The Equestrian

By Blodeuedd

…

The sweaty phone was thrust into his hands the instant he entered; his roommate's pockmarked leer seemed to fill every corner of his vision.

"Tell her you're coming, Crane," the boy said. "Tell my mom you're coming or I'll make you wish you'd never been born."

Not unfamiliar with receiving this sort of ominous ultimatum from his male peers, Jonathan Crane, ever-obedient, raised the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Greggy? Who is this?"

He coughed, squeezing his eyes shut into nervous pinches so he wouldn't see the huge, simian hand gripping his skinny wrist. "It's Jonathan."

"Oh, Jonathan! How are you, darling?" The shrill pitch of her voice only aggravated what was already a tense situation.

"Fine," he choked out after clearing his throat. "Never been better, Mrs. Hathaway."

"So, what's this about a weekend at our house?"

Putting his palm over the mouthpiece, he lifted his head and began to ask, "What is this about a weekend at—"

"Just play along, you creep." The hand released his wrist and pushed his face back towards the phone.

"A weekend?" Jonathan corrected himself. "Of course. Yes. What about it?"

A moment's pause. One look at his oppressor's face made him remember his lines and he blurted, "Oh—I'm coming."

"Wonderful!" Mrs. Hathaway cooed. "You know I wouldn't feel right without you there to watch over Gregory and those friends of his! You'll make sure everything goes hunky-dory?"

"Hunky-dory," he repeated, as Greg gagged on stifled laughter. His skin was cold and tingling, the electric falsity racing across every inch of his body.

"You're such a nice young man. Your parents must be so proud. And what a bright future! Greggy must be learning such a lot from you."

"Yes." He was content to leave the lie at that.

"You know the rules, don't you? No different from any other house. No getting into the booze cabinet. No girls over. Everyone in bed with lights out by midnight. We're miles out from anyone, but the family to the south of us likes to complain if they see our lights on after one. You can remember all that?"

"I can."

"And of course, I'll leave you the hotel's number in the kitchen. You can reach us there in case of an emergency. Hopefully there won't be any reason for you to use it, though—I do want to get a bit of a holiday in!"

"I understand."

"I knew you would! You boys have a nice time. Give Greggy a big hug from his mother!"

"Goodbye, Mrs. Hathaway," he replied, choosing to ignore the last request.

"Goodbye, Jonathan! It's always so nice to hear from you."

She hung up; the phone went dead with a soft click.

"So? She said yes?" Greg asked, grabbing the phone away from Jonathan and wiping it off with the corner of his T-shirt before hanging it up.

"She did." Jonathan slid away, out of the other boy's reach before any further damage could be done. He made his way over to his desk by the window, setting down his book bag and gathering his scattered wits.

There was a wordless masculine grunt of delight in response. "Yeah! I'm going to tell Steve."

"Greg?"

"Yeah?" Greg was halfway out the door, his eyes already lasciviously latched onto a passing girl and her friend.

"Am I really coming?"

"Of course you are, Crane. Who else is going to be sober enough to pick up the phone when that bitch calls?"

…

"You're not a nurse here, are you? You look far too interested in what you're doing to be a nurse."

The young woman froze in the process of shutting the cell door behind her. Her face was unfamiliar, unlovely, and tinged with a cat's conditioned surprise.

"No, definitely not one of ours," he taunted as she recovered herself, shut the door, and approached him with a breakfast tray in her hands. "What do you think you're going to accomplish? We have surveillance cameras watching our every move."

Wordless, she sat before him, bringing a spoonful of oatmeal to bear. He caught a whiff of the tasteless sludge and shook his head, wishing he'd had more time to consider those petitions for the improvement of Arkham's laughable culinary efforts while he'd had the power to do so. No amount of time in this straitjacket would see him swallowing a single mouthful of that sewage.

"I'm not hungry. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

She set the spoon down on the tray and glanced up at the camera behind his head, gauging its angle with a trained eye. Without a sound, she slid a small slip of paper from her sleeve and out onto the tray for him to read. He had to lean forward, straining to see the miniscule handwriting without his glasses.

"How melodramatic," he remarked after finishing, "I see. You're one of the League, then? This is from him?"

Two mute, nearly imperceptible nods.

