Kneeling on the floor in front of her mural, Jinny unwrapped the statue. There was no possible doubt, it was the same one that Jinny had seen on the altar next to Epona. And it was an Arab. The dished face carried with an Arab's pride and arrogance was so completely different to the head and neck of the pony Epona was seated on. It couldn't have been chance. Epona was riding a native pony, while the Horse was an Arab.
Jinny set the Horse down in front of the mural. She went back to the opposite wall and sat down cross-legged on the floor, trying to see both the Red Horse of the mural and the Celtic Horse god. Kelly came padding upstairs, pushed open Jinny's door and lay down beside her, his forelegs outstretched, his nose placed exactly between his paws, his eyes gazing through grey thatch at the Horse.
"B.C.," thought Jinny. "It was made and worshipped before Christ was born." All the history she had been taught at school, the billion, trillion, zillions of people, all the mixed-up stories in Jinny's head of King Alfred's cakes, the Princes in the Tower, Henry V and Walter Raleigh, had all happened, if they had happened at all, while the little metal horse had lain in the ground above Brachan.
"Waiting for me to find it," thought Jinny. "They wanted me to find it, not those sheep-brained archaeologists."
Just for a second she remembered how the Horse had appeared when the old woman had sprinkled her herbs on the flames; just for a second the Red Horse reared into Jinny's mind, searching, questing the air for the lost thing it had come to find.
Jinny shuddered with terror. She didn't know what to do. She held the little Horse tightly in her hand, feeling it real and solid. She had found it, but she didn't know what to do next. Only knew that she would never give it to the archaeologists. "They would take it away and it belongs here," she thought.
Jinny heard the sound of their car stopping in front of the house and car doors being opened. She wrapped the statue back in her handkerchief, brought her cash box down from the top of her wardrobe, dragged off its swaddlings of Sellotape and thrust the horse into it.
"Jinny, Jinny, are you in?" called her mother, as Jinny put the cash box back, jumped down from the chair and ran downstairs to see her family.
"How did it go? she asked Petra. "Bet you were brilliant. A distinction. Bet you did."
"I don't actually know," said Petra. "They don't actually say, but I could tell they were pleased with me."
"Oh, super, super," enthused Jinny. "And are they going to film your book?" she asked, turning to her father. "Did they think it was the utter, utter best they've ever read?"
"They're certainly going to publish it," said Mr. Manders, "and things are looking good for the T.V. linkup."
"Great," said Jinny. "That is fantastic."
"Were you all right by yourself?" asked her father.
" 'Course I was. Sue came up. We'd a super time. Of course I was all right. We built a triple and I jumped Shantih over it and Sue's showing me how to ride over cavalletti."
Words frothed out of Jinny. She was so glad to see her family again, she could hardly stand still. No matter how exciting a time her father had had in London, no matter how successful Petra had been, it was nothing compared to Jinny's secret.
"You seem to have enjoyed yourself," said Mrs. Manders, looking at her flushed, excited daughter. "You're all catherine wheels.”
"Expect it's jumping that horse," said Petra.
"Oh, yes," agreed Jinny. "She flies over the jumps—higher and higher. There is nothing Shantih couldn't jump if she wanted to."
That night, Jinny waited until all her family had settled down to sleep before she unwrapped the Horse statue. She didn't want to risk any of them coming into the room and seeing it.
Jinny sat on the floor, holding the statue. "From so long ago," she thought. "Who made you? What are you? And now I've found you. You'll always stay here." Jinny clutched the Horse tightly in her hand.
The house settled into silence. The Red Horse glowed out of the wall. The yellow circles of its eyes glared down at Jinny. Lost in wonder at the Horse she was holding, Jinny had forgotten her fears. Now they came flooding back. The waiting presence of the Red Horse was still there. She jumped up, shaking the fear out of her head.
"No," she told herself. "Now I've found the Horse I don't need to be afraid any longer. I've done what the dreams wanted me to do."
Jinny lifted her hand to strike the mural, to reassure herself that it was only a painting, but she couldn't bring her hand down to slap it. She stood frozen with her hand upraised, then spun round, away from the mural and ran through to the other half of her room.
She got undressed and into her nightdress. Stood daring herself to go back and look at the mural, but her nerve broke and she sprang into bed, pulling the bedclothes over her head, the Horse still clutched tightly in her hand.
Outside, the night stillness was broken by a sudden tempest of hooves. It could only be Shantih galloping round her field. Yet it seemed to Jinny that the hoofbeats gusted over the roof, circled over the moors and waited there.
