Copyright 2012 by the author. Except for personal non-commercial usage, reproduction of the

text or any image is prohibited without the express written permission of the copyright holder.

Jennifer lived in an apartment building in a great city. The days

there were fun. There were school events and playing in the park with her

friends. There was the ice cream store down the street and the library.

Jenny loved to read stories of long-ago Greeks and Romans, and of far-off

China and France and Norway. But every night she would have to fall

asleep to the sound of traffic passing below her window. The drone of cars

didn’t bother her but their horns did; so too did the occasional yells of

people as they argued about something in the street below.

Jenny would try to think of more pleasant things as she went off to

sleep, like the time she'd visited a cousin who lives by the shore. She could

sometimes recall the sound of the sea as the ocean-water hit the beach in

breakers there. She could remember other sounds and sights from the

beach too ... great big noisy gulls flying just overhead, tall grasses on sand

dunes, and occasionally she’d recall even the smell of the ocean and the

feel of the breeze at twilight.

What fun it would be to go to the beach again.

Before going to bed one night Jennifer looked up at the moon that

stood over the space between her apartment building and the next.

Just a bit of twilight was still far down the street in the west. The air

was cool for July and that may be why the sky was so unusually clear and

the full moon so bright. In her bed she began to think about the sandy

shoreline. This would be a nice way to doze off. She shut out the sound of

traffic from her mind and focused on that beach; not in daylight as she

had seen it but as it must be at night with that great white moon lighting

the dunes.

There would be shadows in the dunes, she thought, and the breakers

would be silver as they rolled in to wash the sand.

Yes, it would not be too dark with such a bright moon; and no, it would

not be quiet. The breakers would seem very loud with no other sound to be

heard. This would be a really special night … so clear, so cool … the kind of

night there is in stories when wonderful things happen. I will pretend that I

am walking on the sand. It is cool and it is wet. On that sand hill there is

some wood that washed up from the ocean. Perhaps it came from an old

sunken boat. It could be very old … from a ship sunk long ago by pirates or

by a great storm on the water. Maybe no one lived. Their bones are still

under the sea.

How depressing. Daddy says I shouldn’t think bad things just because

it is night. I want to have nice dreams. I’ll think about the moon. It is so

bright that I cannot see many stars, just those few bright ones.

That very bright one where the sun has just faded must be the evening

star that people talk about … “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight;

I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” I wish that I

could stay awake tonight and see what happens when I’m asleep.

This is what Jenny thought as she walked on the beach in her mind.

Far away the beam from a lighthouse swept the sky and further yet there

was a little glow from a village. Jenny knew there was a bridge near the

village and that it crossed a little bay. There was nothing else to note

nearby. At first she could hear little else either. She could not hear the

horse that approached behind her for its trot was muffled by the roaring

sea. So Jenny was startled when very gently it came up behind her. She

was startled but not for long. After all, it was just a horse … even if horses

don’t belong walking all alone along the beach, at night. It had probably

gotten loose from its stable and gone for a walk just as she had. But oh!

you are so beautiful Jenny thought. He was big, bigger than any horse

Jenny had ever seen and she had seen quite a few police horses in the city.

They were big, very big, but not so big as this one that stood quietly

looking down at her. Yet he was not so big as to frighten a child. There

was nothing about him that would do that. On his neck he wore a bright

halter which shone in the moonlight. On his back was a blanket of stars. It

must be the moon on the leather, Jenny thought. But it is like those bright

stars themselves are your harness.

“They are.” The horse said.

Somehow it did not seem odd to Jennifer on this wonderful night

that a horse had just spoken to her. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I am Hrim-faxi. I bring the dew at dawn. Do not fear me, child.”

Jenny’s hand was already in his mane. “Why would I fear you? You

are so beautiful.”

Hrim-faxi did not answer but started to walk, and Jennifer walked

beside him. “May I ride on your back, Hrim-faxi?” she asked in the most

polite way she knew; and the great animal shook his mane once and knelt

so that the child could mount him. “Hold my mane and don’t let go no

matter what happens.” Rising, Hrim-faxi began to walk very carefully

along the beach. At first he walked on the sand and Jenny, on his back,

watched the sand and the moon on the sea. But when Hrim-faxi felt that

she was secure, he began to trot gently at the very edge of the water and

let the wavelets lap at his hooves and Jenny’s legs. The spray felt

wonderful.

“Where are we going, Hrim-faxi?”

“Where would you like to go? I have till dawn.”

The child thought. “You choose since you must be wise.”

“I am just a horse. How can I be wise, child?”

“Please don’t call me ‘child’; my name is Jennifer.”

“I know.”

“See, you know my name. You are wise.”

“Knowledge is not wisdom, Jenny, as you will learn. But for now...”

Hrim-faxi stood high on his hind hooves to know if Jenny would still hold

tightly to his mane ... “Good. I will show you the night.”

“Is the night wonderful?”

“That must be a judgment. What time or place is more wonderful

than another? Some things seem wondrous but are only different. Do you

think your home is wonderful?”

“No. It is nice though.”

“Yes, nice; and wonderful to some children that I know who live in

the country.”