"You can tell him I'm not interested anymore." His tone was light, carefully constructed to hide the aching sincerity behind the words. This game was becoming far too complicated for him. If memory served, the simple-sounding master plan hadn't included any mention of his getting trounced and drugged by a giant bat. Or his being locked up in his own facility for the criminally insane, for that matter.

The dark eyes blazed with a sudden, unconcealed anger. He could see her grip on the tray tighten.

"I'm in too deep," he interpreted with a lift of his eyebrows. "I suppose you're right. Maybe I'll find my motivation later on." Or maybe the toxin will find it for me. The inside of him trembled with a trepidation he refused to let show.

She nodded again, offering no words of comfort, and stood to leave.

"If everything goes right, I suppose I'll be seeing you later tonight. Show some decorum and put that uniform in the laundry hamper on your way out, will you?"

The shutting door was his only reply, bringing with it a return to the abstracted, drug-numbed disquiet he'd been trapped in for the past six hours.

…

The Hathaway house was easily the biggest building intended for the use of a single family that he'd ever seen. Two stories of ivy-covered brick, spread out across infinite acres of green that would baffle the eyes of any city boy.

The cramped suburban boxes of his youth seemed like clods of dirt compared to this. The raw, dull red memories of the lonely days he'd divided between his squalid schools and his falling-apart house paled in comparison to the sweet reminiscences that this house appeared to promise.

The anxiety of the drive fell away. He forgot the pungent smells of alcohol and marijuana that had begun permeating his clothing and hair the instant he had buckled his seatbelt. He forgot that he was currently sandwiched between two of the most vociferous and most irritating girls he had ever met, in the backseat of a car that was threatening to fall apart at the slightest shift of weight.

As he stared at this massive home, he decided that things were beginning to look up, if only a little.

"Oh my god, Greg, watch out!" One of the girls screamed, frantically champing her gum.

He shook himself and turned away from the sweeping view just in time to watch their teenaged driver plow over a carefully manicured row of rose bushes and accelerate up the front lawn. The two boys in the front seat whooped with laughter, clutching their cans of beer as they came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the verdant lawn.

"Everybody out!" Greg bellowed, causing a general scramble for the car's four exits. Jonathan chose to remain behind, still firmly strapped into the car's middle seat, the belt cinched tight to accommodate his scrawny waist.

"What am I doing here?" He asked himself aloud as he watched the other four race across the lawn to the front door, their youthful strides made ungainly by their heavy suitcases.

He'd come to college to reinvent himself and begin all over again, free of his past. And now he'd only ended up back where he'd started from, cowed into obedience by Greg's terribly persuasive fists, performing the same shameful, submissive motions.

And this? Playing au pair to a horde of dissolute co-eds? This was going too far.

But he really had no choice, now. He was in the middle of a sprawling estate with urban civilization far behind him. No choice but to try to finish the next two days in one piece.

Fighting back the familiar hypochondriac's cough he seemed to have developed over his first semester of college, he unbuckled his seatbelt and slid across the worn leather seat to a still-open door. His single suitcase was waiting in the bottom of the trunk, exactly where he had set it in the morning.

Heavy lifting was not particularly his forte, but he took a deep breath and heaved the thing out of the open trunk, taking a moment to count the spines of the textbooks through the case's thick fabric. Three. It was the least he could do to protect them over the weekend.

Mustering his strength, he hefted the suitcase with both hands and managed to make his way up the lawn, hoping all the way that the next forty-eight hours would feel as short as they sounded.

Greg waved him over the minute he had entered the massive, gilded foyer. "Hey, skinny. Your bedroom's this way, man." He pointed to a narrow hallway on the right that was almost hidden by a gigantic staircase. One of the two nameless female guests watched Greg's directions from her perch on one of the hulking marble stairs.

"Isn't that the—" she began curiously, removing her cigarette from her mouth and repositioning her gazelle-like legs to better observe the goings-on.

"Shut up, Callie." Greg smirked, clapping Jonathan on the back. "Come on. You have your pick, man."

It was no stretch for him to realize it was all some massive setup, but he chose to ignore the two's suppressed laughter and headed down the hall, dragging his suitcase behind him.

