Chapter 3
Harry
To my surprise, the Firebird’s feather was still there, and it felt dry. Baba Yaga had kept her promise and given the feather back to me. I felt its warmth with my fingers, and the moment I did, my clothes dried and I was no longer cold.
Thank you, I mouthed to the feather, stuffing it back into my pocket as I contemplated my next move. The red sign above one of the doors lit up.
If this were a dream, I could close my eyes and then I would wake up.
I tried that, waiting for a few moments, but when I opened them again, I was still sitting on the edge of the pool, water splashing underneath me.
I pinched myself and yelped in pain. You only live once flashed through my mind, and I got up and headed to the door with the red sign, turning just once to look at the full moon up above.
I found myself on a porch of what looked like a sturdy house.
It wasn’t unlike my izba, but the construction was larger, as if giants lived there.
With the full moon illuminating my passage, I could see the outline of the mountains in the distance.
They were a dark shade of blue, almost black, and the sky merged with their peaks at the horizon.
Wherever I was, I must have been very far away from home because my village in Zorya didn’t have tall mountains like these nearby.
A white fence surrounded the house. Something crunched under my feet, and I looked down at the path, noticing it was covered with tiny stones.
It was a particular small stone, as if someone had taken the time and effort to make them all the same size.
What is this witchery? I wondered and got so absorbed in my thoughts that I almost bumped into a pony.
He was standing at the back of the fence and was almost invisible from the house. The pony was grazing peacefully and gave me a lazy look.
“Hey there, buddy,” I said to the pony confidently, feeling incredibly glad to see another living creature.
I’d never met a horse that didn’t like me.
The pony was a dark shade of brown, with a white mark on its forehead in the shape of a crescent moon.
I walked up to him confidently, and only then did I notice he had two humps.
They were small but protruded nevertheless, and I paused, my mouth hanging open.
“What a cute boy you are,” I told him. Though the humps looked unusual, the pony had a great mane.
It was a rich shade of golden brown, thick and lush.
The pony gave me a startled look and went on grazing, pretending to ignore me.
But from the way its ears moved, I could tell it could understand me. I knew horses better than most people.
“Listen—” I leaned closely, speaking directly into its ear. “I think I’m in trouble. I can’t tell where I am or what is going on. Can you tell me where we are?” I pointed back to the large house with the porch and the structure that contained the warm pool of water.
The pony stopped grazing. It glanced at me for a split second, but then its eyes glazed over. It was doing its best to show a lack of understanding. But I insisted. The look in the pony’s eyes, as unfocused as it was, still gave me hope.
“Please?”
Barely perceptibly, the pony shook its head and neighed softly.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I’m just trying to eat quickly, before anyone sees me,” the pony responded, stuffing another bite of hay into his mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“Because I’m not supposed to be eating hay.”
“This is very strange, pony. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Harry,” the pony neighed, flashing me a smile with bits of hay sticking out of his mouth.
“I’m Ivan. Ivan the Dimwit,” I said, realizing a second too late I shouldn’t have mentioned my nickname. This had been my opportunity to shake off the embarrassing title, but there I was, being my own worst enemy.
“Ivan the Dimwit? I’ve heard of you.” The pony gave me a curious stare. “Listen, Ivan, now is not the best time, but I’m almost done. I’ve gotta make it look like I didn’t touch any hay, so please help me cover up and throw around the remaining bits so no one can tell I snacked on it.”
“Sure, Harry,” I agreed, wondering why in the world anyone would want to deprive a pony of hay. But Harry looked well-fed and was not in the least bit emaciated.
Something was off.
Harry, still chewing on bits of hay, moved his muzzle around the remaining pile, shifting it toward the middle.
The way he did it was ingenious, and if I hadn’t just seen him eat a lot of hay, I wouldn’t have been able to tell he’d had any.
I helped him the best I could, and together we buffed up the pile to form an air bubble in the middle of it.
Once we were done, Harry inspected the heap, found it to his satisfaction, then turned to me and said, “All right, Ivan the Dimwit, follow me into the stables.”
I obliged, hoping I could trust this two-humped pony.
“What are these tiny stones called?” I asked him as we walked down the path.
“Gravel?” Harry snorted. “You really live up to your nickname.”
I didn’t respond.
The stables were down a path, right near the forest. I wondered whether building the stables in this location was a good idea. In our village, we tried to keep the horses as close to the house as possible to avoid the wolves, but when I asked the pony if they had any wolves, he chuckled.
“They were killed off a long time ago,” he told me with pride in his voice. “There are no wolves left in Virginia.”
“Virginia? Is that the name of this place? Never heard of it.”
“Yes, Virginia. Where do you come from?”
“Zorya,” I said.
“Never heard of it,” the pony said. That was strange, for everyone had heard of our land, even the smallest children. But I supposed a pony might not know some things.
“And what about the bears?” I asked, scratching my head. “Any grizzlies around?”
“We’ve got plenty of bears,” the pony said, “but they aren’t grizzlies, just the sweet regular bears—they mostly go through the trash.”
I’d never heard of a sweet bear before, let alone one that went into the trash.
The bears I’d known were wily, clever creatures, tricky and known for their elaborate schemes.
I’d also seen bears perform in the traveling circus that had come through our village each fall, during the harvest festival.
But though what the pony was telling me raised lots of questions, I decided to keep my mouth shut to avoid seeming even less worldly.
We approached a tall, impressive building made of solid wood. It was painted red and had white stripes all around the edges. It was even bigger than the first structure I’d seen, and certainly much nicer than the stables in my village.
“Here we are,” Harry said as I gaped at the building.
“You mean these are the stables? This place must belong to a powerful lord.”
“Not really. This is the Gaia stables. They’re a part of the Fernwood Equestrian Center,” Harry neighed, but so quietly I could barely hear him.
“What kind of center?”
“Equestrian,” Harry said proudly, turning to me. “It means horse center, really, but for some reason they like to call it ‘Equestrian.’ It’s for people to get educated about horses. And to learn how to ride horses. We have horse camps, too.”
“Horse camps?”
“You’ll see tomorrow.” Harry opened the stable door and let himself inside.
“How did you do that?”
“It’s easy—I learned how to unlock this door a long time ago,” Harry neighed, leading me to his space.
The smell there was nothing like I’d expected. It was acrid, sharp, and it hit my nostrils like a punch. I sneezed.
“Shhh, the horses are sleeping.” He neighed softly as I followed him through the stables. We stopped at the very back, in a cozy spot, separated on three sides by a wooden divider.
“See this?” He touched the bowl of pellets with his muzzle. “This is the stuff I’m supposed to eat, but I hate it. That’s all they feed us around here.”
I picked up one of the pellets and examined it in the moonlight. It was hard, dark, and looked inedible. Its smell was revolting.
“I wouldn’t eat it, either,” I told Harry, putting the pellet back. “Is it okay if I sleep here?”
“I don’t mind.” He shrugged, and we settled in for the night.
I was hungry, and I knew the best thing to do was to fall asleep.
That way the hunger just went away. I’d done that plenty of times when my brothers ate all the food and left me nothing for dinner.
And so I curled into a ball and fell asleep.
I dreamed of the magical Firebird and its feather, and how I would find it and bring it back to Baba Yaga, who would let me make one wish with the feather.
The only problem was that I had too many wishes and couldn’t choose the right one.
There was the one where I would feed my whole village.
There was the second one, where I got my papa the largest, the most beautiful izba in all of Zorya.
The third wish was for my two brothers to get married and prosper.
And then for our horses to make Papa a wealthy man.