Jinny lay, tight and shivering, her knees tucked to her chin, straining to hear. Afraid that she would hear the hooves again, yet more afraid that she wouldn't hear them and the Red Horse would take her by surprise. Suddenly she was too tired to care. The need for sleep was a lead weight inside her head. In a moment of total terror, Jinny knew that she must sleep, and that in her sleep the Red Horse was still waiting for her.
Shantih was deep in the mire, already tiring, too weak to struggle much longer. The heat from the flaming sky burned Jinny's lungs with every breath she drew. On the horizon the Red Horse reared. It swung its head to and fro, the beams from its yellow eyes searching over the black water of the bog. Then it focused on Jinny where she clung desperately to Shantih. Before, the Red Horse had been a mindless force of destruction, but now its will was sharpened and directed. It had found what it was looking for. It was looking for the statue that Jinny was clutching in her hand. With nightmare hooves, the Horse came galloping at Jinny. Clouds of steam rose around it until there was only the noise of its hooves and the glare of its eyes as it galloped at Jinny.
"Jinny, Jinny, wake up. You're dreaming. Wake up."
Her father's hand gripped her shoulder through the bedclothes, shaking her awake.
Jinny's head surfaced from under the blankets. She was drenched with sweat. For seconds she still struggled to escape, not knowing where she was.
"By goodness, that was some nightmare," said her father. "I thought I'd never get you out of it."
Jinny pushed her hair back from her face and sat up, taking care to keep the statue hidden. She couldn't stop shivering. The Red Horse had been so close.
"Whatever were you dreaming about?"
"I can't remember," lied Jinny. "I can only remember screaming.”
"You were certainly doing that. Can I get anything for you?”
"No," said Jinny. "I might go down and make myself a cup of chocolate."
"Good idea," said her father. "Wake yourself up properly. You don't want to fall back into that."
When her father had gone, Jinny wrapped the statue up again and put it back in her cash box. She got dressed and went downstairs, where she found her favourite pony book about two girls in a Shropshire village who ran a riding school during their summer holidays. Jinny took it into the kitchen, stirred up the Aga, made herself chocolate to drink and a tomato sandwich to eat, then she sat down to read.
She knew the book as well as she knew the story of the three bears—bringing the ponies into the stables in the morning, trotting them bareback through the summer lanes; the grey pony borrowed from the milkman who won the local show jumping class, the thoroughbred given to them by Major Grant because he couldn't control it, and Midget the almost carthorse. Sitting crouched over the Aga, reading, the security of the story wove a warm web round Jinny. No danger. No dreams. Only summer days filled with riding school ponies. They held back the terror of the Red Horse.
"Have you been up all night?" Jinny's mother asked, surprised to find Jinny setting the table for breakfast.
"Well, I'd a bad dream," said Jinny, not committing herself.
"You certainly had. What is worrying you? Can't you tell me? How can I help you if you won't tell me what's wrong?”
"I don't know how you even need to ask," said Jinny. "There's so many things for me to worry about that I have to make a list to remind myself of them all."
"You were bursting out all over when we came home last night. What was that about?"
"I told you—Shantih jumping so well. She could jump the sun," cried Jinny, flinging her arm in a wide, sun-clearing arc.
Mrs. Manders, realising that she was getting nowhere, stopped asking questions.
Jinny spent the day helping her father in the pottery. Sue came over to see if she wanted to ride.
"Thought you'd want to school," said Sue. "Trotting Shantih over cavalletti once isn't going to do her any good. You have to do it every day, go on teaching her."
"I'm giving her a rest day," stated Jinny.
"From what we've heard," said Mr. Manders, "Shantih is ready for the high jump at Wembley after the way she was jumping yesterday."
"Yesterday?" said Sue. "We didn't … ”
Jinny dropped the sugar basin she was decorating. She didn't want her father to find out about their return visit to Brachan.
"Idiot child!" exclaimed Mr. Manders. "That was part of a set."
Jinny picked up the pieces, and Sue said if she wasn't riding that was that, and umbraged out of the pottery.
Jinny settled down. In the bright morning pottery, safe with her father beside her, Jinny could relax. With sure strokes she painted pots. Ken said it was dishonest to decorate other people's pots, but he wasn't there to make her feel guilty. Ken wouldn't be back until tomorrow.
