The Secret Horses of Briar Hill(36)

He stares at me, as if not hearing. “Emmaline…”

“Please! I can’t go myself.”

He hesitates, and then nods. “Yes. Yes, of course I will.”

I breathe out slowly, sinking into the pillows. They are soft. They are clouds, like Foxfire’s hair.

But Thomas remains in the doorway. “There’s something I have to tell you, Emmaline. My aunt’s written from Wales. I have to leave later tonight, and I’ll be gone for a few days. It’s my father’s funeral in London. It’s poor timing,” he stammers, glancing at the red ticket. “But there’s nothing to be done for it.”

He takes a deep breath, and then I understand. He thinks he will not see me again. He thinks the stillwaters will come for me while he is away. I snap my eyes to him.

“You think I’m going to die.”

“No. No. I just…”

Yes. This is what he thinks.

His fingers toy with the brass bolt. “Goodbye, Emmaline.” Then his hand drops to his pocket, and he takes out a small hand mirror. He sets it on my table next to the cold tea. It has brass edges and a wooden handle and I’ve no idea how he came by anything so fine.

There is a tag attached.

I hold it to the light.

For Emmaline May, from your friend Thomas.



“So the horses can look after you,” he says. “While I’m gone.”





IT IS DARK WHEN I WAKE.

Freezing rain pelts the cracked window. I barely remember sleeping. I so badly want to sleep again, but Thomas’s visit has kindled my strength. I must know for certain that Foxfire is safe. I peel back the sweat-soaked sheets and climb shakily out of bed. My knees and ankles don’t work properly, and the moment my feet touch down, I crumple to the floor, and crawl slowly to the window.

The clouds outside are heavy and mottled with full silver moonlight. I can just make out a fast shadow darting back and forth across the snow. Bog. Beside him trudges a looming, unbalanced shadow that must be Thomas. I hiss out a long breath of relief. Soon, at least, the spectral shield will be complete. Foxfire will be protected.

I scan the sky. Against the dark clouds—is that an even darker shadow? It flies in a tight circle, around and around, right over the hospital, just like a German plane.

Thunder cracks and I jump.

The Black Horse. Volkrig. Well, let him circle. He’ll never find Foxfire now.

I ease the window closed and seal out the night with arms that feel so deeply weary.

The brass bolt slides back.

“Emmaline!” Sister Mary Grace hurries in. Sister Constance is right behind her. “What are you doing out of bed, child?”

I let my head tip forward to rest on the window’s cool glass. Thunder cracks again, but I smile. Below, Thomas is opening the garden gate.

“Emmaline?” A cool hand presses against my forehead. I smell fresh, steaming tea. “Sister, help me get her into bed. She’s burning up.”

Those same cool hands lift me. Then, there are soft sheets. A bed that smells of straw. Pillows soft as clouds.

“It’s so cold up here. We should bring her down to Anna’s room right away. There’s a fireplace.”

But I like the smell up here, I want to say. It reminds me of sheep, with their soft, soft wool.

“But Dr. Turner said not to move her. He’s coming back first thing in the morning.”

“That might be too—”

“Shh.” The hands are on my brow, pulling the sheets higher around my neck. “Emmaline? My child?”

“She can’t hear you.”

But I can. I can. I try to tell them, but only a ragged cough comes out. I taste something bitter. One of the nuns stifles a gasp, and then a cloth is pressed to my mouth.

I hear paper rustling.

“All these drawings. Do you think she…she really sees these horses in the mirrors?”

“Sister Mary Grace,” Sister Constance chides. “It is our place to care for the children, not to indulge their feverish delusions.” There are more hands around me, fluffing the pillow, and then Sister Constance adds softer, “Though part of me hopes that she does.”

Sister Mary Grace still shuffles through my drawings. “If only there were someone to send them to. It’s awful, isn’t it? The reports of that bakery during the Nottingham blitz. The bombs, and then the fires. To lose your mother and sister like that—I can’t imagine, and her father the same week in the siege of Tobruk.” Her voice drops. “They were trapped, you know. Her mother and her sister. Dr. Turner heard it from the driver who brought her here. Emmaline was asleep in a different part of the bakery in the middle of the night—you know how she wanders off—when the bombs hit. She must have heard her family banging on the doors, but couldn’t get to them in the rubble. She was burned badly.”

My heart is flit-flit-flitting.

No, I want to tell them. They’re wrong. It wasn’t my father. It wasn’t my mother. It wasn’t Marjorie—Marjorie was even here just yesterday, in her yellow raincoat! It was the horses, kicking at their stalls. The big bay gelding and two smaller mares. Spice. Ginger and Nutmeg.

Paper rustles again. “I suppose all the horses died too.”

“Horses?” Sister Constance opens the door and shuts it behind them, but her voice still carries from the other side. “What horses? Her family worked at a bakery in the middle of Nottingham, far from the nearest pastures. She never had any horses.”