The Island of Lost Horses

by Stacy Gregg

  “No!” My father put his arms across the doorway and barred my path. “No, Felipa! Do not go near her. You must get away from this place. Leave this house now – do you hear me?”

  “Let me through!” I was screaming. “I want to see Mama!”

  I tried to fight my way past but Papa shoved me roughly away before slamming the door shut and bolting it from the inside.

  Outside the bedroom, I clawed desperately at the handle.

  “Mama!” I cried. “Let me in! What is happening?”

  But in my heart I knew. In that brief glimpse of my mama I had seen the black swellings on the side of her throat and the ruby-red flush of her cheeks, hot with fever. I knew why my father would not let me in. He was trying to save my life. Mama had the black plague.

  I pressed myself up to the door listening in horror to my mother’s wails on the other side.

  “Mama,” I sobbed. “Mama, I am here. I am here.”

  The black plague is a brutal death, and, in my mother’s case, it was mercifully swift. Very soon her screams became pitiful whimpers and moans, and then these too grew weaker until they ceased altogether.

  I slumped down and cried her name again and again. I knew there was nothing I could do. By the time the dawn’s clear light broke it was over. Mama was dead.

  “May I see her?” I begged my father when he opened the door at last. “Please, Papa?”

  My father shook his head.

  “Even in death she may pass the sickness on to you,” he said.

  I never looked upon my mother’s face again. Papa held me back as they took her from the house wrapped in the bedsheets. Everyone was so afraid the plague might infect them – even the priest would not come to our house. For Mama to die without God’s pardon was a dreadful thing. This was the cruel, final curse of the plague. No last rites and no funeral.

  My stomach felt sick as I watched them throw her, as if she was no more than a sack of spoiled corn, on to a dump cart.

  “Where are they taking her?” I asked.

  “To the outskirts of the city,” my father said. “To be put upon a pyre and burned.”

  I stood in the street and watched them loading Mama’s possessions on to the cart alongside her. Her clothes and finery, all to be burnt in case they too carried the plague. Nothing of hers remained. I had not so much as a keepsake to remember her by.

  My father was not an affectionate man. He had no words of comfort for me as we watched her being driven away, so when he turned to go back inside I could not bring myself to follow. Only death and emptiness lay there. I turned and ran. I had to flee from the horrors I had just witnessed.

  I raced through the narrow cobbled streets towards the Alhambra. It was late afternoon and the streets were deserted – it was too hot to be outdoors. The sun burned and my lungs felt like they would burst. Still I kept running, all the way through the orange trees and the fountains until I had reached the royal stables.

  My feet had taken me where my heart needed to go, and I found myself padding down the corridor towards Cara’s stall.

  “Cara?” I unbolted the door, my hands trembling, and at the sound of my voice she began to nicker, calling to me in the gloom.

  “Oh, Cara!” I flung my arms round her neck, holding on to her desperately, feeling the tears come in great floods. I buried my face deep into her mane and felt as miserable as I had ever been in my whole life.

  I cried for Mama, sobbing my heart out until my eyes were puffy and swollen and my head throbbed. My fingers tangled in Cara’s mane as I clung to my horse taking comfort from her, taking strength from her strength.

  When at last I had worn myself out and had collapsed into the straw bedding on the stable floor, Cara did the most remarkable thing. She came over to me and, nickering softly, she snuffled me with her muzzle, as if trying to rouse me. Then, when she could see that I was too weak to stand, she dropped to her knees and lay alongside me, so that I was able to put my arms round her. I held on tight, feeling her heart beating against my own as I curled up against the brown marking on her chest – the sign of the protector.

  I was exhausted, but I could not fall asleep. Every time I shut my eyes I could see the eyes of my mother staring at me, so terrified as the plague took its grip. Her anguished cries rang in my ears.

  I clung to Cara and gathered what remained of my strength, and then I stood up and left the stables and headed for home.

