Chapter 61: Horse with no Rider
It is said that, when there is a Friday the 13th during an October, a horse will come out of the mist. Those who will try to near it, will find themselves whisked far from home.
It is a quiet October evening. Smoke is rising from the chimneys. That makes me think about my fireplace, which is yet to be lit. I close the final button of my coat, bundling myself in the warmth of my mother's last present for me.
The thing about anorexia is, that it is a slow killer. My mother, once a portly woman, did her best to follow this diet or that one. Until she found one, where you had to only drink fluids, for breakfast and lunch.
Yes, she lost the weight. But what does that help her with, when her guts twisted into each other?
She is dead now. Got what she wanted. In a twisted sense. A lean body, almost like skin stretched over a skeleton, for her coffin. She died happy, despite the pain. No one can call her fat anymore.
I grimace, as I remember how she refused to eat her meals, by the end. Her guts hurt more, when she tries to eat, she claimed, and I believed her. The healers did their best, and now?
Well, now I have an empty house to look forward to. With a cold fireplace, and no lights lit in the doorway. This is home for me.
As I round the corner, I see something silvery from the corner of my eye. I blink, and decide to follow it. It could be a fairy, for all I know. The silverly thing leads me out of the village, and to a meadow.
This is where I see it. A pale horse, a magnificent beast, with a saddle on it, but no rider. I take some grass from the ground, yellow from the heat during the summer. One of the hottest summers in recent years.
The horse appears to be content to graze, and I approach without it getting skittish. Now that I am close enough to touch, I can see that the horse is a war horse. Some knight must have fallen off, and now this wonderful beast is next to me.
"Did your rider take a good care of you?" I place the grass under the horse's snout, and it sniffs it. When it begins to munch on it, I smile, and allow myself to touch the side of the beast.
The hide is as soft and luxurious as silk. Whoever owned this horse must have brushed it recently. As I run my hand over the hide, the horse finishes the grass.
Instead of it bounding off into the night, it begins to graze the grass at my feet. I look at the saddle. Should I really leave such a horse for the wolves?
With a pat to the creature's side, I place one leg in the stirrups. Then, I vault myself up, and sit on the saddle. The horse turns its head towards me. Except, the doe-like brown eyes are not as dark as they used to be. Instead, they glow red.
The next thing I know, the horse is racing through the forest. I try to stop it. I try to fling myself from the saddle. Nothing works. It is as if I am glued to the saddle, and the horse is possessed.
As I panic, the horse finally stops. There, in the middle of the river, is a woman in white. She smiles at me, as the first droplets of cold sweat appear on my forehead.
I tug at the horse's reins, but see something that makes me scream. The horse is rotting, one of its eyes missing. I look at the river, at the reflection of the woman. She is glowing, worms eating her gown, her flesh, her eyes.
"Oh, Harika, protect me from evil," I begin to chant an almost forgotten prayer, as the woman gets out of the river, and comes closer to me.
She seems to be whispering something. When her hand reaches out to me, as pale and lovely in the moonlight as anything I have ever seen, her whispers become more pronounced.
"And forgive my misdeeds," I continue, as she runs a hand over the horse's hide. One that is so rotten, the ribs poke out.
"Richard," the ghost says, for what else could she be? "You have to let go."
Her voice sounds familiar.
"You must stop hating," she continues, ignoring my prayer.
"Mother?" I ask her, my eyes wide. She smiles up at me, and a worm falls from her empty eyeball.
"Visit my grave, Richard," the ghost begs. How does she know I just placed some marble on top of her grave, to keep the weeds out, and didn't visit since she got buried?
"Why?" I ask the ghost, trying to convey all of my bitterness in that single word.
"Visit my grave," with that, I am finally released from the saddle. I get off the horse, and it gallops away, flesh falling from its sides. The allure with which it mesmerized me, upon our meeting, gone for good.
The woman is also gone. She did not look like my mother, but maybe, that was what my mother always wanted to look like? She certainly sacrificed her life, her life's work at the bakery, and her love for me, to get thin.
I hear weeping, carried by the breeze, which plays with the leaves of the trees. I make the sign of Harika over my chest, and then bolt away from the river. When I come home, I look at the calendar. It is Friday the 13th, the month, October.
The very next morning, I go and visit mother's grave. With a bouquet of flowers, tied together with a silverly ribbon.
Not all meetings during Friday the 13th end in a happy end, and forgiveness. More than one person has been found trampled the next morning. With hoof prints on their body.
Spirits are never the same.
