Page 23 of Hoof It

Twenty Three

Chapter 22

Jimazu

B efore I pull the first strand of hair all the way through, I use our bond and ask Darcy a question. “I know that the one you used on your hair earlier is called a brush. But, what is the word for the object my father made me and I’m currently using?”

“It’s a comb. They’re similar to brushes in the way that they detangle your hair. But they’re different for obvious reasons. Plus, their smaller size makes it easier to carry them around with you.”

“Oh. Do you prefer one over the other?”

“Nah. Well, a brush feels better on my scalp and is more relaxing. They’re better on thick hair too. But a comb is more convenient and can detangle my hair more easily. Plus, they’re good to use on wet hair. They’re also the perfect width to fix where I part my hair.”

She shrugs a shoulder lightly. We’re both quiet for a few moments as I comb through several sections of her dark hair. Then I’m hit with a mixed feeling of curiosity and excitement.

“What’s on your mind, little mate?”

She doesn’t answer me right away. A feeling of…nervousness or apprehension mixes in with the excitement and curiosity before she finally asks me whatever it is that she’s thinking about so deeply.

“How did you do that earlier?”

My hands stop mid-stroke as I try to figure out what she’s referring to. I resume working on the section in my hand after a few seconds. “How did I do what, earlier?”

“How did you send me your physical sensations while we were making love in the hot spring?”

Her question catches me off guard. I hadn’t intended to send her anything earlier. I’d had a fleeting thought about how taking it so slowly with her felt so indescribable. How I felt so connected to her in all ways. But I hadn’t intentionally sent her anything other than love and desire. I’m speechless for so long that she turns her upper body to look at me and her eyes connect with mine. Her spine stiffens as though she’s been hit.

“You’re shocked, Zu. Why?”

“I did not send you my physical feelings on purpose. I’d had a fleeting thought that I wished it was something we were able to do. But, as far as I know, that’s not something my kind has ever been able to do.”

Her mouth opens and closes several times, and it reminds me of a fish on land. I barely manage to stifle a slight laugh. Finally, her mouth manages to form words.

“What do you mean? Like, your parents, and grandparents, and other adults weren’t able to do that with their mates?”

I shake my head. “No. None of the adults in my herd ever mentioned having that ability. The ability to mind-speak with their mates? Yes. They were all gifted with that ability. But none ever said that they could do anything else with their mates.”

She breathes in, sucks her lips in between her teeth as she thinks, then blows the entire breath out so rapidly that her cheeks puff out. A few specks of her spit hit my chest. I glance down at it, and this time I can’t stop the laughter. She fights her own laugh, but gives in after a few seconds. Her giggles join my own laughter, and then for some reason, we start laughing even harder. Her entire upper body shakes. Which then causes our bed to shake as well.

After a bit we’re both able to calm down. Darcy wipes away a few tears that accumulated, and I reach up and do the same to my own eyes.

“So, if it wasn’t intentional, what exactly were you thinking of in that moment? I wonder if we’d be able to do it again?”

“I’d been thinking about how you felt. How absolutely connected we’d seemed in so many different ways. I’d had a brief thought about what it would be like if you were able to feel what I was feeling because I wanted to share that with you. I had wanted us to experience something else new with one another.”

“Hhmm.” Her response is more sound than word as she contemplates my answer. My mate chews lightly on the inside of her cheek as she thinks for a few minutes.

“I think we need to do three things, then.”

I look at her expectantly, my eyebrows raised nearly to my hair. Darcy holds up a single finger. “First, we need to try to do that again. We can start small and work our way up to the bigger physical sensations.” She lifts a second finger. “Secondly, we need to ask Lexi and Frankie to do some research when they get home. Have them look into abilities shared between soul mates. Wait, no that’s too generic. Fated mates. They’ll probably have the most luck within the Qweeddit forums, I think.”

“I don’t know what that is. But I’ll trust you and your friends’ judgment.”

She startles as if she forgot I was sitting right behind her. “Oh! It’s a website, as well as a phone app, where you can find information about damn near any topic there is. If you can’t find the specific question you’re looking for the answer to, you can make a post and ask it yourself. Other Qweedit users will comment and answer your question. It’s quite helpful. That website, along with a podcast, are how I first learned the lore about your kind.”

Only understanding about half of what she just said, I simply nod once. She picks up on my confusion right away. “It will be easier to explain when I have my phone tomorrow. I’ll be able to show you the app on there.”

“And the third thing we need to do?” I ask, curious as to what she has in mind.

She shrugs noncommittally. “Play around with the bond and see what else we’re capable of doing within it.”

“Alright.” I’m hit with a thought randomly. “I believe you mentioned before that the three of you do this often?”

Now my mate looks confused. “Do what often? Research? Read mate lore?”

It takes me a moment to find the words I want to say. “Find others like myself. Other cryptids, I think is the word you used?”

