A Step Sideways

Whoever had him by the back of the neck half-dragged and half-carried him into a dark narrow lane. Gort tried to get his teeth into the hard flesh digging cruelly into his face. The action was rewarded by a hard shake and a blow which set his ears ringing while bright lights danced across his vision.
It was full dark now. There was no way to figure out where the man was taking him, his head hurt so much he couldn’t see straight anyway. After what seemed like forever, his captor set him on his feet and twisted his arms painfully backward. The man secured Gort’s thin wrists with a thick zip tie before spinning him around.
Gort narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the person’s features. The light behind the figure threw the man’s face into shadows. The dark figure spoke, and his worst nightmare became reality.
“Ya young whelp, who do you think you are kissing the daughter of that trollop, right in the lane. It’s a good thing it is I’ve come back to keep you in line.” Uncle Daniel’s whiskey-roughened voice cut as surely as a knife.
Gort forced himself to open his mouth to say something, anything. Nothing came out, just a faint croaking, like a squashed frog, which was pretty much mirrored his feeling at the moment. Daniel’s yellowed teeth glinted in the bit of light filtering into the shed. The youth fought to control the tremors threatening to unlock his knees and drop him to the ground at Daniel’s feet. He knew where they were now; this was the shed behind Daniel’s house. Just two streets over from Emily’s, but it might as well be miles. Gort made himself look up and meet Daniel’s drunken gaze; his heart shrunk in his chest at the anger in Daniel’s eyes.
He’s going to put me in the cupboard. I can’t go in the cupboard. I won’t.
The boy shifted his feet and stood up a little straighter. Daniel narrowed his eyes at the small show of defiance. Gort’s heart tripped in his chest as he fought the urge to cower from the rage emanating in waves from his uncle, refusing to listen to the voice of terror screaming incoherently through his mind.
“Don’t look at me like that, boy,” Uncle Daniel snarled and took a quick step forward.
Gort refused to step backward away from him, and at any rate, past experience said such a move would only make his uncle more belligerent. So he stood his ground and hoped Coll would come looking for him soon. In answer to his prayers, he heard his friend’s voice faintly calling his name. Daniel looked over his shoulder at the sound, and Gort took the chance to bolt for the door.
Uncle Daniel swung back and lifted him by the collar of his jacket. Daniel’s enraged face filled his vision as the man shook him roughly, his feet dangling a foot off the ground. Gort’s throat worked, trying to draw air into his lungs. Daniel’s thin lips drew back from his teeth, his whiskey-laden breath making Gort gag even more than the restricting collar of the coat. Daniel’s hand snaked out, his blow leaving behind a burning, stinging pain on his victim’s face. The boy tried not to let the tears leave his eyes, but Daniel’s next blow knocked all his good intentions out the window.
He lost count of the number of times Uncle Daniel hit him in the face, his eyes refused to focus, and his face was numb from the hard slaps. Uncle Daniel threw him against the wall of the shed, kneeling on his legs when he slid to the ground. Gort didn’t know how long Uncle Daniel beat on him. His body was one great pain, and still Daniel continued to land blows on his head and his stomach and his back.
“Set the law on me will you? Get some fancy lawyer to take away the money that’s rightfully mine and give it to that auld biddy, Emily?” Uncle Daniel punctuated each accusation with another blow.
Gort finally just let himself slip into the comforting darkness where Uncle Daniel and the pain in his body couldn’t follow him. Safe in the encompassing darkness, his searching hand encountered and became entangled in the crystal strands of GogMagog’s mane. Relief at the stallion’s presence washed through him. Gog had been gone for a bit on some business not requiring his soul mate’s presence, so there hadn’t been an opportunity to discuss the recent troubling events.
Gort pulled himself to his feet and leaned heavily on the spirit stallion’s shoulder. Not for the first time, the teenager thanked the Goddess of Glastonbury Tor for the kinship of the Crystal Stallion. They became bonded the night Laurel successfully bargained for her mother’s life in the crystal caverns within the Tor. “Thank the gods, you’re here Gog.” Gort’s voice trembled, choked with his tears.
“I would have come sooner, but I was a long way away.” Gog’s warm breath sent hope and strength coursing through his cold body. The stallion glowed and shimmered with rainbow light; his large liquid eyes were as fathomless as the night sky. Powerfully built, the spirit stallion had a long, flowing heavy mane and tail and thick-boned legs. His broad short back and powerful haunches rippled with strength. He belonged to the herd of crystal stallions that wait beneath the Tor for Arthur to call them to battle on the day of Britain’s greatest need. Partners in many former lives, man and horse were re-united once again. In the everyday world, Gog appeared as a sturdy black Fell pony who never strayed far from Gort’s side.
“Come with me for a while. Leave what is for a time, and travel with me to what was once,” GogMagog entreated him.
“Lead me to it.” Gort stepped away from the warm crystalline shoulder of the great stallion.