The Riverdale Pony Stories Box Set (Books 1-6)

by Amanda Wills

  Chapter Four

  Caroline had barely pulled up the handbrake before Poppy had unclipped her seatbelt and jumped out of the passenger door.

  ‘I'm going to tell Scarlett about Red,’ Poppy said.

  She'd taken a dozen photos of the chestnut gelding on her phone and scrolled through them as she crossed the field of sheep that separated Riverdale and Ashworthy, the farm where Scarlett lived with her older brother Alex and their parents Bill and Pat. Red was the same shade of burnt umber as both Blaze and Scarlett's own auburn hair. It was fate, Poppy told herself, as she climbed over the gate onto the roughshod Ashworthy drive. All she had to do was convince Scarlett to see her.

  Pat was kneading a huge ball of dough in the farm's shabby but cosy kitchen when Poppy poked her head around the door.

  ‘I wondered if Scarlett wanted some company.’

  Pat pushed the dough down and out with the heel of her hand, pulled it back into a ball and sprinkled it with flour. She nodded in the direction of the lounge. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. She's been moping around the house since Friday. I don't know what's up with her.’

  ‘Caroline said she wasn't very well and that's why she didn't come to the fete yesterday.’

  Pat dropped the dough into a bowl to prove on top of the Rayburn. ‘That's what she says, but I'm not convinced. She hasn't got a temperature. She hasn't been sick. She just seems to be down in the dumps. Perhaps you can cheer her up.’

  ‘I'll do my best. But before I do, can I talk to you about something?’

  Poppy took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the lounge. Scarlett, wearing faded My Little Pony pyjamas and a glowering expression, was curled up on the sofa with Meg, the family's border collie. The dog gave a welcoming woof and jumped down to see Poppy, her tail wagging.

  ‘At least someone's pleased to see me,’ joked Poppy. She stroked Meg's silky ears and chanced another look at Scarlett. On closer inspection she realised her best friend was clutching a tissue and her eyes were red-rimmed.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’

  Scarlett waved the remote control at the television. They watched together as a beautiful bay gelding galloped in blind panic through No Man's Land, shells exploding all around him and barbed wire tearing his chest. War Horse was one of Poppy's all-time favourite films - it was right up there with International Velvet - but it was so sad it was enough to make a statue weep. No wonder Scarlett was crying.

  ‘Turn it off before Joey gets caught in the barbed wire. I can't stand that bit,’ Poppy said, plonking herself down on the sofa beside Scarlett. ‘I know you're really cross with me, and I don't blame you, but I've got some really exciting news I promise you'll want to hear.’

  Scarlett blew her noise noisily and glared at Poppy, who ignored her and reached in her back pocket for her phone.

  ‘This is Red. He's fifteen hands and four years old. Gorgeous, isn't he?’

  Scarlett glanced at the screen and looked away. ‘Are you getting another horse?’ she said dully.

  ‘No, you idiot, he's for you!’

  A damson-dark flush was inching its way up Scarlett's neck. ‘How many times do I have to spell it out, Poppy? Mum and Dad can't afford another horse.’

  ‘Red's not for sale.’

  ‘So why are you showing me his picture?’ Scarlett uncurled her legs and swung her feet to the floor. ‘I'm going upstairs.’

  ‘Blimey, Scarlett, you can be a stroppy mare sometimes. Just listen for a minute, will you? Red is a rescue horse. He lives at Nethercote Horse Rescue. He's about to go up for adoption. I've had a word with the girl who runs the place. He's as good as yours if you pass the home visit and you and he get on.’

  Eyes wide, Scarlett gawped at Poppy. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Absolutely. We met Jodie, the girl who runs the rescue centre, at the fete yesterday. She's -’

  But Scarlett wasn't listening. She was two steps ahead and her voice was resigned. ‘It won't work. Mum and Dad are bound to say no. It's another mouth to feed, isn't it? Another horse to shoe. More vet's bills. Tack we can't afford.’

  The door opened and Pat appeared with two mugs of tea. ‘What can't we afford?’ she asked, winking at Poppy.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Scarlett, sliding Poppy's phone down the side of the sofa.

  ‘Poppy's just been showing me the photos of Red. He's a handsome lad, isn't he?’ Pat set the mugs on the coffee table. ‘Are you going to go and see him?’

