Page 25 of My Queendom for a Horse

Obsidian finally sees whatever it is he was looking for, and he dives forward. Toward the old barn.

“Where are you going?” Dad shouts after us.

“Um, Obsidian Devil needs to be in a place that’s not surrounded by new horses.”

“So you’re taking him to the old barn?” Dad sounds confused.

We use it as a quarantine barn, so it’s not entirely dilapidated, but it’s not used much.

“It’s fine.” I wave my hand. But now we’re far enough away that I can shout at the person I’m really angry with. “What in the world are you doing?”

Obsidian slides to a stop in front of the old barn. He tosses his head.

“What?”

He turns around and bumps my hand with his nose.

“I have no idea what you want.”

He snorts loudly, and then he paws at the ground.

“Listen, we agreed that we would come back, and then you would go to the pasture while I showered and went to lunch with—”

The pawing finally has a shape.

I think he’s trying to draw something.

A stick figure.

Oh, it’s a man.

He wants me to shift him.

I slide off his back.

“Absolutely not,” I say. “You have to stay a horse right now.”

He swings his head back and forth violently.

“Listen, I have to go with Sean, and—”

He leaps in front of me and rears back.

Maybe he has something important to tell me. “You need to talk?”

He nods.

“Fine.” I point at the barn. “But you will stay inside the entire time I’m gone. Swear it.”

He snorts.

I guess that’s as good as it gets for a horse. I place my hand on his neck again and say, “I want you to become a man.”

I need to come up with a better phrase, because that feels dirty for some reason.

Just like before, he shifts, the saddle collapsing on top of him, and luckily blocking the parts I’m really, really not accustomed to seeing. I cover my eyes. “No, do not stand up yet.”

I dart into the old barn and rush up the breezeway. It takes a moment, but I jog into the living quarters—Dad was right that they’re filthy—and grab some old clothing from the grooms who lived here. They aren’t stylish, but they’re better than him being buck-naked. I run back out and thrust a pair of pants and a shirt at him. “Put these on.”

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