This is another little backstory snippet with Chaya and Peter that’s been existing in my head. It takes place when he’s about thirteen. As a note, Peter does struggle with processing some very serious trauma from physical and emotion abuse from when he was younger. As such, this snippet might be triggering for some readers, and the recommended reading age is 13+.
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“Stay still, Mila.”
Peter gripped the lead line, gently tilting the horse’s head down until her eyes met his. He stroked her forehead for several seconds, until the white in her eyes faded.
“You’re alright, I’m not going to hurt you.”
I just need to forget.
He couldn’t handle the blackness shrouding the corners of his mind, the memories that wouldn’t leave him alone.
One good memory. That was all he needed.
He just wanted to forget one.
He kept staring into Milagro’s eyes, rubbing the mare’s cheek. The dark cocoa of her irises blended into the midnight black pupil, seeping through his vision like spilled ink.
It flickered for an instant and he held his breath. He’d never tried to steal a memory from an animal before– would it even work? Or would he hurt Mila?
Just as he was about to break eye contact and leave it alone, he saw the memories.
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting from it. Everything was gray, with tints of blue or yellow in nondescript places. it was blurry on the sides, and the poor depth perception of it all made him dizzy, but he forced himself to focus. The images flickered by, fast like a movie on high speed.
Good memories… minor ones that you won’t mind forgetting.
The images stopped. Foals. Dozens and dozens of foals. All sorts of patterns and shades, playing together in one big romp. Mila squealed and joined in the chase, long legs sending her flying across the plateau.
At one point, she got tangled up into the sagebrush and toppled to the earth, her panicked cry as she struggled to get free catching the attention of a black pinto horse nearby. The horse trotted closer and Peter recognized it as the herd stallion of the small mustang band living on the range behind the house.
Mila’s from that herd?
The stallion picked his way toward the foal, nickering in a low, gentle voice. Mila stilled, even though Peter could still feel her fear coursing through her veins like liquid lightning.
What was most interesting about the memories was the vague understanding of the nickering. It wasn’t like words, like in human conversation. It was pictures, and feelings. The nickering sound was warm sunshine, cool rain on a hot day, and the smell of the mares as they surrounded the foals on dark windy nights when the coyotes howled for blood. Comfort. Safety.
Slowly, the stallion chewed at the sagebrush branches, until the filly’s slender legs were free and she could scramble to her feet. She stumbled into the pinto and he nibbled the base of her mane, sending images of similar moments flashing past with the same warmth as before. Mila licked his shoulder before whirling toward the foals again and bolting off.
A twist of guilt curled in Peter’s gut at the thought of taking the memory, but there were thousands like it. Surely Mila wouldn’t miss one.
He focused on the details of the memory, going over the lines, smells, sounds, and sensations until it began to solidify in his mind. As it began to take root, a shadowy flicker started on the left side of his vision, until Mila’s memory shrank and a new memory played beside it.
He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut against the dark memory, the haunting sounds in his head threatening to bring up more scenes of its kind from his past. But if he broke eye contact, then he couldn’t lose the memory.
He needed to lose it.
Slowly, the shadow began to fade, overwhelmed by the brightness of the crystal-clear horse memory. Mila startled, probably from having the unknown memory in her head, but Peter held her steady, stroking her nose.
Just a little longer…
The shadows had almost faded…
“PETER!”
The flinch reflex to the panicked voice broke his concetration. The loss of eye contact broke the warm light and like a black ghost the shadow rushed back into his mind, the voices stronger than before.
Lungs constricting.
Fear spiraling through his veins like an electric shock.
Blood in his mouth.
His father, screaming at him, the hand coming down again…
“Peter, what are you doing?”
The gentle voice broke him away from the memory a little, but it was jumbled, like radio static. Anger sparked in his chest and he glared up at the fractured face of Chaya, even as she peered down at him with concern.
“You.. you r-ruined it!” His teeth were chattering, skin cold as ice even though it was a nintey degree day. He shivered, imagining cold concrete pressing against him, smothering him.
“Peter.” Chaya kneeled down, tried to grab his hands. Peter whipped away scrambling backwards and clawing at his head as more memories tumbled from their mind vaults, like a line of dominos in his subsconscious.
Don’t touch me! He wanted to scream it to her, but his jaw was locked shut, and he could only curl on the ground, beaten down by the phantoms of his past.
“This is… your fault!” He screamed. “I almost forgot! I ALMOST FORGOT! I hate you, I hate you…”
He repeated the sentence over and over, choking as sobs shaked his body and the memories of being slapped, punched, and shoved burned his thin body like it was happening all over again.
He could hear Chaya shuffle closer and swung out his hands, trying to shove her away. He didn’t want her here. He wanted her to go away. She had ruined everything…
Something thick and heavy was wrapped around him, and for a second he panicked, feeling like he was being shoved into the dank cabinet that his father used to lock him in when he was little.
But it wasn’t hard and cold. It was soft, and warm. A blanket?