  ‘There's no point, is there? We can't afford to keep him.’

  Pat smiled at her daughter. ‘Barney was only asking me the other day if you might be interested in a Saturday job at the shop. If you take him up on his offer and use your wages towards Red's keep, I'll make sure we find the rest. It's been a good year for lambing and the pigs are doing really well. You'll have to make do with second-hand tack, but you're used to hand-me-downs, aren't you?’

  Scarlett nodded, a smile creeping across her freckled face at last. She sprang up from the sofa and threw her arms around her mum.

  ‘You have Poppy to thank. It was all her idea,’ Pat said.

  Poppy caught Scarlett's eye. ‘Am I forgiven?’

  Scarlett's forehead creased in a frown and she tilted her head to one side and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Poppy's heart sank. If finding Scarlett a new horse wasn't enough to win her over she didn't know what was. Then Scarlett broke free from her mum and hugged Poppy.

  ‘Of course you are, you twit! I had already forgiven you really. I should know by now that tact isn't one of your strong points. I was just feeling sorry for myself. And now I feel like Christmas has come early and Santa has promised me the best present ever!’

  Friends again, the two girls decided to celebrate with a ride. Feeling magnanimous, Poppy asked Charlie if he wanted to tag along on his bike. ‘As long as you only speak when spoken to and promise not to be annoying,’ she told him sternly.

  Charlie smiled his sweetest smile. ‘I'm never annoying.’

  ‘Ha! That's open for debate.’

  Back at Ashworthy Scarlett was zinging with excitement. ‘Mum's phoned Jodie. We're going to see Red in the morning. Want to come, too?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Never mind tomorrow. Where are we going today?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Follow me,’ Poppy said mysteriously. ‘I know exactly where I want to go.’

  Cloud's ears were pricked as they approached the band of conifers that cloaked the tumbledown cottage. The ground was so squelchy Charlie had to push his mountain bike. ‘My feet are soaking,’ he grumbled. ‘Where exactly are we supposed to be going?’

  ‘Stop whingeing and keep walking, little brother. It's worth the wait, I promise.’

  They plunged into the conifers. Poppy grinned at the other two. ‘Almost there.’

  Scarlett gasped when she saw the dilapidated building and the dark waters of the tarn.

  ‘It's Witch Cottage! We can't go there!’

  Poppy jumped off Cloud and gave Scarlett a puzzled look.

  ‘It's fine. Cloud and I explored it the other day. No-one lives there any more. I reckon it's been empty for years.’

  ‘You don't understand! It's haunted!’

  Charlie propped his bike against a tree and stared at Scarlett agog.

  ‘The pool's in the shape of a tear, isn't it?’ Scarlett said.

  Poppy nodded. ‘Why?’

  ‘My Granny Martha used to say the pool came from a single teardrop wept by an old woman whose only son was killed in a tin mining accident like about five hundred years ago. Granny said it's bottomless, and anyone who gazes into the waters at midnight on Midsummer's Eve will see a reflection of the next person in the parish to die.’

  Scarlett's voice had taken on a low, chilling tone. ‘People thought the old crone was a witch and one full moon a group of villagers crept into her cottage, dragged her from her bed and burnt her and her familiar at the stake.’

  Charlie frowned. ‘Her familiar what?’

>   ‘A familiar is another name for a witch's animal companion, Charlie. In this case it was a cat.’

  Poppy tutted. What a cliché. ‘Was it black, by any chance?’

  ‘No, it was ginger, actually. He was called Marmaduke. That's what the legend says, anyway. And now the witch can be seen gliding around the banks of the pool on the night of every full moon, with Marmaduke riding on her withered old shoulders and the ends of her tattered cloak on fire.’

  By this time they had reached the stone wall surrounding the cottage and tarn.

  ‘And,’ said Scarlett, pointing to a small wooden cross Poppy hadn't noticed before. ‘About five years ago a group of wild swimmers were crossing the pool when one of them got into difficulties and drowned. And do you know what?’

  ‘What?’ breathed Charlie, who was hanging onto her every word.

  ‘The swimmer who died was exactly the same age as the old woman's son when he was killed in the tin mine.’ Scarlett drew her hand across her neck in a cut-throat gesture. Poppy rolled her eyes.

