Speak of a Friend

Chapter 1

The big, honey colored horse nuzzles at my long hair, knickering a gentle awakening call. The beautiful horse, my mother, leans over me as I open my eyes to the new dawn. lying in the fields that have been my home forever. My old jeans and t-shirt are rumpled from sleep, but I don't care. I've been wearing these same clothes for the past two years, ever since I found them in the abandoned barn on the hill.

My mother whinnies as she calls for me to join the others. The lettuce beds I have always eaten from are spread over the hill, and I munch on one of the crisp, watery stalks as my family eats the sweet grasses of the hillside. The sun beats down on my head, warm in the Colorado sky. Mountains rise up in the distance, holding off clouds and rain until enough has gathered up to break through.

I am Charlotte, but all of the horses call me Char. I am different from my horse brothers and sisters. I have hands and feet and I'm so much slower then the others. I have to ride on a brother or sister's back when we run. I cannot eat the sweet grass on the hillside. My legs are long, but not as long as my sisters. I have no velvet fur covering every inch of my body, but I do have a long mane streaming down from my head.

But my family does not care. I am told by the horses that 13 years ago on this very day, my mother had a stillborn calf. The same night, a woman lay in our field. I was born from this woman, but she did not last. I do not understand this. Mother says it is like being stillborn, but reversed. Anyway, mother found me in the grass, next to my weak parent. My horse mother looked in the eye of the woman, and say she was desperate. Mother took the bundle that was me in her jaws, ever so gently. The woman, it is told, had such gratitude for Mother. She passed in the next second, dying knowing her daughter was saved. Mother took me to the horses. I learned horse speak, and played with the other foals and phillies. I grew up to the girl I am today.