Harbinger in the Mist (Arms of Serendipity) (6 page)

Aimee and Darby had unpacked nearly everything and cleared the boxes from the house during Lindsey’s slumber. They also managed to somehow move the large, cherry credenza out of the little building out back and into the foyer of the house. The Tiffany lamp her mom had been excited about earlier now sat on top of it, the soft light glowing through its frosted dome brought the painted hummingbirds to life.  Beside it sat a large bowl of potpourri that gave off a mixture of fruity scents as you passed by.

“Look who's up!” Aimee said from her perch on the sofa where she sat on her feet watching TV. “You missed all the fun. The internet guy came and went. And Owen, that’s Maddie’s and Michelle’s daddy, came over and helped us move some of the large furniture around. Oh, and Darby hung drapes.”

“The place looks nice, Mom,” Lindsey said, grabbing a large naval orange from a bowl on the kitchen counter. She peeled the softball-sized fruit and popped a section into her mouth. “I’m sorry I was no help.”

“Not a problem, honey. This is a big change for you. Oh, and Maddie called a little while ago. They want to know if you want to hang out and watch the mare with them this evening. They're on baby watch.”

“Cool. I'll head over there, if that's OK.”

“Go ahead, sweetheart. It's good that you're making some friends so soon. I’m going to bed shortly anyway. I want to cuddle up with the laptop and do some more research on, well, some stuff. Then I’m going to try to get some shuteye because I have to be at the hospital early tomorrow to fill out paperwork.”

Outside, the air was still thick and oppressive despite the disappearance of the sun. The large live oaks, squat little palms, and plethora of floral bushes around the property gave Retreat House the feeling of seclusion, but they really were close to town; Lindsey could hear the hum of cars and logging trucks moving on the roads nearby. And the house was only a short walk to the Robbins’ house and their barn. Maddie and Michelle obviously rode through here often as there was a path worn through the foliage making the trek from one house to the other relatively easy to see and bramble free.

The barn was large and whitewashed. She could see stall windows on the side she was near. Each had a box fan in it pulling in fresh air. As she approached the front of the barn, a large "Welcome" sign hanging over the double doors came into view, its letters fashioned out of old horseshoes.  She wasn't sure whether to knock. After a moment of hesitation, she touched her knuckles to the wood. It seemed rude to just barge in, so she knocked on the door before poking her head in. 

The girls were sitting on the concrete floor, legs crossed, outside an open stall door at the other end of the building. They waved for her to come on in but motioned for her to be quiet.

Lindsey had grown up in rural Indiana and most of her few close friends had lived on working farms, but they had been corn farms without livestock. She had never been a member of any of the student farm groups, either, so she had never really been inside a barn meant for anything but tractors, planting, and harvesting supplies.

Where she was from, it was mostly corn. Corn, corn, corn. The animal barns that she’d seen from the road had almost all belonged to the area’s Amish residents.

This didn't look like what she expected one to be like on the inside. To begin with, it was bright. Recessed lights lined the ceiling, making the room shine like a family room. On the white walls hung various hat and coat racks, all made out of horseshoes. There were photos of the girls and their parents astride their horses. Again, the photo frames were made out of used horseshoes. The theme, Lindsey thought, was a little over-the-top. 

There were three, large stall doors on each side of the barn and one large, open room at the opposite end from where Lindsey stood. The floor was a steely grey concrete, but there were outdoor floor mats in front of each stall. She stared down the length of the building into the open room. It looked like a large shower stall – bath supplies littered two long, wood shelves on the wall and a curly hose pipe with sprayer lay on the floor. Several different brushes hung by leather cords from the bottom of the shelves. Long, blue ropes hung from the cross ties on each side of the large stall.

On the left side of the building were two occupied stalls and one set up as a tack room. Saddles and saddle blankets sat on holders that protruded from the wall, various brackets held bits, reigns, and harnesses. There was a row of black, English-style helmets sitting on a small table. On the right were two more occupied stalls and a supply room stocked with barrels of feeds, pitch forks, a wheelbarrow, and several tools with which Lindsey was unfamiliar.

