Wonder Light (4 page)

Twig shoved her still-unpacked suitcase a little farther toward the foot of her bed. She peeled the green comforter back. The sheets were cool, and she was tired.

Casey's doll fell to the floor, and one fake eye rattled open, the other shut. Twig picked it up so that Casey wouldn't have to reach down for it. You never knew what was under the bed, especially when you were only eight. Twig tucked it next to Casey.

“Thanks.”

“Welcome.” Twig turned back to her own bed, then hesitated. “I saw him again.”

“The wild boy?”

Twig sat on the edge of her bed and folded her arms across her chest. “Do you know who he is?”

Casey shook her head. “He's been here all along, I think. But I never seen him until a couple days ago. I think he's looking for something.”

Casey didn't seem to know about the ghost stories, didn't seem to think the boy was a ghost. Twig decided it was best not to mention that possibility just yet. “I wonder what he could be looking for,” Twig said, then, more to herself, “and why's he looking here?”

When Casey didn't answer, Twig curled up on the top half of her bed and pulled the comforter up over her shoulders.

“Mr. Murley has a gun,” Casey whispered into the silence. “Just in case. Regina told me. He keeps it locked up somewhere.”

“Hmm,” Twig said. Somehow she didn't think Ghost Boy would care one whit about Mr. Murley's gun.

***

Twig gave up trying to get to sleep. She grabbed her mini-backpack from under her pillow, just in case, and crept out of bed and into the hall. A nightlight glowed reassuringly, showing the way to the front of the house. Though the wall of windows on the pasture side of the house revealed only a thick, low fog, moonlight streamed into the living room through the skylights in the sloping roof—a paler, wilder sort of light that gave her a chill.

Someone had left the kitchen light on. She headed for the lit-up kitchen, away from the searching island moon, and she paused in front of the refrigerator. Printed on photo paper and magneted to the fridge was the blurry, green picture Mr. Murley had taken on their way up from the cove. Someone, probably Taylor, had added the caption, “Mr. Murley's Bird, Lonehorn Island, Washington,” followed by the date.

Beside it, under a magnet made of baked clay smooshed into the shape of a horse, was an index card, stained with a ring of coffee and bearing the neatly printed words “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

What a strange place she'd ended up in. But the food was good. Were midnight snacks allowed? Well, she'd find out soon enough. Pondering who was supposed to not lose heart—the Murleys or the girls—she pulled the door open, then jolted.

A high whinny broke the near silence of a kitchen at midnight, pierced the buzz of the ceiling light, the hum of the refrigerator. Twig's heart beat faster. She gripped the fridge handle tighter. It was nothing. She was going to have to get used to living here, to animal sounds.

Another whinny. Twig froze. This whinny was desperate; as little as Twig knew about horses, there was no denying that. A shiver ran down the back of her neck.

Twig shook the shiver off and slammed the refrigerator door shut. She'd lost her appetite. But even without the cold draft from the fridge, the shiver came back. This was silly. Why would any of the ponies be desperate? There was no one here to bother them. The stable doors were latched tight against wild animals. Ponies made noises. Maybe one of them was having a bad dream. Did ponies dream?

But no pony whinny from inside the stable could travel into the kitchen so clear like that. Was there a pony outside the stable?

Another whinny—more of a scream. Twig scrambled up onto the counter, reached over the sink, and tore the curtains back. The three-quarter moon hovered high above the tree line, but the low fog hung heavy in the yard, shifting slowly. In the fog, something else moved. It might have been invisible if it weren't moving in the opposite direction of the mist. Twig gasped. No ranch pony had made that whinny! It belonged to the ghostly form flowing against the mist.

Ghost Boy and his horse formed a gray-white silhouette, creeping through the shifting fog. Ghost Boy leaned toward another pale, phantomlike form. He was riding one horse and holding the lead of another, pulling it along. It followed, but not without tossing its head and kicking up the turf right beside the boy. Where was he going? Then Twig realized—he was headed right for the stable!

