Sometimes fate punches you right in the gut. That’s how it feels when you meet your destiny, whether a horse or a person.

Max Halle was light-headed and short of breath watching the young stallion named Banjo gallop around the indoor arena. This is happening. This is real. He knew he and this red bay horse had come together for a reason. Banjo was an unusually beautiful horse, a bright red bay with a black mane and tail. His front legs were solidly black, while his hind ones sported short socks with some ermine spots. He had a large, irregularly shaped star on his forehead between his well-spaced eyes. This horse is going to change my life. Max felt this truth in every fiber of his being.

A special animal can alter your life’s journey and even lead you to your true love.

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Available: August 25, 2024
Teen

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Prologue

In a quiet corner of the Dutch countryside…

 

“Tell us the story,” eight-year-old Evi demanded, elbowing her mother, Frankie, in the stomach as she clambered up beside her in the king-sized bed. Lucas, her two-year-old brother, was already snuggled up beside her. Lucas’s one thumb was in his mouth, his other, gripping Frankie’s earlobe.

Frankie was tired from a long summer day which had started as most farm days do, well before the sun rose. “Do you really want to hear that one again?” She yawned.

“Yes,” Evi insisted. “Tell us the story of The Dream Horse, Moeder.”

“Why don’t you tell the story, Evi?” Frankie sighed while shifting to get more comfortable in the crowded bed. “You know it as well as I do. Last time I told it, you corrected me.”

“You were telling it wrong,” Evi whined. “Please, Moeder.”

“I have another idea,” Frankie suggested. “Evi, get the book off the bookshelf. You can read it tonight to Lucas and me.”

“But I don’t want to read it,” Evi protested. “We want you to tell it, Moeder. Right, Lucas?” Evi prodded her little brother.

Lucas shifted, pulled his thumb out of his mouth, and said, “I want a story.”

“See,” Evi insisted, setting her hands on her hips. “Tell the whole thing, then we’ll go to sleep.”

“The whole thing,” Lucas chimed in.

Frankie rubbed her hand over her face. The kids don’t go to bed easily when the sky remains bright outside.

“The book’s not as good as when you tell it,” Evi wheedled.

Frankie chuckled. That’s because the parts I added were real. The children were too young to know that. Evi had been alive when Banjo was in their lives, but she’d been a baby. So much has changed. And yet, when Frankie closed her eyes, she could see Banjo’s black mane moving in front of her with each stride of his walk, so bold against his red bay coat. Effortlessly, she could recall the feel of his walking stride moving through her entire body, his slightly jolting trot stride, and the music of his waterfall of a canter. It was all so much a part of her. Banjo remained a part of her.

Frankie’s mother-in-law Greta, hearing the children loved the story The Dream Horse which Frankie often told them at bedtime, had sought out the original book. She had located a copy on Amazon. The kids had been thrilled when Greta had presented the book to them. Frankie had touched the cover fondly, remembering it from her own childhood. Her grandmother had read it to her. But that night when Frankie read the story to them, she was barely a few pages in before Evi complained about “stuff being left out.” Shortly thereafter, the little girl had stood up in bed protesting, “That’s wrong. They’re ruining the story. They got it wrong.” Frankie had put the book away, though they agreed not to tell Greta. Frankie continued to tell the children her own version of The Dream Horse story. She knew what her kids wanted. They wanted the story she knew in her heart, the one of the magical horse who’d touched people’s lives and left them forever altered.

“All right, kids. Lie down and close your eyes. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful, bay stallion. His name was...”

“Banjo,” all three chimed in.

 

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