened of the house at night. You have heard the stories, and they are all true. And on the evening of June 23, 1986, I first saw the face of Lucky.

You know what took place next, you were there, and since your interest lies in what has happened since, at this point I’d like to take you forward nine years to the moment I met Madam Futura. I had for days been ravenously craving something chocolate, and had, by means unnecessary to relate, found myself in a small bakery on East Pinewood St. There, as I hungrily eyed the éclairs, a woman entered and spoke to the man behind the counter: “Are you the only one working here today? Is the manager here?”

“No,” replied the man. “I’m the only one here.”

“Oh. I’ve done this before… I’m a psychic reader, and I was wondering if you’d be interested in having a psychic reading in exchange for a muffin.”

The man seemed to pause a moment before responding, “Um… probably, but I can’t just hand you the muffin. I’d need to ring it up.”

“So you can’t do it?” she asked.

“No.”

“Okay. Thanks.” And she began to walk away.

Now, I’m not quite sure what prompted me to act so quickly and so without forethought, but I immediately stood from my crouch beside the dessert case and said “Wait,” to which the woman turned, looked at me, and I continued, “If you give me a reading I’ll buy you a muffin.”

She smiled at me and without hesitation said, “Okay.”

At a small table by the window we sat, and on its surface I placed my upturned hand, to which she said, “Oh, no, I’m not a palm reader,” and I retracted my fist, somewhat embarrassed. “Look at me,” she ordered. So I did. It seemed for several minutes that we sat there, eyes locked, before she spoke, “What do you want to know?”

“Well, wait,” I said. “How does this work? I just ask you ‘Am I going to marry Kathryn,’ and you tell me yes or no?”

“Sort of.”

“Is it really that precise? How far ahead can you see?”

“Pretty far. I can tell you how you’ll die.”

I found I had begun to rethink my decision. “I don’t know about this… doesn’t part of the fun of life come from not knowing what will happen next?”

“Yes.”

“So why read a book if you already know the ending?”

“Because having already read the book once, you can then begin to see the subtexts and hidden threads present in its pages.”

I thought about that for several moments, attempting to wrap my head around the idea of life as a book and, subsequently, who the author might be. Finally I made my decision: “Alright. Tell me about tomorrow. Will I win?” Here I thought myself clever, for I had not mentioned the details of what was taking place the following day, and had avoided dropping any hints that it might have anything to do with horses.

“No you will not,” she said quickly. “And now that you know you will not win, you won’t even bother to go to the race. You won’t even leave the house. You will lay in your bed until noon, at which point you will be paid a visit by an acquaintance who has for some time gone unseen.”

A chill ran up my spine. Could this be true? You who have known my family for so long should know it is not like me to be so lazy as to lie in bed all day. And who was this acquaintance of whom she spoke? I assumed she meant you, still I opened my mouth and let the question roll out, “Who will visit me?”

“Lucky you,” she replied. Confused, I was again about to question her when she spoke, “I could sure use that muffin right about now.”

I bought her the muffin, and as I handed it to her she stood and thanked me.

“Is that it?” I asked, disappointed at the brevity of the psychic reading.

She answered, “As a catalyst for action, that was pretty significant.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s time for me to go.” And she started for the exit.

It wasn’t until she was nearly out the door that it occurred to me, “If you’re such a good psychic, shouldn’t you have known that guy wouldn’t give you a free muffin?”

She stopped in her tracks and faced me, “I did know. But I also knew I would meet you here, and that I would have to speak to him before you would speak to me. Knowing the future doesn’t mean you can skip ahead.”

I was silent.

“See you later,” she said, walking out the door. But I never did see her again.

The Atlantic wind whipped my hair into a ballet of sunlit flames as I made my way back home. And once there I found myself inexplicably drawn to a small drawer in the east end of the estate, wherein I laid my eyes, for the first time in many years, upon the heavy rusted horseshoes that had once been his. One day, I knew, he would come back for them, and on that day chances were I would die.

The lights went out that night at an unreasonably early hour, and so I made my way by candlelight to your- my bedroom. Drawing near midnight, still I tossed beneath the sheets, unable to clear my head of the psychic’s prediction. I wondered how she had developed her powers, whether you and she had ever met. For a moment I thought I heard a grunt from the darkness, and I bolted upright in bed, straining my eyes to gaze into the shadow. Nothing emerged, and no more sounds were heard, so gradually I let my head sink back to the pillow, at which point I was filled with a sense of extreme sleepiness, and my eyelids fell shut. I didn’t know it at the time, but, staring into the blackness, I had been looking directly at him.

The following morning I awoke to the sight of deep hoof prints in the carpet beside my bed. They led out into the hallway, but a deep tremor within my gut left me too terrified to follow, and so instead I pulled the sheets over my head and trembled. Clearly he had returned, and clearly he was the acquaintance whose visit the soothsayer had foreseen.

