by Julie, age 13

It was a hot summer night, the kind where everyone opens their doors and sits outside until the light fades. A girl sat on a blanket spread of the damp grass, in front of a cottage a bit farther up the mountain than the rest. Her wooden needles clicked, jerking back and forth, her eyes fixed on them. The old woman sitting next to her was knitting, too, but the movements of her dark, wrinkled fingers were smooth, and she looked down the mountain, at the cottages clustered together.

The sky was turned from light blue to violet, and the translucent moon was shaped in a gentle curve, like an eye half covered by an eyelid. The woman could see the children running around the cottages, chasing yellow sparks. Fireflies. Though the eyes of some grew cloudy as they aged, the woman’s brown eyes were still as bright as fireflies, under lids squinted by years of sun.

As the forest of pine trees below the village changed from dark green to black, the girl looked up. “Is it time to go inside, Ista?”

The old woman turned to her, her fingers never stopping. She sighed, a deep sigh, heavy with things that needed to be told. “No, child. Bring a light.”

The girl’s eyebrows pulled low, but she didn’t ask her grandmother why she was using a precious candle. She came back, her hand cupped around the wavering flame. She scraped soft dirt to make a small hole and patted dirt around the edges of the candle to make it stand up.

“Sit down, Leri.”

Leri sat; legs tucked under her, and picked up her knitting again.

“I have a story to tell you.”

“Which one is it, Ista? The one about Wolf and Coven waterfall?”

“No, Leri. It’s one you’ve never heard before. You’re thirteen winters now. I think you’re ready.” She was looking at the corral, where their horse grazed.  “Once, when I was young—it must be hard to imagine me young, but I looked just like you—there were horses on these mountains.”

“Aren’t there still?” Leri stopped her knitting to look towards to corral.

“Yes, but when I was a girl, there were wild horses.”

“Horses with no owners?”

“Yes. Oh, they were a sight.”

“Why didn’t someone try to tame them and ride them?”

“Would you have wanted to?”

“No.”

“Neither did I.” The woman smiled, creasing her face even more. “The villagers would’ve liked to, but ever since Horan Avar was kicked in the head by a wild stallion he was trying to capture, they were too fearful.”

“Why aren’t the horses still there, then?”

The grandmother’s smile became a little wiser, more sorrowful, now. “They held a grudge against the horses, after that.”

“What would they have done, if someone had tied a rope around their neck and pulled them away from their family?” Leri nearly lost a stitch as the words burst out of her mouth like blows from the blacksmith’s hammer.

The old woman gave a chuckle, but it was a far-off one. “They didn’t think how it had been for the stallion,” she spoke softly, as though talking to herself. “All they knew was that Horan was gone, with a wife and three little children left behind to fend for themselves.” She looked away from the horizon, right at Leri. “It’s harsh here, you know. So harsh and cold, these mountains are sometimes. Not kind to widows and children, not kind to anyone.”

Leri stayed silent, letting her grandmother continue her story. She had felt the wind when it was harsh enough to rip right through her woolen dress, when the snow was driven in sheets like sharp-edged stone walls.

“Yes, they had a grudge, not just against that stallion. Against all the wild horses.”

Sun beat down on my head, making the dust and stones beneath my feet shimmer, but I did not speed my steps. In front of me, there was shouting and the blending of many murmurs into one hum. Today was the Holy Day; an ordeal that came every seven moons. Though I loved the chanting of prayers echoing through the cool stone chapel and the spicy-sweet, exotic scent of incense, I dreaded the seemingly-endless walk home. The whole village would walk back to the pitiful scattering of cottages that had barely earned a name—Coven.

The women would stroll together, exchanging the latest gossip, some with babies at their hips or with toddlers clinging to the skirts of their best “Hol’day” dresses, some grasping the fabric, holding it out of the dust. Though many girls my age walked with them, I did not want to hear the gossip, knowing some of it would surely be about me.

Instead, I hung back alone, scuffing my bare feet through the soft dust, feeling it cake on my toes. What would they be saying about me? Would they be talking about how I climbed trees, or how Itima in the cottage next to ours saw me leaving precious apple slices for the wild horses?

The village came in sight, and the whispers changed to calls of, “Goodbye” as women swept into their cottages to change and cook noon meals for their families. As my family parted from the group, we heard someone yell, “Something’s got into the garden.”

