The Curse of the Golden Touch

by G M Mckay

  She’d nearly started a brawl one year when she’d accused Alastair of cheating at cards. She’d loudly proclaimed in front of everyone that he was a fraud who would end up penniless like their fortune-losing father, which was quite possibly the worst insult anyone could hurl in our family.

  “That was awful,” I said sympathetically, remembering how upset Xan and Sally had been, not to mention the colossal tantrum Alastair had thrown. Even though he’d been a grown man by that point, Alastair had burst into tears of rage, kicked over the tree and stuffed half the presents into the fireplace, including mine which thankfully had been a new bathrobe rather than the puppy I’d been hoping for.

  “Well, it was the truth, too. My parents did muck everything up. I don’t know how they lost their Touch, but it ruined everything.”

  “Oh, Xan, not that silly old superstition again,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  The thing with our family is that we’re all incredibly lucky. It’s sort of a mandatory part of being part of the clan, I suppose. Going back as far as anyone can remember, we have a reputation when it comes to investments, business dealings and well, pretty much anything one of us puts their hand to. Among the more superstitious members of the family, it’s referred to as the Golden Touch.

  In Mother and Father’s case, it means that they basically own the entire town of nearby Maplegrove and the surrounding farms and forests. Which, I can tell you, does nothing to endear our family to the local townsfolk.

  There have always been silly rumours that our luck was due to some weird magical influence but I didn’t believe that. There is always a rational, scientific explanation for everything if you look hard enough. My theory is that if you’re born incredibly rich and you’re raised from infancy to believe that you have a gift, or a Golden Touch, that makes you invincible, then things naturally fall into place for you.

  The downside was that whenever anyone did have the misfortune to make a colossal bad decision, and this only happened once every couple of generations or so, it created quite the scandal, and the offender was treated pretty much as if they’d committed murder, or worse. Losing your Touch was a hangable offence in our family.

  “It’s not a superstition, Jilly,” Xan said, looking serious for the first time that morning. “I’ve seen the effects of it firsthand.”

  “Oh, Xan, you know how sorry I am about that, but your poor parents … anyone can make a mistake.”

  It had been a dark time for Xan’s family and I still burned with shame when I remembered how the three Blackwood children had been treated during the tragedy. Somehow, when Xan was about twelve years old, his father had lost his Touch, an event which sent shockwaves of mortified outrage throughout the entire family. In the space of a year Xan’s parents had lost most of their fortune in bad investments; summer homes had to be sold off, the private jet and car collection rehomed and the children pulled from their exclusive private school in Switzerland. Finally, only their rambling old Blackwood estate and stables remained.

  To top it all off their parents had been killed in a car crash shortly afterward, leaving Xan, Sally and Alastair orphaned. I’d like to say our relatives welcomed them in with open arms but it was quite the opposite. My cousins had been treated a little like lepers after that, as if their parents’ bad luck might be somehow contagious.

  “Well, if I can’t blame them for losing everything then I can at least blame them for dying and leaving me and the twins to shoulder all their debts,” Xan said, frowning. “Anyway, I’m not here to dredge up the past, Jilly. I need your help.”

  “Xan, I’d love to help you but I have dozens of shows coming up. I can’t take time away to go on an adventure with you; Bally and I are riding our first Grand Prix tests in public this winter; we need to practice.”

  “Well, bring him with you. Word is that Old Ruthless has a world-class horse facility that she hoards to herself; full-sized indoor arena, outdoor jumper ring, a galloping track, and miles of pasture. Apparently, it’s horse paradise there.”

  “Oh, that does sound nice. But she didn’t invite me, Xan; she invited you and your horse.”

  “Horses,” Xan reminded me, “she said horses; plural. And I only have one. Anyway, it’s not like she really expects me to arrive alone to her spooky old mansion. Nobody in their right mind would show up there without a sidekick.”

  There was a loud knock at the kitchen door and Gilbert pushed inside without waiting for an answer. His blond curls were tousled around his head in a halo and his cheeks were red from the frosty air outside. He held Bally’s fallen halter and lead rope in one hand and his blue eyes sparkled with good humour.

