Edith Norris wiped the sweat off her face as she sat astride her horse while the summer sun beat down. Despite her cast coming off weeks ago her foot still ached abominably, and combined with the heat she was in a foul mood. Half of her farm was still in ruins, the rebuilding of the milking and horse barns along with that of her own home, was going slowly, and the insurance company was trying to push her into an early settlement. Lost in her thoughts, Norris failed to notice a wiry man of late middle years come up beside her.
“Good afternoon, Doña Norris,” Jorge said, his posture relaxed but ready. Unlike Norris, he seemed perfectly adapted to the fury of summer’s heat.
“What the hell is good about it?” Norris snapped back, and felt instant contrition at her outburst. “Sorry Jorge, shouldn’t have bit your head off. Not your fault.”
“It’s okay, Doña Norris,” Jorge said, nodding sadly. “We all miss La Curandera as well. Has there been any word?”
“Nothing for awhile now,” Norris said, adjusting the hat whose broad rim kept the sun out of her eyes. “I know she made it to California just fine, but nothing since then.”
“She will be okay, Doña,” Jorge said, before peering at Edith’s mount. “What of Luna? Any sign of the return of the spirit of Santa Muerte?”
“Nothing,” Norris said, stroking the neck of her mount fondly. “Luna’s just a horse now. A good horse, but that’s all. At least the number of rubberneckers trying to see her has been going down.”
“I’m sorry if they’ve been a bother to you,” Jorge said, passing a refillable water bottle up to Norris who gratefully accepted the drink. “But after the tornado…” Jorge let his words trail off.
“I don’t blame folks for wanting to see Luna after that either,” Norris said, resealing the bottle and passing it back. “The things that happened that day, what we saw… Well, it almost had me running to find the nearest priest myself.”
Jorge offered no further comment and the two stood for a few minutes in companionable silence, watching the half-shattered farm work its way around the four different sets of construction going on while still trying to remain a viable business. Jorge broke the silence.
“With your permission Doña,” Jorge said, touching his hat, “I will go check on the hay storage and make sure we are ready for tomorrow’s delivery.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Norris said, taking another swipe at the sweat on her brow. “I’m going to head back to my ho— my cabin and get back on the phone with those idiots from the insurance company. See if I can’t pry another payment out of them.”
Moving Luna into motion, Norris rode over to the cabin that she had claimed as her home. Even here, in the area well away from where the storm had passed by three months ago, there had been changes. A small shed had been thrown up to one side of the cosy cottage for the purpose of sheltering Luna, and keeping the animal close to Norris at all times.
Norris pursed her lips as she drew closer and saw that someone had built a small shrine to Luna, or “Santa Muerte” as the immigrant community called her, yet again. It wasn’t that the small shrines themselves bothered Norris. Whoever had been building them had been smart enough to keep them off to one side of the shelter and out of the way. It was the offerings that were left behind that were the problem.
The money was easy enough to deal with. Norris just collected it and used it to buy treats or other things, for the children of her rapidly growing number of migrant hands. The problem was the things that were left that Luna might eat. The fruit was fine, the flowers were mostly okay, but it was the cigarettes that worried Norris.
Most folks didn’t realize that nicotine was a deadly poison to horses. Luna could very easily be nibbling away on the fruit and chomp down on the tobacco offerings by accident. A fifth of a gram of pure nicotine was lethal to a horse, and it was fear of that which made Norris do a ground sweep of the area each night when she brought Luna home.
Norris finished riding up, dismounted and tied off Luna’s lead to the shed, and walking around its corner to check on the latest offerings. Bending down, she collected the small amount of cash that had been tucked in beside the small skeletal statues and votive candles there. Separating out some apples that had been left for Luna to nibble on later, Norris growled softly as she saw two full packs of cigarettes underneath them.
“They aren’t going to stop you know,” said a quiet female voice, from behind her. Startled, Norris leaped up and spun around toward the speaker, only to see the slim form of Chiara Walsh behind her.
