Soul Riders (Book 1)

by Helena Dahlgren

  “I don’t know. This might be something,” Linda said and frowned. “I ended up on some sketchy forum for researchers at Jarlaheim University. Listen to this: ‘The sun, the star, the moon, and the lightning bolt are ancient symbols often associated with the legend of the four Soul Riders (see separate article). During an excavation in the Northern Mountains, carvings showing four riders were found on the cave walls. Researchers also found symbols that a local historian at Jorvik University later identified as a sun, a star, a moon, and a lightning bolt. The symbols are thought to be the source of the Soul Riders’ powers and strength. The Soul Riders appear as the central characters in both paintings and poetry from the eighteenth century onward.’ ”

  “Soul Riders?” Lisa mused, letting the words roll off her lips. Then her stomach did a backflip.

  Anne slowed down Concorde, who seemed to want to trot.

  “I’ve lived on Jorvik my entire life,” she said. “How come no one—at school, my parents, relatives—has ever mentioned any of this before?”

  “Hmm,” Linda said. “I have actually heard about those cave paintings.”

  “Of course you have,” Alex broke in.

  “Yes,” Linda said, ignoring Alex. “I’ve seen a photograph. Wait, let me check. It was something about a star. I can’t quite remember.” She searched on her phone. “Right,” she continued. “A shooting star striking the rocky island jutting out of the sea. And a woman on horseback suddenly appearing along the rocky cliffs of the island. Another cave painting is of a person standing on the cliffs holding their arms out toward the sea—in what is thought to be a welcoming gesture—toward a shooting star coming toward him or her. You know what’s funny though? The cave paintings are said to be around twenty-five thousand years old.”

  “What’s funny about that?” Anne wanted to know.

  “Well, there were no people on Jorvik that long ago. The first people supposedly came to Jorvik across the ice from Greenland about eight thousand years ago . . .”

  Lisa listened in silence to the long, incoherent conversation about some goddess called Aideen who had apparently spread light as Jorvik was awoken and how this Light Ride was a tribute to her. The idea was that the riders followed her footsteps all the way to the site where Jorvik was created.

  They were then supposed to find the light Aideen was said to have placed there, which legend claimed could spread life across the island. No one knew exactly where that place was, though.

  Lisa wanted to get back to the symbols. Back to the Soul Riders. She urged Starshine on and rode up to Linda.

  “Isn’t it super weird that we all saw different symbols?” she said while walking next to Linda and Meteor. “What do you think it means?”

  “I was wondering exactly the same thing,” Linda said slowly. She kicked Meteor, who wanted to stop and graze in a ditch. “Greedy guts,” she laughed at the horse and shook her head. Then she fixed her eyes on Lisa intently. She looked grave. “I think we should go to the library when we get back to find out more, okay?”

  Lisa nodded, and they left legends and strange constellations behind to focus on the ride.

  Dusk fell. Several Light Riders lit lanterns and hung them on long sticks. Some had brightly colored paper screens around their lanterns. They shimmered in the dark night.

  As they continued on their journey, Alex told a ghost story about a headless rider who supposedly haunted the woods on clear nights like this one. He was trapped in purgatory, doomed to continue riding until he found his head. He was unable to ask anyone for help finding it, because how could he talk without a head?

  Suddenly they heard the sound of twigs breaking. Lisa let out a small shriek.

  “See! There he is!” Alex shouted, and laughed.

  “Cut it out,” Linda said and waved to a group of Light Riders who came out of a stand of trees. “We’re almost at the first campsite now.”

  They watered their horses and sat down around the campfire where people were roasting hot dogs, marshmallows, and apples. The lights from the red and orange lanterns warmly flickered in the night. Lisa felt warm inside. Legend or no legend, something about this ride was doing her good, she mused. She realized she was actually starting to feel at home here on Jorvik. She hadn’t even thought about her mom once today, which was remarkable considering she had been riding all day.

