So I've been kind of a lump lately, but this came to mind somehow and I thought this would be the perfect place to share it. Hope you all enjoy :3

The Old Ways
By Zatarra L. Vulpe

The trailer wasn’t particularly large. There was an off brown carpeted floor, kept clean if a little ratty. The counters were plain white with fake wood inserts, a fridge jammed next to a stove and a sink. The dining room spanned the length of the mahogany table, half in tile and half out, a last century piece scuffed at the edges and the legs. To its right was a sliding glass door covered in curtains, to its left was the path to the front door, lined by a couch.

When Anne found Grace, she had a neat loaf of turf on a paper plate. She was carefully picking them out with a knife and a fork, spreading none of the dirt, keeping perfectly clean as she munched on them. When Grace noticed her mother, she swallowed.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I wanted grass.”

Anne stared, looking around the room, wandering to the curtain and opening the door. She didn’t find anything missing out in the yard, just a neat little path from the back door to the woods.

“Where is that from?”

“Jake Mason said I could.”

“Jake Mason?”

“He’s got a barn, he’s a little way’s walk that way.”

“You walked to a farm and came back with that crap in your hands?”

“It’s not crap, it’s grass, it’s good.”

Anne grabbed the plate and tossed it in the trash.

“Hey! I was eating that!”

“No, no you’re not, it’s wrong. It’s not people food.”

“Why not? I just want to try it, what’s wrong with just trying it?”

“It’s not right, you can’t, you know you’re not supposed to. It’s the kind of stuff animals eat. We have burgers and fries and mac ‘n cheese and everything else you could ever want.”

“But I just wanna have some, just a little!”

“And I said you couldn’t, so that’s that!”

Anne was ready for more yelling, but Grace shivered, her mouth shut. She pushed back from the table and stood, focusing her eyes straight in front of her as she passed her mother to the hallway behind her.

“Where are you going young lady?!”

“To my room.”

Anne watched her daughter walk off. The door didn’t slam. She was just breathing, feeling the heat falling away from her cheeks, uncorking her throat and letting it fall back into the rest of her. She stared into the trash can just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. She’d never done this before. Was it some kind of phase? Was there something she’d done wrong? She felt the noose tug as she considered the acrid smell of lawn. Anne’s hand gripped the counter edge until the knuckles lit like white suns. Her eyes lifted and she saw the shadows cast by the clock. Just the tick, tick, tick, ever forward.

-

Doctor Castel leaned in toward Grace’s head, light beaming off of his glasses. He had a scent like old, cheap cologne and his hands carefully splaying the hair near her ears.

“Ah, yep, there you go.”

Anne leaned in beside him seeing only dark hair before his gloved thumb flattened the hair in front of it: a dark, curved, spear-tip shape poking straight out of the skin.

“That’s definitely a horn. Pretty recently came in too it looks like.”

He ruffled the hair a little and Grace laughed, the doctor giving her a little smile.

“Now just be careful with the comb and make sure to let anyone that cuts your hair know before they start, other than that it seems pretty solid, you should be fine. And careful with those ears, they’re looking a little longer too, no piercings until they’re done growing, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks doc!”

“Okay, nice seeing you again Grace, how about you go take a seat in the waiting room while your mom and I talk, okay?”

“Yeah, no prob, see ya later doc!”

The doctor chuckled. “Hopefully not too soon.”

Grace walked out and the door closed behind her with a solid ‘clack.’ Doctor Castel turned toward Anne.

“Okay, so I can’t tell what she’s developing into right away, but she seems healthy, hasn’t mentioned any discomforts or pains and I haven’t noticed any irregularities besides some of her changes. As far as I can tell your daughter doesn’t need any treatments.”

“Doesn’t need any?! She’s growing horns!”

“Yes, she is, but she seems to be healthy physically and very bright mentally.”

“So?! She’s… She’s changing! She’s mutating or something!”

“Mrs. Smith, she’s perfectly normal, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, what she’s going through is something all children go through at some time in their lives and there’s nothing you or I can do to stop it.”

“Why not?! Why is this happening?! What the hell is she even becoming?!”

