ANOTHER SEASON PASSED, ONE day at a time, so quickly that Regan forgot she was meant to be worrying about her parents, far away from her and probably worried about where she was. Getting to them would mean risking a door, if a door could even be found, and she was still leery of those, even when they were solid, ordinary, and familiar, like the doors of the longhouses that provided safe haven for the herd as they moved closer to what she now recognized as the Fair.
One of the old stallions broke his leg and had to be put down, because there was no better way to ease his suffering. The horns of unicorns had no healing power after all. There was meat on the table that night for the first time in months, and this time, to honor the unicorn’s sacrifice, Regan ate with the rest of them. It was sweet and tender on her tongue, surprisingly so, and Pansy laughed at the expression on her face.
“You thought we raised these things for their charming personalities?” she asked. “They give good milk and they make decent cheese, but they do their best work on the dinner table.”
Regan, red-faced, ducked her chin and didn’t answer.
Time kept passing. They moved to another pasture; the mares who had belonged to the old stallion for the longest stopped looking for him, and settled to focusing on the latest crop of foals, who were growing up fast. Regan continued to study under Daisy, learning which herbs could ease a pain or break a fever, and which mushrooms could be pressed for good medicine, and which ones would kill in a mouthful. She still spent most of her time with Chicory, the two sinking deep into the sort of friendship that only ever seems to come for young things.
Regan grew taller, arms and legs lengthening as if they were trying to catch up with Chicory herself. She dropped from a tree onto Chicory’s back while the adults were rounding up the flock, and Chicory laughed as she broke into a gallop, the two girls forming one body as she raced across the meadow. Prior to that, when they moved from place to place, Regan had ridden either Pansy or Daisy. After that, she rode Chicory almost exclusively, and the two of them took to sleeping in a tangled heap of limbs and hair and noisy sighs. The adults all agreed, without a word exchanged, that if Regan’s act of human heroism was to give comfort and friendship to one lonely centaur girl, they would consider her efforts to have been well spent.
And then, in what felt like the blinking of an eye or the rising of a single sun, it was time for the Fair.
Chicory and Regan were ordered down to the pond, which had been verified clear of either kelpies or large snapping turtles, to scrub themselves until they shined. When they returned from their ablutions, dripping, they were met by Aster and Daisy, who ordered them to sit in the corner of the longhouse and stay as clean as possible. The rest of the herd was already absorbed in rounding up the unicorns, chasing them into a temporary paddock and guiding them down the path toward the distant promise of the Fair.
“Both of you will behave today,” said Aster, in a tone which left no room for argument. “You will obey your elders. Chicory, you will stay with Regan at all times, and if anyone attempts to touch her, you will stop them.”
“Even if they’re my elder?” asked Chicory nervously.
“Even then,” said Aster. She turned her gaze on Regan. “We won’t deny you the Fair, any more than we’d force you to go and see the Queen before you must. You have every right to see and experience and enjoy the world you’re going to be asked to save. See its wonders. Taste its bounty. But understand that there may be some there who think you deserve better than a roving herd of unicorn farmers, and want you to go with them. Some may not want to take ‘no’ for an answer. You’ll need to be alert and aware of your surroundings at all times.”
Regan blinked slowly. “Won’t you be there?” she asked.
“No. I’ll be with Chicory’s father, my husband, and the others intend to go courting. There may be foals or marriages from this Fair, which is just more reason we must go, even with you in our custody. Do you understand?”
Regan, who still had only the vaguest understanding of how the centaurs arranged themselves socially, and who had yet to see a male centaur, nodded anyway. It was the sort of question adults expected to have answered in the affirmative, and asking questions wouldn’t help anything.
Aster looked relieved. “Good. I’m glad.” She trotted over to Chicory, gripping the sides of her daughter’s head. “You are a worthy daughter, and more than suited to being companion to a human. You’ll do me proud at the Fair, and your father will praise your name.” She planted a kiss on Chicory’s forehead.
“Ew, Mom.” Chicory wiped the kiss away with one hand. “We’ll behave ourselves. We’re not babies.”
“Regan is, though, where the Fair is concerned.”
Regan frowned. “I’ve exhibited at the State Fair before,” she said. “This can’t be that different.”
“I don’t know what a State Fair is, but I’d wager it’s very different from the Fair,” said Aster. “Come along. The others will be almost there.” She trotted out of the longhouse. Chicory and Regan exchanged a look, before Regan shrugged and boosted herself onto Chicory’s back, settling easily. Chicory trotted after her mother, breaking into a canter once they were safely outside, and there was room to run.
