Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits

ʺAfter Tamari, I don’t see how you kept that one up,ʺ her mother said. Tamari was an exquisitely beautiful half-Welsh pony, dark dappled brown, with four white socks and a perfect four-pointed white star on his forehead. He also had the temperament of a back-alley mugger. ʺDo you remember the time Tamari cornered that poor little sap Trudy behind the manure pile and you had to rescue her?ʺ

Peggy had been one of their mother’s reclamation projects. ʺJane, I really think—ʺ Miri’s father had begun, as they watched the poor bony thing totter down the ramp of the horse trailer. They were used to her coming home from the horse-rescue with a new four-legged adventure, but this one looked beyond what food and love could rehabilitate. ʺShe came up and put her nose under my arm,ʺ Jane said defensively. ʺWhat was I going to do?ʺ Peggy had become a stalwart of the lesson program and the weekend trail rides, and while most of her welts and weals healed without trace, there was a peculiarly matched pair of marks behind her shoulders that Miri said were wing scars, and named her Pegasus.

It was an old family routine, trotted out for old friends and relatives rarely seen; after the friends or relatives had exclaimed over how grown-up the children had become since they’d last seen them, her father told the unicorn story and her mother brought up Tamari, and if the visitors were still enjoying themselves, Mal said, ʺDon’t forget Peggy.ʺ

There were lots of animal stories in their family. Her father’s fish tanks were scattered all over the downstairs (and terrariums full of invisible chameleons and tree frogs upstairs); her brother had an African grey parrot who said things like, ʺAre you sure you locked the stables?ʺ and ʺHave you cleaned the tack yet?ʺ with deadly accuracy; and her mother usually had two or three (or four or five) cats underfoot in the house (the tanks and terrariums all had cat-proof lids; the African grey had a permanent ʺmake my dayʺ look in her eye) as well as several generations of mousers patrolling the barns.

And then there were the horses. Jane ran a riding stable. She gave lessons on her own horses and boarded other people’s. Tamari had been a boarder. When Jane had finally told his very nice owner that he had to go, the owner had sighed and said, ʺHe’s been here almost a year. That’s almost twice as long as he’s ever been anywhere else. I was beginning to hope . . . oh, well.ʺ Tamari was a show pony; his manners were always as perfect as his looks at shows, and he had the trophies and ribbons to prove it. It was only when he was home again that he turned into something out of a bad creature feature.

Miri wanted a dog. When she’d been very young and they had first moved to the then-derelict farm, there had been a man who came several weekends in a row with what seemed to Miri, at six, to be at least forty terriers—ferocious ratters, who had dealt implacably with the resident population. Twelve years later the man was still coming occasionally (her mother refused to put down poison, and there are always rats around a barn), although he had less hair than he’d had and more waistline, and the number of terriers had dwindled to three. Miri had been fascinated from the first by the gallant, indomitable little dogs, even though she couldn’t bear to watch them at their grisly business for long. And the boarders often had dogs; her mother occasionally permitted barn privileges for these on a case by case basis—and on the understanding that any dog caught misbehaving was instantly banned.

Miri’s favorite was a border collie named Fay. Fay’s owner Nora had once told Fay to lie down at some little distance from where she was hosing her horse off, so she wouldn’t hose Fay too. But the hose and tap were at the edge of the driveway, and Fay was lying in the middle of it. Miri and her mother were coming back from a show with two tired, eager-to-be-home horses in the trailer when her mother had to stop because Fay was lying in the way. Her mother tried a gentle toot on the horn. Fay raised her head long enough to direct a withering glare in their direction, and then laid her head back on her paws.

Balthazar was Miri’s horse. He could do anything, including nod, count, and lie down on request, but his chief virtue in her mother’s eyes was that he and Miri led the weekend trail rides and, with Miri on his back, nothing ever bothered him: rabbits, raccoons, frisky ownerless dogs appearing as if by magic, plastic bags left by careless picnickers fluttering threateningly from the undergrowth, horses and riders who behaved rationally and competently in the outdoor arena having sudden inexplicable meltdowns without a fence around them: all the standard trail hazards. Unflappability had a price above rubies at a stable that needed weekend trail rides to make ends meet, and for this he was forgiven anything, including how much he ate. He had been—and for that matter still was—the best birthday present Miri had ever had.

ʺWhat do you have against dogs?ʺ said Miri. ʺYou like animals. We even have guinea pigs because when the Stantons emigrated to Australia they didn’t have anyone to give them to so they gave them to us. We have tortoises because that stupid man at Dad’s office thought they could live in the fish tanks, and Dad’s as bad as you are and couldn’t say no.ʺ Her dad cleaned the tortoise cages. Miri only mucked out warm-blooded animals.

Her mother sighed. ʺDogs are too much like horses—I mean the kind of care they need. They’re not all like Fay. Fay wouldn’t be like Fay, except Nora has put a huge amount of work into her. Cats will almost look after themselves, if there’s enough space for them to keep themselves amused in.ʺ

Miri didn’t say anything. Space to keep themselves amused in, in Miri’s experience of cats, was under some human’s feet, and what about the cat food? If all the money for cat food went to dog food, they could have two dogs. Two large dogs. But it wasn’t that she didn’t want not to have cats. She felt there was a principle of fair play involved.

Jane gave her a harassed look. It was true they hadn’t been away on a vacation in four years, since their last barn-sitter had left without warning after two days. Their stall-cleaner had arrived the next morning and found the barns closed and dark, and the horses still waiting for breakfast. (Also the cats, the fish, the tree frogs and the tortoises. Four years ago had been before either the guinea pigs or the parrot, Dorothy. Miri rather thought that her brother would never be able to go on vacation again, and wondered what any possible future wife would think about a parrot going on the honeymoon with them. He’d lost at least one girlfriend already on account of Dorothy: a happy, contented African grey is both jealous and demanding, and Dorothy recognized a challenger and behaved accordingly.)

ʺHoney . . . are you still sure you want to work here full-time after you graduate from high school? Including living at home and all? Because you know I can’t afford to pay you enough to let you move out.ʺ Miri knew. Her dad did the books, and was always trying to make both her and Jane pay more attention. She also knew because when she was still too young to be much use, they’d had live-in barn help. Her family had quite a few live-in barn help stories too.

Her mother laughed. ʺI remember only too well. With you working twenty-four hours a day we’re going to have the money to build an indoor arena in three years. I feel I must have brain-washed you or something. Kids are supposed to want to grow up and leave.ʺ

ʺAnd I want to grow up and stay. You didn’t brainwash me, you just gave me all your DNA.ʺ It was a family joke that Miri was her mother’s clone: they were both small, dark, tough, compact, horse-obsessed, and couldn’t add a column of figures to save their lives.

It took her almost a week after graduation to make time to go to the dog pound. The primary school got out a week before the high school did, and the barn was immediately deluged with little kids wanting extra lessons. Miri was good with kids, especially the ones torn between adoring horses and being scared to death of them. Some of these then transferred their adoration to Miri, and would only take lessons from her. Every time she looked at her schedule for a space to shoehorn another lesson in, she thought of the indoor arena, and found time.

Miri suppressed a grin. Her mother also knew her well enough to know that if there was no farm dog by dinnertime, it could only be that a roc had stooped from nowhere, picked up the car with Miri in it, and was bearing them away to an unknown island in the Pacific.

She drove very carefully on the way to the pound. She had had her license from the moment she was old enough to be legal, and had been efficiently backing horse trailers around corners at the farm some time before that; it wasn’t the driving. It was that today was a special day. Today she’d have—she’d finally have—a dog. It wasn’t even only the dog: this would be the first time she’d done something clearly, absolutely, definitively hers. She loved the farm and the riding stable, and had every intention of staying there for the rest of her life. (She even had the site picked out to build her own house on, if she managed to acquire a husband who had a job that earned genuine money so they could afford to. But the site was only on the other side of the driveway plus a few trees from the old farmhouse. There was six A.M. breakfast for horses to think about, and you wanted to be within earshot for sounds of trouble.) And budgeting for the indoor arena was her idea (maybe she had one or two of her father’s genes after all), but it was still something she was doing with her mother. A dog would in a way be the first step toward making the riding stable genuinely individually hers too.

Ronnie was behind the counter at reception. ʺSo, how does it feel to be a grown-up and have to start paying your own bills?ʺ he said jovially. Ronnie coached the local Little League team Mal had been on, and had six dogs of his own, all from the pound. He tended to specialize in the hard-to-place ones, so he had three-legged dogs, blind dogs, old dogs and hyperactive incontinent dogs. He also had a very patient wife.

The pound was nearly full, so there were a lot of dogs to look at. And most of them were barking. Miri began to think there were more advantages to cats than she’d realized. Her head started to hurt, and it was hard to look at each dog, especially the barking ones. But shouldn’t she want a dog that barked? In case it happened to be on the right side of the house the next time someone tried to break into the tack room.

They turned down a row of large runs. ʺI also don’t want anything that it takes two days’ salary to feed for one day,ʺ said Miri, as something that looked like a cross between a St. Bernard and a Shire horse shambled up to the front of its run to look them over.

