The Book of Lost Things(44)
“And is it not true?” asked the huntress.
“I think so,” said David. “I always wanted to be a horse.”
The huntress looked interested.
“And why a horse?”
“In the stories that I read when I was little, I came across a creature called a centaur. It was half horse and half man. Instead of a horse’s neck, it had the torso of a man, so it could hold a bow in its hands. It was beautiful and strong, and it was the perfect hunter because it combined all of the strength and speed of a horse with the skill and cunning of a man. You were fast on your mount yesterday, but you were still not one with your horse. I mean, doesn’t your horse trip sometimes, or move in ways that you hadn’t expected? My father used to ride as a boy, and he told me that even the finest of horsemen can be unsaddled. If I was a centaur, then I would be the best of both horse and man in one, and if I hunted, then nothing would ever be able to escape me.”
The huntress looked from the fox to David, then back again. She turned her back on him and walked to her desk. She found a scrap of paper and a quill pen, and began drawing. From where he sat, David saw diagrams, and figures, and the shapes of horses and men, drawn with all the care of an artist. He did not disturb the huntress. He simply watched her patiently, and when he looked to the fox, he found that it was watching her too. So boy and fox remained that way, united in anticipation, until at last the huntress’s work was done.
She rose, returned to the great operating tables, and without another word bound David’s free hand once again so that he could not move. He felt a moment of panic. Perhaps his plan had not worked and she was now about to operate on him, severing his head and transplanting it to the body of a wild animal, creating a new being out of blood and salve and agony. Would she decapitate him with a single sweep of an ax, or cut and saw her way through gristle and bone? Would she give him something to put him to sleep, so that before he closed his eyes he would be one thing and when he awoke he would be another entirely, or was there a part of her that enjoyed the infliction of pain? As her hands worked upon him, he wanted to cry out, but he did not. Instead, he was quiet, swallowing his fear, and his self-discipline was rewarded.
Once he was secure, the huntress put on her hooded cloak and left the house. After a few minutes had gone by, David heard the clopping of a horse’s hooves, and then they faded as she rode off into the forest, leaving David alone with the fox, two beasts on the verge of becoming one.
*
David dozed for a while and woke only to the sound of the huntress returning. This time, the horse’s hooves sounded very close. The door to the house opened, and the huntress appeared, leading her mount by the reins. At first, the horse seemed reluctant to enter, but she spoke softly to it, and eventually it followed her through the door. David could see the horse’s nose responding to the smells in the house, and he thought its eyes looked panicked and fearful. She tethered it to a ring in the wall, then approached David.
“I will make a bargain with you,” she said. “I have been thinking about this creature, this centaur. You are right: such a beast would be the perfect hunter. I wish to become one. If you help me, I give you my word that I will set you free.”
“How do I know that you won’t kill me as soon as you become a centaur?” David asked.
“I will destroy my bow and arrows, and I will draw you a map to guide you back to the road. Even if I chose to pursue you, what threat would I pose without a bow with which to hunt? In time I will make more, but by then you will be long gone, and if you ever pass through my forest again, I will give you free passage in recognition of all that you have done for me.”
Then the huntress leaned over and whispered in David’s ear. “But if you do not agree to help me, then I will make you one with the fox, and I guarantee that you will not live out this day. I will chase you through these forests until you fade from exhaustion, and when you can run no longer, I will skin you alive and wear you on cold winter days. You may live or die. The choice is yours.”
“I want to live,” said David.
“Then we are agreed,” said the huntress. With that, she fed her bow and arrows to the fire and drew David a detailed map of the forest, showing him the way back to the road, which he tucked carefully into his shirt. The huntress then instructed him in what he had to do. She brought from the stable a pair of huge blades, heavy and sharp as guillotines, then raised them above the operating tables using a system of ropes and pulleys. The huntress adjusted one of these so that it would sever her body in half when it fell, then showed David how to apply the salve immediately so that she would not bleed to death before her torso could be attached to the horse’s body. She went over the procedures with him again and again, until he knew them by rote. Then the huntress stripped herself naked, took a long, heavy blade in her hands, and with two strokes severed her horse’s head from its body. There was a great deal of blood at first, but David and the huntress quickly poured the salve over the red, exposed flesh of the horse’s neck, the wounds smoking and sizzling as the mixture did its work. Instantly the ejections from the veins and arteries ceased. The horse’s body lay on the floor, its heart still beating, while its head lay nearby, the eyes rolling in the sockets, the tongue lolling from its mouth.
“We don’t have long,” said the huntress. “Hurry, hurry!”
She lay upon the table beneath the blade. David tried not to look at her nakedness and instead concentrated on the preparations for the release of the blade, as he had been instructed. While he checked the ropes once again, the huntress gripped his arm. In her right hand, she held a sharp knife.