Beyond the other centaurs, Estajfan sees Aura listening.
The mountain centaur blinks. “Yes,” she says. “But now your home is here. The mountain feeds you, the mountain shelters you from harm. Would you rather be without it?”
You have a choice to make. He watches the same realization dawn on Petrolio’s face, followed by the same tinge of incredulous fear.
Aura, keeping watch, says nothing.
THE MOUNTAIN
Once there was a mountain that reached high into the clouds. On that mountain there lived a herd of wild horses. The ground magic was strong here, far from humans, and so were the horses. There were cougars on the mountain too, and mountain goats, and large brown deer with antlers that were heavier than gold. There were rabbits and foxes and squirrels that could fly, and all the animals could speak to one another without making a sound.
The horses were kind and curious, beautiful and grave. But they were also reckless—they were off the mountain as much as they were on it, eager to run down into the foothills and see what the rest of the world could tell them. Horses died in avalanches, horses fell into crevasses and were never seen again. But they were the mountain’s children as much as the cougars and the foxes and the deer; the mountain forgave them their curiosity, and loved them without question.
The mountain was also a child of the earth. It had been born hot and red many millions of years ago, before there were oceans, when the sky above stretched out into green. Over the millennia, the mountain grew—earthquakes thrust it higher into the sky. The gradual creep of oceans brought it life. Grey-green lichen fed its insects, and low-lying trees fed the deer. The ground around the mountains softened into rolling hills and flatlands. The mountain, swathed in clouds, reigned proud and jealous over them all.
As is the case with most jealous things, the mountain had a favourite son. A black horse, the largest of the wild herd, a stallion with a star on his forehead. He was gentle and kind and beloved, but with a curiosity so great it dwarfed the mountain.
The stallion was faster than his brothers and sisters. But that didn’t stop them from racing. Each day they ran down the mountains and far into the foothills, the other stallions and mares trying as hard as they could to beat the black. It never happened. He went faster and longer than they could match, running so far into the flatlands he lost sight of the mountain. Eventually the others stopped racing him altogether and the stallion went down the mountain alone.
One day, the stallion stopped by a stream. While he was drinking, a group of human women came down to the water, laughing amongst themselves. The stallion backed into the trees along the river and watched them until they returned to their village. He had never been this close to humans before. They seemed so tiny—quick and shining, there and gone.
The mountain told him that humans lived the way that comets shot across the sky—bright and burning, falling, gone. If you blinked, they disappeared.
The stallion didn’t want to blink. The next time he ran down the mountain, he went back to that stream. Late in the day the women came down to the water again, and once more he hid from them in the trees and watched them laugh. Their joy seemed so impossible and fleeting.
After this, the stallion returned to the stream every day. He stayed hidden, but soon noticed that a young girl with blonde hair and blue-green eyes would always turn her head toward the trees. Could she sense he was there? He wasn’t sure. But soon he stopped looking at the other humans and watched this one only. She never came close to the trees and he never ventured out, but every time he saw her, the ground magic shivered hard beneath his feet.
Then, one day, he found her alone. The stallion stood in the trees for a long time and watched her skip stones across the water. When she was finished, she came to where the stallion was hiding and gave him a gift—a flower chain she’d made. She put the chain around his neck.
“I see you,” she said.
The garland felt so heavy and precious it might as well have been made of gold. As he ran back to the mountain that night, the horse was careful not to break it. When the other horses saw him wearing it, they looked away.
The woman met him every day after this. They would walk along the stream, or she would ride him, out into the flatlands, her hair flying behind her, her arms flung wide to the world.
The mountain felt the horse slip away and was powerless to stop the stallion as he ran to the woman. The ground magic was different in the flatlands—subtle, the magic of green growing things. It understood something about the stallion that the mountains did not. The stallion was already changing. He was already no longer the same.
By the time he climbed the summit on a night bright with stars, the stallion was a stranger to the mountain. He knew what he wanted; he knew what he had to do.
This is your home, the mountain said to its favourite son. You belong here more than you belong anywhere else.
But the stallion didn’t want to belong to the mountain. Instead he dug himself a grave and laid down in it. He wished for the magic of green and growing things; the ability to bend, the resilience of moss and tulips. And the magic of green and growing things came to his call.
In the morning, he walked away transformed, and the mountain raged and raged.
8
Tasha is resting in the bedroom at the townhouse—a rare moment of silence and calm—when she hears Annie’s footsteps clatter up the stairs. She hasn’t bothered to take off her shoes.
“Someone left food on the outskirts of town,” Annie says from the doorway. “And in front of the clinic.”
Tasha sits up. “What do you mean, food?”
“Food,” Annie says, incredulous. “A bag of apples, and some rice and flour.”
“Who did it come from?”
Annie spreads her hands. “I have no idea.”
“You’re sure someone left it? Someone didn’t break into our stores?”
Annie rolls her eyes. “Gee, I didn’t think of that. Someone broke in and then left whatever they stole right outside.”
Tasha flushes. “Well, what else are we supposed to think—it just came out of nowhere?”
When they get to the clinic, Elyse is standing guard over the food while a boy and girl sit nervously in a couple of the chairs.
“They brought it in,” Elyse says, pointing to them.
Tasha goes to the children and crouches down, tries to remember their names. “Hello, you two. You found the food, and brought it here? Good job.”
The girl nods, then looks at the boy, who must be her brother. “We just found the apples,” she says. Nina. That’s her name. She’s seven, maybe eight. Thin and scrappy.
“The flour and rice were in front of the clinic,” Elyse says. “I found them when I got here.”
The apples are small and hard and green. They look wild. Tasha takes one and bites into it. The fruit is so sour her whole face puckers. It is indescribably delightful.
“You didn’t wash that,” Nina says.
Her brother, who is maybe twelve, thirteen, elbows her in the ribs. Frederic. “There’s hardly any water for washing, dummy. Remember what Dad said.”
Tasha laughs, then reaches into the bag and gives a fruit to each. “Your dad is right,” she says. “But I think these apples are okay. See how they’re not shiny? That means they haven’t been sprayed with pesticides.” Pesticides. She hasn’t used that word in months.
They watch her, then each of them bites gingerly into an apple as though afraid someone will take it away.
“Can I have another?” the girl says with her mouth full.