Wendy's Magic

By T. Faye

Nine-year old Wendy Buchanan has a good life growing up in Sandusky, Ohio—quite wonderful, in fact, until a tragedy claims both the life of her mother and Wendy's ability to ever walk again.  Life as she knows it has now changed forever. But can life possibly be as good as or even better than before?  Through Wendy's love of horses (and one particularly fantastical carousel pony), the help of her lifelong friend, her father, and one very, very peculiar neighbor, Wendy finds the way out of her darkness and learns to live and love again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449731588

T. Faye

T. Faye has a B.S. in elementary education and wrote this book while teaching grades three, four, and five. She taught in the public schools for over three years and realized that there are many issues today that children face that are hardly discussed and hard to discuss, such as illness and death of a parent, and handi-capable issues. She currently resides in Central Florida on her four-acre ranch. This is her first novel. She is currently working on her second novel. 

Book preview

Wendy’s Magic

T. Faye

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Copyright © 2011 T. Faye

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-3159-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3160-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3158-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011960358

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/29/2011

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Note from the Author

I wrote this book while teaching grades three, four, and five. I realized that there are many issues today facing children that are not addressed: illness, death of a parent, and handi-capable issues. This book deals with these very serious issues but with extremely powerful messages of discovery, acceptance, self-responsibility, hope, faith, encouragement, and love that ring loudly throughout the story.

This book is dedicated to the many children whom I hope will take comfort in the healing that comes with

love,

an open heart,

a positive attitude, and

belief and faith in our loving Lord Jesus

Chapter 1

The Performance

The bedroom was quiet now, mostly dark. Wendy lay as still as she could, listening for the household outside her bedroom door to hush for the night. Finally, it became completely quiet, and she exhaled a sigh that relaxed her body through and through. Now she was ready to begin.

Wendy intertwined her fingers gracefully, dancing and swirling them to make the shadow puppets on the ceiling come alive. With her bedroom window cracked just a little, the cool night wind blew the curtains just so, and the moonlight cast a bright spotlight on the ceiling and onto her prancing shadow horse. How proud and beautiful, thought Wendy.

She relaxed even more. Back, back, back, Wendy’s mind flowed to a gentler, more peaceful time in her life. There she was, real as life, and it was show time!

E-e-easy now, girl, Wendy soothed while she scratched the strained, arched neck of her horse. She could smell the sweat and feel every muscle of her horse beneath her, a quivering coiled ball of energy ready to spring forth at any moment. Wendy forced herself to relax and take a deep breath—a deep, deep breath. The musky scent of the leather saddle wafted up to her nostrils, and she could hear it squeaking beneath her, a sound that always thrilled her.

Tonight, her horse was a small, beautiful, dappled gray, Arabian mare. Powerful and small. Her horse could always be anything she wanted. She chose a different breed, a different color, and a different size every time she performed. Different costumes and saddle styles, too. Her performances varied also. Sometimes, Wendy chose to compete in English pleasure classes or hunter-jumper competitions, and when in her more daring moods, she chose barrel-racing events. Tonight’s performance was for the State Championship English Pleasure Class at the Ohio State Fairground.

There they were, waiting in the warm-up paddock outside the show ring. Her mare fiddled with the bit, chomping impatiently and flaring its pinkish nostrils. The mare danced in place, trotting in slow motion, but going nowhere. Her tail was raised high like a flag; so typical of the proud Arabian posture.

Wendy communicated mind-to-mind with her horse that everything was all right. She straightened herself in the saddle and then dropped her shoulders downward, as though someone were ramming pushpins in each shoulder, and she pushed down deeper into the saddle. Through her body she was saying, Whoa there! Take it easy, girl. It worked, and her horse began to relax.

Wendy continued moving her horse forward, gathering their collective energies into one magnificent display of horse and rider. Wendy’s riding style was graceful and considerate—always give and take, give and take. She was always careful to be gentle with her hands. She met her horse’s mouth with a gentle reminder of the bit, never forceful. Wendy liked to hold the reins as though she were holding a fragile baby bird in each hand, never squeezing or pulling so hard as to injure it. Wendy urged a forward motion, rocking back and forth with her mare’s rhythm, gently nudging and prodding the sides of her horse with her legs.

Uhhhh! Wendy gasped.

In an instant, reality slapped her face. Wendy was immediately aware that she had surfaced from her imagination back into the real world. Her heart beat rapidly, and she could feel it pounding in her chest. She lay wide-eyed, as she thought of her legs. How could she forget about her legs when she was constantly reminded? But she would forget about them, at least for right now. She closed her eyes tight and concentrated.

