The October Horses Read online

  The October Horses

  Genevieve Mckay

  StonePony Studios

  Copyright © 2020 by Genevieve Mckay

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Helping Horses

  More Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  My new life began, as is so often the way, with an abrupt ending.

  There’s that old saying about when one door closes another opens. Well, in my case, that door slammed shut on my life with an explosive, earth-shattering, bang that ended everything. That nearly ended me.

  I found out later that I’d been dead for five minutes. They’d almost stopped trying to resuscitate me by that point, and it was only at the frantic urging of my mother that they kept going.

  Nobody, besides my mother, would have blamed them for stopping. I’d been languishing away at the Shady Grove Palliative Care facility for the last six months and my inevitable death was a foregone conclusion.

  Even I didn’t care by that point.

  It happened on a Wednesday afternoon, although I didn’t know that at the time, and I had spent my morning before the event mindlessly watching a lone finger of sunlight inch across the wall of my room.

  Back when I had been in the middle of treatment, one of the hospital nurses had shown me how to do simple Tai Chi exercises to control my breathing and stay calm. It helped me deal with the pain and panic that would often take control of me.

  I’d started off being able to do the exercises standing, and then had been stuck weakly doing them from the confines of my hospital bed. Eventually, I had been only able to do the breathwork without the movements; inhale through my nose, hold for six seconds, exhale through my mouth and hold for six seconds. Over and over in a gentle, relaxing rhythm. At some point, my lungs had stopped working and I’d been hooked up to a ventilator to control my breathing, but I still clung to the routine in my head.

  Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. My eyelids flickered peacefully shut and when I mentally exhaled, there was a sudden shifting feeling in my stomach. Then I was inexplicably standing in a rolling green meadow.

  This is it, I thought, feeling strangely disappointed. I’ve finally died and this is some sort of weird heaven or an end-of-life hallucination. But I didn’t feel dead. I felt amazing; better than I had in a very long time. My exhausted body felt refreshed and full of energy. I looked around with interest at the meadow wondering what I was supposed to do next.

  It was the most vibrant, alive place I’d ever seen in my life. The colours of the grass, the flowers and the sky were so saturated that it was like I’d been transported to another dimension or something. It wasn’t like a normal dream. I wasn’t just watching the scene; I could feel the light wind on my face and the grass was soft and cool under my bare feet. Nearby, bees buzzed busily over a clump of fragrant wildflowers. I inhaled deeply, revelling in how well my broken lungs now worked, and tilted my head backward so I could see the rich blue sky overhead. It was so beautiful I could barely look at it.

  There was a sharp snorting sound behind me and I turned, again marvelling at how well my body obeyed me in this new world, to look over my shoulder.

  There, unexpectedly, was a horse.

  Let me just say here that I had never, in all my life up until that very moment, been remotely interested in horses. In fact, I sort of resented them.

  When I was nine years old, my little sister Angelika had somehow conned our cash-strapped parents into hiring a low-budget painted clown named Cowgirl-Annie for her seventh birthday party. The clown arrived with a defeated looking brown pony in tow that all the kids took turns being led around on.

  I’d had no interest in getting on the pony but then, of course, Angelika had said that I was a chicken unless I did it and that had made me climb on just out of pride.

  I don’t think the pony had enough energy to be mean but when I clambered aboard it took two steps and tripped over a tuft of grass that sent me flying over its shoulder onto the ground. I cried, probably more with embarrassment than hurt, but it was enough to make Angelika and all her annoying little second grade friends laugh at me for the next year or so. They’d given me the name Chubby Chicken because I was round enough to bring down a pony and scared enough to cry.

  That had been the beginning and the end of my relationship with horses, so it was no wonder that finding a horse in my life-altering dream came as such a shocker.

  This animal was no defeated pony.

  I spun around to face him fully, then stood frozen from a mixture of awe and fear, not daring to move. He was the most beautiful, terrifying thing I’d ever seen. He towered over me; I had to tilt my head back to see him fully. His black coat glistened so darkly that it shimmered with purples and greens, like the iridescent summer feathers of a raven. His mane and tail trailed sideways in the breeze but other than that, he stood motionless, watching me.

  My breath caught in my throat as I gazed into his fathomless eyes. I couldn’t remember what real horse eyes looked like, but I was pretty sure they weren’t this potent mixture of reds and blues swirling together as if it was living colour trapped under glass.

  I couldn’t say how long we stared at each other, it could have been seconds or years, but while I was trapped, motionless in that gaze, something was happening inside of me.