ʺThis one’s a funny one,ʺ Ronnie said. ʺYou won’t want him, though. Nobody does. I’d’ve taken him home by now, but my wife says six is enough. He’s a complete gentleman; he wouldn’t chase your cats or your horses. But you won’t want him. He’d scare your little kids.ʺ

ʺI’m going to take him home soon anyway, though,ʺ said Ronnie. ʺI hate seeing him like this. Some dogs almost don’t mind being pound dogs, but he’s a sensitive soul, and he’s been here too long. He’s pining, poor thing. No one even stops to talk to him, let alone take him home.ʺ He unlocked the wire-mesh door and went in; Miri followed. ʺHey there, my friend,ʺ said Ronnie. ʺYou’ve got a visitor. Come say hello.ʺ

The dog raised his head and looked back over his shoulder at them. He had a long narrow head with lopped-over ears, and a slightly bristly red coat—although more streaky merle than setter. He also had enormous, slanted, almond-shaped eyes, with slightly drooping lower lids. But the interior of those lids was a brilliant scarlet red, flame red, and the rim all round was red; and the eyes themselves were a curious reddish brown, almost the color of his coat. The whites of his eyes, visible at the angle he was looking at them from, were also scarlet red.

ʺThe vet can’t find anything wrong with him. He seems to see perfectly well, the eyes don’t seem to be sore or tender and there’s no swelling, no wounds; the lab reports all come back negative. He just looks . . . odd. Somebody saw him by the road and called him in; but when Diane went out with the van she almost didn’t bring him back, because of the way he looks.ʺ

The dog looked at her for a moment longer and then slowly uncoiled and stood up. Oops, thought Miri, well, he’s certainly one of the tall ones. He waited, watching them, before he turned around so he was facing them, and paused again, still looking at them. The way he moved reminded her of the way you move around a nervous horse: slowly, gently, with lots of pauses, and watching carefully both for any reaction and any opportunity to try to make friends. This was suddenly so clear to her that she grinned, and held her hand out more positively. The dog cautiously walked the length of the run to them, stared into her face a moment longer, and then dropped his vivid eyes and lowered his head to put his nose in her hand.

Ronnie, grinning so hard his face was in danger of splitting, left her in the run with her new dog and went in search of a collar and leash. She glanced down. The hellhound looked up immediately. The scarlet of his eyes seemed to swirl and flicker, like real flames.

He was a rather beautiful dog—except for the eyes—and she was already getting used to them by the time she’d buckled the collar round his neck. He ignored all the frenzy from the other dogs as they made their way back through the rows of kennels to reception. There was a surprising amount of paperwork to adopting a dog—and it cost more than she was expecting too. Drat, she thought, there goes the indoor arena for an extra—oh, six minutes or so. While Ronnie went into the office for the adoption forms she stood by the counter and looked at her hellhound some more. Her hellhound looked back. The faintest suggestion of a wag rippled through his hindquarters and tail.

ʺI wonder if you know anything?ʺ she said. ʺI mean any of the ordinary dog things. I wouldn’t want to guess what you really know.ʺ She’d done a lot of dog-minding and dog-sitting for people who came to the barn so she didn’t feel at a total loss, although there was a strange fluttery feeling in the base of her throat. As Ronnie came back again, holding a wad of papers, she stooped down and tapped the floor. ʺLie down,ʺ she said. And then she heard herself add: ʺPlease?ʺ

The hellhound had obligingly lowered his head to watch her. He looked at her tapping finger and put his nose on it. Then he looked at her face again—and she had the extremely disconcerting sensation that he was changing his mind as he looked at her, thinking something on the order of, no, I can’t keep it up. Keep what up? she thought. That you’re a dog? Or that you’re not a dog?

She’d named him Flame by the time they got home. She found herself pressing the gas pedal more gently as she turned into the sandy, gravelly drive to the barn, as if by doing so the truck’s wheels would make less noise, and she—and Flame—would be able to slip in unnoticed.

Of course this is not what happened. The old truck, perhaps as a result of over ten years of pulling horse trailers, had developed a unique wheeze, not unlike a horse with broken wind. (ʺIf you had a horse that made a sound like that, you’d retire it,ʺ said Miri’s father. ʺNed,ʺ said Jane with dignity, ʺit’s a truck.ʺ) So even though there were always cars and trucks (and frequently old croaky cars and trucks) pulling in and out of the stable-yard, Jane, Mal and Ned—and two of the current regiment of barn cats—were all standing at the edge of the drive by the time she’d parked and turned the engine off. Mal’s summer job—he still had two years of high school left—was second shift. Just my luck, though, she thought, to have picked a day when Dad is working at home. Oh, well. Maybe better get it over with. . . .

ʺHe’s a hellhound,ʺ said Miri. ʺThat’s all. There’s nothing wrong with him and it’s not contagious. Ronnie gave me the letter from the vet that says so.ʺ In fact the letter didn’t say anything of the kind: it hedged. That the writer was puzzled and confused was apparent; but the letter did say that the vet hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with Flame.

ʺYes,ʺ said Miri, but her heart sank. Her family liked animals; Flame wasn’t that awful, was he? Didn’t anyone even want to say hello to him? Give him a pat? She hooked the leash over her wrist and dropped her own hand on his head; the hair on the top of his head was very silky, as if it had been specially organized there to be good for stroking.

ʺSorry,ʺ said Jane, who could read her daughter very easily. ʺHe’s just—I wasn’t expecting a hellhound.ʺ She stepped forward and then dropped down on one knee. The huge scarlet eyes looked at her gravely. She reached out and stroked her hand down his bristly throat and chest. ʺAnd a dog brush with the dog food. No mud and no burrs past the mudroom, okay?ʺ

ʺYes,ʺ said Jane. ʺI rather think he is. You’ve got a lesson yourself in half an hour, you know, and I’m not at all sure how Lynn is going to react to your hellhound.ʺ Lynn was one of Miri’s timid ones. A good lesson with Lynn was getting her off the longe line for a turn or two around the arena by herself. ʺWhat are you going to do with him while you’re teaching? I don’t want him loose till we know he’ll behave and—er—ʺ

ʺYou don’t want mass panic if the kindergarteners all catch sight of him at once,ʺ said Miri calmly. She was feeling much better now that her mother was (more or less) won over. One or two of the kindergarteners at a time were fine, but in aggregate they were unfortunately prone to shrieking. They enjoyed shrieking. Flame might bring on quite a bad attack of this.

The kindergarteners were, in fact, the nine- to eleven-year-old group, but Mal had started calling them that three or four years ago when he wasn’t much older than they were, and despite Jane’s having forbidden him to do so. Possibly because most of them had had a crush on him, they’d decided en masse that they liked the name, and the Kindergarten Quadrille was now an established part of the barn’s annual horse show, and places in it were much sought after. (Miri had said sourly, about a year ago, that having a crush on Mal was still a requirement for entry. Mal had knocked her down and sat on her—they were in the hayloft at the time—and Jane had said that if they wanted to behave like eight-year-olds, then bedtime was eight o’clock and Saturday night curfew nine.) The class Jane was about to teach was kindergarteners, and so was Lynn.

There were a few rather hairy moments in the first few weeks of Flame’s tenancy, but Jane said, ʺWe haven’t lost any customers, and that’s all that matters. The rest will sort itself out.ʺ Lynn had, in fact, given a little gulp and sob—almost a shriek—but Mal had sauntered in with Miri and Flame, and Lynn (who was nine) wasn’t going to look like a real kindergartener in front of Miri’s gorgeous brother. Miri, not knowing what else to do, tied Flame to a tree outside the small arena they used for private lessons, where he had the shade and the shadows disguised him. Lynn glanced his way nervously a couple of times, but Flame didn’t do anything but lie quietly, and she soon forgot him.

By the time Lynn was leading her horse back into the stable Mal was working his wiles on Jane’s class. They couldn’t believe their luck that Mal was actually hanging around to talk to them. Miri thought, watching them, he could tell them to go jump off a cliff, and they’d all say, where? What cliff? But there weren’t any cliffs nearby and all he said was, ʺHey, Miri’s got a new dog. He’s really cool. He’s got these scary red eyes. He’s a hellhound. His name is Flame. Want to meet him?ʺ

She collected the new name tag that said FLAME with the stable phone number on it the next day, and began letting him cautiously off the leash when she was cleaning tack or mucking out or anything she didn’t have to concentrate on. By the following week he was accompanying her when she took horses in and out to the paddocks. He never showed the least inclination to chase anything—despite several of the cats’ best efforts—and the horses didn’t react to his red eyes. Balthazar liked him: he’d reach his nose down over the half door of his stall to say hello. She still tied him up when she was giving lessons, but Ned rigged up a running line between two trees outside the two outdoor arenas so he had room to move around, although all he ever seemed to do was shift to whichever end was nearer where Miri was and lie down.

The price of Mal’s cooperation had been that she pick him up after all the parties he went to, for the rest of the summer—and he was invited to a lot of parties. Fortunately he didn’t go to very many of them—Dorothy wouldn’t let him. But he still managed one or two a week. Since his job got out at eleven, this meant that she was picking him up at four or five o’clock in the morning—occasionally she was lucky, and they went on till after six, when the buses started running again. She’d pointed out that even extortion has its limits, and by six o’clock she was out feeding horses, with a cup of strong coffee steaming on the windowsill in the feedroom. He’d promised that if it was after six, he’d catch the bus to the end of Highland Road, and walk the rest of the way home.

But usually the phone rang at four or five. This had been its own problem, because the farm was in a dead zone, where cell phones didn’t work. So on party nights Miri had to remember to unplug the three other phones in the house, leaving only the one in her room—and then to plug them back in again on her way out of the house. Five wasn’t so bad; she was usually thinking about getting up then anyway. Four was rough. She was still asleep, dawn was barely a smudge on the horizon, and by the time she got home again it would be too late to go back to bed.

