A Hundred Horses (2 page)

Four

I
carried both suitcases down from the attic, without Mom knowing. I hid the secret brown leather one under my bed.

That night I lay waiting for the noises in the house to tell me Mom had stopped turning and was asleep. And I was remembering the carousel and who had made it all. My dad.

Mom said he had always been drawn to lights. It was his business, making spectacular lighting displays for spectacular shows. Then seven years ago he ran away to a place called Las Vegas with someone—called Susie or something—to see the biggest lights of all. We never saw or heard from him again. Mom had said he was probably too dazzled to remember he had responsibilities. She said that we had a new life to live and that now we were free of the pointless dreams of a man who had betrayed us.

Mom couldn’t have known the carousel was in the attic. She would never have let anything of his remain behind. What he didn’t take was put in bags and thrown out. There were no reminders of him. So why was the carousel still here?

And then suddenly I remembered the tin girl, who stood on top of the carousel with her arms out and her head back as if she was about to fly. I remembered waiting for her to turn around, to look at me, as she spun past. Looking at the sky, looking at me.

I got up and crawled under the bed. Quietly I opened the suitcase and turned the metal pieces so they didn’t clatter together, so Mom didn’t hear and wake. But it was too dark, and I couldn’t find the tin girl, couldn’t feel her in there. Where was she?

I got back into bed with one of the horses. The metal warmed in my hand. I could feel the ribs of thick paint brushstrokes.

I turned the horse, felt the smooth curve of its neck, its hooves kicked up in a gallop as it no longer touched the earth. I thought I felt the sway of its mane against my fingertips.

I dreamed. Horses pounded in my heart. Lights brightened, circled, turning faster, spreading wider until I saw her in the middle. The tin girl was real! As tall as me. Her skin reflected the dazzle of the carousel. She lowered her arms and turned her face to me.

“Where am I?” she whispered.

Five

M
ore waiting. A different sort of waiting. Even though the brown leather suitcase stayed shut under my bed, it was still open in my mind. Now that I’d seen what was in it, now that I’d remembered the tin girl, my hands itched to touch the brightness and life of it. Sunday morning came, and I knew what I had to do.

We left the city and all the things that were familiar to me. We drove toward my mom’s sister, who I couldn’t remember, toward my two cousins, who I’d never met. Mom hadn’t told me until we got in the car that I was going to be staying with two babies as well. When you’re on your way somewhere, it’s too late, even if you want to argue.

“They’re five and seven; they’re not babies,” Mom muttered. She seemed miles away.

“How come I’ve never met them before?”

“People are busy; it’s hard to make time. Families are like that sometimes.”

The polite lady on the GPS told Mom to take the first exit. We turned off onto a narrow road, then onto an even narrower one between some hills.

“What will I be doing?”

Mom glanced over.

“Nell, what’s got into you this last couple of days? Something’s bothering you, so why don’t you just tell me?”

I couldn’t tell her what else I’d been thinking about, like why the carousel Dad made was still in the attic and all the things that it made me wonder about. I was too scared of what she’d say, what she’d think of me. A moment passed. There were potholes and bumps in the road.

“I feel sick,” I said.

“Don’t be silly. The two weeks will pass in no time.”

Which was not what I meant, and anyway, it was wrong. Two weeks takes two weeks. Which is ages.

“No, I mean I really feel sick.”

Mom pulled over, searched her handbag, and fished out a peppermint candy, a bottle of water, and a paper bag—just in case.

I opened the window and leaned my head out. The air smelled cool and clean. I felt the tickle as Mom curved my hair around my ear, a warm patch growing across my shoulder where she laid her hand.

“It’ll be hard for me too,” she said, “being without you.”

I watched her expression, but I couldn’t tell. She kind of looked lost for a minute. Then she drove on, saying we’d be there soon.

Ruts jiggled us down a lane only just wider than the car. We passed mostly green and brown things: trees and hedges, empty fields, and gates. The GPS showed we were off the map, the car on the screen floating in nowhere. The only thing that seemed the same was the sky, the same as it was in the city, high and out of reach.

We dipped farther into the valley, around a corner past a place called Keldacombe Farm, and then Mom parked by a stone wall.

There were two small children sitting on the wall chewing red licorice laces. Gemma, the younger, had fair hair; Alfie had dark hair and flushed cheeks, like me. They wore muddy rubber boots, jeans with holes in the knees, and baggy homemade sweaters.

Before Mom got out, she reached across and held my hand. I noticed how warm her hand was, how it changed the temperature of mine.

“Hello, Auntie Cathy,” my cousins said together as Mom stepped out of the car.

“You’re Nell, aren’t you?” said Gemma, holding the licorice in her teeth. “Everyone calls me Gem.”

“’Cause Mom says she is one,” said Alfie.

“Is Nell short for Nelly?” said Gem. “It rhymes with smelly jelly belly,” and she giggled.

“No,” I said, thinking it wasn’t a very nice thing to say.

Alfie elbowed her.

“What? I don’t mean she’s a smelly jelly belly, ’cause she doesn’t look like one,” Gem said, swinging her legs and shrugging away from Alfie. “Is it short for Nellina then? Or Nellanie?”

