The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

I hold my breath so it won’t cloud in the air and give me away, and listen. There. More rustling, just around the corner. Something moving. Can that really be just a fox? And there. Back from the direction of the statues. The vines climbing the garden wall tremble suddenly, and I suck in a breath.

That is too big to be a fox.

I go completely still. Except for my breath. Except for my heart. Is this what Papa feels like on the front? That at any moment bullets might splinter the walls? That gas might cloud like morning fog?

Clomp.

I shriek. The ivy trembles violently. Should I run?

Clomp, CLOMP.

It’s getting closer! I drop down to the frozen earth. I crawl elbow over elbow through the trenches of dead grass. Benny told us a story once of a German plane that got lost in a storm and crashed on English soil. What if this is a German pilot, lost and angry? My heartbeat thunders in my chest. A willow branch snaps under my elbow, and I shriek.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

It’s a German pilot, I know it, and he’s going to have a gun and he isn’t going to listen when I tell him I’m just a girl because he doesn’t speak English and he has no way of knowing I’m not a spy!

CLOMP.

He’s right around the corner now. There’s no time. I grab the snapped willow branch and brandish it, rising to my feet. Foxes or German pilots, Papa would be brave. I must be brave too.

A snort.

A heavy clomp, clomp, clomp.

A horse swivels its head around the corner. It is almost entirely white—it has long ropes of silken white mane, and a soft gray muzzle, and wings, snow-white wings, wings that are soft and giant and real.

I drop the willow branch.

“You aren’t a German soldier!” I cry.

The horse blinks.

“What are you?”

But I know what it is. Oh, I know.

Dry grass itches at my ankles and wind bites at my nose, but all I can do is stare at this horse. It’s from the mirror-world. But how did it cross over? And why? The winged horses never leave their world—they barely even glance at me when I tap on the hospital mirrors.

The horse takes a cautious step sideways, its dark eyes fixed on me.

I glance at the golden sundial, but even if it were still gleaming, the horse is much too large to have squeezed through it. And if it had climbed through any of the mirrors in the hospital, surely we would ha

ve heard the crash of broken glass. Perhaps it climbed up through the fountain’s reflective water—but no, the horse is not soaked with ice water.

Slowly, I press my hand to my mouth.

What if…what if it hasn’t crossed over into our world? What if I’ve crossed over into its world?

I pat my dress, my hair, the ivy. No, we are in our world. The sky is gray. The ground is gray. My clothes are gray. The world behind the mirror, I think, would not have so much gray.

The winged horse watches from across the garden, the frozen fountain between us. It snorts loudly, then tears the earth with a hoof the color of quicksilver. Rust-red soil rains against the briars. I think of how when Benny chases me, I run to the kitchen, where the table is an island that keeps him away.

But this horse is not Benny. It has powerful hooves. Powerful teeth. A fountain will not stop it.

I grab the willow branch, brandishing it again.

We stare each other down. My heart thunk-thunks, thunk-thunks, my mind spins. I cannot believe it is here. I cannot believe, even after watching its kind in the mirrors, that it is real.