  My father would be waiting for me. With my mother gone, he was all the family that I had. The thought that I had been trying to banish from my head became ever more real as I neared the house. Father had been with Mama when she was dying. What if he too had caught the plague? What if he already had begun to feel its gruesome effects?

  When I reached our house my fears grew worse. The front door was hanging wide open.

  “Father?” I walked inside and called for him but there was no reply.

  “Father!” I raced up the stairs, expecting to find him in the bedroom, prepared for the worst. But when I reached the room there was no one there. The house was empty. My father was gone.

  I felt completely bewildered. The house, which had been wracked with moans and pitiful cries, was now silent. I went and checked in my father’s wardrobe. His clothes and his travelling bag were all still there.

  I waited for a while, thinking he would return. After all, where else would he go? I even began to prepare for him, tidying the kitchen and baking bread in case he was hungry. Kneading the dough kept my hands busy and eased my fears, but by the time the loaf had cooled he had still not returned.

  I was certain something was very wrong. I left the bread uneaten and headed out of the house. I had to see the one person who might be able to help me to find my father.

  ***

  “Mom?” I was sitting at the table watching her cook dinner. “What’s the black plague?”

  “A disease carried by rats,” Mom said. “The rats were infested with fleas and if the fleas bit you then you got the plague.”

  “And then you died?”

  “Pretty much,” Mom said. “It killed millions of people hundreds of years ago. Whole towns and cities were infected.”

  “Can you still get it now?”

  Mom shook her head. “Not in the Bahamas, sweetie.”

  “That’s good,” I said, “because I wouldn’t want you to die from it.”

  Mom looked at me like I was talking crazy. “Thanks for your concern, Bee.”

  “So, umm, there’s no plague in Florida either?”

  Mom stopped stirring the paella.

  “Bee? You need to let go of this idea of moving back with your Dad, OK? He’s just not in a good place right now.”

  I was going to say something smart, like, “I thought he was in Florida,” but I didn’t want to get into a fight again. I’d been fighting so much with Mom lately and I hated it.

  Also, my only way off this boat was to make peace. And I desperately wanted to get back to the island.

  “Did you see how I washed down the decks?” I asked. “And I cleaned the cabin windows too.”

  Mom raised an eyebrow at me. “OK, Beatriz, what are you angling for?”

  “Nothing!” I insisted as she dished up the plates of paella. I sat there and waited for her to join me at the table and then I said, really casually, “Hey, Mom, can I take the Zodiac out tomorrow?”

  “I suppose so,” Mom said. “Where are you planning on going?”

  “Round the coast.”

  There was a tense pause. I held my breath.

  “Wear a life jacket, please,” Mom said. “And be back by dinner.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I spent the rest of dinner asking Mom questions about her work so that she wouldn’t ask me about what my plans were. I had told the truth when I said I was going round the coast. I just hadn’t mentioned my final destination, had I?

  F.M.

  19th September, 1493

  My mother’s death had kept me fro
m my duties at court. I knew that Princess Joanna would be upset, but surely when she discovered the reason for my absence there would be no need to apologise. Together we could go to the Queen and I could ask her to help me find my father.

  Joanna was not in her chambers and so I made my way directly to the grand hall of the Alhambra. There was music playing and voices and laughter inside, but all of it stopped as I walked in.

  Ladies turned to face the wall as if the mere act of looking at me would somehow infect them with plague. At least I had thought that it was the plague that they shied away from. I realised later that I was wrong.

  The Queen was not present and Joanna was at the far end of the hall, talking with some of the courtiers. I ran to her, feeling hot tears prick my eyes. I was expecting her to embrace me as she always did, but she held herself stiffly. I felt so embarrassed to be denied her affection that I dropped to my knee in a clumsy curtsey instead.

  “Dearest Joanna,” I said, “I have come to ask your help. I have been away from court because my mother was sick with plague. I watched her die and fled in grief, and now I have just returned home in great distress only to find my father missing…”

  I had known Joanna all my life. Since I was old enough to talk we had shared our secrets and our dreams with each other. She was like a sister to me. And until that moment, I had thought I meant the same to her, but when I lifted my face to hers I saw – nothing. No tears, no emotion. No sweetness and no sympathy.

