The Island of Lost Horses Read online

  Annie didn’t seem concerned. Still humming, she cranked up the gears and put her foot down. The engine revved and, in fits and starts, the tractor edged forward. As it did so, my horse seemed to stir back to life. Reawakened, she began flailing with her forelegs.

  The tractor had loosened the mud’s grip and with a dramatic scramble of limbs, the horse lurched forward. She came halfway out so that her front legs were visible above the mud. She only needed to get her haunches out and she would be free. But her legs didn’t seem able to move any further. They had gone weak and numb from their hours thrashing beneath the mud. When Annie finally dragged her up so that she was almost standing, the horse wobbled as her hind legs collapsed. She was going to fall back into the hole!

  Annie was ready for her. She let the horse find her feet, ignoring the seawater that had begun to fill the hole and the tractor tyres rapidly sinking down into the mud.

  Then the tractor gave a loud growl as Annie suddenly gunned it forward and the horse was catapulted clear out of the mud hole.

  I watched in horror as my horse stumbled and fell to its knees. For a sickening moment I thought she might break a leg, but Annie kept the ropes taut so that the horse managed to go forward in a series of awkward stumbles until it stood at last on firm ground.

  Annie dug a handkerchief out of the sleeve of her dirty floral dress and used it to mop the sweat off her brow. Now that the horse was out, she had a look of utter relief on her face as she jumped down off the tractor.

  The horse didn’t flinch at Annie’s touch. She stood weak as a kitten while Annie ran her hands over her and then untied the ropes and refastened them to the halter and hitched the horse to the back of the tractor.

  “She be OK,” she said, nodding sagely. “Notink broken. Just some scratches is all.” Then she looked me over. “Bee-a-trizz,” she said, “look at you shakin’! You gonna catch youself ammonia from bein’ in dat hole. You be comin’ home wit’ me.”

  Annie helped me up on to the tractor so that I was sitting on the wheel arch of one of the massive tyres.

  “I want to go home,” I said. My voice sounded weird to me – so small, so pitiful. Annie didn’t even seem to hear me – or at least she didn’t say anything. She clambered up to take her place at the steering wheel in front of me and put the tractor into gear.

  And so, with the horse following behind the tractor, and me perched up there on the wheel arch, Annie chugged slowly back across the mudflats. Not towards home, but in the opposite direction, away from Mom and the Phaedra, towards the dark jungle hills of Great Abaco.

  Annie’s Crib

  “My boat is in the other direction… please…”

  It was useless. Annie didn’t even acknow-ledge my words. She just kept driving, humming away to herself.

  The ride got even bumpier when we left the mudflats and took the wide dirt track that cut up through the jungle hills. The horse stumbled on behind the tractor on wobbly legs, doing her best to keep up and I clung on, flung about with every pothole and rut we struck.

  I was still feeling really woozy and I was about to beg Annie to stop when she cut the engine and said, “We is here.”

  ‘Here’ was a bright yellow and turquoise beach cottage, a tiny hideaway with its front porch poking out from beneath the trees. To the side of the cottage there was a rusted-out old car wreck, and beside it some makeshift wooden pens that looked like they were used to house animals, although they were empty at the moment. The only living creatures were three scrawny brown chickens roaming free and a painfully thin white cat who ran at the sight of us. A tinkling like wind chimes came from a tree in the middle of the front yard, its branches strung with beer bottles. Annie caught me staring at the bottle tree and gave a cackle.

  “Dey for keepin’ away de evil.”

  Annie jumped off the tractor and helped me down from the wheel rim.

  “I want to go home,” I mumbled weakly as she lifted me to the ground. I felt like a four-year-old begging for Mommy. Annie paid me no attention. She just walked up to the front porch and I had no choice but to follow her.

  The porch floorboards were so old they bent dangerously beneath my feet. Tangles of chicken bones and purple herbs were bound in knotted red twine and strung from the eaves, and I had to duck underneath to get inside.

