THE NEXT DAY IS SUNDAY.

Sunday is the day we eat leftover bread for breakfast, both to remember Christ’s fasting and because it is Thomas’s day off and the Sisters have to tend to the sheep after they tend to us at Mass. Though there are three benches, Sister Constance says we must crowd into the front two to be closer to God and his healing powers.

Benny sits in the row behind me and kicks me in the backside.

I ignore him and look at the ceiling. It is covered with black cloths. Anna told me that when she first arrived, the ceiling was decorated with a beautiful Greek painting like the one in her bedroom. The old princess had brought over real Greek painters and everything, but the Sisters of Mercy forbade pagan idolatry in a chapel, even if it did used to be a ballroom.

As Sister Constance reads from the Bible, I imagine all the beautiful couples who once danced here. I bet the ladies wore dresses that were all the colors of the rainbow, and the men had top hats and dashing mustaches. They would twirl and twirl in the candlelight, beneath the ancient floating gods who drink wine and ride wild stallions. I wonder if the horses lived in the mirrors even back then. Maybe that is why the princess stayed here for so long, by herself. Maybe she liked waking up each morning and seeing a winged horse in her bedroom mirror. Maybe she found a way to talk to them. Maybe—just maybe—she met the Horse Lord.

Sister Constance ends the prayer, and we stand, and someone taps my shoulder.

I turn around to find Thomas.

He clears his throat and reaches into his pocket. “Bog chased a rabbit into the old gardens this morning,” he says. “There’s a hole in the rear gate. When he came back he had this tangled in his fur, along with a mess of briars. You’re the only one who ever goes in those gardens, so I thought it must be meant for you.”

He takes out a slightly crumpled, damp letter tied in red ribbon.

I silence a gasp as I cram the letter into my sleeve, looking left and right to make sure the other children haven’t seen.

“It is for me,” I whisper quickly.

I eye him closely, wondering if he sneaked a peek at the Horse Lord’s letter, but the knot is tied firmly, the red ribbon only slightly torn. The Horse Lord must have left this for me in the sundial, where last night’s wind blew it into the briars.

I give him a solemn nod. “Thank you.”

He nods solemnly back.

After the service, the other children go to their rooms to quietly read the Bible and pray, but I tiptoe back up the stairs and past the shut doors on the residence hall to a closet where I can read the Horse Lord’s letter. I can hardly believe that my airplane reached him. The paper is damp, and the handwriting is strangely shaky, as though he was very tired while writing.

Dear Emmaline May,

I found your note in a rosebush near the sundial, folded curiously. To answer your question, I would never condone stealing, not even in the name of a higher deed. I suggest that you only borrow the liturgical cloth. Perhaps after church services conclude, so it will not be missed for a full week. By then, with luck, Foxfire’s wing will have healed and you can return it safe and sound without anyone else’s knowledge. That God will see you, I have no doubt. But that God will know what is deeper within your heart, I am also certain.

Ride true,

The Horse Lord

I stash the letter back in my sleeve.

The Horse Lord is so wise—now is the time to borrow the cloth, long before it’ll be used again. But can I really steal it from God? I suppose I don’t have a choice. I’ve scoured the hospital, and this is the only purple object, except for the stained glass in the windows, and that isn’t coming out.

I exhale slowly. I can do this.

I tiptoe out of the closet and into the hallway. Voices come from the room Benny and Jack and Peter share, and I pause. I’ve always wondered if Benny really prays on Sunday afternoons. When I peek through the keyhole, all three boys are sitting cross-legged on Peter’s bed, Peter and Jack staring in rapt attention as Benny reads to them.

“ ‘Unhand me, you brute! Popeye! Popeye, save me!’ ”

Not the Bible.

I sneak upstairs to grab my coat and the other colorful objects I’ve found, and then tiptoe back down the stairs and hold my breath when I pass Sister Constance’s office, where she is digging through stacks of newspapers with loud headlines.

