The girl
The girl is back. She stands silhouetted against the sunshine, the great Barn doors thrown open. Wisps of newly-mown hay lift and scatter. Light floods into the stalls. 'Hi horsies!' The girl is holding a cloth napkin full of peaches. She walks up to the first stall and holds out a pale yellow fruit. Rutherford arches his neck towards her outstretched hand. Freckles of light float across his patchy hindquarters. He licks the girl's palm according to a code that he's worked out, — - — -, which means that he is Rutherford Birch Hayes, the nineteenth President of the United States of America, and that she should alert the local officials. 'Ha-ha!' the girl laughs. 'That tickles.'

Rebirth
When Rutherford woke up inside the horse's body, he was tied to a stout flag post. He couldn't focus his new eyes. He was wearing blinders. A flag was whipping above him, but Rutherford was tethered so tightly to the post that he couldn't twist his neck to count the stars. He could hear a clock gonging somewhere nearby, a sound that rattled through his chest in waves. That clock must be broken, Rutherford thought. It struck upwards of twelve times, of twenty, more gongs than there were hours in a day. After a certain number of repetitions, it ceased to mean anything. Rutherford stared down into a drainage ditch and saw a horse's broody face staring back at him. His hooves were rough, unfeeling endings. He stamped, and he couldn't feel the ground beneath him. The gonging wasn't a clock at all, he realized with a warm spreading horror, but the thudding of his giant equine heart.

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'The Barn at the End of Our Term' will be printed in full in Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2. To subscribe to Granta and receive the entire issue free, or to buy a copy of Granta 97, click here.