  Most places look huge to me after living on the Phaedra, but not Annie’s house. The whole place was just three tiny rooms. The living room was so cramped there was barely space for Annie, me and the sofa to all be there at once. Through an open doorway was the kitchen. It was no more than a campfire stove, a sink and a wooden table and chairs. The bedroom was even smaller, with a single bed that seemed to touch all four walls at once.

  The smallness felt more extreme because it was like Annie had taken knick-knacks from a house three times the size and crammed them all in. There were more bundles of purple herbs hanging from hooks, and shelves stacked with animal skeletons, conch shells and ebony figurines. A wooden carving of grimacing faces took pride of place on the wall above the kitchen table. The lightshades looked like they were made from animal skins, and crazy hand-painted beaded curtains were strung across the bedroom doorway.

  I stood in the living room, soaked to the skin, dripping mud on to Annie’s rag-cloth rug and shaking so badly I could barely control my limbs.

  “Take your clothes off,” Annie instructed. I began to slowly peel off my wet things while Annie swished through the beaded curtain and dug around in a chest of drawers. She returned with a faded old yellow T-shirt that said, “Smile – You’re in the Bahamas!” in bright green letters and a pair of shorts with palm trees on them.

  Annie handed me the clothes. “Dey ain’t best-best. Yard clothes is all I got.”

  While I got dressed, Annie rinsed my things in the kitchen sink. Then she threw my clothes in a plastic basin and headed back out of the front door. “You stay here,” she instructed.

  I watched out of the window as Annie pegged my things on the washing line. Then she went back to the tractor and untied my horse and led her round the side of the house to the animal pens. The horse seemed to follow her quietly and obediently, so maybe she wasn’t so wild after all. Or maybe, like me, she was just too tired to put up a fight. I guess I could have tried to run away right then while Annie was outside, but I didn’t think I could find my way back to the Phaedra from here on my own, and it was getting dark.

  I flopped down on Annie’s threadbare old sofa. The whole room smelt of those weird purple herbs. My head was still swimming and I was freezing cold despite the dry clothes. I lay down and shut my eyes. I felt like I was going to throw up.

  “You al’ right?” Annie was standing over me.

  “Yeah,” I managed weakly.

  “You tirsty?” she asked. I nodded.

  It only took three steps for Annie to reach the kitchen.

  She poured a glass of something from the plastic pitcher in the fridge and handed it to me.

  I gave it a suspicious sniff.

  “Switcher,” she said. “You drink. It be good for you.”

  I took a nervous sip and then gave in to my desperate thirst and gulped it down greedily. The tang of lime juice and sugar-cane sweetness stung my parched throat. Annie took the empty glass back. “You want more?”

  “Yes… please.”

  She refilled the glass then went back to the fridge. The room was spinning worse than ever but I took a deep breath and then I swung my legs round and planted my feet on the floor.

  “I really need to go home,” I said weakly. “Please can you take me home?”

  Annie looked at me; her face was stony. “State of you? You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “My mom… she’ll be worried…” As I said this, I tried to stand up and keeled over, my legs collapsing clean away beneath me.

  “Lord above, child!” Annie exclaimed as she helped me up again on to the sofa. She felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “No wonder you all fainty! You is burni
n’ hot! You done got heatstroke!”

  She swept through the bead curtains and grabbed the blankets off her bed and threw them over me. They did nothing to warm me. I was chilled to the bone and shaking uncontrollably. Annie tucked me in and propped another pillow under my head, then sat down on the sofa beside me. My head throbbed and everything was woozy. I felt a hand stroke my brow.

  “Mom?” I murmured. “Mommy?”

  My head was swimming; I couldn’t think straight. The light in the room suddenly seemed unbearable, far too bright. I closed my eyes and let the darkness soothe me…

  Then I opened them again and the brightness was gone. Not just the brightness. Everything. I took a deep breath and found myself gasping for air.

  Breathe! I told myself. Just little breaths – in and out. Stay calm and breathe.