Behind the first door on his left, he found a cramped bedroom, clearly intended for a housekeeper. A sagging mattress, itself supported by an iron frame dotted with flakes of white paint, strained to hold up the weight of a coarse-looking quilt in the corner. Dust swirled in the dull shaft of sunlight coming from the grimy window. Dust was everywhere, come to think of it.

Preferring not to give Greg any further pleasure, he set up his suitcase in the corner and sat placidly on the sagging bed. They thought that a bedroom of this size and upkeep would be an insult? They must have never seen his family's house.

…

He was dragged into blinding fluorescent light, a strange departure from the freezing December air outside, into a room as vacant as the mind of an imbecile.

"Sit him down over here."

He was seated in a chair, his cuffed hands crushed painfully behind him. His face still ached from Dawes' well-aimed shot, received well over a week ago, but he masked his discomfort behind a mien of complete calm. He'd suffered worse, after all.

"Welcome back, Mr. Crane."

He looked up blankly at his doctor—or rather, the man who claimed to have enough qualifications to be his doctor.

The man at the receiving end of the stare chose to ignore the silence, turning to the officers instead. "Where'd you find him?" The man took a seat at the table..

"Somebody tipped us off, part of a plea bargain. He'd taken the horse as far as the northern end of the Narrows, near the docks. Was living in a warehouse."

"The horse was all right, then?"

This was really too much. He couldn't help it. He laughed then, laughed from a place he hadn't realized he still had.

"What's so funny, Crane?"

He recovered from his bout of laughter within seconds, staring balefully up into the faces that were illuminated by the room's garish lighting.

"You think I'd stoop that low? I'd never harm a horse. Never."

…

By the time he had finished laying out his things and completed his calculus homework, he could hear the other kids establishing themselves in their respective rooms overhead, crashing about and laughing as if happiness were some infectious, uncontrollable disease. With a quiet sigh of disdain, he set his work aside and stood. A part of him wanted to go upstairs and—and—somehow make it stop; he didn't know which means he would use, but he would. But common sense overrode this sudden surge of anger and he instead slipped out the back door at the end of his hallway, putting on his worn coat as he did so.

He was standing on the stairs leading down to the mansion's side lawn. It spread out before him like an unwrinkled blanket, enclosed by tall, spindly trees and roofed by the endless gray sky. Puffing out clouds of condensation like an idling half-human machine, he surveyed the land before beginning his walk down the wide steps, moving briskly in the cooling afternoon air.

The hoots of laughter still rang out like gunshots across the landscape, but they sounded farther away. He felt safer, now, as he always did when he was alone. Alone meant safe. Alone meant free.

When he came to the end of the winding walk, he was at the brink of the lawn. Through the slender, spinelike trees he could see another spreading meadow, leading up to another enormous house in the distance. Willow-limbed horses grazed on the ridge, moving from patch to green patch, tossing their heads and whickering contentedly to the dim sun.

The last equine encounter of Jonathan Crane had been as a child, at an ill-fated trip to the carnival. But these were not like the dull-eyed, slobber-snouted ponies he'd seen there. These were elegant, vividly alive creatures that made his insides ache with longing and curiosity. Typically apathetic towards what few animals he'd seen in his lifetime, he now peered inquiringly at these airy things.

"Hoy! You! What are you doing there?" The question made him start, heart racing as he searched for the source of the voice. His eyes fell on a stout old man, whose olive-green jacket made him almost disappear into the grass among the horses. He strode over to where Jonathan stood, frozen, and regarded him with squinted yellow eyes.

"Are you one of the Hathaways?"

Picking the words out of the man's thick brogue and still brimming with a quiet murderous rage to have been thus discovered, Jonathan finally replied, "No. Just a guest."

"Oh, a guest, then. What're you doing all the way out here, Mr. Guest?"

"Taking a walk. I'll be going now," he declared crisply.

"You don't have to," the man insisted with a wave of his hand. "Saw you looking at the horses. You never seen a horse before, Mr. Guest?"

"Don't see them very often."

"Well, come on." Not waiting for him to follow, the old man began walking up the hill, taking steps that were surprisingly light and easy for so old a person. "I'm Mr. Hogan, by the way, sir, groundskeeper for the Mills family," he called over his shoulder.

Cursing his own stupidity, Jonathan followed at a slower pace, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he walked.