“She hasn't gone into labor yet,” Maddie said.

“I don't think she's going anytime soon, either. Look at how she's eating!” Michelle added.

Lindsey walked over and looked at the large horse standing in the open stall where the girls sat. Her body was a soft champagne color, but her legs were black, like she was wearing knee socks. Her mane was black, too. Every so often, she would shift her weight from one foot to another, her hooves crunching the hay below them.

Maddie took half of an apple out of a Tupperware bowl in her lap and held it up to Lindsey. “You want to feed her? Wind Dancer’ll love you forever if you offer her food. She’s more pig lately than horse.”

Wind Dancer snorted at her owner, but eyed the apple half greedily.

Lindsey took the fruit and approached the entry to the stall nervously. She held out her hand which shook slightly. Wind Dancer looked at her for a moment with her dark, glossy eyes before taking a step toward her. She reached her long neck towards Lindsey and laid her velveteen nose in Lindsey's palm, taking the apple offering gently from her hand.  For a moment the only sounds were that of Wind Dancer crunching the fruit and of hooves shuffling in the other stalls.

“What’s wrong with her tail?” Lindsey asked, pointing to the bright purple material that completely covered the mare’s tail like an ace bandage on a sprained ankle.

“It’s vet wrap. You wrap the tail to keep it clean and out of the way during birth.”

Lindsey fed Wind Dancer another apple half, using her free hand to pet the mare’s soft face and ears. A loud stomp and snort from another stall made Lindsey jump. She turned to see that she was being watched by two other horses on the other side of the barn.

“Whose horses are those?”

Maddie got up, brushed her backside off, and pointed to the stall beside Wind Dancer's where the loud noise actually originated.  A huge, black horse, with a black mane and tail, looked back at her with curious, coal-black eyes. He was a bit bigger than Wind Dancer, who was huge in her own right.

“This is Horus – ” Maddie started.

“Named after the Egyptian god of the sky, son of Isis –” Michelle chimed in.

“
Horus
,” Maddie said loudly, drowning out her sister’s interruption, “is Michelle's stallion. And over there,” she pointed across the barn were another large, black horse stood. “That's Dad’s Sampson. He's a little temperamental, but loveable. And that one,” she pointed the stall across from Wind Dancer’s. “That’s Momma's Rosita.”

Rosita was the smallest of the four. She was a soft grey flecked with white all over. Her mane and tail were both silver-white.  She looked out of her stall door timidly. Lindsey grabbed another apple half from Maddie’s bucket and took it over to the little mare.

“Sampson and Horus are going to get jealous. They'll think you don't like boys,” Michelle teased.

As she stood there, Lindsey found that the barn had its own combination of sounds and smells that were inviting and comforting. The harmony of hooves shuffling around in the hay, teeth softly crunching on sweet feed and alfalfa, tails swishing to scare away a stray fly, and the occasional snort combined with a hodge-podge of scents – fresh hay, sweet feed, alfalfa, and cut apples intermingled with cedar, horse sweat, and manure – to create an atmosphere of complete contentment. She could see how someone could easily sit in here for hours on end.

She sat back down on the floor and talked with Maddie and Michelle about the horses, the town, and things to do in nearby Summerville and Charleston.  They made all kinds of plans – day tripping to the peninsula to shop at the Open Air market and tour the Battery Park, hitting a water park in North Charleston, going to the beach, and even a Fourth of July cookout complete with fireworks.

“We’ll definitely have to take you to a Riverdogs baseball game, too. Bill Murray is part owner of the team and makes appearances every now and then.” Michelle said as she combed Horus’ mane.

“Bill Murray, as in ‘Ghostbusters’?” Lindsey marveled.

“The very one. He has a house in the Charleston area and spends some time down here. I’ve never seen him, but Mom and Dad did back in December. They were at a College of Charleston basketball game and he was there.”