Twig half fell off the counter and skidded across the glossy hardwood floor, through the great room and the entryway, to the front door. She paused, fingers trembling on the deadbolt. What was she thinking, going out there? She'd just open the door, real quiet, and watch. At least she could know. She had to know. She slid the bolt and eased the door open, then slipped out into the shadows of the porch. She searched the fog for any movement that didn't belong to the mist, but the yard was empty. She was too late. Ghost Boy was gone.

No, not gone. The stable door was standing wide open. Inside, ponies neighed and snorted indignantly. There was a deeper, wilder snort and cry—a horse cry. Was Ghost Boy in there?

Twig was still frozen there, trying to decide what to do, when the boy emerged. His cloak billowed in the wind, moss green—or maybe it was mist blue. Moonlight filtered through the mist and skittered over it, shifting the color of the fabric. It wasn't just the moonlight, Twig realized; the cloak itself was a dapple of colors, like Daddy's camouflage.

Ghost Boy shut the stable doors carefully, silently. His horse made a low, warning whinny and pawed at the ground. The boy stiffened for a fraction of an instant, listening, or maybe sensing in some other way, just as the horse had, a presence in the night. Then the boy sprang into action with a heightened urgency. He slammed the latch in place, gave the doors a jerk to test them. Gone was all concern for stealth. He caught the horse's lead just as a fearsome animal noise came from far off in the woods—distinctly horselike, but just as distinctly predatory.

Twig had never heard a horse sound described as a howl, but
howl
was the only word for the noise coming from the woods. Then came a whole chorus of the same sounds. Twig yelped, and Ghost Boy jumped and looked right at her. His cloak flapped in the wind with a sharp snap, and he looked as though he wanted to say something just as sharp, but he leaped onto the horse's back instead.

Torn-up earth flew with the horse's every bounding step. The gate was open, but the boy and his horse jumped the fence instead, and they disappeared into the mist and the shadows, where, in the distance, wild things whinny-howled. The warmth and safety of the house beckoned Twig, begged her to lock herself in, away from the island's secrets—secrets that were no longer content to be left alone. Secrets that were also searching.

Twig wanted to run in and bolt the door, but the gate at the end of the driveway, the only entrance to the safe little bubble of house and stable and paddocks, was standing wide open. Ghost Boy must've opened it to bring the other horse in—the horse that was now unaccounted for. Twig squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and ran for the gate. The wind and the whinny-howls in her ears nearly drove her to scream.

The steel gate was cold and night-wet in her hands. She banged it shut and latched it. But as soon as she did, she realized how stupid that was. If Ghost Boy could jump the fence, who was to say that whatever was out there couldn't too?

And what if she hadn't shut it out at all? What if she'd just shut it
in
? What had happened to the other horse? Twig took a few steps toward the stable. The ponies were making quiet, unhappy noises—not desperate noises, but still, something wasn't right. Something was different. Did she dare find out what?

Twig?” a voice called into the night.

Twig jolted and spun around. Mrs. Murley's silhouette was framed in the doorway. Twig didn't know whether to feel relieved or to wish Mrs. Murley would go away. She'd never know now if she had the guts to go into that stable.

“What is it?”

Twig glanced at the stable, then back at Mrs. Murley.

“I don't suppose you're planning on running away, barefoot and in your pajamas?”

Running away? Twig's mini-backpack rubbed against her hips. Oh. She shook her head.

“Well, your stepmom will be here tomorrow if you want to talk about going home.”

Twig just shook her head again. Her head was full of half-formed sentences, attempts to say something, to do something about what she'd just seen.
Mrs. Murley, there was a ghost boy in the yard. Mrs. Murley, I think there might be a ghost horse in the stable. Mrs. Murley, you need a higher fence. Mrs. Murley, didn't you hear those cries in the woods? There's something out there—a pack of them, a herd.
And rattling around those thoughts was the name
Caper
along with Casey's words,
The
wild
horses
ate
him
, and
He's a good pony, not like those things in the woods
.