After a minute, there she was again in the show arena. Behind her, she heard the pounding of the other horses’ hooves as they churned up the clay soil. She was surrounded by other competitors; magnificent horses and riders so close to her she could almost feel their breath. But then again, she felt all alone because she knew her horse stood out in the crowd above all the others.

She whispered, All eyes are on you now, beautiful, beautiful mare. You can take this blue ribbon home. Just prance around this ring, and show ’em all what you’re made of, girl.

Little did Wendy realize that she wasn’t alone at all. Lining every inch of the shelves mounted on her bedroom walls was her collection of porcelain horses, collectible Breyer horses, and carousels of every shape, size, and color. All eyes from this motionless audience were on the performance. They were all watching.

Wendy summoned her best announcer’s voice and let her imagination run free. Time to thank the folks who made this all possible, she thought. Tonight’s performance is sponsored by the moonlight, the breeze, my bedroom ceiling, my finger shadows, and, oh yeah, of course—special thanks to our audience.

Wendy gave a quick thought to her collection on the shelves—she really didn’t know why—then back to her grand finale.

With Wendy’s glorious imagination, along with her delicate fingers, her shadow horse continued to prance along.

Suddenly, the imaginary audience’s applause came to a halt when Wendy’s bedroom door creaked open. A soft-spoken, guarded voice interrupted. Wendy, is there anything I can get for you?

Silence.

The bright hallway light behind him silhouetted the tall, muscular frame of Wendy’s father as he stood in the doorway, waiting for her to respond.

Wendy reflected thoughtfully, even sarcastically, Yes, you can get me my mother … and, oh yes, my legs would be nice, too. She stopped herself, though. Oh, here I go again. Why am I always so mean to Daddy? But she didn’t dare say those words aloud. Wendy’s father tried so hard to please her, and he always acted with overdone eagerness when he spoke to her. It was his way of trying to make her feel better, she supposed. It was also Howard Buchanan’s way of trying to make himself feel better. Try as he did, though, nothing would ever be like it had been before.

Before. Wow. In her mind, before seemed like such a long time ago and too far away from Wendy’s present reality.

Before. Hmmm. Wendy would’ve been up on that prancing horse for real, showing the world how walking, trotting, and cantering is a true art form.

Before. Oh, yeah. Wendy would have gotten up from her bed all by herself and walked to the kitchen for a late-night bowl of cereal before bedtime.

Before. Wendy took for granted the laughter in her father’s voice and the twinkle in his eye when he was with his family. But now his laughter didn’t sound like it did before, and the twinkle was just different.

She understood only too well. Like her dad, Wendy also tried hard to mask the pain she felt physically and emotionally. Not in an effort to help herself so much, but she felt she had to do something to help her daddy. She loved him so, so much. But her own emotions were numb—as numb as the lack of any feeling from her waist to her feet.

Before. Yeah, right. Wendy felt there was no such thing as before because her life now seemed robbed of all things precious to her.

Minutes had passed. Still silence. Howard waited.

Okay. I can do this. A few deep breaths while squeezing her fingernails into her palms usually worked to stop the tears from flowing. It was a painful distraction but a distraction nonetheless. Wendy squeezed hard and, for added measure, silently counted backward while she bit hard on her bottom lip. Five, four, three, two, one.

Wendy choked back the hard lump of bitterness in her throat. In a faint voice, she finally responded, No, Daddy. I’m fine. I’m going to sleep now. Thanks. G’night.

Howard stepped from the lighted doorway across the room to Wendy’s bedside and crouched down in the darkness beside her. All right then. How ’bout a little prayer? He didn’t wait for an answer. Dear Lord, I pray you bless my little girl, Wendy. Take away the pain in her heart, and bring back her smile to me. Thank you for your mercy, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Wendy echoed, Amen. She gave a quick thought to a memory of a not-so-long-ago Sunday morning when she’d sat between her mom and dad at their Sunday morning church service. She was thinking how beautiful her mother looked that particular morning when her dad interrupted her thoughts.

Well, okay then, little girl. If you’re sure you don’t need anything, I’ll head off to the sleep zone, too.

Howard rose to leave and was almost to the door when he stopped. Wendy could see the dark silhouette of her father’s backside as the light from the hallway shone all around him. She couldn’t help but notice that his shoulders and head stooped down. It seemed like he was carrying something very heavy on his back. He stared at his shoes, thinking.

He slowly turned around and returned to Wendy’s bedside and crouched quietly. Howard had thought long and hard about what he wanted to say to Wendy. He had looked for opportunities that whole day, watching for the slightest hint of a good mood from his daughter. The sun had risen and set without so much as a smile from her. So Howard had avoided the important words he needed to say. He had practiced them in his mind over and over again, and yet, now that he was here with Wendy and knew this would be his last chance to say them, the words just hung