Flame always came with her. He was, of course, sleeping on her bed, and when she got up, he got up. It obviously never occurred to him that he might be left behind, and she was glad to have him with her. The parties were not always in places she particularly wanted to be at four or five in the morning. Usually Mal was waiting on the street for her—sometimes with someone else who needed to be dropped off home—but once or twice she’d had to wait.

On one of these occasions three guys who were obviously the worse for their night’s entertainment had seen her and come reeling over to . . . she wasn’t sure if they meant to scare her, or if it was just that they were too drunk to notice the effect they were having. She’d turned the dome light on so she could read while she waited, which was probably why they’d noticed her. She tried to ignore them, but they were banging on the driver’s window and laughing. One of them went to the front of the truck, grabbed the bumper, and started rocking it. The other two thought this was hilarious.

Flame was curled up on the passenger seat. He’d let this go on for about twenty seconds, but when the rocking started he slowly uncurled. He didn’t have enough room to stand up on the seat, but he put one forepaw on the gearshift and the other one delicately between Miri’s legs, and leaned toward the window. He put his nose very close to the glass, pulled his lips back and growled.

ʺJesus H. Christ, what the hell is that?ʺ yelled the noisiest of the three, who was the window-banger, and backed off a step. The bumper-rocker stood up. Flame turned his head so he was staring out over the steering wheel. Miri felt rather than heard Flame’s growl deepen.

ʺEverything’s fine,ʺ she replied. She was still stroking Flame with hands that trembled very slightly. Flame slithered over the back of the front seat and lay down in the narrow strip between the seat and the back of the cab, where mysterious bits of tack tended to accumulate. Miri had cleared it out and put a blanket down for him.

The one thing that still worried Miri about Flame was that she didn’t have time to walk him enough. He had the long legs and deep chest of a running dog but mostly all he ever had the chance to do was wander around the stable-yard, and when she was teaching she still tied him up.

Mostly the addition of a hellhound to the Greyhaven Stables went remarkably smoothly. The cats were adjusting; or all but Camilla, one of the house cats, who had decamped to live with a family about a mile down the road. Jane was a little testy for a day or two, but once she had been assured (several times) that the John-sons were happy to have Camilla, she got over it. The guinea pigs, let out of their cage, hid under the sofa, but the guinea pigs had always hidden under the sofa when they were let out of their cage. Dorothy, once she had ascertained that Mal was not very interested in Flame, put up with him, and deigned to learn his name.

One or two more boarders’ dogs had been banned because they couldn’t get along with Flame, but most were wary but polite. Flame tended to ignore other dogs, although he made an exception of Fay, who adored him, and would rather lie under his tree with him than go out on the trail with Nora and her Pinto horse, Carey (short for Caramel Cashew Swirl), much to Nora’s disgust. ʺWell, she’s spayed,ʺ Nora said. ʺThere’s not a lot of trouble she can get into.ʺ Flame would occasionally rest his chin on Fay’s back.

ʺShe’s like one of the kindergarteners with Mal around,ʺ Miri said to Jane. Although the kindergarteners were having a bad summer; Mal had a steady girlfriend. Mal often had girlfriends, but they rarely survived meeting Dorothy, and after he’d lost his first sweetheart to his parrot he’d started bringing new girlfriends home quickly to get it over with. After Kim, he never seemed to mind when they disappeared, but then, for Mal, there were always more girls out there.

Leslie was different. In the first place after high school she wanted to train to work in a zoo, and had been working summers and week ends at the little local sheep-pigs-and-llamas kids’ petting zoo for two years. She was fascinated and thrilled by Dorothy, and while as rivals for Mal’s affection they had to be mortal enemies, Leslie got round this by ignoring Mal in Dorothy’s presence, and Dorothy couldn’t resist playing to an apparently worshipping audience. Leslie was even fascinated and thrilled by the tropical fish and the invisible tree frogs and chameleons, which was a first, and put Ned firmly on her side. And she’d been the only person ever to meet Flame without an initial cringe. ʺOh, wow,ʺ she’d said, and immediately stooped to make friends.

Mal wasn’t horse-obsessed like his mother and sister, but he (like Ned) helped out when they were shorthanded—which was, as with most stables, rather often—and was rarely cranky about it. He was also quite a good rider himself, to his sister’s considerable annoyance, because he had a natural gift for it and she had to work hard for every tiny scrap she learned.

But Mal, being a natural rider, didn’t have a clue how to teach someone who wasn’t. Jane and Miri assumed that teaching Leslie to ride would fizzle out: Mal couldn’t teach and Leslie couldn’t learn. But it didn’t. Mal kept asking if any of the beginner horses were free and if so when, and Leslie kept showing up looking determined, and trying to give Jane or Miri money, which they kept refusing.

The afternoon that Leslie appeared in a new pair of riding breeches and riding helmet (she’d been using one of the stable’s helmets), Miri said, ʺOkay, look. This is silly. I’ll give you lessons. Mal couldn’t teach a tadpole to swim.ʺ

Leslie turned away and stroked the cheek of Rainbow, who had her head over her stall door, hoping for stroking. ʺBecause . . . oh, because I’m used to being good with animals. I’m resigned to being horrible at sports. I’ve always avoided riding lessons because I was afraid this would happen—because I knew this would happen—but I’d love to be able to ride, you know? I don’t have to be good—like you or Mal—just—oh, I’d like to be able to go trail-riding with Mal. And canter where there’s a good place to canter. And jump over the big log.ʺ

ʺOkay,ʺ said Miri. ʺIt’s always good to know what you’re aiming at. I’ll teach you to ride till you can canter out on the trailʺ (to herself adding, on a carefully selected bombproof horse) ʺalthough I don’t promise any jumping. We’ll see how it goes. Okay?ʺ

Leslie was hard work. Miri pulled every trick she knew about teaching riding out of her hat and Leslie still needed two bounces for every stride when she tried to post to the trot. She could drop her legs straight down the horse’s sides when her feet were out of the stirrups but as soon as she put them back in the stirrups she stiffened up and began to crouch. ʺLet’s play a game,ʺ said Miri. ʺLet’s pretend that you don’t know that you have two left feet. Let’s pretend you’re just an ordinary person who wants to learn how to ride.ʺ

Once Miri was (relatively) sure Leslie wouldn’t fall off at the walk, she took her out on the trail, thinking that a change of scenery would be good for both of them. Leslie was on the (bombproof) Peggy, and Miri on Balthazar. Balthazar was disappointed by all the walking, but he was accustomed to such disappointment. And Flame came with them.

At first they did the baby loop which only took about fifteen minutes and you were never really out of sight of the barn. But Miri’s sharp eye took in that, out on the trail, Leslie occasionally forgot that she was all left feet and couldn’t possibly learn to ride, and relaxed. Once, when she’d forgotten for more than a minute, Peggy put her head down and blew.

But after that Leslie did begin—just a little—to learn to ride. Miri stopped trying to teach her anything in the arena, and they went straight out onto the trails, leaving the baby loop behind and diving deep into the preserve. And Flame always came with them. Once, when Leslie began one of her (regular) apologies for how much time she was taking away from all the other more important things Miri should be doing (which would then lead into another attempt to pay for lessons), Miri interrupted and said, ʺYou’re doing me a favor. I’ve been worrying about giving poor Flame enough exercise.ʺ

ʺVery likely,ʺ Miri said neutrally. He looked as much like a deerhound as he looked like any dog. Since she was the only one who brushed him, she was the only one who knew that he had not merely the common system of a longer coarser outer coat and finer softer undercoat, but a third coat beneath the second, dense and almost prickly, almost as if it might be suitable for repelling hellfire. He also had two extra pairs of ribs, disguised by the length of his back. If it had been only one extra pair she probably wouldn’t have noticed; but she’d thought, stroking him, that his ribcage seemed to go on a surprisingly long time, and so she counted, and checked the result with a helpful website on dog anatomy. She might have asked the vet about this, except that she had recently observed, while checking for ticks, that his testicles had regrown. He had, of course, been castrated at the pound. She didn’t want to get Ronnie in trouble for having released an unneutered dog, and if Flame stayed healthy, the vet might not notice the testicles. She wondered if the pound’s vet had noticed the ribs and the third coat, or if he’d just been totally distracted by the eyes.

There were other anomalies. The last inch or so of his tongue had a narrow smooth white streak down the center, like scar tissue, as if his tongue had once been forked. He ate charcoal out of the fireplace. (He would have eaten charcoal briquettes too, only Miri felt sure that the chemical stuff that made them burn faster and hotter wouldn’t be good for anything to eat, even a hellhound.) She’d known Labradors that ate anything including charcoal, but Flame did not also eat bricks, shoes, houseplants and small pieces of furniture—just charcoal. And while he liked to lie in front of the fire like a normal dog, he liked to lie facing it, staring into it like a philosopher—or a hellhound. The flicker of the flames on his wide-open red eyes looked like the reflection of a forest fire.

But he had perfect manners around the stable, the horses, and the clientele. There were one or two nervous parents who didn’t like him, but Miri simply learned who they were and made sure he was tied up under his tree when they were due to arrive. And he was now proving to have perfect manners on trail rides.

