Destiny and Stardust Page 10

  “What do you think, Tom?” Issie said.

  “He has terrific paces,” Avery mused. “Hester might be right about Avignon. This horse certainly moves like a warmblood. Does he have a brand?”

  Issie shook her head. “No, there are no markings on him. Hester thinks that Avignon might have escaped at some point and bred with a Blackthorn Pony.”

  “Perhaps…” Avery said. “But you say he’s not as wild as the rest of them?”

  “He let me put a halter on him and lead him back to the farm,” Issie replied.

  “It makes no sense,” Avery said. “A horse like this, left to roam wild. How did he get there?”

  Destiny stopped cantering now and stood at the end of the paddock nearest the stables. He let out a shrill, high whinny and a moment later another horse returned his call.

  “That’s Blaze!” Issie smiled. “Come on, I’d better go and check on her and then you can meet your horses.”

  “Today is Wednesday and the cull is due to happen on Friday. It’s too late to ride out today, of course, so that only leaves tomorrow to muster the herd,” Hester explained as they all walked together to the stables. “We thought if we allocated each of you a horse now then you’d be all set and ready to go first thing in the morning. We’re aiming for a six a.m. start.”

  Issie pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. “Right!” she said. “This is the list of horses and riders for tomorrow’s muster. I’m on Blaze, obviously, and Aidan has Diablo – he’s the piebald in the last stall. Stella and Kate – you’re on Paris and Nicole – the twin palominos. Ben is on Scott – he’s the skewbald in that stall over there to your left. Dan is riding Tornado – he’s the dark bay hunter in the last stall. He’s the one Aunty Hess usually rides…”

  Issie looked back down at her list. “And Tom, you’re on Titan,” Issie said mischievously. “I think you’d better come over here and meet him.”

  Issie pulled a face over her shoulder at Stella and the others as she walked with Avery to the first stall in the row. They all gathered round as Avery opened the Dutch door. He looked puzzled. “I don’t understand. There’s no horse in here,” he said.

  “Yes there is!” Issie laughed. She unbolted the bottom half of the door and there was little Titan, all nine hands of him, looking up at them from underneath his enormous shaggy brown forelock.

  Everyone started laughing as Avery strode over to the miniature pony and stood over him. Titan was so tiny that he barely reached Avery’s hip. Everyone laughed even harder.

  “I think you may have to find me a slightly larger mount, Isadora,” Avery said, trying to keep a straight face.

  “I’ve got just the thing right next door,” Issie said. “You can ride Dolomite.”

  If the riders had been laughing hard before, they hooted and wailed now at the sight of the enormous eighteen hand Dolomite next to the tiny miniature pony.

  “Haven’t you got something somewhere in between these two?” Avery asked.

  “Actually, no. I wasn’t joking. I was hoping you’d ride Dolomite,” Issie said. “I know he looks huge but Aunty Hess says he’s very well schooled.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not riding Titan, so I guess I have no choice, do I?” Avery smiled.

  With the horses all fed and the tack sorted for the next day they locked up the stables for the night and headed back up to Blackthorn Manor. Over dinner the riders looked at the map of Blackthorn Farm as Aunt Hester filled them in on the details of the impending cull.

  “Cameron is assembling his team now. Friday is D-day,” Hester said gravely. “It doesn’t leave us much time… And then, of course, once we’ve got the herd back here that leaves us with an even bigger problem. What on earth are we going to do with them?”

  “That’s where you come in, Tom,” Issie said. “When Aunty Hess told me that these horses were wild with no homes to go to I suddenly realised that I had the solution all along. You work for the International League for the Protection of Horses. You can take the wild horses and find them new homes – good homes where they’ll be cared for properly by owners that love them. You can do it, can’t you?”

  Avery looked serious. “What you’re asking is no small feat, Isadora. Your Aunt is right – these are wild ponies born and bred and they won’t be easy to school. They’ll be a handful for even an experienced horseman.” Avery saw Issie’s face fall at this news.

