“Look what we found on the terrace!”
She holds one feather in each hand, flapping her arms like a giant bird and cawing at the ceiling, and the girls giggle and run down the hall.
WHEN I WAS FIVE, my sister Marjorie found a wounded bird in the street. Our neighbor’s cat had gotten it and thrashed it about, before Marjorie chased it off. The bird didn’t move, though its heart flit-flit-flitted beneath our fingertips. Its body was so soft, as though just touching it might break something. Marjorie made a cage out of an old sieve and filled it with leaves. We dug through Mama’s garden for worms, and chopped them up, and fed them to the bird on the end of a small twig. Our neighbor said the bird would never survive, but Marjorie was patient. Every day, she dug for more worms. After three weeks, the little bird was flapping its wings around, trying to take off in the makeshift cage. We carried the cage to the edge of the empty building behind the bakery. Marjorie opened the door, and the bird flew away.
But Foxfire isn’t that little bird. I do not think worms and a bed of leaves will fix her.
She is waiting for me as I crawl over the garden wall. My spine tingles as I meet her eyes. I still can’t believe she’s real, but here she is, standing in front of me. The torn skin on her right wing is raw, and the dent in the bone looks painful. She tries to stretch out her wings. Her left one will extend, but the right one catches.
“I have something for you,” I say softly.
Her ears perk up when my hand goes into my pocket, but her eyes are still wary. She is used to the wind and the sun, not to little girls.
“The Horse Lord wrote me that you liked these.” I take out the shiny red apple I got from Thomas. Her ears swivel forward, curious. She raises her right hoof, but then lowers it again. I take a slow step forward, with the apple resting in my flat palm. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to give you this apple.”
When I reach the fountain, my bulky coat knocks off the willow stick, and she jerks at the whip of movement. Her eyes flash their whites.
“Easy, Foxfire.”
But the next step I take is too far. She snorts and paws the snow with muddy hooves. Her thick mane flies as she tosses her head, warning me back.
I stop.
Slowly, I crouch to the earth and roll the apple to her corner of the garden. She stops thrashing. Her eyes never leave me, but she lowers her head. Sniffing. Snorting. Her inquisitive lips grope until they feel the shape of the apple.
She jerks her head up, and munches on it contentedly.
I back up slowly, until I reach the sundial, where there is a new letter tucked under the golden arm, tied in ribbon. I unroll it while Foxfire finishes the apple.
Dear Emmaline May,
I must once again ask you for assistance. Though I thought it impossible, the Black Horse has crossed over into your world and is, at this very moment, in pursuit of Foxfire.
The Black Horse is strong and relentless, but he has one weakness, and it is this: color. Color burns his eyes. The only light he can see by is colorless moonlight—the brighter the moon, the clearer he sees. Tonight, there is a new moon, which means the sky will be dark and he will have to hunt by smell alone. But as the moon grows brighter each night, you must surround Foxfire with colorful objects large enough to be seen from a distance—one for each color of the rainbow—to create a spectral shield that will hide her from his vision even during the brightest full moon.
I beg you to accept this mission of utmost importance.
Ride true,
The Horse Lord
I stare at the letter with wide eyes.
I am to protect Foxfire?
I am to undergo a mission of utmost importance, all on my own? No, no, I can’t possibly. Feeding her and caring for her is one thing, but this is quite another. My heart starts to swell with that rat-a-tat fear, and I want to crawl over the wall and run, run away from the letter.
But the Horse Lord is depending on me.
I hold the ribbon up to the light. If I’m to find colorful objects, then could this be the first? It is thick and long, surely long enough to be seen from a distance. It is red, but looking closer, it is more than that. Sometimes when it catches the light it is cherry red, other times the same red as the emblems painted on the army trucks that rumble by.
Foxfire is still munching on the apple, but her eyes are fastened to the ribbon. I glance at the ivy covering the garden wall. The vines twist around themselves to form little nooks and pockets, like a fairy shelf. I find a sturdy vine and tie the red ribbon around it so that it flickers in the wind. It is bright and shiny against the dull dark green. I take a step back, and then another, and it still shines brightly.
Yes, I think. Yes, maybe I can do this.
But a cloud covers the sun, and I squint up at the sky.