A Hundred Horses

by Sarah Lean

  Angel had some pieces of carrot and apple in her pocket and held them out. Dorothy, the goat, pushed her saggy middle through the bush and appeared in front of us. She had a plump udder hanging down, bony hips, and dirty, knobbly knees. Her golden eyes were very interested in what we had in our hands.

  Angel coaxed her down the hillside, feeding her small pieces of the carrot like they were sweets. Then she let me lure her into the yard with apple chunks. It made me giggle, Dorothy’s soft lips nibbling at my fingers.

  “You can go now,” Angel said, tying some rope around the goat’s neck.

  “But I said I’d take her back to Mrs. Barker,” I said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Why are you keeping her?”

  Angel’s mouth twitched from side to side.

  “For the milk,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Have you got that thing where you can’t drink cow’s milk?”

  She seemed to think for a whole minute.

  “No, I haven’t,” she said, frowning. “Just go now.”

  I wished she wouldn’t do that. Angel had a way of making me feel part of her, then as if I had nothing to do with her at all. But then she said, “If you go away now, you can come with me and find the horse later.”

  “But—”

  I’d thought Angel was keeping Belle in the stable! Had I got it all wrong again, like I had been thinking the goat was in there?

  Angel smiled as if she’d known what I had been thinking. She seemed pleased that she was still able to keep things hidden and I couldn’t figure them out. Then I realized she knew I would be scared of the horse and wouldn’t want to go. It hurt thinking she was pushing me away again. But then she said gently, “I’ll come and get you later, and we’ll find Belle, and you’ll see she would never hurt you.”

  I went back to Aunt Liv’s, helped her box up some duck and goose eggs. Which was a good way to try to teach Alfie and Gem the six times table. Then we sprawled around the table, and I watched Alfie making moss hedges for their toy farm and listened to Gem make up stories about her magic plastic animals. And then Mom phoned and I told her about Gabriel and she laughed and said, “I’m glad you’ve found some special things there.”

  Later I went down to see Maggie with Gem and Alfie. We counted her piglets, all ten of them. We hung over the gate and kicked our legs up and watched the piglets wriggling and guzzling. I saw Gabriel, the tiny one that Angel had saved, pushing her way in. I picked her up and didn’t want to let her go.

  I waited all day, but Angel didn’t come. And I still didn’t have the carousel, which was starting to seem like another made-up thing that didn’t really exist.

  Twenty-Two

  I woke. Something tapped at the half-open window.

  I got up and looked down. Angel was standing on the lawn.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “Come on,” she whispered back, dropping the stones she had been throwing at the window. “We’re going to find Belle.”

  “Now? You said later.”

  “It is later.” She laughed.

  It was dark, but the moon lightened the inky sky. The garden was full of shadows; nothing stirred, except something buzzing in my brain.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  And I was thinking, Don’t you ever listen to what your mom says you have to do?

  “Because I’m not allowed and it’s dark and people don’t go out in the night. We’re supposed to be sleeping and—”

  “What are you scared of?” she hissed. “Nobody’s going to see us.”

  She shrugged and walked away. But there was something alive inside me. I did want to go. I wanted to follow her. Maybe I wanted to be even more like her.

  “Wait!” I whispered.

  I threw my coat over my pajamas, put on my rubber boots, and ran out to join her. I’d never done anything like that before—gone out in the middle of the night, without even telling anybody.

  Suddenly she was standing in front of me, her eyes vivid in the silver light from the moon, a smirk on her face.

  “Maybe you’re not as chicken as you look,” she said.

  I let it pass. I didn’t feel like a coward, and that’s what mattered.

  Angel danced through the damp grass, and I followed the dark footsteps she left there. She jumped from stone to stone to cross the stream while I tried to keep up. We wove through the trees, through the secret, bluish black night, and soon we were brushing the mist and I was stepping on her shadow.

  Angel caught my hand as we came to a clearing, made me stay where I was. She seemed to have heard something, but I couldn’t see anything there. She called, “Yeeyeye.”

  I remembered how I’d first seen the horse called Belle, just as she was now, galloping toward us.

  Speed lifted her mane; her nostrils were wide, her ears turned forward. The thump of her hooves came closer. I could feel something tight in my chest. I held Angel’s coat. There was nothing to hide behind except her. Angel didn’t move. All the air gathered at the top of my lungs because I couldn’t see how Belle could stop. But she did. Like magic, half a step in front of Angel.

  Belle was white as the moon, black as the shadows. She tossed her head, and white waves rippled down her neck as she looked over Angel’s shoulder at me. I heard her breath, how she breathed us in.

  “Just look at her,” Angel said. “Don’t think about anything, just look.”

  I saw Belle’s narrow face, her velvet, curved mouth, the long hair that fell from the back of her knees and swept the ground around her hooves.

  Angel leaned against Belle’s shoulder. There was nothing between them. Like they knew each other so well. And I knew that it was all right. That I would be too.

  Belle’s pink nostrils spilled steam into the air as she lowered her head and blew on me.

  “Why is she doing that?” I said.