  Until now.

  She tried to repress the dark thoughts that were apparently lurking near the surface after all. Tonight, she wanted to be in the light. Linda caught her eye across the campfire and smiled. Lisa smiled back.

  Soon it was time to move on. One of the riding instructors told them that the last stretch before they reached the overnight campsite was traditionally ridden alone, though each rider had the option to decide for themselves.

  “They say that’s when you can feel Aideen’s spirit within yourself,” Alex said and rolled her eyes slightly. Everyone giggled except Lisa.

  “Of course we’re riding the last bit alone. Hardcore! Who’s going first?” Alex asked.

  “I will,” Lisa said, surprising everyone, most of all herself. The warm, fuzzy feeling from the campfire was still lingering inside her. It made her feel brave.

  Something was telling her she was supposed to go first. She just knew it.

  “Great!” Alex said. “Then I’ll go after you, then Linda, followed by Anne. You’ll need a flashlight for the last stretch to find your way in the dark, so make sure you have yours and that it’s working. Call out if you run into trouble.”

  Lisa turned around and looked at her friends.

  “See you on the other side,” she said, smiling weakly.

  “Say hi to Aideen from us!” Alex called out. They laughed nervously and waved goodbye. Lisa lingered for a moment as she noticed how the flames of the campfire turned everything golden: their hair, their beige jodhpurs, the plastic cups they were holding. She returned the wave and urged Starshine on.

  The path was narrower now, and the forest suddenly felt bigger and darker. More desolate. The wind moved through the trees, causing the leaves to rustle. Other than that, there was complete silence. Most animals must already be asleep, Lisa thought to herself, and urged Starshine on. She wanted to get there quickly.

  She began to wonder if she was on the right track. Shouldn’t there be some sign of the other Light Riders on the path? But everything was quiet. Now that she was alone on the trail, the ghost stories that Alex told earlier felt so much more real. She thought about her father, who was probably already fast asleep.

  The silence was finally broken by a soft, gentle melody that slowly grew stronger. A woman’s voice. Was someone singing in the forest? Starshine pricked up his ears and snickered softly. Lisa held up her flashlight and waved it about, this way and that.

  She dismounted and led Starshine off the path. There were fireflies in the air, which guided her. They whirred and jumped in the velvety black night. Lisa bent down and touched the ground. Her fingers grazed soft, damp moss. There was a light up ahead.

  More fireflies? No, this was something else. The light crackled and glowed like a campfire, but Lisa couldn’t feel any warmth in the air. It was getting colder out now. She pulled her thick sweater around herself more tightly and pressed herself closer to Starshine, thankful for the heat that came from his big body. She led him on, deeper into the woods.

  The song faded away but the light from the campfire continued to flicker. Standing on the other side of the fire was a woman dressed all in white, with long, dark hair. She smiled at Lisa.

  “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Soon, you’ll be leaving. You’ll know when.”

  Lisa thought she just might stop breathing.

  The woman was . . . her mother.

  Lisa stumbled, but Starshine’s heft supported her. Her legs trembled, and she felt as though her heart was about to explode in her chest.
But she had to get to her mom. Her mom! She was talking to her!

  Lisa ran as fast as she could, but she saw her mother fade away right before her very eyes. She wavered in the wind for a brief moment and disappeared, piece by piece.

  First her long, black hair, which Lisa had loved to hide in when she was little, then her dark eyes.

  Her nose, the one Lisa supposedly inherited.

  Her chin. Her mouth. The dress she wore when she married Lisa’s dad.

  Her red shoes.

  Another gust of wind blew through and then her mother was gone.

  “Mom!” Lisa shouted.

  She raced past the fire to the spot where her mom had been standing just a second ago. She wanted to say something. She had so much to say to her, but her mom was already gone. The light had taken on a darker hue. Now it was fiery red, like smoldering embers. Lisa stood motionless as she watched the fire die out. She held her hand out to the spot where the fire had just been burning seconds ago, and gasped.

