In the Year of the Horse, Anshi carved a miniature stallion for his son
Ryo. He painted its tiny hooves black and cut off a lock of his own hair to
fashion its mane and tail. For eyes, always the trickiest, Anshi embedded
two perfect apple seeds.
Ryo took the wooden horse, hugged it to his small chest, and ran off to
play behind the house. When night came, Anshi's wife called their son to
dinner, but the boy didn't come. Anshi searched everywhere, but instead of
Ryo, they found only hoofprints the size of fingernails in the moist earth.
Anshi tried to follow them, but the trail ended at the edge of the forest.
While his wife cried, Anshi set to work on another horse. He took great
care to carve its legs strong and swift, its neck curved and noble. He used
another clump of his own hair for its mane and tail, and found two more
apple seeds for eyes. Anshi took his creation into the yard and stared at it in
his hand, waiting for something to happen.
And soon, something did. The little mare shook her head like a child
shaking off sleep, and pranced on his palm with her painted hooves. Her
apple-seed eyes held a question, and Anshi nodded.
The smell of hay filled his head. In the space of a hoofbeat, he had
shrunk to the horse's size and now sat upon her smooth wooden back. Grass
surrounded them like a green field of wheat. Anshi stroked the mare's neck
and said, "Take me to my son."
He felt the horse's wooden muscles bunch just before it sprang into a
gallop across the lawn. The night air raked Anshi's face like soft claws. He
clung to the horse's mane—to a tuft of his own hair—and hunkered low.