“A bright young lady, I’m sure with the right kind of opportunities she’ll be a very important person someday.”

“What if she becomes a deer or a moose or who knows what?”

“I’m sure she won’t Mrs. Smith, the horn doesn’t look right for either of-“

“That’s not what I meant! I mean I don’t want her to be some kind of animal!”

“She’s not just some kind of animal, she’s your daughter Mrs. Smith, just calm down and try to remember that she always will be your daughter, nothing is going to change that.”

Anne seemed like she was going to start shouting again, but instead she felt something break, her throat choked under the noose too tightly, she slumped back into a chair and grabbed at her face, trying to hide the tears streaming out of her eyes.

“It’s alright Mrs. Smith, everything is going to be all right.”

-

Grace stepped forward on her toes a little as she walked, a sucker sticking out of her mouth as she took a seat, the cushion making a funny noise. She grabbed one of the magazines and flipped through the pages, not really reading anything, just stopping to stare at some pictures, one of a boy tapping a xylophone and another of a girl patting a dog.

“What ‘cha readin?”

Grace lowered the magazine a little. The speaker was a little taller than she was. Their face was a little pinkish around the pushed out nose and mouth, white hairs with black spots coating their form. They had hands with three fingers in their lap, big black nails on the ends, thumbs nervously playing over their skirt edge. They were a little fat, but still seemed pretty healthy. They had a little tail flopping back and forth over their feet. Instead of shoes they wore little straps for sandals, the bottoms cut out so that a thick set of cloven hooves could rest on the ground. They were painted on the tops, a reddish color.

“Just one of these things, you can read if it you want.”

“Okay, thanks! Looks kinda boring.”

“Yeah, I dunno why it’s here.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m growin’ horns!”

“Really? Can I see?”

She leaned in and splayed her hair a little. They were hard to spot against her hair but the cow made a little awed ‘wow!’ anyway. A few parents nearby either smiled at the two or shook their heads disapprovingly.

“That’s so cool! What do you think you’re turnin’ into?”

“I dunno, I think something cool though.”

“Yeah! That’s awesome! Maybe you’ll be a bull.”

“I dunno, boys are supposed to be bulls right?”

“Well, I’m not a bull.”

“Well yeah, you’re a girl.”

“I wasn’t all the time.”

“You were a boy?”

“Yeah, that was a long time ago though.”

“So… What do you like better?”

“Huh?”

“Being a girl or a boy?”

The cow laughed. “I dunno silly! I’m just me.”

Grace laughed back. “Okay cow boy, what’s your name?”

“I’m Riley.”

“Cool! My name’s -”

“Grace!”

Anne was standing the doorway, co-pay receipt in hand. Her face was red and her eyes rimmed in dark circles. Grace stared at her mother, eyes wide for a moment before looking back to Riley.

“I gotta go.”

“Okay, see you later Grace.”

“Yeah, see you later Riley.”

-

Anne woke up late. She tried to rub the weight off of her eyes but there was no doing it. She staggered out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. She threw coffee grounds into a little filter and once, twice, three times splayed it out so that the water could filter through the machine. The sunlight was beaming through the sliding glass door. She wandered over to draw the curtains closed. When she did her eyes came wide open.

There, in the back yard, her daughter was on all fours, munching on mouthfuls of grass. She was dainty, her teeth clamping and then she would pull away, seeming to chew softly and then swallow. As she did her ears would tilt left and right, her horns arcing out of her head. Her hair was shorter, brighter, khaki colored, and spreading down her neck and face. Her eyes were slightly larger, splayed just millimeters further from each other. She seemed kind of natural, even if her hips were a little further in the air, she looked like she was made for it.

Anne ripped open the sliding glass door.

“Grace, come here right now!”

Grace nearly sprang a foot into the air, her neck adjusting as she stared at her mother. Her face seemed longer, ears wider, still twitching even as they stared at each other.

“Grace!”

“Mom.”

“Come here! Right now!”

“Why yell? I hear.”

Her voice was like air brushing over dew, as though speaking louder would break it. She stood, a little taller. She was thin, her fingers dark, nails large. Her nostrils flared slightly as she approached.