  “Hey now! I never said it couldn’t be done – just that it wouldn’t be easy. Of course the ILPH will take these horses. I’ve been in touch with them and organised everything. The Blackthorn Ponies will be trucked to the ILPH fields after they’re mustered. We’ll keep them there and feed them up, break them in and give them a bit of basic schooling before we find them new homes. All the prospective owners will have to pass our checks before they can re-home a Blackthorn Pony, of course. These are very special ponies – you can be sure we’ll be keeping an eye on them once they have new owners.”

  “Thanks, Tom,” Issie smiled, “they’re really amazing ponies. Wait until you see them.”

  “We should all get an early night,” Aidan advised them as he headed back out the door and home to his cottage. “We’ll need to be ready to mount up by six a.m. when it’s light enough to ride.”

  “Who made him the boss?” Dan muttered as Aidan left.

  “Aidan is the farm manager. He’s a really good trick rider and he knows what he’s doing,” said Issie.

  “Yeah, well, he’s not that much older than us and he doesn’t get to boss us around,” Dan said sulkily. “Anyway, goodnight. I was going to bed anyway.”

  “What’s up with him?” Issie asked Ben.

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Duh, Issie! Think about it. Maybe he’s jealous? You’ve been going on and on about Aidan this and Aidan that ever since we got here!”

  Issie was shocked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Yeah, right,” Ben said. “I’d better get to bed now too. It’s a big day tomorrow.”

  Could Dan really be jealous of Aidan? thought Issie.

  “Of course he is!” Stella laughed when Issie asked her this. The girls were sitting on Issie’s four-poster bed having hot chocolates with marshmallows as a pre-bedtime treat.

  “I’m jealous too!” Kate said. “I mean, Aidan is so cool. Have you noticed how his hair kind of dangles over his eyes like that? How does he even see where he’s going?”

  Issie smiled at this. She had noticed Aidan’s hair. It was kind of cute how it hung over his face, hiding his blue eyes. “But it’s not like he likes me or anything,” she protested.

  “Issie! Haven’t you noticed that he’s always hanging around?”

  “That’s because he works here, Stella,” Issie sighed.

  “Anyway, we’re supposed to be having an early night…” Issie started, then hesitated. She leapt to her feet and ran to the window.

  “Issie, what are you—?” Stella began, but Issie hushed her.

  “Listen!” Issie said. “Do you hear that?”

  The three girls froze for a moment in silence. There was nothing to hear. The night air was completely quiet. And then, just when Issie thought she must have been imagining it, she heard the noise again. There it was! Even louder now. A deep rumbling, like the growl of a big cat.

  The girls held their breath. There was silence again for a moment and then the feline rumble could be heard once more. Issie felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. The growl sounded close. The animal must be right outside.

  “Ohmygod!” Stella breathed. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes were wide with fear. “What is that?”

  “That,” said Issie, “is the Grimalkin.”

  So much for an early night! Arming themselves with a torch, the girls had raced outside in search of the Grimalkin and they were now huddled together on the back veranda of the manor.

  “Hurry up, Stella!” Issie hissed.

  “I’m trying to make this work… ahh, g
ot it!” Stella switched the torch on and shone the beam out into the inky blackness. The torchlight flickered over the lawn, the magnolia trees, the fishpond and then suddenly, caught in the beam were a pair of yellow eyes. Kate let out a scream and grabbed at Stella’s arm.

  The yellow eyes came closer. In the shadows a huge black animal loomed, bearing down on them.

  “Wait a minute…” Issie took the torch off Stella and shone it once more on the animal. She heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the Grimalkin.

  “You guys – it’s just Nanook!” Issie said.

  Nanook bounded towards them now, wagging her tail happily.

  “Nanook! You scared us half to death!” Stella growled at the dog.

  “It’s not her fault,” Issie defended her. “That growling that we heard earlier – I’m sure that was the Grimalkin. Nanook probably heard it too; that’s why she’s out here.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like there’s anything here now,” Kate said, shining the torch over the garden and checking once more. As she shone the beam one more time across the lawn, though, there was something moving, coming towards them. A dark shape was moving swiftly across the grass, heading straight for the manor…

  “Aidan!” Issie cried out with relief.