“Oh. Yeah. I’ve always been fascinated by folklore and history. The first time I heard the story of Bigfoot I became obsessed. I was convinced that the creatures from folklore were real. I talked enough about cryptids growing up with Lexi that she eventually became obsessed too. When we met Frankie, she took a bit more convincing. But once she was in, we decided to take a trip after graduation to ‘hunt’ for Bigfoot. We followed the lore and wound up spending most of that summer traveling all over Washington and California.”

“Did you ever find one?”

She shakes her head. “Nope. We saw plenty of signs, especially once we got deeper into the woods and away from all of the usual hiking trails. Back then, we didn’t have trail cams or anything. We’d sleep in shifts so that one of us was always awake just in case something came close to our campsites. But it fueled our obsession. We decided at the end of that trip that we’d save up and invest in some high-tech equipment. It took us an entire year, and we ended up only being able to purchase three cameras.” She smiles softly at the thought.

I love the way her face is lit up right now, so I ask more questions. “Then what? What creature did you search for once you had cameras?”

“For our second trip, we stuck a bit closer to home. By then, websites like Qweedit were gaining popularity, which made learning lore easier. When I read a post about dogman sightings in Michigan, it felt as though we had to go. So we packed up our camping gear and cameras and headed to the Upper Peninsula. We saw a ton of footprints way off the trails, and other small signs. On our third night, something ran past two of our cameras. It was on two legs, had the torso of a man but the head of a dog. The video clip of it running was blurry because the night vision quality was crap. But it was enough to convince us that it was real.”

“What else?”

She gets a far off look in her eyes and it takes her a few seconds to speak again. “Well, after dogman we went looking for the Beast of Busco, which is a lake monster, in our home state. We wanted to buy better quality cameras, which meant not leaving Indiana for a while. We spent a week on that trip and didn’t see anything, but that didn’t stop us. After the beast-bust, I dove deeper into researching cryptids and our fourth trip was to look for the Mogollan Monster in Arizona. We didn’t even find signs of that one after a week.”

“How often do the three of you go on these trips?”

“Usually once a year. We use our vacation time at our jobs all at once. I spend between one and two weeks doing thorough research before. I spend days at a time at my computer reading as much as I can and taking notes on two different cryptids. Then I present everything I’ve learned to the other two and we decide as a group which one to search for.”

“What else did you research this year before deciding to search for my kind?”

“This is the first year that I didn’t give them a second choice. Once I saw the term ‘goatman’, I felt this…calling? Need? To look into your kind. I couldn’t focus on anything else. I hadn’t even been searching online for cryptids. We hadn’t gone on a trip in a couple years.”

Despite feeling as though I know the answer to my next question, I still ask, “Why not?”

Darcy inhales and hesitates.

“Little mate, I won’t push you on any topic. I’m simply curious. The way your face lights up when you talk about the things you enjoy is wonderful and has me intrigued.”

She blows out a long breath before speaking again. “Basically, it was a combination of a couple reasons. The first being after so many unsuccessful trips almost back-to-back, we were starting to feel like maybe we were crazy for believing, and then investing so much time and money.” She pauses and her head drops forward, her voice softens as though she’s ashamed. “When I started dating Mat, I made sure to let him know that for at least two weeks each summer I’d be busy with Lexi and Frankie. I explained why and what we do. He didn’t believe me, even after I showed him all of the files on my computer.”

She scoffs and shakes her head. “He was convinced that it was nothing more than a bullshit girls’ trip where we’d all be fucking random dudes for a week. Which is such absolute bullshit. Lexi hasn’t been with a guy since middle school. She’s only dated women since we were fifteen. And Frankie hasn’t ever been with a man. The two of them have been together since our junior year of high school. They knew at seventeen that they were endgame. Any time I’d mention wanting to do research about anything other than my focus at work, he would throw a bitch fit and start a huge fight with me. Eventually, I’d stop bringing any of it up.”

Her breath stutters and her voice sounds as though it’s going to break. “I was able to brush off Lex and Frankie for a while when they’d ask me to start researching and planning. But eventually, I’d evaded it for so long that they figured out something was wrong. By then, Mat had started hitting me when he was angry or drinking. I’d escape to their house for a few hours, sometimes for the night, while he stayed at our house and calmed down. I’d go back and he’d swear it wouldn’t happen again, that he was sorry. The house would be spotless and he’d be extra sweet and thoughtful for a week or two. Until the next time something pissed him off.”

I don’t have words right now. If I speak, my tone will be angry, and that’s the last thing my mate needs right now. Instead, I send her as much love and joy as I can muster. Her head turns towards me and I see that she’s crying with every word. I pick her up and put her in my lap, wrapping my arms around her fur-covered body.

