There was no door made of stone at the end. The tunnel opened into a sheltered space carved out of pure rock. A short distance away, amazing structures of rock sat like sentinels, rising hundreds of feet above the valley floor. “Let’s sit for a minute,” she said. A shallow pool of water several feet wide was in the center of the arch. “We are in the map room,” she teased.

It took only a second for Henry to catch the reference to one of his favorite movies. He looked up at the top of the arch, dozens of feet overhead; a perfectly round hole was carved out, through which he could see the fading light of day. “Indiana Jones was here?”

She laughed. “No, but it looks like the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, doesn’t it? Many movies were filmed here in Monument Valley, though mostly Westerns. My grandfather met John Wayne and many other actors.”

It was the second time Henry had heard that name, and he made a mental note to look him up.

“Those movies introduced our land to the world. And naturally, the tourists followed.” She didn’t sound very happy about that last part as she paused for a second. “Things change, and not always for the better. But sometimes, we have some small control over the future. Which brings us to what we must do tonight. What you must do, Henry.”

She stopped, and he felt the weight of intense gravity pushing down upon him. “What must I do?” he asked warily.

Her lips tightened. A warning of danger flashed briefly in her eyes.

“You must save the world.”

As the moon began to rise in a cloudless sky, moonshadows from the large stone monuments reached toward them like the grasping hands of giants. The vibrant red, yellow, and orange landscape was now muted in dusky hues, but it was magnificent nonetheless. Henry watched as the incredible mural his mother had painted came to life before his eyes.

Serena whistled sharply. Then she stood beside Joseph and Coralis and looked off into the distance. At first all Henry could see was a small cloud of dust on the horizon. The cloud quickly took on a shape as three horses galloped toward them. In the lead was the magnificent black stallion from his vision. As it drew near, he became frightened. It was so much larger in real life!

“Midnight,” he said softly, the name emerging from his subconscious.

“Yes, Henry,” said Serena. “His name is Midnight. You have chosen him, and he has accepted.”

The horse walked calmly up to Henry and lowered his muzzle, his flanks glistening with sweat from the exertion of galloping. He nickered and huffed in Henry’s face.

He reached up to touch the horse while Brianna attempted to burrow through his clothes and under his skin. “Easy,” he said, more to her than the horse, but both listened.