Space Magic (22 page)

Sailing in slow motion above the sand of the arena floor, Misty thought “This is going to hurt.”

Just a moment ago she’d been in the saddle, nudging Vulcan through a shoulder-in, concentrating on moving the unicorn’s right back hoof toward his left shoulder, getting him used to working in this building. It was new, still smelled of paint, and was making all the animals edgy.

And then some moron in the stands had lit up a goddamn cigarette.

Misty’s spur caught on the saddle as Vulcan whirled out from under her, alabaster coat and flaxen mane blurring past her eyes. She couldn’t get her hip under her and hit the ground on her left knee. It did hurt—it hurt like a sumbitch. She gasped from the pain, pulling in a breath full of shavings and manure dust as she rolled away from Vulcan’s sharp cloven hooves. The last thing she needed was an enraged four-hundred-pound unicorn stepping on her head.

Somewhere on the stands, she could hear her groom Caroline shouting. There was shouting all around, and the metal voice from the announcer’s booth called out, “Loose unicorn, Harry, close the gate!” No one wanted a Persian stud running loose on the fairgrounds.

Misty kept one arm wrapped around her throbbing knee and the other over her head, but she could still see Vulcan rearing and pounding the rail with his iridescent hooves, making the hollow steel ring and tipping his head sideways to lunge through the rails with the double-edged spiral of his horn. His scream of rage echoed in the high hollow ceiling as he struggled to reach the offending smoker. Caroline pushed the stupid addict toward the exit, bellowing “Whoa, Vulcan! God-dammit,
whoa
!”

And the stupid beast whoa’d. He dropped right to his feet and gave a self-satisfied snort, pleased and proud that he’d defended his rider from the vicious cigarette. Misty rocked, holding her knee. Damn idiot animal. Caroline vaulted over the rail, dropped the six feet to the arena floor, and caught Vulcan’s reins. Crisis controlled.

Misty tried to sit up as the announcer cleared the arena. Brighter pain stabbed in her knee; it felt full of white-hot glass shards. She pushed herself up on her arms, spitting and snorting out sand and the ground-up shreds of old sneaker soles. Caroline walked Vulcan over, the animal placidly lipping her dark buzz-cut as if to say “Did I do good, boss?”

Caroline crouched down and cradled Misty’s knee in her hands, sliding her thumbs across the top of the kneecap. Only six weeks older than Misty, Caroline had always looked after her like a beloved little sister. She whispered under her breath, and a brief tingle of investigative magic slipped through the crackle of pain. “Can’t tell how bad it is, but it’s not broken. Think you can get up, blondie?” Though she kept her words light, concern tightened the skin around her eyes.

“I’d rather not.”

Caroline gave a little smirk and hauled Misty to her good foot.

“Ow!” Misty leaned hard on Caroline and hopped to keep her balance. That was a mistake—the injured knee screamed with pain at the jolt. “Sonofa—” But she bit off the curse, sucking air through her teeth and blinking hard. There were a lot of things that unicorn riders weren’t supposed to do, and one of them was swear out loud, especially not in front of an entire arena full of riders who’d love to see her disqualified.

Double especially not in front of Mary Frances Schwartz, the only other girl here with a real shot at the Nationals. Mary Frances was a barracuda in a double-A bra, five years younger than Misty’s seventeen and almost as tall. She’d be too tall to ride Persians next year, unless she turned out to be a “teeny little freak” like Misty. She sidled her own unicorn Angel over, threateningly close to Vulcan, who laid his ears back and arched up at the other stud. “Are you all right?” she asked with nearly authentic sympathy.

“It’s so sweet of you to ask,” Misty ground out through clenched teeth. At least two reporters were taking notes, so she couldn’t say what she was really thinking. She put one arm over Caroline’s shoulder and the other over Vulcan’s saddle, clutching the saddle horn as the three of them hobbled slowly out of the arena to the stable.

It took them almost ten minutes to cover the hundred yards to their stalls, Misty leaning into the lithe strength of Caroline’s body. Vulcan was limping too; maybe he’d hurt himself attacking the rail. The dusty fairground was painfully bright after the mercury-lit dimness of the arena.

Once they reached the shade of the stall, Caroline eased Misty onto a shrink-wrapped sawdust bale. Misty sighed and rested her head in the soft hollow of Caroline’s neck, smelling clean sweat and the cotton of her shirt collar. “Thank you,” she said, and squeezed her hand.

