The Horse’s Hour– A Short Story

This was an old idea I thought of a while ago. I hope you enjoy.

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The second the clock struck midnight, the room began to change.

Silver light that had been shining brightly through the window twisted into an opaque tendril. It curled along the ground in a mystic slither, twitching left and right as if searching for something.

The teen girl asleep in her bed didn’t notice it. Her breathing was deep, a light snore whistling through her breath. Her dreams were full and illustrious– she would not wake soon. Not that she would notice anyway– the room was gathering dust with disuse.

The tendril of light snaked up the black shelf, past the books with pictures of horses, past the trophies decked in gold, curling up towards the plastic horse models, ever-so-still and flung in a variety of poses. Some were galloping, some trotted, and one mighty silver stallion had his head flung into the wind, as if he was sniffing for danger. Their backs were linty, coats discolored with the thick dust.

The light drew toward these toys and seeped into them, throwing sparks of silver over the plastic coats. The light shone brighter.

And then the horses began to change.

A buckskin Arabian mare, perfectly miniaturized to scale, stretched out her neck, her glossy plastic coat turning sleek with a coat of hair. She nuzzled the foal prancing by her side, throwing the colt into a sprawl as his stiff legs loosened.

One by one, the models awoke, stretching legs and necks and nickering to one another. The stallion was the last to awake, and as soon as he had broken from his plastic, he leapt down to his mares, snorting. The herd whickered and snorted to each other, although if there was a human to come in they wouldn’t even hear a whisper.

Satisfied that his mares were there, the silver stallion snorted and nudged his lead mare to take the charge. She galloped toward the window, towards the source of the light.

The window flew open with a switch of the stallion’s tail, and the miniature horses leapt into the night.

The lead mare slowed and the stallion stepped forward, head flung into the wind, looking just like his plastic form. He caught a scent on the wind– a scent of sorrow, a child’s sad heart.

He whinnied to his mares and the herd took to the tendril of light in the sky. With his nose still on the scent, he led them across the star-kissed night sky on their silver path, in search of the child in sorrow.

Far across the night sky they ran, far away from their home where they were nothing more than forgotten relics, to the place where they knew that someone needed them. The stallion’s hooves churned their silver stardust path, providing a way for his herd.

The stallion stopped, poised in midair. He looked down toward a small house, the shingles peeling off the roof and the fence chipped and worn. He whinnied a command and dove down to the house.

Like tiny streaking comets, the horses galloping toward the window. The stallion’s stardust flooded the frame, providing a way inside.

The little girl, who had been sitting on the bed sniffling, jumped at the disturbance. With a shaking of his mane, the stallion made his herd grow to almost full size.

The silver stallion stepped forward, whispering a breath of promised secrecy to the child. She smiled, without a word, and stroked every horse.

Now their work began.

The foals picked up a rollicking horse dance, their hooves and the girl’s feet soundless on the carpet. They played chase and tag, somehow stretching the boundaries of the room beyond their limit. Then, when the girl was tired, the mares serenaded her with soft songs twisted with starlight and love, letting the little girl crawl up onto their backs and twist her small hands in their moon-streaked manes, drying the last of her tears on their coats.

She was almost asleep when the stallion whispered for her to climb onto his back. She slowly slid on, and he lowered himself to the ground, the little girl curled up on his warm back.

Then the horses told her stories, tales of the night and lovely fantasies of a world where the horses talked and little girls could ride on the horse’s back whenever they wished. And when the girl had fallen asleep, still curled up on the great silver stallion, every mare and foal kissed her forehead. The stallion slipped her into her bed with his silver light, whispered a blessing, and flung open the window once again to take his herd up to the night sky, off to find another child in need.

And when the little girl awoke, she remembered everything that had happened as if it were a dream, though she kept her silent promise to the silver stallion and told no one. And the teenager never noticed that the horses were gone when she awoke. But if she had cared enough to look closer at her dusty toys, she would have seen that sprinkled among the gathering lint were sparkles of silver stardust, the only clue to the horses’ magical flight.