Angel Wings 

 

This is the story I'm writing for Emma's (athenspride.pbwiki.com) story contest

 

Chapter 1 – Kylleigh -

I stroke the bay’s neck as she tosses her head nervously.

 

“Easy Cece. Almost time girl. Just let me get the saddle on you…” the blood colored Trakehner just snorted with a nodding gesture that clearly said,

 

‘Yeah, right. Then what?’  I shook my head and sighed, burying my face in her neck. That same neck bent around behind my back, touching my right shoulder. Our speak for let’s go. Pulling the last braid on her mane tight, I throw on the saddle pad, the dressage saddle, and finally the bridle. My mom gives me a leg up and I land neatly in the saddle as she hands me my hat.

 

Smoothing down the frizzes of my wild hair that have managed to escape my blonde bun, I settle the top hat firmly on my head and lean down to pat Cece on her shining red withers, flipping the coattails of my black jacket over my thigh as I do. All the noise around us seems to cease, and the words formed in my mind, and I’m positive hers too, 

“Let’s roll girl.”

*

Chapter 2 - Cece -

I hate noise. Don’t ask me why, I just do. It’s who I am. ‘Who am I?’ you ask? My name is Cece. I am of German lineage,  and was bought for $10,000, thank you very much. My hooves flash as the sun hits their polished surface while I dance under the tightening girth. My 18 year old girl Ky leaps lightly up onto my back then pats my neck. I nicker,

 

“Let’s roll girl,” but the friendly sound is lost in the rattle of the six-horse trailer that just parked next to me. Ky had to hold on while I jumped slightly. I hate surprises almost as much as I hate noise. But then we go into the warm-up ring.

 

‘Oh, now this is familiar.’ I think to myself. ‘All these half grown colts have to stare.’ My beautiful physique is my pride and joy, right after Ky, of course. But then we start our program. Smooth transition from walk to posting trot, direction and diagonal change on a circle turnabout, then transition to a light right lead canter, doing a flying lead change to make my last round. I slow gently to a walk, just as our number is called.

It’s time.

*

Chapter 3 - Kylleigh -

“Next in ring one we have number 529, Kylleigh Keaton, on her horse, ‘Crime Scene Investigator’.” The announcer’s voice calls out over the ring. I take a deep breath in through my nose, and let it out slowly through my mouth, closing my eyes as I do. I picture the pasture we practice in at home, my 21 year old boyfriend Jess watching from the fence. I open my eyes with just enough time to him in the bleachers, a smile on his TOTALLY hot Cuban face. It’s then I remember I have to tell him something, just before the judge’s whistle blows.

 

Cece and I enter at a working trot, stopping square at X for my salute. Then, after dropping my right arm down with palm flat and inclining my head to the dark booth with the three fates inside just waiting to cut our thread of life, we begin.

*

Chapter 4 - Cece - 

We start the working trot again, going straight to the fence before tracking left. We make one entire circuit before Ky has me turn in on the upper left corner, taking us across the ring at a diagonal. She switches her posting nearly imperceptively, turning me in the opposite direction, taking the right track. We go around once until we get back to the middle of the right side.

 

Once there, we turn in to the left making a twenty meter circle around X. As soon as we complete the turn, Ky kicks me up into a right lead canter and we make one complete circuit, after which we do a flying lead change across the dressage arena.

 

After that, we do a bunch of other stuff, mainly lead changes and transitions, until it’s almost over. Then my favorite part arrives. Kylleigh aims my collected head at X from the entrance, and I move to the middle for the last time. As she stops and signals me, I begin this weird move that is a sideways trot, kind of like the grapevine. We do that first to the right, then back to the left, and finally back to X by heading right.

 

I stop, shaking. It’s hard, but I love it. Ky salutes the judges once more, then we walk forward and track left out of the arena. Ky pats me on the neck as we head back to the trailer and she lightly dismounts. The dressage saddle is pulled from my back, and the cross-country saddle pad and jumping saddle go on. 

Time for the next event.

*

Chapter 5 - Kylleigh - 

As my mother changes Cece’s saddle and pad, I step into the trailer’s tackroom to put up my dressage saddle and change into Fawnwell Farms’ (my family’s breeding farm) polo shirt and my red with black trim cross-country vest. I take off my top hat, jacket and shirt, and stand there in the dark in just my thin white sports bra and johds, panting and cooling off. It was only nine in the morning and it was already near ninety degrees at the Coco Riding Club in Miami, Florida.