“Angry.”
“Why are you talking like that?”

“Better.”

“Better than what?”

Nothing.

“Answer me.”

“You’re still mad.”

“And why do you think I’m mad?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do! Why am I mad?”

Grace blinked. Anne remembered a time when her raised voice would make Grace flinch, maybe even tear up. Grace stared at her now, seemingly unmoved. Anne felt her fist tense.

“Get inside.”

Grace trotted in, the door sliding shut behind her.

“What were you thinking?”

“Food.”

“No, not food, that is grass, you do not eat grass.”

“Why?”

“You are a human being and you will eat human food.”

“I am human.”

“Yes you are! You are human, now start acting like it!”

“I am, Riley says it’s normal.”

“’Riley’ is a confused little boy and he’s just confusing you, he’s sick.”

“She isn’t sick, she’s nice.”

“He’s sick and he’s changing into something he shouldn’t be, it’s not right.”

“She is not sick, I am not sick, none of us are sick.”

“Us? Who is ‘us?’”

“Friends.”

“More of these sick children?”

“They are not sick.”

“They’re not healthy for you, they’re making you change, they’re….”

Anne stopped for a moment, trying to remember what she’d heard about them, the little tally of arguments they’d had over Grace’s condition. Every day it felt like she was getting more distant, less knowable to Anne. Every day, she’d almost flaunted it in front of Anne: pictures of horned creatures, vegan dietary recipes, plans for trips to the zoo, to a park, to meet more of these ‘people.’ Her doctor wouldn’t help, she tried to see about therapists but she seemed to fly under their radar, they only ever seemed to want to talk to Anne. She felt this constant, pounding, throbbing in her forehead. Just when it seemed to reach its peak, Grace walked away.

“Don’t you walk away again! I won’t let them change you, they won’t take you away from me!”

Grace turned her neck sharply. Her eyes were squinted slightly, a certain tightness to her facial features. Her eyes glared directly into her mother’s.

“They’re not changing me.”

“Then what is?”

“You are.”

That hung in the air, echoed off of the walls. It was so quiet, so instant, and yet Anne felt it echoing, resonating in her bones. Her brain scrambled to formulate some kind of response but all that came back to her was just noise. Grace turned and kept walking. Anne couldn’t hear the door.

-

Grace was sitting back in her chair, her legs crossed on the chair in front of her, cloven hooves wiggling slightly at the end of her otherwise bare feet. There were a few others around her, but none with so much fur as she, tufts of the khaki stuff coating her body, long black streaks from her nose to her tail. Her clothes would have been revealing if not for the coating. She didn’t want to hide any of it, any of her wonderful body.

She heard a long, loud lowing from the other side of the food court. She perked up, her ears raised. When she sat the black spots on white she smiled, a long grin on her long muzzle. She didn’t call back as Riley came closer, but her ears flickered, and Riley smirked back.

“Hey, looking nice Grace.”

“Thanks, you too.”

“Yeah! You must run really fast now.”

“I kinda ‘hop,’ I’m not as fast as the cars but I think I might be.”

“That’s so cool! You look so pretty, you’re gonna look great with your earrings. Where’s your parents?”

“Oh… Mom’s sick.”

“So she sent you? By yourself?”

“Yeah, no biggie.”

“Jeeze! She treats you like an adult!”

Grace felt her long neck tighten just a little bit. “Hey, where’s yours?”

“Oh, mom’s just picking out more dresses.”

“She likes wearing them?”

“Ugh, no, for me, again.”

Grace laughed, it was a shallow sound. “You like dresses.”

“Well yeah, but not all the time, soon I’m gonna have enough for the whole herd!”

Grace giggled again. “Herd?”

“Yeah, like a family, a herd!”

“Nice, I want a herd.”

“You’ve got one, I mean you have a family, right?”

Grace’s throat tightened again. “Wanna get lunch?”

“Yeah, okay, maybe something besides grass this time?”

“Sure, famous salads?”