  ‘But that's not all,’ Scarlett said dramatically. ‘Sometimes at night lights can be seen in the windows of the cottage. Some people say it's the old crone lighting candles in memory of her son.’

  ‘Some people talk a load of absolute rubbish,’ said Poppy. ‘Are you going to come and have a look around or what?’

  Scarlett was aghast. ‘Haven't you heard a word of what I've been saying? There's no way you're dragging me into that house of horrors. I'll stay and look after the ponies, thanks.’

  Charlie had no such reservations. He sprinted to the crooked front door and heaved it open, beckoning Poppy to follow. She handed Cloud's reins to Scarlett and ran after him.

  Charlie was already disappearing up the creaky staircase.

  ‘Be careful, some of the floorboards are a bit rotten,’ she called.

  ‘No need to worry, sis. I can look after myself,’ he shouted back.

  ‘Famous last words,’ Poppy muttered, inspecting the decrepit remains of the kitchen. Someone must have lived in the cottage since the old crone in Scarlett's dubious legend, although Poppy guessed the house must have been empty for at least half a century. A corroded black kettle sat atop the rusty range. A couple of tarnished knives and forks gathered dust on some woodworm-infested shelves. Poppy pulled open a couple of cupboards, but there was nothing inside apart from ancient cobwebs and a couple of dead bluebottles. Upstairs she could hear Charlie exclaiming with delight as he thundered between the two bedrooms like a baby elephant with a sugar rush.

  She was prising open the door of the range when there was a shout and the ceiling above her head shook ominously, sprinkling her with a layer of dust as fine as icing sugar. She raced up the stairs, two at a time. Charlie was sitting with his back to her, hugging his right knee.

  ‘What on earth's happened?’

  Charlie looked over his shoulder. ‘My foot's stuck,’ he said sheepishly.

  ‘In one of those rotten floorboards I warned you about?’ Poppy knelt down next to him. Charlie's foot had broken clean-through the crumbling plank and was wedged between two joists. She slipped her hand into the gap and felt for his shoe. ‘I think it's your trainer that's stuck. If I undo your laces you should be able to wiggle your foot out. We'll give it a try.’

  Poppy began picking at the double knot but the gap was so small that every time she moved her hand she grazed her knuckles on the rough underside of the floorboards. Eventually she felt the laces slither undone. She sat back on her haunches and Charlie wiggled out his foot.

  ‘You're lucky you didn't break your ankle,’ Poppy told him, reaching back into the gap for his trainer. As she did her fingers brushed against a hard edge. It didn't feel like a joist. It was more like the cover of a book. Poppy leant on her elbows and slid her hand further in. It was definitely a book. But who would hide a book beneath the floorboards of an abandoned croft where an old woman who may or may not have been a witch had once lived? The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  ‘Have you got my shoe yet?’ Charlie asked. He had a cobweb in his hair and his knees were filthy.

  ‘No, it's caught on something’ she lied, keen to keep this discovery to herself. ‘Go over to the window. There's a swallow's nest under the eaves. See if you can see the babies.’

  Once Poppy was sure his attention was diverted she swivelled around on her heels so her back was facing him and pulled out the book. It was long and slim with a black cover and the year embossed in silver leaf on the front. A diary. Poppy flicked through it, as furtive as a pickpocket stealing a wallet. Pages and pages were crammed with tiny writing. Her heart was hammering in her ribcage as she tried to decipher the loops and curls.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Poppy, tucking the diary in her waistband and reaching back into the hole in the floorboards. ‘Here's your shoe,’ she said, tossing him the white and navy trainer. She checked her watch. ‘We'd better go or Scarlett will have a fit. She hates it here.’

  ‘I think it's awesome. It could be our secret den where we plan all our adventures.’

  ‘Maybe we'll come over on the next full moon. See if Scarlett's right about the place being haunted,’ said Poppy, half-joking.

  But if she thought her brother would be fazed by any ghostly goings-on she was wrong. His eyes were sparkling.

  ‘Cool idea!’ he said, grinning at Poppy. ‘Why didn't I think of that?’

