She felt something in her break and collapsed against Alex’s back. They sat motionless on Tin-Can’s back for a minute. Without the light from the kidnappers’ SUV and trailer, the road was pitch-black.
“Maybe we should call Linda,” Alex said at last. “She usually has good ideas.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and realized her screen was blinking.
“Linda’s texted me,” Alex said, showing Lisa the message. “Look!”
They both flinched when the man with the predatorial face popped up on the screen. Set against the dark of the night, he looked paler than before. They both shuddered.
“Him? Again?” Lisa said. She could feel the chill of the evening creep under her skin.
“Linda’s at school,” Alex said. She hesitated before pressing on. “Maybe we should head over there?”
“But what about Starshine?” Lisa exclaimed.
Alex turned around and looked Lisa straight in the eyes.
“We’re going to find him,” she said resolutely.
17
Linda was shivering as she waited outside the school building for Alex and Lisa to arrive. The evening was damp, and she wished she had brought a scarf. Still, she preferred to be outside right now. Staring at that creepy picture in the library had quickly become unbearable. She had to get away and move around. The restlessness she felt inside was even stronger now, and adrenaline was pumping through her veins.
Breathe. Move. It’ll pass soon. They’re on their way.
Recently, Linda had known things she shouldn’t have been able to know. She knew, for instance, that Lisa was coming to the island even before she had arrived. When they met in the hallway in school, she recognized her instantly, even though they’d never met. She couldn’t explain it. The last time she had explained to her aunt that this type of thing had happened, her aunt didn’t seem surprised and had called it a premonition, a gift from the gods. Linda herself had never believed in anything except for science. She shut her eyes, trying to focus herself mentally.
The images in her mind washed over her like an uncontrollable, freezing shower. Everything was bathed in a pink light. She saw Lisa, who looked devastated. And Starshine? She could feel that something horrible had happened to him, but what? The images grew blurry. Linda waivered for a second, but then snapped back into the present. Something had happened in that instant. Something important she couldn’t quite grasp.
Something . . . was missing, maybe?
Yes. Something was missing and they needed to find it.
Jarlaheim’s town center was spread out below the school, glittering in the dark. There were not a lot of people out and about tonight. The medieval city became a ghost town around this time, months after the summer tourists had departed. Not even dog owners were out on their evening walks.
She shuddered, thinking for a second that she could hear the sound of clattering hooves. She peered out at the street leading down the hill.
Nothing. She must have been imagining that noise.
A few minutes went by and Linda was still waiting. But now, there was no mistaking the sound of hooves against cobblestones growing louder. It was getting closer, too. Then, suddenly, Linda saw Alex and Lisa approach on Tin-Can.
“God, I’m so glad you made it here so quickly!”
She stopped herself and looked inquisitively at Tin-Can and his two riders. Alex and Lisa both looked distraught.
“Starshine’s gone!” Lisa cried.
“Gone?” Linda managed to respond.
“Stolen!” Lisa and Alex both blurted out at the same time. Their voices were shrill as they tripped over their words. Linda had a difficult time trying to understand what they were saying. She managed to make out a few words—“police” and “Herman”—and then went cold. She was right. Something had been lost. Starshine.
“What? Who would do something like that? Are you all right, Lisa?”
Lisa and Alex dismounted.
“I’m . . . okay, I guess,” Lisa managed to get out. But she could feel the lump in her throat growing bigger. Somehow she managed to push it back down. There was no time for tears. Besides, crying wouldn’t help Starshine. “It’s going to be all right. Starshine will come back. He has to!”
She suddenly realized she must have said that out loud.
“Of course it’s going to be all right! No one can get away with kidnapping a horse on Jorvik!” Alex said, with moist eyes. “No one!”
“Seriously, this is so insane!” Linda exclaimed. “How is this even possible?”
“It was surreal,” Lisa said. “Herman and I were in the office talking, when someone must have broken into the stable. If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have believed it either. It’s sick.”
“Okay,” Alex said. “What do we do now? Wait to hear from the police?”
“I guess so,” Linda said doubtfully and looked at Lisa. “Are you sure you’re okay, Lisa?”
“No,” Lisa finally admitted. “But I’ll have to get by, for now.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if it had been Tin-Can . . .” Alex said, and Lisa noticed her golden-brown eyes darken.
The girls hugged Lisa, slightly lessening the panic that felt like it was going to break her apart. An enormous weariness was left in its wake and she sank down onto the ground. Alex took her jacket off and spread it out on the ground.
“Always prepared,” Alex said. She smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
Lisa raised her head.
“I almost forgot why we came here,” she said in a shaky voice.
“You had something to show us, didn’t you, Linda?” Alex added.
Linda nodded.
“When I was going through old pictures, working on research for my paper, I discovered something I think might be important. I took some pictures with my phone. I sent you one, obviously, but there are more. I couldn’t believe what I saw. You’ll see what I mean.”
Linda held up her phone for the others to have a look and pulled up the pictures of the mysterious man. The others leaned in closer to get a better look in the darkness. Linda increased the brightness of the screen.