The horse said no more for a long time and Jenny held on to his

thick mane as little waves passed beneath his hooves. Wetting him, they

made his coat glisten even brighter, then they ran off into the sand again.

After awhile, Jenny saw that Hrim-faxi was a little further from the

beach. The water was under his hooves all the time now, and soon it would

be high enough to wash her feet.

“You aren’t afraid?” he asked

“No. Why should I be afraid? You are good.”

“Only God is good, child. But we try.”

“You called me ‘child’.”

“I forgot. Even the horses of the gods sometimes forget.”

“Is God your master then?”

“Of course."But not as you mean it. Long ago the Norse believed in

great spirits that they called their gods. I was the horse of the goddess

Nott, the night. She was beautiful and good. I am glad to have drawn her

chariot.

“You say they believed. But you are; so what they believed must have

been true.”

Hrim-faxi said nothing for many minutes. Then he stopped with the

wavelets breaking against his legs and the spray teasing the girl. “Your

mind is quick, Jenny. Tell me; since all that happens is from God, which is

more real to Him: you or what you think?” Jennifer could not answer this

and Hrim-faxi continued. “The Norse believed in their gods so they were

real to them and real to Him. It was a poor grasp of the Divine, but they

meant well and God understood if a good man thought of Him as Thor,

and of angels as great horses, and of the night as a beautiful woman. Even

now men do not fully understand, cannot understand. Do you think the

creator of the earth and stars has a beard? Maybe not; but can you

imagine the Divine in a better way without taking all your fine human

traits from Him? We cannot imagine a love that created everything that

is, but we can imagine someone with a beard who loves us enough to have

made us.

”For awhile Hrim-faxi said no more and Jenny knew that he was

thinking. Then he asked in a gentle voice “Do you believe in me, Jenny?”

“Of course. I can feel you and talk with you.” For just a moment

those last words seemed all wrong to the girl, but only for a moment. She

did indeed feel Hrim-faxi beneath her and surely she was talking to him.

A horse, she thought but said nothing. There was, after all, nothing to

say. She was talking to a horse, but a very special horse.

“Hrim-faxi raised his head and began to trot again, at first still in the

breaking waves but after awhile further out. Jenny thought it very

strange

that though she felt the cool spray she was not wet. Surely by now they

must be in deep water yet the big horse seemed to only wet his hooves and

Oh!, she thought, the stars in your harness seem even brighter than before.

Now the moon is as bright as it can be, but so too are all the stars in the sky.

They passed the lighthouse which somehow did not need to light

anything, even the sea, though its beam was very bright when she looked

down at it. Then she realized how high they were but could not dwell on

that thought since Hrim-faxi was soon on the bridge, no longer trotting

but galloping along it, seemingly as fast as he was able.

They rode along the bridge toward the horizon where the sun still

gave a line of light at the start of night. It seemed that they rode for hours

and never caught nor lost that line; and the bridge itself was different.

The stars were now no longer just overhead but beside and even below it,

and in the bridge itself. They shone along girders of brass, a roadbed of

onyx, and in towers of silver. At last Hrim-faxi rode off the span but did

not stop. With Jenny holding onto his mane. ... indeed almost lost in ... he

turned sharply and sped through the night down a road that ran between

tall old trees.

How large Hrim-faxi had become; Jennifer looked and felt like just a

little doll on his back. But he had told her not to be afraid and she would

not be.

Then in a clearing the horse stopped and bowed as though praying

or asking something of his God, with the old trees all about them. Jenny

found herself no longer on his back but watching Hrim-faxi across the

field which was not dark even though it was night, for it was lit by those

millions of stars that winked at them. After a long while, Hrim-faxi raised

his head and Jennifer knew that it was time to go somewhere. He spoke to

her and Jennifer was again riding a great and beautiful horse.

“Let us go with the night, my rider.” Turning west, Hrim-faxi rushed

into the sky, seeming to pull the night behind him. Jennifer had never felt

so peaceful in the dark before. This night was quiet, beautiful, and serene.

The moon was bright, not just hanging there, but alive with life. Through

the stars below them, Jenny could see cities and towns, roads and farms.

There were many happy families in those places but on the sad ones Nott

dropped a veil of sleep and peace. It was all wonderful. Hrim-faxi knew

the girl’s thoughts:

“Sometimes sleep is a gift from God,” he said and said no more.

They passed over the great Mississippi River and the plains, over the

Rocky Mountains and the desert and coast of California.

But now Jenny grew sleepy too and saw nothing and thought nothing

as Hrim-faxi drew the chariot of night behind him over the ocean, across

sleeping Japan and China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Russia, and the old

cities of Europe.

It was not till dawn began to light the streets below that Jennifer

awoke. She went to her window just in time to watch night slowly ...

reluctantly she imagined … fade into the western sky.

What a nice dream, she thought. That is, it must have been a dream.

Here I am with my own bed. She wiped a drop of dew from the window.

But perhaps a dream can be real too in a way.

Then a thought came to her from nowhere:

“Some day you will be too old to believe in me.

But do not be sad about it, Jenny.

Even then I will come to you in dreams,

so that you can be a child again.”

Good night,

Sweet dreams,

Good night.