The ponies were just innocent animals, and the girls loved them. Twig shook her head again, this time at herself.

“Well, then, why don't you come back in, and I'll make you some tea. Or,” Mrs. Murley said with a new spark of hope and enthusiasm, “hot chocolate?”

So she'd noticed how much Twig had liked that particular part of breakfast.

Twig let out one last shudder as Mrs. Murley bolted the door behind them.

“Don't even know why we lock it,” Mrs. Murley said absently. “Just a habit I guess. There's no one else on this island.”

“You should lock it,” Twig said firmly.

Mrs. Murley let out a little, “Oh.” But then she smiled. “There are some throw blankets on the couch. Why don't you grab one and come in the kitchen and I'll make that chocolate?”

***

When Twig's eyes flashed open, someone was leaning over her. Ghost Boy? He wanted to feed her to the forest. Twig shoved at him. There was a thump and a little yelp.

A little, girlish yelp.

Twig blinked the dream out of her head. Casey's big brown eyes stared up at her from the floor. Twig had knocked her off the bed.

But Casey bounced right up. “Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, but you wouldn't wake up. Come on. We have to go feed the ponies.”

Twig was too tired to move, certainly too tired to care about keeping Rain Cloud waiting for his breakfast. She'd been up late listening to Mrs. Murley talk about her first pony when she was a girl, and drinking hot chocolate and nodding.

Mrs. Murley hadn't expected Twig to say anything back. Not like her teachers. She'd stopped talking to them when Daddy got deployed. She'd gotten so full of stuff on the inside that she made herself blank on the outside. She'd written “Twig” on the top of her papers and she'd left the rest blank—clean, white spaces; fresh blue lines.

When the hot chocolate was gone, Twig had lain in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, jolting awake as soon as she nodded off, convinced she'd heard more of that strange horse-howling in the woods.

Twig sat on the edge of the bed, unmoving, while Casey pulled on jeans and a sweater. Twig had decided her pajama sweats would do. She could hear Mrs. Murley banging around in the kitchen. Getting their breakfast, she hoped. Was she tired too, after being up half the night?

Was Twig going to have to do this every morning? Were the hungry howls of ghost horses going to haunt her every night? Was Ghost Boy going to stare at her in her nightmares?

Keely would be here after breakfast. If Twig went with her, she could sleep in the car the whole way home. She could eat Keely's predictable Mediterranean diet dinners, get woken up by slamming apartment doors and honking horns, and be the same old blank paper Twig.

She stumbled after Casey and the other girls to the stable. By the time she got there, the doors were wide open and the ponies were nickering their morning greetings. Taylor came running back toward the door, her unzipped jacket flopping as she waved her arms.

“Oh!” Taylor gasped, her dark, serious eyes widening. “There's a horse. A real horse in there.”

Twig was wide-awake now.
Run
, she wanted to scream.
It's a ghost horse
. But, remembering her cowardice the night before and not wanting to repeat it, she darted between the other girls, under Taylor's pointing arm, into the stable. What if it had devoured all the ponies and Feather? What if it had decided it liked it there and now it was going to haunt the stable forever?

She glanced from side to side as she ran, seeing only the curious faces of the ponies poking out of their stalls. Where was the horse?

As soon as she asked herself the question, Twig knew the answer: Caper's stall. That's where she'd have put it if she were Ghost Boy. Sure enough, the back of a white head was visible over Caper's door. Determined, Twig unlatched it. She took a breath, then flung it open. There was a wild neigh. Then the creature turned toward her, raised its head high, ears pinned back, and began to rear. The horse's coat was a glaring, surreal white, but the animal itself looked solid, absolutely real. If this creature kicked her, there would be no walking through the blow as if through the mist.

