A Hundred Horses

by Sarah Lean

  Aunt Liv sat beside me on the sofa in the kitchen, so I didn’t have to look her in the eyes. The soft middle of the sofa tipped us together. She asked me if I had anything to do with the missing goat.

  “What if it’s really important and I can’t tell you?” I said. “What if it’s a matter of life and death?”

  “Life and death?” she said, lowering her head so she could look at my face.

  “What if,” I said, “you trusted me?”

  Aunt Liv was as startled as me that I asked that.

  “I mean, if I promise you I’m doing something for the right reason, and I promise by Saturday it will all get sorted out, would you?”

  I found Angel in the stable with Lunar and the goat. She spun around as I went in.

  “You let her take Belle! What about Lunar? What do you expect him to do without his mother?” Her lips trembled.

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  Angel gritted her teeth and glared. “You could have—”

  “No, I couldn’t! I couldn’t do anything!” I yelled. “And I’m in trouble and I’ve made my aunt Liv trust me and I don’t really know why. But I didn’t tell anyone you’re here with Lunar and Dorothy. So you’re going to have to trust me as well!”

  Angel smiled. Not the sort of smirky smile she usually had. Her eyes were watery and sad. She slid down the wall and crouched in the straw. She knew I was right. For once.

  I undid the braces on the foal’s legs so he could lie down and sleep. Already his legs looked straighter. Dorothy nestled next to him, chewing the hay. I looked at Angel crouched beside them, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, the shoulders on the big coat sloping halfway down her arms. It was someone else’s coat, someone much bigger than her. She’d probably stolen it anyway. And it didn’t fit, just like nothing fitted for her.

  Angel’s eyes were vivid. She moved away from me, climbed on the straw bales, and sat at the top. She could see what was coming.

  “Tell me the truth about Lunar,” I said. “Tell me why I can’t tell anyone else you’re here.”

  She picked at some loose cement between the bricks, not looking at me, studying each bit as if it was important. Stalling. Thinking of another lie?

  “If I tell you,” she said, “then you have to do what I say.”

  “Like what?” I snapped.

  “Forget it.”

  “Is it something else bad? Stealing or something like that?”

  “I said forget it.” Her voice was quiet and heavy.

  And I don’t know why, but I said, “Okay! Just tell me!”

  Angel tied a piece of straw in knots. And I waited.

  “What do you want me to do?” I said.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I just wanted to see if you would.”

  “I said I would!” I snapped. “And I will.”

  And I was startled because I meant it and I didn’t care about all her lying and games and what was hurting.

  Angel slid off the bales and walked right up to me, just like she had before. Her shoulders leaned in until her nose almost touched mine. She burned me with her eyes.

  “They’re . . . all I’ve got.”

  “Who? Belle and Lunar? What do you mean they’re all you’ve got? What about your family and the people you’re visiting?”

  She stayed frozen, breathing loudly through her nose, her eyes blazing, my question hanging in the air like ice. I knew I couldn’t give up. If she saw me back down at all, I’d never find out.

  Car tires tumbled over the gravel in the lane, rumbled into the yard. The engine stopped. Two doors opened, closed.

  “Mrs. Hemsworth?” a voice called. “It’s the police.”

  I saw the fear in Angel’s eyes as she stared at me, and I knew they had come for her.

  “Why are they here?” I whispered.

  She tried to listen to what was going on out in the yard, to the distant voices.

  “I ran away.” Her tiny voice was empty and cold. “They put me in a foster home, and I ran away.”

  I could hardly breathe. No matter what I had already thought, I wasn’t expecting that. I put my hand over my mouth so I didn’t cry out.

  “If you tell anyone, they’ll find me and take me back. I don’t want to go back, not yet.”

  Angel was still looking at me, pleading. We both turned toward the foal. The glass in his eyes was dark, almost black. Angel wasn’t asking me to lie for her again. Now she was asking me to look after Lunar.

  My heart ached. I nodded. She turned her back, and I could hear the tears in her voice.