  “Hey, Jilly,” he called, “Bally made it back safe and sound. Do you know whose horse trailer…?” He stopped as soon as he saw Xan, the easy smile slipping from his face. “Master Xander,” he said sarcastically through gritted teeth.

  “Jaros,” Xan said coldly, using Gilbert’s last name. “Yes, that’s my trailer you’re wondering about and that’s my horse inside it. I’ll most likely be invited to stay the night so you might as well unload him. Make sure you bed his stall deeply and mind how you handle him, he’s expensive and I don’t want him ruined by incompetence.”

  “Oh, Xan,” I said in dismay, heat prickling up my neck in embarrassment. “Please don’t boss Gilbert around. He’s my friend; you know that.”

  “I’d rather hoped you would have grown out of that childish fancy,” Xan muttered, sending Gil a dark glance.

  “Well, I haven’t and I won’t. So let’s all go down to the stable together as friends. Of course you can stay the night. We’d be delighted to have you.”

  I linked arms firmly with both of them and we walked down to the stable with me chattering away uncontrollably like a magpie to fill the icy silence. Nothing I said could draw more than grunts and nods out of either of them.

  I wished they could find a way to get along. Gilbert had lived at the farm with his father, our head trainer Christoph, since he was seven years old and we’d been best friends since the first day we’d laid eyes on one another. Actually, he’d been my only friend back when I was a weird, scrawny kid in glasses and braids, always with my nose in a book when I wasn’t on a pony.

  The kids at school hadn’t liked me very much, although some of that might have been my own fault. I was the type of kid who corrected people’s grammar and randomly shared scientific facts. Also, at that age I was convinced that I was some sort of ghost whisperer. I thought I saw spirits everywhere and I’m sure I terrified my classmates and half the teachers on more than one occasion. By the age of six, I’d resigned myself to a life of friendless solitude, but when Gilbert had arrived, he’d changed everything for the better.

  As long as we’d been friends, Gil and Xan had been rivals. Xan had sometimes spent the summer at Greystone and they’d competed against one another in horse shows for years before Gil decided to focus on dressage and Xan gravitated toward show jumping and eventing. Their dislike of one another hadn’t faded over time; it probably didn’t help that Gilbert not only had access to all Mother’s amazing horses but was also a brilliant horseman who could outride Xan any day of the week, blindfolded.

  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief when we finally reached the small silver truck and trailer parked in front of the east wing of the stable.

  “Oh, that’s not Teddy,” I said, stepping up on the running board to peer inside. Instead of Xan’s usual bay eventer, Teddy, a strange black horse stared back at me balefully, yanking mouthfuls of hay from his net and chewing industriously despite the small space he’d been crammed into. It was a decent enough trailer but much too small for a big horse like that. “Let’s bring him out so we can see him better.”

  There was a brief moment where Gilbert and Xan stared each other down, each struggling not to be the one to make the first move.

  “Did you want me to unload him by myself?” I asked in exasperation and instantly they sprang into action, Gilbert lowered the heavy
back ramp while Xan went to the animal’s head and clipped on a lead rope.

  The horse marched backward down the ramp and stood there with his head held high, surveying our stables with a commanding look. He wore an immaculate green travelling blanket monogrammed in gold thread with the Blackwood crest and his midnight black coat glistened in the morning light, not a hair out of place.

  “Ooh,” I said, “Xan, he’s beautiful. But where did he come from? Where’s Teddy?”

  “Sold,” Xan said quickly, not quite meeting my eye. He knelt and busied himself taking off the horse’s shipping boots. “I had to sell Teddy and all my other projects to afford this guy. Alastair found him for me, actually, and he loaned me the rest of the money to buy him.”

  “Really, Alastair?” I said in surprise. Xan’s brother wasn’t exactly the type to go around spontaneously loaning money; he was notoriously cagey with his wallet and almost every penny they made went into maintaining their crumbling estate.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but he’s not all bad. He’s been almost human lately. I think he must have a girlfriend. He’s been positively friendly.”