“It’s not short for anything,” I said. “I’m just Nell.”

Gem jumped off the wall and said, “You’re going to sleep in our room, Just Nell.”

Which made my eyes open wide and my heart sink.

Gem said, “Come on. We’ve been waiting.”

Her hand was warm and sticky as she pulled me through the gate.

We followed my cousins through another gate; between chicken-wire fences, sheds, and coops; past a blue greenhouse; along a crazy path toward Lemon Cottage and its open door. There were ducks and geese wandering around the wide garden. The lawn and pond were speckled with feathers.

“They’re here!” Gem called.

The geese swayed and raised their heads, honking at us like we’d caused a traffic jam. Their beaks looked hard, their eyes sharp, as if they knew something just by looking at me.

Aunt Liv came out of the door. She wiped her hands on a tea towel and flicked it over her shoulder. She didn’t seem to mind the birds as she waded through them. Her flowery dress swished over her knees and across the top of her rubber boots as she hurried to meet us.

She tucked her short dark hair behind her ear. Mom hugged Aunt Liv as if she was in a hurry, gabbling on about how kind she was to have me at short notice.

“I tried everyone I could think of,” Mom said. “You were our last resort.”

Mom has a way of saying what she thinks without thinking about what she’s saying. Then she listed foods I didn’t like (fish, peanut butter, and salad dressing—embarrassing) and how she expected me to behave (polite, kind, helpful) and said I would be no trouble.

Aunt Liv smiled, put an arm around Mom and me.

“Come on in. Gem’s made cakes.”

Six

M
ost of their jumbled home was in the big kitchen. There was a long wooden table half set for lunch, half covered in toys and papers. Cabinets with no doors spilled out books and pots and plates, all mixed together. Bunches of dried herbs hung from a clothesline, and a basket of ironing and a pile of folded clothes were heaped on a crumpled sofa.

Mom dropped her big black handbag on the sofa, and all the other things tipped toward the dip it made. A duck waddled out from under the table and dashed outside, but nobody said anything. It wasn’t like our house with its shiny surfaces and everything tidied away and organized.

We sat at the table. All the chairs were different. Mine wobbled on the stone floor, and Mom brushed crumbs off hers before she sat down and hung her jacket over the back.

“This one’s yours,” said Gem, reaching across the table to me with a cupcake in her hand.

“Have a sandwich first,” said Mom, holding out a plate of egg sandwiches before I could say anything. She always spoke like that, cutting corners.

Mom told Aunt Liv about the important conference that she had to go to the week after and how hard she’d been working to help organize it. I watched the butter cream squelch up on Gem’s cupcake for me and the cherry plop off. Gem clambered down, picked up the cherry from the floor, and stared at the ball of dust stuck to it. She looked at me, then at the cake.

Head down, she ran toward her mom and buried her face in Aunt Liv’s dress, holding the cake up high so she wouldn’t ruin it any more.

“Never mind,” Aunt Liv said softly. “Nell’s here for two weeks. Plenty of opportunity to make her more cakes.”

“Yes, but I wanted her to have this one.”

“I know, love,” whispered Aunt Liv. “It was a special one.”

The cupcake reminded me of the things I had found in the attic. Even when they’re smooshed or broken or pieces are missing and they look grungy, they’re still important. And right from that moment I thought my aunt Liv was nice.

The teakettle whistled from the old-fashioned iron stove. Aunt Liv got up and steered Gem back to her own chair. She told us she was growing plants in her fields to make tea.

Mom said, “Tea?” like that, like a question. “You can’t grow tea in England.”

But Aunt Liv told her they had their own microclimate in the valley and things just needed the right conditions.

Aunt Liv and Mom were only alike in their faces and their skin. They both had a way of shaking their bangs away from their eyes when they looked up. But that was about it.

Mom chatted about her recruitment agency and everything else that was keeping us busy and therefore unable to visit relatives.

“And I need to get back soon, Liv,” Mom said. “I’ll fetch Nell’s suitcase from the car; then I ought to go.”

She got up, rummaged in her bag to find the car keys. But I couldn’t let her get my suitcase.

“I’ll get it!” I said, snatching the keys from her hand.

I ran out, with everyone watching me dodge the flapping geese and ducks. I couldn’t let her get that suitcase. I didn’t want her to find what else I’d hidden in the trunk.

Seven

I
ran back to the car and lifted the brown leather suitcase out of the trunk.

I just wanted to see the carousel built again. That’s all. And I wanted to build it myself this time. I’d hidden it in the trunk when Mom wasn’t looking. She wouldn’t know, and then it would only matter to me. But I hadn’t thought about how to get it into Aunt Liv’s house without anyone’s seeing. I couldn’t think how to do it without getting found out, and I was about to put it back in the trunk, cover it with the picnic blanket, and forget the whole stupid idea, because now that it was actually happening, it wasn’t easy or like I had imagined. And then I heard something: the thunder of thumping hooves.

I spun around. Galloping around the corner, pounding straight toward me, was a black-and-white horse, a dark rider hidden behind its flying mane. They hadn’t seen me.

