Page 23 of Woods of the Raven

“Are you shitting me right now?” Delia shouted, recovering from her shock.

Cass shook her head.

Delia grabbed and hugged her friend. “I’m so sorry. From now on, let’s promise to always talk about everything.”

Cass was crying and hugging her back.

I gave them their space, went inside, grabbed a box of tissues, and returned, offering them first to Cass. She pulled four, Delia five, and I stayed quiet until they got themselves under control, blowing their noses and wiping their eyes.

“Everybody good?”

Lots of deep breaths before they both nodded.

“Okay, so you hear a horse?” It was always best, in my opinion, to get to the heart of the matter.

Delia put up her hand. “May I just say that the way you ask questions and don’t freak out is crazy awesome?”

“Yeah. It’s epic,” Cass seconded.

“Thank you, but really, I’ve seen too many things not to ask questions first.”

Delia nodded. “Well, it’s great.”

“Thank you. Now about the horse.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, I think you might be hearing Skokse. He’s probably following you because…well, because you’re still very much grieving your parents, and Cass her mom.”

“But why?”

“It’s what he does,” I stated simply. “Will you guys walk around the front of the building with me to the street?”

They both nodded.

Inside, where everyone else was making their wreaths, several people held them up for me to look at. I admired them all, and then went to my backpack, which was in a cubby near the back. Rummaging inside, I finally found my drawstring bag that held snacks I’d packed in the morning. Grabbing two carrot sticks, I then had the girls follow me out the front door to the street. It was quiet out there—this was Osprey, after all—and when there was a car, people smiled and waved.

“All right. So would you both put your hands out flat for me?”

They did as directed.

“Now, you have to keep your hands like that, rigid, so he doesn’t get your fingers, and when you—oh, I hear him coming now,” I announced, and we all heard hoofbeats on the asphalt, clear as day, from right down the road.

Both girls started to tremble.

“No, no, no,” I soothed them. “He’s just a horse”—which was a whopper of a lie, but to them, he would be—“who thinks he’s supposed to take you somewhere else because you’re grieving. He wants to help,” I finished, not adding in his way, which would’ve only confused things.

“He doesn’t want to hurt us?” Delia asked.

“Oh, heavens no,” I promised, which was true. He wanted to soothe their grieving—the issue being, they might die in the process. He wouldn’t do it deliberately, but that didn’t make it any easier to explain. Kelpies had always been misunderstood. “Okay, both of you lift your arms, hold still, and keep your hands open.”

They looked ridiculous standing there, frozen, with pieces of carrot in their hands.

“Steady now,” I whispered.

The hoofbeats slowed, and then I heard the soft whinny. There was a brush of warm air over their palms, a tickle of softness, I knew from memory, and then the carrots were gone.

They gasped, and we all heard the hoofbeats trotting away as Skokse left. He would be running through town, checking for others.