  Looking into his dark, steady eyes was like staring into the center of the universe. I was flooded with feelings of fierce love, not the paltry love I’d thought I’d felt for my ex-boyfriend Duncan, but an overwhelming love that was so much bigger than me. It was mixed with a deep sadness too and a sort of infinite knowing. I still can’t properly describe it but, to this day, every time I see a lush rolling field under a cloudless blue sky, I’m transported back to that pivotal moment where everything changed. The moment I got my second chance.

  I woke up fighting. Gasping and wheezing for air, I flailed out, my hand connecting solidly against something soft and fleshy. I opened my eyes to see that I was surrounded by a team of nurses all working over me frantically. Someone in the background was shouting. I shut my eyes to block out the noise, beeping, and chaos. Somewhere, somebody was crying. And then everything went black.

  Chapter Two

  Most people would probably divide their lives into the time before illness and the time after illness, since nearly dying is a pretty life-altering event. But fr
om that moment onward, I divided my life into the time before the dream and the time after the dream. Because it wasn’t until after the dream that my real life, my important life, truly began.

  For my entire last year, I’d been the center of a maelstrom of doctors, specialists, and urgent appointments. Instead of finishing my first term at University, there had been radiation, surgery, and experimental treatments. There had been drug trials and surgical trials, diagnostics, chemicals, and so much medication. And there had been unending pain and nausea.

  During the last part of my illness, my non-religious mom had resorted to fervent prayers and had even hired an over-the-phone faith healer from South Africa in a last-ditch attempt to save me.

  Nothing had worked. And after a year of all that turmoil, I was bone-tired.

  I was actually a little relieved when everyone gave up on me.

  After all the chaos, the palliative care facility had been a cocoon of blessed silence. The heavy doses of medication kept the pain at bay. I pretty much slept for the next few months, getting steadily weaker and day by day, losing my tenuous grip on life.

  My parents had visited every night after work, but during the day there was just the quiet beeping of machines, the shuffling of the gentle palliative care nurses making their rounds, and my own drug-muddled thoughts.

  I mostly drifted in and out of consciousness, only aware of the gentle rhythm of the respirator, my slowing heartbeat and the sunlight drifting peacefully across the wall.

  That’s all there was. Until I had the dream.

  Chapter Three

  When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I noticed was how quiet everything was. It took me a moment to figure out that it was the hissing, ticking sound of my ventilator that was missing.

  I reached up weakly to touch the tube that ran to the port in my throat to help me breathe. It had been there for months but now it was inexplicably empty; a square bandage in its place.

  What the heck? I ran my fingers gently over the bandage, trying to comprehend that I was somehow breathing on my own. How long had I been asleep?

  “Are you awake, honey?” Racheal, my favourite nurse looked down at me worriedly and touched my forehead gently with the tips of her fingers. “You’ve had quite the time here.”

  “What happened?” I croaked, wincing at the pain in my throat. My voice sounded rough and strange to my ears. Speaking around the ventilator tube was awkward so most of the time I didn’t bother. How long had it been since I’d spoken out loud?

  “Well, you crashed and we were pretty sure that we’d lost you. You’ve been out for two solid weeks.”

  I stared at the ceiling, digesting that information. I felt strange, like I’d been away from my body for a long, long time and had just arrived back. It was not a very comfortable fit. My unused muscles felt weak and sore, and my throat and tongue burned.

  “And in that time, you somehow started breathing on your own again. Dr. Harrison doesn’t know what to make of it.”

  I nodded slowly and focused on the novel feeling of my own breathing. The steady inhale-exhale that I’d spent the first nineteen years of my life taking for granted. It hurt a little but in a good way.

  “It might be a remission,” Racheal said cautiously, “but of course, it’s too soon to tell.”

  “Water?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, “a little bit should be fine.”

  When she came back carrying a little paper cup, she pressed a button at the side of my bed and raised the back so I was in more of a sitting position. Then she held the cup to my lips so I could drink.

  The water was cold and soothing on my dry mouth and throat. I had gotten out of the habit of drinking since I had IVs and a gastric feeding tube that supplied me with most of my nutrients, but now I realized how much I’d missed the sensation.

  “Take it slow,” Racheal said. Her voice sounded far away all of a sudden and had taken on a mournful, musical quality, and I knew that one of my IV drugs had kicked in.

  It sounds like when Angelika sings, I thought muzzily. As much as I made it a rule to dislike everything about my sister, her voice was something else. Every note that poured from her mouth made her sound like a divine angel. It’s one of the things that made everyone love her and forgive her for having the most shockingly awful personality.

