Sarah Lean - A HORSE FOR ANGEL

I held the strings of tiny lights. I could see the filaments inside, as fine as baby hair. I arranged the horses in a circle. I poked the wires from the lights into a black battery cylinder. My hands remembered what to do. The lights burned, white and gold and pink. I turned the handle on the musical box, heard the rusty chimes speed up and come to life. All the fragments lay around me, all the pieces. But I thought the horses kicked; I thought they were spinning beside me, as if they were alive.

“Nell? Can’t you find it?” Mum called. “Do you need me to come up and look?”

I scrambled to scoop all the pieces back up, to hide them away again.

“No! Don’t come up!” I said quickly as I snapped the case shut. “I’ve found it.”

Then I wondered what would be in a box called Nell – aged eleven. And I remembered why I didn’t make things any more.

CARRIED BOTH CASES DOWN FROM THE LOFT, WITHOUT Mum knowing. I hid the secret brown leather one under my bed.

That night I lay waiting for the noises in the house to tell me Mum had stopped turning and was asleep. And I was remembering the carousel and who had made it all. My dad.

Mum said he had always been drawn to lights. It was his business, making spectacular lighting displays for spectacular shows. Then seven years ago he ran away to somewhere called Las Vegas with someone – called Susie or something – to see the biggest lights of all. We never saw or heard from him again. Mum had said he was probably too dazzled to remember he had responsibilities. She said we had a new life to live and that now we were free of the pointless dreams of a man who had betrayed us.

Mum couldn’t have known the carousel was in the loft. She would never have let anything of his remain behind. What he didn’t take was put in bags and binned. There were no reminders of him. So why was the carousel still here?

And then suddenly I remembered the tin girl, who stood on top of the carousel with her arms out and her head back as if she was about to fly. I remembered waiting for her to turn round, to look at me, as she spun past. Looking at the sky, looking at me.

I got up and crawled under the bed. Quietly I opened the case and turned the metal pieces so they didn’t clatter together, so Mum didn’t hear and wake. But it was too dark and I couldn’t find the tin girl, couldn’t feel her in there. Where was she?

I got back into bed with one of the horses. The metal warmed in my hand. I could feel the ribs of thick paint brushstrokes.

I turned the horse, felt the smooth curve of its neck, its hooves kicked up in a gallop as it no longer touched the earth. I thought I felt the sway of its mane against my fingertips.

I dreamed. Horses pounded in my heart. Lights brightened, circled, turning faster, spreading wider until I saw her in the middle. The tin girl was real! As tall as me, her skin reflected the dazzle of the carousel. She lowered her arms and turned her face to me.

“Where am I?” she whispered.

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