  Angel laughed quietly. “She wants to know you. She will when you touch her.”

  I watched Belle’s belly roll into gentle breaths. I saw the shapes of black on her white skin, or was it shapes of white on her black skin? I traced them with my hands, trying to find where one color ended and another began. Just one hair’s difference. Belle turned to look where I touched her. I saw the mirror in her eyes reflecting Angel and me.

  “Do you feel it?” Angel said.

  I felt the opposite of when I’d first seen her. Now I wasn’t scared of how big and strong Belle was. I was thrilled to have her next to me, standing over us both as if she would protect us. I ran my hand over her warm shoulder, and I felt as if all that strength could be in me too. Belle made me feel brave.

  “Belle wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Angel said. “It wasn’t her that made you scared.”

  I thought back to what had happened when I first saw Belle. I was scared before I saw her, before I dropped the case. Because I’d taken the suitcase and hidden it from Mom. Because I’d done something I shouldn’t have. Or maybe because I was scared of what was inside it.

  “I’ve never seen a horse like this one,” I said.

  “Some people call them Gypsy cobs, and some people call them Gypsy vanners. They’re like a mixture of other horses, but nobody really knows. Gypsies bred them a long time ago to be strong enough to pull their caravans and to be gentle with their children. Belle is from a special family of horses: Mr. Hemsworth told me once.”

  I watched Belle shift to lean against one leg, watched her test where she moved her hoof so she wouldn’t stand on Angel’s foot. Angel moved slightly. Neither of them watched her own feet. It was magic. Just them shifting their feet so each could stand where she needed to.

  Angel put her arms up and took hold of Belle’s mane. She bounced and climbed on Belle’s back. She held her hand out to me.

  “Coming up?” she said.

  “Don’t we need a saddle and some reins?” I said, stalling, because I’d never been on a horse before. Angel lea
ned over farther.

  “You ask so many questions.” She sighed. “Sometimes you just have to find things out for yourself.” She gripped my wrist. “Hold on,” she said.

  I held on to her. And she pulled me up.

  Twenty-Three

  Belle carried us through the trees, her steady walk rocking us as if we were babies held by our mother. She took us out into the fields. She followed a path along the top of the hillside, a path like the spine of a great big humped creature. The birds were asleep, like we should have been. I felt like we were walking through their dreams. I didn’t know it would feel like that. Safe. All three of us moving together like one whole creature.

  Belle stopped at the top of the hill. We looked up at the chipped milky moon. We were in the sky with it.

  “The moon’s got a little bit missing,” I said.

  “That’s just a shadow,” Angel said. “The whole moon’s there, even though it doesn’t look that way. You have to use your imagination, see it differently.”

  And I thought of that moon. How the whole thing is always up there, every night.

  “Sometimes I wake up in the night,” Angel whispered, “and I just look at it so I remember that.”

  Bluish black, the sky seemed closer, as if it had come down to wrap itself around us. Our feet dangled in the air; the stars were in our hair; the milky moon was right there, and I could have touched it if I’d wanted to. I raised my arms, and I wanted to laugh or sing or shout, so I called out: “Look at me. I’m up here too!” which made Angel giggle.

  Angel clicked her tongue and Belle moved on and we leaned back as she headed down the valley. I put my hands behind me. Belle’s hips swayed as she shifted her weight to steady us on the steep hillside. I looked back at the moon. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see the part of the moon that was hidden. It made me want to know more.

  The field leveled out. Belle was warm, and the rocking made me feel sleepy. I yawned, and the moon blurred.

  I leaned my head on Angel’s shoulder, still wondering, half dreaming, about her.

  “Gem said you must be an angel because of your name. She thinks angels hide their wings under their clothes.”

  Angel laughed but didn’t say anything.

  “Tell me a story,” I said. “The one about the hundredth horse.”

  Angel was quiet for a moment.

  “It’s just a fairy tale,” she said.

  I remembered being small and tucked tightly in bed, Mom lying beside me with a new book, the crackle of the pages as she turned them. I remembered that sleepy feeling when all the invented creatures and magic in a story seemed as real as they do when you are dreaming.

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “Tell me anyway.”

  Angel looked up at the moon.

  “A long, long time ago,” she began, “there were ninety-nine horses that were looked after by a big old angel who was stuck on Earth because he had lost his wings.”

  She shrugged to move my head along her shoulder.

  “Far away there was a little girl . . . no, a princess, who was locked in a—in a castle with nobody to look after her because there was a big battle going on outside. Sometimes the queen came and let her out and gave her some food, but she was scared and lonely. One day the princess opened the window and heard horses far away, and they sounded so beautiful that she wanted to go see them.

  “She was very small, and it was a long way down from the castle window, but one night, when the battle was really bad, she climbed out of the window because she thought the horses were calling her and telling her to come to them. She ran through an enchanted forest and crossed a dangerous river and found the horses she had heard. One of the horses came and greeted her and took her into the herd. The girl—I mean princess—thought there was something magic about the horses, because they seemed to understand her language and she understood them. That special horse looked after her.”

  “What color were the horses?” I said.