It was still only Leslie, Miri and Flame. Miri had suggested they invite Mal some time—even that Leslie was ready to go out with Mal by herself—but Leslie said, ʺOh, not yet. Please. If you can stand it a little while longer. I can almost relax now, when it’s just you, but I know I’ll stiffen up again as soon as anyone comes with us—especially Mal. But I’ve been thinking, what I’d like to do is tell Mal I’m taking him on a picnic for his birthday—and then tell him at the last minute it’s going to be on horseback. Is that a good idea, do you think?ʺ

ʺOh, I hope so,ʺ Leslie said in her earnest way. ʺI mean I’m trotting now and everything. You are so patient. I guess you have to be, to be a riding teacher, but it’s still pretty amazing. And I really don’t understand why you’ve put so much time into me. It’s not just Flame.ʺ

During this conversation Miri hadn’t been paying attention to how far they’d come. It was true that Leslie could trot, and Miri was considering whether it was time to risk a canter. It would be really great—not to mention having Mal in his sister’s hip pocket for the rest of his life—if his girlfriend could canter by the time his birthday picnic happened.

She didn’t shy very far, and she shied into Balthazar, who put his ears back and held his ground. Leslie, who was only clumsy and not a fool, merely said ʺughʺ and dragged herself back upright again; a good instinctive convulsive grab for Peggy’s mane had kept her in the saddle. Both horses were standing, tense and alert, looking in the same direction. Miri now noticed that Flame was standing right in front of them, looking in the same direction too, with his tail and his hackles raised.

ʺWhen I got old enough to answer back, I used to tell my parents that if they’re going to bring a six-year-old whose favorite bedtime stories are all fairy tales to a haunted farm then they deserved what they got. There’s still a rumor for anyone who remembers that my parents got the place cheap because of the graveyard, although the fact that the house only had electricity downstairs and the only indoor plumbing was the pump in the kitchen might have had something to do with it too.ʺ

ʺYeah. We moved in the beginning of the summer so we had all summer to get a toilet and a shower put in. Mom and Dad decided I was old enough to have my baths in the pond but Mal had to have his in a plastic tub in the kitchen.ʺ She smiled reminiscently. ʺI don’t think he’s ever forgiven me. Anyway. I don’t know what the graveyard’s problem is and a lot of the time it’s perfectly fine, you can go in there and look around and nothing happens. There’s only six tombstones—all the same family—they all died within a few weeks of each other, in 1871. Probably flu or something, Dad says. It must have been awful for whoever was left, whoever buried them. When I started school here the kids all said that nobody had lived in the house since. It took me a few years to figure out that they didn’t have electricity out here in 1871.ʺ

ʺYeah,ʺ said Miri, whose own hackles were trying to rise. There was a big tree to one side of the little path into the graveyard that led off the trail they were standing on. Every time she blinked there were, briefly, goblins sitting in its branches, chittering at her. ʺWho wouldn’t prefer unicorns? The only reason I know it’s usually okay is because Mal comes here a lot. He likes it. He likes it partly because his big sister is afraid of it—the big sister who got to have her baths in the pond when he had to have his in a big plastic tub in the kitchen, when she was six and he was four. But I think he really does like it too. He says the sky is bluer there or something. And he says if it’s having a bad day he goes away again. I never bring the trail rides this way—in case of bad days. Like today.ʺ

ʺThat’s one of the things I don’t like about it, the graveyard,ʺ said Miri. ʺIt’s like you’ll be out in the middle of the reserve and then suddenly you’re coming this way. Usually I notice that time and geography have folded themselves up again and turn off before we get here, but I didn’t today.ʺ

Miri told herself to get a grip, of course there were no goblins. It was a bright day, and maybe she’d been staring into flickering leaf-and-sunlight patterns too long and too hard and her eyes were tired. ʺDad says even ghosts wear out eventually, like socks, and Mom says that the riding stable probably just sort of outnumbers it—them—now. You know, like when the development went up around the old Danforth house. When the first couple of houses went up the old Danforth place totally dominated. Now you can hardly see it. We’re the development.ʺ She swallowed hard, and forced herself to look away. But she looked back again almost immediately. Flame was still standing, staring at the path, and at the tree. As if he saw goblins in its branches. ʺBut if you go to the tourist center at the reserve and look at the map, there’s a red box around the boundary with our farm and down at the bottom it says that there’s something wrong with the earth’s magnetic field here and it’s easy to get lost so pay extra attention to the trail markers and don’t use your compass.ʺ

Miri was looking at Flame, and thinking about the way the guy who’d been bouncing her fender had thrown up his hands and screamed. She didn’t think Flame was reacting to the earth’s magnetic field either. And it wasn’t only Flame; both horses were staring straight at the little path that led only to the old cemetery. Some horses like to wind themselves up, so they can dance and act foolish; Peggy and Balthazar weren’t like that. If they were tense and worried, they were tense and worried for a reason.

Miri cheated, teaching Leslie to canter. She taught her half-seat at the trot, and one day, when she was nicely balanced, her head up and looking straight ahead, her hands lightly but firmly against Peggy’s neck, Miri said, ʺPeggy, canTER,ʺ and Peggy, veteran of many hours in the arena on a longe line, cantered. Balthazar, veteran of many beginner trail rides, kept pace exactly, in case some kind of rescue was required. But Leslie gave a little, quickly repressed squeak, and then settled down, keeping both her legs and hands steady. ʺAnd waaaaalk,ʺ said Miri at the end of the wide bit of path, and both horses dropped calmly back to a walk. Leslie turned a shining face to Miri, and Miri leaned over and patted her leg.

ʺThat was terrific,ʺ she said. ʺPerfect. Now we’re going to go back into the arena so you can learn to sit the canter, and you are not going to stiffen up on me, and then you’re going to have the best birthday picnic ride that anyone has ever had, okay?ʺ

Miri had been expecting this, and had the portable in her pocket so she could answer at the first ring, before anyone had the opportunity to get testy about it. Everyone was usually awake by seven, but her father and brother would be pre-articulate, and cranky. Miri made suitable soothing noises to Leslie, including saying (truthfully) that it was burning off, and that the weather report had promised a fine day. She didn’t add that the weather report had also said thunderstorms moving in overnight—it was a lunchtime picnic, after all—nor did she add that she didn’t like the way Flame was behaving.

To any riding stable without an indoor arena, the weather was of paramount, and frequently bitter, importance, and she and her mother grasped any straw of prediction. Miri had discovered that Flame predicted the weather rather well by the way he met it when they first went outdoors in the morning, for Miri to feed the horses. If he went out blithely, head and tail high, then there was a fine day coming; to whatever extent he was slinky and furtive, to that extent it would be a miserable day. She told herself that his present manner, which seemed to be that there was something coming to get him which was immediately behind him whichever way he stood, leaped or swapped ends, was probably his response to the approaching storms; these would be the first thunderstorms they’d had since she brought him home from the pound. She just hoped it didn’t mean the storms would get here early; she wanted Mal’s picnic ride to go well almost as badly as Leslie did.

She let her eleven o’clock lesson warm up a few minutes longer than usual so she could say ʺhappy birthdayʺ and ʺhave funʺ as Mal and Leslie set off; also to run a falsely casual eye over Peggy and make sure that in her agony of perfection Leslie hadn’t done something like forget to tighten Peggy’s girth. When Mal graciously allowed a small giggling group of his admirers to wish him happy birthday Miri took the opportunity to take hold of Leslie’s heel and give it a vicious yank. ʺRelax,ʺ she said. ʺRemember relax? You’re already crouching and you’re not out of the stable-yard yet.ʺ

Leslie gave a shaky laugh, and the heel in Miri’s hand dropped about two inches. ʺKeep thinking about Peggy,ʺ said Miri. ʺYou want her to have a good time too, right? Just nudge her forward gently—keep your hands and legs steady. Try—oh—try to make her take the bit down to her ankles—till you’re holding the reins by the buckle. Do that every time you notice you’ve been crouching. Well, maybe not every time. That’ll keep you busy.ʺ

Mal, in his detestably easy way, swung up into Twilight’s saddle. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, and out of the corner of her eye Miri just saw their mother bursting out of the barn where she was overseeing the Kindergarten Quadrille team tacking up, when Mal leaned over, put his hand on the back of Leslie’s neck, and kissed her. For quite a long time. Jane was now standing beside Miri, who felt she could almost hear Jane’s mouth closing with a snap. She could see several of the Quadrille members watching this performance in varying postures of longing and despair—and Leslie was quite pink by the time he stopped. Mal being Mal, he would know perfectly well that his mother had just almost bitten his head off for not putting his helmet on before he mounted. But he didn’t look their way as he unslung the helmet over his arm and carefully strapped it in place; and he gave a careless wave as they rode out of the yard. Leslie waved too, but she looked back, her expression a combination of joy and consternation.

Miri silently agreed that that hadn’t been any old birthday kiss. ʺYou and Dad were just that age,ʺ she said. ʺAnd I was born two years later, and you told Gran you were waiting tables while she looked after me when you were training three-year-olds and Dad was in college, and we’re all still alive to tell the story.ʺ

By four o’clock both Jane and Miri were beginning to glance a little too often down the old road that led to the nature reserve. There was no reason the birthday party needed to be back yet; five o’clock was probably the time to start expecting them, and it could be later still; it wouldn’t be dark till after seven. But the clouds were beginning to stack up, genuine thunderheads, grey and ominous. Five o’clock came and went, and the last lessons of the day. A couple of boarders were still out on the trail, but Miri (it being Jane’s turn to get dinner: steak, for Mal’s birthday) would come out, check around, and lock up later.

Flame had spent the day looking for goblins, and for the first time ever, when Miri tied him between his trees while she gave lessons, paced back and forth. It wasn’t only Flame; Oscar had refused to get out of Cindy’s car, and had stayed in the back seat and howled. Cindy left early.