  “Oh, good,” I said unenthusiastically. As much as I loved Xan, I could not bring myself to feel the same way about either Alastair or his twin sister Sally. Growing up, they’d been the sort of cousins who were always creeping around listening when they shouldn’t be, or smuggling small, valuable things into their pockets, and pinching the younger children when none of the adults were watching.

  “Alastair felt that it was important to make a good impression on Great Aunt Ruth when I arrived. She’s not going to sponsor someone who doesn’t have a great horse; she wants to see potential. A sponsorship for me would mean an injection of cash for our estate, too. It would benefit all of us.”

  “Of course,” I said, swallowing hard. I hoped for his sake that things turned out but they were sure going through a lot of trouble over a simple invitation. It wasn’t like Great Aunt Ruth had promised Xan anything other than a visit. And the casual way he’d just sold Teddy bothered me most of all.

  Horses were bought and sold all the time, of course, but Teddy had been a really nice horse and he’d tried so hard for Xan. I hoped he’d ended up in a good home.

  “No more project horses or race-track rejects for me, cousin,” Xan said, seeming to guess my train of thought. “This one is a seasoned Advanced level eventer.” Xan grinned and slapped the animal’s well-muscled shoulder with pride. “Jilly, meet Rigel.”

  “Well, he certainly is stunning,” I said diplomatically, reaching out to touch the horse’s proudly arched neck. Xan had always depended on buying either very young horses for cheap or retraining talented horses off the track like Teddy. He’d never had the money to buy an animal of this calibre so the least I could do was be supportive.

  “Wait, Jilly!” Xan’s warning came too late.

  Before I could even blink, Rigel squealed, flattened his ears against his head and lunged straight toward me. There was a moment where I felt his teeth click in the air, millimeters from my outstretched arm and then his big shoulder crashed into me and I fell, landing hard on the cobblestones. I tumbled out of the way as best I could, curling quickly into a ball to protect myself from the hooves clattering dangerously close to my head.

  There was a high-pitched yowling sound and suddenly I was yanked from the ground and set abruptly on my feet, a pair of strong arms wrapped protectively around my shoulders. “Jilly,” Gilbert said, peering anxiously into my face and brushing my hair out of my eyes, “Did he hurt you?”

  “I … I’m fine,” I said breathlessly, leaning into him gratefully. I did a quick inventory of my body parts and found I was mostly undamaged. I gingerly rubbed my elbow where it had smacked into the cobblestones and winced.

  “She’d be much better if you’d take your dirty paws off her,” Xan snapped, struggling to hold his nervously prancing horse.

  Gilbert stiffened but didn’t let go of me. He sent a deathly glare in Xan’s direction.

  “I’m okay, Gil,” I said, gently patting his arm.

  He hovered beside me protectively for another second before stepping away.

  “Xan, is Rigel always like that?” I asked cautiously, my legs still shaking a little.

  “Sorry, I should have warned you that he’s a bit unpredictable. We got a good discount on him because they said he had a few quirks, but it’s nothing I can’t iron out. Don’t worry, Alastair took out an insurance policy on me just in case.” He laughed at his own joke. “I’ve only had the horse a few days but he’s never done anything like that, you must have startled him …”

  “That animal is dangerous,” Gil said ominously, and I put a restraining hand on his arm. Xan had just gotten the horse after all and I liked to give every creature the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Rigel had had a difficult past.

  “There, he’s quieter now,” Xan said. “He’ll be all right. Look, that’s what scared him; you have a small tiger on your foot.”

  “Oh, Morris,” I said, bending down to gather the gigantic orange tabby protectively into my arms. “What were you doing down there? You could have been killed.” I smoothed the animal’s ruffled fur until he relaxed against me and began to purr, kneading his big paws against my arm.

  “Well, he nearly killed us. I don’t think Rigel is used to cats. Why don’t you have a sensible pet like a dog, Jilly? I can’t look at a cat without thinking that they’re somehow judging me.”