 

All of a sudden, I feel warm arms wrap around my shoulders and a pair of hands clasp just underneath my breasts. “Hey, baby.” Jess says, whispering in my ear. “You did great out there.” All thoughts of telling him my news are driven from my mind as I smile and grin, grabbing his hands with mine and turning my head over my right shoulder, kissing him. I turn around and put my hands behind his head as his slip down to my waist. We keep kissing and probably would have gone further except for the fact that my mother chose that moment to knock on the door and yell,

 

“Get your lazy-ass out here Kylleigh! You and Cece are up in 10 minutes, and your brother is starting his dressage on Faversham!” Guiltily, Jess and I pull away ever so slightly, but leave our foreheads touching.

 

“I should probably get dressed.” I murmur. Jess nods and kisses me once more before helping me pull the polo over my head and zips up my vest for me. I run my hand down his cheek, smile at him, then run out the door and grab my helmet before swinging up onto Cece.

 

Just as they call my number on deck, I blow a kiss to Jess and mouth later. He grins, then slaps Cece’s butt to move her on out. I laugh and aim for the first warm-up fence. 

This is going to be a breeze.

*

Chapter 6 - Cece - 

Ky jumps into my shorter saddle and there is a sudden swat on my hindquarters. I start and take off running but listen to Kylleigh when she aims me at a jump. I collect my rump under me and clear the 3’6” jump with half a foot to spare. Landing on the far side, I give a buck to release my emotion. But that is where things go horribly wrong.

 

My front leg landed in a slippery patch of grass and mud. It slipped forward and I landed HARD on my right hind. I heard a loud ‘CRACK’ and feel so much pain I scream that unearthly horse scream. But that wasn’t the worst of it. I feel Ky slip from my back and land square on the jump. There were several gasps from the crowd as she broke through all the cavetti placed between the uprights.

 

But I’m blanking out from my broken hind leg. I can sense Althea (Ky’s sister) come up to me, so I could only assume that Jess and Ky’s mom are with Kylleigh. I freak out, trying to stand and see my girl, but the restricting hand on my bridle won’t let me. I neigh and scream until the show’s vet arrives and sticks a needle full of tranquilizer into my neck.

Going black… Fading...

*

Chapter 7 – Kylleigh – 

Everything is going black… Fading… But things are jerked back to clear reality with the sharp pains in my back and Cece’s scream. I freak out, arms shaking seizure-like, because I can’t feel my legs. I don’t think, and the only sound I can make is a silent scream. Then Jess’s face swims before my misty eyes as I begin to black out again. I manage to squeak out,

 

“Is our baby ok?”

That’s the last thing I remember for six months.

*

Chapter 8 – Jess – 

‘Did she just say that?! Did Kylleigh seriously just say OUR baby?! Did she mean that or is that just the pain talking?!’ These and other thoughts run rampant through my mind. I do some quick math and realize that if she is pregnant, then according to her last period she was five weeks along.

 

I moan softly and put my head in my left hand because the right was busy holding Ky’s. I mean, we always, ALWAYS use a condom… except, well… there was that one time… I groan more audibly this time, and her mom gives me a look from across the ambulance. I don’t know if she heard Kylleigh, but I know that she knew that we were having sex, she just didn’t have any proof. Well, she would have her proof now.

 

I bend over and brush Kylleigh’s hair back from her forehead. I place a tender kiss on the pale flesh as the EMTs fiddle around with all the tubes and IVs sticking out from my girlfriend’s body. Then I reach into my pocket and finger the jewelry box that is there.

 

If all had gone well, that afternoon Ky would have had the ring inside the box on her finger and we wouldn’t have had to worry about a pregnancy. But now she was fighting for her life.

Their lives.

*

Chapter 9 – Althea – 

Week 1 – 

Dear Kylleigh; It’s your 24 year old wheelchair-bound sister. It’s been a week since you went into this coma. I feel responsible. I got you hooked on horses, then made mom let you keep riding after my accident. I was amazed when she let me keep riding after dad was killed by that stallion, and after that colt Mind Crime nearly did me in I thought you deserved the same chance.

But now you’re lying here like the dead, and even if you do wake up, you’ll probably be a wheeler like me. Jess is here everyday with his rosary, praying for you. He knows we aren’t Catholic, but he still sits and says Hail Marys for you. And little sis, you need all the help you can get!

