10/12/2026
**The Horse at the Edge of the Trees**
Every evening, the dark horse came to the edge of the trees.
She noticed him while walking home, his long mane falling across his neck, his coat almost disappearing among the shadows. Above the woodland, the setting sun glowed red.
He belonged to her uncle, who had stopped riding him when his knees became troublesome.
“You could take him out,” her uncle suggested.
She shook her head. “It’s been years.”
“So it has.”
Once, she had ridden almost every day. Then work changed, her family needed her, and the rides became something she remembered doing.
She still spoke about them as though they belonged to someone else.
One evening, she stopped beside the fence. The horse approached and stretched his nose towards her hand.
“I used to know what I was doing,” she told him.
He investigated her sleeve.
The following afternoon, she came back with a brush.
Her uncle found her working through the tangles in the horse’s mane.
“Shall I get the saddle?”
“Just the brush today.”
He nodded and stayed to talk.
They remembered old rides, muddy boots, and the time she had returned with half a thorn bush caught in her hair. She laughed, then asked him to check whether she still remembered how to fit the tack.
A few days later, she rode around the field.
Her hands felt awkward. Her legs ached sooner than she expected. At the gate, she dismounted with a breathless smile.
“Well?” her uncle asked.
“I’ve forgotten a few things.”
“You remembered to come back.”
After that, she began setting aside an afternoon each week. Sometimes she rode. Sometimes she walked beside the horse or simply brushed him while the light changed through the trees.
Eventually, she took the familiar woodland trail.
At the bend, the horse paused beneath the branches. Beyond them lay the little clearing she had loved years before.
She had expected it to feel smaller.
It didn’t.
She sat quietly in the saddle, listening to birds move overhead, and wondered why she had waited so long to return.
On the way home, the red sun shone between the trunks. This time, she was riding beneath it.
**What is something you once loved that you would like to welcome back into your life? 🐴🤎**