  My hands went to touch my waist and I almost lost my breath with shock as I felt a gap where my waist should be. There was something crushing my stomach, holding me so tight that it was choking my ribcage. I looked down and saw that it was a corset made from sapphire-blue velvet, stitched and boned with silk ribbons.

  I smoothed the velvet down with my hands and as I did so I caught a glimpse of my toes poking out below the hem of my gown.

  My feet were bare and I could feel the chill of cobblestones beneath them.

  I raised my head, my eyes adjusted now to the gloom. Ahead of me in the half-light I could make out arched porticos and the high vaulted ceiling above, and a long corridor stretching out ahead of me with wooden doors on each side. I could smell the sweet, fetid aroma of manure and hear the stamp and whicker of the horses all around me.

  And at that moment I was certain of one thing.

  I wasn’t in Annie’s front room any more.

  If They Catch You…

  It must have been a dream. But even now that I am back onboard the Phaedra, I swear that it was not. If it was a dream then why can I remember every sensation, every smell and sound as if I were really there?

  I could feel the hard, cold cobbles beneath my feet, my skirts swishing at my ankles as I hurried along the corridor. I felt my heart pounding and my lungs breathless – due in part to the crushing tightness of the corset, but also to my overwhelming fear. I was afraid because I knew they were coming for me.

  If they catch you, they will kill you.

  These words had been spoken to me once as a warning and I knew them to be true.

  I began to run, the bag slung across my back bouncing hard against my spine with every stride.

  In these grand stables there were over fifty stalls and the one that I sought was right at the very end. When I reached it at last I fell upon the door, working the bolt with shaking hands, sliding it open and stepping inside.

  “Cara!” I hissed her name in the gloom. There was a dark shadow in the corner of the loose box and when I spoke it moved towards me.

  “Cara?”

  The black silhouette stepped out from the shadows and at last I saw her face, so haughty and regal, and those blue eyes, as clear as the sky.

  “My Cara Blanca!” I threw my arms round her and hugged her as hard as I could. She nickered and shook her mane as I held her. She too was overjoyed by our reunion. But our hugs were brief and then I threw the bag on to the straw floor.

  “Cara, they are right behind me. We do not have much time!”

  With my horse standing beside me I began to undress, pulling at the bindings of my costume, my fingers tearing at the silk ribbon that held the brutal corset so tightly against my chest. My velvet dress fell to the floor. My old ‘self’ to be abandoned from this moment on.

  I dropped to my knees in the darkness and began my transformation.

  From the tangle of garments in my bag I pulled out the roll of mutton cloth that I had stolen from the royal kitchen. It was gauzy and as stretchy as a bandage and it did the trick perfectly as I bound it round my chest, like a mummy being wrapped for the tomb.

  With each bind of the cloth, I became as hard and flat-chested as a boy.

  Over this I pulled on a shirt made of rough cotton and a coarse woollen waistcoat in drab grey. I pulled on my father’s trousers – they were too large for me, but I cinched them in with a belt and tucked them into his riding boots. Then I shoved my gown and my velvet headpiece strung with pearls into the bag and moved over to the window.

  Through the iron bars I looked out at the orange trees, heavy with brilliant fruit, the porticos draped with bougainvillea flowers, and my heart broke. This would be the last time I would watch the sun rise on the beauty of the Alhambra. This was over for me. Never again would I see Spain.

  “There is nothing here for me now,” I murmured to my horse. “All I have in the world is you and they will not take you from me. I will do whatever I must for us to be together. If I cannot change the mind of the Queen then I must change my own fate instead…”

  Right at the bottom of the bag there was a leather-bound book, stamped in gold with my initials. Tucked in beside this was what I was searching for – a pair of shears. I clasped the handle and withdrew them, holding them in the dawn light so that the sun glinted off the steel. I looked at Cara standing so trustingly before me. She didn’t know that I was doing this for her, out of love. I ran my finger down the edge, testing the blade. So this was it then. Once I made the first cut there would be no turning back…

  Footsteps!

