The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

“You are a mess,” I say. Then I realize my own hair is just as tangled, my own boots caked in mud. “Well, we are a mess.”

Foxfire tosses her head as though she agrees. She comes right up and noses at my pocket until I take out the apple. She chomps at it before I can even lay my palm flat.

Hesitantly, not sure if I’ve earned her full trust yet, I reach up to her mane. “Easy there. I’m just going to untangle these sticks.”

She stops mid-bite, eyes swiveling toward my hand, but she doesn’t buck or rear. I am close. So close. And then my hand is on her neck. Oh, she feels alive. Her white hair is caked in cold clumps of mud, but there is warmth underneath. I can almost feel her heart fluttering. Can she feel mine, too?

“That’s lovely. See? That’s nice.”

Slowly, I stroke her neck from ear to shoulder, ear to shoulder, and bits of crumbly mud and dust rain down to the ground and make me cough. She seems to calm with each stroke. I free all the twigs I can, but the dirt goes deep. I will have to ask Thomas if he has a comb.

I leave her and take the pill bottle out and search through the wall of ivy near the red ribbon until I find a vine just the right size, and tuck the bottle into it. The bottle’s yellow label looks even more yellow, like the first sunshine crocuses that peek out after a long winter. My mother used to scold Marjorie when she would pick those flowers, but Marjorie did anyway. She would press them between the pages of Mama’s fattest recipe book until they were thin as tissue, and then frame them above her bed, so that it would always be spring.

In my pocket, Dr. Turner’s yellow ticket rustles. Foxfire watches as I take it out and quietly tear it into pieces, and then bury them under the snow.

A cloud passes overhead, casting the garden into shadows, and we look up. We are thinking the same thing: You never know where the Black Horse might be lurking. Behind the twisting winter-dead branches of the old oaks in front of the hospital; behind the low-sitting clouds; just waiting for a sliver of moonlight, when he can resume his hunt.

“Do you think the Black Horse can see that bottle from way up high?”

Foxfire moves her head in a way that could be a nod, or a shake, or a shrug, then goes to stand in the corner of the garden that gets the most sun. The light cuts her body in two. Half in light, half in sh

adow.

She snorts.

I look back up at the sky. The clouds have moved, and the sun shines right onto the bottle. It makes the glass glow and the label gleam. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, in the full moon, I think that will burn the eyes right out of his head.”

KNOCK, KNOCK.

“Come in,” Thomas calls from the other side of the barn door. I peek inside. He is mucking out the pen into a wheelbarrow. Bog is curled on the barn’s dirt floor next to the stack of pine boxes. His face breaks in one of those smiling-dog pants.

I step all the way inside and let my eyes wander over the barn. The barn is Thomas’s domain. A place of men, and animals, and tools with sharp points. But it smells nice in here, like the hay in my straw mattress, and like sweet oats. A gas mask hangs on the back of the workbench, half forgotten. I fiddle with the rubber strap.

“I was looking for a comb for Foxfire.”

He pauses, wiping his bare hand over his forehead. Do the Americans knit special mittens for one-handed boys, I wonder?

“Do you know how to groom a horse?” he asks, curious.

I try not to look too long at his empty sleeve fastened with a diaper pin. I bend down to scratch Bog’s head. He rolls over and sticks one leg in the air so I can rub his belly with the tip of my boot. The action makes his whole body move up and down, up and down.

“Because I could show you, if you don’t,” Thomas continues. “Picking out the hooves can be tricky.” He digs through his bin of old brushes and combs until he finds a hoof pick, and hands it to me.

“And then there’s combing out the mane.” He holds up a wide comb with thin metal bristles. “You have to start at the ends and work your way up.” He gestures in the air with the comb. “Same with the tail. As far as the wings, leave them alone, I think, if she’s wounded. Best to let these things heal in their own time….”

He trails off as footsteps approach outside.

Knock, knock.

Quick and almost apologetic. Thomas and I exchange a look. He sets aside the comb and opens the door. Sister Mary Grace is there. She jumps a little when he pushes the door wide.

“Sister?”

“Thomas. Men are here to see you.” She pauses. “Officers.”

She pulls on the sleeves of her black nun’s habit as though even with yards and yards of fabric, it is still not enough material to hide behind. Her eyes shift to me and Bog. “Emmaline? What are you…” She sighs. “Go on back inside. Quick feet.”

Thomas whistles for Bog, who is on all fours in a flash, pressed to his heels.