On an ordinary day, room to run and no chores to do would have led to Chicory racing away across the fields while Regan held on for dearest life, the centaur’s hair slapping the human repeatedly in the face, both of them laughing with delight at the simple joy of being alive, and young, and together in a world that was better when not experienced in isolation. Anything with enough brain to know itself as an individual will reach out to others, looking for companionship, looking for other eyes with which to see the world. Regan had never really been lonely—Laurel had always been there to provide companionship, if not true support—but she had still been alone. In Chicory, she had finally found a friend who liked her for who she was, not for how well she fit an arbitrary list of attributes and ideals. Chicory, on the other hand, had been lonely, growing up surrounded only by adults, with no one her own age to share her questions and concerns, or who was experiencing the world at the same rate she was. Together, they were perfect. It was no surprise to anyone who saw them for more than a few seconds that they were inseparable.
None of the adults had waited, not even Aster, although the dust from her passage hung in the air, marking the direction she had gone. Regan tightened her grip on Chicory’s shoulders, anticipating what would happen next. Chicory broke into a gallop, hooves chewing up distance like a unicorn chewed its cud, and Regan whooped, delighted. Chicory wasn’t as fast as she’d be when she was grown, but she was faster than any human, and sitting astride her back sometimes felt like the next best thing to flying.
Despite their head start, the rest of the herd was no match for an excited preteen afraid of missing out on the most exciting event of the season. Chicory caught up to them in short order, slowing to prevent her hoofbeats from frightening the unicorns, who were already uneasy after being curried, scrubbed, and rounded up for the long walk away from their familiar fields. The road to the Fair was hard-pressed dirt, worn smooth by generations of marching hooves, long and gently winding.
Chicory passed her mother and the others, trotting up to the front of the group and falling into an easy canter next to Pansy, who looked over and smiled indulgently at the two girls.
“Don’t you look fine today?” she asked. “Any special occasion?”
“The Fair,” said Chicory, indignant as only an almost-teen being teased by an adult can manage. “I’m going to get baked apples and share them with Regan.”
“So long as you share,” said Pansy. She reached into her vest, producing two small leather bags with bulging sides, and passed them over. “You both worked with the flock this season. Here’s your share of the profits so far.”
Chicory stared at Pansy with wide, round eyes, clutching the pouch to her chest. Regan, who still wasn’t completely sure the centaurs used money, undid the knot on hers and peered curiously inside at the flat copper coins.
“They’re like really big pennies,” she said in a bewildered tone. “What’s this for?”
“People expect you to pay for things at the Fair,” said Pansy. “Chicory’s old enough to go off on her own this year, and you’re the same age, so we can’t expect you to sit idly by while she’s running around getting into mischief. Not that we want you sitting on your own, and we all have things to be doing.”
“Husbands?” asked Regan, tying the bag to the worn, tattered waistband of her jeans. They had been perfectly good for wearing to school once or twice a week. They were woefully unsuited to being her only clothes for months on end, and had been coming apart at the seams even before her most recent growth spurt stretched her upward, leaving inches of dirty ankle visible.
“That’s none of your concern, either of you, not until you’re much, much older,” said Pansy. “I’ll not be courting, anyway. I need to get these beasts to the marketplace, and see how many of them we’re to trade for supplies to sustain ourselves over the winter yet to come. You worry about baked apples and pheasant pies for your stomachs, and you let us worry about the things that shouldn’t trouble you yet.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Chicory, and “Yes, Pansy,” said Regan, and Pansy smiled, content as only an adult who believed she had addressed all the possible problems of the children in her care could be.
Regan had no concept of how much money she had, and so she put it out of her mind in favor of gazing at the landscape around them, trusting Chicory to know where she was going. They were no longer in the tree-shrouded fields she had grown accustomed to, and were passing through what looked like actual farmland, ripe and rich with artichokes and strawberries and other greens she couldn’t identify. Off in the distance stood a windmill, and she couldn’t help but think it must be manned by something other than the centaurs, whose size would make it awkward for them to climb the stairs. Birds soared overhead, their wings wide and brightly colored.
Every day, the Hooflands found another way to remind her that this wasn’t the world she came from, and that she’d never truly belong here, no matter how long she stayed. That was a good thing in some ways, because she did want to go home, she did want to return to her parents, who had always treated her well, and who had to miss her something awful. She’d never been away from them for longer than the span of a stay at summer camp before, and up until now, she’d been able to partially pretend this was just another kind of camp, wilder and wider and more like her dreams than the others, but summer camp all the same. Only, the summer was coming to an end, replaced by the chill and gathering autumn, and when it was entirely gone, could she really pretend this was a temporary thing?