Twig almost screamed. Almost. But Casey was standing right next to her, mouth open, frozen. And she remembered what Mrs. Murley had said. She had to be calm. She had to be confident. Whether or not it was a ghost horse, it was still a horse of some kind, and she was the idiot who'd opened the stall door, who hadn't said a word to Mrs. Murley last night. Now it was up to her to keep them from getting trampled.

Easy, girl,” Twig said soothingly. “Nice and easy.”

The hooves lowered. The horse glared at her and pawed at the wood shavings. Its ears cupped forward, toward Twig.

“That's a good girl. Are you a girl? Are you a good girl?”

It was a stupid thing to say, but it was all Twig could come up with.

“That's it.” The creature backed up a step. “That's a girl. Get the door, Casey, nice and slow.”

Casey eased it shut. She slid the latch in place with a swift click.

“Keep talking to her, Twig,” Janessa said. “I'll go get Mrs. Murley.”

Twig didn't want to keep talking. She wanted to run out of that stable. But the solid wood of the stall door seemed to be enough to hold the animal back. The other girls whispered to each other behind her while she kept whispering nonsense. As she calmed the horse, Twig felt herself calming too. The other girls were transfixed, but not scared. If she could settle this thing like an ordinary horse, then maybe it
was
just an ordinary horse, not a ghost at all. Though the word
ordinary
hardly fit such an animal.

Aside from some mud spatters, its coat was dazzling white. It was smaller than Feather, but bigger than the ponies. Its build was strong but slender, all sleek and well-defined muscles—except for an oddly pronounced roundness to its belly.

Soft, pink skin showed through the white fuzz on its muzzle. Its mane was long and silky, almost shimmery. The ponies' manes were coarse as straw in comparison. Its forelock lay in a graceful curl above strange, gray eyes—flowing quicksilver eyes that regarded Twig, not with Rain Cloud's disdain, but with swirls of wild understanding and wilder fear.

Twig could've stared into those eyes forever, but Mrs. Murley's pounding feet just outside the stable, then her voice saying, “Janessa, you saw this horse?” brought her back to reality.

“Yes, Mrs. M, I saw it! It's not just one of Casey's stories. It's wild! It reared at us and—”

“Coming through, girls.”

The girls parted, and Mrs. Murley's eyes moved from Twig, at the stall door, to the horse's magnificent head. “Oh my. How…”

Twig stepped aside, grateful to relinquish her horse-calming duty, to stand back and stare at the creature instead. She might be wild. She might even be dangerous. Twig wasn't sure exactly what she was, but she was certain she was no pony eater. She wasn't evil; she was magnificent.

“Hello, pretty lady,” Mrs. Murley said in a quiet, awed voice. “How did you get here, girl?”

“Maybe she's a surprise from Mr. Murley,” Regina said.

“Is it your birthday?” Janessa said.

Mrs. Murley shook her head and laughed anxiously. She held a hand out to the horse, and the horse sniffed it. “Stand back, girls, and be still. I'm going to have a closer look.”

She undid the door and slipped into the stall with the mysterious horse.

“Well, Twig, she's good and calm now, isn't she? It seems you're getting to know your way around horses quicker than anyone expected.”

Casey smiled at Twig proudly, and Twig shrugged her shell up over her mouth.

“She's a true white. That's very rare. And she's unshod. Oh!” She gasped. “But that's not possible!”

“What?” Mandy pushed past Taylor.

Casey peeked through the crack of the unlatched stall door. “Her hooves are weird.”

Twig nudged the door open a bit more with her boot, though she kept her distance while she bent down. It was true. They looked more like a deer's than a horse's.

“Cloven hooves!” Mrs. Murley said.

Mrs. Murley composed herself and proceeded with her examination, but Twig could tell the hooves were bothering her—really bothering her.

“She can't be wild, not entirely. She's restless, but she's used to people. And she seems well cared for. But we're in for another extra horse.”

