A Nest of Nightmares

Marilyn sighed and left him. She felt weighted by the chores of supervision. If only the children could go to school every day, where they would be safe and out of her jurisdiction. She thought of how easily they could be hurt or die, their small bodies broken. So many dangers, she thought, getting her coral-coloured coat out of the front closet. How did people cope with the tremendous responsibility of other lives under their protection? It was an impossible task.

The children had mobilised into a small but diligent army, marching in and out of the barn with their arms full of hay, boards or tools. Marilyn looked for Kelly, who was standing just inside the big double doors and directing operations.

‘The doors were chained shut,’ she said, confused. ‘How did you – ’

‘I cut it apart,’ Kelly said. ‘There was a hacksaw in the tool shed.’ She gave Marilyn a sidelong glance. ‘Daddy said we could take any tools from there that we needed.’

Marilyn looked at her with uneasy respect, then glanced away to where the other children were working grimly with hands and hammers at the boards nailed across all the stall doors. The darkness of the barn was relieved by a storm lantern hanging from a hook.

‘Somebody really locked this place up good,’ Kelly said. ‘Do you know why?’

Marilyn hesitated, then decided. ‘I suppose it was boarded up so tightly because of the way one of your early relatives died here.’

Kelly’s face tensed with interest. ‘Died? How? Was he murdered?’

‘Not exactly. His horses killed him. They . . . turned on him one night, nobody ever knew why.’

Kelly’s eyes were knowing. ‘He must have been an awful man, then. Terribly cruel. Because horses will put up with almost anything. He must have done something so – ’

‘No. He wasn’t supposed to have been a cruel man.’

‘Maybe not to people.’

‘Some people thought his death was due to an Indian curse. The land here was supposed to be sacred; they thought this was the spirit’s way of taking revenge.’

Kelly laughed. ‘That’s some excuse. Look, I got to get to work. Okay?’

Marilyn dreamed she went out one night to saddle a horse. The barn was filled with them, all her horses, her pride and delight. She reached up to bridle one, a sorrel gelding, and suddenly felt – with disbelief that staved off the pain – powerful teeth bite down on her arm. She heard the bone crunch, saw the flesh tear, and then the blood . . .

She looked up in horror, into eyes which were reddened and strange.

A sudden blow threw her forward and she landed face-down in dust and straw. She could not breathe. Another horse, her gentle black mare, had kicked her in the back. She felt a wrenching, tearing pain in her leg. When finally she could move she turned her head and saw the great yellow teeth, stained with her blood, of both her horses as they fed upon her. And the other horses, all around her, were kicking at their stalls. The wood splintered and gave, and they all came to join in the feast.

The children came clattering in at lunchtime, tracking snow and mud across the red-brick floor. It had been snowing since morning, but the children were oblivious to it. They did not, as Marilyn had expected, rush out shrieking to play in the snow, but went instead to the barn, as they did every weekend now. It was almost ready, they said.

Kelly slipped into her chair and powdered her soup with salt. ‘Wait till you see what we found,’ she said breathlessly.

‘Animal, vegetable or mineral?’ Derek asked.

‘Animal AND mineral.’

‘Where did you find it?’ Marilyn asked.

The smallest child spilled soup in her lap and howled. When Marilyn got back to the table, everyone was talking about the discovery in the barn: Derek curious, the children mysterious.

‘But what is it?’ Marilyn asked.

‘It’s better to see it. Come with us after we eat.’

The children had worked hard. The shrouded winter light spilled into the empty space of the barn through all the open half-doors of the stalls. The rotting straw and grain was all gone, and the dirt floor had been raked and swept clear of more than an inch of fine dust. The large design stood out clearly, white and clean against the hard earth.

It was not a horse. After examining it more closely, Marilyn wondered how she could have thought it was the depiction of a wild, rearing stallion. Horses have hooves, not three-pronged talons, and they don’t have such a feline snake of a tail. The proportions of the body were wrong, too, once she looked more carefully.

Derek crouched and ran his fingers along the outline of the beast. It had been done in chalk, but it was much more than just a drawing. Lines must have been deeply scored in the earth, and the narrow trough then filled with some pounded white dust.

‘Chalk, I think,’ Derek said. ‘I wonder how deep it goes?’ He began scratching with a forefinger at the side of the thick white line.

Kelly bent and caught his arm. ‘Don’t ruin it.’

‘I’m not, honey.’ He looked up at Marilyn, who was still standing apart, staring at the drawing.