  They were coming. They were echoing down the corridor. I couldn’t tell how many of them there were but more than three men, maybe four or five or more.

  I raised the metal blade in my right hand. In just a few moments they would be upon me. Even if I wanted to change my mind it was too late…

  Suddenly the door swung open and I was bathed in light, blinding overwhelming light, and then there was a voice and it was calling my name.

  My other name.

  Bee-a-trizz, Bee-a-trizz…

  Medicine Hat

  Annie pulled the curtains back and in an instant the world of those dark Spanish stables fell away. The light poured in, brightening the front room where I lay on Annie’s sofa and I was myself once more. The same me that I had been before, curled beneath the blankets, my bedclothes damp with fever.

  “Bee-a-trizz,” Annie was saying. “Wake up, child! You been gone asleep forever. It be day-clean and the sun is up and I done made grits and you needs to eat.”

  I propped myself up and took the plate from Annie. My mind was spinning. Here I was, sitting on Annie’s sofa with a plate of hot grits in my hands, so how could it be that a moment ago I had been in ancient Spain?

  I was dazed and bewildered, but I was also starving. I ate a whole plateful of Annie’s grits, and then another. I was too busy eating to say a word as I wolfed it down.

  “Child, you must been dying fa’ hungry,” Annie shook her head in wonder as she dished up thirds.

  This time though, she hesitated before she handed me the plate.

  “How come you out alone on de mudflats?” Annie asked.

  “I was following my horse,” I said. “I found her yesterday in the jungle…”

  “Ain’t you who find de Medicine Hat,” Annie shook her head. “Medicine Hat be lookin’ for you.”

  “Medicine Hat?”

  “Dat be what de horse is, child,” Annie said. “A Medicine Hat. Dey call her dat on accounts of her markings – like a hat on her head. It make her special. A Medicine Hat be real good obeah. Good magic.”

  I chewed down another mouthful of grits. “So it’s good luck getting stuck in a mud hole?”

  Annie grunted. “You is alive, ain’t you?”

  She looked at me, her black eyes burning with intensity. “Everytink happen for a reason, child. You wait and see.”

  I put down the plate. I was beginning to feel sick again. “Can you take me back to my boat?” I asked. “My mom will be worried about me,” I said. “She’ll probably call the coastguard or something.”

  Annie smiled, as if she knew I was bl
uffing. Then she turned her back on me, and took my plate over to the kitchen sink. “You rest now, child. Den we see…”

  I don’t know if Annie put something weird in those grits but I was real sleepy after I ate. I must have dozed off for a little while, but I didn’t dream this time and when I woke my own clothes were on the bed beside me. They’d been washed and dried out but they were all ripped and stained from my struggles in the mud hole.

  I got dressed and went outside to find Annie. She was round the side of the cottage by the animal pens, using a plastic bottle to pour water into a washing machine tub that was serving as a water trough in the corner of the pen.

  And there was my horse! She looked so much better than she had done when we arrived yesterday. Her ears were pricked forward and her blue eyes were bright once more.

  Annie had tied her off to the railing and now she began to smear her hind legs and rump with a tub of strange gooey greenish paste. It smelt disgusting.

  “What’s that stuff?” I frowned.

  “White sage and banana leaf,” Annie explained. “It heal de burns.”

  “Are you a vet?” I asked.

  Annie laughed. “Mercy no, child! Ain’t no vetery-nary been teaching me how to mix de potion!”

  She continued to smear the paste over the raw marks on the horse’s hindquarters where the ropes had cut her flesh. The mare flinched but she didn’t kick out.

  “De Duchess be al’right,” Annie said, giving the mare a slappy pat on her rump.

  “The Duchess?”

  Annie looked at me as if I should have known already.

  “Sure. Her name be de Duchess. Dis horse she be a very fancy lady.”

  Annie wiped off her hands on a rag. “In a day or two, maybe t’ree, de Duchess be ready to go back to de herd.”

  “So there are other horses on the island?” It hadn’t occurred to me that my horse might have a family.