Read Online Mud Vein by Tarryn Fisher - Free Book Online Page B

down the wall until I am sitting next to him and stretch my legs out in front of me. I am already feeling the effects of the whiskey, which makes this easier. “The carousel day,” I say. “Let’s talk about it.”
    Isaac turns his head to look at me. Instead of avoiding his eyes, I catch and hold them. He has such a piercing gaze. Steely.
    “I haven’t told anyone that story. I can’t for the life of me figure out how someone would know. That’s why this room seems more like a coincidence,” I say.
    He doesn’t reply, so I carry on. “You told someone though, didn’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    He lied to me. He told me he hadn’t told a soul. Maybe I lied, too. I can’t remember.
    “Who did you tell, Isaac?”
    We are breathing together, both sets of eyebrows drawn.
    “My wife.”
    I don’t like that word. It makes me think of frilly aprons with apple pattern and blind, submissive love.
    I look away. I look instead at the death that adorns the horses’ lacquered manes. One horse is black and one is white. The black has the flared nostrils of a racehorse, its head tossed to the side, eyes wide with fear. One leg is furled up like it was mid-stride when sentenced to eternal fiberglass. It is the more striking of the two horses: the determined, angry one. I am endeared to it. Mostly because there is an arrow piercing its heart.
    “Who did she tell?”
    “Senna,” he says. “No one. Who would she tell that to?”
    I push myself to my feet and walk barefoot to the first horse—the black one. I trace the saddle with my pinkie. It is made of bones.
    I am not fond of the truth; it’s why I lie for a living. But I am looking for someone to blame.
    “So, then this is a coincidence, just like I initially said.” I no longer believe that, but Isaac is withholding something from me.
    “No, Senna. Have you looked at the horses—I mean really looked at them?” I spin around to face him.
    “I’m looking at them right now!” Why am I shouting?
    Isaac jumps up and rounds on me. When I won’t look at him he grabs my shoulders and spins me ‘til I’m facing the black horse again. He holds me firmly. “Hush and look at it, Senna.”
    I flinch. I look just so he won’t say my name like that again. I see the black horse, but with new eyes: non-stubborn, just plain old Senna eyes. I see it all. I feel it all. The rain, the music, the horse whose pole had a crack in it. I can smell dirt and sardines … something else, too … cardamom and clove. I pull out of it, pull out of the memory so fast my breath stops. Isaac’s hands loosen on my shoulders. I’m disappointed; he was warm. I am free to run, but I curl my toes until I can feel them gripping carpet, and I stay. I came here to solve one of our problems. One of our many problems. These are the same horses. The very same. I trace the crack with my eyes. Yul says something about me repressing my memories. I laugh at him. Repressing my memories. That’s a Saphira Elgin thing to say. But he’s right, isn’t he? I’m in a fog and half the time I don’t even realize it.
     
     
    “The date that it happened,” I say softly. “That’s what will open the door.”
    The air prickles, then he runs. I hear him taking the stairs two at a time. I didn’t even have to remind him of the date. It’s cut into the fleshy part of our memories. I wait with my eyes closed; praying it works, praying it doesn’t. He comes back a minute later. Much slower this time. Plunk, plunk, plunk up the stairs. I feel him standing in the doorway looking at me. I can smell him too. I used to bury my head in his neck and breath in his smell. Oh God, I’m so cold.
    “ Senna,” he says, “want to come outside?”
    Yes. Sure. Why not?

Part Two
 
Pain & Guilt

It was December twenty-fifth. Consequently, that day came every year, and I wished to hell it wouldn’t. You couldn’t get rid of Christmas. And even if you could, all of the hopeful people in the world would find a new day to