Leri drew a deep breath. The garden was at the outskirts of the cottages, surrounded by a tall, thick fence to keep out animals. Each family had their own plot, and they grew corn, to be pounded into flour, potatoes, tomatoes—some families even donated a corner to watermelons, and come summer, they would share the thick slices the color of the sunset with all the villagers, making them cold by floating them in the stream.

Without the garden, their food would be meager. A few handfuls of wheat, some bits of chicken, eggs, goat’s milk, perhaps some apples or peaches, if they could find a tree.

“Did you starve, Ista?”

“Of course not, silly child.” The grandmother twitched the end of Leri’s red braid. “Why, I’m talking to you now, and you saw Itima in town when you went to pick the tomatoes.”

Leri nodded.

Women ran from their houses, some still with their Hol’day dresses on. They ran through the soft, black dirt of the garden, the only fertile patch for miles, not caring that their hems were caked with mud.

“It’s the horses,” someone said. I shouldered through the crowd. The fence around the garden was still up, scarred only by weather, not by muscled shoulders beating against it or flinty hooves striking it, but the gate was open, swinging back and forth in the wind.

Rin, Horan and Itima’s brother, was standing by the gate, staring down at the earth if he had just won a game. He pointed and said, “Look.”

I tucked my skirts around my legs and crouched. All I saw was a pile of manure. It was not fresh and could’ve easily come from one of Itima’s father’s ancient mares he used for carrying goods down the mountain to Landly. I looked closer at the ground, for hoofprints, but I saw nothing.

“See?” Rin said, making his voice loud for the whole village to hear, “it was the horses.”

It was as though all the sunbeams had joined together to shine only on Rin, leaving the rest of the world dark. Somehow I was in the light too, with many eyes on me. I would have rather had the darkness that everyone else did.

I ran out of the light, pushing my way through the crowd, then down the dirt footpath that led from the garden to the main road. Even as I veered off the garden path, out of sight behind cottages, I didn’t stop. On the main street, the dirt packed from use was hard as stone against my slamming feet. The door of our cottage was open, for my mother had forgotten to close it as she ran to the garden. I jerked it shut behind me and pulled the latchstring in.

Leri snorted. “Horses don’t like tomatoes.”

“I suspect Star and Ash are being spoiled. You’re a girl after my own heart.”

Leri smiled, seemingly at the rows of stitches falling from one of her needles.

The old woman sighed. “Horses would love sweet corn, though.”

“So they did eat it?”

The woman didn’t answer; just let her voice rise high, in a story telling half-chant, and said:

I scrambled up into my loft, pulling off my heavy Hol’day dress—for even a tomboy like myself should have a nice dress. Perhaps the horses had gotten into our garden, though the grass still had green in it and didn’t snap when you bent it. I shook my head and pulled on my everyday dress. It was light from many wearings and washings—a relief after my other, rarely worn dress.

There was only one way to tell. I would have to go to the horses.

“How could they tell you—“

“You’ll see.” While the grandmother turned back to her knitting, Leri’s fingers stopped. She could tell that her grandmother was coming to an exciting part, because her eyes were widening, and her lips and cheeks were turning pink.

Now, I knew I couldn’t go now. Someone would see me, stop me, and ask where I was going. So I waited for the night. It was dark as burnt wood in the loft. I couldn’t find my dress, so I climbed down the ladder in only my chemise.

Leri giggled.

“Can’t imagine your dignified Ista sneaking out of her cottage at night in only her chemise, eh?”

I opened the door slowly, each breath my parents took loud and somehow uneven in my ears. Were they waking up? Finally I got outside, the palms of my hands slippery with sweat.

I knew I couldn’t walk by the cottages, especially the Avary’s. Itima was a light sleeper. So I veered away, climbing up the mountain. Few went up this far, maybe some boy on a dare or some rich man from the city trying to study the plants. They’d found precious few here. The only things that grew up here were the scrubby, colorless kinds of plants that weren’t good for much.

The familiar landscape was spread under me, farther away than usual, in shades of only black and grey. The moon was full, and the sky was silky and black-blue, covered with stars like dust. My eyes were used to the dark, by now. The empty land sloped down, leveling at the village, than plunging down again into a carpet of pines.

I knew that the mustangs wouldn’t live in the deep forest, or near the village. They were probably in one of the clearings in the woods. I had grabbed the bow I’d made myself, but it was more like a plaything than a weapon. Now, it was the dark time. And in the forest, this time belonged to cougars, wolves, and who-knows-what else, if the stories our parents told us were true.

