The party headed into the valley and rode cautiously along the muddy, slippery path. Tamzin was third in the line – and before long she felt glad that she had two quiet ponies to lead. For Moonlight was misbehaving. He was skittish and restless, trying to trot when he should have walked, shaking his head and swishing his tail.
‘Moonlight, stop it!’ she told him. ‘I know you’ve been stuck indoors for days, but you mustn’t play up now!’
Moonlight snorted and shook his head again, so hard that he almost jerked the reins out of her hands. He laid his ears back, dancing, and Lark behind him whinnied a protest as one of his hind hooves kicked her.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ Joel asked, looking over his shoulder.
‘I don’t know!’ Tamzin called back. ‘He was just like this on the cliffs the other day, when he saved us from the landslip! Moonlight, no! Calm down!’
But Moonlight would not calm down. All the way up the valley and along the track to the new field, he was almost impossible to control. Several times as he lurched or slithered Tamzin nearly fell off, and Lark and Pippin on their leading reins were catching his, mood and becoming edgy, too. This behaviour, Tamzin knew, was more than just high spirits after being confined in the stable. To her, it seemed as if Moonlight was angry about something. Though what it could be was a mystery.
‘If only you could talk!’ she said, stroking his neck in an effort to calm him, and gripping tightly with her knees to stay in the saddle as the pony pranced and fidgeted. ‘Then you could tell me what’s wrong. Come on, Moonlight; shh, steady. Please!’
She was thankful when the borrowed field came in sight. The farmer was waiting for them at the gate, and as the ponies streamed through he said, ‘Put them straight into the barn, I would.’ He pointed to a big timber building on the far side of the field. ‘No sense in leaving ’em out to get wetter than they have to.’
The field was already sodden with rain, and plodding across it to the barn was hard work. Even Moonlight was quieter – until, as they approached the open barn doors, he suddenly gave a shrill, squealing whinny and reared, his forelegs raking the air. Tamzin dropped the leading reins and made a grab for the saddle pommel; somehow she stayed on Moonlight’s back, but as his hooves came down again with a jarring thump she lost both stirrups and started to slide sideways. All she could do was make an undignified scramble to the ground as Moonlight reared a second time. Then Mrs Richards was there on Dandy, reaching out to catch hold of Moonlight’s bridle.
‘Whoa, Moonlight, whoa!’ Moonlight tried to pull away but Mrs Richards held on. ‘Are you all right, Tamzin?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ said Tamzin breathlessly. ‘But Lark and Pippin –’
‘Don’t worry, Joel’s got them. I think you’d better lead them in, and I’ll look after Moonlight.’
Getting Moonlight into the barn was a struggle. He reared, kicked, pulled and protested, and only when the farmer, who was a big and powerful man, came to help did they finally manage to make him go inside.
‘Better tie him up somewhere,’ said Mrs Richards, ‘or he’ll try to kick his way out again, the mood he’s in.’
Tamzin looked fearfully at Joel. ‘Moonlight just isn’t like that,’ she said. ‘Something’s wrong, Joel. Something’s really wrong!’
‘Yes,’ said Joel. ‘But what? He can’t tell us… Look, Tam, there’s no way you can ride him back to collect the others. We’d better leave him here, and you take Lark.’
Tamzin saw the sense in that, though she wasn’t at all happy. She was certain that Moonlight had a reason for not wanting to leave the stables. But what could that reason possibly be? If the promised downpour came, this place would be much safer than the Richardses’. So why hadn’t he wanted to go?
Then a terrible thought occurred to her. Maybe she was the cause. Maybe Moonlight did not want to be separated from her, because he sensed that something dangerous was in the air. A new threat…
Mrs Richards had tied Moonlight up at the far end of the barn and was unsaddling him. The farmer had brought some bales of hay for the horses to eat, and most of them were already snatching mouthfuls and crunching them. But Moonlight wasn’t interested in food. He stamped restlessly, his head swinging from side to side as far as his halter rope would allow. Then he saw Tamzin, and uttered a piercing whinny that echoed through the barn. Tamzin would have gone towards him, but Joel said, ‘Tam, there isn’t time! We’ve got to go back for the other horses. Come on; you can talk to him when we get back.’
