The following day was Saturday, and Doctor Patterson didn’t have office hours. By Monday Vanessa was able to convince her mother that she felt fine, and hadn’t had any more nightmares. She didn’t have a fever, and couldn’t stay home because she might miss a math quiz or a history test. Vanessa’s Mom was still worried, but finally agreed to let her go to school.
On Friday Vanessa found the tunic back in her closet when she returned home at three-thirty. It was glowing more brightly than ever before, and when she put it on, she glowed all over, too. She sat calmly on the edge of her bed, and when the hands of the clock reached four at last, she stood up and walked straight into the purple mist and into the land of Partequineus, where the girls were waiting for her, clustered together anxiously.
“We were afraid you’d never come back,” Christina said.
“I had to,” Vanessa told her. “I want to understand what happened to those ponies I saw by the ocean. Are they really you?”
“Yes,” Kathy said. “There’s a spell on us. All night long we wander about Partequineus as painted ponies, and don’t become girls again until the sun rises.”
“What about the boys?” Vanessa asked.
“They turn into ponies during the day. We all change at exactly the same time.”
“We can never talk with them, or play with them,” little Janie said. “That’s why we’re so lonely.”
“But why? Who put the spell on you?”
“Guaryntis did,” Christina said.
“Isn’t there some way you can break the spell?” Vanessa asked. “In all the stories I’ve ever read, there’s always some way to do that.”
“There is,” Emma said. “If we can reach the big green forest on the other side of the desert, we’ll be free. The forest is called Paximus, and it’s ruled by Princess Melisande.”
“A hundred years ago,” Christina said, “there were only three boys and two girls in Partequineus. I was one of them. Princess Melisande went to Guaryntis and pleaded with him to let us go. He didn’t want to make the Princess angry, so he promised her that he would lift the spell if any of us decided to go and live in Paximus.”
“Why don’t you go there, then?”
“Guaryntis won’t let us. He always stops us when we try,” Alyssa said. “You saw what happened when you and Alexander tried to cross the desert.”
“Alexander and I?” Vanessa said in amazement.
“Alexander was the pony you were riding.”
Vanessa was stunned. She sat down on the grass and thought quietly for several minutes, puzzling over what Alyssa had told her. It was hard to believe that the magnificent black and white pony was also the handsome boy she’d met the first time she came to Partequineus.
“There must be some way to escape through the desert,” she said at last.
“Maybe there is,” Christina said. “Maybe you can help us find a way. But first you have to understand what happened here years ago, and how we came to be in this place.”
“It’s going to be hard to believe,” Kathy said.
Vanessa laughed. “After what’s happened to me so far, I’m ready to believe anything.”