The Start of Something Big

By

Sabrina

This is set soon after Walk In The Wood. Follyfoot has to adapt to some new dynamics: Hazel, and the young horses to be taken in for training.

Horsey jargon warning: mention of equine equipment is used in this story! Hopefully the narrative context will make it clear what all the bits (no pun intended) do. If not, drop me a PM or raise it on the Forum J

It seemed as if the grey clouds would never lift. This autumn had been nothing but darkness and rain, arguments and heartaches.

Dora shrugged her coat more tightly around her as she sat beside Steve in the horsebox taking the first four old horses to Chadwick’s stables. She tried hard not to gnaw at her nails – not that there were much left of her nails, she’d chewed them thoroughly in the last week.

Steve drove competently but silently. There was still a huge rift between them; after all, it had only been a few days since Dora had told Steve to leave, then changed her mind.

Renewal, not change, she thought to herself, aware of one of the horses shuffling to keep its balance behind her. It still felt wrong, sending some of her beloved horses to somebody else, but it was giving Follyfoot the chance to survive, in fact to grow – to RENEW. The weekly ten pounds per horse they’d get for training youngsters over the winter would keep the ponies at Chadwick’s and also allow them to buy the essential hard feed to keep the other Follyfoot horses stabled and fed during the cold, snowy months. With the onset of the colder weather, there were bound to be more strays turning up at the door, too.

“It’ll work out, girl, you’ll see.”

Steve’s voice startled her and pulled her back to the present.

“I – I hope so,” she managed. “It just worries me. So much change, all at once. First Hazel coming, now these horses going.”

“Things don’t stay the same forever. That’s life. You and Hazel – you’re getting on better now, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so.” Dora saw too much of herself in Hazel – a mirror image in a parallel universe. She knew Hazel’s pain, her desperate need to be loved, but was still unsure enough in herself to be able to give the younger girl reassurance and affection. To say nothing of the way Hazel gazed at Steve with hero-worshipping eyes… it didn’t matter that Steve was way too old for Hazel, Dora still had the odd jealous pang over Steve’s friendliness towards the girl.

“She’s a kid, Dora. A kid who loves horses but doesn’t have a family to love her. Give her a chance, eh? Follyfoot’s given all of us a chance. Now it’s her turn.”

Dora nodded, and Steve saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. Not just a family of strangers, he thought, but a – what was that word Hazel’s social worker had used? Ah, yes! – dysfunctional family of strangers. Probably not unlike most flesh-and-blood families, he thought with an ironic smile as he turned the box into Chadwick’s yard.

Dora was pleasantly surprised. She’d been so against the idea that she’d refused to view the yard with the Colonel and Steve weeks before. Now she saw that while the boxes were old stone like Follyfoot, the doors were freshly painted, the floor swept, and the boxes themselves filled with straw and sawdust. An air of professionalism and efficiency hung about the whole place.

Chadwick had been warned off racecourses and lost his training licence for race fixing. His whole life had been horses and racing; he knew no other skill but caring for horses, and was now trying to make a fresh start running a livery stable. Follyfoot was his first client.

“I can’t thank you enough, Dora, for giving me this start,” Chadwick said as he helped lead the horses into their new homes. “Follyfoot has a fine reputation round these parts. If you’re dealing with me, other people will, too, and I can put the last five years behind me and begin again.”

Faced with such kind words and sincerity, Dora abandoned any plans to be stand-offish. She gave him a smile – rare these days – and simply said, “You’re helping us out, too. We can help each other,” and meant it.

“Bless you, girl. Now, old lady –“ this to the ancient bay mare tottering down the ramp “ – steady as you go. Good girl, come along then, into your new stable…”

It was with a much lighter heart that Dora went back to Follyfoot. What remained of her fingernails stayed unchewed, and she and Steve chatted about the smart yard Chadwick had made.

Hazel had been busy mucking out two of the empty stables. Terrified of being sent back to reform school, she knew that keeping Dora onside was the most important factor in staying at Follyfoot.