They would all say that my mind was shriveled, if they ever heard out this. Running around in the woods at night, just to see some horses. Oh, I could almost see them, clustered together walking home from chapel, talking in whispers and peeking over their shoulders at me.

But I knew something they didn’t…

“What did you know, Ista?” Leri’s eyes were fixed on her knitting.

“You’ll know.”

I began the hike to the horses. It was worse than any nightmare could’ve been—even the ones where you can’t move, while wolves circle you, perhaps because I had to move. Sticks scratched my feet, but worse was the way the shadows flickered like living things, the way that leaves rustled in hot summer wind as though something brushing against them made the movement.

It was even darker in the forest then on the mountain, though not as steep, the moon dappled through branches covered with silvery leaves.

“And then you found the horses,” Leri finished.

“No.” The old woman was shaking her head, but she was smiling.

“What?” Leri’s knitting dropped out of her hands.

“No, I didn’t find the horses.”

“Why?” Leri picked up her knitting and slipped a few fallen stitches back on her needle.

A screech echoed through the woods. It seemed like it made the leaves tremble, and it certainly made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

“A cougar,” Leri said.

Once again, every horrible thing that lived in these shadows flashed through my mind. I turned and ran, twigs scratching my face like fingernails, stones and branches cutting my feet, running into branches.

Finally, I was standing at the door of my cottage. I eased it opened and slipped inside. I climbed the ladder to the loft, lurching back and forth, my feet making sucking sounds on the wood, sweaty and bloody from all the scratches.

As I lay under my blanket, waiting for my heartbeat to stop pounding under my eyelids, I thought about what a coward I’d been. A heroine, like in the stories my mother told, would have kept walking in spite of the cougar. She would’ve found the horses, stopped everyone from trying to capture them. Even my heart seemed cowardly, beating away so fast I could barely breathe. A heroine’s heart, I was sure, would’ve beaten as slowly as a sleeping baby’s.

I spent the next day, as I had spent the day before, in the garden, trying to find a few potatoes in the mess of trampled dirt, trying to revive dropping tomato vines, trying to find anything edible. The men of the village had hiked down the mountain to Landly. They hadn’t said why they were going, but everyone had a very good idea. They were finding out ways to trap the horses.

Normally I would’ve enjoyed the quiet of the garden, the feeling of dirt squishing underneath my feet and crumbling between my fingers, but today it gave me more time to think about what coward I’d been.

The sun climbed from behind the mountain to over my head, making my hair feel as hot as burning brands to the touch. At least it was my hair nearly on fire and not my head. My neck was sore when I rubbed it, and probably red as one of those tomatoes. I sighed, trying to think of a plan.

The sun was gold and I was inside the cottage cooking the noon meal by the time they came back.

The two ancient mares, Hori and Hesti, were loaded with wood. I had been hearing the men’s axes for hours, a steady thumping ring. I was leaning on the doorway, gazing out the door, with a knife in one hand and a bruised tomato from the garden in the other, until my mother called for me to come and cook.

I could still hear, though—laughs, shouts, jokes, and soon the ring of axes and the pound of hammers. It was torturous, chopping and slicing in the cottage, hot as the flames of the fire itself. I wished I could smother the fire, but without it we could not cook.

As the sun sank behind the pine trees, lighting the branches into gold and making them look opening and welcoming, my father swept in. He had splinters in his fingers and curls of wood in his beard. He slumped into our only chair, and my mother ladled him a bowl of soup from the pot hanging over the fire

“What are you making, Father?” I asked, cutting of a hunk of bread and handing it to him.

He yawned and said, “A corral. We talked to old Holaim, and he told us that it’s the best way to capture those wild ones.

I passed him a dipper full of water, and he drank it in one gulp, gratefully.

I planned with half my mind while I ate, washed the wooden bowls, and undressed for bed.

Finally, I could lay down and plan with my whole mind. I knew I couldn’t knock the corral down. It would be too loud, and they would build a new one. I should’ve tried again to find the horses, but I knew I was too much of a coward.

My only choice was to wait until they were trying to drive the horses into the corrals. Then, it would be light in the forest, and if any creatures that lurked in the woods tried to attack me, there would be someone nearby. They probably wouldn’t let children come with them, but I was sure that most of the boys and the more adventurous girls would sneak off to watch anyway. Satisfied with my plan, I rolled into my side and let my eyes close.