Caroline squeezed back for a moment, then pulled away and turned back to Vulcan. Misty felt a childish urge to pout—Vulcan had to be secured in his stall, but the knee didn’t hurt as much when she held Caroline’s hand.

Caroline unbuckled Vulcan’s bridle, replacing it with a halter cross-tied to each side of the open stall door. You never let that horn loose around people if you could help it. Once the unicorn was secured, Caroline brought Misty an ice pack from the trailer. “I told your mother those damn spurs were going to be trouble.”

“Since when does she listen to either of us?” Misty sucked in a breath as Caroline laid the ice pack over the ruined knee of her pink Wranglers. She didn’t want to let on just how much it hurt. “Anyway, it wasn’t the spurs, it was me. You’d never have lost your seat.” Caroline had grown too tall to show unicorns, but on a horse she was a study in long-limbed grace.

“I’m just the groom, shorty.”

Misty gave Caroline a mock glare. “I’m gonna hit five feet this year, you wait and see.”

“Dream on.” Caroline crouched by Vulcan’s front leg, inspecting the suspect hoof. “Looks like you’ve got a bruised hoof there, son.”

“Seriously, Caro, it should be you out there on Vulcan, not me. You trained him, after all. I just sit on him. He’s the proverbial push-button pony.”

“I’m too tall, and you know it. I can ride ’em, I just don’t look good on ’em.” She picked up Vulcan’s bruised foot and cupped it between her hands for a moment, muttering a healing charm like a prayer whispered in a lover’s ear. Vulcan let his head hang in the cross-ties, eyes half closed as the magic flowed through his injured hoof.

“Even if you can’t ride professionally, you could be a real trainer, in a real stable! Jack Thornton would hire you in a minute if he could. Why do you hang around this one-unicorn outfit?”

Caroline rose and busied herself with Vulcan’s girth, not looking at Misty. “I like it here.”

“Where’s
here?
Caro, we’re
nowhere
. Mom treats you like a servant, I know as well as you do that you haven’t had a raise in three years, and we’ve been to the nationals, what, five times?”

“But you still haven’t won.”

As if I cared.
But she didn’t say it... it would hurt Caroline so much. She’d worked so hard, put up with so much, all for Misty’s sake; the least Misty could do in return was to make sure she got the accolades that would come from training a national champion unicorn.

Then Vulcan growled and tossed his head in the cross-ties. That meant some other stud was nearby, or...

Misty’s mother announced her presence with a sandpaper screech of “I leave for
ten minutes
and what the hell happens!” She was already decked out in her Professional Show Mother outfit of white leather blazer, white leather skirt, and white Tony Lama boots—everyone on the circuit called her The Great White when she wasn’t in earshot—but a chic silk turban concealed her bleached hair.

“I’m fine, Mother. Thanks for asking.” Misty wondered if her mother’s voice hurt her own ears, after all the vodka Bloody Marys she’d consumed when Misty had qualified for the finals last night.

“Let me see that knee.” She grabbed Misty’s calf, making big bright spots dance across Misty’s vision, and yanked off the ice pack. The knee had swollen out to the limits of Misty’s jeans. “These’ll have to be cut off, I suppose. At least you had the sense not to practice in your competition outfit.”

Caroline’s eyes widened and she dropped the saddle unceremoniously onto its rack. “Misty! You didn’t tell me it was that bad!” She knelt down in front of Misty and peered at the taut cloth. “We need to call the doctor.”

Mother whirled on her. “No doctors! If some milksop gives her painkillers, she’ll blow the blood test.” She turned back to Misty, pointing with one pearl-manicured finger. “This is probably our last chance at the Nationals, and you are not going to wimp out on me.”

Angry little lines appeared around Caroline’s mouth, but Misty cut her off before she could say something that would get her fired. “I’ll be fine, Mother.” But she was looking at Caroline. “We’ll wrap it and ice it and it’s only one more class. I can stay on him for ten minutes.”

“That’s right. You are getting on that animal tonight, you are riding that class, and you are going to win it. I haven’t busted my ass dragging you all over the countryside this year for nothing!”

Vulcan’s ears went back at the rising shriek and he growled, strained against the cross-ties, digging with his hooves in the hard-packed dirt of the stall. Caroline said, “We’re making Vulcan nervous, Mrs. Bell. We should get Misty into the trailer and elevate that knee.”