  “Ask your aunt to bring Rita’s geese back.”

  Then she ran. Out of the stable door, through the yard. Heavy thuds stamped after her. A woman shouted, “That’s her! Angel Weston, stop! Come back!”

  I looked through the crack in the door, saw Angel running up the lane, springing over a gate as a policeman and policewoman chased after her. Leaving Rita on the porch, her face buried in her hands. Leaving me holding Lunar, who was trying to stumble after Angel.

  Thirty-Three

  Rita and I lay side by side against the pillows on her bed. Angel was a runaway. She had no family, no mother who looked after her. I knew what it was like to have my dad leave and not come back, but what was it like to be taken away from your family? It seemed a hundred times worse. A million.

  I missed my mom just then more than anything in the world.

  “They’ll take her back, won’t they?” I said.

  Rita squeezed my hand.

  “I should have known why she’d come here.” Her voice stirred the emptiness in the room. “That poor child.”

  Nobody had called Angel that—a poor child. It was only because now we both knew why she had been hiding that everything started to fall into place. No matter what she had done, it wasn’t her fault that her mother didn’t look after her. That’s why she wanted to be with Belle. She needed someone. Who else did she have?

  Rita walked over to the window seat. She wiped the back of her hand over the dust on the window, staring at the gray mark it left on her knuckles. I saw how she tried to wipe it away, how the dust stuck in the wrinkles. She sighed many times. I couldn’t help thinking how Angel had also turned to Rita when she had nobody left.

  “Angel wants me to look after Lunar,” I said.

  I told her that Angel had said Mrs. Barker wanted the foal put down and that Mrs. Barker had said the opposite. I told Rita I didn’t know which story was true.

  Rita closed her eyes.

  “Maybe it would have been better . . .’’

  I knew what she meant to say. Maybe it would all be so much easier if the foal had been put down. My stomach tightened.

  “How can you say that?” I said. “Lunar didn’t do anything wrong. And he’s getting better; you said so yourself.”

  “There’s an old wives’ tale,” Rita said, “about the hundredth horse—”

  “I know Lunar is your hundredth horse”— I interrupted—“but it’s just a stupid story. It doesn’t mean anything!”

  She held my eyes for a moment.

  “Did Angel tell you that story?”

  I nodded; my shoulders curled in.

  “The one about the wild hundredth horse spoiling the herd?”

  “No,” I said, frowning. “Nothing like that. Angel told me a completely different story about a big old angel and the hundredth horse coming for the princess.”

  But all I could think about was what I had to do. Tears welled. I flopped in a chair and rubbed my eyes. I didn’t know anything about foals or horses; I didn’t want the responsibility of looking after Lunar. What if I got it wrong? What if I couldn’t do it?

  “I wish I’d never come here,” I said, trying to stop the quake in my voice. “I wish I’d never met Angel.”

  Rita pulled up the stool and sat beside me.

  “People think the worst of Angel. But there’s another side to her not many people get to see.

  “We had lambs
one year,” she continued. “Three of them from the same mother, but she rejected them. They were tiny, too small and weak. They should have died by all accounts. Angel took them from Mr. Hemsworth. He had a soft spot for that girl, not that he’d ever admit it. She was always at his heels, hanging around here. Angel nursed the lambs, kept them alive.” She chuckled softly. “She dressed them in baby sweaters to keep them warm.”

  “Baby sweaters?”

  Rita laughed. “Knitted woolly sweaters.”

  I supposed there were two sides to everyone. Sometimes people kept the bad things hidden. Angel seemed to keep what was good about her hidden.

  “One thing Angel has never done is give up on what she thinks is right,” Rita said, more serious now.

  I leaned against Rita, hid my face behind her arm.

  “I thought I was just going to have a boring, ordinary vacation,” I said, my voice muffled against her sweater.

  “Perhaps you should just leave this to me,” Rita said. “I’ll keep an eye on the foal. I’ll get him back with Belle. Don’t worry—I’ll be sure to see they are sold together.”

