All the King's Horses

by Laura C Stevenson

  ‘Then let me stay here!’ begged Tiffany. ‘Here where everything is beautiful, and all the horses are trained right, and nobody is ever hurt!’

  The three faeries exchanged glances; but Epona shook her head. ‘The price of staying is too high, Fay Child,’ she said gently. ‘Go back to your own world.’

  Tiffany put her head down on her horse’s mane. ‘No, no,’ she sobbed, ‘please …’

  But even while she was speaking, the mountain and the lake and the palace began to spin, and when they stopped, we were back in the cloverleaf, with the junk all around us and the traffic roaring by in the rain. Grandpa was sitting on the side of a fallen-over stove, dialling the telephone. Tiffany was sitting on a wrecked car, crying and crying.

  Colin cleared his throat as he looked at her. ‘Geez.’

  I nodded, wondering what we should do; I’d never seen anyone cry like that before. ‘You collect Grandpa and start home,’ I said finally. ‘We’ll catch up.’

  They started off, but as soon as she heard the junk shifting around, Tiffany raised her head and slid off the car. I walked beside her, and if it hadn’t been so uneven, I would have put my arm around her. ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I know this is going to sound really strange after what you saw today, but Epona’s right. If you have to stay in one place or another, it’s much better here.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Not for me.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I said stubbornly. ‘The Otherworld is beautiful, but … look, we accidentally got to the Grey Land she talked about – at least, I think we did – and you can’t even imagine how awful it is. And … I can’t explain it exactly, but even when the Sidhe are being nice, like today, they’re sort of scary. And I don’t think it’s just them – except maybe Cathbad and one called Manannan, who wasn’t there today. It’s the Otherworld, even when it’s all horses and mountains and lakes and flowers, because you always feel the Grey Land, sort of hovering …’ I gulped. ‘What I mean is, it’s dangerous there – like downtown, only worse, because you aren’t ready for it – and if you stayed there for long, you’d be finished.’

  ‘So what?’ she said, and slowly her face settled into the look she’d worn all week. ‘It doesn’t matter what happens to me.’

  ‘It does, too!’ I said. ‘Think of all the people it matters to: Colin and me, the Gordons—’

  ‘Hush!’ Colin looked over his shoulder as we came into the yard. ‘Somebody’s here.’

  I looked at the beat-up car in the driveway, and at the two people who were talking to Mom at the side door. I knew who they had to be even before I recognized them.

  ‘Here they come,’ said Mom’s voice, getting louder as we got closer. ‘See? They went out to bring my father back after he ran outside to throw the telephone away, and now they’ve got him. There’s no need to take Tiffany home now; they’ve only been gone for as long as it took you to get here.’ She turned and started to introduce us, but Tiffany’s father cut her off.

  ‘OK, Tiff,’ he said. ‘Thank Mrs Madison for having you over, then into the car. We made a deal and you didn’t keep it, so that’s it.’

  Tiffany smiled her terrible smile at Mom. ‘Thank you very much for having me over, Mrs Madison,’ she whispered. And she started for the car.

  ‘Wait!’ said Tiffany’s mother. ‘You didn’t apologize for the trouble you caused.’

  ‘Oh, she was no trouble at all …’ began Mom.

  ‘I’m afraid Tiffany’s lots of trouble,’ said her mother – and it was strange the way she said it, as if everybody could see she was right. ‘That’s why we have to be so sure she does what she’s told. I’m very sorry you had to see that, but I’m sure you know all families have problems.’ She glanced at Grandpa, then dropped her hand on Tiffany’s shoulder. ‘OK, Tiff – say it.’

  Tiffany looked down. ‘I’m very sorry I was so much trouble,’ she said.

  ‘There,’ said Tiffany’s father. ‘That does it. We’ll leave you to yourselves.’ He put his hand on Tiffany’s other shoulder, and they walked her to the car. The four of us watched as they backed out of the driveway and drove past the warehouses.

  ‘You know,’ said Mom finally, ‘all my life I’ve said the age of heroes was over, and people should solve problems with their heads, not their fists. But this time …’ She looked at Grandpa almost pleadingly, and Colin and I did, too. But what we were looking for wasn’t there; all we saw was an old man standing in the rain, tired and confused.