Mucking out was hard work. It warmed her up, for which she was grateful; she didn’t have many warm clothes apart from silly dresses her foster parents had given her. Her long, thin legs were covered by the only pair of jeans she had, and if it hadn’t been for the mucking out her knees would have been knocking together from shivering.

Hazel threw a thick bed of straw into the stables, tossing it evenly with the pitchfork and sneezing at the dust. Those two new young horses, when they arrived, were going to get the royal treatment!

Dora stuck her hands in the pocket of her jacket and wandered up to the empty stable doors. She bit back a comment that Hazel had been a bit too generous with the fresh straw – it was knee deep! – knowing that the girl was trying hard to please her.

“You’ve done a great job, Hazel. And without even being asked to. Obviously you haven’t been learning from Ron.” Dora smiled, and Hazel tentatively smiled back. They’d had an uneasy truce since Lancelot died but Hazel sensed Dora was genuinely trying to be nice to her.

“Come on,” Dora said, “Time for a cup of tea.”

Ron was already in the kitchen, laughing at something Slugger said. Dora had a hunch he was already on his second cuppa; usually this time of year you cupped your hands around your mug of tea to warm them up. Ron’s hands were fiddling with the sugar bowl instead.

Slugger poured out a dark brown stream of tea into two mugs. Industrial strength at the best of times, the tea had been stewing for a while. Dora, used to it, added copious amounts of milk and sugar before taking a big gulp. Hazel sipped and tried not to screw her face up.

“Ah c’mon girl, puts ‘airs on yer chest!” Ron grinned.

Hazel thought of several reform school retorts, most of them unrepeatable in front of dear old Slugger, and ignored him, standing as close as she dared to the Aga. “At least it’s warm in here,” she said finally.

“Hazel, do you have ANY winter clothing?” Dora said suspiciously.

“Not much. The other girls at reform school nicked most of it.”

“You need a coat. And a warmer sweater. And jeans or cords. I’ll take you into Tockwith and we’ll buy some.”

“I don’t need charity!” Hazel burst out.

“It’s not charity,” Dora said mildly. “You need warm clothes to do the job. I’m sure there’s enough in the housekeeping, isn’t there, Slugger?” She winked at him, making sure Hazel couldn’t see.

Slugger knew perfectly well that with Hazel in the house now too the housekeeping money was stretched to the limit despite payment from the welfare people, and that Dora would buy Hazel’s clothes herself out of her allowance from her parents. “Oh, we’ll be ‘avin’ caviare tonight, modom, and pheasant, there’s so much in the ‘ousekeepin’. Nah, luv, you’re right, there’ll be enough to get Hazel somethin’ warm to wear.”

“Come on, Hazel, finish your tea and we’ll go shopping.” Dora drained her mug and put it on the sink. She’d passed her driving test three days before, and was itching to get behind the wheel and show off her new-found skills.

“I’ll phone ahead, shall I, and make sure the roads are empty? Oh, ‘ang on, I’ve got a better idea. I’ll walk in front of you wavin’ a flag,” grinned Ron.

“And I’ll run you over,” threatened Dora.

“Promises, promises,” Ron shouted at her as she walked into the hall.

Dora stuck her head back around the door. “Ron, there are six more stables to be mucked out. Any chance you could finish them before we get back?”

“Six more stables, she says. That’ll learn you to be smart, young Stryker,” Slugger grinned. “Y’can clean them stables out or help me wash up an’ ‘oover this place.”

“Gawd. Wot a choice.” Ron shrugged his jacket back on and headed for the pitchfork and wheelbarrow.

* * *

Steve was back from Chadwick’s and Dora and Hazel had only just safely returned from Tockwith when the first two new horses arrived. Dora took the keys out of the Land Rover’s ignition with a mingled sigh of triumph and relief and swung out of the car to greet the newcomers.

Hazel, toasty in a new black duffel coat, helped settle the colts – beautiful Anglo Arabs - into their stables while Dora and Steve spoke to their owner, Mr Hardacre.