One day, she’d have to wake up and face the reality that she was a runaway, that her parents were probably mourning her, sitting awake through the long hours of the night, terrified that the next time the phone rang, it would be the police telling them her body had been found, that Laurel was spreading rumors and lies all over the school about why Regan had felt the need to run, that even when she did go home, things would never be the same. And maybe that wasn’t the worst thing ever. Maybe it was time for change. Everything changes, given the right catalyst. She’d changed already, compared to the girl she’d been when she saw the door of twisted branches and shadows.
The girl she was now would be a better friend to Heather. She knew that. She had brought a unicorn into the world; she had apprenticed and was apprenticing to a centaur healer. Her ideas about “normal” had changed dramatically in just a few months, and she couldn’t imagine a world where they’d change back. She was sure Laurel would make fun of her for spending time with Heather again, but what did that matter? Laurel’s words had been enough to hurt her before, when she’d thought the world she knew was all there was. She knew better now. The world was bigger now. She was bigger now, and that made all the difference.
Bit by bit, the fields fell behind them, replaced first by livestock—goats and sheep, and the fluffy cows she’d seen before, grazing with their muzzles to the close-cropped ground. Then the livestock fell away, and it was wheat as far as the eye could see, stretching toward forever, enveloping the few trees foolish enough to grow in its path. Regan shivered and pressed closer to Chicory, who glanced over her shoulder and offered a slight smile.
“We’re almost there,” she said. “Fair has to be a trek for everyone, or it would never be able to be even as close to um, well, fair as it manages to be. Everybody travels.”
“Why does it have to be fair?”
Chicory shook her head. “It just does. And it keeps the herds from fighting for the fields nearest the Fair. Because we move around all year long, we’d disrupt the harvest and the grazing patterns of the flocks if we tried to end the season as close to the fairgrounds as possible. So everyone travels. Those fields are in the keeping of the Queen, and no one works them.”
“Huh.” It seemed like a reasonable solution to an unreasonable situation. Regan shrugged, leaning back on her hands, so her weight was resting as much on Chicory’s haunches as on her midsection. “You’ve been to the Fair before, yeah?”
“Every year since I was a foal,” said Chicory. “This is the first year I’ll be allowed to go off without an adult, I guess because you’re here to keep me company. Means it’s the first year Mama will be able to go see my father, too. I bet she’s missed him.”
“Back where I come from, mothers and fathers live together most of the time. Unless they’re divorced.”
“What’s ‘divorced’ mean?”
“It means they were married and now they’re not anymore, so their kids get double Christmas.”
“Oh,” said Chicory blankly. “What’s Christmas?”
It was rare to run into two unfamiliar concepts in one conversation anymore; they’d had long enough to talk about whatever came to mind that they seemed to have covered every subject two clever, eager little girls could cover. Regan blinked, leaning farther back, trying to find her way to the answer. Finally, she said, “A stranger in a red coat breaks into your house and leaves toys and puts walnuts and candy in your socks.”
“Oh. I guess we don’t have Christmas here because we don’t wear socks.”
“It’s hard to put candy in a horseshoe,” said Regan solemnly, and Chicory giggled, and everything was normal again, at least for a while.
Then, on the horizon, the shape of the Fair appeared. The tops of the tents were first, striped in bright colors and bedecked with flags and banners. They grew taller as the herd approached, looming more than twice the height of the tallest centaurs, and the structures around them began to materialize. There were smaller tents, wooden constructs that looked somewhere between temporary and permanent, and there were people. Centaurs like the ones Regan knew. More delicate centaurs with the lower bodies of graceful deer and the spreading antlers to match. Satyrs and fauns and minotaurs and bipeds with human torsos but equine legs and haunches, like centaurs that had been clipped neatly in half. It was a wider variety of hooved humanity than Regan could have imagined. She sat up straighter, gripping Chicory’s waist, and stared.
The herd continued at the same pace, neither slowing nor speeding up. When they reached the wide woven archway marking the entrance to the Fair, Pansy waved them to a stop and turned her attention on the girls. “Be careful,” she said in a low tone. “Don’t start anything you’re not certain you’ll be able to finish. Chicory, if anyone makes a grab for Regan, you run.”
