The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

  But the Black Horse doesn’t want Benny.

  I pick up the letter. I am going to get that comic book.

  I BIDE MY TIME. Benny has been trailing me, following my every move. He never has his comic book with him, so he must have hidden it, just as I have hidden the broken colored pencils in the secret drawer of Anna’s desk. But at last he gets lazy. He gets bored. He gets careless. And while the children are gathered in Sister Constance’s office listening to a broadcast by Winston Churchill on the radio, I make my move.

  There is a winged horse in the residence hall mirror behind me, one I’ve never seen, with pretty blue eyes, swatting her tail at flies in the mirror-hallway. She watches me curiously as I tiptoe closer to the very last door on the right of the residence hall.

  Benny’s door.

  I ease it open and close it behind me. Only once I’m in the room do I breathe out.

  There are three beds, but I know which one is his. Even if I didn’t, the smell of onions would give it away. I tiptoe over and lift his pillow: no comic book. I slide open his bedside table: nothing but a bag of old nuts and letters from home. I drop down to look under the bed: nothing.

  I sit on the bed, thinking. I have to find it.

  If I were a nasty, hound-faced boy, where would I hide my comic book?

  My eyes fall to the big Bible on his desk, and I remember him reading Popeye last Sunday instead of the Bible. I flip it open, and a few pages in, Popeye looks back at me. My eyes go wide. What would God think of that?

  I grab the comic book and stuff it down my shirt just as footsteps sound in the hallway. Through the cracked door, I watch the winged horse in the mirror pace back and forth, blue eyes wide, as though to warn me. I drop down and crawl under Benny’s bed just as the footsteps stop at the bedroom door. Black boots. Narrow width. Sister Mary Grace’s. The urge to cough rises, and I clamp a hand over my mouth. She stands still for a moment, and then closes the door.

  I wait.

  The floor under his bed is sticky, and there’s a fallen nut or two. I cannot stay here long. The radio broadcast will end soon, and he will return. I cough into my hand as quietly as I can.

  I crawl out slowly, blood pounding in my ears, and twist the doorknob. Outside, the hall is quiet. The winged horse with the blue eyes has her back to me, as though she is asleep. I take a deep breath, and then tiptoe down the hall on sock feet and dart into Anna’s bedroom. They haven’t taken out her big bed and heavy furniture yet. I press the hidden lever on the underside of the desk that releases the secret drawer. It pops open, and suddenly the room is filled with Anna again. Dried lavender. Her naturalist books. A single fine black-ink pen and the broken pencils I placed there for safekeeping. I shove the comic book in and close the drawer, and then dash out. I veer at the hall corner and go flying by, ducking beneath the door of Sister Constance’s office and onto the attic stairs just as the broadcast ends and the children emerge into the hall.

  I stop to catch my breath at the top of the stairs, in the shadows where no one looks.

  In the dark, I smile.

  “WHERE IS IT?”

  Benny’s shouts carry all the way to the top of the attic stairs. I draw in a sharp breath, but that triggers the coughing again. I can barely muffle it against my sleeve.

  Outside the attic window, the late afternoon sun sinks farther. Soon the moon will rise. Nearly a full moon. I only have one day to spare, as tomorrow the moon will be completely round and bright. I need to sneak out to the sundial garden. I need to set the comic book in its place on the wall of ivy. I need to complete the spectral shield to protect Foxfire. All eight rainbow colors just like in the manufacturer’s description. A complete set.

  And yet.

  As soon as I stand up from the stairs, my vision goes black, and I immediately sit down again. My lungs. The beast that waits there, deep beneath the stillwaters, is clawing at my throat.

  I throw a hand over my mouth. Not now. Please. Not tonight.

  I try to think soothing thoughts: Water flowing down my throat. Warm melted chocolate. Fresh milk straight from the pail. But the tickle won’t be ignored. It grows into a briary rose that someone is scratching up and down the insides of my throat.

  “NO!” Benny yells. “Someone took it!”

  There are frantic footsteps and more shouting from beyond the attic door. Benny saw me sneaking around in his room. Benny has sharp eyes like a hunting dog. He will know it was me.

  But he can search my room all he wants—he won’t find it.

  I take one long look outside. Is Foxfire waiting for me? Is the Black Horse blinking, clearing his vision, waiting for the light of tomorrow’s full moon so he can attack again? But my limbs are shaking and my vision is going wavy and it’s all I can do to crawl to my attic room. One inch at a time, each step its own small battle, and I think of the men in the rubble, lungs choked with dust from German bombs, crawling and crawling to safety. At last, I reach my bedroom. I kick the door shut and lean against it, breathing hard. The stillwaters beast is not going to calm down this time. It came for Anna and now Anna is gone and it wants more lungs to thrash around in, other throats to claw and shred.