  “What’s going on?” Aidan asked as he ran up the stairs to join them. “What are you all doing outside?”

  “We heard a noise,” Stella said. “It sounded like a cat growling.”

  “Me too,” Aidan said. “I was in bed when the horses in the stable block suddenly started kicking up a fuss. I went outside to check them and then I heard it. I was just coming up to the house to make sure that everything was all right up here.”

  “Are the horses all OK?” Issie asked.

  Aidan nodded. “They’re locked in and there’s nothing there. Whatever it was must have been scared off.”

  “So it’s gone?” Stella sounded disappointed. “I wish we’d seen it!”

  “No. You really don’t,” Issie said softly, remembering what the Grimalkin had done to poor Meadow.

  “Issie’s right,” Aidan agreed. “You don’t want to come face-to-face with this thing. We’re just lucky it hasn’t hurt any of the animals this time.”

  Aidan looked at the girls. “Listen, let me take the torch and I’ll take the dogs and make one last round of the manor and the stables to make sure its gone. You guys go back to bed and get some sleep.”

  Kate reluctantly handed Aidan the torch and the three girls went back inside.

  “I wish we’d gone with Aidan to check the grounds. I really wanted to actually see the Grimalkin,” Stella grizzled as they walked back up the stairs to their bedrooms.

  “Me too,” Kate agreed.

  “You guys, this is serious!” Issie said. “You don’t know what this animal can do. The night when Meadow was killed I saw it on the fence in the moonlight, walking along the top of the rails. And then when I saw what it had done to Meadow. It ripped her throat open – it was horrible.”

  “Do you think it was the same animal that chased you on Blaze?” Stella asked.

  “Uh-huh. It’s really fast. Blaze was totally galloping and it nearly caught us,” Issie said.

  “This whole Grimalkin thing is starting to creep me out,” Kate said with a shiver.

  Sleep was a good idea. But it wasn’t easy. Issie lay awake for a long time. When she did finally sleep she dreamt of Mystic. In her dream she was riding the little grey gelding down by Lake Deepwater. The cull had started and the gunmen were tracking the wild herd. She was looking for Blaze and Destiny, trying desperately to find them. There was confusion, horses running everywhere and then suddenly a shot rang out. She saw a horse fall as the gun fired and she began to gallop on Mystic towards the black shape lying on the ground. In her heart she knew the animal lying there was dead. But which horse was it? It was hard to see…

  “Mystic?” Issie murmured. “Mystic, what’s happening?”

  The noise of her alarm clock woke her and she sat up in bed, her heart racing. She felt a wave of relief as she realised it had all been a dream. The bedside clock was flashing – 5:30 A.M. Issie rolled out of bed. It was dark outside but she could already see the faint blush of the sun as it crept up the horizon. She pulled on her jodhpurs and a jersey and headed downstairs for breakfast. Dream or no dream, this was mustering day and it was time to ride.

  The riders barely spoke in the darkness of the stables as they prepared their horses. Once they were all saddled up, Aidan gathered everyone together outside near the gate for a team talk.

  “We’ll take it slowly along the ridge. No cantering – keep the horses to a trot,” Aidan instructed. “We need them fresh for the muster, so let’s not tire them out.”

  “Is this where the Grimalkin attacked you?” Stella whispered to Issie, looking up at the forest next to the ridge track. “Are you sure it’s not still in there? Maybe we should go the other way along the Coast Road instead.”

  Issie shook her head. “It’s much faster to the lake this way. Besides, the second time I got chased I was on the Coast Road anyway…” Issie realised as soon as she said this that she should have shut up. No one knew she had been chased by the Grimalkin twice now.

  “What?” Stella looked at Issie. “You got chased twice? What happened?”

  Issie hesitated, “Well… I’m not sure it was the Grimalkin that time. You know, I was out there on my own because Blaze had run away. I was probably just imagining things.”

  Stella nodded at this. “It must have been awful. Losing Blaze, I mean. You must have been so worried. And poor Blaze – out there all alone!”

