Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

The horse crunched the apple thoughtfully, still looking at Dave. It was, he thought, an uncommonly odd feeling, being stared at by a horse.

He looked back at the barn. The girl, obviously mucking out, had a large wheelbarrow full of fun that she pushed around the side of the barn and out of sight. He glanced back at the road, then stared at the horse as it dipped its head into the bag again, rooted between some irons, then came up with a carrot, which it chewed like a cigar. The green stalk flopped back and forth.

A cricket chirped. He flexed his feet, listening to his tennis shoes squeak.

He stared at the horse.

The horse stared at him.

The biplane puttered just on the horizon, dropping a long cloud of pesticide.

“Hot day,” he said to the horse.

:Middlin’ hot,: said a voice.

“What the f . . .”, Dave spun around. “Who said that?”

:Over here, by the golf bag,: said the voice.

Dave whipped his head around. The horse stared at him . . . then slowly and deliberately winked. The eyes, the ones he had thought were brown, now shone a bright, sapphire blue.

Dave took two shuffle steps backward, startled beyond thought. The second ended in profanity as he stepped into the little ditch alongside the road and went down knee deep. His new recorder, bought for the occasion, went “glunk” in the only water for thirty feet in any direction.

“What the f . . .” he repeated, stepping out of the ditch and into the road. Had there been any traffic, he would have been in someone’s on-coming lane.

:You came here to get inside information from a source,: said the voice. :You don’t get more inside than this.:

“What the . . .”

:Gotta say it . . . straight from the horse’s mouth.: The horse did something with its hooves, and the sound was a mix of rim-shot and silver bells.

Dave shook his head and began looking for a portable loudspeaker, feeling now that he’d been badly put on. Some jerk out there with a camera, filming him for a sucker, and conning him into talking to a horse.

“So, you’re a talking horse? Like the one on TV. Name’s Ed? Or that mule?” Dave milked it as best he could, playing along until he could find the speaker system. He zeroed in on the golf bag. He was such a putz. So obvious.

:Don’t be an ass, Dave,: said the voice. :Are my lips moving? In fact, are you really hearing it?:

That stopped him cold. The horselips not moving, no sound issuing. It was the voice in his head that disturbed him. It wasn’t his inner monologue . . . the sort that slipped up when he’d been drinking and checking out pretty girls, and got him into trouble. It was a deeper, masculine voice, the sort that sounded as though it ought to be coming from outside his head. Except it wasn’t outside.

“Maybe it’s cancer,” he said. “Maybe I’m just hearing things.”

:Did you read the books I sent?: The horse replied, changing the subject.

“My sister used to read those as a kid. I tried a couple. Chick fic.”

The horse rolled his eyes, really rolled them, the whole head tossing.

:Okay, Mr. Pulitzer, just how many stories have you published?:

“Umm, well, I’m working this angle . . .”

:Jockey drinking milk with ipecac chasers ain’t exactly news, monkey boy. Next you’ll be doing an expose that models are anorexic.:

“Umm . . .”

:How about a real story?:

“Okay, I may be losing it, but I’m talking to a horse.”

:Telepathy.:

“What?”

:Telepathy. You are speaking to me, and I am answering you telepathically:.

“Oh, I thought it was called something else.”

:So, you have read the books?:

“Okay, one or two. When I was in college. I was broke.”

:I won’t tell the other guys you were reading pastel pony stories.: The horse actually grinned. :I know it would get you thrown out of the club. It’s called Mindspeaking by the way.:

“Why not telepathy?”

:Well, we talked to our publicist about it and agreed that calling it telepathy . . . was too science-fictiony. Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind-speeeeeach conveys the same idea, and keeps it in the fantasy canon.:

Dave grasped the only part that made sense. “Horses have a publicist?”