  The diary pressed uncomfortably into Poppy's back all the way home. As they cantered across the moor, Charlie pedalling furiously to keep up, she wondered why she hadn't shared her discovery with Scarlett. Perhaps it was because her best friend had showed no desire to have anything to do with the tumbledown cottage. She'd flung Cloud's reins at Poppy and jumped on Blaze the second they'd re-appeared, muttering about bad vibes and negative energy. Scarlett was one of the most superstitious people Poppy knew. She shrieked with horror if Poppy spilled salt and forgot to hurl a pinch of it over her left shoulder, and if Poppy dared dice with death by walking under a ladder she virtually went into meltdown. Poppy didn't hold any truck with superstitions - she supposed it was having a cynical journalist as a dad. As far as she was concerned Scarlett's tale of supernatural happenings was utter nonsense.

  ‘We're leaving at ten tomorrow,’ Scarlett said, as they clip-clopped down the Ashworthy drive.

  ‘I'll be there,’ Poppy said, grimacing as she surreptitiously shifted the diary further down her jodhpurs.

  ‘Why are you pulling a face? Don't you want to come?’

  ‘'Course I do. I'm just trying to scratch a mosquito bite,’ Poppy lied.

  Back home, once she'd turned Cloud out with Chester, Poppy raced upstairs to her bedroom, closed the door, and propped her old wicker chair under the door handle. It wouldn't stop Charlie coming in, but it would buy her enough time to hide her find. She sat cross-legged on her bed and opened the diary with trembling fingers.

  Chapter Five

  The first two pages were covered in doodles. Circles and spirals, squares and triangles, stars and flowers. So many squiggles and scribbles that at first Poppy didn't see the three words in the middle of the facing page. When she did, she blinked and looked again, in case the loopy, slanting script somehow untangled itself and snaked into three completely different words. It didn't. The words were there in black and white. Caitlyn Jones's Diary.

  Poppy realised she was gripping the book so tightly she was in danger of breaking the spine. She closed it, drummed her fingers on the black leather cover and wondered what to do. Caitlyn Jones had always been a complete enigma to Poppy. Someone she had obsessed about and felt inferior to ever since the McKeevers had moved to Riverdale. Someone who, if ghosts did actually exist, came as close to haunting Poppy's subconscious as anyone ever would.

  Caitlyn was the other girl in Cloud's life. Poppy corrected herself. Had been the other girl in his life. Not any more.

  There was a photo of Caitlyn
and Cloud in Tory's flat, taken at the Brambleton Horse Show the same year Poppy's mum Isobel died. Poppy scrutinised it every time she visited, battling the jealousy and inadequacy it inevitably stirred, feelings that were as invasive as goosegrass, no matter how hard she tried to suppress them.

  Poppy loved Cloud with all her heart. She would walk over burning coals for him, no question. And she knew her pony loved her. After all, he'd found her when he'd been let loose on the moor during their stay at Redhall Manor Equestrian Centre, hadn't he? But did he love her as much as he'd loved Caitlyn? Poppy had no answer to that.

  And yet here, in her hands, was the key to unlock Caitlyn's innermost thoughts. A window to her dreams and fears. A chance for Poppy to see the world through Cait's eyes.

  Poppy gazed at the diary almost reverently, her fingers flicking through the pages as if it was a kids' flip book. She itched to read it. And yet the diary held secrets and thoughts Caitlyn had scribbled down never imagining that anyone else would ever see them. It was private property. Poppy had kept a diary ever since Caroline had bought her one for Christmas the previous year. She hated the thought of anyone reading it. It would be so embarrassing. More than that, it would make her feel exposed, vulnerable. Poppy slammed the book shut. If she felt like that about her own diary, it would be hypocritical for her to read someone else's, wouldn't it?

  Poppy shoved the diary under her pillow and stood up. She was halfway across her room when she stopped, as if glued to the floor. The desire to read the diary was overwhelming. Caitlyn was dead, killed seven years ago when Cloud fell at a fence during a hunter trial. What harm could reading it do? Poppy would never divulge what she'd read. It would be their secret, a bond between them as strong as the one they each shared with Cloud. With a certainty she couldn't explain, Poppy knew Caitlyn wouldn't mind. She spun on her heels, jumped back on her bed and pulled out the diary before she could change her mind.

  A slip of folded paper fluttered out of the pages and settled between her crossed legs like a sycamore seed on a blustery autumn day. It was an old newspaper cutting, brittle and flaking. Poppy smoothed it out, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and began to read.