The next day dawned cool, but with a hot wind that hinted the day would get much warmer. The whole village was in shadow, as the mountain still blocked the sun.

The village was humming with busyness, even at this early hour that was usually spent in cooking a morning meal. The corral was still standing, and for some reason this made me clench me teeth. I had almost expected for it to be smashed to kindling overnight.

I pulled on my dress and ran outside before my mother could stop me. The men were clustered around the corral, laughing, holding whips and ropes.

Leri had nearly stopped knitting. She was staring up at her grandmother, hanging onto her words, eyes wide.

I joined the group of children running their hands over the smooth wood. One of them, Mittan, was whispering to everyone. When he came to me, he hissed in my ear, “If you’re going to go into the forest with them, go over there.” He pointed over to the other side of the round corral.

“I will,” I whispered back.

I climbed over the top fence rail and ran across the center of the corral. So far, my plan was working. I climbed over the fence rail on the other side,  jumping down easily.

There was a group of children here already—and one of them was Itima. I said good morning to her, politely, but I was still suspicious of her. She walked with the woman on the way home from the temple, though she was my age, and her Hol’day dress had two ruffles on the hem. She had never climbed a tree in her life, I was sure.

The men broke apart, heading for the forest, before she could say good morning back, and we scrambled after them. They walked slowly and quietly on a small trail, and we followed, not on the trail, but hidden in the brush along the sides.

Squirrels scolded from treetop perches, and birds exploded out of cover. Gold sunlight filtered through leaves and slanted through pine needles, dappling the ground in front of us. I was crouching, pushing through branches, and so were the rest of us. Itima yelped when Mittan snapped a branch back into her face.

“Sorry,” he hissed. We all froze, but our fathers didn’t seem to notice us.

We kept moving, and I was grateful that it was easier this time. Once or twice we came to a clearing, and we had to wait under the cover of leaves while our fathers crossed it and disappeared into the leaves on the other side, shaking their heads.

I was glad that they hadn’t found the horses yet. Perhaps, I thought, they won’t find them at all. Nevertheless, I slowly edged away from the group, moving just a little farther at a time.

Soon, those closer to me were blurred, and those farther away were covered completely. When I was sure I was completely out of sight, I stood. I could still hear crashes and stomps, so I was within shouting distance if I needed help.

I was walking forward, scanning for clearing, when I heard shouts, and the crashes grew louder. My heart skipped a beat, then speeded up. I pictured a cougar, leaping down from a limb. Then I heard the word, “Horse,” and I realized that they’d found the horses.

I ran toward the voices, stumbling over fallen logs, dead leaves slipping under my feet and nearly knocking me down. I heard a whinny, the crack of a whip, then drumming of hoofbeats, like a hammer pounding. A horse plunged through the low-hanging oak branches that hid me from the path, followed by another horse.

I ducked back, my arms folded over my head, as the two horses went by inches from me. I felt a swish of cold air and a whip from their tails as they passed.  One was a pinto mare that stumbled often, the other was a stallion.

As I looked closer at the buckskin stallion, I nearly stumbled. This was the stallion that I’d fed apples to. The one who’d spoken to me.

Leri gasped. “You, too?” She said.

The old woman smiled. “I should’ve known that you would have it. In fact, I guessed that you did.”

“Have what?”

The woman ran her hand over whatever she was knitting before she said, “The power to speak to the horses.”

“Does everyone have it?”

“I am not sure.” The grandmother shook her head. “I think that most people have it, waiting inside, but few ever discover that they do.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“In a way, yes.”

Leri bit her lip. “In what way?”

“Well, there’s always a risk when you speak to things. If we could speak to the chickens, then we would never have to heart to kill one. We’d be hungry.”

“So, since you can speak to horses, you want to be fair to them?”

“Yes, something like that.”

I remembered how his voice had appeared in my head, as though he’d just spoken out loud, but somehow quiet. Had he just thought, or had he sent the thoughts to me? I thought, “Stop,” but he kept going. I thought, “Stop,” again, but this time I held it in my mind and tried sending it to him, pretending he could hear it.

His hooves sent leaves flying as he came to a halt. I held out my hand, watching it shake, trying not to look him in the eye. Finally I heard his voice in my head, deep and strong. “Why?”

“Because, I have to talk to you.”

He shook his head, black mane flying. “No. Why do they crack their whips and shout at us and drive us through the forest?”