They were heading back to the house, emphatically not saying anything to each other about wondering where Mal and Leslie were, when the two missing boarders came trotting down the old road. Jane and Miri stopped dead. Riders walked their horses back down that road, finishing the cooling-off process before the horses were put away; and both these horses had sweat darkening their shoulders and white showing around their eyes.

Miri made a grab at Applepie’s bridle as he jigged past sideways, his nose curled into his own shoulder; it wasn’t a good idea to let a horse trot into the barn. Applepie, recognising the hand of authority, stopped, but Miri could feel the tension in him just from his mouth clamped on the bit. Sheila dropped the reins with a sigh. ʺThank you. I don’t know what’s got into him; I’ve never seen him like this. I know there’s some weather coming but . . .ʺ Applepie was middle-aged, round and—most of the time—placid, rather like Sheila; Sheila rode for exercise, not excitement.

Miri thought, somebody tell me it’s just the barometric pressure that is making my hair stand on end. But she looked at Flame, and he was looking back down the road the way Sheila and Charis had come—the way Mal and Leslie should have come, and hadn’t—and he was so still he looked like the statue of a dog. The statue was entitled Awaiting the Arrival of the Enemy.

They went indoors and were instantly mobbed by restless, fretful house cats. There being only four human ankles to twine around, Jessica, always the bravest, chose to avoid the crowd, and twined around Flame’s. Mal’s birthday cake sat on the kitchen table, under a meat save to protect it from the cats, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALACHI was still clearly visible through the mesh. There was a little pile of presents next to the cake. Miri listlessly started peeling potatoes, for something to do, something that would stop her looking at the cake and the presents.

Dorothy rocked back and forth on her perch in the living room, screaming, ʺMal! Mal! Mal! Mal!ʺ Ordinarily Miri could ignore Dorothy in one of her tantrums; tonight Miri wanted to scream along with her. Flame crept under the kitchen table and stayed there. Jessica and Charlotte joined him. It was a big old table with a lot of gnarly bent legs, and the cats disappeared in the shadows, but Miri could see Flame’s eyes glowing if she looked carefully. She thought, he almost looks like a very large dust bunny. No, a dust hellhound. She hoped, if she ran a broom under the table, he wouldn’t disintegrate. She finished the potatoes, pulled a chair out of the way and joined Flame and the two cats under the table. She put her arms around him and hugged him hard; he was warm and solid.

Jane’s hands had stopped rinsing lettuce. She was staring out the kitchen window. Even from under the table Miri saw the flash and when the thunder immediately followed the whole house rattled. She was pressed so closely to Flame that she felt the vibration when he made a noise; but it wasn’t a whine, it was more of a groan.

Miri stared out the window for a while. There was another flash of lightning, but farther away; the thunder, when it came, was only a distant growl. The sky was still dark grey, but the wind had got up, and the clouds were rolling and twisting around each other like enormous snakes. It was still raining; when a gust of wind threw a handful of rain at the kitchen window, Miri started, as if it had been deliberately thrown at her. ʺWe still can’t do anything,ʺ she said.

ʺYes,ʺ said Jane. She was about to give the salad spinner’s handle the first pull when there was a blur among the trees at the end of the old road that led to the preserve. ʺOh, no,ʺ said Miri, and Jane looked up, fractionally later, and gasped. Miri had her hand on the doorknob before her brain had confirmed that the blur was a galloping horse; but it was Jane, behind her, who’d seen who it was: ʺPeggy,ʺ she said.

Flame was there too, getting between their legs as they crowded out of the door. You don’t run at a panicky horse; Miri made a grab for Flame’s collar and discovered that he was already walking half a step behind her. ʺOh, god,ʺ said Jane. Peggy was riderless, and alone.

She came to a bouncing, unhappy stop in the corner between the barn and the first arena, switching her forequarters back and forth as if looking for the way through. She turned around and saw them, let out a frantic whinny, and trotted toward them. Jane reached out quietly and took her bridle with a hand that trembled.

Miri was already jogging toward the barn. She could see Balthazar’s head over his stall door: he always looked out when he heard her voice. Jane followed, leading Peggy. ʺYou still don’t know where to go,ʺ said Jane. It would be Miri and Balthazar that went looking; Balthazar was the most reliable horse they had, and he was at his steadiest with Miri.

ʺNo,ʺ said Miri. ʺBut Flame does. Look at him.ʺ She’d let go his collar as soon as Jane had pulled Peggy’s reins over her head. He was standing at the nearer end of the old road, staring into the trees. His head and tail were high; as they looked at him he turned his head and looked at Miri, clearly saying, Hurry up. ʺYes,ʺ said Miri, and ran for the tack room.

She led Balthazar to the mounting block and tested everything once more, forcing herself to pay attention; she was so preoccupied she wasn’t certain that she could be trusted to buckle a bridle, to tighten a girth, things she did several times a day, every day, and had done for years. She checked the first-aid kit and the thermos of hot coffee twice: but even these were familiar adjuncts from the ordinary weekend trail rides. She settled her helmet on her head and swung into the saddle. Both wind and rain were lessening, but they were still going to get wet. Peggy was tied up in the breezeway. Jane had made the coffee in the tiny barn kitchen and then pulled Peggy’s saddle off and was running her hands down her legs and looking at her feet, checking for any injury. Or possibly for any sign that whoever had sent her home was bleeding. She straightened up as Miri mounted.

The wind seemed to drive the rain into her eyes; she kept shaking her head and holding the reins with one hand so she could wipe her eyes with the other. But Balthazar seemed to know that he was supposed to be following Flame, and Flame clearly knew where he was going. Occasionally Balthazar had to slow to a walk to pick his way, and Flame would stop and wait for them, but Flame, who was never impatient, paced or danced in place; and once he lost himself so far as to bark, a single, sharp, commanding sound. Balthazar raised his head as if to say, ʺYou might as well calm down; I know what I’m doing.ʺ Miri had to hope he did, because she couldn’t see well enough to guide him. It was not only the wind and rain; it was also getting dark. And she was lost. And should it be taking this long to get to the old graveyard?

She thought, why am I so certain Flame is going to find Mal and Leslie? That if I follow him I’ll find them too? He glanced back just at that moment, his red eyes flaring weirdly in the twilight. He was an unearthly figure, and he seemed bigger, somehow, out here in the malign-feeling, restless, still-volatile end of the storm; he seemed nearly as big as Balthazar. Don’t be silly, Miri said to herself, but her thoughts wouldn’t shut up: he’s the sort of thing that ought to live at that graveyard, they gibbered on, with the ghosts, and the—the lamias, or the vampires, or whatever. Even if he is going to find Mal and Leslie he could just be leading me to the same fate. Why did I know him at once for a hellhound? She watched the long bristly-feathery red tail ahead of her for a moment, thinking about her first sight of him, at the pound, when he’d turned around and she’d seen his eyes for the first time, and seen the hopelessness in them. I might as well mistrust Balthazar, she thought. I’m just not going to.

And at that moment she saw the old bent tree that stood or leaned over the path into the graveyard. And at the foot of it she saw a bulky shadow that she was sure wasn’t usually there . . . and then it moved, and she saw Leslie’s face looking up at her. Leslie was sitting on the ground holding one of Mal’s hands with both of hers . . . and Mal was lying in a strange, twisted position. . . .

No it hasn’t, thought Miri, startled. It’s been grey and thundery-feeling all day, in spite of the weather report. But she didn’t say anything. She was too busy staring at Mal. Don’t move him, she thought. Spine injury. Don’t move him. Mom’ll have called the ambulance by now—I’ll leave in a minute and tell them where to come. But she couldn’t help herself dropping to her knees beside him and picking up his hand. It was like picking up a stone or a grain bag or a baking dish to put in the oven, except that it was warm. There was no tension, no response—no life. Leslie was clinging to his other hand; her other hand alternated between wiping her face—it could have just been the rain, but Miri could see her crying—and stroking Mal’s hair. ʺSuch a lovely afternoon. Mal brought me here, we had our picnic here. The storm came out of nowhere. It was—it wasn’t right, that storm.ʺ

Flame was standing beside them, at the end of the path, staring toward the graveyard as he had stared into the forest while he waited for Miri to tack Balthazar up and follow him. As he had stared up the path a few short weeks ago, when Miri and Leslie had come this way.

ʺAnd led her onto the path and pointed her toward home and told her to go and she went,ʺ said Leslie. ʺAs if she knew. I didn’t dare leave Mal. I—In case of concussion, you know. You mustn’t leave someone alone if they might be concussed, in case they fall asleep or—or go into shock. . . .ʺ Her voice cracked on the last word.

Miri was horribly aware of the inert hand she was holding. The fingers lay limply in hers; she had to hold on with an effort to prevent the hand from sliding away from hers and flopping back to the ground. She saw the two riding helmets and the remains of the picnic piled up behind where Leslie and Mal were. In the middle of the crisis that little heap of human gear—Mal’s useless helmet, which had not prevented what had happened—suddenly seemed the saddest thing she had ever seen.

