Fire Horse Girl

A short story that makes parallels between horse riding and an East Asian superstition.

The screen door creaked, loud enough to betray Rosie Wu. She slipped inside, one hand pressed to her ribs where bruises bloomed, the other dragging her boot heel to smear out the hoofprints on the concrete. The scent of eucalyptus clung to her sleeves, mixing with sweat, saddle leather, and blood. Dust streaked her cheekbones like war paint.

She wasn’t supposed to ride today. Not after last time.

The hallway buzzed under a tired fluorescent bulb. Silence thickened—waiting.
The kitchen door opened before she touched it. Her Po Po stood there, bare feet on linoleum, hands tucked into the sleeves of her black cardigan. Her gaze swept Rosie once, slow and sharp, from the grass-stained track pants to the welt on her jaw.

“You fell,” the old woman said in Cantonese, flat as weather.

Rosie said nothing. The taste of blood lingered. She didn’t look away.

Po Po shook her head. “This Fire Horse girl—born burning, still burning.”

Inside, the microwave’s red numbers blinked 18:12, while a pot of rice steamed on the stovetop. Rosie stepped across the threshold, the air pressing against her like a lid fitted wrong. A bowl of congee sat cooling on the table, as Po Po sank into the vinyl-covered chair that had once belonged to Rosie’s mother.

“You’ll bring misfortune to this house,” she said, voice dragging like old cloth. “That year, even in Guangzhou, families left daughters on doorsteps. Some prayed someone else would take them. Some didn’t pray at all.”

Rosie unlaced her boots with trembling fingers. Down the hall, Ba Ba’s door creaked—footsteps, a pause, then retreat.

“I didn’t break anything,” Rosie said. She wasn’t sure if she meant her ribs or something else.

Po Po snorted. “Yet.”

She turned her back and pressed play on the CD player. Cantonese opera filled the kitchen, the voices warbling slightly as the disc spun beneath its scratched cover. The incense dish on the counter still smoked, as Rosie sat and forced down a mouthful of congee, the salt burning the split in her lip.

The back door opened and Ba Ba stepped in - sleeves rolled and grease staining his work shirt. He nodded, heading toward to the sink.

“Mo throw you again?” he asked, not looking up.

“Spooked at the standard on the triple,” Rosie said. “Took it too early.”

Ba Ba wiped his hands on a worn tea towel, paused in the doorway. “That stallion’s got flash, but not rhythm. You’re crowding his takeoff.” With that, he closed the door closed behind him.
**********
Later, Rosie stood in the garage doorway, watching Ba Ba at his workbench beneath a flickering halogen bulb. He sat hunched on an old esky, bent over the broken girth strap. The battered stereo hissed through a worn cassette—Aussie pop from Ba Ba’s younger days, the melody tinny but defiant, the lyrics too fast for Rosie to follow. Songs from a country Ba Ba rarely spoke of but never quite left.

The stirrup Rosie had abandoned sat untouched in the corner, dusty with arena sand. Ba Ba finished threading the buckle and held the strap out to her without looking up.

"Don't take him at the gate jump until you fix your line," he said. "He’s a stallion, not a machine."

Rosie nodded. "I know. I just—"

He looked at her then. Briefly. "Rushing gets you hurt."

Beside the saddle rag lay her mother’s old quilted saddle pad, folded with quiet care. The faint scent of camphor clung to it.
**********
The next morning, Rosie caught the early train to Claremont Showgrounds, the city still pressed under a slow, before-school hush.

Mo, her Lipizzan stallion, waited in the stables—a creature leased from her Belgian trainer, a man who believed more in discipline than kindness. Rosie cinched the girth tight, her hands moving by habit, the old instructions still sharp in her mind: Sit deeper. Hold the rhythm.

Mo shifted under her, muscles taut, white coat bright in the early light. Too big. Too high-strung. Too good for her, they whispered. But he listened to her. He always had. She mounted carefully. Her ribs still ached, but the pain had changed—no longer punishment, just memory.

The course stretched ahead: white-painted verticals, a red brush box, a wide oxer, and a heavy gate fence sagging between its posts. Rosie steadied her hands as Mo bunched beneath her, taut as a pulled wire. She rose with him, heels anchored, the rhythm lifting through her hips.

Mo cleared the first fence clean, landing light and sure. As she circled back, she spotted Ba Ba sitting on the low rail near the hedge, a few metres behind the old station wagon he’d driven that morning. His elbows rested on his knees, head bent low, as if studying the trailer hitch.

The trailer hadn’t been used in years; dust filmed the chains, rust gripped the bolts. Ba Ba didn’t glance up as Mo galloped past, but Rosie could feel his eyes on her—careful, distant, almost reaching pride.

She straightened in the saddle, pointed Mo at the next fence, jaw set. She didn’t need Ba Ba to say anything. Not anymore.
**********
That night, sore and sunburnt, Rosie stepped into her room. A strip of red cloth lay folded on her pillow; next to it, a tin of Tiger Balm.

She lingered in the doorway, the house creaking with the cooling of the day. Outside, crickets pulsed. A neighbour’s TV spilled laughter through the fibro walls.
In the next room, Po Po’s chanting wove through the radio’s hum. In the middle of it, Rosie’s name echoed—half blessing, half surrender.

Down the hall, the garage light blinked out. Rosie picked up the cloth, warm from the day’s heat. Blessing or apology, she accepted it all the same.