“Chiara!” Norris exclaimed, hugging the shorter woman, who returned the embrace. “Saints alive girl, I’ve missed you. Let’s have a look at you.”
Norris leaned back to take in Chiara’s lean form. Chiara was wearing brown, silver stitched cowboy boots, that rose upwards until they disappeared beneath a long, flowing, chocolate brown skirt that came down almost to her ankles. The skirt came up very high on her waist, where a broad leather belt held it in place and formed the anchor point for a loose, western style blouse of denim that rose to Chiara’s neck. On top of her head was a broad rimmed, cream coloured cowboy hat which seemed to be a size too large but sat securely nonetheless.
“This is where you live now?” Chiara asked, nodding toward the cottage that was only a little bigger than what Chiara had lived in.
“Until the new house is built,” Norris said, wondering what struck her as wrong about Chiara’s appearance. Norris watched as Chiara put her head against Luna’s and for a moment the two seemed to share their old bond. Norris couldn’t put her finger on it yet, but whatever was wrong with Chiara was different than what had driven the girl away from the farm.
“Any change in Luna?” Chiara asked, sighing as Norris shook her head in the negative. “Um, any chance we can go inside. I’d rather no one knew I was back, quite yet.”
“Just give me a moment to settle Luna,” Norris said, relieved. That shy, retiring demeanor was much more Chiara’s style. Norris checked Luna’s water, forked some fresh hay into the bunker, and placed the horse into her stall. Norris wiped the sweat off her forehead yet again. She hated summer’s heat, but there was no way she was taking her hat off until she got inside.
As Norris stepped out of Luna’s little shed she saw Chiara waiting by the door. Norris looked at the younger woman anew for a moment, trying to assemble what was bothering her about the girl in her mind. Chiara noticed Norris studying her, dropped her eyes to the ground, and said in a quiet voice that held a hint of desperation, “I’ll explain everything, once we get inside. Please?”
“All right girl,” Norris said, passing Chiara and opening the door to the cottage. “You’ve never lied to me, and you’ve earned more than a little patience on my part. Let’s get you inside and I’ll get some tea going.”
The two went inside the small, two bedroom cottage, that was similar in layout to Chiara’s destroyed home. Norris took off her boots, and noted that Chiara didn’t, but said nothing. Nor did Norris say anything when Chiara turned a kitchen chair ninety degrees to sit on it sideways, letting the back of her long skirt flow over it.
As Norris turned the kettle on to boil, she went to the window to open the drapes and light up the place a little more.
“Please,” Chiara asked, tilting her head up to look out from under her broad hat, “can you leave them closed for now. I really don’t want anyone else seeing me through a window by accident.”
“That explains you waiting for me up here, instead of down at the new barns,” Norris said, leaning back against the kitchen counter. The silence stretched out between the two, as an uneasy, odd sort of quiet between the pair of women. Finally, the kettle began to whistle, startling them both and breaking the stillness.
“So,” Norris said, bringing over a pair of mugs after a moment after filling them up with tea. “You’re back. Everything work out in California?”
“Not really,” Chiara said, accepting the tea and taking a sip while keeping her face under the brim of her hat. “In fact, it went about as bad as it could.”
“Is that why you’re all covered up?” Norris asked, as she realized what had been bothering her about Chiara all along. “You didn’t get some big body tattoo, did you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Chiara said, with a snort before sobering. “I guess I should tell you everything.”
“That would be a help,” Norris said, sitting down and sipping at her own steaming mug.
“Okay,” Chiara began. “Well, after what happened… to Luna, I just couldn’t be around her anymore. It just kept reminding me of all the things she had been. Everytime I sat on her afterwards, I could feel every difference between what she had been and what she is now. I started to get mad at her. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. So I left before I started taking it out on her.”
