The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

The only sound is snoring coming from Rodger’s bedroom. But when I turn back toward the attic stairs, the sensation returns, and I spin around again, and then again, in a full circle. The hair on the back of my neck tingles and—and is that the smell of apples? Movement in the hall mirror catches my eye. One of the winged horses steps into view in the gilded frame. He has a gray snip on his nose. He presses his muzzle against his side of the glass so that it fogs with each breath from his nostrils.

He is looking right at me.

“Um…hello.” I take a slow step closer. I reach up toward the mirror, but he pulls away, and my first two fingers brush only cold glass.

He tosses his head, and then snorts once, twice, and prances away. The mirror is once again just my own plain face looking back, short tufts of hair and green eyes and two sticky fingerprints.

But then—there. Movement from the next mirror down the hall, back the way I’ve just come. The same winged horse with the gray snip on his nose is there now, shaking his head so the ropes of his mane fall in his eyes. I reach for him, but he tosses his head again and disappears. Just like the bakery horses used to do with my sister, Marjorie. Letting her come close, close, close…and then prancing away. It was a game they played.

I rest my hands on my hips.

“I don’t have time for games.”

But he tosses his head again and prances off. In another moment he appears in the next mirror down the hall. He taps his nose against the glass. When I don’t come closer, he taps it again, more insistently this time, and rubs so hard against the glass that I’m afraid it will break.

“You aren’t playing a game, are you?” I whisper. “You’re trying to tell me something.”

He disappears out of that mirror as well, and I can almost feel the brush of his wings in the air as he passes down the same hall, only in a different world. And then he’s at the last mirror. Almost as though he is beckoning me to follow. When I reach the mirror, he doesn’t leave this time. He tosses his head. Steam frosts his side of the mirror.

He nudges the glass. Again and again, as if trying to nuzzle me, though his black eyes are on something behind me. I turn around. Benny’s room is across the hall. The door is open halfway. There is no sign of Benny or the other boys. Probably sneaked off to smoke another cigarette.

“What do you see?” I whisper.

And then my eyes fall on Benny’s bed, and my heart forgets to beat, just once, just for a second. Right there on the gray wool blanket is Benny’s precious Popeye comic book. The cover is an explosion of bright orange ink.

849-TANGERINE ORANGE.

I tiptoe in for a closer look. Yes. This is exactly what I have been looking for! I pick it up and flip open the cover, hardly daring to believe my good luck, and find a note written in the margins of the first page.

Benny,

Found this at Blakeway Books—a Popeye we haven’t read yet!

Love,

Dad

I quickly drop the comic book on the bed and take a few steps backward. Benny’s father gave this to him. Benny has a father off fighting somewhere, just like I do. My stomach is doing flip-flops. This is why he reads and re-reads this comic so much, even though comic books are childish things. It is something to hold on to, something from before. And suddenly I miss my papa, my mama, and Marjorie, and the smell of apple pie on cold winter mornings.

I spin toward the mirror. “I don’t know if I can take this. It matters to him.”

But the horse is gone. Only my face looks back. Teeth a little uneven. Nose too red.

And then another face appears behind me, and I freeze. Unfortunately, this face is on my side of the mirror.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Benny snaps. He folds his arms, awaiting my answer.

I glance at the comic book from the corner of my eye, thankful that I put it back exactly where he left it. “None of your business.”

His expression darkens. “You’re supposed to be up in your room, not down here, snooping through…” He glances at his bed, and sees the book. “What are you up to, you little thief??”

“I’m not a thief!”

But my cheeks flame with the lie as I think of Jack’s toy train, and the princess’s belongings in the attic, and Dr. Turner’s medicine bottle.

Benny reaches suddenly for my pocket and pulls out the Horse Lord’s latest letter. I gasp and snatch for it, but he holds it over my head.

“What’s this, then?”