The Enchanted Horse. Magdalen Nabb

      It was Christmas Eve, and the afternoon had frozen as hard and milky as a pearl. The sun was as thin and pale as a disc of ice in a sky as white as the snowy ground.

      Irina walked in front of her mother and father along the lane that led across the fields to the village. She was dressed in a sheepskin coat and boots and mittens and a sheepskin hat. Her long fair plait hung down beside her. The cold pinched her thin cheeks, and the trees that grew on each side of the lane poked their black fingers through the freezing fog as if they were trying to clutch at her as she went by.

      Even before they reached the first houses at the edge of the village, Irina heard the faint sound of a band playing Christmas carols. But she didn’t look up and smile or turn to say “Listen!” to her mother and father. She only walked quietly on, looking down at her thick boots as they trod the hardened snow. Irina didn’t like Christmas.

      When they reached the village, all the shop windows were already lit, making haloes of light in the fog. The snow-covered square where the band was playing round the Christmas tree was hung around with coloured bulbs. But Irina and her parents didn’t stop to listen to the carols because they had so much to do. They lived on a farm and at Christmas everyone wants more cream and eggs and milk, and besides, they had to be back home in time to feed the animals. So her father stopped to talk to the dairyman at the corner and Irina went ahead with her mother to help with the shopping.

      They went to the baker’s to buy bread and flour and had to wait in a long queue. At the front of the queue a girl who was smaller than Irina reached up and pointed at the cakes and little pies sprinkled with icing sugar.

      “And some of those,” she shouted, “for Grandma! And the big cake! Grandpa likes cakes! The big cake!”

      Irina watched her and listened to every word, but when it was her mother’s turn she didn’t ask for anything. She was thin and never had much appetite and there was no Grandpa or Grandma coming for Christmas dinner.

      They went to the greengrocer’s and waited in the long queue. A fat little boy with a red scarf wound round and round his neck was quarrelling with his older sister.

      “I like dates best!” he protested.

      “No you don’t,” his sister said, “you only like the box with the picture on it, and we’re going to buy figs and nuts and tangerines, so there.” And their mother winked at the greengrocer’s wife and bought figs and nuts and tangerines and dates.

      Irina watched them and listened to every word, but when it was her mother’s turn she didn’t ask for anything. She had no brothers or sisters to quarrel with.

      The band in the square began to play “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and the fat little boy in the red scarf and his sister joined in the singing as they went out.

      It was getting dark, and the coloured lights twinkled brighter now against the shadowy snow. On the corner outside the greengrocer’s shop a fat lady with a long apron and thick gloves