She laid the hand down gently and stood up. She had brought blankets and the useless first-aid kit and a thermos of instant coffee with half a bag of sugar in it. She was embarrassed by the first-aid kit, by her adult-ed emergency training, by her ability to splint a broken bone on a healthy unbroken volunteer at the adult-ed center, while an EMT with a clipboard watched her. She’d never had to do more than put a Band-Aid on a graze, and once she’d created a sling for a sprained wrist. She unrolled the blankets and retied the first-aid kit to the back of Balthazar’s saddle. She uncapped the thermos and made Leslie and Mal each drink some of the hot too-sweet coffee; Leslie drank a few sips mechanically, and then held the plastic mug awkwardly for Mal. She does it better than I would have, Miri thought. They didn’t teach us that in the first-aid course. She laid one blanket over Mal as he lay, and tucked the other one around the sitting Leslie. Neither of them seemed to notice.

Leslie looked up, an expression on her face not unlike the one that had been on Flame’s, that day at the pound. She didn’t bother to try to smile, but she understood what Miri was saying. ʺYes,ʺ she said. ʺWe’ll be fine.ʺ And Miri clearly heard in her voice that she wouldn’t break down or have hysterics while Mal needed her.

But when Miri turned away, to go back to Balthazar, to mount up and ride back as quickly as she still could—dusk would be black dark soon, and if they were following a flashlight she’d have to dismount and both of them walk—there was Flame, standing in her way. She tried to brush past him, but he wouldn’t let her. ʺFlame,ʺ she said, ʺwe have to go back—well, I have to go back. If you want to stay here and—and guard them, that’d be good. But I have to go.ʺ And she reached over him to pick up Balthazar’s reins.

It was, briefly, as if the world had ended. The world, in some ways, had already ended; although she was still able not to think about what had happened to Mal, to her little brother, to one of the three people she loved best in the world, the awareness of it was horribly near. Still without really facing what had happened, she told herself that doctors were miracle workers these days, that hospitals had machines that could do everything, that Leslie, wonderful Leslie, had kept her head and wisely refrained from trying to move him, so that anything any doctor or any machine could do for him could still be done. But the encroaching darkness of this evening still felt like her own life closing in, as if, after this, there would be no dawn.

She looked down from what felt like a very long way away, as if she were floating up among the treetops somewhere . . . as if she might float away entirely. He had bitten her swiftly and decisively—but, she now realized, gently. He still had hold of her arm; she could feel his teeth, but they weren’t hurting her. She thought, I’m a balloon and he’s holding my string. Slowly she floated back down from the treetops, till she could feel her feet on the ground, her breath going in and out. Her dog’s teeth in her arm. She let Balthazar’s reins drop back on his neck and said to Flame, ʺWhat is it?ʺ

He let go her arm and turned away, trotting straight back to the path to the graveyard. Slowly she unfastened Balthazar’s tethering rope, and looped it around a tree—a smaller, innocent tree, a little distance from the path, and from Leslie and Mal. Then reluctantly she followed Flame.

As soon as she set foot on the little track into the graveyard she knew something was terribly wrong. It was like . . . she couldn’t think of anything that it was like: that was part of the wrongness. She felt dizzy and sick, and as if she was no longer sure which way was up and which down; it was an effort to pick up each foot and think where to put it down. Especially because her feet kept wanting to go backwards; the one in front kept trying to pick itself up and move it behind the one in back. She concentrated on Flame’s tail. She had been following Flame’s tail for a very long time; leagues; centuries; all the way from the barn to here, somewhere on the journey unknowingly crossing a boundary to this other country where this awful thing had happened to her brother. . . .

The path itself was short. When they reached the end of it and the sky opened out before them she was astonished to discover that there were streaks of sunset lighting up the retreating storm clouds in gold and pink and pale orange, and the sky above them was a glorious deep blue. There was a huge pale amber moon just above the trees. She was dumbfounded that such beauty could still exist, in this foreign country where her brother lay twisted and helpless where he had fallen.

No; one other thing was black. There was a tall, hunched, half-human shape in the middle of the clear space; in the middle of the little cluster of tombstones. She didn’t come here often, but she was sure that no such tall thing had ever stood where this one was now.

And then it opened its eyes, or turned its head, or threw back its hood. All of the rest of it was still black, lightlessly black, black as if light were an unconvincing myth, but it had red eyes. Large, slanted, almond-shaped, scarlet-red eyes.

Flame backed away a pace or two and then slammed into her, and she staggered forward, away from the encircling trees, out into the graveyard. She dropped her hands and whimpered like a scolded puppy, but raised her face to the sky and tried to imagine the touch of the moonlight like a real touch: like the nose of your horse or your dog in your hand, against your face or your arm, hoping for something nice to eat, or at least a pat; saying ʺhello,ʺ saying ʺI’m here,ʺ saying ʺhow are you?ʺ saying ʺcan I help?ʺ The moon was a silvery gold. The shadows on its face were grey, and there was no red anywhere.

She felt Flame’s nose on her arm, and then the sweep of his tongue, over the place where he had bitten her, minutes or months before. She did not look down. She did not want to see his red eyes. She stared at the nearest tombstone, so she need not look at the thing’s eyes either.

No, she thought. No, no, no. She raised her hands again, and put them on either side of her face and squeezed, as if this were a known tactic in an emergency, like artificial respiration for someone who has stopped breathing, like not moving someone with a spine injury. No. . . . And Jane would never let anyone she loved be buried here in this place, this awful place. . . .

Why, said the thing, you need only ask—nicely—each of the nice people who lie here already. Who have lain here for so long with no one but themselves to talk to. They are quite looking forward to someone new. I have promised them, you see. You will have to convince them to give him up. I do not think they will wish to do so. I think they will need a great deal of persuading. Too much, perhaps, for someone as young as you. Someone as fragile as you. For daylight and breathing are very fragile—especially after dark.

She looked up. Sunset was fading quickly; the first stars were out above the remains of the clouds. Again she looked at the moon, and this time she willed herself to feel the moon’s light like the touch of a friend. And then she looked down, into the blazing red eyes of the creature she’d brought home from the pound; the creature that looked enough like a dog—though it obviously wasn’t a dog—that it had been taken to the pound. She remembered Ronnie saying: when Diane went out with the van she almost didn’t bring him back, because of the way he looks. Gelsoraban. And the horrible black thing that had broken her brother knew him. Who—what—was Gelsoraban?

Flame gave a tiny, doglike whine. It was exactly the whine of a dog who is suddenly sure its beloved owner doesn’t love it any more. It was like the look in his eyes at the pound; the look in Leslie’s eyes when she’d said, ʺWe’ll be fine.ʺ

And at that moment the black thing laughed. That was its second mistake; it must have thought that would finish breaking Miri’s nerve. But instead it drove her back on the things she knew. She knew that their mother would never let Mal be buried here. And she knew that if there was any chance for her brother, however remote, however dreadful, she would take it. And she knew that it didn’t matter what Flame was or who he had been—or what color his eyes were. What mattered was that she trusted him.

It didn’t seem right to stroke the head of something capable of defying the black thing—to stroke it like a dog. But this was Flame—Flame, whom she’d rescued from the pound, the top of whose head was particularly silky, as if to invite stroking. She drew her hand down his sleek head—and took a deep shuddering breath—and felt a little braver.

She didn’t want to ask the black thing what she had to do to talk to the ghosts, and so she walked forward—toward the black thing as it stood in the center of the graveyard. Her stomach was threatening to turn inside out and her knees were threatening to drop her to the ground, but she crossed the few steps to the first tombstone and hesitantly put her hand on it. . . .

She was dead and trapped and cold and terrified and smothered by darkness and paralyzed and dead and she couldn’t move and couldn’t breathe and she had never been so cold and this was darker than anything could be she was blind and dead and helpless and she could not see or hear or feel except fear and cold and this is what it was to be dead. . . .

She could see too. She could see Flame’s flaming eyes, even in this darkness, and she knew them for his eyes, not the thing’s. She thought, how lucky I am you are not a dog. I would not be able to see a dog’s eyes in this darkness. And I think I might be frightened to death if I couldn’t see you—couldn’t see your eyes.

She said—she tried to say—ʺPardon me, is anyone there? I’ve come to ask—to ask you—if I could have my brother back, please? We would miss him so much and—and I know accidents happen, but it wasn’t an accident, it was the black thing.ʺ

Flame’s eyes blazed at her and she thought, wait a minute. Why are these—people—stuck here? Being dead and cold and lonely? Most graveyards aren’t haunted. She thought of the cemetery where her grandfather was buried. It was huge and beautiful and full of trees, and there were picnic tables and families came there on nice days and the kids played while the grown-ups changed the flowers and—sometimes—whispered the news to the person they were visiting. She’d always imagined her grandfather somewhere sitting on a long porch with a dog at his feet. The porch sometimes looked out over a wildflower field and sometimes it looked out over a lake, but the dog at his feet was always the dog he’d told her stories about, that he’d had when he was a boy. She couldn’t imagine him as a boy, so he was the grandfather she had known, but she was sure she knew exactly what the dog looked like, and how he would lie at her grandfather’s feet.

It was as if she saw him now. The porch, and the cottage behind it, stood in the wildflower meadow. She raised her hand and waved. The dog saw her first; he lifted his head and thumped his tail. Then her grandfather noticed her. What are you doing here, girl? he said.

I miss you too. But I sit here, watching you. Watching you grow up. Watching Jane and Ned grow you up. It’s nice here. Peaceful. It’s nice to have old Sunny with me too, and he leaned over and put his hand on the dog’s back. And I’ll see you here some day, and that’ll be wonderful. But that day’s a long way off for you. I think you better go back now.

