The Strid

Originally published by Elegant Literature, Issue #39 "Fearsome Folklore"

This striding-place is called the Strid,

A name which it took of yore:

A thousand years hath it borne that name,

And shall a thousand more.

William Wordsworth, The Force of Prayer Or The Founding of Bolton Priory (1815)

There is no magic in the world. I know that. The knowing doesn’t stop me from squeezing my eyes shut before the bone snaps.

Crack – and the world goes silent.

No hum of life through the Yorkshire forest, or background rush of the River Wharfe. I roll the broken wishbone between my fingers, anticipation rising in exhilarating bubbles, rising until I am sick with it.

I should have refused, but hope is a habit I can’t break.

A disgruntled huff prompts my eyes to flutter open. My sister stands in dappled moonlight, glaring at the piece of chicken bone pinched between my thumb and forefinger. She discards her smaller shard in the leaf litter and wipes her fingers on her woollen skirts.

“Lucky you.” Her melodic voice is sullen. “What did you wish for?”

I swallow the truth and say, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It’s a bone, Maisie. It’s not magic.”

Maisie lifts one dark, dubious eyebrow. “You believe in pixies and faerie rings, but a wishbone isn’t magic?”

“I don’t believe in any of those things anymore.” I will the words to be true.

She rolls her eyes. “Since when?”

“Since I grew up!” I snap. The real answer twinges in my newly crooked nose. “You need to grow up, too. Pa doesn’t like–”

“I don’t care what Pa likes.” She interrupts my warning with a cool disdain I can’t help but resent. I turn my glare to the autumn-stripped oaks. All of Pa’s ambitions are carried on her perfectly symmetrical bone structure, are painted in the rosy pink of her cheeks. We’re twins, but she’s the pretty one. One day, she’ll marry well enough to save the family. For that, her skin remains unmarred. For that, her nose stays straight.

“Come on,” I say curtly, hitching the handle of my foraging basket into the cradle of my elbow. My numb fingers discreetly drop my wishbone on top of our meagre bounty of edible flora. “We’ll be late.”

We are late – dread zings down each prominent peak of my spine as I stalk into the Strid Wood. Pa’s strict about being home before nightfall. I pray he’s deep enough in his cups that he won’t notice our return. If he does…

I shiver.

He’d been in a foul temper when we’d left. His boots had fallen with rib-cracking fury onto the family dog. The harmony of thuds and shrieking yelps had been unbearable. Even Maisie had fled into the woods, pristine skirts gathered in hand and tears falling from her eyes like rain from a clear blue sky. I hadn’t told her that if the dog died, it would be my fault. I’d blamed the mutt for the missing chicken bones – the same ones we’d later licked clean in the woods.

It’s a good thing guilt stings less than hunger.

“Do you want to know what I wished for?” Maisie asks as we walk.

“No.”

“I wished for Ma to come home. For Pa to stop drinking. For Meara…” Her words trail off on a wobble.

My teeth grit. I fight the urge to stop and shake her. To shout that they’re dead. They’re all dead – not just Meara, the sister who had once patiently bridged the chasm of resentment between us, but our parents too. They’re just dead in different ways.

“I hope you did wish for something,” she says softly. “Something good.”

Good? “There’s nothing good left in me.”

She goes quiet. We trudge along the game trail, the faintest scents of oak and mulch and moss breaching the stuffy barrier in my nostrils. Smell was the price I’d paid for my last indiscretion. I don’t mind so much at home, where it reeks perpetually of sour wine and sick, but out here I’m jealous of Maisie’s perfect nose.

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.

Jealousy, want, hope… They’re sisters, those three, and they’ve only ever left me empty and scarred. But I’m an addict. As surely as Pa is on the nights he drowns himself in drink, searching the bottom of barrels for an escape. There is no escape. Wine doesn’t alter the past and wishes made under the hazy harvest moon don’t come true.

Even with freshly fallen leaves to soften our footsteps, our passing startles some small game in the bracken. I pause, drawing the dull foraging knife from my skirts. Maisie shakes her head.

“It’s probably just a rabbit,” she whispers. I scowl at her when the animal tears away through the brush, heading down toward the river.

“We can eat rabbit!” I snap, throwing down my basket and taking off on the trail of shivering ferns.

“Morrigan!”

My name slices through the cold night like a curse, but I don’t falter.

My belly snarls, reminding me that I’m running on nothing but chicken marrow and the slow, simmering wrath I inherited from my father. I follow the animal’s descent, hooking my arms around the thin tree trunks to swiftly change direction. The mulching leaves slide out from under my feet, the leather soles of my boots too worn to soften the razor-sharp rocks as I scramble and skid through the woods.

It’s impossible. I can’t distinguish between my clumsy pursuit and the sound of small game fleeing. I stumble to a halt before I fall on the slippery, flat rocks that bed the river.

“Mor?” Maisie’s anxious call floats down the hill. “Are you alright?”

I’m too breathless and annoyed to answer. If she’s so worried, she can slide down here after me.

