Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(26)
“Uh … huh,” said Christopher.
There were two horses in the pen. “Horses” was really the only word that could apply to them: while some other words might have been accurate, they were also, to a one, insulting, and Christopher was fairly sure Jack wouldn’t approve. The first horse, the one Jack was stroking, appeared to have started its existence as several horses. Several horses and possibly, going by the shape of its left haunch, some sort of cow. The pieces had been cunningly stitched together, and while there were thin ridges of scar tissue between them, they had all healed cleanly, leaving a single intact mare behind.
It was impossible to tell whether the second horse was a mare, a stallion, or something else entirely, as it had no skin. No flesh, either; it was a tall skeleton, bones joined by loops of silver wire and complicated hooks. Dim lights gleamed in its eye sockets. It nosed at Christopher’s shoulder before snorting loudly. An impossible gust of hot air ruffled his hair.
“How…?” he asked.
“Science, for Pony,” said Jack, patting the patchwork horse’s shoulder. “Necromancy, for Bones. I had to ride all the way to the next village. It’s held by an old ally of Dr. Bleak’s, a woman who lives in constant conflict with a terrible monster of her own creation who haunts the nearby fens. Really, I prefer vampires. They’re tidier. Still, Pony requires more maintenance. Bits of her fall off all the time, and I wind up spending the evening sewing them back on.”
“You named your horse ‘Pony.’” Christopher couldn’t take his eyes off Bones. The skeletal horse was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in … in …
In a very long time.
“In my defense, I was very young, and had no sense of showmanship. Although I’ll deny it if you tell anyone I said so, I’m glad I built her so early. ‘Pony’ is a much better name than ‘Corpseblossom,’ which is doubtless what she’d have been called if I’d put her together during my pretension and depressing poetry phase. Here.” She tossed him a bridle. “See if Bones will let you put this on. We need to get them hitched and be on our way.”
“Sure,” said Christopher. He took the bridle and approached the bone horse, not warily, but reverently, like he couldn’t believe his luck. “Aren’t you beautiful? None of that messy skin to get in the way, oh, no, not for a horse as beautiful as you are…”
“See, this is why I like you,” said Jack, quickly and expertly getting the bridle onto Pony. “You appreciate the finer things in life. Even Alexis had some issues with the fact that our new horse lacked skin. I tried pointing out that a lack of skin also meant a lack of hair, which meant substantially less shedding, but she remained unmoved.”
“You’re still weird.” Christopher slipped the bridle onto Bones, smiling as the horse rubbed its naked skull against his hands. “I mean, cool, but weird.”
“Aren’t we all?” asked Jack, and opened the stall door.
Sumi, who had taken a seat atop the musty hay mounded in the wagon, cocked her head to the side.
“Christopher, when you look at that horse, does it have skin?” she asked. “If no, good. If yes, I probably shouldn’t have eaten those tomatoes.”
“My produce is not hallucinogenic,” said Jack, leading Pony to the front of the wagon. “Christopher, hitch Bones over here and climb into the wagon with Sumi, if you’d be so kind. We can reach the shore by midnight, which should impress the acolytes. They do so adore punctuality.”
“That horse doesn’t have any skin,” said Sumi. “And that other horse has too many skins. I think one is the traditional number of skins for a horse. Isn’t it?”
“Good of you to notice.” Jack climbed up onto the box seat, gathering the reins in her hand. Sumi scrambled over the board intended to support her back to join her. “Christopher, it appears you’ll be riding in the rear.”
“Shotgun,” said Sumi unrepentantly.
“I don’t mind.” Christopher secured Bones, kissed the horse on the side of the skull, and walked around to hop up into the back. “As long as I can help you stable them later, I don’t mind anything right now.”
Jack flicked the reins and the horses plodded forward, slowly gathering speed, until they were moving at a brisk trot. The benefits of undead horses became quickly apparent: once the horses hit their stride, they neither slowed nor stumbled, but continued moving forward at a steady, measured pace. The wagon fairly flew across the uneven ground. There was no road, no path, only the scrub, and the holes left by the creatures that lived there.
The Moon seemed to have grown closer while they were inside the windmill. It loomed low and crimson and terrible, like a vast infected eye looking down from above. Sumi stared up at it like she was issuing a challenge, or maybe like she was answering one. If the Moon noticed, it gave no sign, and perhaps that was the greatest mercy the Moors had yet to show.
“This is a horror movie,” she said, in a dreamy, thoughtful tone. “Did you know? We walked into a horror movie on purpose, and not everybody makes it out alive.”
“Jill won’t.” Jack’s voice was soft and implacable. She didn’t take her eyes off the fields ahead of them. “I can’t leave her alive, not if I want to have any confidence in waking up each morning in the shell of my own skin. She’s the one who decided to escalate our conflicts into a war, not me. This isn’t my fault.”