It occurred to me that the race began in three hours, that I should have been there by now to prepare. Yet I was plagued by the psychic’s words the day before: “Now that you know you will not win, you won’t even bother to go to the race. You won’t even leave the house.”

Still, what if I did go? Would my conscious choice of a different path alter the future to the point where I would win the race? On the other hand, if I did compete and lost, what would have been the point in going? With the words of the psychic ringing in my ears, I had perhaps an unique insight into events yet to be, and so could manage to avoid the rigors of the race, seeing as they would amount to nothing. Resigned to my fate, I let out a deep sigh and fell back asleep.

At noon I sprang from bed in horror. Coming up the stairs was the approaching clomping of four hoofed feet and the frustrated breathing of some unseen animal. Shivering, I backed into the corner and prepared to see his face, a face I had not seen in nearly ten years.

Slowly the rising clomps became stomps, then steps, and with one swift motion around the threshold he swung into the room, and standing before me was Mr. Webber. In his eyes was the climax of anger nine years building, and as he walked toward me I knew the time had come for a decisive confrontation.

With a momentous leap he lunged for me, pinning me to the wall and planting a deep fist in my belly. I felt the wind rise out of me, and collapsed to the floor. Quickly he picked me up and smashed pound after pound into my face. Without thinking, I grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed my head into his. We both winced in pain and backed away, stunned. That was when, with the smoothness of nine years’ experience, Mr. Webber’s legs doubled and exploded from his pants. They bent back, and his feet rolled over themselves, hardening into four thick hooves. He let out a piercing cry of intense agony, then stared deep into me. From his torso up he was a man, everything below that of an enormous brown stallion. At this the fear throughout my body pulsed so that in my terror I felt my own body become reformed, reshaped, and in violent metamorphosis I myself became a hybrid.

At once we both reared back, and threw ourselves forward, clashing in a crash of hooves and fists. With unexpected strength he lifted me over his head and launched me across the room, through the window and out into the sky, at which point I began my descent four floors to the swimming pool. In a watery frenzy I tore from the pool and blew back into the house, cutting across the kitchen and wrapping my wet fingers around the handle of a large serrated knife.

Down the stairs he flew on all fours, each step a thunderous cannon down the canyon of the stairwell. Before me he appeared and at once into his chest I plunged the blade, thrusting it in and out, forcing it downward, sawing him apart. In frothing madness Mr. Webber slashed me across the face and kicked me hard, shattering two ribs. From his chest he ripped the weapon, letting flow the crimson river of his blood, and chucked it at me. I dodged at the last moment, and the knife stabbed itself into the wall behind me.

“What do you want from me!!??” I screamed.

He let out a horrible roar, “You KNOW what I WANT!!!”

“It wasn’t I who did this to you!! You know that!!”

He picked up the piano and smashed it into splinters against the wall, “I wasn’t MEANT to BE THIS WAY!!!”

“You dare to question his decision??!”

“You don’t know what it’s been LIKE, Lucky!!! IMPRISONED these last NINE YEARS!!! Alone with only this… PERSON fighting to COME OUT!!!!”

For a moment I saw again in him the deep seeded resentment and anger I’d always sensed in him, and it suddenly made sense why the original transformation nine years ago had so driven him mad. “What would you prefer!!??” I shouted. “Just to be my horse again!?? To live that life??! Was that any better?!”

Rearing back, he fell forward and whinnied painfully.

I continued to yell, “You and I have a choice now, man! We can become whichever of the three we want!! That’s what we were meant to do!! Decide for ourselves! You should consider yourself lucky!!”

He let out an earthshaking cry, suddenly wincing and clutching at his bleeding chest. “But, Lucky! The more you do it, the more you lose track of WHICH ONE you ARE!! And I CAN’T do it anymore! I can’t go on like this!! It’s making me CRAZY!!!”

“I can’t change you back!” I exclaimed. “I don’t have that power!”

His hind legs buckled and fell out from under him. With both hands now he grabbed at his chest, as though attempting to hold his heart in place. “I CAN’T!!” he screamed.

Reaching over, I extracted the knife from the wall, gripped it by its serrated blade, took aim, and flung it through the air. With a thick crunch it dug into Mr. Webber’s head, splitting it open and sending him reeling backward, then falling forward and collapsing on the floor in a bloody pile of skin and fur.

All was silent for several moments before I walked away slowly to the east end of the house and once again opened the small drawer, pulling from within four heavy horseshoes. Atop my neck there was a slow increase in weight, and my body leaned forward. Overhead I caught my reflection in the enormous mirror and, sure enough, saw staring back the face I had so dreaded seeing, a face I had not seen for nine years, since the fateful night the transformation took place.

This is, I suppose, where the story ends. Still, often I find myself galloping across the landscape as though in slow motion, cautiously anticipating the day I encounter another of your creations. Admittedly I frequently question the path you led me down nine years ago, although these periods of doubt are soon replaced once more with the belief that you, in your authority, know what is best. To ordinary man you have sent his ordinary life. To myself and those like me, you have sent ours.

The End