The pressure deepened, but instead of claustrophobia, it was more like a hug. The tension slowly dropped, his thrashing easing as the pressure soothed away the fear and his memories faded.
“Peter, I’m right here. It’s okay, you’re safe.”
Chaya’s voice again. A piece of him wanted to be angry, but the exhaustion from trying to extract the memory shook him to the bone. He curled inside the blanket, waiting for the pain to fade as his sobs shook his body.
“Shhhhh.”
A tentative hand stroked his hair, like he was a small child instead of a thirteen year old boy. A familiarity flitted past, like a bright butterfly just out of his reach. Someone had done this to him before– wrapped him snug and comforted him. Like Chaya, but not like Chaya.
But he couldn’t remember their face, no matter how hard he tried.
An eternity later, he finally managed to stop shaking enough to sit up, brushing the sand from his arms. He was wrapped in an old horse blanket, and Chaya was kneeling in front of him, a mixture of bewilderment and fear in her gray-green eyes.
“You ruined it,” He spat, his bitterness returning full force. He had been so close… so close to forgetting…
“Ruined what?” She crossed her arms. “It looked like you were trying to steal memories from Mila.”
“Just one!” He shouted. “I was just taking one! She has thousands! She wouldn’t have missed it!”
His shouts had sent Mila scrambling to the other end of the corral, copper sides lathered with sweat.
Chaya sighed. “Peter… forgetting the past doesn’t help.”
“Yes it does! It would have worked if you hadn’t interrupted.” He untangled himself from the horse blanket and stood, brushing dirt off his pants.
Chaya pulled her hat brim down, standing up and stopping just short enough so she could look him in the eyes.
“We both know that you don’t really forget the memories, Peter.”
His neck flared with heat, both from anger and the unsettling knowledge that she was right.
“Yes, I do,” he insisted. “Why else can’t I remember anything good from before I was twelve? They’re all gone. All I have are bad memories. I just wanted to make them go away. I want to stop… stop…” His hands trembled, clenching into fists, but the words I want to stop remembering wouldn’t come.
His guardian bit her lip.
“Peter,” she shifted to take a knee, hands on her propped-up leg. “I know this is hard to understand but… forgetting the memories don’t speed up the healing process. Wounds of the mind and heart take a lot longer to heal than flesh wounds. Trying to forget your memories and give them to Mila is only going to hurt you both, and break the trust you have.”
“But I…” He licked his lips, dry voice cracking. “I don’t… I don’t want to keep hurting.”
He was so tired of the nightmares, of the random flashbacks that he couldn’t control, of scaring Chaya when the pain turned him into a violent monster. If he could just forget… he could be… be…
Normal.
“I know, and I don’t want you to keep hurting either. But there are better ways to do it than this. It’s just… going to take time. You’ve come a long way already since we found each other.”
“But I want to stop it now,” he whispered.
She gave a dry chuckle. “Trust me, kid, I get it. You’re not the only one who deals with memories they want to forget.” She stood up straight, shoving her hands into her pockets. “But we can’t just erase the past. We have to process it to move on… to get better. Even if it takes longer than we would like. We just have to take it one step at a time. Does that make sense?”
He hesitated, turning over her words in his mind. He nodded, slowly. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“So no more stealing memories from the horses, or the dog, or anything else. Deal?” She held out her hand for him to shake.
He took it, shaking it as hard as he could. “Deal.”
“All right then.” She nodded over his shoulder to Mila, standing nervously at the edge of the pen. “Now go say sorry to your horse and bring her to the barn so we can give her a hose bath, cool her down before she gets a heat stroke.”
Peter nodded and took a deep breath, turning on his heel toward the bay mare. Her ears flickered back as he approached her, but she didn’t run.
He rubbed her shoulder, stroked her neck, and then rubbed small circles on her face, smiling as her long black eyelashes fluttered shut and her lips flopped open with a relaxed grunt.
“Sorry, Mila.” The whisper was soft and brief, a quick murmur into her ear, but she got the idea. As soon as he started walked away, Mila was right there behind him.
Chaya nodded, face splitting into a grin as they walked up. “That’s the great thing about horses– they are very quick to forgive.”
Mila’s nose snuffled his hair, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. They are.”
Chaya turned toward the gate. “You halter her. I’m going to go get the hose ready.”
He nodded, grabbing the teal halter from the hook on the rail. Mila kept her head low as he tightened the straps, making sure it was all in the right places. He clipped on the lead line, then looked around, checking to see if Chaya was in sight.
The barnyard was empty.
He wrapped his arms around Mila’s neck, hugging her tight.
“Te amo, Milagro,” he whispered, her name in his native tongue bright as music. “I love you.”
Mila dipped her head and curled around him, and for a second, the pictures he saw with her and the pinto stallion flickered through his head.
Love.
That moment meant the word “love” in her mind.
Except right afterward, a picture of him as a twelve year old, small and afraid, came next.
Mila’s first memory of him.
Horses think in pictures…
Love. You.
That’s what Mila had said to him.
So sweet! It was also nice reading about Peter’s ability.