“It’s a normal reaction,” Norris said, reaching out and taking Chiara’s slim, strong hand in her own. “After my Jon died, I was furious at him for so long. He survived the Middle East, so how dare he up and die like that in a simple car accident?”
“Exactly,” Chiara said, nodding. “So, I left. I finished the journey that I had been on when we first met. I made it to the pagan community in Marin County.”
“What are they like?” Norris asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.
“They were… people,” Chiara said, pausing to find a good adjective. “Just people of all sorts, but we all shared a love of the natural spirits and forces of the world. Periander was there.”
“Who?” Norris asked, puzzled. “Some other boy? I know you broke things off with Peter in town. He dropped off a matched set of engraved silver bracelets for you the other week. Wanted me to let you know he wasn’t mad or anything, just that he had no idea what he’d done wrong.”
“What did you tell him?” Chiara asked, looking up at Norris, mouth quirking.
“That you had gone off to California, and that I would pass on the message when I had the chance,” Norris said, watching Chiara’s reactions. “So, who’s Periander?”
“One of the moderators on the Paranet pagan website,” Chiara said. “We had talked a lot in the past and they knew the active groups in Marin. They introduced me to a lot of people and he was also the cause of a lot of problems when the changes first hit.”
“Changes?” Norris asked, reaching up and making sure her own hat was secure. “What kind of changes?”
“Guess I’ve put this off as long as I can,” Chiara said, getting up from the table. “Pretty much the only way to tell you is to just show you.”
As Norris looked up in curiosity, Chiara grimaced and then with a smooth flowing motion took off the broad-brimmed cowboy hat she’d been wearing since the moment Edith had seen her. A mass of hair, the colour of pale summer wheat, flowed down the young woman’s straight back in a shimmering flow, not stopping until the ends fell to the backs of her thighs.
“That’s an awful lot of hair,” Norris said, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. “You didn’t have anything like that kind of length when you left.”
“No, I didn’t,” Chiara said, biting her lip as she began unbuttoning her blouse. “There’s more… just try not to freak out, okay?”
“I’ve seen you naked before child,” Norris said, trying to calm her nervous daughter. “Bother me a bit, yes. Freak me out, no.”
“You’ve seen me naked, but not like this,” Chiara said, shedding her blouse and revealing her torso, and she began to toe off her boots as pale yellow hair flowed around her like a natural cloak.
“You tried getting that cut or styled at all?” Norris said, not letting Chiara hear Norris’ own nervousness at the question.
“More than a few times,” Chiara said, standing and taking off the belt holding her skirt up. “Whatever I do seems to get undone inside of a day or two. I cut it all off one day, and two days later it had all grown back. Brace yourself, this is the big one.”
“I don’t see what’s so… Oh. Oh my,” Norris breathed. Chiara had dropped her skirt to stand naked before the older woman, and nothing had seemed different, until the slim woman turned and presented her profile to Edith.
Chiara, had a tail.
Not a slim tail, like a cat. Or even a slightly bushy one, like a dog. Chiara had a full, wide, horse’s tail emerging from that little notch that everyone has at the base of their spine. It was the same colour as Chiara’s hair, and combined with that bright waterfall, it served to cover the girl’s back from the top of her head to the back of her ankles. Norris watched as the tail, now freed from the confining skirt Chiara had worn, began to move and flick around in the same unconscious manner as a horse’s.
“By all the saints,” Norris said, rising quickly to take Chiara in a comforting hug. “It was the magic, wasn’t it?”
“She said it might mark me somehow,” Chiara said, nodding. “I guess I just didn’t realize it was going to do something like this to me.”
“Not just you,” Norris said, reaching up and taking off her own hat. Rich, full, black hair rolled in a matching flow down the older woman’s back tickling Chiara’s hugging hands as it went past. “This started last month for me. I haven’t had any luck cutting it either.”
“You don’t have... “ Chiara’s tail lashed back and forth in wordless completion of the question.
