She glanced at her watch, realising that school had let out long before; the children might be waiting at the bus stop now, in this terrible weather. She pushed aside the heavy green curtains.
‘Derek – ’
But the room was empty. He had already gone for the children, she thought with relief. He certainly did better at this job of being a parent than she did.
Of course, Kelly was his child; he’d had years to adjust to fatherhood. She wondered if he would buy a horse for Kelly and hoped that he wouldn’t.
Perhaps it was silly to be worried about ancient Indian curses and to fear that a long-ago event would be repeated, but Marilyn didn’t want horses in a barn where horses had once gone mad. There were no Indians here now, and no horses. Perhaps they would be safe.
Marilyn glanced down at the books still piled beside her, thinking of looking up the section about the horses. But she recoiled uneasily from the thought. Derek had already told her the story; she could check the facts later, when she was not alone in the house.
She got up. She would go and busy herself in the kitchen, and have hot chocolate and cinnamon toast waiting for the children.
The scream still rang in her ears and vibrated through her body. Marilyn lay still, breathing shallowly, and stared at the ceiling. What had she been dreaming?
It came again, muffled by distance, but as chilling as a blade of ice. It wasn’t a dream; someone, not so very far away, was screaming.
Marilyn visualised the house on a map, trying to tell herself it had been nothing, the cry of some bird. No one could be out there, miles from everything, screaming; it didn’t make sense. And Derek was still sleeping, undisturbed. She thought about waking him, then repressed the thought as unworthy and sat up. She’d better check on the children, just in case it was one of them crying out of a nightmare. She did not go to the window; there would be nothing to see, she told herself.
Marilyn found Kelly out of bed, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared out the window.
‘What’s the matter?’
Kelly didn’t shift her gaze. ‘I heard a horse,’ she said softly. ‘I heard it neighing. It woke me up.’
‘A horse?’
‘It must be wild. If I can catch it and tame it, can I keep it?’ Now she looked around, her eyes bright in the moonlight.
‘I don’t think . . .’
‘Please?’
‘Kelly, you were probably just dreaming.’
‘I heard it. It woke me up, I heard it again. I’m not imagining things,’ she said tightly.
‘Then it was probably a horse belonging to one of the farmers around here.’
‘I don’t think it belongs to anyone.’
Marilyn was suddenly aware of how tired she was. Her body ached. She didn’t want to argue with Kelly. Perhaps there had been a horse – a neigh could sound like a scream, she thought.
‘Go back to bed, Kelly. You have to go to school in the morning. You can’t do anything about the horse now.’
‘I’m going to look for it, though,’ Kelly said, getting back into bed. ‘I’m going to find it.’
‘Later.’
As long as she was up, Marilyn thought as she stepped out into the hall, she should check on the other children, to be sure they were all sleeping.
To her surprise, they were all awake. They turned sleepy, bewildered eyes on her when she came in and murmured broken fragments of their dreams as she kissed them each in turn.
Derek woke as she climbed in beside him. ‘Where were you?’ he asked. He twitched. ‘Christ, your feet are like ice!’
‘Kelly was awake. She thought she heard a horse neighing.’
‘I told you,’ Derek said with sleepy smugness. ‘That’s our ghost horse, back again.’
The sky was heavy with the threat of snow; the day was cold and too still. Marilyn stood up from her typewriter in disgust and went downstairs The house was silent except for the distant chatter of Derek’s typewriter.
‘Where are the kids?’ she asked from the doorway.
Derek gave her a distracted look, his hands still poised over the keys. ‘I think they all went out to clean up the barn.’
‘But the barn is closed – it’s locked.’
‘Mmmm.’
Marilyn sighed and left him. She felt weighted by the chores of supervision. If only the children could go to school every day, where they would be safe and out of her jurisdiction. She thought of how easily they could be hurt or die, their small bodies broken. So many dangers, she thought, getting her coral-coloured coat out of the front closet. How did people cope with the tremendous responsibility of other lives under their protection? It was an impossible task.
The children had mobilised into a small but diligent army, marching in and out of the barn with their arms full of hay, boards or tools. Marilyn looked for Kelly, who was standing just inside the big double doors and directing operations.
‘The doors were chained shut,’ she said, confused. ‘How did you – ’
‘I cut it apart,’ Kelly said. ‘There was a hacksaw in the tool shed.’ She gave Marilyn a sidelong glance. ‘Daddy said we could take any tools from there that we needed.’
Marilyn looked at her with uneasy respect, then glanced away to where the other children were working grimly with hands and hammers at the boards nailed across all the stall doors. The darkness of the barn was relieved by a storm lantern hanging from a hook.
‘Somebody really locked this place up good,’ Kelly said. ‘Do you know why?’
Marilyn hesitated, then decided. ‘I suppose it was boarded up so tightly because of the way one of your early relatives died here.’
Kelly’s face tensed with interest. ‘Died? How? Was he murdered?’
‘Not exactly. His horses killed him. They . . . turned on him one night, nobody ever knew why.’
Kelly’s eyes were knowing. ‘He must have been an awful man, then. Terribly cruel. Because horses will put up with almost anything. He must have done something so – ’
‘No. He wasn’t supposed to have been a cruel man.’
‘Maybe not to people.’
‘Some people thought his death was due to an Indian curse. The land here was supposed to be sacred; they thought this was the spirit’s way of taking revenge.’
Kelly laughed. ‘That’s some excuse. Look, I got to get to work. Okay?’
Marilyn dreamed she went out one night to saddle a horse. The barn was filled with them, all her horses, her pride and delight. She reached up to bridle one, a sorrel gelding, and suddenly felt – with disbelief that staved off the pain – powerful teeth bite down on her arm. She heard the bone crunch, saw the flesh tear, and then the blood . . .
She looked up in horror, into eyes which were reddened and strange.
A sudden blow threw her forward and she landed face-down in dust and straw. She could not breathe. Another horse, her gentle black mare, had kicked her in the back. She felt a wrenching, tearing pain in her leg. When finally she could move she turned her head and saw the great yellow teeth, stained with her blood, of both her horses as they fed upon her. And the other horses, all around her, were kicking at their stalls. The wood splintered and gave, and they all came to join in the feast.
The children came clattering in at lunchtime, tracking snow and mud across the red-brick floor. It had been snowing since morning, but the children were oblivious to it. They did not, as Marilyn had expected, rush out shrieking to play in the snow, but went instead to the barn, as they did every weekend now. It was almost ready, they said.
Kelly slipped into her chair and powdered her soup with salt. ‘Wait till you see what we found,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Animal, vegetable or mineral?’ Derek asked.
‘Animal AND mineral.’
‘Where did you find it?’ Marilyn asked.
The smallest child spilled soup in her lap and howled. When Marilyn got back to the table, everyone was talking about the discovery in the barn: Derek curious, the children mysterious.