  “Oh, you know Mother,” I said with a sigh, “she hates animals that don’t have a purpose. Horses are the only thing allowed around here, I’m afraid, and only if they’re winning ribbons. Morris gets to stay because he’s useful at hunting mice.”

  Gil and I sent each other conspiratorial grins. Morris was more of an overweight, pampered lap cat than a hunter and probably hadn’t caught a rodent in over a decade. We carefully guarded that secret from Mother, though.

  “It’s a pity you don’t stand up to that old battle-axe more often, Jilly. I don’t understand why you let her run your life …”

  “Says the man who needs a sidekick to visit his elderly great aunt,” I teased, quickly changing the subject. “I’d say they’re equally as intimidating.”

  “Hmm,” he said, leading Rigel from the courtyard toward the spacious barn. “You may have a point. But seriously, don’t you want to get away from here, start your own life? You used to be so adventurous.”

  I stiffened and sent a quick side-glance at Gil. It was something he’d asked me more than once in the last few years, and especially since awful-Frederick had dumped me so hard. The truth was that I didn’t have an answer; of course I loved Greystone and the horses, but it was something else, something deeper that kept me there. I was afraid to leave, but I didn’t know why.

  “Why would I want to give up all this?” I said finally, as we reached the door of the opulent stable block and were greeted by a chorus of interested neighs from inside.

  The stables had been built by a distant ancestor in the same style as the house, using the massive blocks of stone that gave our estate, Greystone Manor, its name. Banks of stalls ran down one side and the aisle was big enough to drive a truck, or two, through. When my parents had inherited the place, Mother had added an indoor arena so we could train year-round, even in the cold Canadian winters. She had been quite the rider in her youth, but now she left all the riding and training to Christoph, Gil, and me. She ran the business side of the operation with an iron fist, though.

  Gilbert stalked away to the barn office, saying he had paperwork to do, and Morris trotted happily after him with his tail waving in the air, leaving Xan and me to our own devices.

  Rigel’s hooves clopped imperiously down the wide barn aisle and he looked haughtily at the horses resting in their roomy, double-sized box stalls as if he were a king and they were loyal subjects ushering him up a red carpet to his throne.

  He’s beautiful but he certainly is an arrogant horse, I thought
, watching as he curled his lip in a sneer when he passed our stallion Coconut’s stall. He’s certainly not kind like Teddy was.

  The other horses watched him pass without moving forward to greet him like they usually would when a stranger arrived and Coconut moved quickly to the very back of his stall and turned his hindquarters defensively to the door.

  Xan put Rigel in an empty stall a few spaces down from Bally and left him restively pulling at his hay net while I gave Xan a quick tour of the stables. He’d been there many times before but our horses were always changing as new ones were bought and sold. All but Bally, of course; he was completely mine and would live here forever.

  “Who are you showing this winter?” Xan asked, eyeing the impeccably-bred, well-muscled horses enviously.

  “Oh,” I said, struggling to sound enthusiastic, “Lark, the bay mare with the stockings, Serena the grey, Lilo the chestnut gelding with the funny blaze, Allison the other bay, and of course, Bally. That’s enough for me.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re complaining about having too many world class horses to ride,” Xan said, raising an eyebrow, “because I’d be happy to take some off your hands.”

  “No, no,” I said quickly, “it’s just that … well, it’s not as fun when you have to do it. If I had my choice, I’d just ride Bally. Sometimes I just get so tired of it all.”

  “Well, poor you.” Xan said sarcastically, “that’s what you get for being so talented, I suppose.”

  “Oh, I’m just average,” I said quickly, hurrying past his comment. Even though it was all silly superstition, it was my darkest, secret fear that my Golden Touch was riding and that it was the family legacy that made me bring home piles of ribbons and not talent and hard work at all. It was a worry that often kept me up late into the night. “Gilbert’s riding Coconut at Grand Prix this year, too; you should see how wonderful they’re doing.”