The Secret Horses of Briar Hill(15)

I beg you to accept this mission of utmost importance.

Ride true,

The Horse Lord





I stare at the letter with wide eyes.

I am to protect Foxfire?

I am to undergo a mission of utmost importance, all on my own? No, no, I can’t possibly. Feeding her and caring for her is one thing, but this is quite another. My heart starts to swell with that rat-a-tat fear, and I want to crawl over the wall and run, run away from the letter.

But the Horse Lord is depending on me.

I hold the ribbon up to the light. If I’m to find colorful objects, then could this be the first? It is thick and long, surely long enough to be seen from a distance. It is red, but looking closer, it is more than that. Sometimes when it catches the light it is cherry red, other times the same red as the emblems painted on the army trucks that rumble by.

Foxfire is still munching on the apple, but her eyes are fastened to the ribbon. I glance at the ivy covering the garden wall. The vines twist around themselves to form little nooks and pockets, like a fairy shelf. I find a sturdy vine and tie the red ribbon around it so that it flickers in the wind. It is bright and shiny against the dull dark green. I take a step back, and then another, and it still shines brightly.

Yes, I think. Yes, maybe I can do this.

But a cloud covers the sun, and I squint up at the sky.

One red ribbon will not be enough.

I must find something blue, and green, and yellow, and all the other rainbow colors in shades bright enough to blind the Black Horse when he comes for Foxfire. And he will come. I know this. Even now I can feel him circling just beyond the clouds. His black hooves tear up wisps of white-gray as he circles and circles, pulling the winds with him, stirring thunder in his wake.

But where to find blues and greens and yellows? The only colors at the hospital are on little paper tickets attached to our doors that would dissolve in the rain. There are no flowers now. No rainbows arching in the sky after an April rain shower.

The last time I saw a rainbow, I was running home with Marjorie after school, darting from doorway to doorway to escape the spring rain. She made it into a game. Water was poison gas; each drip was one day off your life, so we had to run and run and run, before we had no days left. The rain came harder, and she pulled me into the doorway of a theater. “If we don’t hide,” she said, “We’ll have no days left.” She hugged me close and pointed above the church, where a double rainbow spanned the steeple. “Look!”

Everything at Briar Hill is white snow and gray stone. It is the dull browns and greens of soldiers’ uniforms, and the black of nuns’ habits. No wonder we have drawn the Black Horse straight to us. Our world is colorless midwinter.

I close my eyes and think of that day in the rain. Marjorie’s bright yellow raincoat. My blue socks. The lively pink in our cheeks, not the burn of fever in Anna’s. I take off my mittens and press my cold hands to my face. I miss Marjorie so much, I could cry. I don’t know what to do without her singing me to sleep, making games of rainstorms, sneaking me slices of apple pie. It has been so long since I’ve seen so many colors all together that I’m afraid I might have forgotten them. The only blue I can picture now is a watery sky. The only yellow the murky medicine Dr. Turner gives us. But there must be more out there. There must be brighter things.

Something nudges me from behind.

I turn and gasp. Foxfire is right behind me. Her muzzle is poised to nudge my shoulder again, her warm horse-breath on my neck, her ears swiveled forward. I dare not move, afraid to spook her. She dips her head, horse-lips searching the folds of my coat, until she reaches my pocket. When she discovers that it is empty except for chalk, she snorts.

“I’ll bring you another apple soon,” I say when I can find my words. “And I’ll collect colors to protect you. I won’t let the Black Horse get you. I promise.”

Slowly, slowly, I lift my bare hand.

I bring it down on her muzzle. A single touch. I feel her velvet coat, her gentle warmth. She is so powerful. And then she tosses her head and prances off to her corner of the garden and watches me.

I smile.

It is a start.

I flip over the letter, and write on the back:

Dear Horse Lord,

I was afraid that I’d forgotten all the colors of the rainbow, but I know just where I can find them again. You can count on me.

Truly,

Emmaline May





ANNA’S COLORED PENCILS were a gift from Dr. Turner.

Anna has been at Briar Hill longer than any of the rest of us. She came two years ago on the first trains rumbling through the countryside. She brought two beaten-up suitcases with her. One was full of winter coats and stockings that her mother had packed. The other was full of naturalist books—that one she had packed herself. Sister Constance said Anna used to like to wander the gardens, like me, long before they were eaten by ivy. She would sit on a bench and read and read and read amid the spring flowers. But then the stillwaters got worse with the summer rains, and by August she was bedridden. She couldn’t see the flowers anymore. Dr. Turner brought her the pencils so she could draw them. I don’t think anyone has ever told her that all the flowers have long since died.

I knock on her door.

“Come in.”

Her voice is tired.

I push open the door, and she smiles and pats the bed, but I don’t climb up. There is a handkerchief in her hand that is primly folded, mostly hidden in her palm, and I wonder if there is blood inside. She has the mirror on her nightstand tilted away from her face. In its reflection, I can just make out winged horses beyond the mirror-window, grazing in the dead grass, with their wings folded tightly against the wind.