Her heart had jumped up from its leaden misery at her grandfather’s last sentence, before she realized that it didn’t necessarily mean what she wanted it to mean. Oh, but—she began, and then Flame was in front of her, bumping her backwards as he had bumped her forwards, into the old graveyard. And she heard her grandfather laugh.

And then she was back in the black, cold, dead place, surrounded by loneliness. She made a huge effort and said, ʺMy grandfather will help you. He says so. You don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to be so lonely you let horrible black things k-kill people to give you some company. Come on. It’s this way. Look.ʺ And she made an even greater effort, and she was no longer cold and dead and paralyzed, and she looked over her shoulder, and she could still see the meadow, and her grandfather, and Sunny. It didn’t look too far. It didn’t look like too far to walk, even if you were old and weak and had known for too long that you were hopeless and there was no way out.

And then the darkness and the cold began to break up, like storm clouds after a storm. There was something like a gentle breeze that blew past her; something like the rustle of people walking past you in the dark. It was a clean-smelling breeze, not rotten or moldy; it smelled of freshly turned earth, of the fields in spring right after the farmer has dragged his harrow over them.

There was something else too. Something she could not put a name to: this is a place of power. For a moment she felt borne up by something large and strong and—and—she had no idea, but she thought that if she could have seen it, it would have been beautiful. Beautiful and free. Free.

As the darkness cleared she found she was standing in the old graveyard, with Flame standing leaning against her, and her hands wrapped around his ears as if he were a sturdy tree limb and she had just fallen over a cliff. When she let go, her fingers felt stiff. It was a clear, calm night, with a million stars overhead, in spite of the bright moonlight.

Mal was sitting up, and had put his arms around her and was saying, ʺThere, there, I’m sorry I frightened you—I frightened the hell out of myself, believe me—but I guess I was just stunned somehow—I’m okay now—I’m okay—ʺ And Leslie was clinging to him and crying and crying and crying.

Miri firmly put both Mal and Leslie on Balthazar, and walked beside them as they started home. Mal and Leslie had both tried to argue, but not very hard, and before they’d gone far Miri had her hand on Mal’s leg to help keep him in the saddle, or rather to pinch him when he fell asleep. Every time she dug her fingers into his thigh and he twitched awake with an ʺuggh, take it easy, that hurtʺ she remembered the limp, insensible hand she had held when she’d first found them. Leslie sat behind him, and sometimes Miri had to let go of Mal long enough to pinch her.

Flame had shot on ahead of them as soon as they’d got themselves sorted out and were started back in the right direction, and sooner than she’d expected she saw flashlight beams and heard voices, and then Flame reappeared, dancing like a puppy. ʺHere!ʺ she shouted. ʺWe’re here!ʺ

Jane reached them first. She threw her arms around Miri because, Miri thought, she had to throw her arms around someone, and Miri was the only person available on the ground. But Miri was glad to hug her back. Balthazar had stopped when Miri did, but when Leslie made to slide down so that Mal could dismount more easily, Jane put her hand on Leslie’s leg and said, ʺNo. You just stay up there. I’m sure you’re exhausted. Flame—ʺ

But she didn’t have a chance to finish, because Ned was there and began saying all the same things, and by that time the first of several strangers had arrived, wearing what Miri guessed was a police uniform although it was hard to tell in the dark, and Mal and Leslie had to insist to each of them as they appeared (especially a very bossy woman who appeared to be the head of an ambulance crew) that they were fine and were happy to ride the rest of the way back and did not need a stretcher or anything else.

While this was going on Miri was discovering just how exhausted she was. She moved a little away from the gathering crowd around Balthazar and his two riders, bumped into something that felt like a tree stump, and sat down on it. It was very uncomfortable but for a moment at least it was better than standing up. She felt that even sitting up was almost too much, and slumped over, propping her elbows on her thighs. And then there was a flicker of red in the corner of her eye, and Flame put his nose in her ear. She sat up again.

She reached out to cup his long face between her hands. ʺThank you,ʺ she said. ʺThank you, thank you, thank you. Gelsoraban, or whatever your real name is. I don’t know what you did but—thank you. I can’t begin to . . . I’d feed you steak every day for the rest of your life only I can’t afford it. Or foie gras or—or—ʺ And she discovered she was crying.

A very, very long tongue extruded itself and licked her face. ʺYes, you’re right,ʺ she said. ʺSilly of me to get all collapsed and shocky when everything’s okay. Everything’s fine. Thanks to you. No. No, I’m not going to cry any more, I’m really not. I think you’ve got some extra tongue, like all those ribs. . . .ʺ But her hands were shaking, so she took them back, and chafed them together. ʺI’m sorry I’m behaving like such a dork. . . .ʺ

There was the oddest sensation in her head. It was a little like finding a parcel on your doorstep that someone had left for you, that you weren’t expecting, that you’d overlooked. There was nothing so clear as words, but she realized that she’d been given an awareness that what had happened in the graveyard was as much her responsibility—her achievement, her victory—as it was Flame’s. ʺI don’t know,ʺ she said, because she was a human and words were what she used. ʺI don’t know. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Mal’s okay. That’s all that matters.ʺ

ʺYou mean cell phones will work here? The next time somebody casts a shoe and we have to walk home I can ring ahead and say we’ll be late? That’ll be brilliant. And totally lost and hopeless walkers from the preserve won’t turn up at the stables and want to know where they are. Well, not as many anyway.ʺ

Jane’s voice, and a cone of flashlight beam: ʺHiding under the table and talking to your dog again, are you?ʺ Miri told herself that Jane wouldn’t be able to see anything that was the wrong kind of revealing by flashlight, but Jane came straight up to her and crouched down to give her another hug. ʺHoney, are you all right? I have the feeling more happened than Leslie or Mal is telling us.ʺ She paused to give Miri a chance to answer, but when Miri said nothing she went on, ʺWe were just getting organized to start looking ourselves. We’ve got cops, firefighters, and an ambulance, and a few guys from the preserve, and Leslie’s mom is probably here by now too. I hated ringing her but . . . And then Flame came prancing into the yard and barked to make us all look at him—you know he never barks—and he gambolled around like a lunatic for a minute or so and then ran straight up to me and threw himself down and waved all his legs in the air, still barking and wagging his tail like he was trying to wag it off. And I said, without even knowing I was going to say it, They’re all right. He’s telling us they’re all right.ʺ

ʺFlame knew where to go, of course, but I knew you’d been heading for the old graveyard, so we didn’t have to argue much about coming this way first. Everybody else is kind of on hold. The cops were saying there’s not a lot we can do now it’s dark and the preserve guys were saying they know the ground really well and they’d be happy to do some looking anyway, it’s not high summer any more, exposure, you know, if you’re out all night and you’re hurt. . . .ʺ That wasn’t a silence they wanted to listen to and Jane hurried on: ʺLook, darling, there are some stretcher-bearers just longing for something to do, and Mal and Leslie are refusing to get off Balt.ʺ Miri smiled a little at this. ʺWould you like a lift back?ʺ

Jane sighed. ʺYou’re as communicative as they are. Never mind. I don’t care, so long as you’re all back safe. Twilight’s come home, by the way. She’s got a very strange—what looks like a burn, on her flank, but it can’t be a burn. If the lightning had actually struck her they’d both be dead, or at least really messed up. She’s a little spooked but I hope she’ll be okay. We’ll turn her out for a week and see how she goes. Come on, child. If you won’t accept a friendly passing stretcher you can at least lean on me.ʺ She pulled Miri’s arm over her shoulder and stood up.

When they got back to the barn the ambulance driver, who’d been listening to the hospital dispatchers, told them there’d been a bad accident on the way out of the city, and the highway was blocked solid. So when he’d heard the message coming in on the barn machine he’d picked up the phone: Leslie’s mother had been two miles from the nearest exit for the last hour and a half. (There were already two messages on the barn answering machine, and when they got indoors they discovered three more on the house machine.) Jane said, ʺOh, poor woman,ʺ and to Leslie, ʺYou aren’t going anywhere tonight, you can sleep here.ʺ Jane rang back, told her to go home as soon as she could, said they’d ring again as soon as everyone else had gone, and put Leslie on the phone.

It was nearly eleven by the time the last of the searchers and rescuers had left. Miri was so exhausted she could hardly walk the hundred yards from the barn to the house. She hadn’t decided what she was going to say about what had happened, and she hadn’t had a chance to talk to Mal and Leslie about what they wanted to say, or not say. Fortunately the cop who tried to talk to her thought she was just tired and shaken—which was only too true as well—and patted her shoulder and told her to come in to the station when she’d had some sleep and fill a form out, please. It wouldn’t be that easy with Jane.

When they got into the house, Leslie rang her mother again, and Jane rescued the salad that had been sitting in the sink for the last five hours. They’d decided to save the steak and the cake till tomorrow; Ned started slicing bread. Miri looked dubiously at the peeled potatoes, and put them in the refrigerator. Mal was saying hello to Dorothy, who was carrying on, Miri thought, as if she knew the truth. The cats had decided that whatever it was, it was over, and supper was late.

