The carriage keeps going.I hold the furs tighter and try to make out the landmarks, but it’s hard because it is fully dark now.
We travel beneath a large oak tree, its thick branches splayed out like arms, then we take a left.Here there is an avenue of trees, pretty with blossom in the spring but utterly devoid of leaves or flowers now.Skeletal-like, they reach for the sky and each other.Harvey takes us under the first one but as he does there is a crash and creak from above.
A huge coyote flies down, emerging from a tree branch, and knocks into Harvey with an almighty crash.Harvey yelps, grapples, twists, but it all happens so quickly.
I scream.
The coyote is snarling and drooling, his hackles rise like spikes, and his strength seems somehow amplified.Its eyes are as red as blood and flash manically.Instantly I know the poor creature has moon fever.
Harvey’s hat is gone and his face and neck exposed.I watch in horror as the coyote’s sharp fangs lunge for his vulnerable carotid.
“No!”I yell, terror gripping me.“Elias!Branson!Help!”
Princess whinnies in fear and breaks into a canter, throwing her head into the air.The reins flick upward and then are gone.
For a moment there is a tug of strength between Harvey and the coyote but then in a fast tumble Harvey disappears entirely.He’s fallen off the carriage.I’m not sure if it was in an attempt to escape the coyote or because he was trying to shift into his wolf form on too small a perch.But he’s no longer with me.I’m alone.Hurtling through the park at breakneck speed with a runaway horse.And a huge coyote is staring at me hungrily, snarling, with pure madness glistening in its eyes.
The carriage speeds up.Princess is clearly petrified and running for her life.Her hooves clatter on the stones and she snorts with each crashing stride.
“No!Get away.”I throw back the furs and pull out my knife preparing to defend myself.The metal glints as I’m rocked around with the bouncing of the carriage.It’s disorientating and I struggle to focus and steady myself.
But I can see the coyote preparing to spring.He’s unconcerned that we are racing out of control, the wheels jerking and bouncing wildly.All he wants is to murder me, to taste my blood and maul my flesh.I tense, grip the knife handle with both hands, and wait for his strike.
It comes, fast and furious, and with a power that’s almost incomprehensible.But I don’t waver.I hold that knife dead straight, elbows locked, aiming for the middle of his chest as he gets closer, closer, closer still.
He’s lunging at me, jaws wide, sharp claws at the ready.The knife sinks in easier than I’d expected, penetrating flesh and going deep with a sickening slicing noise I’ll never forget.He lets out a howl inches from my nose.I’m sure he’s about to eat my face off.
A surge of energy at my right disorientates me.A dark wolf, Elias, he is there, and he pushes the coyote away from me with two strong swipes of his paws.Branson, all panther grace and strength, joins him and the three of them tumble from the carriage.The knife is still buried deep in the moon-fevered coyote.
“What the?”I grip the edge of the carriage and look behind myself to witness them both pouncing on the coyote.I’m breathing fast and swipe at a streak of blood on my cheek.Not my blood.His.
Princess whinnies and takes a left past a bandstand.
“Shit!”I scrabble forward.I have to stop this bolting horse.She’ll kill us both.
I spot the reins dragging on the floor like long leather snakes.I have no hope of reaching them.
A new panic grips me.What will stop her?The road?A bus?A low bridge or deep lake?
“Whoa!”I call.“Whoa, Princess, it’s safe now.”My words are whipped away on the wind, unheard and unheeded.
I stare at the reins as they flick and flack uselessly.“Come here,” I command of them staring harder and willing them to obey.“Come here, in the name of everything I am and in honor of my beautiful and wise ancestor, the High Priestess, reins rise to my hands.”
And then, to my utter astonishment, they float upward, toward me.A strange calming elevation that seems at odds with my perilous situation.It is as if they are not part of the runaway carriage anymore.
I hold out my hands for them, each one, and they keep coming, as though some invisible force is moving them.I concentrate for all I am worth.Undistracted by the park flying past and a bench that Princess drags the carriage dangerously close to.
And then the reins land in my hands, one each.I grip them for all I am worth and then pull.I make contact with the bit, the slack taking up, and I pull even harder.“Whoa!Stop.”
It takes a few seconds but then Princess slows, just a fraction.
“Good girl,” I call as calmly as I can.“Good girl.Whoa now.”
I keep applying tension, bracing my feet and steeling my spine.It takes all my strength but eventually she transitions from a gallop to a trot and then finally a walk.
I’m sweating despite the chill, and my body feels like it’s still bouncing around.My spine aches and my legs are shaking.Princess is breathing as hard as a steam train, clouds of her breath filling the air above her and sparkling as it cools.
I look around.Hoping we haven’t been seen by a cop or a park attendant.There is no one, thank goodness.With trepidation I climb down from the carriage and walk to Princess’s head.I pet her and speak soothingly, all the while staring into the darkness.