“You do that.” She glanced at her watch, encrusted with pink diamonds. “Oh God, now you’ve made me late. Look, I’m meeting Harvey to talk about your publicity photos over lunch, and then I’m going to get my hair done. I’ll see you at the gate at seven.” She strode out toward the parking lot, calling over her shoulder, “And I’d better not get another call from the show office!”

Misty looked around for the ice pack and saw it lying in the dirt, just out of her reach. “Can you get that for me?” Caroline leaned over and retrieved it, her lips pressed together in a hard white line. “Go ahead and say it,” Misty prompted.

“Why bother? All it would do is make you have to defend her. And hearing you defend her is worse than watching how she treats you.”

Misty sighed. She didn’t know which would be worse—arguing with Caroline, or admitting that she had a point. “She’s my mother, Caroline.”

“Only genetically. Now let’s get you inside. Can you hop, or do you want me to carry you?”

“I’ll hop.” But even straightening up was agony, and Misty didn’t protest when Caroline carefully scooped her up, one arm warm behind her shoulders and the other under her thighs. Misty opened the trailer door and Caroline set her down on the bed in the back.

Misty looked down at the toes of her pink Ropers, dreading the thought of pulling them off. “If we cut those, Mother will kill me.”

“Let me try.” Caroline worked one hand up Misty’s pant leg to her calf. She cupped the heel of the boot in her other hand and started to ease it off. Misty gasped in pain, but a moment later the boot slipped off. “Good girl. Now the other one.”

But when both boots and the socks were off the situation got even scarier. Misty’s left foot was as white as her mother’s leather skirt. “It’s the swelling,” Caroline said. “It’s cut off the circulation. We have to get those jeans off.”

Pulling the jeans down was absolutely out of the picture. Caroline went to the kitchen cabinet and came back with a pair of shears. Misty trembled, but said nothing as Caroline began to work her way up the outside seam. When she reached the knee, the scissors burned like ice against the hot skin and Misty bit her lower lip hard. Then, as the fabric parted, she thought she might faint from relief as the pressure released.

Caroline paused, her hand warm on Misty’s inner thigh, after she had cut well past the knee. “They’ve got to come all the way off sooner or later. Do you want me to keep cutting?”

Misty’s heart thudded in her throat, and she had to swallow before she could reply. “Might as well,” she managed faintly.

Caroline seemed to be having trouble speaking as well, but she took a deep breath and resumed cutting. The cold scissor blades crept along Misty’s thigh, and she felt the tip slip under the elastic of her panties. “Um, you got more than the jeans there.”

“Sorry,” Caroline squeaked, then cleared her throat and readjusted the scissors. “Sorry,” she repeated in a more normal tone.

The bunched fabric at Misty’s hip was awkward to get past. Then she had to wiggle out of her belt, and even with the belt gone the heavily layered waistband was a formidable obstacle. But Caroline sawed through it, and finally Misty was free. Both of them were panting from the effort. “Well, here I am, a seventeen-year-old virgin with no pants,” Misty quipped in a trembling attempt at humor. “I bet there’s a thousand boys who’d love to be you right now.”

Caroline licked her lips. “Uh. Yeah.” And she glanced up at Misty, her brown eyes half-hidden by her eyebrows, her face gone all serious. Misty swallowed, but returned Caroline’s gaze for a long, awkward moment. Caroline was bent over her in the confined space, her calloused hand pressed between Misty’s thighs. Misty had seen Caroline in nothing but a bra and panties plenty of times, living in the same trailer with her for what felt like a thousand shows. They’d been best friends since they were both eight, but she’d never wondered before what Caroline’s skin felt like.

Then Caroline broke the contact to look down at Misty’s knee. “Shit, girl. You aren’t going to be standing up on this any time soon, much less getting on a unicorn.” She was right. The knee was the size of a cantaloupe and an evil mix of purple and black.

Tears pinched at the back of Misty’s throat. “I’ve got to, Caroline. I’ve just got to.” If Misty didn’t ride tonight, her mother would unleash her wrath on the nearest available object, and that was Caroline. Mother would make sure she never worked again.

Caroline sat back on her haunches, leaning her back against the bad imitation woodgrain of the wall. “I don’t see how.”

Misty licked her lips. “What about that healing touch of yours? It works on Vulcan.”

“That’s just a little hedge witchery. I don’t practice on
people!
I don’t have any experience, I don’t have a license... hell, I wouldn’t even do it on myself!”