It had been a long day, and the colts had lain down on the powdery dirt under the tree to sleep. The rest locked in their legs for standing sleep and soon their heads were nodding. But not Estrella.

She shifted her weight from one hip to the other. She tried reengaging the joints in her forelegs, then her hind ones. She thought flies were nipping at her and swished her tail half a dozen times at nothing. There were never flies at night. The tiny figure of the horse danced so lively in her brain that sleep was impossible.

Her gaze kept drifting toward the spirit city. She wondered if there would be more carvings up there.

A rising moon bathed the rock dwellings in an eerie glow, but the windows stared out blankly. A thick cloud passed over the moon, nearly quenching it. The cloud hung for some time like a scrim, filtering the moon’s light so the city was dappled in silvery gray shadows. Sometimes a wind came along, combing the cloud into strands so thin that they were almost transparent. The strands seemed to play with the light, as if daring the moon to shine its brightest.

Something sprang from the deepest shadows of the cliff dwellings. Estrella blinked. It swirled out of a window like one of the outlier whirlwinds of a dust storm, but unlike dust, it appeared to sparkle.

The rest of the herd was still sound asleep. Estrella took a step forward. A branch cracked under her hoof, and Hold On flinched and swished his tail. Estrella stopped, waited, and then moved on. She walked slowly, setting her hooves down as softly as possible. It was not easy to move silently. She was no longer the same filly; she’d grown heavier on the grasses they’d grazed. She had grown stronger and faster as well.

She watched the dark windows from which the sparkling whirlwind had jumped. Several times, she thought she saw a shimmering cone of light and with it came a thin, reedy sound. The glow reminded her of the sun ponies the herd had seen on the morning of the mountain cats. Should she be afraid? The sun ponies were meant to bring good luck, but they had brought only bad things — the mountain cats, like the one that had killed the fawn, and the coyote that had picked the skull clean. Estrella felt a shudder pass through her.

The light appeared to beckon her, as if to say, Come, come, horse, don’t be afraid. Estrella flared her nostrils and blew softly toward the light, then peeled back her lips and sniffed the air. The only scent she caught was the pungent fragrance of sagebrush cutting the night. As she drew closer, the light seemed to steady, even glow. It settled in a large window near the ground, and a liquid sound drew her closer. The sound, so faint before and louder now, flowed through her. She felt it as one might feel a dream, except that she heard it so strongly, felt it all the way down to her bloodstream. Her own heart seemed to beat the rhythm of the sound.

In one opening in the cliff dwelling, the light glowed deeper and turned to a tawny golden hue like a dawn mist. Did the mist have a shape? The sparkling light began to shift, then dance in the darkness. Estrella stepped across a threshold. A soft breeze stirred the air, and the mist swirled and took form. Suddenly, there was a dewy fawn glimmering before Estrella, dancing and skipping, sometimes bucking, sometimes prancing on its hind legs.

Fawn? she asked.

Yes. I never thought you’d come.

I hear you, but there is no sound.

That’s lucky. We wouldn’t want to wake the rest of your herd.

But how can this be? How are we speaking with no sound?

It’s spirit language, the fawn replied.

I’m not a spirit. I’m not dead. You are. I saw your bones.

Oh, those bones, the fawn said dismissively.

How can this be?

The Once Upons like you the same way they like me. They are drawn to you.

The Once Upons are here?

Of course they are. You said so yourself. They heard you tell the other horses that their spirits were here. The fawn tipped his head, beckoning Estrella. Follow me.

Estrella gasped, for a wall suddenly loomed ahead that revealed a herd of tiny figures. Horses! And they looked just like the one she had seen in the wall with the crystals.

Indeed! said the fawn. Tiny, tiny horses — smaller even than fawns like myself.

Estrella suddenly began to tremble. The fawn sensed her fear.

There are only stories here, he said. Stories of first creatures. Creatures as they were when they entered the world, before men killed them or rode them or herded them. Stories from when men were as free and as wild as we are.

It was as if the pieces of a puzzle were falling into place. Estrella wondered what would have happened if the herd had not stopped by the rock wall with the crystal horse that afternoon. Would she have found this city of spirits?

Estrella followed the fawn as he led her deeper into the rooms and winding pathways of the cliff dwellings. Music seeped from the walls, blending into a soft symphonic sound that swelled in the darkness like a night-blooming flower.

Where are we going? Estrella asked.

Wait. You’ll see.

But you’re blind. How can you see to lead me?

The little fawn made a puffy sound that sounded like laughter. I can see now! And two bright little sparkles where his eyes would be began to scintillate.

They had been following a path that wound through several connected dwellings. They passed tables with bowls in which grain had been ground and left as if ready and waiting to be eaten. There were tools in one corner waiting for the hands of a Once Upon, and water dippers as well as lovely bowls and pitchers with intricate designs.

They left everything, Estrella whispered.

Spirits need little, the fawn replied.

Soon, they had entered a large circular room. Estrella was suddenly confused. She thought she had been following the fawn on a spiraling path that led down into a region beneath the earth, but now it felt as if she had climbed through a hole in the night and emerged onto a shimmering plain made of stars. She felt herself wrapped in the radiance of a pearly light. It was almost as if she were on a border between time and place. Where am I? Her hooves were buried in a dust of stars that swirled up to her hocks.

Suddenly, there came the wonderful fragrance of the wind grass, the sweet grass. A small herd of tiny horses, much smaller than the fawn, danced across the luminous dust. Even the tallest of them hardly came up to Estrella’s knees.

Estrella stood very still, watching the dance of the spirits. And as she watched, an overwhelming sense of peace came to her. Shoals of stars washed against dark. Swaths of silvery light undulated like the manes and tails of wild horses tearing across a strange landscape. She wished the tiny horses would dance closer to her, but they kept just out of reach.

Why don’t they come close? Estrella asked.

You are so big compared to them.

I’d never hurt them.

They don’t know you yet. You’re so like them, but at the same time unlike them. Half strangers to one another.

It was as if Estrella were peering at these creatures over a stretch of time as vast as any sea.

Estrella felt a need to tell the little horse in her mind’s eye her story. Little horse, she said to the figures before her, I smell the wind grass as my dam did. I saw an image of you flash in my dam’s eye before she died. I feel wrapped in the light of her silvery coat. Am I on the right path to find the sweet grass, the wind grass? Am I going where I am meant to be?

I cannot tell you that, said one of the little horses. I can only know where you came from. You have to look up to look down.

Look up to look down? I don’t understand. Where are we going?

That is for you to find out, said the little horse. You are the leader of the first herd.

Estrella was almost desperate now. She wanted to ask more about the wind grass and the original herd, but the little horse began to dissolve like dewdrops in the morning sun, and soon he and the fawn were gone.