The Mare

Velvet

The next time I came, Pat was mad at me too. She said she made time for me that weekend and that Fiery Girl was expecting to see me. She said, “You ever read something called The Little Prince?”

“No.” Really, I was supposed to read it last year in school, but I didn’t.

“Okay. In that book it says once you tame something, you are responsible for it. You tamed that horse, you understand?”

We walked to the barn. The ground was cold mud in hard, frowning shapes. The long grass was smeared with dry mud and the garden was nothing but dirt and dead plants bent over and broken, with bits of green trying to live.

I felt the hardness of it even more than I felt my horse. Fiery Girl was warm under me and she snorted peacefully. But she would still not jump. She wasn’t afraid — that wasn’t why. It was because she could feel I had no jump in me. All I could feel was the cold hardness and stillness of the ground.

At least Pat wasn’t mad at me for that.