  I pull myself onto the rope mattress and collapse on the quilt. The cough comes freely now. I let it. It shreds the inside of my throat, forcing its way out. I feel like someone is wringing me out. No water left. No life left. I taste the bitter bite of blood. Beyond the doors, there come angry footsteps stomping up the stairs.

  They stop outside of my door.

  KNOCK, KNOCK.

  Benny’s voice. “I know it was you, you thief!”

  The door opens a few inches. Benny’s angry face haunts the crack, his sharp eyes hunting around the room, his spindly nose sniffing. Then he sees me and his eyes go wide. “Emmaline? Are you…” He stumbles back. “Sister Constance, come quick! There’s blood everywhere!”

  His footsteps going down the stairs are even faster.

  I smile. It is the last thing I remember, before my head lolls back. I smile, and think of the rainbow that Marjorie and I saw that day in the rain. I was afraid it would be the last one I’d ever see.

  But soon. Soon. I will finish my own.

  MARJORIE IS SITTING ON the edge of my bed, wearing her yellow raincoat, reading Benny’s comic book. She smells like fresh apple pie and cinnamon, and oh, I have missed that smell. I have missed her. My sister. I try to sit up, but my head is so heavy that I crash right back down against the pillows. The attic feels too warm. I want to throw off the covers, but Marjorie is sitting on them firmly.

  “That comic…” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. The stillwaters beast has shredded my throat. “Put it back. Keep it hidden….”

  She flips a page and smiles at a drawing of Popeye riding a camel. “You worry too much, Em. You always worried too much.” She flips another page. My head feels like only half of it is there, but where would the other half be? And why is Marjorie wearing a raincoat indoors? When I sit up, my body careens to the left, and then to the right, and it feels like the entire attic is on the back of a camel, swaying and swaying. The stillwaters clump in my throat like rotting leaves in a marsh, and I know—I know—the beast is down there, waiting. I rub the center of my chest.

  Marjorie tilts the comic book to show me a drawing of Olive Oyl tumbling down a sand dune. I press a hand to my head. The pages ruffle, showing the inscription.

  Love, Dad.

  “Marjorie.” My lips are so dry. “How did you get here?”

  Marjorie didn’t board the first trains out of Nottingham. Neither did I. We both stood in front of our house, watching the neighbors dragging heavy suitcases toward the station, their faces somber, their parents trying not to cry. The night before they left, my mother sat us down around the dining room table. “Many children are leaving the cities,” she said. “Their parents believe it is safer in the country. But you must understand, girls, no place is safe anymore. Your father is not safe in Libya. Your uncle is not saf
e in London, working with the air chief marshal’s offices. And so we will stay together, the three of us. We will do ourselves the work your father and the bakery boys did. We will look out for each other. Marjorie, you will take care of Emmaline, and Emmaline, you will take care of Marjorie.” She paused, and then gave my hand another squeeze. “But I will take care of you both a little extra, because I am your mother, and you will always be my two special rabbits.”

  Marjorie flips another page.

  I can’t stop coughing. I paw at the corner of the quilt, pressing it against my mouth, trying to hold in the stillwaters, but there is no stopping something like that.

  Marjorie watches, and shakes her head sadly.

  “Mother was right,” she says. “No place is safe anymore.”

  IN MY DREAMS I hear Benny. I know it was you, you thief. Marjorie comes and goes. She always wears her yellow raincoat. And then, suddenly, she is a black ghost with a white face, only it isn’t her at all anymore, but Sister Mary Grace in her nun’s habit.

  She strokes my head.

  “Shh,” Sister Mary Grace says. “Try to rest, child.”

  There is someone else in the doorway. Muddy red hair and a muddy red sweater.

  “It’s all right, Benedict,” Sister Mary Grace says. “You can go. She’s waking up now.”

  He looks at me—wide eyes, no hint of his usual sneer—and then quickly looks down and leaves through the open door.

  “He came and got me right away, and wouldn’t leave until you woke. Now, try to drink some tea.” Sister Mary Grace tips the edge of the steaming cup toward my lips.

  I shake my head, trying to sit up. “I need to go outside. I need to visit the garden.”

  Her kindly look fades into consternation. “Not today, Emmaline.”

  How long have I been asleep and dreaming? Hours? A whole day? I throw a desperate look at the dark sky outside. I can just make out the garden wall in the moonlight. The moon, so bright it’s blinding. Perfectly round. Full. Full! Panic starts to gnaw at the edges of my fingers, making them itch to pull on my boots and race downstairs.