Miri dropped her eyes to Flame. Flame was looking at her, but then he often looked at her. She sat down in the nearest chair—she’d leaned harder on Jane on the walk back to the barn than she wanted to admit—and Flame put his head in her lap. He was too tall to do this easily, so Miri slid off the chair and sat on the floor beside him and leaned against him. He put his nose in her hair and whuffled gently. Under the cover of Dorothy’s shrieks and Leslie’s conversation with her mother she said to him, ʺI don’t suppose we’re going to be able to talk to each other after this?ʺ

There was no answer. She didn’t really expect one. But she was having a hard time with what had happened a few hours ago. And she couldn’t explain away the impossible part because she remembered Mal’s lifeless hand in hers too clearly. She whispered, so that only Flame could hear her, ʺIf the only way I get to talk to you is because . . . because something incredibly awful has happened, then I’d rather you were just a . . . dog.ʺ He whuffled a little more. His breath always smelled clean and sweet—a kind of running-water smell, like the stream through the nature preserve. It must be all that charcoal he ate. ʺHow does a . . . a . . . become a dog? I bet Jry and Kro—Kro-something aren’t squirrels or tea-pots. Maybe they’re hellhounds, like you. I wish . . .ʺ But she couldn’t say what she wished, even to Flame.

It was hard to think about food at midnight. Flame got Miri’s first sandwich but she managed to eat the second. It did begin to make her feel better, but that only made her thoughts even harder to duck or switch off. Jane disappeared briefly and returned carrying a bottle of wine and a corkscrew. ʺThis feels like a special occasion,ʺ she said. ʺI mean a special occasion that doesn’t have anything to do with Mal’s birthday. I’ve had horses come home riderless before—memorably when you, Miri, took that four-legged maniac Padraic out against my express orders, and he lost you—ʺ

ʺBut I’ve never had this sense of having someone snatched back from—from—from—ʺ but she couldn’t say it aloud. ʺAnd the way you all look isn’t helping. You wouldn’t be in shock like this—and I’m not sure Miri isn’t the worst—if all that had happened is that lightning struck a little too close and Twilight took exception and dumped Mal. For one thing, if that’s all that happened, the two of you would have come back on Peggy, instead of sending her home with her stirrups run up as a message that you needed rescuing.ʺ

There was another little silence. Miri could hear the grandfather clock in the hall ticking. Dorothy was standing on one leg with her head under her wing. The only sound besides the clock was Ned eating his third sandwich. Mal reached out and picked up one of his presents. He’d decided to save opening them till the steak dinner, but he looked at the one he held carefully, as if he was going to guess what was in it. But Miri thought he was looking at his hand and arm more than he was looking at the gift. It was a small flat box and the wrapping paper was blue and white and the ribbon around it was red. Miri knew what was in it because she’d wrapped it: a gift certificate for a new pair of running shoes. His old pair were blue and white and red. All he had to do was go round to the sports shop and choose the new ones. He’d met Leslie when she had been one of the volunteer gofers for away matches for the cross-country team last year.

Miri looked up just as the tears began to slide down Leslie’s face again. Mal reached his hand out—the hand that Miri had briefly held—and covered hers with his. ʺI don’t want to talk about it for me, not just for Leslie. Leslie was brilliant. Peggy was pretty stirred up by the lightning and Twilight taking off, but Leslie got her quieted down—and the storm left almost as fast as Twilight did—ʺ

ʺAs if it had done what it was meant to do,ʺ said Leslie in a strange flat voice—a voice very like Jane’s when she’d said, That looked like it was right over the old graveyard. Leslie picked up her wine glass in the hand Mal wasn’t holding and took a mouthful.

ʺYes,ʺ said Mal. ʺIt was a bit like that. But this is the wine talking, right? So Leslie tied Peggy up and—and found out I wasn’t getting up because I couldn’t, and she said that she mustn’t move me, and that she’d send Peggy home and you’d be sure to come looking for us and you’d even know where to come because Miri had told her that I liked the old graveyard, and you’d’ve seen the lightning strike.

ʺDon’t,ʺ said Leslie. Mal squeezed her hand. ʺYeah. So Miri showed up and she . . . she saw it was pretty bad. And then . . . well, Flame went kind of nuts. That was pretty weird. Miri decided to see what he was carrying on about and followed him into the old graveyard.ʺ

ʺI thought she was kind of . . . you know, postponing the inevitable. About me. And . . . well . . . I don’t know. There was this feeling for a little while like . . . I don’t know, like the world was coming to an end, except I was already . . . I was pretty out of it. It’s just I was even more out of it there for a while. . . .ʺ

Leslie said, ʺIt was like the sky had come down and was mashing us into the ground. It was like . . . it was like being in a waffle iron and they’re closing the lid. I thought . . . I thought what had happened to Mal was making me crazy, that I was cracking up. And then suddenly it went away.ʺ

ʺOkay, it was like that for you too? That’s pretty much what it felt like to me. Except when they opened the waffle iron and let us out I could move again. It was like everything that had happened since the lighting struck had been the waffle iron. Had been a bad dream. Except it wasn’t. I remember. I remember just . . . kind of not being there, except for this awful . . . Also I feel like I’ve been in a waffle iron. I’ve fallen off horses before and I’ve never been beat up the way I feel beat up now. You’re going to need a winch to get me out of bed tomorrow morning, I think.ʺ

Miri was looking at Mal when he turned to look at her. Leslie was looking at her too, and Jane. She couldn’t see where Ned was looking but she could guess he was looking at her. She looked down at Flame to give her courage, and gently pulled his ears, one silky ear per hand. ʺIt was Flame really. I didn’t know. He—it really is—was—haunted, you know. The graveyard.ʺ This is a place of power. She taught riding at her mother’s riding stable—no, she taught riding with her mother at their riding stable—places of power were nothing to do with her. Flame looked up at her, and the end of his tail twitched. She took a deep breath.

ʺFlame knew the—the thing that was haunting it. He’s a hellhound, you know?ʺ She wanted to laugh, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop. ʺI guess he defected. But I guess he knows his old colleagues. This one knew him. It said I could have Mal back if I convinced the—the ghosts to let him go. The—the thing seemed to think that the way—the way Mal was, he—he wouldn’t live long.ʺ He will not want to live. ʺAnd then . . .ʺ But she realized she couldn’t tell them about her grandfather, about Ned’s father, not when they all still missed him so much, especially Ned. It would be like Mal talking about what happened to him after Leslie said don’t. She might try to tell Jane about it later, some time when they were alone. ʺI—I guess I kind of told them that they didn’t have to stay there. That they weren’t trapped. They didn’t seem to know—that was the thing, not letting them know. I think Flame must have stopped the thing from stopping them while I—told them. So they left. And when we came back out of the graveyard again Mal was sitting up.ʺ

There was another, longer silence. ʺDo you suppose Flame would like some wine?ʺ said Jane. She passed Miri an empty plate and Miri poured a few drops of wine into it and set it on the floor. Flame came out from under the table and solemnly lapped it up. Then he raised his head and looked around the table as if checking that this was what he was supposed to do. Or as if he was including them all in . . . it was like ratifying a contract, thought Miri. Sealing a pact.

ʺWell that would be convenient,ʺ said Jane. ʺExcept that then we’ll have to forbid people to use them while they’re riding and insist they turn them off before they get on their horses. Leslie, you’re dropping. Let me show you where you’ll sleep. Miri, can you loan her a nightgown?ʺ

Miri fetched an old, half-worn-out flannel nightgown because it was, in her opinion, the most comfortable and comforting, and then began to collect the dirty dishes and ran water in the sink. ʺFor pity’s sake, Miri,ʺ said her father, ʺgo to bed. I’ll do this.ʺ

Miri shook her head. ʺI’m not quite ready to go to bed,ʺ she said. ʺI don’t want to have to dream about anything yet.ʺ Ned put his arm around her and they stood silently for a moment. Then he sighed. ʺIt’s one thirty A.M. and I believed every word you said. Tomorrow morning I have to give a presentation to the trustees of a big charity so they’ll hire us, and what happened here just now will all be nonsense. But at one thirty A.M. . . . thank you.ʺ He kissed the top of her head. ʺIf you really want to struggle with the dishes, I’m going to bed.ʺ

She didn’t notice that Jane had returned till she began lifting dishes out of the draining rack and drying them and putting them away. They’d finished and Miri was mopping the counter when Jane said at last, ʺIt’s all true, isn’t it? It’s all true.ʺ

Miri thought about his sad red eyes when she’d first seen him at the pound—about the depth of that sadness. Had she been drawn to that sadness because she was supposed to be? ʺNo,ʺ she said, after a moment. ʺI think he—after he—after he defected, I think he’s been having, um, culture shock. I think that’s probably why he’s . . . a dog.ʺ

Miri said, ʺI think there probably is. But there’s a lot of stuff like us and Leslie and our barn too, isn’t there? Like those two guys from the preserve who were going to look for Mal and Leslie even after dark because they know the area so well. Or even you telling Leslie’s mom to go home, that Leslie can spend the night here. And we have Flame.ʺ

Miri sat back on her heels and laughed. Laughing felt good. ʺTell her we’ll have him—at double rates. Because only you and I will be able to do anything around him, even fill his water bucket. Tell her that the extra money will go into the indoor arena fund—we’d be even better than the best barn she’s been at if we had an indoor arena.ʺ

Flame had raised his head and was looking at Miri meaningfully. She started petting him again. ʺAnd you know,ʺ she added, ʺI bet they’ll write a big newspaper story about what happened tonight—isn’t Leslie’s mom dating a journalist?—and they’ll get everything wrong because we won’t tell them any of what we’ve been talking about, but we’ll tell them about Flame finding Mal and Leslie and then coming back to the barn to tell you he’d found them and to lead you back. And I bet all these people come out to get a look at this weird hero dog with the red eyes. And I bet some of them decide we look like a nice place and they and their kids should take some riding lessons. And when we can put the indoor arena up in two years instead of three, we can call it the Flame Arena.ʺ