For legs now grip the air, four legs that crunch down on glistening white dust, then rise again to meet the echo of their clopping, as snow sometimes makes a sound in its descent. A dry whinny against air and whirling hooves that would levitate with Muybridge in brittle stop-frame. Now, horse and rider tumble down a hill slick with fresh powder, matting fur against the icy velvet luge of autumn straw. Tail beating against time, flank pins rider to the earth, mashing her cheek against the frost.
Hand flails to face to meet the gush as morning light infects the dream. Breeze from the open window upsets the room in rythmic gusts, casting her hair across her pillowcase in a crosshatching of streams. For an instant, this pattern exactly matches that of the lattice surrounding her bedroom door, itself a mere replica of Gothic ivy. Then it is tossed back across her face, where she lays a trembling forefinger, still searching for a trace of blood.
Beyond the wall, the adjacent room holds no trembling young girls or boys, no furniture at all. Months before, when the room contained nurses, a body and a bed - sunlight bleached the latticework around the door pale earthern brown. Even now, she hears the slither of those vines coiling around the knob – but it is locked, and will remain so until she returns to the Muybridge horse, half-frozen to her wall, floating through the air while resting safely beneath a pane of non-reflective glass.
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