The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

Sunday is the day we eat leftover bread for breakfast, both to remember Christ’s fasting and because it is Thomas’s day off and the Sisters have to tend to the sheep after they tend to us at Mass. Though there are three benches, Sister Constance says we must crowd into the front two to be closer to God and his healing powers.

Benny sits in the row behind me and kicks me in the backside.

I ignore him and look at the ceiling. It is covered with black cloths. Anna told me that when she first arrived, the ceiling was decorated with a beautiful Greek painting like the one in her bedroom. The old princess had brought over real Greek painters and everything, but the Sisters of Mercy forbade pagan idolatry in a chapel, even if it did used to be a ballroom.

As Sister Constance reads from the Bible, I imagine all the beautiful couples who once danced here. I bet the ladies wore dresses that were all the colors of the rainbow, and the men had top hats and dashing mustaches. They would twirl and twirl in the candlelight, beneath the ancient floating gods who drink wine and ride wild stallions. I wonder if the horses lived in the mirrors even back then. Maybe that is why the princess stayed here for so long, by herself. Maybe she liked waking up each morning and seeing a winged horse in her bedroom mirror. Maybe she found a way to talk to them. Maybe—just maybe—she met the Horse Lord.

Sister Constance ends the prayer, and we stand, and someone taps my shoulder.

I turn around to find Thomas.

He clears his throat and reaches into his pocket. “Bog chased a rabbit into the old gardens this morning,” he says. “There’s a hole in the rear gate. When he came back he had this tangled in his fur, along with a mess of briars. You’re the only one who ever goes in those gardens, so I thought it must be meant for you.”

He takes out a slightly crumpled, damp letter tied in red ribbon.

I silence a gasp as I cram the letter into my sleeve, looking left and right to make sure the other children haven’t seen.

“It is for me,” I whisper quickly.

I eye him closely, wondering if he sneaked a peek at the Horse Lord’s letter, but the knot is tied firmly, the red ribbon only slightly torn. The Horse Lord must have left this for me in the sundial, where last night’s wind blew it into the briars.

I give him a solemn nod. “Thank you.”

He nods solemnly back.

After the service, the other children go to their rooms to quietly read the Bible and pray, but I tiptoe back up the stairs and past the shut doors on the residence hall to a closet where I can read the Horse Lord’s letter. I can hardly believe that my airplane reached him. The paper is damp, and the handwriting is strangely shaky, as though he was very tired while writing.

Dear Emmaline May,

I found your note in a rosebush near the sundial, folded curiously. To answer your question, I would never condone stealing, not even in the name of a higher deed. I suggest that you only borrow the liturgical cloth. Perhaps after church services conclude, so it will not be missed for a full week. By then, with luck, Foxfire’s wing will have healed and you can return it safe and sound without anyone else’s knowledge. That God will see you, I have no doubt. But that God will know what is deeper within your heart, I am also certain.

Ride true,

The Horse Lord

I stash the letter back in my sleeve.

The Horse Lord is so wise—now is the time to borrow the cloth, long before it’ll be used again. But can I really steal it from God? I suppose I don’t have a choice. I’ve scoured the hospital, and this is the only purple object, except for the stained glass in the windows, and that isn’t coming out.

&nbs

p; I exhale slowly. I can do this.

I tiptoe out of the closet and into the hallway. Voices come from the room Benny and Jack and Peter share, and I pause. I’ve always wondered if Benny really prays on Sunday afternoons. When I peek through the keyhole, all three boys are sitting cross-legged on Peter’s bed, Peter and Jack staring in rapt attention as Benny reads to them.

“?‘Unhand me, you brute! Popeye! Popeye, save me!’?”

Not the Bible.

I sneak upstairs to grab my coat and the other colorful objects I’ve found, and then tiptoe back down the stairs and hold my breath when I pass Sister Constance’s office, where she is digging through stacks of newspapers with loud headlines.

I continue down the hall to the empty chapel and close the door behind me. The air is still warm from the twenty bodies that were here earlier. The altar is bare. Sister Mary Grace must have already pressed and folded the liturgical cloth to use next week. I tiptoe to the closet where they lock up the cloth, along with the sacred wine and gold cross, but I’ve seen them hang the key on a hook in the back. I stand on my tiptoes to reach it.

Inside the closet, I find the Advent cloth. I run my hand over the purple fabric.

I wonder: Is this a sin?

And then I think: This is most definitely a sin.