  The ground was cool.

  Everything was quiet.

  Starshine nuzzled Lisa’s cold hand.

  She led her horse back to the path on trembling legs and then resolutely rode on until she reached a big clearing. She held her flashlight up and saw tents, horses grazing—and Herman.

  “Lisa! Finally! The others were worried when you weren’t here.”

  “The others?” Lisa said as she looked around.

  “You must have strayed off the trail. They beat you here. Go find your tent!” Herman said. “The others are already making themselves comfortable. Crawl inside and I’ll take care of Star-shine. You must be tired, right?”

  Lisa felt like she has just woken up from a dream. Her legs were still shaking as she unzipped the tent door and crawled in.

  “Did you see anything?” Linda and Alex asked at the same time. They were already in their sleeping bags.

  Lisa hesitated. She didn’t want to talk about what she’d seen in the woods. She was too tired, and she couldn’t possibly find the words. How would she even describe what she had seen?

  Everything. I saw everything. Light, life, death. Everything came to me and then it faded and disappeared just as quickly. I have no idea what to do now, but my dead mother seemed to somehow know?

  “No,” she replied when she saw that the others were looking at her curiously. “I didn’t see anything interesting. Just a big owl.”

  “We didn’t either,” Linda and Alex said quickly. Had they responded too rapidly? Lisa wondered.

  “You know there are will-o’-the-wisps in the woods, right?” Linda said after a brief pause. “At least according to the old stories. They hope to lure travelers into the woods so they get stuck in a swamp. But luckily, we’re actually pretty far from the nearest swamp.”

  In her dark corner of the tent, Anne raised her head. The screen of her phone illuminated her pale face. “Could we save the swamp stories for another night, please?” she said and put her phone away.

  Lisa crawled into her sleeping bag next to Linda.

  “Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” Linda whispered.

  “Let’s talk about it some other time,” Lisa replied.

  She closed her eyes and thought that would be as close to sleeping as she would get tonight.

  However, the next time she opened her eyes, the sun had risen.

  12

  Everyone was tired as they rode homeward in the golden, morning light. Tired, but elated.

  The feeling of being a part of something so much greater than themselves was difficult to put into words. And yet there it was, in the pensive silence, in the horses’ leisurely walk, in the chill of the morning air. The legend felt more real now that they had ridden in Aideen’s footsteps. Everyone who took part could feel it.

  “Did anyone have cool dreams last night?” hollered Alex, who was bringing up the rear. “They say Aideen might visit you in a dream during the Light Ride if you’re lucky. I for one remember nothing at all. Typical.”

  The others laughed.

  “And I forgot to pack my dream journal! Isn’t that typical?” Linda sighed as she tugged on the reins when Meteor stopped to eat grass next to the trail.

  “I almost never remember my dreams,” Anne said. The mysterious look on her face made Lisa wonder whether this was actually true or not.

  Lisa and Starshine were leading the way. She couldn’t recall dreaming about anything in particular either. But the impressions from the night before were still dancing inside her. The will-o’-the-wisps in the woods. Her mom. The embers.

  They rode the last part of the way back to the stables in silence.

  13

  The group met up in the school library the following day. They were exhausted.

  Linda arrived first, straight from PE with a banana in her hand. Alex then sauntered in with Lisa hard on her heels. The last to join was Anne, who gave a huge yawn.

  “These should be mandatory for Light Riders,” Alex muttered, opening an energy drink. Linda snatched it out of her hand and took several big gulps before she gave it back.

  “We’ll have to bring it up with the principal,” she said before opening a beautifully illustrated book about the horses of Jorvik and their history. Together, they flipped through the pages and searched for other information on the library computer’s Internet.

  “Look, a Starbreed!” Lisa exclaimed, pointing to an imposing horse with a shimmering mane as blue as Starshine’s. “Before I came to Jorvik, I thought horses like these only existed in the toy collections I had as a little girl,” she said fondly.