Chicory nodded, suddenly solemn. Regan tightened her grip around the centaur girl’s waist, holding on as if she feared someone was going to snatch her off at any moment. Pansy nodded, face splitting in a wide grin.
“All right, kids, go and have fun!” she said. “The Fair belongs to you today!” She leaned over and slapped Chicory on the flank, startling the girl into leaping forward, crossing the boundary line into the Fair itself.
The whispers and pointing started immediately, as everyone who saw them stopped to stare at Regan. Some of them looked startled, some amazed, and a small few looked almost enraged, like they were looking at something obscene. One of the deer-centaurs started to cry, clapping her hands over her mouth.
“They’re just not used to how ugly you are yet,” said Chicory. “Once they get used to looking at your weird face, they won’t stare like that.”
Regan snorted, discomfort melting away in the face of familiar teasing. “You better be nice to me, or I won’t help you with your hooves anymore.”
“Will so.”
“Why?”
“Because you love me too much to let me split my hooves when you don’t have to.” Chicory trotted on, angling toward the delicious smells filling the air. “We can get roast nuts and baked apples and fish pies in the market square. Real good food, not that mush Rose and Daisy like to serve.”
Regan, who would have been willing to commit crimes for Oreos, made a noncommittal noise. Chicory laughed and kept going, ignoring the murmurs of the crowd behind them, some of whom had started to move closer before she started moving away.
“Why are they so surprised?” asked Regan. “None of you were this surprised.”
“Oh, we were. We just knew better than to show it. Pansy found you because you were meant to be with us—humans always wind up where they’re supposed to be, and that made you ours. And we didn’t want to scare you off. Even I know how important it is for a herd to have the honor of hosting a human. We’ll be remembered for centuries after you do whatever it is you’ve come here to do. You’ll save the Queen or change the world, and our descendants will be honored for things they had nothing to do with. I know the aunts are going courting, and it’s because you’re here.”
“Me? I thought it was because your mother said you needed a playmate.”
Chicory snorted. “It takes a year to have a foal, and they’re useless when they’re born. Even worse than unicorn babies. I won’t play with anyone who comes out of this courtship for a long, long time. Mama didn’t want another foal until I was old enough to work with the rest of the herd, and no one else could afford to go courting. Our flock does pretty well, but not that well.”
Regan was starting to realize that even what little she’d thought she understood about centaur relationships was wrong. She shook her head, trying to find the words she needed to unsnarl a confusing knot that was only getting worse the longer she let it stay tied. Finally, in a strangled voice, she asked, “They’re paying for boyfriends?”
“Is a boyfriend like a husband?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes.”
“But that’s…”
“How else is the stallion supposed to know the foals will be cared for? You have to show you can support the baby you’re hoping to have before you can go about getting one. And since it’s the mare who walks away with the foal, it’s only fair the stallion should get something out of the deal. So Mama and the aunts and anyone else interested in courting go to see the stallions, and some of them will come back with foals, and some won’t.”
“But…” It was a reasonable arrangement. Regan could see that. It certainly would have simplified things for most of the high school students she’d known, who seemed to be constantly preoccupied by the question of who was dating who, or who wanted to be dating who, or who had a crush on who. Laurel had been starting that, and so had some of the other girls, in the months before Regan ran away. She’d never quite seen the point. When compared to spending her time playing, boys were just sort of … boring.
Regan stopped, composing her thoughts, before she said, “Where I come from, ‘husband’ means you’re only ever with your wife. Husbands and wives live together, and raise children together, and try to be happy. My father says a good marriage takes work, usually after Mom asks him to catch a big spider and take it outside for her.”
“Husbands sometimes have more than one wife, but never more than two or three,” said Chicory. “If they sire a colt, they have to be prepared to take him on as their own, and too many wives would make that hard.”
Regan blinked slowly. “This is really complicated.”
“I bet husbands are complicated where you come from, too. You just aren’t old enough to know all the ways how.” Chicory cantered to a stop in front of a line of small, brightly colored wagons. They weren’t big enough to have housed an adult centaur; instead, satyrs and fauns and more of those odd horse-legged people leaned out of their serving windows, handing bags and bowls of their wares to waiting customers. “I want baked apples.”
Regan inhaled, taking her time about it, letting the mingled aromas of a dozen types of unfamiliar treat fill her nose. Then she slid off Chicory’s back, steadying herself on the other girl’s side as she waited for the feeling to come back into her thighs, and said, “I want some of those roast nuts, and a fish pie. I have money.”
Chicory pawed at the ground, clearly uncertain. “I’ll come with you.”