Mr. Hogan stopped a few feet away from the nearest horse, his hands balanced proudly on his hips as he watched the animal crunch mouthfuls of grass between its powerful teeth.

"This is Estelle. She's got some class of fancy championship name or other that the family likes to call her, but mostly she's Estelle."

"Thank you," Jonathan said, for lack of anything more apt to say. He glanced back at the Hathaways' house behind him, swallowing another uneasy cough.

"Go on, you can touch her. She's a good girl, especially with the little ones. She won't give you any trouble, thumpin' tall boy that you are"

Mr. Hogan nudged him towards the oblivious horse. Flinching at the other man's casual physicality, Jonathan took a few reluctant steps forward. After a moment's hesitation, he obligingly lifted a hand and laid it on the horse's smooth back, feeling the warmth of sun and blood in the sleek pelt. It fascinated him, but he refused to begrudge himself so idiot a feeling as awe. He removed his hand soon after, resumed his folded-arms stance.

"It's nice," he admitted.

"You can get up on her back, if you'd like. I'll make sure nothing goes amiss."

This amiable old fool really didn't get it, did he? Jonathan shook his head. "No. I should best be going," he repeated helplessly.

"Ah, stay. It's a waste of a good horseman for a boy your size to never learn. Come on."

"All right." He assessed the bleak situation. Following closer scrutiny, the horse now seemed far higher off the ground than it appeared to be. His legs, too, felt longer and more disconnected. It was impossible.

"Here you go." Mr. Hogan approached the horse and locked his hands together to form a tiny step. "Go and put your foot on that."

Hoping he wouldn't end up breaking the septuagenarian's back in the process, Jonathan removed his glasses and put them in his breast pocket, then came close enough to begrudgingly rest a foot in the man's palms.

"Wrong foot there, boy. Don't want to end up backwards." Mr. Hogan laughed wheezily as Jonathan felt himself flush with discomfort. "Try the other one."

Jonathan did so and felt himself being hoisted up with surprising strength.

"Go on! Put your leg over; I can't hold you here forever!"

He swung his other leg over, heart in his throat before he came to rest astride the horse's wide, glossy back.

"There you go," Mr. Hogan said with a broad smile, stepping back. "You sit her like a natural. Now go on, have Estelle take a few steps for you."

Still recovering from the distance now lying between his head and the ground, Jonathan could only stare blankly at the grinning man.

"Have at it, boy. With horses, there's nothing to fear but fear itself. They can sense that. They won't do a thing till you forget your fear."

When it became apparent that the younger man wouldn't be putting the horse in motion any time soon, Mr. Hogan took the initiative and struck the horse's flank.

"Go on, Estelle!"

The animal lurched forward at a surprising speed and Jonathan clutched, blinded, for something to hang on to, until he found a tuft of mane near the base of its neck. The horizon jumped about like a mad thing with every uneven stride; he was bouncing about, gracelessly, painfully, like his scarecrow namesake.

"Either slow her down or speed her up, boy!" Mr. Hogan called out, "There's no turning back now! Don't move your ankles around so much or—"

It was too late. Estelle's gait quickened, became a rolling canter. The landscape was flying by at a breakneck speed, clouds and grass and dandelions becoming one frantic single-minded blur.

He realized the rising feeling in his throat wasn't a cough but a sheer rush of adrenaline, a free and mad happiness he had never felt before. It was an emotion that ripped the scratchiness from his throat and blotted out the sun.

…

He'd never had the time or the appropriate facilities to test the toxin's effects on animals, but it was clear from the horse's dancing panic that the fear gripping the Narrows was not lost on her. Shouldering his way through the flood of inmates, gripping his mask in place with one hand, he made his way to the horse's side, extending his free hand to stroke her trembling side. She sidestepped him at first, heavily dragging the body of an apparently dead officer with her across the fog-carpeted sidewalk. He approached slowly, letting her grow accustomed to his presence.

"Nothing to fear," he said into the animal's cocked ear, echoing the words he'd learned over eleven years ago, hoping he could be heard over this chaos. "Nothing to fear but fear itself."

The horse quieted, and he turned to go.

"Doc! Hey, Doc!" A fist flew out of the swirling fog, connecting with his burlap-swathed jaw.