  Mom swallowed hard and pushed a lock of wet hair off his forehead. ‘Come on, Dad,’ she said in a sort of scratchy voice. ‘Let’s go inside. I’ll help you get into dry clothes.’

  WHEN COLIN AND I got on the bus on Monday, I knew we’d been right to worry about Tiffany all day Sunday. She smiled at us, which at least meant she wasn’t spaced out, but … well, Grandpa used to say you could see a horse’s spirit had been broken, because its eyes told you it had given up hope of living without pain. Tiffany’s eyes looked like that, and we knew it wasn’t just because of her parents. They’d taken Dandy from her, but before Saturday, she’d at least had Faerie. Now she didn’t even have that – and it was all our fault.

  She moved over to make room for me on the seat. ‘I’m going to have to get off at your stop on the way home and pick up my bike,’ she said in a flat sort of voice. ‘I hope that’s OK.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll ride home with you.’

  She shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t like that.’

  I offered to ride to the end of her street and then turn around, but she just looked out the window. That was all she did in class, too; at least until Miss Turner got a really good look at her and sent her somewhere. She was gone a long time, even at recess, but I never found out where, because when I went to lunch, she was talking to Mr Crewes, and of course I didn’t join them. None of it seemed to help, anyway; she looked out the window all afternoon, too, and somehow her face got thinner and thinner.

  Colin felt just as bad as I did, and on the way up the hill after the bus let us off, he tried to cheer Tiffany up by doing his Mr Stegeth imitation. It was great, but Tiffany just smiled politely and looked off at one of the warehouses, where Jenny was hanging up some tattered laundry. She hardly even talked when Mom came out to say hello; she just got on her bike, thanked Mom for letting it stay in the shed, and coasted slowly down the hill.

  Mom looked at me. ‘Has she been like that all day?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘no matter what anybody did.’

  Mom frowned. ‘Boy. I wish I knew of a good counsellor to call.’

  ‘Mrs Gordon said Tiffany has a social worker,’ I said. ‘Maybe she knows his number.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ she said, starting inside. ‘I’ll slip upstairs to see if Grandpa is still asleep; then I’ll get on the phone.’

  ‘This is a funny time for Grandpa to be asleep,’ said Colin.

  ‘He’s got a terrible cough,’ said Mom, ‘and he’s pretty groggy. I wanted to take him to Dr Greenstone, but he didn’t have an opening until tomorrow, so it’ll have to wait.’

  We looked at each other, because we both knew Mom would never take Grandpa to Dr Greenstone unless she was really worried about him. The last time they’d gone, Grandpa had yelled and screamed the whole time, and she’d been a wreck when she got home. ‘You want us to help?’ I asked. ‘You could pick us up at school, and—’

  ‘– Thanks,’ said Mom. ‘I’ll take you up on it if I have to, but I think I can get someone else to go with us.’ She gave us a smile that didn’t look quite right. ‘Meanwhile, I made cookies; help yourselves while I call Judy about Tiffany’s social worker.’

  Colin and I grabbed some cookies and wandered into the living room. ‘You have to wonder if that social worker can do any good,’ I said. ‘After all, he’s been seeing Tiffany’s family all this time.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Colin, checking his watch as the 2:45 roared by. ‘Holy cow! Look!’

  I looked
– then stared. Tiffany was leaning on the handlebars of her bike, waiting for the train to pass and talking to Jenny. Actually, it seemed more like Jenny was talking, because her hands were moving; but Tiffany was certainly listening. After a moment or two, she turned her head slowly towards the train … and something about the way she nodded made me remember the way she’d stared when I introduced Jenny at the Gordons’.

  ‘Geez,’ I breathed. ‘Do you suppose she knows Jenny’s one of … ?’

  We looked at each other; then without another word, we dashed back into the kitchen to get our jackets and raced out the side door.

  Outside, the 2:45 was gone. So were Jenny and Tiffany.