I examine the stony shelf of the riverbanks. The rocks are dark under tides of moss, the river narrowed to a foaming creek slightly wider than I am tall. A desperate rabbit could make the leap. A breeze stirs the undergrowth around the roots of trees on the opposite bank, and I curse, realising it disguises any animal movement.

So much for eating. My stomach twists and growls pathetically, gurgling in tandem with the river. I test the rocks with one foot and find them slick.

When the Bolton Priory was built downriver years ago, Meara had told us the story she’d heard in the village. It was built to honour the Scottish lordling who had tried to leap across the narrowed River Wharfe – the part we call the Strid – and had fallen to his death.

I eye the current suspiciously. There’s a drop from the rocks to the water, but it’s no more than two feet. The river foams and bubbles, looking shallow enough. Typical, that a soft little lord would catch his death over a spill in the river.

With a snort, I pocket the knife and brush off my grazed palms, readying myself to turn back. Movement distinctly different from wind-shaken leaves catches my eye, and I falter.

I blink. Twice. Thrice, because surely this is some trick of the moonlight?

There’s a horse in the river. A horse so white, it’s shining silver. So white, it almost hurts to look at directly, like its coat is made of starlight on snow. It snuffles a bridled nose over the frothing water, ignoring my gawking from the tree line.

We’re barely miles from the Bolton Priory, but a creature this beautiful can’t belong to monks. It must belong to a Lord or Lady, like the ones that own the land I’ve been foraging on.

The horse lifts its head. A galaxy glitters in those knowing eyes. I inhale sharply as it looks at me – through me. Sees right down inside me like it heard me wishing, wishing, wishing…

A unicorn.

It has to be, to be so breathtaking. There’s no spiralling horn on its head, but what do I really know of unicorns? I hold out beseeching hands, moving one slow foot back onto the rocks.

“I won’t hurt you,” I murmur, my voice unusually gentle. “Did you come here for me?”

For the first time, hope doesn’t poison; The unicorn dips its head.

“Are you here to…” My voice wavers and cuts out, the lump rising in my throat making it difficult to speak. “To take me away?”

Another dip of its head, its forelock falling like a moonbeam across its exquisite face.

I make slow progress across the rocks, heart flipping with every step that takes me closer to the river. The water bubbles around the unicorn’s fetlocks but I hesitate at the edge. I’m made of sterner stuff than a weak lordling, aren’t I? But my body chills and recoils.

As if understanding, the unicorn nickers softly. It moves with preternatural grace, every confident step fluid as it approaches the rocks.

I reach a hand for the bridle, intending to coax it out of the Strid, but it turns and offers me its back. My mouth falls open, eyes widening.

Has anyone ever ridden a unicorn?

It huffs, shifting weight from hoof to hoof, and before it can change its mind I fist a hand in the silky starlight mane. I pull myself onto its back, an awed laugh edged with hysteria spilling from my lips.

Magic is real. It’s real, and I’m riding a unicorn. Wishes are more than bones, and magic is real. If only Maisie could see!

“Mor?” Her panicked voice is so close, I’m sure she must be coming down the hill. Can she see me yet? I sit up straight, lift the hand from the unicorn’s mane to wave –

But my hand doesn’t lift.

I flex my fingers in molten silver, try to slide them free but they stick. Stick. Like my hand has been laid upon tacky honey or tar, and every pull tightens its sucking grip. Fear drops like a stone through my stomach. The unicorn takes a step away from the bank.

“Stop!” My shout is tinny and lost under the roaring river. It’s too loud – “Maisie!” – she can’t hear me over the thunder of water, like a thousand charging horses. I look down and see their equine faces in the foam, their dark eyes, full of stars living and dying in bursts of hungry pinprick light. The unicorn moves its feet through the coursing creek. Not hooves, I realise, but long, webbed toes.

The old stories – the terrible ones – rush my memory.

Evil spirits in the guise of horses, haunting rivers and streams with ravenous patience.

Not a unicorn.

I tug violently against the tarry silver hide and my hands sink. Deeper and deeper, sinking into the kelpie’s flesh, until they’re gone down to the wrist.

The kelpie looks over one shoulder and opens that soft mouth to display its infinite teeth. A razored grin. A promise.

I scream.

I scream for Maisie, for Meara, for Ma. Even for Pa. I scream for the wish I’d made under the harvest moon – what had it been? ‘Take me away from here.’

But not like this.

Not on the back of a kelpie, as it sinks and sinks and sinks forever into the icy river.

“Morrigan!”

I twist, glimpsing Maisie’s stricken face as she breaks through the trees, but when I open my mouth to call out it floods with bitter black water.

I thrash, my resistance nothing to the strength of the kelpie and the current. I’m sucked under in a rush, the river running under the rocks impossibly deep and wide and dark. The whole River Wharfe rages under the stony shelf. My eyes burn. Lungs tear. Pressure builds.

The kelpies gather. Give chase in streaks of silver along the wild, roaring tide that is dizzy, black, and cold – so cold.

A maw of endless teeth yawns over my face and the last thing I hear is my own throat-tearing scream bubbling away before–

Crack.