The Island of Lost Horses

She didn’t turn and run at the sight of me. It was as if she expected to find me there in the middle of the jungle.

She stood there for a minute, her nostrils flared, taking in my scent on the air. And then she took a step forward, moving towards me. I stepped backwards. I mean, I wasn’t scared. It was just that she was nothing like those horses down the road back home in Florida. I had never seen a horse like this before. The way she held her head up high, imperious and proud, as if she owned the jungle.

The horse stretched out her neck, lowering her white face towards me and I held my ground. I could feel her warm, misty breath on my skin. She was no ghost. She was flesh and blood like me. Slowly, I raised my hand so that the tips of my fingers brushed against the velvet of her muzzle and that was when I felt it. I know it made no sense but right there and then I knew that it was real and powerful and true. That this bold, beautiful arrogant creature was somehow mine.

And then the stupid parrots ruined everything. I don’t know what startled them but suddenly the trees around us shook as they took flight, screeching.

I put out a hand to grasp her mane but it was too late. She surged forward, cutting so close to me that I could have almost flung my arms around her as she swept by, taking the path back the way I had just come through the mangroves.

Her legs were invisible beneath the thick waves of marsh grass, so that as she cantered away from me with her tail sweeping in her wake she looked like a ship ploughing through rough ocean, rising and cresting with each canter stride. And then she was free of the grass and galloping along the beach. I could see her pale limbs gathering up beneath her and plunging deep down into the sand. She held her head high as she ran and didn’t look back. Her hoofbeats pounded out a rhythm as she rounded the curve at the other end of the cove. And then she was gone.

Voodoo Queen (#ulink_158c660f-b9b4-56a8-b13a-3c050d752460)

There was no way. I could catch her, but I ran after her all the same. I slogged through the mangroves and then back on to the beach.

By the time I reached our bay where the Phaedra was anchored she had disappeared. No hoofprints and no sign of her anywhere. The birds, who had been so full of noise, had gone eerily quiet.

I crouched with my hands on my knees to get my breath back, then I stood up and scanned the sand dunes for my horse. When I couldn’t see her, I waded straight out into the sea. My strokes cut the water fast and clean all the way back to the Phaedra.

“Mom?”

She wasn’t on deck.

“Mom!”

Mom ran up from below deck. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

“I saw a horse.”

The look of concern turned to annoyance. “Beatriz, this isn’t funny. I am working.”

“I’m not trying to be funny!” My chest was still heaving from the effort of my run and swim. I was having trouble getting the words out. “I saw a horse… just now.”

“Being ridden on the beach?”

“No.” I was still trying to breathe. “It was alone in the jungle and it was wild, but I patted it and then the birds scared it away.”

Mom frowned. “You met a wild horse in the jungle that let you get close enough to pat it.”

“Yes, well, almost.”

“And what did this horse look like?”

“It had blue eyes and a white face and dreadlocks and this marking on its head like a hat…”

Mom looked hard at me.

“Mom, I’m not making it up… I can show you.”

“The horse?”

“No,” I shook my head. “She ran away but I can show you the hoofprints. Not here. They washed away. But in the next bay there will be some.”

“I really don’t have time for this.”

“It won’t take long,” I pleaded. “Come and see!”

“Beatriz,” Mom’s voice was firm, “I don’t know where you think you are going with this horse business, but if this is part of your campaign to convince me to go back to Florida, I can tell you now that interrupting my work is going the wrong way about it.”

“I’m not lying!”

“I never said you were lying, Beatriz…”

“Yes, you did!” I was furious now. Mom is always saying I have an overactive imagination – which is true, but that is totally different from telling lies. Also, people are always telling you to have big dreams – like going to the Olympics – and then they tell you off for being a dreamer. So which one is it?

“I tell you what,” Mom said, “how about if I come and look for the hoofprints later, OK? We can go before dinner and have a walk on the beach and you can show me then.”

“It’ll be too late by dinner,” I insisted. “The waves will have washed them away.”

“Just give me an hour then,” Mom said. “Once I’ve done this migration chart we can go, OK? We’ll take the Zodiac to the next bay and you can show me.”

“OK…” I gave in. “One hour.”

I stayed on deck staring out at the island while Mom worked downstairs, watching in case the horse reappeared.

She was real, I whispered, trying to convince myself. But she hadn’t seemed real at first, had she? Did I actually touch her? My horse was like a ghost, a voodoo queen, and now she was disappearing, fading like a vapour as I waited for Mom and the next sixty minutes to tick past. And then another sixty. She was still working.

“I have about another half an hour to go,” she insisted when I went downstairs.

And another half an hour after that.

“We’ll go in the morning, OK?” Mom said as she served up dinner. She had made curried fish with coconut cream and rice – which is usually my favourite, but I wasn’t eating, just poking it around the plate.

“Sure,” I said in a flat voice. “Great, Mom.”

I lay in bed that night and looked up at the horse posters on my wall. I guess it is true that I have a vivid imagination. When I lived in Florida I had lots of imaginary horses. I made them all bridles out of rope with their names on bits of cardboard and I hung them up in the garden shed and pretended that was my tack room.

This was back when I was friends with Kristen. She was a horsey girl too. She would come over after school and we would showjump. We’d leap over fences made out of broomsticks and paint cans in the backyard. We didn’t always go clear – sometimes our horses would refuse, or knock a rail down and get faults. But I knew all the time that those horses weren’t real. And I could never have made up a horse like the one that I had seen in the jungle. I had never seen a horse like that in my life.

Well, if Mom wanted proof then she would get it.

Looking back, I guess I should have left a note. At the time I thought it would only make Mom angry if I told her what I was doing. I would have acted differently if I had only known what lay ahead.

The Mudpit (#ulink_2102c678-485e-5cae-83f0-801a9f826f50)

I’d got my clothes ready before I went to bed so that I could sneak out of the bunk room early the next morning and get dressed on deck without waking Mom. I’d already loaded my supplies – a bottle of water, a knife, some rope, a cheese sandwich (for me) and an apple (for the horse) – into my backpack and I threw the pack in first then climbed down the ladder and into the Zodiac.

I didn’t want to make a noise with the outboard motor so I rowed the Zodiac to shore. I’m OK at rowing, but I do end up going in circles sometimes. Luckily it was an incoming tide so that made it easier. When I reached the beach, I had to drag the inflatable all the way above the high tidemark so that the waves couldn’t pick it up and wash it away. I made sure Mom could see it from the Phaedra – I figured she could always swim over if she needed it while I was gone. Then I strapped on my backpack and headed inland, walking in the direction that the horse had gone, tracing her path from yesterday, following her into the jungle.