I dropped the suitcase. All the metal pieces inside clanked as it slammed to the ground. The horse swung its side around toward me, skidding on the gravel. I leaped back to flatten myself against the car but missed and fell. The horse screamed, reared up, its long mane billowing around it like a storm. I covered my head, curled up, held my breath.

And when you believe you’re going to die because flying hooves are going to crush you, you can’t help what you think. And what I thought in that moment was that I’d be dead and Mom was going to find the carousel next to me and then I wouldn’t be able to explain and she wouldn’t understand. She’d think I’d been hiding it all along. She’d be unhappy forever, thinking I had betrayed her too. And then the tin girl was there in my mind and she whooshed around and turned her back and I shouted, “No!” because I thought she was going to leave me and somehow it mattered more than anything.

Instead, there was a cry, a thud, as the rider hit the ground. The horse stamped down beside me, brushing my arm with the long, feathery hair on its legs as it kicked away from me.

For a moment the horse stood over me, throwing its head, its startled skin quivering. I could see me in its wide dark eye, a tiny me lying there on the ground. It snorted, its nostrils flaring. Then it turned and galloped away, its white tail streaming behind it.

From the side of the road behind the car I heard the footsteps of the rider.

“Help,” I said.

Nobody came. But from where I was lying, I saw a pair of small feet in black flats tiptoeing past the other side of the car. I saw a hand reach out to the brown leather suitcase and drag it away.

“Hey!” I said.

But the feet were running, running away with the suitcase and the carousel.

Eight

M
om leaped up from her chair as I stumbled into the cottage, dragging the gray suitcase behind me.

“What happened?” she said.

I held out my hand so she could see the scrape and the blood and the dirt.

My throat ached from not crying, from holding in the things I wouldn’t be able to say. Mom brushed me down, got some tissues and antiseptic cream from her bag.

“There was a horse—”

“A horse hurt you!” Mom said, which wasn’t what I said at all. “What were you doing going in a field with horses? They’re unpredictable, dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re far more sensible than that. Really, what has got into you, Nell?”

“I wasn’t in a field,” I said. “The horse came down the lane and nearly crashed into me.”

“What sort of horse was it?” said Aunt Liv, taking the gray suitcase from me.

“Black and white,” I said, “and very hairy.”

“It might be one of Rita’s horses,” said Alfie.

“I don’t think so,” said Aunt Liv, looking puzzled. She turned to Mom. “There used to be about a hundred of those horses next door at Keldacombe Farm, but they’ve been gone for about five months now. They’re due to be sold soon.”

Gem gasped. “Is there a hundred now?” Then she said in a spooky kind of voice, “Like the story about the hundredth horse.”

“What story?” asked Aunt Liv.

“It’s like . . . I think it’s if there’s a hundred horses, then something special happens.”

“There were only ninety-nine at Rita’s, though,” Alfie said.

“No, but I mean if there are, then the hundredth horse is magic or something . . . but I can’t remember exactly now.”

“Gem,” Aunt Liv interrupted, “where did you hear that nonsense?”

But Gem was looking at Alfie, who was making a face as if he was trying to make her be quiet.

“Somebody told me at the playground, ages ago,” Gem said, sulking.

Aunt Liv shook her head. She turned to Mom. “It’s just some silly old wives’ tale.”

Gem mouthed, No, it’s not, and folded her arms.

Aunt Liv rolled her eyes and turned back to Mom, who had her hands on her hips, waiting for a proper explanation.

“I’ll have a chat with Rita at the farm,” Aunt Liv said. “See if she knows anything about the horse. Really, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“I think there was a girl on the horse,” I said, careful not to say anything about the carousel suitcase. “But I didn’t really see.”

My cousins looked at each other, their eyes wide. Aunt Liv sighed, like you do when you’ve just figured something out and wish you hadn’t.

“Oh,” she said. “Perhaps that means Angel’s back.”

I noticed Gem nudge Alfie, and he shushed and glared at her.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” said Mom.

“Oh, nothing,” Aunt Liv said. “There was a girl who used to hang around the horses on Rita’s farm. There was some trouble. I think she was caught stealing at the supermarket.”

Mom had a look on her face now that said, “Did I really agree to
this?”

“Anyway,” Aunt Liv said, as if she wished she hadn’t mentioned it, “I heard her family moved away, about the same time as the horses were taken to Old Chambers’s farm over the other side of the valley, so nothing to worry about.”

There was a heavy silence as Mom put on her jacket and tugged her sleeves straight. Oh, good, I thought. She’s taking me home again.

“Well, as long as you’re sure you’re okay, Nell, because I have to get back now. I need to finish preparing for the conference.”

I held on to her. Because I wasn’t okay and I had nothing I wanted to stay for. Not now that the carousel was gone.

“Don’t worry, Cathy,” Aunt Liv said. “We’ll take very good care of Nell.”

Mom and Aunt Liv had a private chat outside the door before Mom kissed me about fourteen times and squeezed me in a hug. I linked my fingers around her waist so she couldn’t pull away. But she did.