The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

“The stitches are all uneven,” I mumble as I shrug on my coat and do up the buttons.

“The Americans sent them for the war effort. Poor dears, Americans can’t knit to save their lives, though I suppose it’s good of them to try. Now, put these mittens on and show me how you’re always sneaking around without the Sisters noticing.” She pulls a hat over her own curls, glancing in the mirror to adjust them, then takes her coat off the hook behind her door.

The only other person awake this early, judging by the sound, is Sister Mary Grace, getting breakfast ready in the kitchen. So we tiptoe like stealthy cats down the stairs and along the hallway to the library. There is a door the Sisters keep locked, but the lock on the middle window is broken. I push the window open. We climb out into the scrubby boxwood bushes. We have to leave the window ajar to get back in, but the wool blanket hides the evidence.

The cold air hits us. Anna’s cheeks are already splotchy with red. I worry that this isn’t wise, her leaving her warm bed and the cups of tea brought to her. Her arms and legs are so painfully thin. The covers usually hide them, but now, against the bricks of the hospital, she seems so fragile, a girl made of twigs.

“Go on, then,” she says. “I want to meet this magic horse of yours.” She cranes her neck in the direction of the barn, and her voice rises a little. “Do you think we’ll run into Thomas?”

“Not if we can help it.”

She looks disappointed.

I start sneaking along the row of boxwoods and, once I’m certain the coast is clear, dart across the rear lawn to the garden wall. Anna shuffles behind me. She’s quick and light as a curled leaf, but her breathing is shallow and fast. She leans against the ivy, a mittened hand pressed to her chest. I can hear the rumble starting there. She leans over and coughs into the snow so hard I’m afraid she’ll tear something.

“Anna—”

“I’m fine.”

“I think you should—”

“I’m fine!” She turns abruptly. “What in heavens is that?”

I tip my head up to see what she is looking at. The roof. A foot of snow sits on top like the icing Mama slathers on frosted cakes, only there is a patch where the snow has been disturbed violently. And there are prints. The shape is unmistakable.

“See!” I cry. “Hoofprints!”

Anna doesn’t stop staring at the roof. Her eyes narrow like she’s on the verge of remembering something, but then a gritty sound climbs up her throat, and she doubles over in coughs. They shake her hard, which shakes the ivy, and a dusting of snow powders the air. Her hat goes tumbling off.

Suddenly Bog comes thundering around the corner of the gardens, barking like mad. We’ve been discovered. In another second Thomas trudges round. He stops when he sees us. Bog keeps barking until Thomas gives a sharp sss, and he sits right on cue.

Anna reaches for the ivy, trying to pull herself back up. “Look!” she says in a weak voice. “On the roof.”

Thomas doesn’t glance at the roof as he comes forward to help her stand up. “Yes, I saw those marks this morning, but really, you shouldn’t be out here, Miss Anna. You’ll catch cold. Emmaline, get her hat.”

“Emmaline is going to…show me the sundial garden.”

“Not today she isn’t, not with you looking like that.”

I stand on tiptoe to put Anna’s hat back on her head. I try to angle it the way she likes, so the curls show.

“Maybe another day, Emmaline,” Anna says. “I so badly want to see that horse of yours.”

But the spirit is out of her. Her face is a paler shade than I have ever seen it. Her arms are a thin layer of skin over brittle bone. I think there is more stillwater in her veins now than blood.

Thomas looks back at me. “Are you coming, Emmaline?”

I shake my head.

“Promise you won’t stay out long, then,” he says. When I nod, Thomas helps her back toward the house.

Bog and I watch their two brown coats against the snow. They move slowly, as though each step is an effort. I do not think Anna will talk about walking in snow again.

Thomas whistles, and Bog leaves me too.

I CLIMB OVER THE garden wall and drop to the other side. I am a little scared of what I will find. Could it have been my winged horse up on the roof, gnashing with hooves, her wing not as wounded as I’d thought? What if she has never seen snow before and thinks little pieces of the sky are falling, that the clouds are getting shorn like sheep?

The snow forms deep drifts in the gardens that swallow my ankles. All the grays and browns of our world are gone now, replaced by white. Maybe this is what the winged horse’s world is like all the time. Beautiful and white, soft and cold. Maybe she feels more at home now, in the storm, than she ever has before. I shake the cold from my hands as I peek around the corner into the sundial garden.