The White Horse
A short story about water spirits and nowhere land.
There’s a pub that sits in the middle of nowhere. An old pub, laden with heavy wooden beams, crumbling brick, flagstone floor in the kitchen. It sits on a river, that undulates through the bumps and hiccups of earth, in the middle of landlocked nowhere. By foot, you can walk on the roadsides around it for five, ten, twenty minutes, and only reach further into the ether of private fields that leads to no town, no shop, no school. By about thirty minutes, you’ll run out of walkable road, only farmed fields and motorways.
It was springtime; that precise moment in May where suddenly it’s summer, despite April being wet, cold and turbulent. There is no gradual transition anymore, just a sudden overnight sensation - one day you’re in a jacket and jumper and the next, sweating in a T-shirt. It was this sort of weather, the day of their first shift at the pub, clammier hands than usual gripping the steering wheel as they drove out to it’s isolated spot. There aren’t many jobs going in the middle of nowhere, and so they had to take this one the minute it was offered, living in a scattering of houses just a few hills over.
Gravel crunching, they pulled into the square car park, a willow tree drooping it’s lingering tendrils over the front of their white 1991 Vauxhall Astra. Swooping their black box-dye hair into a low bun, they lightly kicked the driver-side door shut with a black army-style boot, sighed, and headed towards the wooden bridge over the bubbling river. It’s khaki, greenish tinge looked earthy, wholesome, homely. It slid like velvet over the wet rocks, moving pebbles along the soft clay bed, the end of the day sun catching on it’s surface, glinting fragments of light piercing their peripheral vision and diverting their gaze from their destination to it’s glass-like, fluid body of water. A slight breeze swept over, rustling the foliage at the water’s edge. Nervously pulling their long-sleeve jersey further over their hands, curling them into fists and crossing their arms tighter in front of their body, a deep inhale caught the notes of wet clay-based soil, green damp moss, plump green grass. Peeling open eyes they didn’t realise they had closed, reminding their brain to put one foot in front of the other on the wooden bridge, they headed inside.
The pub, being in the middle of nowhere, had an interesting ensemble of clientele. Bustled into the cramped office, papers signed and a thick black canvas half apron tied over their loose camouflage cargos, they found themselves behind the main bar in no time, getting to know the regulars. There are quiet old men who they recognised as nearly neighbours, pickled fellows who make the pilgrimage to the pub and back on a daily basis, come rain or shine. They drink lager and gesture to each other in grumbles that are hard to decipher. There are newly rich couples, come into money perhaps through their partnership, drinking wine and eating padron peppers before driving home significantly over the limit. There are families catching up over their meal, kids drinking glittery J20 that must be stock left over from Christmas.
“Two pints of amstel, thanks mate.”
They rush from punter to punter, pulling pint after pint, hands becoming sticky from spilled heads and dripping glasses. The other staff on shift are sullen, older, helpful but not explicitly friendly. Dinner is alone, in the basement: vegan burger and chips, a keg for a table and the propped open door for a dim-lit light source. Keeping on top of it all with relative success for a first day, they finished up wiping down tables, wrapping up garnishes, labelling and dating simple syrups and hanging their apron up on the hook in the office with the others. The last of the old men teetered out of the door, swaying slightly as he wandered off to their nearby home.
The fresh near-midnight air swept around them as they stepped out into the dark deserted beer garden to leave, a sweet relief upon skin sweaty from manual work. The smell of the river felt stronger, so refreshing after hours of damp cellar and beer. Boots stepping decisively towards the bridge, towards the car, towards home, the bubbling of the water got louder and louder until they found themselves deviating from the path, steps now silent on soft, slippery grass. Stopping at the river’s edge, they pushed their boot into the silt, watching the water lap around the leather, licking it’s polished toe, flicking up at the sides, rolling along the sole. Breath catching in their throat, the water glistened in the moonlight, sweeping, teasing, beckoning. Hands began to move of their own accord; long-sleeve pulled over their head, discarded on the bank, boots unlaced and kicked off, pants and cargos slid down over soft legs, taking socks off with them. The wind nipped harder at naked exposed skin, catching at hair freshly loosed from elastic. They broke the mirrored surface with the tip of their toe, sending ripples across that shook the reflection of the moon, before squatting, sliding in all in one swift motion, enveloped in the stream, alone in the darkness.
Abandoned, perpetually, at this time of night, the pub sat in a heady, dizzying silence, one that feels like a presence - about to be broken any minute. The only sound was the trickling fresh water, running it’s cold hands softly yet feverishly over them, lapping hungrily at their still-dry neck until they succumbed to it’s desires. Closing their eyes and sinking under, pinching their nose tight, the river ran it’s fingers through their hair, across their lips, into their mouth, a taste of iron and decomposing leaves sticking to their tongue even after they resurfaced and spat the majority of it out. Pushing their hair back, slick against their skull, sweeping the water from their eyes, they blinked as the colour changed from hazel green to deep moss, mottling into darker and darker until the whole iris was as black as pitch. Wiping their hand against lips stained darker now, tinged with purple, they noticed veins across their knuckles they didn’t remember being there before. But the water continued to babble, bubbling around them and away under the bridge, and they felt the gravitational pull to follow.
Climbing out of the murky water, silt disrupted, disturbed and rendering it darker still, they crept dripping back up the slippery bank, moonlight reflecting from their watery skin, unobserved in the middle of nowhere. Black eyes no longer paid attention to the crumpled pile of clothes strewn on the water’s edge, shoes spilling undone laces into freshly trodden mud. The river made it’s way downstream, following the moon with the same unknown compulsion that they now felt, reeds matted in with their hair and plastered against their spine. Bare feet didn’t feel the sharp impressions of gravel as they crossed the car park, pale, slimy, translucent hands struggled to grip the car door as they slid inside, bare skin leaving a trail of wet over leather seats, water weeds and moss crawling over the wheel as they began to drive. Pulling away from the pub, the body they arrived in earlier that day a distant memory, they drove silently south, foot down on the pedal, urging themselves along the empty road, only breaking their black determined stare to occasionally wretch, and bring up a lapful of brownish river water, which splashed over their legs, skin faded to reveal it’s network of capillaries, like their own waterways mapped across a landscape.
They stopped the car when they reached the end of the road, the sea itself, spread out across them, taking up the entire horizon. The dark night sky was laden with a full moon, heavy in the sky above the slow moving tide. It’s reflection in the water caught their charmed eyes, compulsion opening the car door, feet morphed into hooves still covered in their shroud of once-human skin carrying them a staggering step at a time towards the sea. Magnetised by it’s rippling waves, they sunk into it’s salty depths, engulfed by it’s magnitude.
There’s a pub that sits in the middle of nowhere. An old pub, laden with heavy wooden beams, crumbling brick, flagstone floor in the kitchen. It sits on a river, that undulates through the bumps and hiccups of earth, in the middle of landlocked nowhere. By foot, you can walk on the roadsides around it for five, ten, twenty minutes, and only reach further into the ether of private fields that leads to no town, no shop, no school. By about thirty minutes, you’ll run out of walkable road, only farmed fields and motorways. By forty-five, you’ll reach the sea.