  “Mrs. Barker’s going to buy them.”

  “She is?”

  A question was bothering me too. When I said somebody would want Lunar if he was healed, why hadn’t Angel seemed happy?

  “Well, that’s good news,” Rita said. “Now you go on back to the cottage and enjoy the rest of your time here. Leave everything to me.”

  I could have gone. I knew that Rita would take care of things, just like Mom had done when Dad left. But how could I leave knowing that Angel trusted me? None of this was Lunar’s fault. And then what happened was I told Rita the truth.

  “I’m scared, Rita, because I’m here without my mom and she always does everything for me. And she makes everything all right, but it means I don’t have to do anything and I don’t have to care about anyone. But I do care. I’m Angel’s friend, and I’ve got a mom, but Angel and Lunar haven’t.”

  I felt the warmth and the roughness of Rita’s hand wrap around mine.

  “When you really know someone, they get in here.” She tapped at her heart. “Right inside.” She looked at the wedding photo on the mantelpiece. “Then, when they’re gone, you do what you can to protect yourself. You get angry, withdrawn, take it out on other people. But then what?” She smiled through watery eyes. “That shell you make around your heart, to protect yourself, stops others from getting in.”

  She raised my chin.

  “It seems to stop the goodness getting out too. You and Angel and me, we’re not that different.”

  Her warm, strong arm pulled me to her.

  “We know why Angel was hiding now. But what about you?”

  As soon as she said it, I thought of the carousel. The one thing I had wanted to do was to put it back together again. I was good at doing the same things Dad did, but I hid the carousel because I didn’t want Mom to know that I was like him or to see me in the same way she thought of him. But was I also hiding another part of me? I thought of the tin girl about to fly, and I remembered when Angel had said that people were mostly scared of their own brilliance. Maybe that’s the part I was hiding. And right then I knew I didn’t have to be like him; I could be what I wanted. I would look after Lunar, and I would never betray Angel.

  “It’s not Lunar’s fault,” I said, getting up. “What’s he ever done?”

  I fetched Rita’s dusty coat and boots from the hallway.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’re all he’s got.”

  I went back to talk to Aunt Liv and told her Rita was looking after a foal and that I would need to be there a lot and asked if that was all right. Even though Alfie and Gem moaned and complained and Mom wanted me to call her, Aunt Liv still said yes.

  “I won’t ask any more because . . . because I know you have your reasons,” she said. Her mouth twitched. “I don’t know if you remember me talking about a girl who used to live around here, Angel Weston.”

  My stomach turned. If only she knew.

  “I’ve got a funny feeling she might have something to do with all this.”

  Then I remembered what Angel had said when the police came. Even though she wasn’t here, I wouldn’t let her down.

  “Can Rita have her geese back?” I asked.

  Aunt Liv laughed softly. She didn’t ask why. She touched my cheek and said, “I’ll take them over tomorrow.”

  I went straight to bed, quickly falling into uncomfortable dreams. I heard the phone ring downstairs. I felt Gem kiss my cheek, smelled her sugary breath as she whispered, “Please can I see the foal? I love you.”

  I heard the shift of the covers as she and Alfie climbed into bed without turning on the light. I heard the phone ring again. Then nothing.

  Thirty-Four

  I woke early and ran around to Rita’s, determined to do my best. Rita and I put the foal’s leg braces on and walked him around. We took them off when he wanted to lie down. We made sure Dorothy, the goat, had plenty to eat and cleaned the water bucket and shoveled out the poop and made deep beds of straw.

  I watched Lunar get stronger every hour. He followed me. And that was the most wonderful thing. I didn’t speak to him. He just decided by himself that he wanted to be with me. His soft muzzle nudged my hand or my back as if he wanted me to lead him, take him somewhere new. I took him in and out of the stables and around the house and to all the corners of the yard. He watched me build the roof of the carousel, as if he was waiting for it to come alive too.

  “You’re safe now,” I told him.