  Issie nodded and turned to her horse, putting an arm around Blaze’s neck and stroking the crest of her honey-coloured mane. “It’s so good to have you home again, girl. I don’t want anything to ever happen to you. Not ever.”

  Issie’s mind flashed back again to the dream she had last night. She had heard a shot and seen a horse fall to the ground. Had it been Blaze that had fallen? She was about to tell Stella about the dream, but she changed her mind. It was just a dream, she told herself, forget about it.

  “Which horse am I on?” Stella whispered to Issie. “Is this one Paris or Nicole? How do you tell them apart? I’m—”

  “Hello? Are you all listening up the back there?” Avery called out rather pointedly to Stella. “Because Aidan is about to explain the plan for the muster before we set off.”

  Aidan took some sheets of paper out of his pocket and began to pass them around to each of the riders. “It’s a map of Blackthorn Farm,” he explained. “The herd have been seen at Lake Deepwater twice now so it looks like that’s the best place to start. We’ll track them down and then drive them back along the Coast Road to Blackthorn Manor. There’s only seven of us and thirty horses so we’ll have to spread out behind them and keep the herd moving.”

  “What if we don’t find them?” Kate asked.

  “It’s Thursday now. Tomorrow they start the cull. We don’t have a choice. We’ve got to find them,” Aidan replied.

  The horses and riders set off at a steady trot along the ridge track. Stella and Kate rode side by side on the two identical palominos. Aidan rode at the front on Diablo, with Avery next to him on the enormous Clydesdale, Dolomite.

  As the horses all settled into a stride, Issie heard hoofbeats behind her and turned around to see Dan riding up next to her.

  “Hi,” he said uncomfortably.

  “Hi,” she replied.

  “So… it’s pretty cool, isn’t it? Riding out to muster some wild horses. You don’t get to do this kind of thing at pony club,” Dan said.

  “Uh-huh,” Issie said. “Thanks for coming to help.”

  “No problem,” Dan said. He paused for a moment and then he added, “When I heard you’d gone away to your aunt’s I thought I’d have to go through the whole summer holidays without seeing you.”

  “Yeah, I figured I’d just see you again when I got back to pony clu
b,” Issie said.

  “I know, I know…” Dan trailed off. Then he spoke again. “Hey, Issie. Can I ask you something?”

  “Uh-huh. What?” Issie said.

  “Is Aidan your boyfriend?”

  Issie felt her heart begin to race. She looked at Dan. Was it true what Ben and Stella had said? Was Dan jealous of Aidan?

  “I don’t think so… I mean… no. No, he’s not,” Issie stuttered.

  Dan’s face broke into a huge grin. “Good,” he said. And with that, he clucked his horse into a canter and rode off to catch up with Ben.

  Issie spent the rest of the ride to the lake feeling confused. She was still puzzling over what Dan had said to her as the riders came over the green ridge of the hill and looked down into the valley of Lake Deepwater below. Issie’s heart sank. The horses weren’t there.

  “Oh well, so much for plan A,” Stella said as they scanned the lake. “Where to from here?”

  “We’ll ride around the lake and along the Coast Road to the very end, to Preacher’s Cove.” Aidan instructed as he rode Diablo down towards the lake. “This way!” he called over his shoulder for the rest of them to follow him.

  “It’s turning into a bit of a wild-horse chase,” Ben said. Then he turned to the others and grinned at his own joke. Stella, Kate and Issie all groaned.

  There was no sign of the herd on the ride to Preacher’s Cove either.

  “Needle in a haystack if you ask me!” Dan sulked as they reached the top of the hill. Below them was Preacher’s Cove, a tiny beach wedged in between steep cliffs on either side. The sand was sparkling white, the sea was brilliant blue, there was kikuyu grass for the horses to graze on and low-hanging pohutukawa trees right down near the beach to tether the ponies underneath for shade while they ate.

  “We’re going to break here for lunch,” Aidan said as he rode Diablo down the hill.

  “I thought we were supposed to be mustering horses, not having a picnic,” Dan grumbled, following him.