CHAPTER 13

“Horses couldn’t survive that icy water.” I shake my head, trying to figure out how the pieces fit.

“I agree,” Mr. Hamilton says, holding his hands up. “Like I said, Dad’s stories never made sense to me, but I do remember one he always shared about the summer three months after his accident. He had a boat out on Pine Lake and was trying to catch some perch, when he saw something in the water.”

Mr. Hamilton shakes his head, looks down again at the bits, then lifts the leather harness piece out of the box. “He told me he paddled closer and saw… well, exactly what we’re looking at right here. Bits and harness. Just floating.”

My brain scrambles to calculate. Bits are solid metal, and leather absorbs every inch of water—that’s why harnesses and tack get heavier when they’re wet. They’d never float.

“Ever since the accident,” Mr. Hamilton continues, “all my dad wanted was evidence that the horses hadn’t died. He was just a kid when it happened. Believing the horses were really gone was probably too painful.”

“So… what did he do?” I ask.

“Well, he reeled in his line and forgot about fishing, at least for the time being,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Then he headed over to where he saw the bits and harness floating, and he picked them up.”

Mr. Hamilton grabs the harness piece and unrolls it. He freezes for a second, and his eyes get wide. But then he chuckles. “Leave it to Dad to come up with the most harebrained possible explanation.” He glances back at me. “I don’t know how carefully you looked at this when you found it in the box. Did you see what’s etched in the corner?”

He holds the leather out toward me, and I hesitate just a moment before taking it. I squint at the spot where Mr. Hamilton’s finger points and see a letter: H. Someone had carved it, maybe with a knife point. The edges aren’t perfect, but it’s there for sure.

“Dad always told me he knew the leather had come from his harness before he even pulled it out of the water,” Mr. Hamilton says. “But he turned it over to make sure, and when he saw that H, he knew it was his. So he brought that and the bits into the boat and sat there for a while, wondering what to do next.”

“Wait.” I’d been thinking so hard about how tack could be floating in the first place when Mr. Hamilton told that part of the story that it still hadn’t really sunk in. Now it does. “You’re saying Jack found the leather and bits in Pine Lake, right? That’s near my house. But didn’t the horses fall through the ice on Cedar Lake? That’s all the way over in Belding.”

Mr. Hamilton smiles. “First of all,” he says, “you should know that Dad’s imagination stretched, well”—he raises one hand above his head and taps the air—“pretty much this high. But yes, according to him, these items in the box proved the horses escaped Cedar Lake and ended up miles away, exactly like you said.”

“How?” Images of the lakes shimmer. I’ve been swimming in them as long as I can remember. Every birthday party I had was a barbecue on one of the beaches, the smell of charcoal heating in the little grills set up under the trees, sand sticking to our wet feet and fingers. We’d look out at the water and it seemed so easy to know what it was, top to bottom. What if I was missing something the whole time?

But Mr. Hamilton’s already shaking his head. “Who knows? He never could quite explain that part. I remember him saying the horses must have scrambled out somehow and made it to shore, then pushed over the mountain to Pine Lake and walked across—it would’ve still been frozen—to get into the woods.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” I say, but everything inside me says it must be. I remember the part of Pine Lake I hadn’t expected to find. Clusters of stones ringing a circle of darkness, where waves push against sand. What’s beyond that darkness? Where does it lead?

Mr. Hamilton laughs. “I definitely wouldn’t call it possible. I’d call it a good story, told by a person who needed one. Any psychologist today would probably say it was a response that helped my dad cope with the trauma of his accident.”

“But what if he was right?” I ask. “Nobody ever proved the horses died for certain, right? Nobody ever found them?”

Mr. Hamilton’s eyes sparkle. “I’m not sure how hard they looked, but Dad did like to say there were always hidden paths. Ways out and through nearly anything, even when people didn’t want to see them. Sounds like you two might look at the world in about the same way.”

I do like the idea of a way out. A path I could find, made just for me.

“Let’s say it’s true.” My voice sounds louder, stronger. “Why wouldn’t the harness be attached to the horses anymore? How would they have gotten them off?”

“Dad figured they helped each other out somehow,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Probably bit the leather clean through as they were crossing the ice. If they did, snow would’ve covered what they left behind pretty quick, so at least the part about not finding anything until summer, when the snow was long gone, makes sense.”

“Wouldn’t the horses have come back to Jack eventually, though?” I can’t imagine Sunny and Sam getting lost and not finding their way home, no matter how long it took.

“I asked him that,” Mr. Hamilton says. “But Dad used to shrug and tell me they must have found freedom in the woods, and liked it. He never seemed to begrudge them that.”

I imagine the horses running away, their wet tails streaming.

But I don’t think they pulled themselves back onto what was left of Crystal Lake’s ice. I don’t think that’s how they got away.

It’s hard to believe that two horses could make their way from one lake to the other unnoticed, even as inky dark crept over the winter evening. Even if they had somehow stumbled up the stony bank and wandered over frozen corn stubble, then over the forested Pebble Mountain… there would have been some evidence left behind. Hoofprints, maybe. Someone would have seen.

They must have escaped another way.

“What about the stone?” I pick it up, roll it in my palm.

Mr. Hamilton looks surprised.

“Even if Jack’s story isn’t true,” I continue, “I get why he kept the bits and harness piece. They’re something to remember the horses by. But what does a stone have to do with it?”

“You’re asking good questions,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Exactly what an interviewer should do. I’m sorry I don’t have better answers, because I don’t remember Dad telling me about the stone. It’s certainly a beautiful one.” Then he shrugs. “Dad was a bit of a collector. Could have been something he found that he just wanted to keep, though it doesn’t look like the rocks I’ve seen around here.”

My legs tingle. All I want is to return to the woods and find that ring of stones again. I think the darkness carved out of that hill by the beach could explain how Jack’s horses escaped. And how wild horses, so many years later, still live half hidden in the trees.

“Do you think that maybe his story could be true?” I ask. “Now that you’ve seen the box, I mean?”

Mr. Hamilton smiles and bounces the stone lightly in his palms. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again and shakes his head. Mitzi leaps up onto his lap, and he strokes her back while she purrs.

“It’s funny,” he says. “This is the box Dad always told me about. He said he hid it up there, in the barn that used to belong to his family, so the story checks out in that regard. But finding it just means that yes, he tucked something away for safekeeping before his family moved. It doesn’t prove all the rest.”

“But these have to be his.” I point at the worn H in the leather. “That’s not just anybody’s.”

“Sure.” Mr. Hamilton nods and holds the strap up, letting it dangle from his fingers. “But remember, the family stopped using horses after the accident. It’s not like they were taking great care of their tack anymore. Dad could’ve found this stuff anywhere, before they left the farm. He could have made it fit any story he wanted.”

“Do you think he hid something in your barn too?” I ask, glancing out the window. I see Dad still walking the fence line, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Because this is where he moved to, right? This is where you grew up?”

“Yes,” Mr. Hamilton says. “But like I told you, the family stopped working with horses, and I know that was hard for my dad. Might be why he spun so many stories about them. Couldn’t get them out of his head. There wouldn’t have been much around for him to hide.”

I hear my voice swimming through thickened air, and I realize I haven’t felt the wisp of feathers since we started talking. “Do you want me to look anyway?”