Team Challenge (17 page)

“We’ll clean it out,” I assured him, a mass of emotions whirling around my head and my heart.

Because of me, Cat was James’s girlfriend.

It seemed that Cat had her own victory after all.

I
had hoped that a carefree Saturday morning ride would push my latest problem to the back of my mind for a while. And in a way, it turned out like that because by the time Drummer and I got back, I had a whole new bunch of things to worry about. “It’s so lush here,” he wailed, looking around at all the emerald blades waving in the breeze by the side of the newly ploughed field, “and it’s just going to waste.” I pretended I couldn’t hear him. If I could keep it up, he might think I’d left Epona behind. He knows that without her I’m just like everybody else; I can’t hear an equine word.

“It will be winter soon,” he went on, “and there’ll be no good grass left. Everyone knows you should let ponies build up fat reserves for the coming lean months. I’m surprised you don’t know that. You think you know lots about pony management. Obviously, you don’t know as much as you think.”

He was trying to rile me, and it was starting to work. My bright bay pony knows exactly which of my buttons to push to get a reaction. I squeezed his sides, and Drum broke into a trot with a theatrical sigh about leaving the grass. I wouldn’t mind, but he’s already bordering on the tubby side.

Since I’d gone back to school after summer vacation, my riding had been limited to weekends and evenings. With the days getting shorter, evening riding meant everyone jostling for space in the floodlit outdoor school, so that Saturday, it was great to ride in open spaces for a change. We cantered around the field then turned into the woods, Drummer’s hoofbeats silent on the moss. Red and golden leaves fluttered unhurriedly to the ground, and there was a damp autumn smell heralding bleak days to come.

And that’s when the first odd thing occurred.

Suddenly, Drummer froze to a halt, shooting me forward. Luckily, as he did so, his head shot right up like a giraffe’s, keeping me in the saddle. Following the direction of his ears I could see his gaze fixed on something moving through the trees, and I squinted in the same direction, expecting to see a deer. The woods are riddled with them, and Drummer always overreacts. You’d think they were stegosauruses or something.

It wasn’t a deer (or a stegosaurus). It was a pony. An unfamiliar, dark gray—almost black—pony, its black mane and tail laced with white highlights that glinted silver in shafts of sunlight twinkling through the branches. Catching my breath, I watched as it moved through the trees.

The pony wasn’t alone. A girl sat astride the bare, black back. She wore no hat and her long, black hair fanned out behind her as her pony cantered and hopped over fallen branches, the pair fused together as though glued. And then I noticed the dog running alongside; a large, leggy hound, like a squire to a knight, keeping his nose level with the girl’s toes, matching the pony stride for stride.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as the trio disappeared in the gloom. Involuntarily, I shivered. Then I realized that I wasn’t the only one holding my breath.

“That’s spooky!” exclaimed Drummer, his breath coming out in a
whooh,
my legs rising against his sides as he exhaled.

“You don’t think...” I trailed off, reluctant to put my thoughts into words. The trio had been so strange and had moved so silently. I so didn’t want to use the word
ghost.

The whole area around Laurel Farm stables, the stable where I keep Drummer, is rich in history and atmosphere. Since Roman times it had been the location of settlements and mansions, taking advantage of the high ground. Drummer’s stable yard used to be a farm for a huge country house that no longer exists. It was that history that had given me Epona and changed my life.

I couldn’t help thinking that the mysterious rider and her pony and dog certainly looked as though they belonged to a bygone age. I mean, whoever nowadays goes riding without a hat?

“They wouldn’t be the first spirits I’ve seen around here,” mumbled Drummer, snorting. My heart missed a beat, and my thoughts flew back to the séance we’d held at the stables in the summer. Dee had insisted on trying to call up her dead granddad to help us with a team riding competition. The séance had scared us all out of our minds, and I didn’t welcome the reminder now, in the gloom of the trees. The woods suddenly seemed very spooky and the very place
not
to be, especially with the wind whispering through the trees.

“What else have you seen?” I asked Drum, winding my fingers through his mane for comfort, half hoping he wouldn’t tell me.

“So you can hear me, then?” asked Drum, turning and giving me a look with his big, brown left eye. “Pretend you can’t hear me when grass is the subject, but you’re all ears when there’s something you want to talk about!”

“Oh, you’re impossible!” I said angrily. “You are not supposed to eat when we’re on a ride, you know that. It’s really bad manners, and you’ll get green gunk on your bit.”

“
Oooooo-eee-oooo,
” said Drum. I couldn’t tell whether he was being snarky, or whether he was making ghost noises. Either way, it wasn’t funny.

At least the strange girl and her pony were a distraction from my own doom and gloom—momentarily, anyway. Things had taken a downward turn at the stable recently, and I didn’t want to think about that. The trouble was, the more I tried to blot it out of my mind, the more it insisted on creeping back in. Actually, it tended to gallop in rather than creep. It occupied my mind like an invading army, sweeping all good events and thoughts before it and enforcing its dominant, depressing regime at full power.

I made Drummer canter along a path in the woods that we call the Winding Canter (for obvious reasons) and at the end, we burst out of the darkness of the trees and back into the weak autumn sunshine at the top of the hill. Then, without a breather (so Drum couldn’t nag me), we walked briskly down the hill to the lane, intending to cross it and continue on the bridle path in a big circle around Clanmore Common, before returning home.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious girl and her pony. That the pony was well-bred had been obvious, with its fine legs and neat head. The girl had been slim and had sat easily like an expert rider, her legs relaxed and dangling next to her pony’s sides. Wherever had she come from? Laurel Farm wasn’t the only stable in the area—there were plenty of stables and farmers who rented fields to the local horsey population. And if she wasn’t a ghost and if I could get near enough, I might be able to learn more about them—if I could hear what the pony was saying, anyway. At least, I could with Epona in my pocket.

Epona, I had discovered, had been a goddess of horses, worshipped by the ancient Celts and Romans. Ever since I’d stumbled (well, Drummer had done the stumbling, actually) across the tiny stone statue of a woman—Epona—seated sidesaddle on a horse, I’d been able to hear what horses and ponies were saying—for better or worse—whenever I had her with me. I never leave home without her now. To say Epona has changed my life is putting it mildly—I’m known as the Pony Whisperer, for a start, as I can hear and talk to horses and ponies. You’d think that would be fantastic, wouldn’t you? But it has its downsides—and was the cause of my latest worry that I had come out to forget.

Halfway down the hill, as we got near to the lane, something happened that did manage to distract me and put my own worries very firmly into perspective. With a droning noise, two huge four-by-four vehicles drove along the tarmac, dangerously straddling both lanes, their lights flashing as they drove past and into the distance. Birds suddenly flew out of the bushes and trees, and a soft hum and clattering from the cars’ wake got louder and louder. Familiar sounds of horses’ hooves mingled with shouting and revved car engines and, instinctively, Drum and I drew back among the trees, looking down from our natural vantage point toward the approaching commotion. The hoofbeats got louder, the shouts more urgent, more intense, and we waited to see what would come around the bend.

I expected to see horses, but when three came into view, turning the corner abreast and thundering toward us, my feelings of excitement turned to dread.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Janet Rising’s work with horses has included working at a donkey stud, producing show ponies, and teaching both adults and children, with a special interest in helping nervous riders enjoy their sport, as well as training owners on how to handle their horses and ponies from the ground. Always passionate about writing, Janet’s first short story was published when she was fourteen, and for the past ten years she has been editor of
PONY,
Britain’s top-selling horsey teen magazine.