  I don’t want to think about Angelika, I thought sleepily. I want to go and visit that horse again.

  My eyes blinked shut and when I opened them again, Racheal was gone and the night sky outside my window was black and full of stars.

  I didn’t remember having any dreams but my thoughts didn’t feel as fuzzy as they had earlier. I felt more aware of myself and my surroundings than I had in a long time. I turned my head a few inches to the right and looked around my room for the first time in forever.

  My parents were not at all rich and the private insurance my dad had through his work did not cover a private room, even if Shady Grove had had those on offer; which they didn’t. I was in one of a dozen narrow rooms and I shared the space with two other beds. And I say beds and not residents because, as a rule, no one who checked in stayed very long.

  There were thin, blue curtains that could be pulled between patients for privacy but hardly anyone used them. The only window was at my end of the room and it overlooked the front lawn and a small corner of the parking lot. It was placed just right to catch the morning sun, and in the afternoon the light filtered through a big maple tree outside. Everyone wanted to look out the window so we generally kept the curtains between us open.

  I turned my head slowly to see that at some point over the last few weeks the bed beside me had become occupied by a tiny, little old lady. Her equally ancient husband had pulled up a chair beside her bed and was leaning over her attentively, telling her something in a low, soothing voice.

  They didn’t notice me watching and I half-shut my eyes and carefully slid my pillow down so I could spy on them undetected.

  The woman had grey hair that hung to her shoulders and soft blue eyes. She must have been in her late nineties but her face looked younger and well, sort of preserved. Her skin was tanned and she had sun-spots on her hands that spoke of hours spent outdoors.

  I bet she’s a gardener like my gran was, I thought idly.

  The man had fallen silent and I shifted my gaze to the framed photos on her bedside table. A younger version of herself standing proudly beside a big red horse that had his muzzle stretched out to touch her cheek. Another of her on a brown horse leaping a jump. And yet another of a smaller girl riding a fluffy white pony.

  Horses. I drew back, startled, the memory of my dream washing over me so strongly that I could almost feel the lush, green grass under my feet.

  “Do you remember Top Hat?” the man said suddenly, his lilting voice startling me.

  “He bucked me off in the middle of the Nation’s Cup,” she whispered back slowly, her voice paper-thin. “I hated him that day.”

  “You loved him every day,” the man said with a smile, leaning closer. “What about Aristocrat?”

  “He threw a shoe at a water jump at Badminton, and it flung up and knocked out that reporter and broke his camera.”

  “I remember that, we were nearly sued.”

  She smiled at him gently and patted his hand. Then her head nodded off to one side and she was asleep. At least, I hoped she was asleep; in here you never could tell.

  The man didn’t look up and I studied his weathered face uninterrupted. He was as nut-brown tanned as she was and wore a grey-checked cap like golfers wore. He was dressed in brown pants and a blue polo shirt and his arms were ropy with muscle like he’d worked out every day when he was young. Maybe he still did for all I knew.

  He stared down at her with such love in his eyes that it made my heart constrict painfully. I wished that someone, just once, had looked at me like that while there had still been a chance. Maybe before I was bald, emaciated, and terminal. Duncan had been nice enough, befor
e his ultimate betrayal, but I didn’t think he’d been capable of deep, passionate gazes.

  I didn’t feel sorry for myself very often but watching these two old people together made my eyes sting and I finally had to look away.

  “We’ve had a long road together, Gretta,” I heard him say. “A long, good road. We’ve had some fine adventures and I wouldn’t change a single, solitary thing.”

  He paused and I waited, listening hard, hardly daring to breathe until he spoke again.

  I must have waited a long time, and I guess the meds still flowing through my system kicked in, because when I woke up it was dark inside the room, though light still filtered in from the hall, and the chair beside the old lady’s bed was empty.

  I looked over at the woman, Gretta, to find her wide awake and staring at me in the semi-darkness, her eyes shining.

  “Hello,” she said quietly, “you must be Breanna. I heard your mother call you that and I thought at the time that it was such a beautiful name.”

  “Bree,” I wheezed, the word hissing across my dry mouth like sandpaper. I wished I had another glass of water.

  We were silent for a few minutes and then my gaze drifted to the photo of her and the red horse. I could just make out the images in the dim light.

  “That chestnut was Ripple,” she said, following my gaze. “The bay horse in the other photo was Atticus, and the little girl is my great-granddaughter, Sally, on her pony, Sundae.”