Chapter one, untitled as yet.....

This is the beginning to a story that's been rattling around in my head for a long time. I'd appreciate comments - if you read this as an opening chapter, would you want to read more? Does anything about it put you off in any way (assuming you like this genre?) THANKS!


Snowflakes swirled in through the clinic door as Annie escorted Mrs. Jackson and her overweight Chihuahua out into the January night, the little dog in her pink carrying bag growling accompaniment to her owner’s litany of health problems with every step to the waiting vehicle. Shivering, she slipped back into the warm foyer, glad that appointments were over for the day and she could head home to a fire in the woodstove and dogs waiting to snuggle on the beat-up couch in the living room. Anticipating nothing more than an evening spent drifting in and out of dozy consciousness as the television droned, she set the locks and turned back to the waiting room.

A tiny movement on a corner bench caught her eye, and suddenly she realized with mild surprise that she had one more patient after all. A man of indeterminate age sat quietly with a battered cardboard carrier at his feet. Annie knew he was a stranger, but when he raised his eyes to meet hers, she felt a faint shock of unexplainable recognition.

“You Dr. Winter?” he asked in a deep, not unpleasant voice. When Annie nodded he continued, “sorry to bother you so late, but could you just take a look at this?” He gestured toward the box. “Shouldn’t take too long but it’s more than I can handle.”

Annie had encountered this before – clients who tried to deal with their pets’ injuries and illnesses by themselves, only to worsen an already bad situation: dirty bandages stuck over wounds that needed vigorous cleanup and suturing, human medications given to animals whose livers weren’t meant to metabolize them , oils and ointments applied where they did more harm than good. She sighed, knowing that in most cases these cleanups required more time and effort to treat than the original wounds would have done. The dogs at home would have to wait a little longer for their fire and couch time.

“No problem, let’s go on into room one, “ Annie gestured at a door across the waiting room. As the man gently scooped up the box, a faint snuffling noise escaped from within, and he bent over the top, making the wordless, crooning noises with which one would soothe a restless foal. He carried the box ahead of her into the exam room, stepping carefully as if not to jar his burden.

With a habit born of 10 years of practice, Annie sized him up as she followed him. He was dressed mostly in shades of brown – a shapeless felt slouch hat that reminded her of one worn by Ian Anderson on an old Jethro Tull album cover, Heavy Horses, she thought; a coat that in better days might have been a fine tweed woolen hacking jacket; worn brown corduroy pants and scuffed leather farm wellingtons. Even his hair and beard were brown, though liberally sprinkled with grey. He might have been any resident in the township, but she was still pretty sure she had never seen him before. When he turned to look at her through slightly askew, thick wire rim glasses, his hazel eyes appeared worried, but gentle and benign.

He set the sagging carrier gently on the examination table and opened the top.

“OK, “ Annie said, “Let’s see what you’ve got in here.” She leaned over to peer into the box and felt her jaw drop.

Inside, wrapped comfortably in the folds of a portion of blue woolen blanket, was a fox-sized, perfect horse. When it shifted and blinked in response to the exam light’s beams, she saw with an increasing sense of wonder that a pair of wings were folded along its body.

She stepped back, took a deep breath, and looked up to meet the eyes of the owner, who was surveying her with a slightly amused expression . She struggled to find the shreds of her bedside – or as she liked to call it, cageside manner.

“Well, Mr. --------------“ she began questioningly but he remained silent, “---sir,” she went on, “what exactly seems to be the problem?” Her mind was already racing beyond the sense of unreality, switching into a mode of professional assessment. The what do I call this thing? She wondered, was quiet but alert, showing no major signs of stress or pain. It gazed up with liquid dark eyes at the humans as the man reverently reached into the box, stroked its satiny white coat, and gently shifted its weight from one side to the other, revealing now what Annie had not been able to see before: a ragged, bloody tear marred the perfection of the gleaming hide.

Still.....Annie’s mind pushed beyond the sense of unreality that insisted on screaming at herpushing on on to do what she always did when confronted with new situations: to hurriedly extrapolate data from similar cases with which she had already dealt. Always, always, the first step was to be certain the patient was stable, perform as complete a physical assessment as possible, and formulate a plan to deal with the problem at hand. The other stuff, she told herself, you can figure out later. Like, are you awake or dreaming?

Tentatively she reached into the box. “May I?”

The patient struggled to its feet , shook itself deliberately and stood steadily on the blue wool. She saw that, unlike the miniature horses of her previous experience, it was perfectly, gracefully proportioned. This was no form of dwarfism. The tiny equine was perfect.