  ‘That’s funny,’ I said.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Colin. ‘She was waiting for the train to pass, and Jenny came out, the way she does – and when the caboose went by, Tiffany went home.’ He turned around, looking disgusted. ‘We’re the ones who are funny. The house must be getting to us.’

  I looked up past the huge, dirty windows at the peeling tower; but what I saw, instead of the mossy slates on the roof, was the faerie palace, glistening just below silver clouds of mist. When I blinked, it was gone. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a point.’ And I followed him inside.

  The next day, Tiffany wasn’t at school. Miss Turner asked me if I knew where she was, and though I said I didn’t, I had a pretty good idea. Mrs Gordon had probably gotten the social worker to talk to Tiffany’s parents, and they’d been so angry because someone was trying to help her that they’d kept her out of school. Which meant she was trapped in that horrible, messy house with nothing to dream about. Thinking about that made me pretty miserable.

  Things were pretty miserable when we got home, too, because Mom and Grandpa were at Dr Greenstone’s. We’d been planning to make soda bread, so it would be ready when they got home, but instead, we just sat at the kitchen table and listened to the empty house. We had gotten used to the way it felt when everybody was around, but now … I got up and fetched the flour, wishing I hadn’t read the oatmeal story. Colin got out a mixing bowl, but I could see he was antsy – and when somebody knocked at the side door, we both jumped out of our skins.

  Colin gulped. ‘Who do you suppose it is?’

  ‘I guess we’d better go and see,’ I said. My feet dragged all the way to the door, and I slipped the chain into the slot before I opened it – which made me feel pretty silly when I saw it was Mrs Gordon. ‘Oh, hi,’ I said, undoing the chain. ‘Mom has taken Grandpa to the doctor’s, but they should be home soon. Come on in! Would you like a cup of tea?’

  Mrs Gordon took off her boots and came in. ‘Thanks. And I think I’ll take you up on that tea. It’s been …’ Her voice choked up.

  I pushed Colin towards the tea kettle and got out the tea-ball so she’d have a moment to put herself together; then I asked, ‘Is everything OK at the barn?’

  ‘Oh, the barn’s fine,’ she said – and she actually said it as if the barn didn’t matter. ‘I’m here about Tiffany. She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone!’

  ‘That’s what her parents say. They came to our place about an hour ago, accusing us of kidnapping her – and, boy, I thought they were going to turn the whole place upside down. They finally left when Tom threatened to call the police, but after they steamed off, it occurred to me that she might be here, and if she was, there might be trouble. So I jumped in the truck and came over.’ She picked up the mug of tea Colin had put on the table and took a sip, looking at us very carefully over the rim. ‘You’d tell me if she were here, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course we would,’ I said. ‘But she’s not. Cross our hearts.’

  Mrs Gordon looked down into the tea. ‘Then she really is gone,’ she said, very softly. ‘I would have thought she’d come to us.’

  ‘Well,’ said Colin, ‘she may not have had time yet. When did her parents see her last?’

  Mrs Gordon made a face. ‘They said it had only been a couple of hours, but I don’t believe them. They … heck, you’re old enough to understand. Tiffany’s parents are just about at the end of the alcoholic road; half the time they’re so drunk they don’t know whether she’s home or not. Then when they come to, they get really possessive – or maybe vindictive is more like it. I suppose it makes them feel they’re acting responsibly about her, but all it really means is they’ve suddenly remembered she exists.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It just makes me so darn mad. But let’s get down to business. When was the last time you saw Tiffany?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ I said. ‘She got off the bus with us and picked up her bike, and …’ I looked at Colin, and I saw he was thinking what I was.

  ‘Yesterday,’ muttered Mrs Gordon. ‘That’s what I was afraid of. Well, at least that gives us something concrete to tell them.’

  ‘Tell who?’ squeaked Colin.

  ‘The police, of course,’ said Mrs Gordon. ‘If Tiffany’s been gone a whole day and hasn’t come to you or to us, it’s a matter for professionals – and you can be sure her parents won’t tell them. When a social worker has been seeing your family, and then your kid clears out, it looks bad, especially if the Dad has had a few brushes with the law.’ She got up and started to the door; we followed, watching numbly as she shoved her feet into her boots. ‘I’ll go to the police station and get things moving. And listen, if Tiffany shows up, you call us right away, OK? One of us is going to be sitting by the phone until we find her.’ She gave us both a kind of hug at the same time as she hurried out the door.