  “I know. It’s so amazing,” Anne chimed in.

  Despite their weariness, all four of them were ready to learn more about the legends they had discovered the previous night. At the weekend’s Light Ride, it was as if all the old stories were speaking directly to them. There was no shortage of reading on the subject.

  “Aideen might have been the first rider on this island, but she was far from the last,” Linda said. “They say she was the one who brought horses into the world and that true goodness was born with her and the horses.”

  “Yep,” Alex chimed in. “I’ve been reading about pretty much the same stuff. There are lots of different legends and myths. They all start and end slightly differently, but the contents are more or less the same. Four girls and their four protectors—horses, I’m assuming—will, according to the legend Linda was talking about, help save the world and defeat evil, a.k.a. . . . Garnok.”

  Alex said the last word in an exaggerated horror film voice and bent her fingers into twisted talons.

  “I will drink your blood! I am Garnok!” she hissed. Linda laughed, but Lisa felt something dark clawing its way into her. She looked away. Alex’s smile stiffened and disappeared when she noticed.

  “Oh, did I actually scare you? I’m sorry! Can you bear hearing a bit more about this bad guy, Garnok? I promise not to bring out the fake talons again.”

  “Thanks,” Anne said, nudging Lisa. “Not everyone likes a horror film before lunch, you know.”

  Lisa smiled weakly. She was happy to have Anne on her side. She was not afraid of the dark, and not usually frightened by ghost stories, but the events of the past few weeks had changed her. She was no longer certain about what was real and what was not. She wasn’t even sure whether the Soul Riders existed, and as for Aideen, who once brought light to Jorvik . . .

  What was the saying? Where there’s light, darkness must also exist and vice versa? If that was true, then was there possibly the chance that Garnok might be real, too?

  Alex turned the pages of the book in front of her and said, “Some historians have interpreted the cave paintings to mean that Garnok brought evil and darkness into the world. You know, the same way Aideen brought the light. They’re not sure which came first, darkness or light.”r />
  “Is anyone ever?” Anne said quietly.

  The others looked at her.

  “What do you mean?” Linda asked.

  “Never mind,” Anne replied with a shrug. “Maybe just that things aren’t as black and white as they seem in fairy tales. How are you supposed to know who is evil and who is good? But what do I know, I stopped believing in fairy tales around the same time I figured out that Santa Claus isn’t real.”

  Lisa opened her mouth to reply but was too slow.

  Alex checked her watch and jumped up.

  “Look at the time! If we want to eat before our next class, we have to hurry!”

  The girls quickly gathered up their things and raced toward the cafeteria. It was only when they were standing in line and starting to load up their plates that they realized someone was missing.

  “Anne,” Linda said with a frown. “She didn’t come with us?”

  The three girls looked around. No Anne.

  Anne was still sitting in the library among the open books. Her eyes were glued to one of the illustrations in a horse book. It showed a tall horse, a shining dark gray with a roached mane and white blaze. The horse was flying over the familiar green meadows she and Concorde had ridden across so many times before.

  Flying, not cantering. Because this horse had wings. And it was so identical-looking to Concorde that Anne had to catch her breath.

  No, Anne thought to herself. I don’t believe in fairy tales.

  14

  Lisa’s time on the island was passing so fast that soon the leaves on the oak tree outside the kitchen window had turned bright yellow and orange.

  It was the last week before the fall break, and she was getting ready to ride her bike home from the stables. She didn’t actually have a specific schedule to keep while her dad was away working on the oil platform.

  When the sun had set and the horses had been given their evening hay, Herman pulled Lisa aside and said he wanted to speak with her privately. He looked grave.

  Lisa was overcome with fear. The feeling of being caught red-handed was overwhelming. Had Herman found out that she almost fatally injured Starshine? Who might have seen and told on her? Elizabeth, the strange woman she had met in the woods?