The Under History by Kaaron Warren

Author:Kaaron Warren [Warren, Kaaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

30

KINGDOM COME (THE STABLES)

1993

She walked them to the stables, over which hung a carefully painted sign, ‘Kingdom Come’. She liked her private joke, the wrangler long ago telling her the horses would kick her to Kingdom Come. If anyone ever asked about the name (they rarely did) she’d tell them she found the sign at a trash and treasure market. The story itself wasn’t interesting enough to share.

‘Where’s Alex?’ Chook said.

‘Having a wank. You know he can’t go more than ten minutes without it,’ Devon said, mimicking the act. He looked at the mother, and at the daughter. Pera stood between them. She felt ill. She needed to get these two away at the very least. They were so caught up in their own world, their ‘look at our perfect family’ world, they were oblivious to those around them. For a moment Pera wanted to leave them to it, let them see they weren’t so perfect, they weren’t better than everyone else.

But of course they didn’t think that, or act like that. They were perfectly nice, good people. Pera just felt a moment of pure jealousy that she didn’t have this simple family unit to nestle into.

Lucky said, ‘I didn’t know your family kept horses.’

‘Yes,’ Pera said. ‘But sometimes I don’t know why I do. So much heartache. For some reason animal stories make me sadder than people stories.’

The parents murmured agreement. ‘I only have two now because I don’t want to care for them. I pay a local teenager to come twice a day to tend them. They’re off at the local stables at the moment, though. Having a little holiday! And their annual check-up.’ She was relieved that the teenager wouldn’t be coming face to face with The Men.

‘Some early mornings, you can hear a gentle whicker of a dozen horses. It’d be comforting, if it wasn’t that they were ghosts. I keep the living horses to scare away the ghostly ones. These are happy horses. They get ridden every now and then, but mostly they are here for company. Well …’ She paused. ‘They’re here to keep the horse spirits away. When the stables are empty, you can hear neighing. Hooves stamping. Horses screaming … that’s a terrible noise. It was awful. Horses trust you; they don’t know any better. Once they trust you, they always will. So for my family’s horses to be trapped, burnt to death …’

She sniffed. The mother dabbed her eyes. ‘Can you smell smoke?’

She gave them a minute. Lucky shook his head. Wayne and Devon nodded; Ike and Chook didn’t respond. She periodically set fire to stacks of hay in the stable, so the smell of burning was there.

‘All ghosts are about guilt,’ Pera said. ‘Regret, yes. But isn’t regret guilt, too?’ She knew all the tricks how to scare people. It was mostly about the story. Without the story, the bangs and whispers meant nothing. ‘Is this place haunted by a young boy who ran away from home and hid with

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