“No one’s going to snatch me in the food court,” said Regan, the uneasy awareness that children had been snatched in food courts before flooding in on the heels of her words. But that was in another world, one filled with bullying, backstabbing humans, not in this brighter, cleaner world of horse-people and honest answers. She would be fine here.
“Okay,” Chicory said. “But we don’t leave the wagons, right? You’ll get your lunch and I’ll get mine, and then we’ll sit together to eat it.” There was a cluster of low wooden tables off to one side, about half with benches, presumably for the satyrs and other bipeds to use.
“We don’t leave,” Regan agreed, smiling broadly as Chicory backed up and turned away, heading for the wagon that was distributing apples.
Feeling freer, even though her friend was only a few feet away, Regan took a deep breath and approached the nearest wagon, where a faun was passing out bags of roast nuts that smelled like absolute heaven. She stopped when she reached the window, smiling at the woman with the delicate deer’s antlers growing from her temples.
“One bag of nuts, please,” she said in her sweetest talking-to-adults tone.
“That will be one bale,” said the faun as she reached back and grabbed a bag. Then she gasped, eyes going wide. “You’re the human!” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize, you looked like a silene—”
“What’s a silene?” asked Regan, removing the money bag from her belt and holding it up. She hoped the faun’s obvious awe would keep her from taking advantage of Regan’s equally obvious ignorance. “I’m sorry, I don’t know which one’s a bale. Can you pick it out for me, please?”
“Of course. I’m so sorry.” The faun pushed the bag of nuts into Regan’s hand and took the coin purse, opening it and picking through until she found a mid-sized, goldish coin. She held it up for Regan to see. “This is a bale. The silver ones are sheafs, and the copper ones are grains. Ten grains to the sheaf, five sheafs to the bale.”
If that was the exchange system, these were very expensive nuts. Regan silently vowed to enjoy them as much as she could, even as she nodded and reached for her coin purse. “Thank you,” she said politely. “I heard there was someone selling fish pies? Can you tell me where they are?”
The faun looked briefly reluctant, although whether it was at the idea of returning the money or the idea of sending Regan away, Regan couldn’t have said. Finally, she passed the purse back, leaned out the window, and pointed to the left. “Blue wagon, two down. You asked what a silene was? Well, it’s a silene who’ll sell you your pie, human. Thank you for bringing your business to my unworthy stall.”
Regan took a step back, tying the coin pouch back to her waistband where it belonged, and began walking briskly in the direction of the blue wagon. Inside, one of the horse-legged people she’d seen before was lining up small single-serving pies on a tray. She stopped a few feet away, not wanting to startle him the way she’d startled the faun.
He glanced up, and nearly dropped the pie he was holding. “Human!” he exclaimed, almost accusatorially.
“Yes,” said Regan. “I’m here to buy a pie, please.”
“You came all the way to the Fair just to buy a pie?” His ears were like a horse’s as well. They twitched as he stared at her, the pie in his hand apparently forgotten.
“No,” she said. “I’ve been traveling with one of the unicorn-tending herds, and we’re here to sell the excess unicorns to the livestock traders before winter. But I came to the food court because my friend Chicory mentioned pies.” There was Chicory trotting languidly toward her, a baked apple on a stick in either hand. “Please, can I buy one of your pies?” This was getting frustrating. She hadn’t realized how normally her herd treated her until she was faced with people who didn’t treat her the same way.
The vendor seemed to snap out of his amazement, and thrust the pie he was holding across the counter at her. “Here you are,” he said. “I hope you’ll enjoy it.”
“How much, please?”
“Nothing. For a human in the Hooflands, nothing.” He flapped his hands when she tried to argue. “Anyone who sees you eating my pie will want one of their own, and I’ll make so much money from being able to say you bought it here that there’s no sense in charging you. You’re doing me a favor by taking that pie.”
“Um,” said Regan, uncertain. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure! A human, eating my pie. The world is full of wonders.” The silene smiled broadly, exposing incisors wider and flatter than her own. Regan smiled hesitantly back and turned toward Chicory, intending to walk over to her friend.
The bag jerked down over her head cut off her view before she could move. Someone grabbed her around the waist, yanking her off her feet, and she had time for one despairing cry as her untasted food tumbled out of her hands and she was toted unceremoniously away.
In the distance, she could hear Chicory screaming. She drew in a breath to scream, too, only for something to strike her in the back of the head, hard enough to turn the world white with pain. The darkness rose up to claim her, and the darkness was all.