“He’s all over the old photographs of this island,” she continued. “Look, I’ll show you. At first, I thought maybe he had to be a relative of the SUV man, but he’s too identical. We’re talking twins.”
“A twin from the early twentieth century,” Alex said.
The slideshow continued. The man’s sharp features and strange black eyes kept popping up. There he was with a strange-looking bowl haircut at a charity ball in 1965, in the front row at an auction in Jarlaheim in the summer of 1937, and they glimpsed him behind a broad-brimmed hat in the crowd at a horse race in September of 1922. It was always the same face and, despite the disparate dates, he looked to be the same age in all the photographs. In one of the last ones, he was standing in front of the gates of a big manor, next to an old-fashioned car. He looked like he was wearing some kind of uniform. A cap was pulled halfway down over one of his eyes.
“That picture was taken outside Pine Hill Mansion,” Linda said. “It looks like he’s the chauffeur. I wonder who lived there back then? We should be able to find out.”
Alex remembered Pine Hill Mansion was an abandoned old castle with a remarkably lush garden, kind of like the setting of an old horror film. They rode past it sometimes when they went for longer excursions. She shuddered.
Linda raised one eyebrow.
“Want to take it one step further? I took my photo search further back in time, as far back as I could go. The photo quality’s not great, but I found something interesting.”
With a few swipes, Linda took them back in time to the end of the nineteenth century. They had to lean in over the screen and squint to see.
The sepia-tone photograph was filled with people dr
essed in old-fashioned clothes. Lisa started thinking about the song that kept getting stuck in her head. Horses. Fields. Tools. Harvest time, a crowd, and long skirts. Was this song related to a celebration, maybe? A little girl was posing rigidly in a dark dress in front of Pine Hill Mansion. She looked shyly into the camera. Standing near the girl, under a big maple tree, was the man. The same man.
Alex and Lisa went silent. They stared at the photo and listened intently. Tin-Can snorting was the only sound. Alex dug around her pocket for a carrot.
“That man,” Linda said. “He was the man in the SUV, right?”
“Yes!” Alex and Lisa replied in unison.
“Exactly,” Linda said, finally glad to get confirmation of the notion that now felt even more certain than before. Even though it contradicted the laws of time and space. “Those eyes. And the crooked nose.”
“What we need now is high-tech facial recognition software,” Alex said.
Linda kept tapping away at her phone and suddenly let out a squeal.
“Bingo!” she shouted happily and showed them her screen. “There’s a caption here on one of the more recent pictures,” she explained. “John Sands. The guy’s called John Sands.”
John Sands. Where had Lisa heard that name before?
All three of them looked up with wide eyes as they heard the unmistakable sound of hooves approaching.
18
The giant tree branches—pine, spruce, and birch—cast shadows on the ground in the early evening pink light. A girl on her horse was walking along the forest trails near Jorvik Stables. It was Anne and her horse Concorde. Even now, on a dusty forest path far from the stables’ dressage ring, where no one could see them, there was something decidedly graceful about the pair. Anne’s back was absolutely straight and her posture flawless. Her horse was on the bit, his neck perfectly curved. Anne leaned forward and patted Concorde.
“Good boy,” she whispered. “Want to have a little canter?”
Her horse immediately picked up the canter and they were off. The dust whirled around his silver hooves. Concorde let out a snort and sped up a bit. Anne smiled, feeling the wind in her long, blond hair, which she was wearing down under her helmet for once.
Her evening ride on Concorde was always the best part of the day. She almost never met anyone, and she enjoyed the soft twilight.
Anne had preferred to stay out at night since her little brother was born. He was a much later addition to the family, completely unexpected—at least for Anne. Sure, he’s cute, but Anne hated being woken up by his bawling in the middle of the night. She also worried that her mom and dad would someday push him as hard as they’d pushed her. She didn’t want him to be subjected to that.
Maybe it would be different for the youngest of the family. She hoped so.
She liked how quiet the evenings were, both at the stables and out on the forest trails. Anne had spent many years at Jorvik Stables, but the chatter still drove her up the wall. How can people make so much noise while saying so little?
You know you wish you were a part of it, a voice in her head taunted. That voice had grown stronger lately. Anne knew there was truth in it. Her family donated more money to the stables than anyone else, and their name was everywhere on plaques and signs, yet Anne might as well have been invisible there.
At least that’s what it felt like until this year’s Light Ride. Maybe it was different now. Maybe . . .
They’re just jealous, angel. That’s what her mom used to tell her when she was younger and came home crying because someone had poured oats into her new boots, or put a lizard in the locker where she kept her clothes. As far back as she could remember, she nodded along and agreed with her mom. Jealous was what they were. That must have been it.
However, recently, it felt warm when she rode with Linda, Alex, and Lisa. Safe. She stopped seeing herself from the outside—she didn’t have to overanalyze every line or movement. Is that what it was like to have friends? Anne didn’t know if she could dare to trust this new, warm feeling that swelled in her when she thought about the Light Ride.