  “No,” she says.

  “Just for twenty minutes.”

  “No.”

  “Ten.”

  She gives me a look.

  “Five!”

  Sister Mary Grace sets down the cup with a sigh. “Dr. Turner examined you. Your body is very weak right now. You can’t…” She looks down at the quilt. “You can’t go outside. Not for a long time. I’m so sorry, my child.” She looks over her shoulder at my door.

  There is a new ticket there. A red one.

  My blood thumps in my ears.

  Not go outside?

  Not go to the garden?

  “You don’t understand! Foxfire needs me. It’s the full moon and the spectral shield isn’t finished yet and the Black Horse might have already gotten to her!” I tear at the quilt, trying to get out of bed, but Sister Mary Grace holds me down. She’s stronger than I remember, or else I am weaker.

  “I’m so sorry. You must get some rest.”

  “I have to save her!”

  “Em—”

  “It’s true! Everything Benny said is true! I did steal his comic book and I did steal the altar cloth and I’m sorry for all of it, but Foxfire needed it more than we did!” I swallow, try to speak more calmly. “If I don’t go to her the Black Horse is going to kill her. Tonight.”

  Sister Mary Grace looks like she is almost in tears. She stands, brushing at her eyes, and takes a deep, bolstering breath. “You’ve been talking nonsense in your sleep, and trying to get out.” Her hand falls on a gleam of brass right above the knob. “Sister Constance had Thomas put a bolt on the door, for your own safety. We’ll move you to Anna’s room tomorrow. You’ll be warmer there, and there’s that pretty painted ceiling, won’t you like that?”

  I stare at the lock.

  A bit of brass that wasn’t there before holds me in now. Thomas must have come up with hammer and nails and turned my room into a prison cell. He knows about Foxfire. How could he do this to me?

  I ball my fists in the quilt.

  “Tell Thomas to come. Tell him I need to speak to him urgently. Alone.”

  Sister Mary Grace hesitates. Other than to bring up firewood, Thomas rarely enters the upper levels in a house of nuns and young children. He almost never is alone with one of us, except for Anna, who was bedridden and needed extra help. Thomas is a young man, and even now, even in war, there are rules that must be followed.

  Sister Mary Grace runs her finger over the lock, and then nods. “I’ll tell him.”

  I SLEEP. I do not want to sleep, but it comes upon me as stealthy as a fox. I dream of my father and Thomas’s father together on the Capuzzo front in armored cars. All around them, long black feathers rain down instead of bombs. Each feather slices at the car’s armor, piece by piece by piece, letting in the snow.

  Cold. It is so cold.

  When I wake, the attic window is open a crack, which I do not remember doing. The thought of moving across the room to close it is too exhausting, so I just pull the quilt higher. My stomach rumbles, and I reach for the tea, and—

  A letter rests beside the cup.

  A letter on beautiful paper, rolled up in red ribbon.

  My heart flit-flit-flits, just like the wounded bird that Marjorie found, as I pick it up with shaking fingers.

  Dear Emmaline May,

  As you know, my horses have been watching your world through the mirrors. They told me of your present condition as a prisoner, and I offer my condolences. In one of your letters, you expressed what—if I may presume—felt like deep anger toward the Black Horse. I fear this anger is misplaced. You see, the Black Horse does not bring strife because he enjoys it. He has a right to his life. He has a place in this world. He even has a name: Volkrig. My winged horses soar because that is what they do. Volkrig hunts because that is what he does. Try to understand. We can resist him. We can fight him. But we cannot blame him for doing what he was made to do.

  Foxfire’s fate is her own, now. You have been a good friend to her—and to me.

  Ride true,

  The Horse Lord

  I fold the letter. Volkrig. The name has a sinister ring for a sinister horse, and yet, it changes something.

  A chill slips from the cracked window.

  The Horse Lord must have climbed through it. All this time, he could have just come to me. He didn’t need the gardens, or the golden sundial. Why never show me his face?

  Knock, knock.

  The brass bolt draws back. “Emmaline? Are you awake?”

  It is Thomas.

  “Yes.” I throw the covers back, but the stillwaters rise, and I cough and cough. Thomas looks in hesitantly, then quickly looks away.

  “Sister Mary Grace said—”

  “You must do me a favor.” I force myself to sit up. “In Anna’s bedroom. There’s a desk with a secret drawer that’s released by a latch in the bottom. There’s a—” The stillwaters beast fights to claw up, and I swallow him back down. “There’s a book. Take it to the sundial garden. Attach it to the ivy. You have to. Foxfire needs us.”

  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.