Her head leans against my chest, her ear pressed against my heart. “I refused to leave for a long time. He kept making promises that he would change, that it wouldn’t keep happening. Eventually I got way too skilled at hiding bruises with makeup. Then he switched up and started leaving bruises in places that my shirts and shorts would cover.”

Her fingers weave into the fur cover and grip it tightly. “It hadn’t ever gone further than him hitting me. Until that last night. I was already half-assed coming up with a plan to get out but stalling because a part of me was still convinced he’d change. Lex finally convinced me to start researching, she said that she and Frankie missed going on our trips. So, I spent my downtime at work scrolling Qweedit . Stumbled onto goatman lore. I ended up taking a week off work to spend time researching from home.”

She takes a steadying breath. “Mat was furious. When I get into research mode, I forget about the world around me. I hardly eat and sleep. I didn’t shower for like, five days, I think? Mat kept trying to initiate sex, but I wasn’t interested. That pissed him off. The night I finished my notes, he was fairly drunk and I brushed him off. I desperately needed a shower. I felt so gross. He got mad and threw stuff, then stormed out of the house.”

Her voice breaks and I feel her pain. It’s an ache within my own soul and I would give anything to take it from her completely.

“I’d just gotten out of the shower when he raped me that night. I knew I had to leave right then. I ran to Lexi and Frankie. The three of us returned to the house a few days later to get all of my belongings. I was terrified that he would be there and be able to convince me to go back to him. Luckily, he wasn’t. We grabbed everything that was mine and left. I blocked him on everything, shut off all of the utilities and accounts tied to the house that were in my name. Spoke to the landlord and had my name removed from our lease. Got a new phone number. Then I planned this trip with my girls.”

“And now I’m home.” Darcy stretches up and places her lips on mine softly. When she pulls away, her nostrils are flared and she inhales deeply. It’s then that I notice the scent of our food.

“It smells as though our meal is finished cooking, little mate.”

She eases off my lap, and I leave the bed to pull the wrapped food off the hot coals. I slid it onto the flat rock nearby and carefully loosen the knots to open it up. The moment I do, my nose is filled with the tangy scent of roast onion, sweet summer squash, and the earthiness of the potatoes. It makes my stomach growl loud enough for my mate to hear it several feet away. She makes an odd noise through her nose and my head turns towards her, my eyebrows raised in question.

Her hands are covering her mouth and nose and she looks horrified. I forget all about our food as I rush over to her and take her face in my hands, looking over her body from head to toe. Seeing nothing, I meet her eyes.

“I can’t believe I just snorted. I’m mortified.”

I instantly relax, realizing that she’s not injured. Then I realize that I could have felt her emotions in our bond, and immediately feel ridiculous for my overreaction. I struggle to keep a laugh locked inside of myself.

The entire time I’m chastising myself, Darcy is watching me silently. Her hands finally drop to her lap and her shoulders sag then shake. She releases laughter and her whole body shakes. Only a couple of seconds later I join in, laughing mostly at myself.

When my mate’s stomach lets out a painful sounding noise, she laughs harder. Finally, she’s able to calm herself down. I turn back to the fire and pick up the leaves with our now cooled food before sitting beside her on the bed.

I pick up a piece of potato and hold it up to Darcy’s mouth, offering it to her. She opens her mouth and accepts the bite of food. She chews it slowly and then swallows and grins at me.

“That’s fantastic, Zu!”

I pick up a piece of the squash and bring it up to her mouth again. She hesitantly opens it and chews it thoroughly. She praises me all over again. I can’t help but feel proud that she enjoys something I made for her. I try my own bite of the cooked vegetables and have to agree with her. The food is fantastic. The little bit of salt I added has helped balance out the flavor of the onions and squash as well as add some flavor to the potatoes. Same with the butter I’d taken from a human family after seeing them use it on their meal.

After several more bites, Darcy holds a hand in front of her mouth as she chews and asks, “So, what’s up with that mask?” She nods in the direction of the goat mask I usually wear when I leave the cave.

“In all your research on my kind, did you ever see mention of me having a human face?”

Her head tilts to the side as she swallows. “No. Everything I read, every eyewitness account, all said that you have a goat face.”

I grin. “That’s because you and your friends are the first humans in the last two centuries to see one of us without a mask.”

Her mouth drops open and her eyes widen. “Really?!”

“Yes. You only caught me outside the other day without it because I hadn’t intended to leave the cave that day. I’d just stepped outside seconds before I heard your voices. When humans see my kind, they go kind of…”

“Nuts?”

“Yes. They either start screaming or immediately reach for something to take a photo of us with. Once, when I was an adolescent, I ventured too near to a small group of human males and as soon as they saw me they started whispering to one another loudly that they wanted to capture me and put me in a lab.” My body shudders at the memory. “I turned tail and ran right away. I didn’t venture away from the herd for several years after that. I was terrified. And when I told my parents, they were livid with me for getting so close.”