“That’s wild! I can’t imagine running into a celebrity like that.” Lindsey couldn’t wait to tell her mom about their newest, sort-of neighbor.

The time flew by and before she knew it, Barbara peeked in to say goodnight to the girls. Lindsey figured she needed to get home, too, before it got too late.

As she walked on the trail she’d followed earlier, she was startled by how bright the night was. Oh, without any street lights, the area was pitch-black, but the moon was huge and bright; the stars sparkled as if winking at her. It had been very dark at night back home, too, but it was different here somehow. The skyline in Bremen was wide open, here there were so many tangled, mossy tree branches overhead and the air was stifling, heavy. Even after dark the heat was brutal. But the scent on the slight breeze was light, mesmerizing; the briny estuary, a close-by Honeysuckle vine, and various flowering bushes mingled together nicely.

She was lost in thought as she mounted the steps leading up to the front porch and didn’t notice the tiny, dark figure hovering in one of the wooden rockers as she passed by and let herself into the quiet house.

But it took notice of her.

Five

Aimee rushed around the house before her first night at work. She checked and double checked her appearance – making sure her scrubs were perfect, her hair was pulled back just right, her hospital badge hung straight, and that all her tools were in perfect order.

 “Stethoscope? Check. Hemostat? Check. Pens? Check. Watch? Check. Surgical tape, scissors, penlight? Check, check, and check.”

“Mom, you’ll be fine. You’ve been doing this for how long now? I’m sure that women deliver babies the same way here as they do back home.”

“Oh, thank you honey. I’m just nervous. I worked labor and delivery at Community Hospital for five years. But even with my experience, I’ll still be ‘the new girl.’ No one will know how good I am until I’ve been in the trenches for a while. I’ll be going back to being told how to do everything as if I’m a newbie right out of nursing school. Gah!”

She left a half an hour early so she could get to the hospital, find a decent parking space, and introduce herself to everyone before her shift began. She wasn’t looking forward to being on the night shift yet again, but it wouldn’t be too bad if she could get off on the right foot and make friends with her co-workers. 

After she left, Lindsey picked up around the living room and took out the garbage. They’d made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, so the kitchen wasn’t too tedious to clean up. By 8:30, the house was tidy and locked up.  She made some popcorn, grabbed a Coke and a DVD, set the alarm, and went upstairs to her room. She was very accustomed to her mother being gone at night since she did overnights back in Bremen, but it was somehow different here. This house was much bigger and, quite frankly, a little creepy when you were alone in it. Everything echoed and the air circulating through it almost sounded like the house was breathing at times.

She thought about calling Maddie and Michelle to see if they might want to come over, but she remembered they were on mare watch. She didn’t want them to be
here
if the horse went into labor. Then she thought about just going over there, but she didn’t want to wear out her welcome so soon.

So she would stay here. She popped the movie into the DVD player and tossed the remote on the bed. While the previews rolled, Lindsey gathered the dirty laundry from both her and her mom’s rooms and tossed them into the washer. Once the load was started, she locked herself in her room and curled up in bed. When the film company logo flared up on the screen, she dashed to the bedroom door. She made sure that the door was locked and grabbed her cell phone off the dresser.
Just in case
. She told herself.

Before the movie was half over, she was drifting in and out of sleep. She set the alarm on her cell for 8 a.m. Darby set up a job interview for her over at the Artisans Center in the morning and Lindsey didn’t want to run the risk of being late. The DVD was just a soothing noise in the background as sleep finally closed its warm cloak around her and she succumbed to unconsciousness.

BAM!

Lindsey sat bolt upright. Did a door just slam?
Don’t panic, she told herself. It’s just Mom. She must’ve forgotten something
. She scooted out of bed, walked over to the side-window, and glanced around the rose sun catcher that hung in the middle of the pane of glass. Her eyes searched the spot where her mom normally parked. It was empty. Empty.