Never Let You Go by Emma Carlson Berne

incredible.”
    Dave snorted and Megan blinked in surprise. She never thought she’d be the one to make Dave laugh.
    “Megan, I have a job for you, if you’d like,” Thomas said. “You remember I had mentioned that I hoped you would each find a project to work on this summer, apart from the usual chores.”
    Megan nodded.
    “How would you like to start training the new foal?”
    Megan tried not to shriek in excitement. “Seriously? Wow. That would be so, so amazing. I mean, I feel like I know him already.” She squeezed the top rail of the fence to keep from throwing her arms around Thomas.
    “Isaac and I are going to go muck out the pigs,” Dave interrupted. Megan guessed he wasn’t too interested in her raptures over the foal. Isaac gave her a little wave, and the two strolled off. As Megan watched them go, her stomach suddenly sank.
    “Um, Thomas?” she asked hesitantly. “I don’t really know anything about horse training.”
    He didn’t look concerned. “That’s okay. This part, the early stage, is more about getting the foal used to people.” He put hisfingers in his mouth and whistled across the pasture, two sharp blasts. Rosie looked up from her grazing and trotted over, her tail held high. The foal climbed to his feet and ran beside her like a shadow. Darryl and the donkey followed behind.
    When the mare and foal came up to the fence, Thomas rewarded her with a piece of carrot he had pulled out of his pocket. Darryl and Cisco tried to push in, but Rosie flattened her ears and warned them off.
    “She’s feeling a little protective,” Thomas explained. He patted the foal firmly on his fuzzy head. “Basically, I want you to get the baby used to being handled. Every day, you’ll brush him, pick up each of his feet, get him used to wearing a halter. Once he’s comfortable with all of that, you’ll want to teach him how to walk on a lead rope. That’ll be about it until he’s a year old or so.”
    “Okay,” Megan said slowly. The foal’s brown eyes were startlingly human. “That doesn’t sound too hard.” She reached out and patted the baby’s head too.
    Thomas gave her an encouraging smile. “It’s not. It just takes patience and kindness. I see that in you, Megan. You’ve got a quiet way about you that the horses like.” He plucked a tiny red halter off the fence post beside him and handed it to her. “You might as well get started.”
    Megan took the halter. The sun was peeking out from the clouds, and it shone bright on Thomas’s white hair. Several yards away, he stopped and turned around. “By the way,” he called, “think of a name, will you?”
    A name ! Megan turned back to the mare and foal, who wereboth still standing expectantly at the fence, probably waiting for another carrot—or the mare was, at least.
    The pasture felt empty without Thomas’s confident presence. Even the scrape of the gate latch seemed loud as Megan drew it back. It felt funny being in the pasture with the horses, instead of in the stall. Too open, somehow. She walked over to Rosie and patted her neck. The mare sniffed her hands, and finding no carrots, dropped her head to the grass.
    Megan looked at the foal, who gazed back at her curiously. She cleared her throat.
    “Hi,” she said. She reached out and touched the little horse’s mane, which stood straight up. The hair was soft, not coarse like Rosie’s. Megan half expected the foal to shy away from her, but instead, he reached out with his delicate upper lip and snuffled her shirt.
    “Hey, now,” Megan gently pushed the little nose away. At least he wasn’t afraid. Okay. Thomas said to get him used to being handled. Megan fetched a currycomb and brush from the barn and returned to find the horses standing under the shade of a big tree in the corner of the pasture. She slipped under the fence and, talking softly to the foal, started rubbing him with the currycomb, taking off the last bits of muck from the birth. The little body felt