“They think that you ate the garden. They’re very angry.” I folded my hands behind my back.

If horses could frown, the stallion did. “We did not.”

“I don’t think you did,” I said. “I came to warn you. They want you especially, you know.”

“They already tried to capture me,” he said. “Can they not let me alone?”

“They think you’re dangerous,” I said. “You kicked Horan in the head when you got away.”

The stallion pinned his ears back.

“I had best go now then, before they find out that they didn’t capture me,” he said. “But I have something to ask of you, first.”

“Anything,” I said, nearly adding M’lord at the end, like I was supposed to do for gentlemen.

“Can you take my mare, Dark Path, with you? She sees nothing but darkness, and she will not be fast enough to escape.”

“Yes,” I whispered. The pinto mare had not spoken to me. I held out my hand to her, and then stroked her neck. She was trembling, the beautiful wild thing.

I could hear the thought in my head, and I could feel myself concentrating as I sent it to him, but as soon as my mind cleared, I wished I could take back what I’d just asked the stallion. “May I ask a favor of you?”

The stallion nodded, and I said, “I have a knife, here, and I would like to take some of your mane, to make something. To remember you.”

Once again, the great stallion nodded. I pulled the knife, in a leather sheaf, out of my pocket. It was small, barely bigger than my thumb, and made of silver-black obsidian chipped into wavy patterns like ripples on a pond. I sawed off a section of his mane, wiry and long, and put it in my pocket.

Finally, his whole mane was shaved off at his neck, unevenly. Though he still had a proud air, he made one think of a shorn sheep as well as a wild stallion.

“I’m sorry.” My thought sounded soft.

“Don’t be,” he said. “It will grow back.”

I held the last lock in my hands, and I could almost feel it tingling, spreading through my palm, up my arm, until I wanted to shout and dance and cry, all at once. I looked into the stallion’s eyes, black as obsidian, but with some of the blue of the night sky and glints like golden sunsets. I knew that the whole world was in the stallion’s eye.

He turned and ran away, at a half-trot, half-walk. As he disappeared under the leaves, I sent a silent prayer that he would not be captured. If he was, I was sure that the world would leave his eyes, and there would only be dust and shouts.

I turned to the mare, still trembling. I patted her neck, and whispered in her ear, trying to tell her that she could trust me. A crash came from behind me and I turned around, heart pounding.

Itima was standing there, eyes so narrow I could only see the brown part. “I saw,” was all that she said.

My thoughts raced, trying to find an explanation. “Yes, this mare came rushing out—”

“With a stallion.”

All the explanations I had though of were useless now. She had seen me with the stallion.

“You were cutting off its mane, I have no idea why.”

I would be the subject of the gossip on the walk home for the rest of the summer. Worst of all, they would find the stallion.

“Please don’t tell them.” Itima’s eyes weren’t slanted now, but the thin lines of distrust still creased the skin around her lips. “Please,” I said again. “It’s impossible to explain. Can I just say I want him to stay free?”

I waited, watching Itima. The creases grew lighter. “Alright,” she said finally. “How will we get this horse back without a halter?”

I scratched my cheek and swatted a mosquito that tried to land on my arms. “Borrow a rope?”

“No,” she said. “That won’t work. We aren’t supposed to be here.”

If she hadn’t been wild, I would’ve ridden her back, of course. Maybe I could speak to her… but that wouldn’t work, either. Itima would be suspicious.

“We’ll have to walk in front of her and just coax her forward, I suppose.” I clicked my tongue, stroking her neck, and moved a few steps back. The mare moved with me.

Finally, we pulled aside a branch and saw flat ground, sloping up, and the village above us. I nearly whooped, but I didn’t want to frighten the mare. My heart sank as the corral came into view. It was full of horses, jostling each other.

The old woman stopped.

“Wait—” Leri licked her lips. “A blind pinto mare—that’s Star. She was wild?”

“Yes. She was.”

“What happened next?” Leri waved one hand in the air.

“All that happened next was that they sold the horses that they’d captured.”

“All of them?”

“No, only the stallions. I convinced them that the rest of the horses—all mares and foals—would be worth more if I tamed them before they could sell them, too.” The old woman smiled, twisting the yarn between her fingers. “And then, a few nights later, Itima opened the gate and let them all out, except for Dark Path.”

“Itima? I thought she was prissy. I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I thought she was prissy, too. It turned out, though, that she wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Leri tilted her head to one side. “And then you were friends.”