Twig gulped. Did Mrs. Murley know about the other one? About Ghost Boy?

But Mrs. Murley said, “She's about to foal. Soon.” She straightened up and put her hands on her hips and took a step back to look the whole horse over. “Taylor,” she said with a slight tremor in her voice, “go and get Mr. Murley, please. Quick, before he leaves for the boat.”

Before
he
leaves
to
get
Keely
, Twig thought.

A moment later, Mr. Murley came in, panting, forehead crinkled in confusion, jogging after Taylor. He didn't say a word until Mrs. Murley had slipped out of the stall and opened the door so he could see.

“How did this happen? Even if there are wild horses on this island, how did one get in here?” His whisper was so low, Twig had to concentrate hard to hang on to it. “Maybe I should contact the sheriff.”

“David,” Mrs. Murley whispered back, “there's more to this mystery mare. Have a look at this.” She pointed to the horse's feet.

“Some sort of crossbreed? Maybe we should get the vet to have a look.”

“No!” Twig cried. The mystery mare was so beautiful, and she was left here all alone, and she was their secret. “She's not—she's not an ordinary horse. They'll think she's strange. They'll take her away and—”

“Run experiments or something!” Regina came to her side.

“Maybe she came to us for a reason,” Taylor said.

“But if she's having a baby, and she's always been here on the island,” Casey said, “that means—”

“There's another one.” Mandy frowned. “Another something. It's creepy. I don't like it.”

“You don't like anything!” Casey snapped.

“Girls!” Mr. Murley said in a stern, carefully low voice. The mystery horse had begun to lower her ears and snort in agitation. “Go and feed your ponies.”

The other girls did as he said, but Twig lingered near Caper's stall for a moment.

There was another one. Her mate. It had to be Ghost Boy's horse—a stallion. Why would he just leave the mare? It was hard to imagine anyone not wanting her anymore, even a wild boy.

Yes, a wild boy. This horse was no ghost horse, and that meant Ghost Boy must not be a ghost after all. But still, the mystery mare was more than just an ordinary, tame horse, more even than a wild horse. So what did that make the boy? Was he something more than wild too?

A waft of warm breath breezed through Twig's tangled hair. Slowly, cautiously, she turned. Her pale blue eyes met the enormous, deep, silver eyes of the mystery mare. Something inside Twig felt like it was turning over. Mystery shook her forelock back and nickered faintly, a reserved sort of gratitude. Twig brought her hand up, slow, calm, and Mystery let her place it on her muzzle. Out of the corner of her eye, Twig saw Mrs. Murley open her mouth—to warn her that she was wild, that she might bite, Twig supposed—but Mr. Murley put a hand on Mrs. Murley's arm, and she said nothing.

“Mystery,” Twig whispered. That was all, but she meant,
You're welcome
. And also,
Thank
you
. And she knew that Mystery understood it.

“Well,” Mr. Murley said quietly, “I'd better get going.”

Keely! Twig didn't want her here, not even just to check on her; Keely didn't belong here. “Don't bring her here. Please. Tell her I want to stay.”

“I'm glad you want to stay, Twig, but she's expecting—”

“I'll call her. I'll explain.”

Mr. Murley was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “All right.” He handed his cell phone to her.

She went outside, around the end of the stable. Under the shadows of its eaves, she dialed Keely's number.

“Hi.”

“Twig?”

“Yeah. You don't need to come, okay?”

“But, Twig, I should—”

“It's okay. It doesn't matter. I need to stay here and I know it, and so you don't need to come.”

“Well, I'll just come and see how you're doing and say good-bye.”

“There's nothing to see, and we already said good-bye.”

“You like it there?”

“I want to stay.” Liking it here didn't have anything to do with anything. She wasn't going to ask Keely to take her back, and she wasn't going to leave before she found out who the wild boy was and what he was doing on this island. And she wasn't going to leave the mystery mare. Not yet.