“No, but I’ve been having a terrible itching there, the past week,” Norris said, running her hand through Chiara’s hair as she compared it to her own. “I’m guessing I’m going down the same road you are, just at a slower pace.”
“There’s more,” Chiara said, looking relieved that Norris was also experiencing changes. “You can’t really see it yet, but my feet are starting to change too. I think, I think they’re getting shorter, and wider. I’m starting to lose some feeling, as well.”
“Hooves, you think?” Norris asked, and Chiara nodded. “And this started happening in California to you?”
“Periander found out first,” Chiara said, sitting back down on the sideways chair, it’s orientation now clearly meant to allow her tail to fall clear. “He and the others, they started trying to form a group around me. Said I’d been blessed by Epona into her avatar. They were going to worship me. So, I got out of there as fast as I could.”
“Came straight back here did you?” Norris said, feeling relief that her own mane could flow freely now, and that her girl had avoided the temptations of the power over others she could have had.
“Pretty much,” Chiara said, before adding, “There is one more thing. Can you make it any darker in here?”
“In here, no,” Norris said, breaking the hug to look at Chiara’s feet but not seeing anything different. “I can make it almost completely dark in my bedroom though. I’ve been having trouble sleeping at night the past couple of weeks, so I’ve been catching up in the early evenings. Come on.”
Norris led the girl to the small bedroom just off the main living area, and began drawing the blinds. Chiara propped herself up on one corner of the made bed, and said nothing while the light in the room dropped to almost nothing. A moment later she felt more than saw Norris sit on the bed beside her and take her hand.
“Okay, what do you need to show me?” Norris asked, ready for anything.
“This,” Chiara said, concentrating. As Norris watched in surprise, Chiara’s hair and tail began to emit a blue glow along their lengths. A glow that slowly brightened in strength until it lit the entire room in soft light. Edith Norris strangely felt no fear as Chiara demonstrated the magic within her, feeling a warmth kindle in her breast at the young woman’s accomplishment instead. That is, until Chiara gasped in sudden surprise and the glow dimmed considerably.
“What? Norris asked, looking around. “What’s wrong?”
“Your hair,” Chiara said, recovering from her surprise to smile at her adoptive mother. “It’s doing it too.”
“It is?” Norris asked, sweeping her free hand back to bring her ebon locks to the fore. Sure enough, points of light, like tiny stars, were moving back and forth in that mass of hair. Too weak to emit much light of their own, but definitely visible. Norris was about to comment on how much it looked like the night sky, when a knock sounded on the front door of the cottage.
“Mrs. Norris,” Jorge’s somewhat muffled voice came through the walls. “I have something here I think you should see.”
“Is it important?” Norris called back. “I’m a little busy.”
“I’m not sure,” Jorge said, “but it may relate to Santa Muerte.”
“Be right there,” Norris said, letting go of Chiara’s hand and getting off the bed. As she did, she noticed that the lights in her hair stopped almost immediately. Chiara seemed to dampen down whatever her own glow was, returning the bedroom to darkness. Normalcy somewhat returned, Norris opened the door to see Jorge standing there.
“Well?” Norris asked Jorge, as she looked down the small set of stairs at her stoop. Jorge was looking up at her as if he was seeing her in a new light, and Norris realized that her mass of hair was fully out in the open for the man to see.
“Um, yes,” Jorge said, stumbling before finding his mental footing again and holding out a large piece of curved metal. “Alonso was on a camping trip in the mountains and brought this back with him. He thought it might have something to do with Santa Muerte.”
Norris took the piece of black metal from Jorge. It was nearly a quarter inch thick and light for its size, shaped like a crescent moon with a length of silver chain coming off of either tip. Norris was puzzled as to why Jorge thought it might relate to Luna, until she turned the enameled piece of metal over. In the center of what was apparently the front side of the light steel, was a white crescent that was a perfect match to the one on Luna’s either hip.
