The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

“It’s addressed to me!”

His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Who would write you a letter?” He unrolls it, reading it quickly.

“Give it back!”

But he holds me off with one bony hand while he finishes reading. Then he crumples it in his fist, turning to me with a sneer, and the rawboned hound is back. “The Horse Lord?” And then he starts laughing. I slap and claw at him, but he doesn’t seem to feel it. He laughs so hard he has to wipe a tear out of his eye. “Who wrote this? Dr. Turner?”

“The Horse Lord is real! We’ve been writing to each other for weeks. I told you about the winged horses in the mirrors and in the garden. You didn’t believe me, but it’s true.”

His eyes waver as though he’s almost afraid what I’m saying is true and that he’s going to look like the fool for teasing me. But then he blinks. “Someone is playing a joke on you, Emmaline.”

“No.”

“It’s probably Dr. Turner. Only he could get paper this nice. But then again, Sister Mary Grace does have all that ribbon….”

“Ask Thomas,” I snap. “He’s seen the winged horses too.”

Benny’s face lights up. “Thomas! Of course. You dolt, Thomas is the one writing these letters. Only it isn’t a joke at all. It’s a trap.” His eyes go wide, as he holds the letter high out of my reach. I strain on tiptoes for it, and we spin around and around as he drops his voice. “Didn’t you listen to the stories? He’s trying to lure you into his cottage so he can make you int

o shepherd’s pie!”

“That isn’t true!” I’m screaming now, and the other children peek at us through the cracks in their doors. “Thomas can’t even write!”

“There is no Horse Lord. There are no winged horses. They’re all in your head.”

The angry words on my lips die. I stop spinning, legs weak, and collapse against the wall. A door squeaks as one of the children accidentally bumps it too hard. Benny glances up and sees our audience. For a second, he doesn’t seem to know what to do. A dozen hallway mirrors reflect his raised hand in the air, the Horse Lord’s letter crumpled in it, the red ribbon dangling.

He lets the letter fall and stomps on it with his shoe.

“Get to your room,” Benny commands. “And the rest of you, stay away from Thomas. I warned you.”

He glares at me with that hound-face of his, and then struts into his room and flops on his bed. He snatches up the Popeye comic book, flipping through the pages deliberately.

So orange.

As orange as his hair. As orange as fire.

They are all in your head.

Some of the children snicker. I hear giggling about flying horses and make-believe princes. The mirrors are all empty now. But the horses were there. The one with the gray snip on his nose, who led me to Benny’s comic book. He was real. And the letter…No. It can’t be.

I fall to my knees and try to smooth the letter out the best I can, but the writing is smudged from Benny’s shoe. I feel the urge to cry. The red ribbon is torn. I eye it sidelong, wiping away the start of tears. Is it like the spools in Sister Mary Grace’s sewing kit? And the paper…is it like Dr. Turner’s prescription forms? But no, his forms are perforated. These have crisp edges.

Benny is wrong. Benny doesn’t know the first thing about winged horses.

I glance toward his open door. He flips another page and snickers at Popeye.

I almost want the Black Horse to come. I almost want to summon him myself so he will take Benny and all the children who are laughing. I want the Black Horse to tear through the hospital roof with midnight hooves and thorn-tangled tail and thunder down the hallways loud enough to break every mirror and catch Benny under his hooves until all that is left of Benny is as crumpled and broken as this letter.

But the Black Horse doesn’t want Benny.

I pick up the letter. I am going to get that comic book.

I BIDE MY TIME. Benny has been trailing me, following my every move. He never has his comic book with him, so he must have hidden it, just as I have hidden the broken colored pencils in the secret drawer of Anna’s desk. But at last he gets lazy. He gets bored. He gets careless. And while the children are gathered in Sister Constance’s office listening to a broadcast by Winston Churchill on the radio, I make my move.

There is a winged horse in the residence hall mirror behind me, one I’ve never seen, with pretty blue eyes, swatting her tail at flies in the mirror-hallway. She watches me curiously as I tiptoe closer to the very last door on the right of the residence hall.

Benny’s door.