  “Felipa, I am sorry to hear news of your mother…” Joanna’s voice was cold. “However, the matter of your father is out of my hands. I cannot interfere for not even a princess is above the will of God.”

  I was stunned. “What are you talking about? Princess Joanna, where is my father?”

  It was not the Princess who answered my question. The doors to the grand hall swung open and Tomas de Torquemada strode in, his red-robed guards of the Inquisition flanking him on either side.

  “Lady Felipa Molina,” he spoke loud enough so that all those assembled in the hall could hear, “your father has been taken to the dungeons.”

  I looked at him, my heart pounding. “I’m sorry… I do not understand. Why would my father be in the dungeons?”

  Tomas de Torquemada held me with his cold eyes, as if weighing up his next move, and when he spoke his words were a knife in my heart.

  “Your father allowed your mother to die without last rites. He mocks the one true faith of the Catholic religion. The Inquisition has taken him so that we may see if his heart is true to the Church and to the Queen.”

  The poison that he spoke! To use my mother’s death as an excuse to imprison my father! Oh, Mama, you were right. Tomas de Torquemada had been secretly plotting against our family all along. And, if the Chief Inquisitor had his way, my papa was going to die.

  Island Stallion

  It was further to go by sea to get to Annie’s crib, but I figured it would take about the same amount of time because I didn’t have to do the long walk through the jungle.

  I set off early, saying goodbye to Mom at breakfast and getting underway before she changed her mind. I motored the Zodiac south all the way along the coast of the nature reserve to the very end of the island and then back up the other side, along past Saw Mill Sink, until I reached the mudflats. I tried to hug the shoreline most of the way, and I kept the engine going slow, looking out for submerged rocks. The navigation only got tricky when I reached the mudflats. The sea was shallow and I was constantly in danger of beaching the Zodiac on the sandbanks. I steered my way between mangroves, looking for the deep channels where the water was dark turquoise. Eventually the water wasn’t deep enough for the motor or even to row so I had to give up and drag the Zodiac on to the sand. I left it behind and trekked the rest of the way to Annie’s on foot, lugging my backpack with me. It contained two things – my water bottle and the ancient diary.

  Annie was out back hammering bits of wood on to the horse pens. It looked like she was building a wall or something.

  As soon as she saw me she put her tools down and gave me a friendly grin. “Bee-a-trizz! Where you been, child?”

  “Nowhere,” I shrugged. “Just at home.”

  “You is just in time to help me,” Annie said. “I be carryin’ de Duchess back to de marshes.”

  “Is she ready to go back to the herd?” I asked.

  “Come see for yourself,” Annie said.

  The Duchess was tied up away from the pens at the other side of the cottage. When she caught sight of me she called out, raising her head up and doing this high-pitched whinny like she was saying hello. She looked all pleased to see me with her ears pricked forward. It felt pretty amazing, her greeting me like an old friend.

  “She know you, Bee-a-trizz!” Annie looked just as pleased. “For sure, she know you.”

  The strange thing is, I felt like I knew her too. Not just because of the mud hole. It was more than that. Like I’d always known her. Maybe it was Annie’s talk about having the obeah that had started me thinking there was something special between me and the Duchess, but I felt it more and more. I walked straight up to her, picked up one of Annie’s brushes and began untangling the burrs from her mane. It came so naturally to me, like I’d been caring for this horse all my life.

  I don’t know what was in Annie’s potion, but the wounds from the ropes had totally healed. All that was left were raw marks of bare skin where the fur was yet to grow back. Annie was right – the mare was well enough now to return to the herd.

  “You want to carry her wit’ me?” Annie asked as she tied a rope to the Duchess’s halter and opened up the gate.

  I had the job of watching out for the Duchess off the back of the tractor while Annie drove. It was fun for the first half-hour or so and then my arms began to ache.