Jonathan staggered back against the horse's flank, stunned. An inmate he recognized as a former patien—double homicide, was it?— lurched out of the haze, his eyes gleaming in the dull light. Behind him, a crowd of other men stood, faces twisted with fear and bloodlust.

"See you in hell, Doc Crane, you son of a bitch," the burly man who'd struck him crowed, preparing to come at him again as the other inmates watched, waiting their turn.

Never one for fisticuffs, he felt his old schoolboy cowardice return with a vengeance. Jonathan heaved himself up onto the horse, spurring the frightened animal into a gallop with a kick of his ankles. It complied, hooves pounding across the concrete, mowing down the unfortunate in its path.

His face hidden from the world, he allowed himself a small smile. The world was laid open to him once more, as it had been so long ago. And now, he had the upper hand.

…

He'd returned to the Hathaway house at nightfall, mind still racing across horizon after horizon. Finally realizing how hungry he was after his hours outdoors, he tried to creep across to the kitchen unseen, but a scattered, inane shower of giggles from overhead broke the silence.

He looked up to see a row of four smiling faces peering down at him over the banister.

"Hey," came a slurred greeting from one. Jonathan searched for the source of the voice and instead received a dousing of alcohol to the face. While his glasses received the brunt of the blow, his eyes began to sting immediately. He raced the rest of the way to the kitchen, staggering over to the sink. Once there, he ripped off his glasses, turned on the faucet, and flushed his stinging eyes again and again for what felt like hours, until tears mixed with the alcohol and he collapsed in a heap on the granite floor. Gone was the elation; he was back where he'd begun—amusement for these hormone-addled cretins. Perhaps that was his place. He was surprised that, in nineteen years of the same, he hadn't seen it sooner.

The impotent rage he'd forgotten while out in the fields returned, hotter than ever. For the first time in years, he felt that old, boundless fury he'd felt so often as a child, the one that sent thrills of excitement through him like lightning. He was going to kill them—rip the skin off their faces—make them beg for mercy and apologize for every sneering insult—his eyes fell on the set of kitchen knives by the sink—

"Jonathan? Are you down here?" The voice was a girl's; his head shot up from his knees and he fumbled anxiously for his fallen glasses.

"What is it?" He asked the darkness, the murderous intentions scattering like birds to the skies. His glasses didn't make things much clearer, but he guessed she was the Callie who had been silenced by Greg only that morning.

"You okay?" She asked. The words implied concern, but her tone was so vacuous that she might have been inquiring about the weather.

"I think so," he replied.

She sat beside him on the floor, extending long, bare legs out on the tiles in front of her. His insides gave a funny lurch; no one sat that close to him. Especially girls.

"Here," she said, still sounding as blunt and abrupt as if English were a second language as she leaned in and, without warning, kissed him.

His head jerked back in shock, hitting the hardwood cabinet before the paralysis set in, pinning him to the spot. She laughed, almost tumbling across him as she leaned in further, but didn't pull away; her wet mouth and tongue tasted like whiskey and smoke and strange new repulsive things. He found his anger mixing with unfamiliar sensations, a strange side of him that didn't want to move or go—a part of him that was a mess of teeth and lips and panic. His mind raced, strangely alive and well, but speaking without words or cohesion.

Just as he was beginning to understand what was going on, she began to laugh again, this time harder, until she yanked her lips away, lithe tan body shaking with silent mirth.

"Oh God! What a pervert," she squealed, sounding disgusted and delighted all at once, scrambling to her feet and struggling across the kitchen toward the stairs. "I did it! Guys! I did it!"

A triumphant chorus of yells and whistles echoed in the dark house as she trudged heavily up the stairs, wiping her mouth with a furious hand and laughing at their adulation.

He remained transfixed, staring like a moron into the shadows, but only for a moment. Heart thudding like a drum in his ribs, he stood shakily to his feet.

…

"Thank you, officers," the psychiatrist seated opposite him said to the men who had brought him in. "You can leave now. It's getting late. I'll just speak to our man here for a while more and then I'll have him transported back to the Asylum."

"Sure thing. Have a good night."

The two policemen left, the door's shutting almost deafening in the hollow air.

