It took about ten minutes to get Fools Gold loaded and the trailer secured before Sarah and Michelle hopped back in to the massive pickup and the diesel engine roared to life. They were heading down the county to Michelle’s house a few minutes later.
“Have you always had those highlights in your hair?” Michelle asked suddenly, giving Sarah a perplexed look. Sarah looked just a surprised as Michelle sounded.
“Highlights?” she asked, instinctively running her fingers through her red hair as if feeling them would tell her if she had strands dyed a different color.
“Yeah,” Michelle said, glancing back at her. “You know. Those black weaves I’m seeing in there. It looks pretty cool against the red.”
The perplexed look on Sarah’s face didn’t fade. “I don’t have any highlights, though.” She was starting to feel warm, too, but couldn’t figure out why. She was also starting to notice that the cab smelt strongly of horse, though she guessed that was because Michelle was sitting next to her.
Michelle pursed her lips and looked back ahead. “Hmm. Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the glare off the hood of the pickup or something. Anyway, I promise you’re going to like the wine when we get home. It’s some of the best I’ve ever tasted.”
“Yeah. Can’t wait,” Sarah said distantly. She was tempted to roll the window down and could feel herself sweating.
After another few minutes, the pickup was backing up to put the trailer closer to the horse paddock. Glancing in the side mirror, Sarah could see Michelle’s other two horses walking over to the fence near the gate. Both were quarter horse mares. One, Sage, was a buckskin, and the other, Slate, was a blue roan.
Letting out a groan, Michelle silenced the diesel engine and stepped out of the pickup. “Okay. Let’s get this over with and get some wine.”
“Sure,” Sarah sighed. Her stomach was starting feel weird now, too.
Stepping out of the pickup, she went around the other side of the trailer as Michelle and stepped over to the back. It was getting harder to move. Slowly it dawned on her that her clothes felt tighter somehow. She tried to ignore it, and the way her body ached, and stepped unlatched the rear door as Michelle opened the side door and started guiding Fools Gold out. Sarah could feel her ears twitch involuntarily as the horse started clopping backwards in the trailer.
The second he was out of the trailer, the gelding stopped and eyed Sarah for a second. Like the quarter horse at the equestrian center earlier, he leaned in to greet her with a sniff of her face. Sarah hoped Fools Gold wouldn’t sneeze in her face, too, but it never happened, and she found herself actually breathing in his scent too.
“Come on. Time to get you in the paddock, mister,” Michelle said, tugging on the lead as soon as she exited the trailer, too. She didn’t even look back at Sarah as she guided Fools Gold over the paddock fence. “Shut the door to the trailer, would you?” she called over her shoulder as she opened the paddock gate with a loud screech.
Sarah did as she was told and turned back around to watch Fools Gold step into the paddock and head to the other mares after Michelle took his halter off and slapped him on the rump. “Good work today, FG,” she said before turning back around. She nearly froze in her steps when she saw Sarah.
“Something wrong?” Sarah finally asked, feeling her heart sink. Michelle didn’t stop looking at her with that weird glint in her eye.
“You tell me,” Michelle finally stammered out, slowly walking up to Sarah.
“What?”
Michelle started to say something, but the words couldn’t escape her lips. Finally, after biting her lip and taking in a deep breath, she grabbed Sarah by the shoulder and started walking her back to the pickup.
“You tell me,” she managed to choke out as she pointed to one of the side mirrors on the pickup.
Sarah shot Michelle a confused look and was surprised to see her friend recoil and glance away in an instant. Swallowing the frog in her throat, she stepped over to the side mirror on the pickup and looked in to it. Her heart froze a split second later.
There was no denying she was looking back at her own reflection. Sarah still had the same mole on her right cheek, her eyes were still green, and her thin red eyebrows were the same as they had always been. But everything else was different. Her ears were noticeable pointed, her face was elongated, her lips seemed puffy and darker, and, most of all, her hair was receding away from her forehead and had changed to a solid black mass of course, stringy hair. It reminded her of a horse’s mane.
In an instant, the questionnaire she filled out last night crossed her mind.