“Oh yeah! They have the best lettuce ever! That and some carrots and onions and maybe cauliflower…”

Grace smiled and trotted along with her friend. She tried to pass off looking at the ground as admiring her legs. They held her up so well in spite of how thin they were.

-

“What is this?”

“Those are my earrings.”

“You went out and got your ears pierced too?”

“Yeah.”

“What if your ears have to change back? What happens then? You might have just damaged them.”

Grace shrugged, her thin shoulders barely concealed.

“And wearing that no less, do you want to be a target? What if someone just came along and grabbed you?”

She pointed to her horns.

“What if you can’t use those, huh? What then?”

“Riley and her herd were with me.”

“His ‘herd’ huh? That’s what they’re calling themselves now? Well how about I give his ‘herd’ a call, or maybe a call to the police?”

“They didn’t do anything.”

“They’re a bad influence, you shouldn’t be out screwing around and ‘enjoying’ this, you’re human aren’t you?”

Grace turned on her hoof and went for the sliding glass door.

“You’re just leaving now?”

“You don’t get it.”

“You don’t get it, don’t you see what this has done to you? You’re not acting normally.”

“How do you know what normal is?” Grace forced the door open and went to spring out when Anne grabbed her from behind.

“No, I will not have you running off again! You are my daughter and I won’t let you run away!”

“Let go!”

“No! Never! This isn’t who you are!”

The pair of them were shouting and screaming as Anne dragged Grace by her arm back down the hall, past her own room, to shove the gazelle girl into her room. There was pounding and screaming and the clock fell from the wall and shattered, unnoticed and frozen on noon.

-

“Ma’am, my fellow officers and I would very much appreciate your co-operation.”

Anne’s face seemed to be fixed into a permanent scowl these days. She stared the officer up and down and shook her head.

“Please ma’am, we are acquiring a warrant as we speak, it’s not helping anyone by making things difficult. If we could even just see Grace we wouldn’t have to do this.”

“She’s sick.”

“Really? Has she seen…. Doctor Castel lately? We interviewed him recently and he assured us that Grace had a clean bill of health.”

“He was wrong, she’s not right.”

“And we want to help her ma’am, we really do.”

“She doesn’t need your help.”

“Okay then, so you won’t mind us taking a look? We’re just doing our job here ma’am.”

“Good officer, then do it somewhere else before-“

There was a series of high pitched noises from the back room. The officer was fairly certain what he was about to do was technically illegal, but if it saved the girl he decided he could live with it. Anne spun out of the way when he shouldered past her and ran in, the door already dented.

“Grace? Is that you? My name is Officer Martin, I just want to help.”

There were only wild sounds, smashing wood and distressed, inhuman noises. The officer rammed the door in with his own shoulder twice before he heard the sound of glass shattering. He stormed away from the bedroom and found Anne, on her knees near the closed. Opposite to her…

Opposite to her was a gazelle. It’s fur was stained and it’s horns looked a little scuffed, but it was beautiful none the less. It stood on four long legs, shivering as it stood in the grass. To Anne, her features were reflected in the glass, the tears, the wrinkles, lining up with the gazelle’s muzzle. She reached out and her fingers jammed into the glass. The gazelle doe stared on, straight into Anne.

“Please… Please come back Grace, please come back to me.”

The gazelle leapt in an instant, hopping across the grass in its casual, lightning-quick leaps, reaching the tree line in seconds. It stopped there.

Anne saw what her daughter was. The grass was shifting around her, leaves curling in the wind, and the gazelle stood, perfectly still, it’s bright form against the greens and browns of a temperate forest. She looked white in the lens of water in front of the eyes, bright like a tea-light candle. In that moment she seemed to be a statue, or a monument.

Anne’s eyes closed. She shook and shivered and her voice caught in her throat like a baby bird. She rubbed her eyes as though she wanted to poke them out, until they hurt, but they felt clear for the first time. She took a moment to breathe, to feel for a something greater than herself. She couldn’t describe it, but as she breathed in and out, just focusing on her own biological processes, she felt she wouldn’t have to explain, as though those around her would simply know by seeing her.

When they opened again, the gazelle was gone.