“Almost. We didn’t talk much, and I think she never really trusted me, but we liked each other, after that.”

“What about Ash? Was she wild, too?”

The woman’s smile turned to a straight line. “She was.”

Leri hesitated, not wanting to ask questions that made her grandmother sad. “Why isn’t she still wild? Did Itima not let her out?”

“Itima had hinted to me that she was going to try and free all the horses. I told her to leave Star—and Ash.”

“Ash isn’t blind. Why couldn’t she go with the rest of the horses?”

“I was selfish. I had started to train her, just for appearances.” The old woman sighed. “Soon, I didn’t want to let her go. She was so sweet and pretty. A perfect horse. I loved Star, but she was blind and still timid. I wanted to let her go, but I couldn’t.”

Leri looked down at the knitting, than back at her grandmother. She changed the subject, saying, “I thought the stallion told you that his mare’s name was Dark Path.”

“Well, I decided her path was not dark any more. That she needed a new name. Names bring luck, you know. Yours means Freedom. So I decided to name her Starry Path.”

“Why Starry Path? Why not Light Path?”

“Haven’t you heard the legend of the stars? It’s said that the first horses came from the sky, and when the galloped across it to come to earth, every time a hoof struck the sky, it would make a star.”

“Oh.” Leri breathed. She looked up at the sky, now the shade of blue right before black, scattered with stars, like shavings of silver. She could picture, almost, a herd of horses like misty clouds, galloping through that sky.

“Here, I’m done.” The old woman placed her needles on the blanket, and held up what she had been making—a scarf, darker than the night sky. She gave it to her granddaughter, holding it carefully, as if it was an old, old, piece of parchment that could crumble at any moment.

Leri fingered it. The yarn felt wiry and strong, but soft, too. She wrapped it around her neck, and, strangely enough, could feel it humming, almost as if it was alive. The humming made her want to stand up and sing to the stars.

The grandmother gathered her needles and stood, stooping to scrape the dirt away from the candle that was barely more than a stump. “Time to come inside and sleep,” she said, softly, and Leri followed her inside the cottage.

Leri tossed and turned in the loft that night. The scarf lay draped over a rafter. Even her grandmother’s even breathing couldn’t soothe her to sleep. She felt like there was something she had to do, but she’d forgotten it. Like the time when her grandmother had told her to walk to the village to get a few ears of sweet corn for dinner, but she hadn’t remembered by the time she got to the village.

A horse’s nicker drifted through the opened window above her head, and she sat up. Her grandmother had wanted to set Ash free, but she couldn’t. Would she want Leri to let Ash go? Even if her grandmother didn’t, Leri was sure that she would be able to fall asleep better after she took a walk to the corral.

She climbed down the ladder in her chemise, not wanting to wake her grandmother by pulling on her dress, wrapping the scarf made from a wild horse’s mane around her neck—she knew exactly who her grandmother had gotten the mane from.

Outside, the sky was still sprinkled with stars, but the light made her think of steel instead of water. The only horses in the corral was the Avary’s old gelding, a replacement for the two ancient mares, and their horses, Starry Path and Wild Ash.

Leri sat on the fence rail, enjoying the feeling of the cool night wind blowing on her bare legs.

“Ash,” Leri sent her thoughts to the mare, just as her grandmother had to the stallion when she was a girl. “Ista told me about when you were wild.”

“I have no grudge against her, and I’ve told your Ista that many times,” Ash said, “But I miss freedom. I am old now, and wish I could spend my last years…”

Leri knew what she had to do.  She opened the gate, just a crack. “Only Ash,” she sent her thoughts to the old gelding when he flicked his ears forward, trying to sound stern.

Star knew better, and she simply lowered her head in Ash’s direction.

Leri opened the gate wider, and Ash walked out, calm as could be.

“Do you want one last ride?”

“Can I?”

Leri grasped Ash’s mane, pulling herself up. Ash cantered towards the woods, Leri bent over the mare’s back, feeling the tears pricking her eyelids.

Right before the trees started, Ash slid to a stop. “Thank you. Tell your grandmother thank you, too.”

Leri pulled the curtain of leaves aside for Ash, and began the long hike back up the mountain, tears sliding off the tip of her nose in a most undignified way.

Her grandmother stood by the doorway of the cottage, a bit farther up the mountain than the rest. “Goodbye, Ash. I knew that she would be able to do it.”

THE END

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