“Thank you, Jorge,” Norris said, nodding to the older man. “I’ll have a look in a bit, but if you will excuse me, I have a guest.”
“A guest?” Jorge asked, before wilting underneath the “none of your business” glare that Norris fixed him with. “Yes, Doña Norris. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow,” Norris said in a cool voice, closing the door behind her. Chiara was just coming out of the bedroom and gasped in admiration at the item Norris was holding.
“What is it?” Chiara asked, no longer self-conscious about her tail as she focused on the piece of metal.
“Not exactly sure,” Norris said, placing the curved length on the small kitchen table. “But I’ve got a feeling it belongs to Luna. Now that I think of it, I’m almost certain it does.”
“When I was in California, I did some reading up about horses,” Chiara said, examining the black metal closely. “This looks like a piece of horse armor, and look, there are some scratches in the enamel. This stuff was in a fight.”
“Let me have a look at that,” Norris said, sliding the metal around to look at the series of parallel lines along the upper edge. “Hmm, when you first brought Luna here she had a set of nearly healed cuts along her body that were about the size of these lines. I remember feeling them on her shoulder and chest.”
“That’s it then,” Chiara said with certainty. “Luna was in a fight while wearing this, and it got ripped off during that.”
“Well, there is one way to find out for sure,” Norris said. “We try to put it on her. If it fits, mystery solved.”
“Let’s try,” Chiara said, heading to the door.
“Jorge might still be around,” Norris said, nodding at Chiara’s rear, where her tail lay still for the moment. “You want to risk that?”
“Ma’am,” Chiara said, giving a sad smile. “I don’t think these changes to me are going to stop. I think they aren’t going to stop until… until I’m a horse too. Or something like a horse, at least. I’m going to have to get used to stares and stuff.”
“All right,” Norris said, and the two went outside. Despite Chiara’s brave words, Norris could hear a sigh of relief come from her as it became clear that no one else was around.
“Hey Luna,” Chiara said, stepping into the small stall and letting her former mount inhale her scent. “Miss me?”
“I think she did,” Norris said, holding up the metal to Luna’s chest. “Here, grab the other side.” Chiara did as she was asked and the pair lifted the peytral to Luna’s chest, where it matched the curve of the mare exactly.
“Mystery solved, pretty much. One second now, where did that lock go?” Norris asked, before spotting and grabbing up a small padlock with an attached key. Locks like it were used all over the farm, along with small lengths of chains, as impromptu gate fasteners or other means of holding two things together. Norris ran the hasp of the lock through the links on either end of the chains and closed the lock, fastening the peytral to Luna.
Many months ago, just after she had emerged into this new world, Luna had placed a powerful enchantment on her peytral. An enchantment whose purpose was to soak up ambient magic in the environment and to store it for Luna’s use. Shortly afterward, the peytral had been lost when Luna had been attacked by a cougar.
Lost and forgotten, the peytral had sat on the mountainside where it had landed after the epic battle. It had kept to its purpose all that time though, absorbing energies and power, until it was found by a curious young boy who had come to worship the shining black mare who had helped save his life. The enchantment, feeling itself come into contact with its caster, fulfilled its task and discharged its months of stored power into Luna.
To Edith and Chiara, it felt like there was a sudden, massive inrush of wind all around them, centered on the horse between them. Norris felt something inside of her lifted up by that ethereal force and carried into the mare at her side, and a profound sense of gratitude filled her. The pair watched in amazement as a long horn spiraled out from Luna’s forehead, and a pair of great feathered wings flowed into being along her back.
“I. AM. LUNA!” the restored Princess of the Night thundered. Her utterance blasting apart the small structure around her and sending it flying into the distance.
“Madre de Dios,” a small voice said. Unseen by anyone, Alonso had followed his father up to Doña Norris’ home. When she had not come out of her house to talk to his father, he had decided to sit at the backside of the cabin and just watch Luna. Now, three pairs of glowing eyes fixed him in place as their owners turned to look at him.
