The first thing Rube did when they got back to the house was to walk up to the wicker horse’s head on the wall and say, “OK.  What do I have to do to get you to talk?”

She’d been like that for the last hour- looking ahead and speaking in clipped, decisive sentences.  Back at Wallfruit Cove, she’d asked Sleet and Comet, If we went home to think things over, would we be able to find our way back here tomorrow morning?  Yes?  Then that’s what we’re going to do.  Then they’d barely spoken on the walk back.  Sally had seemed worried that Rube was mad at her for going off with Kai, but Jeanette was half-convinced that she’d had some kind of mental break.

“What makes you think it’s going to talk?” asked Jeanette- quietly, as if she was worried that the horse was going to overhear her.  It didn’t make sense, but not much had today.  And it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

“The name.  It’s from that fairy tale- The Goose Girl.”  She looked sideways at the horse.  “Falada the horse gets his head chopped off and hung over the stables, but it starts talking.”  She frowned.  “I’m trying to remember if there was some kind of spell that got him to…  No, I think the idea was that he could always talk?  Or maybe that he got the ability naturally after he died?”

“There might be a button or something,” suggested Jeanette, feeling kind of superfluous.

“I don’t think so,” said Rube absently.  She shut her eyes tight, screwing up her face, then opened them again.  “OK…  Alas, young queen, passing by / If this your mother knew / Her heart would break in two.”

A few seconds went by.  Jeanette found herself holding her breath.

Rube looked back at her sisters.  “I think there’s another…”

The horse’s head began to move.

(To Be Continued)