The Jockey of Elfland

By N. Sumi

Alec Dailey ran away from home at the height of the Great Depression to be a jockey, but he’s just too tall. Still, he manages to eke out a living as an exercise rider at Pimlico. Then, one day, the elves come to him and make him an offer: we give you a horse, and you ride in one of our races. Done! The horse, a beautiful black stallion, is everything Alec ever dreamed of in his own horse–except for the part where he turns out to the notorious (and recently missing) jockey, Sunny Jim, who got himself turned into a horse by the elves. (Eventually, they fall in love.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inkblot Press
• Release date: Jan 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386670698

Book preview

The Jockey of Elfland

N. Sumi

Published by Inkblot Press, 2017.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

THE JOCKEY OF ELFLAND

First edition. January 30, 2017.

Copyright © 2017 N. Sumi.

ISBN: 978-1386670698

Written by N. Sumi.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

The Jockey of Elfland

He opened his eyes, flat on his back in a wood.  It was too perfect a place, the trees all the same height and color, as if someone had taken a rubber stamp to the world.  The smooth, slender trees had no branches anywhere except at the top, so that the effect was of a series of white pillars leading up to a leafy ceiling that waved gently in the breeze, sending golden dappled sunlight down onto the forest floor.  The leaves on the ground made a gentle shushing sound as Alec sat up, shielding his face from the glare with one hand.  A moment ago he'd been in Baltimore, on his way back from United Drugs.

About thirty paces away, the elves stood in a half-circle.  There were perhaps a dozen of them, all nearly identical in form and face.  They all had the same fine, pale features and the same long, fair hair, so that you could hardly tell man from woman, if indeed the elves even bothered with such distinctions.  They were all dressed very richly, though strangely.  Alec had always imagined, from reading Shakespeare, that they clad themselves in the finery of lords and ladies of ages long past, hose and doublets and robes and the like.  Rather, though their clothes were clearly very rich, they were bizarre in shape and color, with some parts resembling the parts of flowers and other flora, and others resembling the parts of animals.  The strangest was when the two came together and combined, so that one elf might have the arms of a flower and the antlers of a deer, while another might bear the faint suggestion of a giant cat, but in the pale pastels of a carnation.

Welcome to Elfland, Alec Dailey, said one of the elves in a high, musical voice that put Alec in mind of snowmelt up the mountains.  We require of you a service.  Not, Alec noticed, a favor.  Elves asked favors of no one.  Alec wondered what elves could possibly need or want from someone like him, and then he said, We require a rider, and all of Alec's insides sank.

I'm no jockey, he mumbled, looking down at the ground.  The leaves weren't any shape that he was familiar with.  I just exercise them.  You want a jockey, you should ask—

It is most assuredly you we are after.  Alec couldn't tell if it was a different elf that spoke or the same, they all looked and sounded so alike.  We will provide you a horse.  All you must do is ride him, when the time comes.  The elf gestured to another elf, who disappeared behind an invisible curtain, seeming to vanish into thin air.  When the elf returned, it was leading the most magnificent horse Alec had ever seen.

Seventeen hands if he's an inch, Alec thought, open-mouthed with wonder.  This horse was splendid, more like the idea of a horse than a real flesh and blood animal.  Coal black from tip to tail, not a white hair on him, and perfectly proportioned, with knees not too high or too low, a broad chest, and a trim runner's body.  Alec took a step forward, then remembered that the elves hadn't given him permission to move.  When they said nothing, Alec continued, making a wide circle around the horse, who watched him with ears pricked.  There was something in the beast's eye he didn't like, something ornery.  But he didn't care.  He wanted this horse.

We will see to his feeding and stabling, said one of the elves.  Alec didn't even turn to look, he was still gazing awestruck at the horse.  All you need to do is train him and win.

What happens if I don't win? asked Alec, though he knew that astride this horse—no matter how big Alec might be—he could outrun even old Man O' War.

Then you and the horse will die, the elf answered.

*

When Alec first showed up at the track five years ago, they all looked at the skinny boy with the Boston accent and fox-red hair and knew he'd never make a jockey: his feet were too big.  He tried to hide them in tight shoes, but sure enough, he sprouted the next year, and the year after that, and now at nineteen he towered over the rest of the jockeys at five foot ten.  He was skinny, but in this line of work, skinny didn't cut it; he was still too heavy to ride anything but the biggest handicappers, and no one wanted to risk putting a green boy up on a horse for one of those.  So Alec was stuck exercising them, and he managed to get by, as long as he slept in one of the stalls and ate at the bread lines.

He didn't hunger for company, at least.  There was Eddie Kurtsinger, a dark-haired, dark-skinned, lean little ferret of a man.  He was a proper jockey, but not a winning one, else he wouldn't be sleeping at the stables.  But he never let it get him down; he was always ready with another wisecrack, and he kept all their spirits up.  And sharing Alec's stall was little Johnny, a boy barely bigger than a wheat stalk, with sandy hair and freckles peppered all over his smiling face.  He was a hot-walker, but he wanted to be a jockey someday.  He had a tendency to flame up red when teased, which just made the others tease him more, and then he'd put up his dukes, though he was easily half the size of any of them.

That day, though, Alec couldn't keep his mind on the horses, or rather, he could only think about one horse.  He ticked past the quarter-mile poles and just kept wondering how fast the black horse could go, who he'd be racing against, where he'd be racing.  But