The Story Sisters

A couple got into the first carriage in line. They were on their honeymoon, arms draped over each other. The driver whistled, then clucked his tongue. He tugged on the reins. The horse, resigned, began to move. One of his legs seemed wobbly.

“This is animal cruelty,” Elv said. Her voice sounded far away. She had the desire to cut off the hansom driver’s hands and nail them to a tree. That was what happened in fairy tales. Evil men were punished. The good and the true were set free. But sometimes the hero was disguised or disfigured. He wore a mask, a cloak, a lion’s face. You had to see inside, to his beating heart. You had to see what no one else could.

The next horse on line looked the worst, old and dilapidated. He kept lifting one hoof and then the other, as if the asphalt of the city street caused him pain. He wore a straw hat, and somehow that was the saddest thing of all.

“I don’t see why you’re so concerned about a bunch of fleabags,” Mary Fox huffed. “There are human beings starving to death all over the world. There are homeless people who wish they had as much to eat as these horses.”

Elv’s beautiful face was indignant. She flushed. She spoke to her sisters in Arnish, something she rarely did in front of outsiders. “Ca bell na.” She knows nothing.

“Amicus verus est rara avis,” Mary shot back. She was vaguely insulted that she hadn’t been included in the invention of Arnish. “That’s Latin,” she added. “FYI.”

The old horse on line was foaming at the mouth. There was a river of noise on Central Park South. The driver snapped his whip.

“Ca brava me seen arra?” Elv said softly. Who among us has the courage to do the right thing? “Alla reuna monte?” How can we save him?

Elv was the dancer, Meg was the student, but Claire was the one who knew how to ride. She had been attending classes at a stable not far from their house. Her instructor had said she was a natural. Elv and Claire exchanged a look. They could communicate without speaking. Exactly as they had in the horrible man’s car. In Arnelle, it was possible to read each other’s thoughts, especially if the other person was your sister. Your own flesh and blood.

The owner of the hansom was busy talking to the driver behind him. They were both lighting up cigarettes. There was blue-black exhaust in the air as taxis and cars sped by.

Elv went up to the men.

“Excuse me,” she said.

Both men turned and looked her up and down. She was gorgeous, a peach.

“Did you ever hear the story about a princess the enemy tried to capture?” Elv said. Her voice sounded funny—but she went on. “The princess got away, but they captured her horse instead.” This was the way all the best stories started, in a country nearby, a world full of human treachery.

“Oh yeah?” The driver of the hansom drawn by the old horse with the straw hat signaled her over. “Why don’t you come closer and tell me about it.”

The men laughed. Elv took three steps nearer. Three was a safe number. There were three sisters, three beds in their room, three coats in their closet, three pairs of boots on the floor. The smell of horseflesh made her feel sick. Her throat was dry. The second driver had his lunch in front of him. A hero sandwich wrapped in brown paper. Elv’s mother had been the one to tell her the story of the loyal horse in their garden one night. It was one of the old Russian stories that never shied away from cruelty. Are you sure you want to hear it? Annie had asked. It’s such a sad story. There had been white moths fluttering around the tent they’d set up. The other little girls were upstairs, asleep in their beds. Oh yes, please, Elv had said.

“They burned him and stripped him of his flesh,” Elv went on. “They cooked him in a cauldron. Then they nailed his skull to a wall.”

“That’s not a very nice story.” The second driver clucked his tongue.

“Come on closer. I’ll tell you a story,” the driver of the bad hansom urged. “I’ve got a much better story for you.”

Elv looked at them coolly, even though she felt a wave of dread. If they knew she was nervous, she’d be at their mercy. But if they thought she was ice, they’d be afraid to touch her. “Later, they tricked the princess and trapped her in a garden maze. But she made her escape because the skull spoke to her. Run away, it told her. Run as fast as you can.”

No one noticed that Claire had gone up to the carriage horse. The horse snorted, surprised to have been approached by a stranger, skittish until Claire opened the napkin filled with petits fours she’d taken from the party. At the stable down the road in North Point Harbor, the horses crowded around for carrots, but Claire knew they preferred the oatmeal cookies she often had in her pockets. The old carriage horse seemed to appreciate the French pastries he was offered.

The driver’s attention was still diverted, so Claire went around to the steps and climbed into the carriage. She didn’t know what she was doing, but that didn’t stop her. She was thinking about animal cruelty, and ribs showing under the skin, and the way those men were looking at her sister. She had never been brave in all her life. Now she had the definite sense that something was ending, and something was beginning. Maybe that’s why her hands were shaking. Maybe that was why she felt she had already become a different person than she’d been that morning.

Claire had never even been in a hansom cab, although she’d ridden in a horse-drawn sleigh in Vermont. Last winter, their mother had taken them to an inn where there was a cider festival. It was supposed to be a fun getaway, but the local teenagers mocked them. The ringleader, a skinny boy who was nearly six feet tall, had called Meg an ugly bitch. He’d gone to grab her hat, but Elv had come up behind him. She kicked him so hard he’d squealed in pain and doubled over. “Now who’s the bitch!” she had cried. They’d had to run back to the barn where their mother was waiting, wondering where they’d disappeared to. They’d been laughing and gasping, exhilarated and terrified by Elv’s daring.