The Horses of Winter: A Short Christmas Novella by Genevieve Mckay

Author:Genevieve Mckay [Mckay, Genevieve]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: StonePony Studios
Published: 2017-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

I left Amy downstairs playing with her art supplies while I ran to have a shower and get changed. When I came back down, my hair still wrapped in a towel, she and Cecily were talking quietly at the table. I stopped on the stairs, holding my breath so I could listen better.

“See, this drawing is me and Sarah saving Sam. Here’s all the blood in the snow and here’s you waiting back at the house for us and you’re crying because you’re worried about us.”

“That’s really good, Amy. I like your style. You girls definitely had quite the adventure, hey? You’ll have lots to tell your friends at school when you get back.”

“Oh, I don’t have any friends,” Amy said casually. “The other kids don’t like me.”

Cecily was silent for too long and I pinched the bridge of my nose hard in frustration. The last thing I needed was for her to think of Amy as a problem child who didn’t have any friends. I wanted Cecily to think Amy was perfect.

“Why don’t they like you?” she asked finally, sounding perplexed.

Amy shrugged. “Some kids think I’m weird, I guess because I’m different.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. At my last school, this boy threw a rock at me because I was talking to the squirrels at recess. It hit me right in the head and there was a big bruise. He got in trouble from the principal and the squirrels said they were going to drop nuts on his head whenever they saw him. Isn’t that funny?”

There was a long silence while Cecily processed this new, probably alarming, information.

Amy looked up to see me standing there on the stairs and my face must have looked funny because her eyes opened wide in alarm. “Sarah, are you sick?”

“No,” I said quickly, smiling at her, even though I felt like throwing up. I moved down the rest of the stairs and stopped behind her chair. “Of course not. You should draw a picture of what Sam’s going to do next once he’s all better.”

“Okay,” Amy said uncertainly, glancing quickly at Cecily who still stared blankly at the drawing as if her thoughts were far away.

“A horse,” Cecily said, breaking out of her trance, “a horse lost in the snow; that might just work. I’ll be in my studio if there’s an emergency; otherwise, no interruptions, please. I might have a brilliant idea.”

She turned and rushed out the door, not even bothering to put on her coat.

“Is she mad at us?” Amy whispered, not looking up.

“No, of course not, she’s just busy right now. So that means we have to be extra good and helpful, and not get in her way. The more we fit in here, the longer we might be able to stay.”

“Just till after Christmas, though, right, and then we have to go?”

Shoot, I thought, how did she overhear that?

“Maybe,” I said, struggling to sound confident. “I haven’t decided yet. Maybe we’ll stay here, or maybe we’ll find somewhere better. But you don’t need to worry about anything like that, Amy.

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