  And I wanted to tell him Angel was too. But was she?

  Then Lunar’s ears pricked when we both heard what sounded like a traffic jam coming our way.

  I saw Rita’s face glow as the geese swept into the yard, swaying and waddling and honking, Aunt Liv, Alfie, and Gem herding them in. The geese huddled, shimmying away from the foal as he tried to chase them and play with them. They parted as he skittered into them; then they came together again and moved in the same direction.

  “Nell said you wanted them back,” said Aunt Liv.

  Rita put her arm around me. “Did she now?”

  She kissed my head.

  “You know it wasn’t my idea, don’t you?” I whispered.

  Rita nodded. She couldn’t speak.

  I wished Angel was there so she could see what she had made happen. I saw Rita shine as her geese came home; she laughed from her belly, as if the laughter were coming from very deep down. I did understand who Angel was. It was in the way Rita watched those geese, the way they brought her back to life. Maybe I was right all along. That is what real angels do: bring things back to life.

  I saw the trees uncurling their leaves, like tight fists opening. I saw the sway of grass in the overgrown fields, felt the breeze against my skin, saw it ruffle the geese’s feathers, puff under the foal’s blue cardigan. It even felt like the cobblestones under my feet were stirring. And I missed Angel because she wasn’t there to share it with me.

  “I love him,” Gem breathed, her arms sinking into the mist of fur around Lunar’s neck.

  She knelt in front of him. He lowered his head and breathed on her. I saw her look into his eyes. I heard her whisper to him.

  “I’m Gem,” she said. “It means something precious.”

  She tilted her head to the side, nodding, pretending he had answered.

  “I think Lunar is a lovely name too.”

  She nodded again.

  “You are like the moon,” she said. “And I love you because you’re the magic hundredth horse, aren’t you?”

  He nuzzled into her. She kissed his nose and rested her cheek there.

  “Nobody believes you’re magic. But I do.”

  Gem’s sweetness made me feel happy inside. And I was thinking that maybe there was no such thing as angels, really. They were just people letting the goodness inside them out. And when they do, everybody feels it.

  And I thought about magic and fai
ry tales. They are not real. It’s just that beautiful things make you feel full up inside. As if nothing is missing. And that feels like a miracle.

  Rita had phoned suppliers, and they had delivered some substitute milk for Lunar. He guzzled from the bottle, Alfie and Gem both holding on as he nudged and wrapped his tongue around the end. Dorothy jumped onto the bales and waited for him. When his bottle was finished, he went to Dorothy to drink some more.

  Alfie’s cheeks flushed. “Does he know that’s a goat?”

  “Course he does,” said Gem. “Dorothy doesn’t even look like a horse.”

  I heard Aunt Liv ask Rita if it was Mrs. Barker’s goat.

  “Not a word, please, Liv,” Rita said.

  Aunt Liv raised the palms of her hands as if to say she wouldn’t ask any more. She smiled at me and mouthed, “I trust you.”

  Gem couldn’t take her hands away from the foal; when he moved, she followed. She kept talking to him, and in Gem’s make-believe world, he answered.

  Gem stared at the leg braces.

  “He’s just a bit wonky,” I said, thinking she was about to ask. “They’ll help make his legs straight. He’s going to be fine.”

  “I know,” she said. “He told me.”

  Alfie stood quietly next to Gem and said, “What else did he tell you?”

  Gem looked uncomfortable for a moment; then she shrugged and said, “It’s a secret.”

  Aunt Liv had also brought a big wicker basket hooked over her elbow, with a tea towel covering what was inside.

  “I remember when the farm used to be like this,” she said quietly, looking around at the bustling yard. “Thought you’d like to see these too.”

  She nudged a shy chicken out of her basket and into the yard, and the six yellow goslings that Angel had given me. The goslings formed a line and followed their new mother hen. They went straight into one of the stables. I wished Angel was there, and I couldn’t help thinking that this was where she would rather be. I ached inside, worrying about where she was now.