Amanda Leduc - The Centaur's Wife

“The centaur loves his children,” her sister reminds her. “If what you say is true.”

“Yes,” she says. “But he doesn’t want to show them to anybody. He keeps them hidden away on that mountain. And maybe that’s my fault.”

“Mama was not responsible for the choices that other people make, and neither are you,” her sister says, sharply. “If he wanted an uncomplicated life, he should have stayed a horse.”

The doctor laughs, and then sobers. “But what about his children? What kind of life will they have up there, alone?”

“Still not your responsibility. Didn’t you say their mother has new twins? Human ones?”

“Yes,” the doctor says. She can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “ Perfect babies. A boy and a girl.”

“She’s chosen her life,” the doctor’s sister reminds her. “And so has the centaur. You can’t expect either of them to choose a different one. Perhaps that is the lesson you need to keep on learning.”

The doctor looks away. “That doesn’t seem a worthwhile lesson,” she says.

Her sister sighs. “There are different kinds of magic. And there are different kinds of grief. One person can only carry so many kinds. You of all people should know that.”

“And what if his children want to be in the world? What if they don’t want to be hidden away?”

Her sister has no answer for this; they sit on the step in silence until a call from the house takes them back inside.

It’s the second niece, awake. The doctor goes in to see her.

“Tell me the story again,” she says. “Tell me what happened when the centaurs were born.”

The doctor sits beside her on the bed and brushes the hair out of her eyes. She’s told this story so many times they know it by heart. It is not, perhaps, the best kind of story for children. But it’s the one they always want.

“Three doors for three babies,” she says. “Three doors into the world.”

JJ crawls behind the wheel and turns the key. Moira is beside him in the passenger seat while the others sleep in the back, piled on what blankets and clothing they’ve managed to scrounge. JJ turns the headlights on and there it is in front of them—a huge thing come to a sudden jerking stop, half man, half horse, all muscles and startled blue eyes. It raises its hands against the sudden flare of light.

“ What the fuck is that? ”

JJ is leaning on the horn, and Moira is screaming. She hears a wild shuffling in the back and then the clang of the back door of the U-Haul opening.

A shot rings out and the creature stumbles. Darby steps up beside Moira’s window, the gun on his shoulder. The creature—the thing— looks toward Darby, its hands still up to block the light. Darby fires again. This time, the beast falls.

The impact shakes the ground around them. Moira and JJ sit stunned for a moment, and then they’re both tumbling out of the truck. She gasps in the dark morning air, but only partly from the cold.

The creature lies sprawled in front of them, a dark splash of blood on its lower abdomen, the part of it that looks like a man. Before she knows it, she’s on her knees by the creature, pulling the sweater from around her shoulders and pressing it hard against the wound.

“What the hell are you doing?” Darby crouches beside her.

“It’s hurt.”

“Of course it’s hurt. I fucking shot it.”

“What the fuck is it?” says Brian from Moira’s other side. “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. Where did it come from?”

The creature’s breathing catches as Moira presses harder. She sees its eyelids flutter, then close as it passes out. “It’s hurt,” she says again. “We need to get it… somewhere.”

“Sure,” Darby snaps. “We’ll take it to the next emergency animal hospital along the highway. No problem.”

“Well, we can’t just leave it here.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Moira’s right.” JJ crouches down beside her. “We should take it with us.”

“What the fuck for? You want to eat it or something?”

Moira tries not to shiver.

JJ doesn’t answer for a moment. He just stares at the creature. “Are we dreaming?” he asks.

“Everything is a dream now!” Darby yells. “Let’s just leave it and go!”

“JJ,” Moira says. “It’s hurt .”

He slides his eyes over to her. He is so quiet, JJ. They know next to nothing about him. “Would you want to save it if it was a deer?” he asks. “Or would you want to eat it?”

“I can’t,” she says. “It’s at least—at least half human.”

JJ snorts, then stands up. “I know where we can take it,” he says. “Put it in the back of the van.”

Darby sighs. “Fine. Brian, JJ—let’s just load the motherfucker in and go.”

The beast is even heavier than it looks—the three men half drag, half carry it to the rear of the truck, then lift it in. Moira walks beside them, pressing her sweater against the wound all the way. Once it’s in the back of the truck, she climbs in and sits beside it, then reaches for one of the flashlights they’ve stashed in the back and hands that to Brian, who climbs in beside her. From what she can see, there’s a bullet lodged at the place where human skin gives way to fur.

Fur, she thinks, and suppresses a shudder. “Darby. Give me your knife.” When he hands it to her, she reaches for the bottle of whiskey that Darby keeps in his pack. She opens it, then splashes it over the wound. As always, she thinks of Eric, who’d survived the scream and the godforsaken plants with Darby only to die from a blood infection, raving and delirious, a cut on his hand gone untended. He’d been halfway to death when Moira had found them. Now, whenever they stop, alcohol of any kind is the first thing Moira looks for.

“You’re wasting good whiskey on an animal?” Darby grumbles.

She kneels in front of the creature and slides the knife into the wound, using her sweater to sop up the blood that wells, and gently pries the bullet out. It clatters to the floor.

As if he’d been waiting for her to be done, JJ starts the truck. Darby rolls the back door closed and Moira blinks in the sudden darkness, the flashlight wobbling in Brian’s shaky hand. They move forward, slowly, into the dark.

Moira takes off her shirt and tears a strip from it, then douses the strip in more alcohol and presses it against the wound. The strip quickly goes red. “Tape,” she says. Brian reaches into one of the packs and rummages around, then pulls out a roll of duct tape. Moira tears a piece from it with her teeth, the other hand still holding the bandage, and presses the tape across it. It sticks. She doesn’t know how long it will stay put, but at least the beast won’t bleed to death in the truck.

She hopes it won’t, anyway.

“Dr. Moira to the rescue,” Darby drawls. He and Brian snicker. Brian hands Moira another T-shirt from a pile in the back, and she pulls it on.

She says, “Tie its legs with something. What if it wakes up and thrashes around?”

Darby and Brian comply, using the rope that they keep by the door. Then they settle themselves on the blankets. Moira sits cross-legged in front of the beast and looks for the rifle, which is propped in the corner. Odd, she knows—given that she’s just pulled a bullet out of the creature—but it’s good to know it’s there, just in case.

“You didn’t even seem that surprised,” she says, after they’ve bumped along for a few minutes. She’s looking at the shadow that is Darby, but he only shrugs.

“The world went down in fire and then in screaming,” he says. “Nothing seems that strange to me anymore.”