 

Week 5 –

Ky, Mom noticed that you hadn’t had your period like the doctors said you would. She confronted Jess and he confessed, but says he was going to propose to you the day that you went into this deep, other-worldly sleep and didn’t even know you were pregnant until you told him on the way to the ambulance. He produced the ring, but Mom still completely chewed him out, then sat down and cried for an hour.

She was amazed that a baby could have survived what you two went through. The doctors came by and confirmed it, but they thought we knew and were really surprised that we didn’t. Jess  apparently asked them to check last week. Thank God they didn’t tell Mom that otherwise I swear she would have killed the poor father-to-be.

 

Week 11 – 

Little sis, your stomach is starting to swell. The doctors finally told us why your back didn’t snap in two when you went through that jump. Your cross-country vest was apparently really stiff (too stiff for competition regulations, actually!) and it protected you and the little- I must say, I am badly informed! The doctor just told us that you apparently are having twins! Mom just about fainted… She’s lying in the spare bed they put in there for one of us to spend the night with you and a nurse is fanning her face…

I don’t think you’d even recognize her. Our little brother Vin and I certainly don’t. her hair is all grey now, and the dark circles under her eyes make her look like a raccoon. She still won’t talk to Jess, I think she’s still a tad furious at him.

 

 

Week 17 –

Oh, my poor baby sister. You miscarried one of your little girls. She was so small, and she looked just like you. Blonde hair, tiny delicate features… I saw you in her in so many ways, a fighter to the end. 

Jess named her Alana Elizabeth, after both your grandmothers. Mom hasn’t been mad at him since she saw him break down crying when the doctors came out and told him what had happened, little Alana’s death and almost yours and Jennifer Mercedes (what he decided to call your other daughter. Smart move naming her after our mom AND his.) 

They hugged and cried for hours while I went home to take care of Vincent. I came back the next morning to find Jess lying next to you stroking your hair and Mom holding your hand. I wish you could see how close you’ve managed to bring them.

 

Week 21 – 

Happy Birthday Kylleigh! You are now 19 years old. Your eyes opened today, but the doctor that came in said it wasn’t anything major. But your brilliant blue eyes opening on your birthday when you’ve been in a coma for over 5 months, now that is major.

Cece’s doing ok. The vet says she’ll never show again, but, um… I don’t know how to tell you this… You know Locard’s Principle of Exchange is Jess’s stallion now, right? Well, Locard got out a few weeks ago, and Cece was in season, and well… I think you can figure the rest out from there. We think she’s about a month along, but we can only guess because that’s about when Locard got out and her season abruptly ended…

We don’t even know how she managed it! She can barely walk and support her own weight, much less that of a half ton Trakehner stallion too! We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, or if she’s even pregnant, but all the other stallions are ignoring her now, even Faversham, and you know he’s always had a crush on her…

 

*

Chapter 10 – Jess –

 

 

 

Kylleigh opened her eyes briefly on her birthday. The bright orbs of blue that I had fallen in love with finally opened for the first time in almost six months. She stared upward at nothing, but I saw it as a sign.

 

As her eyes closed again, Althea began writing furiously and recording the moment like she had for the past 21 weeks. I began rubbing her large belly and put my forehead in my right hand, resting my elbow on my knee, and I started to cry. I prayed, as I had prayed every day before, that this strong woman I loved would make it.

 

“Please God,” I prayed.

 

 Please.

 

*

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11 – Cece –

 

 

 

I looked up from my grazing. Something had kicked me in the ribs. Hard. I look around and no one is there except my bandaged leg. I realize with a jolt (or was that another kick?) what it must be. If I could have run I would have. I knew what that was. I’d heard my dam talk to me about how often I did that to her. I gave a joyful neigh. Locard’s head shot up and he neighed back. He knew what it was too. Our baby.

 

But wait… What was this? One, two, three, four… More than four hooves?! Oh, my, GOD!!! I relayed the information to Locard and he reared up and began bucking. I nickered and hobbled my way over to the fence. Not just our baby. Our babies.

 

 

 

Twins.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Chapter 12 – Kylleigh –

            The first thing I realize is that someone is rubbing my stomach. The small, circular motions were familiar. Jess had done that after-

 

Jess. My eyes popped open. I looked down and got another shock. I couldn’t really see past all the tubes coming out of my mouth, but what I could see was huge. My belly had swollen to five times its normal size. Then I saw Jess’s shoulders shaking, his head in his hand. I tried to reach out and stroke his hair, but my hand seemed to heavy to lift. All I could really do was twitch my fingers. But that was enough.