Reluctantly she followed to where Mrs Richards was now buckling Moonlight’s saddle on to Lark. The four riders left a few minutes later, slogging across the field. Though it wasn’t yet lunchtime the sky was darkening, and Mrs Richards said, ‘We’d better hurry if we’re going to finish before the rain comes. It’s too slippery to canter, but we can try a trot once we get on to the track.’
The ride back to the Richardses’ took much less time than the outward ride had done, partly because there were no horses to lead, but mostly because Moonlight was not there to hold everyone up. Nan came out of the house as they arrived, and reported that everything except the heavy furniture was now safely stowed upstairs. She had made tea, and the riders gratefully drank mugs of it before setting out again with the last of the horses. Tamzin had only one pony to lead this time, but though everything went smoothly, the horses became more and more restless as they rode on. Little wonder, Tamzin thought, glancing uneasily at the sky. It was as dark as a bruise now and looking more threatening with every minute. The daylight was reduced to gloom, so that it was hard to see the path, and she could feel the beginning of rain in the air.
They hurried on as fast as safety allowed – then, just as they reached the field gate, the heavens opened. The rain came down in a roaring deluge that took everyone’s breath away, and in the minute it took for them to reach the shelter of the barn they and the horses were drenched. The farmer was waiting for them, and as the last horse rushed in he hauled the doors shut against the weather’s onslaught. Tamzin slid from Lark’s back and started to unfasten the saddle girth.
‘We’ll have to rub them all down,’ Joel shouted above the tremendous noise of rain hammering on the barn roof. But the farmer, overhearing, said, ‘No time for that! If I’m going to drive you all back to the stables, we’ll have to leave right now – half an hour of this and even my Land Rover won’t get through! My daughter will look after the new horses, and I’ll give her a hand when I come back. Hurry, now!’
‘What about Moonlight?’ In dismay Tamzin looked for him among the milling animals. But it was so gloomy in the barn that she couldn’t see him.
‘Don’t worry, they’re all here, safe and sound,’ the farmer told her. ‘Now come on!’
She had no choice but to go. They sprinted the few metres to where the Land Rover was parked, and huddled inside as the farmer drove slowly and cautiously away. The tarmac road was awash with streams that ran faster than the car, and when they reached the Richardses’, Tamzin saw that the yard was already covered by a sheet of water.
Mr Richards came splashing to meet them, holding a huge umbrella over his head.
‘Not that it’s much use to you lot,’ he said when he saw them. ‘You’re all soaked through anyway!’
Nan, too, was waiting, and she and Tamzin went home straight away. Everything in the house that could be moved was now upstairs, and all the horses’ tack had been stowed in the stable loft.
‘I’ll ring you later!’ Joel called over the noise of the downpour as Tamzin scrambled into Nan’s car. ‘And don’t worry about Moonlight. He’ll be fine!’
She waved a hand to him. ‘Good luck!’
Tamzin and Nan reached the rough lane that led to Chapel Cottage to find it turned to a racing brown river several centimetres deep. The car’s engine had spluttered and coughed most of the way back, and as Nan turned it on to the level ground outside the house it gave a final wet stutter and died into silence. They ran for shelter, splashing through puddles that bubbled like cauldrons with the rain bouncing from their surfaces, and hurled themselves in at the kitchen door.
‘Whew!’ said Nan as they took off their sodden coats and hung them to drip in the porch. ‘I’ve never seen rain like it!’
Tamzin pulled off her boots, which were so wet that she felt as if she was paddling. ‘Are you sure we’ll be all right here, Nan?’ she asked worriedly.
‘Oh, yes. You could see when we came in; all the water’s running past the house. We might get a bit coming in under the tiles and running down the walls, but nothing worse than that.’ Nan flicked the light switch, and the kitchen filled with brightness. ‘And we’ve still got electricity; that’s a relief! Go on, love; go upstairs and change out of those wet things. I’d have a nice hot bath, if I were you.’
‘All right, Nan.’ Tamzin smiled at her, and tried not to listen to the clamour of the rain as she squelched towards the stairs.