“I know you, child,” Luna said, her voice rich and full as the full power of her alicorn majesty washed over the boy. “Come here, little one. I mean you no harm.”
Alonso wasn’t sure of much, but he knew that he was in the presence of three women of power, and one did not disrespect such. So, on trembling legs, he walked up to Luna, Norris, and Chiara. “Please, I didn’t mean to hide. Don’t hurt me.”
“Child, my filly and I did not save your life only to take it now,” Luna said, beginning to draw back her power. “You heard me Name myself?” Alonso could only nod.
“I am going to be returning to my home now. Your gift has made it possible, and so I give you a gift in return,” Luna said, plucking out a three foot long primary feather with a wince before passing it to the boy. “I name thee, ‘Herald of Luna’. Go and tell the others what you have seen. Tell them that they have my thanks for their kind words and care these past months, and that I will be taking my filly and her dam with me. Take this feather as a sign that you speak with my voice. Go now.”
Alonso did the only thing he could do. Clutching the large feather to himself and holding it like a banner, he ran down the road as fast as his small legs could carry him. He had a job to do, and he wouldn’t stop until it was done.
“You’re taking us with you?” Norris asked, as the exhilaration she had been feeling begin to fade away. “What if we don’t want to go to the Lands of Faerie?”
“For the last time, I am not of the Fae, Edith Norris,” Luna said, rolling her eyes even as she gauged the amount of power she had now. “But I do apologize if I’m being presumptuous. I can see the changes my power is having and will continue to have on you. I thought you would prefer to come with me while they run their course.”
“So, you can’t undo this?” Chiara asked, from the other side. “I mean, I like being marked by your power, my Goddess, but…”
“I’m sorry, but as much as I might wish to I cannot undo the effects the blending has had on us,” Luna said. “In fact, now that I am restored they will only accelerate. You have already gained your mark.”
“Mark?” Norris asked, feeling a sudden pressure on the base of her spine. Without having to look, she knew she had just gotten the beginnings of her own tail.
“Yes, the indicator of your pony talent,” Luna said, pointing to Chiara’s hip, where the image of a crescent moon inside of a five pointed star had appeared. “Please, come home with me. There you will able to come to understand your new forms in peace, and you shall be my friends and companions for as long as you live.”
“I’ll go,” Chiara said, smiling. “If I’m going to be a horse, where better than at your side.”
“I’ll go too,” Norris said, and the other two looked at her a bit in surprise. “Don’t look like that. I’m going the same way as Chiara, just slower. And, to be honest, I’ve just been marking time since my Jon died. Chiara gave purpose to my life again and I’d like to see things through with her. Besides, my lawyer has paperwork in case I just up and leave, so everyone and everything here will be okay.”
“Very well,” Luna said, nuzzling both of her friends in turn. “Climb onto my back and I will fly us to where the portal brought me to this world. It is the quickest way, and we have little time before the farm workers come here anyway.”
Thirty minutes later, the three were standing in front of the rock face that Luna had come out of all that time ago. As she began to open the portal back to Equestria, Luna heard Norris whisper into her ear, “By the way, I had the vet check you out a couple of weeks ago. There’s something you should know.”
“No need, Edith,” Luna said, just as quietly, while she watched Chiara trace the glowing lines of magic that were appearing on the rock. “I know I am with foal. Motherhood will be a new journey for me, even as this one draws to a close.”
“Are we ready to go?” Chiara asked as the lines met and the entire side of the cliff began to glow.
“Let me do one thing first,” Luna said, sending a message into the void ahead of them.
Tia! and a mind in a distant corner of the universe exalted in sudden, ecstatic joy. I am coming home, and I’m bringing friends with me.
“There,” Luna said, smiling. “Grab hold of my mane, and let’s go home.” The three walked forward and a moment later, all was quiet and dark again on the mountainside. A journey complete, many more just beginning.