"So, Mr. Crane—"

"It's Doctor," he corrected, milder now. .

"Dr. Crane. Let's talk."

"Oh, let's."

"Evidence has emerged linking you with the release of the fear gas in the area surrounding Arkham a few weeks ago." The younger man leaned slightly across the tabletop, eyes earnest. "What do you have to say about that?"

"Don't infantilize me, Connolly," he snapped, loading the surname with all the contempt he could muster, "I have nothing to say about it. I have taken leave of my cognitive capacities— remember? I was given an inordinate amount of that toxin the day before all of this happened. Seeing as neither you nor your brilliant coworkers thought to give me the antidote while I still had a chance of regaining lucidity, I'll probably stay this way. Just take me back to the institution and let me stay there for a time, until I figure out a way to escape again."

Connolly's face darkened; his eyes bore fruitlessly into his patient's blank expression. "What the hell makes you think that—"

"How unprofessional, Doctor. Had I known about your issues with anger management, I don't think I would have hired—"

"I've had enough of this," the other man interrupted, going to the door and opening it. His eyes were still fixed on Jonathan as he called out, "Williams, Driscoll—he's ready for you."

Two Asylum workers entered, one of them with a straitjacket in hand, the other with a syringe.

"We'll need to look at that face injury when he's back in his cell, but give him a night to get some sleep," Connolly ordered, standing up and wiping his bare hands on his coat.

Jonathan offered up himself without a struggle; it was getting late and he supposed, given the circumstances, sleeping in a cell was better than sleeping on the streets. For the time being, anyway.

The needle went in and the straitjacket was on; he could feel his consciousness slowly leaving him as he was carried out to the waiting van.

"Horseback-riding?" He could hear Connolly saying to a guard. "Where the hell did he learn to ride a horse?"

"Oh, Doctor," he murmured with a thickening tongue, pleased to see them all startled by his sudden remark. "It's such a long story. I doubt you would understand."

…

The phone rang three times before it was answered.

"Hello? This is Marion."

"Mrs. Hathaway?"

"Jonathan! Great to hear from you! How's everything going?"

"Fantastically well, Mrs. Hathaway."

"That's so good to know. I knew I could rely on you, Jonathan."

"Of course." He smiled, unseen, into the darkness. The ecstasy was racing in him again. Something far greater, far more sublime, than a horse was carrying him along this time.

"Wait—isn't it terribly late there? This jet lag is killing me, but Mr. Hathaway changed all our clocks. What time is it?"

"Oh, just past midnight, Mrs. Hathaway. The lights are all out, as per your request."

"Excellent. Oh, thank you! You're such a good young man."

He twisted the reins of the conversation, turning it down a new, more interesting path. "I do, however, have some bad news to report."

"—Oh? What happened?" A note of concern entered her voice.

"I'm afraid there's been a bit of rule-breaking going on."

"'Rule-breaking?' What have they been up to?"

"Well, Gregory decided to invite a few girls along for the weekend. As far as I could tell, there was also some indication of alcohol and drug use. I'm sorry to be the bearer of ill tidings, Mrs. Hathaway." He fingered the handle of his suitcase, glanced at the open front door and the waiting taxi on the driveway.

"What? Oh, no. Oh, they didn't."

"I'm afraid they did."

"That is unacceptable—is Gregory there? I want to speak to him. He is going back to the college right now—put him on the phone!"

"That won't be necessary—he's heading back to the city as we speak."

"He is? What's going on?"

"There's been an accident, Mrs. Hathaway."

"Oh, my God. What—are you serious?"

"I'm sorry to say so. Things became disorderly soon after our arrival. Somehow, Gregory sustained a serious blow to the head from a bottle of some sort. He had to be rushed to the hospital. His friends didn't fare much better—all three of them were seriously injured trying to come down the main staircase. Luckily, they escaped with their lives. It was terrible. I apologize, Mrs. Hathaway; I've let you down."

Silence; then a wordless sob. He would have loved to continue, but he had completed the course. Enough was enough.

There was no use—the inappropriate mirth threatened to send his laughter skittering across the phone—no use in whipping a dead horse.

"I hope your vacation is a restful one. I'll be returning to the city myself after I finish this phone call. Have a good night, Mrs. Hathaway."

The End