I stare up at her through the slats in the stable door. She stands on the other side slowly making a strand of hay disappear behind her yellow teeth. I drop my doll and run. The barn door hides me. My father takes my hand and leads me back to the stable. He scoops the plastic doll from the hoof-imprinted mud and shakes away the straw. “She isn’t afraid of the horsey,” he says. I want to tell him that dolls can’t see or run, but I don’t have the words yet. Shouldn’t he know these things at his age?
Jacqueline Seaberg lives and writes in New York’s Hudson River Valley. Find her online at jackieseaberg.com.