At intervals throughout the day, Jinny escaped to her bedroom, took the statue out of her cash box and sat on the edge of her bed, holding it, looking at it, then quickly hiding it away again.
After tea, Jinny went down to see Shantih. She leaned over the field gate watching her horse graze. The fields reaching down to the bay; the glimmer of sea and the jet jaws of the cliffs swam hazily in front of Jinny’s eyes. She knew them so well, on so many evenings Jinny had stood where she was standing now, being content.
The air from the sea seemed suddenly less clear, as if a mist had blown in from the water. Jinny blinked her eyes, but the dense air massed and grew thicker. It towered in over the fields, rising in swirling clouds from the ground to the sky.
Jinny stared, mesmerised. Through the mist came the thud of waves breaking on the shore, the thunder of hooves. Jinny caught a glimpse of the Red Horse, monstrous through the mists, its yellow eyes glared straight at her. She screamed aloud, ran flat out, feet slapping, hair flying out behind her, as she bolted for home.
"Now what's wrong?" exclaimed her mother in exasperation, as Jinny slammed the kitchen door behind her and leaned against it, gasping for breath. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost."
"I thought I saw," began Jinny, but she couldn't go on. The terror that gripped her was her own private terror. She had to find her own way through it. If she told anyone else they would only make her give the statue back to the archaeologists, and Jinny knew that she must not do that.
"Saw what?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Then fold these sheets with me," said her mother, making the kitchen warm and safe.
And, for a moment, Jinny thought that all she had to do was to give the Horse to the archaeologists and all her life would be like this again. The fear that pursued her everywhere would leave her alone.
"No," said the voice in Jinny. "No."
"Pardon?" said Mrs. Manders.
"I was saying, 'no'," replied Jinny. "No to everything, because that's the way I feel."
Jinny sat pretending to read, knowing that soon her parents would realise how late it was and insist that she went to bed. The thought of going to sleep, knowing that the Red Horse was waiting for her, choked in Jinny's throat. Perhaps she would ask Petra if she could put the camp bed up in her room and sleep there.
Shocked at herself for even thinking such a thing, Jinny pushed the temptation to the back of her mind. Petra would never forget it. She would always remember.
"That is eleven o'clock!" cried Mrs. Manders. "And you're still sitting here, Jinny. Go on, off with you."
At the door, Jinny paused. "Don't ask," she told herself. "Don't ask." Then she turned back and heard herself say to Petra, "Could I come and sleep in your room. Could I put the camp bed up? Please."
Jinny saw Petra and her mother look quickly at each other.
"Of course you can," said her mother. "I wanted to suggest it to you, but you know what you're like."
"I don't mind a bit," said Petra.
Jinny wanted to run and hug them. They had saved her from the Red Horse. Perhaps she would never need to go back to her own room, could always share with Petra.
"I'll help you put the camp bed up," offered Petra, and bustled Jinny out of the room.
"Really, you can stop being so silly," Petra was saying, her voice reaching Jinny through the darkness to where she lay stiffly on the narrow camp bed. "You'll enjoy living in the hostel. You won't actually have a room of your own until you're into third year. In first year there's three of you to one room, but the partitions make it almost as good as your own room. They don't mind a bit what posters you put up on your own bit of wall.”
Even in the dark, Jinny could sense the tidiness of her sister's bedroom. The clothes she had taken off were hung up in the wardrobe, put away in drawers, or dropped into her pink plastic linen-basket.
"Of course, you have to be in by eight o'clock or get a late pass. Matron is pretty generous as long as you keep on the right side of her."
"Can you hear anything?" demanded Jinny urgently. Behind the irritation of Petra's chatter, Jinny was sure she could hear the beat of hooves. Or was it her own breathing?
"Your bedsprings twanging," said Petra. "You'll find the beds in the hostel are very comfortable."
The sound of the hooves came closer.
"Can't you hear the galloping?" Jinny cried desperately.
"What galloping? There's no galloping.”
But Jinny could hear it. Her hand under her pillow tightened on the statue.
"Goodnight," said Petra. "Don't have any of your nightmares in my room."
Petra's breathing was controlled and even. She was asleep almost at once.
Jinny lay, tight under the darkness. The air about her reverberated with the thunder of hooves. The Red Horse was searching for its own. Jinny knew that she must sleep. The hoofbeats took away her will to stay awake. She could not think how she had been so foolish as to imagine that Petra's pink and white, sugar icing bedroom, her fashion magazines, her framed music diplomas, could ever hold back the force of the Red Horse.