  “Mmm . . . black. No, black and white, like the Gypsy cobs.”

  “Of course,” I said, guessing she was probably changing the story and making up how she wanted it to be.

  “Anyway, the girl was only happy when she was with the horses, and so, whenever she could, she climbed out of the window and went to see them. She learned how to ride them, and she felt free when she galloped across the fields and hills, as if she were flying away from everything.

  “One day the big old angel saw her, but she didn’t know he was a big old angel yet. She tried to run away, but he caught her. She thought he would tell the people at the castle and they would be angry with her, but he didn’t. He told her that he didn’t know anyone who could talk to horses like she did. So he let her come to see the horses whenever she wanted, and he didn’t say much.”

  As she talked, my tired eyes saw the moonlight reflect on something pale in Angel’s pocket.

  “One day she climbed out of the window and found her special horse standing under the tree, with all the other horses gathered around. The big old angel was lying in the middle of them under the tree. She only found out he was an angel then because he said he had to leave soon to go and get his wings. So she sat with him, and the big old angel asked her why she came to see the horses all the time. She told him about the castle and the battle. She told him the horses didn’t make her feel like she was bad or lonely or afraid. When she was with them, the war and the castle just seemed like an imaginary story. They made her believe that feeling free and brave was true.

  “The big old angel said he was sad because he wished he had done something about that and now it was too late.”

  Angel was quiet for a moment. I could feel sleep coming, her story both vivid and soft like a dream.

  “Before he left, the big old angel said he wished for one more horse just for her. He told her that one day the hundredth horse would come, and it was coming just for the girl to make her safe.”

  We were back in the woods. Branches like fingers were black against the moon. Jagged shadows fell upon us.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “He left to get his wings, and she never saw the big old angel again.”

  The pale thing in Angel’s pocket seemed to move. I don’t know why, but I reached out to touch it. Belle stopped walking. Angel stopped talking. We were at a gate.

  Angel slipped down from Belle’s back, held the gate open. Belle stayed where she was. Angel climbed on the second bar at the back of the gate, rested her chin on her hand.

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  I thought she was talking to Belle, and then I realized I had to do something to make Belle walk forward.

  “What do I do?”

  “Well, you could kick her. You could shout at her. You could throw some food over there and she might go and get it.”

  Angel laughed softly, but her eyes were dark.

  “That’s not what you do, though, is it?” I said, determined not to look clueless again.

  I shuffled forward, sank into the curve of Belle’s back behind her shoulders.

  “What now?” I said.

  “Look where you want to go. Squeeze your legs a bit. Just kind of want her to go where you want to go.”

  “She’s not going to gallop off or anything?”

  I knew as soon as I’d said it that I shouldn’t have. Even in the pale light I saw the disappointment in Angel’s eyes. I felt like I had betrayed everything she’d shown me, interrupted some magic. So I just did what she said before the spell could break.

  I looked; I squeezed.

  And I laughed and Angel laughed when Belle walked right over to the gate, straight into Angel’s hands.

  Twenty-Four

  “Move up,” Angel said.

  She climbed to the top of the gate, stretched her leg over, and curved it around Belle’s wide ribs.

  Belle walked on, clipping down the middle of the lane. All of a sudden I felt wide-awake, as bright and alive as the stars.
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  “Tell me the end of the story,” I said.

  Angel sighed away a deep breath and continued.

  “The girl took all the other ninety-nine horses to a safe place while she waited for the hundredth horse to come just for her. But then one day, while she was locked in the castle, some guards came and broke down the door and took her away because they said it wasn’t safe there anymore with the battle getting worse. They put her in another castle far, far away, and it made her wild to be away from the horses. But she was trapped and couldn’t climb out of the other castle.

  “Eventually, after a long, long time, when they thought she wasn’t so wild, they took her to another castle, and she realized she could escape from this one. She climbed out of the window and traveled for miles and miles and found the horses again. And she’s been waiting for the hundredth horse ever since.”

  I put my hand in Angel’s pocket. She was quiet again. She smoothed Belle’s neck. And I waited.

  “Do you think she’ll ever find it?”

  Angel’s voice was barely a whisper. “Of course she will.”

  I didn’t care that the story was made up, that it finished abruptly. I just liked that Angel had told it to me. Not many people tell you stories. And I sort of understood what it was like for the princess waiting for something just for her. It made me think of the carousel. It made me think that looking for the tin girl was just like waiting for the hundredth horse.

  I heard Belle’s hooves crunch on the stony track as she stopped near Aunt Liv’s.

  “You’re good at telling stories,” I said. “But when it’s real life, you should tell the truth.”

  Angel turned around, the moon shining in her eyes. “Some stories are true,” she said.

  What if it is true? I thought as I took my hand out of Angel’s pocket and looked down at the pale goose feather spinning in my fingers.

  Twenty-Five

  Alfie, Gem, and I went up to Keldacombe village. Aunt Liv gave us some pocket money to buy Easter cards and chocolate eggs for one another. On the sweet shop door I saw a notice. It said: KELDACOMBE SPRING PARADE AND FAIR.