I continue down the hall to the empty chapel and close the door behind me. The air is still warm from the twenty bodies that were here earlier. The altar is bare. Sister Mary Grace must have already pressed and folded the liturgical cloth to use next week. I tiptoe to the closet where they lock up the cloth, along with the sacred wine and gold cross, but I’ve seen them hang the key on a hook in the back. I stand on my tiptoes to reach it.

Inside the closet, I find the Advent cloth. I run my hand over the purple fabric.

I wonder: Is this a sin?

And then I think: This is most definitely a sin.

My lungs are feeling heavy. It is difficult to draw anything but a shallow breath. But I fight past the feeling, and snatch the altar cloth. It slips like silk beneath my fingers as I ball it up and stash it under my coat, and then slam the closet door. The rest of the objects—the nightgown, engine, and beads—weigh down my pockets.

“Emmaline?”

Sister Mary Grace, in the chapel doorway, peers at me curiously. She is wearing heavy men’s boots that are caked in dried mud, and there is a bucket of sheep’s milk in one hand. “What are you doing in here?”

I know now why foxes sometimes freeze when the hunting dogs chase them. It is because any direction they run might be the wrong one. “I just…” I gape. “I was just…praying.”

She raises an eyebrow. “With your coat on?”

I swallow hard, thinking. “I couldn’t find my sweater and I was cold.”

“Well.” She seems a bit uncertain, but the pail is getting heavy in her hand. “Praying is…good. But you should do so in your room. You don’t want Sister Constance to catch you out and about.”

She goes down the hallway, casting one last look over her shoulder. Once she turns the corner, I scramble through the library window and then take off across the field to the gardens. Bog barks from the barn, but I shush him and keep running, and then scale up the ivy. It’s hard to climb with just one arm, the other one holding the cloth so it doesn’t get snagged. But I manage, and drop down on the other side.

Foxfire swivels her head at me.

“I hope you’re grateful for this,” I say. “I was nearly caught.” But looking at her, I know it was worth it.

I shake out the beautiful purple cloth. In the sunlight, it shines even brighter. Foxfire seems taken with it, and she comes closer through the mud to inspect it. I take off my mittens and tie the cloth’s corners carefully to the ivy, making sure it doesn’t drape in the mud. Next to the red ribbon and the yellow bottle, I string up the turquoise necklace and the green toy train and, blushing, the ladies’ nightgown. This has officially become the most colorful corner of the hospital grounds.

I reach out and pat Foxfire on the nose, then nuzzle my own nose into her neck and breathe in her horse smell. “See? Your wing looks better already. It’ll be healed in plenty of time for me to get this cloth back by next Sunday.”

I write the Horse Lord another note.

Dear Horse Lord,

It worked! At this rate, Foxfire is going to be safe until she is a creaky old knock-kneed mare—how long do winged horses live, anyway? I am only missing two colors now, blue and orange. I’ve hung up all the other objects, even the pink ladies’ nightgown. (Which was embarrassing!)

Truly,

Emmaline May

Post script: Your handwriting was shaky in your letter. I hope nothing is the matter. Please write back.

I start to climb back up the ivy, but something tugs at my coat. Foxfire, nipping at the hem. I drop back down. She stamps her hoof, impatiently.

“I don’t have any more apples. I’m sorry.”

She stamps her hoof again, and then noses at my shoulder, hard enough to push me back against the ivy. The air whooshes out of me.

“Hey, watch it, I—”

She noses me again, harder. It truly hurts this time. The Horse Lord needs to teach his horse some manners! I’m about to give her a good shove, when a shadow passes over the garden. Whoosh. At first I think it’s just another cloud crossing the sun’s path. But it flickers. It has wings stretched far like an airplane, but then the wings pull in, and draw out again.

I tilt my head toward the sky, filled with dread. The shadow is gone now, but Foxfire and I both know what it was.