cut past the tack room and out the back of the house. She had put Nightstorm in the magnolia paddock when they came back from pony club. Her eyes flitted across the paddock now. She couldn’t see the colt anywhere.
“Storm?” Issie’s voice was trembling as she called out to the colt. “Storm?”
She fought her rising panic, took a deep breath, pursed her lips and blew. Once, and then a second time. Storm always came when she whistled.
Issie strained her eyes in the darkness, looking for the colt. She couldn’t see a thing. She tried shouting out his name again.
This time, the lights in the house went on and a few moments later Tom Avery emerged from the back door.
“Issie? I thought I heard you…” Avery was half asleep on the back porch of the cottage, tying his dressing gown and rubbing his eyes. “What on earth are you doing? It’s the middle of the night!”
“Tom?” Issie said. “Where’s Nightstorm? He’s not in his paddock.”
Avery shook his head.
“The weather report was for thunderstorms so I moved him inside. He’s in the stables…”
Before Avery had finished speaking Issie was already moving, running hard towards the stables. Avery shouted something else after her, but she couldn’t make out what he said. All she could hear was the rush of her own heartbeat, pounding in her ears.
When she reached the stables, she realised that Avery must have gone back inside to switch on the mains for the stable lights because they suddenly flickered to life above her head. There were three loose boxes in Avery’s stables. The two at the far end were open and empty, but the one closest to the entrance was bolted shut. This was the stall that Avery usually kept Storm in, and Issie raced towards it now. With trembling fingers, she tried to open the door and was driven into a frenzy of frustration when she found that her hands were so numb from the cold it was impossible to work the bolt loose.
“Here!” A voice said. “It gets stuck sometimes. Better let me do it.” Avery was standing behind her. He was dressed in his boots and an oilskin, which he must have stopped to pull on before following her, and Issie suddenly realised how mad she must look in comparison, standing here in her soaking-wet pyjamas and sweatshirt in the middle of the night. She stood aside and let Avery step forward to work the bolt loose and swing the stall door open.
When Avery opened the door Issie felt stunned disbelief. She had been expecting to find her colt injured or sick, but instead she was staring at an empty stall.
“I don’t understand!” Avery said. “I locked him in myself!”
Maybe I’m still asleep, Issie thought, maybe this isn’t real It’s all part of the dream. She wished it were true, but the prickle of the goosebumps on her freezing skin told her otherwise. She was wide awake and she understood now why Mystic had come to her tonight. She had dreamt that she was losing her horse, the most precious thing in the world. Now, in a sickening rush, she realised the nightmare was real. Once again, she had lost the thing that was most precious to her. She was too late. Nightstorm was gone.
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