She had been burnt before. Girls had followed her home from the stables, acting like they were her friends. Then, after they’d been around Concorde and seen Anne’s house, she heard them whispering about her in the schoolyard. Is that all she was to her classmates—someone to gossip about? How could she determine when somebody was being real?
She sighed heavily and urged Concorde on, standing up in her stirrups and guiding him over a ditch. Her big horse jumped it effortlessly.
They headed along a lit bridle path that led deeper into the forest when they were suddenly blinded by bright headlights behind her. Anne stopped, feeling like a deer frozen in the sharp glare.
The headlights belonged to a large, dark SUV that was thundering toward her. It was close now. Too close. She urged Concorde on. The engine roared as the SUV accelerated.
She heard the sound of tree limbs snapping.
Anne inhaled sharply. Surely the SUV was not going to try to follow her into the trees?
But that’s exactly what it did.
Anne screamed.
She looked around in panic, trying to find an escape route as Concorde whinnied wildly. He stopped dead.
“Come on!” Anne shouted. “We have to run!”
Concorde reared up and Anne clung to his neck to stay on.
The headlights shone like death rays in her eyes. Anne tried to shut it all out. The terror at the thought of being run over had left her numb. Even though her eyes were squeezed shut, the world felt bright. She saw a pink glow behind her eyelids. It was seeking her out, that light. It wanted something from her. She grabbed it quickly, letting the light take her away from the SUV.
She could hear the engine, closer than ever, and then, suddenly, she couldn’t. All the sounds folded up and then unfolded again. The world stopped.
Anne could feel the emptiness as the SUV ran through her and Concorde—but she wasn’t there. It was as though she was standing outside herself, looking on. Everything felt slow and far away.
When she opened her eyes, she was staring at the brake lights. The letters DC were painted on the back doors. The lights flashed briefly and then it disappeared down the gravel road. A pink glow glittered around her and Concorde. Particles drifted toward the ground like stardust. Underneath her, around Concorde’s hooves, there was now a circle of blue light.
It was as bright as the headlights were just now, yet completely different. More pulsating than blinding. Then everything went still and dark once more.
Far away, she could hear the sound of tires on gravel fading away into the distance.
Anne suddenly felt incredibly tired. The exhaustion almost made her slide off her horse. Concorde also seemed to be struggling to keep his balance, whinnying weakly and turning around. She urged him on toward the road. She was surrounded by the forest, which was as mossy green and shadowy black as ever. The forest she loved.
Anne let the reins go slack against Concorde’s neck as they turned toward Jarlaheim’s coastline. Anne had no idea how long they’d been out. She should have been making her way back to the stable but couldn’t bring herself to turn around. Something made her press on. She was far too weary to make a proper decision. They rode on toward the town, whose picturesque streets were deserted. Everyone was home, having dinner, watching TV in their sweatpants, doing homework, or fighting with siblings. Anne felt as lonely and empty as the cobbled streets. She longed for her family’s car and driver, who were probably waiting by the stables now, waiting to take her home to her warm, soft bed.
Concorde started to speed up. His ears were pricked. Where were they going? Anne let her horse have free rein. She was still shaking. Concorde neighed and was greeted in turn by a deep whinny. Echoes? He carried onward. He was not used to the road’s hard surface but was well shod and didn’t seem to
be bothered by the new terrain.
The school loomed up before her. This was where Concorde wanted to go? They still had a way to go, but there could be no doubting the neighing sounds she heard coming from another horse. Waiting at the top of the hill was one horse and three girls.
Lisa, Linda, and Alex.
She didn’t feel like seeing them tonight.
She didn’t feel like seeing anyone.
Anne suddenly wished she could turn around, but it was too late. They’d already seen her.
“Hi,” Alex said. It sounded more like a question than a greeting.
Anne rode up to them and dismounted.
“Hi,” she said. “We were out riding, Concorde and I. Apparently this is where he wanted to go.”
“Are you okay, Anne?” Linda asked, looking slightly concerned. “You look really pale.”
Anne shrugged in reply. “This evening . . . I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“Nor I,” Lisa sighed.
Anne suddenly realized that Lisa had tears in her eyes.
“Oh, gosh, did something bad happen?”
“Starshine,” Lisa managed. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“I’ll fill you in on the way to the stables,” said Alex, who had mounted Tin-Can. She hesitated a little, looking at Anne. “That’s where you’re going, right? Wanna go together?”
Anne changed her mind. Perhaps some company might be nice after all.
“I’d love to,” she said and mounted Concorde.
Lisa pulled out her phone, which was flashing with missed calls. Three from her dad about an hour ago. A voicemail and a text. She read it.
Tried to call but you didn’t pick up. Miss you. Back home tomorrow night. Love Dad.
It was getting late, so Lisa and Linda walked home. Meanwhile Alex and Anne rode back to the stables. After a while, Tin-Can halted and let out a long whinny. Concorde pricked up his ears and looked attentively at Tin-Can.
“What’s the matter, Tin-Can?” Alex said. “Do you miss Meteor and Starshine?”
Soul Riders (Book 1) Page 10