by Michaela A. Reed

We can’t make an exact guess why Mary Maple turned into a cow. Perhaps it was her jealousy or spite, maybe her inability to differentiate the wounds of the past from those of the present from those of the future. Regardless, she was not satisfied with her humanity, so what was left for her to become?

—

Winter is coming. Grass shoots push slowly through the cold soil, pecans lie scattered on the ground, and maple trees shed the remnants of their red leaves like tears and worn wigs. While the natural world shrinks around them, the spring calves grow taller and fatter.

Also, someone is stealing cow eyes.

The oldest members of the herd pin the blame on no-gooders, prowling fence-jumpers, unattended and looking for trouble. The younger cows speculate the old rancher and his son may be the culprits, that they pick from the herd at night while the animals are sleeping. It’s for their good, they insist. They do everything for the good of the animals.

Mary Maple does not agree with either sentiment. She knows that disappearances are the result of the dead haunting the countryside, tearing at pieces of the living in their attempts to fulfill unfinished business. After collecting their spoils, they march down empty roads, the dark flames of their ghostly bodies licking up into the air. Mary Maple has never seen them take anything, but she knows, if she were a ghost, she wouldn’t leave the space of the living without something to take with her.

“They rob in vengeance of what was stolen from them,” she explains to Hera. “It’s a matter of balance.”

Hera grunts and tosses her head, turning away to pull her thick, black body over the hill. It looked like she said, That’s ridiculous, but Mary Maple knows the gesture means nothing at all to her, simply that the cow is irritated with flying pests and the diminishing safety of her kind. Six months in the herd, and Mary Maple has begun to understand them. They still can’t understand her.

—

The haunches of three blind heifers, striding shoulder to shoulder up the hill in the back of the pasture, pinnacle against the setting sun. Mary Maple traces their outlines with her eyes, attempting to keep her head low. The cows still don’t quite know what to do with her, so Hera, in her aged wisdom, decide Mary is to be left in the back, in their most exposed position. She wishes she resented them for this.

In the distance, next to the barn, the shapes of the rancher and his dog climb into the red pickup truck. As it wheels away, dust and hay tumble and burst beneath the tires, farther and farther, until it is a gnat on the horizon.

Mary Maple knows what’s in the barn. It is the beginning of a love story: the couple meeting as the sun falls away, circling each other until instinct takes over. They’ll stay together as one warm shape in the dark until the light returns, and, disappointed with the pattern of his lover’s coat, the bull will toss his heifer and depart, leaving her ripped and cold, full with next autumn’s calf. This is how Mary Maple assumes all love stories play out, even those of cows.

As she’s thinking this, she bumps into the rump of Celia: young, blind, and still as stone.

“Keep moving,” Mary Maple says to Celia, but the young cow remains in place, the empty holes in her head appearing to fix on the faraway road while her family continues across the pasture. “You’re one of the stupid ones,” Mary concludes. She turns to leave but stops when she notices a flicker on the road, like a spark jumping up from a candle wick. She snorts as Celia starts toward the road, slowly at first, hoof by hoof, then faster, bolder. At one point, she stumbles over a rock and releases an irritated moo. Mary Maple rolls her eyes and approaches the younger cow, pressing against her side to steady her, and together, they shamble to the road.

—

Dancing on the dirt of the road is a procession of cow-horned shadows, black-blue against the night air. Celia is enthralled by them, bouncing on her hoofs and swinging her brown tail. Mary Maple wonders if she can see without her eyes or if the animal simply senses the visitors’ presence.

As for the ghosts, they don’t seem to notice their spectators. They jump and swing their arms and rear back, hooting without voice to the sky. For a second, Mary thinks she sees a shadow take on the shape of her former self before it flits up and vanishes. A wave of disturbance washes briefly over her.

“I hope you’re happy,” she whispers, but wonders, to herself, to whom is she speaking? She turns her attention to Celia and says, “Time to go,” but Celia, puppyish in her movements, bounces beside the procession. When she comes upon a break in the gnarled wood, Celia bursts through the fence and settles easily into the dancing crowd. Mary follows, dutifully but reluctantly. “You’re one of the stupid ones,” she says again.

—

The rancher’s red truck glides slowly down the dirt path, the shining eyes of the headlights illuminating the shapes of two lost cows tramping down the road. The rancher’s son lifts his phone to his ear.

“Found ’em,” he says.

Parking the truck by the fence, the young man grabs two loops of rope and exits. He jogs to catch up to the animals, whistling to alert them before patting the brown cow on the rump.

“Got out again, did you?” Celia doesn’t object to her capture, satisfied with her nightly romp. “It’s not safe for you ladies to be out alone like this at night.” Mary Maple bucks and twists her head in defiance. “Shoot, it’s always like this when it first happens. Hush now, it’s alright.” The man continues whispering to Mary, who only stops objecting when she hears a voice beside her say, It’s okay. It’s unfortunate, but you’re safe. With these words, Mary feels a large, wet snout press into her cheek, and she settles, allowing the rancher’s son to pat her head and run his fingers over her eyeless sockets. She forces her neck to stay still as he secures the rope around her. “Let’s get you ladies back home.”

Mary Maple used to listen to the rancher’s son, wondering if he could be a man she could have once befriended or tried to love, but now, his words don’t register in her mind. They are like a song with a familiar tune but an unfamiliar name.

As the young man leads the two cows back to the herd up on the hill, Mary Maple leans into Celia and says, Tell me more. Give me something. The brown cow licks her nose and flicks her ears. Gladly, she responds.

Michaela A. Reed is a fiction writer and poet born and raised in Georgia. With a reverence toward nostalgia, curiosity, and self-exploration, her writing strives to gently confront the connections and disconnections that attempt to both strengthen and break a person.