Nightmare Magazine, Issue 82 (July 2019) by John Joseph Adams

Author:John Joseph Adams [John Joseph Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: John Joseph Adams
Published: 2019-06-24T23:24:14+00:00

©2019 by Isabel Cañas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Isabel Cañas spends her days writing YA fiction and working on her PhD in late medieval Islamic history and literature. A 2018 graduate of Clarion West, she divides her time between Chicago and London. To learn more about what Isabel is up to, including recent and forthcoming publications, see isabelcanas.com.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

At the Riding School

Cody Goodfellow | 6108 words

One

“Come quick,” she said, in a voice so leaden, each word took a year off my life. “Bring the black bag . . . There’s been an accident.”

The call woke me up, and I knocked over a water bottle getting out of bed. For an instant, the glimmer of my ex-husband’s terrified countenance flashed through my murky thoughts. Shaking his horrible visage off, I realized that the cabin was freezing, then I began to worry about what really mattered: getting to Madame fast enough . . .

I had only been in town six months, struggling to make a name for myself when Madame Dioskilos had called the first time. I had already heard that she owned a large barn and twenty-four horses, but that she was a rather difficult client, and stingy. She and her charges did all the routine medical work, and she’d had the same blacksmith since opening the Academy.

I found her to be demanding, but fair; I kept her secrets, and she—so far—kept mine.

I was all packed before I woke Tonio. He had only been with me for a few months, and I was afraid of spooking him, but he got dressed and helped me load the truck, then climbed in with his sketchpad and box of colored pencils. I told him only that we were going to see a sick animal. A ward of the state for almost all of his ten years, he was well trained to follow directions. I knew Madame Dioskilos would become irate about the boy—no men were allowed on the estate after dark, unless sent for—but I was more worried about him waking up alone in an empty house.

Anyway, it was time, if this was what I thought it was, for Madame to see—

I brought my special kit bag, though I doubted if it would do any good. She would have the only sure cure loaded and propped beside the stable door, like always.

We didn’t pass any cars going through town to the coast road. My windshield was frosted over, and it was freakishly cold for Big Sur, even in winter. The lights were out at the Yogic Retreat at the end of Main Street and the few streetlamps lit only coronas of sleet, but I had to keep myself from driving too fast. The road spilled out of the trees and clove to the sheer cliffs over the Pacific, surfing the uneasy edge of the land for sixty unlit white-knuckle miles. The state hadn’t replaced the guardrail where the last car had gone over, only a week before.

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