It’s hard to believe it, but we’ve reached the penultimate chapter of Issue 17. Our adventure is almost complete.
Today’s pieces both share themes of longing, transformation, and the search for something lost… or perhaps something that was never fully grasped in the first place. One follows the pull of an ancient magic and the ache of a body that no longer feels like home, while the other reaches back toward childhood wonder, searching for the spark that once made the world feel limitless. Both remind us that even when the path is unclear, the quest itself shapes who we become.
How to Catch a Windwater Horse, a story by Faith Allington
a quest left, but never lost, a poem by Natalie Wolf & Stephanie Heinecke
How to Catch a Windwater Horse
a story by Faith Allington
Before I find you, deep in summer’s honeyed heart, they tell me not to go looking. Warn me not to wander the bog’s edge under jewel-sharp stars. But I can’t resist the meadowsweet of your song, calling me to ride.
All through the waning year, waiting for you, I gorge on the season’s reserves – roasted squash, fresh barley bread smeared with butter, handfuls of honey and wild berry jam. But no matter how much I devour, I remain hollow.
“Eating us out of house and home, this one,” Mom says, pinching my cheek. “Lucky the thaw’s coming soon or we’d go hungry.”
Shame prickles my face. She’s kind enough to joke about it, but my hunger is a burden. My sister flicks one lazy eye over the book she’s reading, keeping the distance between us. She can tell I’ve changed, that something has split our sisterhood like an axe biting into wood.
If only they knew. I shift away from them, pressing my fingertips to the glass, staring at the rain-riven sky. It looks like a river, the way the water churns and foams around us.
“You’re restless as a hen waiting on an egg,” Mom laughs, touching my shoulder. “Why don’t you two go down to the pub and get us some pies?”
My sister grumbles intelligibly, shoulders hunching like a cat, and I see my chance.
“I’ll go, it’s pouring wet out there. No sense both of us drowning.” I smile to show I’m not going to do something wild, this time. That I can be trusted.
Mom gives me a slow nod, pleased to see me trying.
Outside, the wind riles my hair and I run, gasping at the cold that burns my raw skin. My skirts are mud to the knees and my fingers are red by the time I make it to the pub.
Inside, it’s dark and smoky, bustling with talk. People are glad enough to be out of the wet. Old Dale sits against the fire, warming his gnarled knuckles near the flames. Ellis, a wiry hunter, sits opposite him.
“Three vegetable pies,” I say, catching the owner’s eye. I creep a little closer to the fire, my thin body aching for the heat.
The talk turns to the windwater horses, as it inevitably does whenever I come into town. Even though people’s eyes slide off me like oil slick, they want to know.
How did it feel to be taken?
What a question. Like drowning in stars. Like swallowing the wind. Like leaping into a river full of teeth.
“I hear the horses are sleeping now,” Dale says, slapping one knee. He gulps down half his ale and belches appreciatively. “Best time to catch one, I reckon.”
Despite it being unfashionable these days, the old stories fill the pub. Capturing a windwater horse will bring you riches beyond measure, they say. But the town of Wychwood brims fanciful tales. Wild hunts and fairy banquets and witches who drank the moon’s blood. Believing them is another matter.
“Best way to catch one is alone, early in the morning,” Ellis says, her green eyes sliding towards me. “But why anyone would waste a spring day doing it is beyond me.”
Talk meanders onto other topics, but I cling to her words, gripping them so hard they might break. It feels like an answer. I just have to wait for winter to break.
–
On the first day of spring, the sky is rendered ghost-pale by mist, the air sweet as rain. I step into the bog, feel it slosh against my thighs. The water reflects the gaunt human face I wear.
I search for hours until I finally catch a glimpse of what I seek–the sinews of a windwater horse. Its shape tangled in the corpses of trees long drowned. Forelock of lichen, coat of moss. Yet when I dip my fingers under the surface, the horse splinters, turning to rotted bark.
My body aches with the effort of staying afloat, my frail lungs burning. I never wanted to take your place in prisons of bone and blood. With each passing season, I hear less of the bog and less of my lost kin.
But one day, I swear I will find a way home again, back into the hoof and mane you stole from me.
Faith Allington (she/her) is a genre-blending writer in Seattle, where she admires fungi and drinks too much tea. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Apex, Haven Spec, Kaleidotrope, and others. faithallington.com
Artwork by Sabela Argibay, a galician illustrator who studied Fine Arts. She's influenced by impressionism, contemporary painters and even cartoon artists. Her style reflects her passion for art, nature and human beings. sabelaargibay.com
a quest left, but never lost
a poem by Natalie Wolf & Stephanie Heinecke
on the drive home from a long night out with people I feel miles away from, more exhausted and alone than before, we pass a father carrying a small girl, a unicorn horn gracing her forehead, fairy wings flopping on her back and I am hit with a visceral memory of laughter, joy, and for a moment I too am six years old, a small witch brewing potions and cackling away about spells and curses and late night flying, an enchantress speaking my sparkly soliloquies to the wind, I who have wandered far past childhood, yet still feel lost in the world of adult, searching for some side quest, an alternate timeline running back through the woods with their crooked trees and bones, off to defeat the dragon burning away the countryside, victory just within reach, and when the car pulls up to the curb and I push my way back into my rented space, for once I give in to the need to remember what made me, wander to the bookshelf I no longer frequent, and pull down a volume well worn, well-loved, every page dog-eared, the binding peeling off in soft white curlicues, crack it open and curl up under a lamp with a blanket and hot cider to partake in a quest I feel I have been on since the beginning
Natalie Wolf is currently an MFA student in creative writing at the University of Kansas. She enjoys writing poetry and weird fiction and is an editor for Ambidextrous Bloodhound Press. nwolfmeep.wixsite.com/nmwolf
Stephanie Heinecke enjoys writing poetry and fantasy adventures while staying warm and snug at home with her reptiles, this is her first published work.
Artwork by Noa Paran, an illustrator, designer, and dancer. Working across various mediums, she explores the intersections of visual arts and dance. noaparan.com
Thanks for reading - see you in two weeks!