Myths about horses begin with the sea, but there is no sea near Raeford. There are small, wandering creeks and the Narrow Bone River, but no sea. So Raeford's horses must have come from somewhere else, not fighting out of the waves but wandering out of the dark forests, rising from the pine needles, tumbling down like ripe apples from the branches. It was easy to believe, if you stood on one of the sagging porches and looked over the dark pastures and forests, that the place had some of the terrible, pounding magic of the sea. The heartlessness of the sea. Dark creatures hid in the coves and shallows of its wild places like hungry eels stitched into the reefs. The blackness of midnight was heavier there, thicker, and smelled like ozone and decay. It felt like it was on the edge of creation or destruction. That was one reason why, on the night of June twenty-first, Agatha Bently's first reaction when she heard an infant's cries carry over those fields, through that gloomy miasma, was surprise, and then fury and then resignation. This thing had happened before and would happen again. She rose and pulled on her boots and headed to the barn, where she was needed. Something had been born, unexpected, the salt of the sea in its lungs. It screamed and screamed and it lived. Excerpted from The Unmothers: A Novel by Leslie J. Anderson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
