Phantom Promise

Sweat poured down my entire body as we strode back inside the bright white barn, and away from the blazing sun. The warm smell of hay enticed me, along with the promise of rest, to keep walking.

A firm touch stroked my neck and I lazily swung my head towards Lydia.

Smiling at me, she flicked her pale blue ponytail over her bare speckled shoulder. My nostrils flared as I inhaled her natural human scent; a confused blend of artificial florals and a pale underlying earthiness. Something else was there too, but the smell was…elusive.

I budged my head against her shoulder and used my lips to tickle her exposed arm.

Laughing, she led me further into the barn towards the wash station. Once there, she turned on the water and tested it.

Lydia was saying something but like always I couldn’t understand her. Whatever it was, she seemed happy about it and rubbed her lower abdomen.

Her smile was large and bright as she chattered away and washed me under the warm water.

Twice every month it was like this. She would arrive at the barn earlier than the birds began their day and take care of me. She would feed me, brush me, and clean up my stall. Lydia would even go to my neighbor’s stalls as well to visit and clean. Then we’d saddle up and ride, going through the ridiculous techniques in the arena first to satisfy her human need to have control over something outside of herself. Then we’d just run. Diverting from the worn trail along the outskirts of the property, she would let go of all that, and allow me to roam wherever I wanted.

Delving into the forests, sampling the different creeks and berries available around us. She was the first human to go along with my wishes and the most beautiful creature when she was free of the decisions she seemed to be obsessed with. All the lines that normally hovered around her eyes and mouth would disappear and her spirit would shine through her golden eyes.

Twice a month this ritual would occur, but it used to be this way all the time. But, the days would pass over the old black shingles of the barn quickly, time after time, before I would see her again.

This night, she departed as I devoured the sweet musty hay she left outside my door. I closed my eyes to the sight of her back and resigned myself to wait again.

The wind was swift the next time I saw her. The sun was chasing the moon across the same sky in shades of palest blue, and a chill tapped its way up my back. I tossed my head side to side and huffed, grateful for the down cover the humans placed on me the night prior.

I sniffed along the edges of the stall door in search of any small morsel to distract from the frost teasing my ears. Then I heard her characteristic humming.

I didn’t immediately look to her. I was annoyed with her for being gone so long this time. She hadn’t been back for months and I was not feeling very generous with my patience. However, her advance was silent.

Lydia’s strut was normally strong and commanding. I always knew of her arrival through the reverberations in the ground; well before she ever even reached the barn. But, now Lydia was only a few feet from me.

I reluctantly looked over the door at her with one eye. She was pale and those fine wrinkles seemed deeper than ever. Her eyes were cloudy and appeared to be focused on everything and nothing. Her hair was loose today, face stoic as she hummed her mellow tune through pressed lips. Wreathed in a silvery light, she floated a few centimeters off the ground.

I froze.

It had been a long time since I last saw the dead, and I couldn’t accept that Lydia shone in that same unearthly halo.

Shocked back into action, I paced where I stood, I tried to push the door aside and go to my companion but it remained firmly shut. I pawed at it anxiously and whinnied. I needed to get to her.

She flowed closer and closer until she was right in front of me. She grabbed my large cheeks in her icy hands. Each phantom finger was so cold it burned my fur like frostbite. I didn’t dare move.

Lydia was crying as she leaned her cold forehead to the bridge of my nose. The air was so cold now that her tears dropped into snowflakes. The contact was even more painful than her fingers but I stayed still, fearing she would disappear.

She spoke to me but her words were illegible as always, just soft, lilting sounds. A certain set of noises she continued to repeat with reverence. It reminded me of how humans said their names.

I pricked my ears forward in an attempt to pick up her odd syllables, but as soon as I almost had it, she smiled sadly and was gone.

Weeks went by and Lydia’s ghost never returned.

Food held no interest for me, so I barely ate what they brought me. The man with white gloves came often despite my displeasure at his appearance. He smelled of unnatural chemicals and a confusing mix of other animals. He would quickly run through a set if menial tests and leave with a dejected countenance.

The barn hands took turns taking me out to walk circles around the white barn. The color which was once bright, seemed dull in comparison to before, when she was still alive and the hope to see her again had real potential. Around and around we’d walk in a useless, monotonous ritual. I hadn’t seen our forest since, and it killed me inside.

I wanted to follow its smells again and see if she haunted the creeks and foxgloves as I longed to. Instead, I trotted along obediently, day, after day, after day.

Then one evening, I smelled something familiar. And elusive.

I was in the pasture, huddled up under a walnut tree. The spring rains tinged the air heavily with wafts of the earth’s natural oils and moss. I pranced around the tree, searching for that smell frantically; a piece of her I needed to recover.

At the pasture’s entrance to the barn, a man stood with a small bundle in his arms. He was familiar and I slowly stalked towards him until I recognized him. I stopped momentarily to look at Lydia’s mate. His dirty blonde hair was disheveled, framing his strong square face. His eyes were sunken in, but life flickered behind the dark pupils. I could smell his stale despair rolling off him but my nose seemed to target the scent from the blankets he held close.

I approached until I towered over him and sniffed the bundle curiously. A tiny human face peered up at me and that fickle scent finally engulfed me, smelling even more like spring than the air around us.

This is what I smelled on Lydia when she was alive. This offspring was what she was trying to share with me. What was the word she used to name this child? Pehn-…eL-, aup-…P-. What was it?!

Lydia’s mate was talking again. I couldn’t make sense of his words. I listened more attentively to his human vocabulary than I ever had before. Waiting for anything even slightly musical and similar to what I heard before.

The gravel coating his throat from continuous grief made it much harder to understand him and I stomped my hoof in impatience.

“Penelope.”

I replayed it in my mind as I nuzzled the child gently with my lips like Lydia used to like. She cooed and my heart swelled with memories of the sun shining down through the forest. Of fresh water pushing past my legs, and Lydia’s open smile.

I would forge new paths with this one, whose mother was a trusted partner and left me with a wish. I don’t know what it was, but I would do my best to keep it; to keep her…

Penelope.