  “You all right back dere, Bee-a-trizz?” Annie shouted over her shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I said, keeping a white-knuckle grip on the wheel arch.

  “We is almost dere,” Annie said. “De Bonefish Marshes dey up ahead.”

  “I can’t see any horses,” I said.

  “You see dem trees?” Annie pointed to the Caribbean pines dotting the shoreline. “Dey be in de trees takin’ shelter.”

  We bumped along for a bit longer and then Annie said, “Your mama she must be a strong woman, Bee-a-trizz. Takin’ you out on de sea, all de way from nowhere, just de two of you.”

  I had never thought about Mom like that. “I guess so,” I said reluctantly.

  “Where your daddy at?” Annie asked.

  “He lives in Florida,” I said. “He wants me to go and live with him but Mom won’t let me.”

  “Is that so?” Annie said. She kept driving the tractor, her eyes focused on the path ahead. I could tell by her tone of voice that she didn’t believe me.

  “He does!” I insisted. I could feel my face going redder, my fist closing tighter on the wheel arch. I thought about what Mom had said to me about Dad last night and then I thought about Annie’s tree, the one for keeping away the evil, strung with empty bottles.

  “Did you drink all the beer in those bottles on your tree?” I asked.

  Annie grunted. “Suppose I must have done,” she said. “Ain’t no one else here to drink dem.”

  “My dad drinks too,” I told her. “Mom says he can’t help it. She says he’s got a problem.”

  “Is that so?” Annie said. And this time I could tell she believed me.

  The Caribbean pines were tall and skinny enough for Annie to drive between them. She kept on going until we were right inside the jungle but when we reached a clearing in the middle of the trees she slowed down the tractor to a stop.

  “Dey is near,” she said.

  I didn’t see any sign of any horses. The Duchess seemed to sense something though, because she began flinging her head around, pulling back on the rope.

  “Let her loose now, Bee-a-trizz,” Annie said.

  I leapt down off the wheel rim. I was tr
ying to undo the knots in the rope halter when the Duchess almost lifted me off my feet, raising her head right up in the air. As she dragged me skywards she whinnied out louder than I had ever heard her cry before. Her call cut through the air, and then, a few heartbeats later, there came the reply. A whinny just as loud and insistent as her own, seeking her out, coming for her.

  “Let her loose, Bee-a-trizz!” There was an anxious tone to Annie’s voice. “Don’t be messin’ around.”

  “I’m trying!” I said. “I can’t get the knot out of the halter.”

  Annie jumped down off the tractor and came to help me. She sure could move fast for an old woman if she wanted to.

  “Who done tied this?” she asked as her gnarled fingers worked the knot.

  I am pretty good at knots, but I must have used the wrong one on the halter. It should have been a slip knot but it wasn’t. And it was impossible to untie. Annie clawed at it in vain with her fingernails.

  “Wait here,” she said. “Hold on!”

  Annie shoved the lead rope back in my hand. I could have just let the Duchess go, but if she was turned loose with her rope halter still on then there was too much risk that she would get it caught up or tangled on a tree. We needed to get the ropes off her before we could set her free.

  “Bee-a-trizz!”

  Annie thrust her hand towards me and I saw the sharp edge of the metal blade gleaming in the sunlight. “Take it!”

  I grasped the handle of the knife and began to saw away at the rope halter. The blade was blunt so the strands severed very slowly. I felt them pinging apart, one by one, until the halter was held together by no more than a few golden strands…

  “Bee-a-trizz!” Annie’s voice was tense. “Do it now…”

  I was about to cut the last threads when the Duchess jerked up her head really hard. The next thing I knew there was a thundering noise and the clearing was suddenly alive with horses.

  There were maybe seven or eight of them, but they galloped together, ducking and swerving around the trees, leaping over the uneven ground. I was overawed by their unstoppable power, the terrifying weight of their bodies, the brutal pounding of their legs that reverberated all the way through my body as they shook the ground beneath us.