  Colin took a deep breath as the truck started up outside. ‘I wish she hadn’t said that. About sitting by the phone, I mean.’

  ‘Tiffany may have just run away,’ I said. ‘She sure had a reason to.’

  ‘Oh, come on! When we went out, they were just … gone.’ He looked at me defensively. ‘And don’t say what you’re thinking.’

  I hadn’t been going to, anyway. ‘The thing is, They said she couldn’t go back.’

  ‘Sure – on her own, or with us. But she really wanted to go, and if Jenny got her to say something about that … well, did you ever hear of a faery who could kidnap a kid and didn’t?’

  ‘Jenny doesn’t seem like the kidnapping sort,’ I objected.

  ‘I know. But there are plenty of others hanging around, like the ones who put glamour in our eyes that day. They’d do it. If she let them – Jenny, I mean. Do you suppose it would help if … Well, Jenny’s right down the road, and we could sort of … mention that Tiffany’s …’

  I thought of Jenny’s eyes, and Epona’s eyes, and of all I didn’t know. Then I thought of having to live with myself (not to mention, having to live with Colin), if I chickened out now. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and talk to Jenny.’ And I put on my jacket.

  It was a perfectly beautiful afternoon, and the daffodils and forsythia in the yard were beginning to bloom, but the nearer we got to Jenny’s warehouse, the less I noticed. Colin knocked at the door, which was three times the size of a normal door, with Patrick Rogan & Co. stencilled on it in faded gold letters. Nothing happened, so he turned the handle with both hands and gave it a push. It swung open into a hall that stretched the whole length of the warehouse, with a high ceiling held together with wood beams as thick through as Colin and me together. There were bare electric light bulbs strung across the beams; half of them had burned out, so it was pretty dark (the windows were mostly covered with cardboard), but we could see wheelbarrows and laundry carts lined up along the walls, filled with clothes and other stuff. Some of the people who lived in the warehouse were lying next to the carts, sleeping in their winter coats under dirty blankets. The others were sitting at scroungy tables, playing cards or eating. They were wearing coats, too, because the air was cold and damp. We walked forward slowly, sniffing the smells of canned tomato soup, and bathrooms, and dirt, and maybe beer – and I wondered what it had been like living there all winter.

  After we were about halfway into the hall, o
ne of the card players looked up and saw us. ‘It’s the kids,’ he said. In a minute, everybody was staring at us, but nobody got up.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, and my voice sounded very small in all that quiet. ‘We’re looking for Jenny. Can you tell us where she is?’

  The man at the card table looked around the hall. Everyone who looked back at him shook his head, and finally he looked back at us. ‘Jenny’s gone.’

  Colin stared at him. ‘Gone? But we saw her yesterday!’

  He grinned. ‘Then you saw her before she left.’

  ‘But … but where did she go to?’

  He shrugged. ‘Couldn’t tell you.’

  I looked around the big hall, and lots of pairs of eyes looked back at me; but no-one said anything. ‘Um, OK,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said the man. As we turned to go, he asked, ‘How’s your grandpa?’

  ‘He’s fine. Actually, he has a cold now, but …’

  The man coughed – it was the most awful cough I’d ever heard. ‘Well,’ he said when he was done, ‘you two take care of him.’

  All of them watched us go; there wasn’t a sound but our footsteps. By the time I shut the big door behind us, my hands were shaking.

  ‘Oh boy,’ said Colin as we started up the hill, ‘I guess we know where Tiffany is.’

  I nodded, and I felt just sick.

  As we started up the driveway, we heard a car and the whistle of the 4:15. We turned around just in time to see Mom’s car before it disappeared behind the flash-flash-flash of the train. As a line of flat-cars went by, we saw Mr Crewes’s new car pull up behind ours.

  I kicked a stone out of the driveway. ‘So that’s who she got to help her!’