“Ah’ve not got t’room to put t’colts in stables at my place,” boomed Hardacre; his voice was loud enough to wake Ron from his doze in the hay barn at the other end of the yard. “But they’re used to t’best. You’ll be brekkin’ ‘em in over t’winter, now, won’t you?”

Dora and Steve assured him the colts would be fine, and that by the spring they’d be broken to saddle.

“Champion!” thundered Hardacre, and drove off with a crunch of gears, promising to look in from time to time and send a cheque every week. “I’ll probably send you more in t’next month. Have to put t’mares in foal in m’own stables.”

“There goes living proof that where there’s muck there’s brass,” muttered Steve. His ears were ringing.

Hardacre had made a small fortune out of scrap metal, and now bred Anglo Arab horses as a retirement hobby. His exquisite horses, with their kind natures and elegant looks, were highly sought-after in the showing and jumping worlds.

Hazel begged to be allowed to look after at least one of the colts. Dora was dubious.

“Hazel, they’re worth a small fortune.”

“I’ll be careful. Don’t you trust me, Dora?”

Dora bit her lip. Since Hazel had nursed Lancelot as the last breath left his tired old frame, she had proved herself capable and loving with the horses. She was making a real effort to get along with everyone and pull her weight. Dora thought briefly of Hazel’s past, at her violence if she didn’t get her own way and how Hazel had threatened to hurt Copper. Was letting her look after a valuable horse giving in to emotional blackmail, or showing trust? She chose the latter. “Okay. But remember, they’re young and flighty, they’re not bombproof like Ladybird. You have to be very careful with them. If you have any trouble with them, if they’re a bit much for you, talk to me or Steve, and we’ll show you how to handle them.”

“I could help you break them in.”

“Maybe…” Dora hesitated. “You’re right, we’ll probably need help, and it’s a way for you to learn as well.”

Hazel beamed. In a gesture that surprised both of them, she flung her arms around Dora. “I won’t let you down! You OR Steve!”

And before Dora could even hug her in reply, Hazel was spinning joyfully around the yard like a top, long hair flying behind her, arms outstretched. “Oh, horses! HORSES!” she cried, and vaulted over the fence into the donkeys’ yard and gave a startled Bubble and Squeak a kiss each on their velvety dark noses.

“What did you tell her?” Steve put down Alex’s brush and walked to where Dora was shaking her head wistfully, remembering how the thought of being with horses had made her heart soar too when she was a few years younger.

“That she could help with the young horses.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “I know you’re trying to make her welcome but isn’t that a bit rash?”

“You were right, Steve. We all have to start somewhere. She’s got dreams, too, I know it.”

“Those dreams again.” But his smile was kind. “Can I be a part of them too?” he said jokingly, spreading his arms to encompass Follyfoot.

“You already are.” Dora’s eyes, rimmed with eyeliner and bigger for it, met his and his heart jumped. After all the fights and tears of the last few months, she still apparently felt like that about him – even knowing that he’d never let himself love her in return.

He patted her shoulder fondly – like a pony, really – and headed back to Alex, seriously wondering if he’d done the right thing in staying. “Women,” he sighed to Alex, for somewhen this autumn Dora had grown out of girlhood well and truly. He decided it was in his best interests – and Dora’s too – if he spent a fair bit of time at Chadwick’s helping with the Follyfoot horses when he wasn’t working with the young Anglo Arabs. With Hazel, Dora had plenty of help here, and he was relieved the two of them seemed to be getting along better now.

The colts – Raphael and Cezanne, for Hardacre thought arty names made them more saleable – settled in easily. Raphael, who looked for all the world like Copper’s younger brother, was the flightier of the two, and Dora kept a watch eye on Hazel as the girl brushed him or led him for walks around the closest field. He was fey, and shied at birds and the wind, or his own imagination, snorting in horror and almost pulling Hazel off her feet. Cezanne, whose dark grey coat would soon fade to dappled silver, was bombproof in comparison, and was already happy with Dora fitting a lungeing roller like a belt around his girth, to get him used to the sensation.

Dora decided she could break Cezanne in herself with help from Hazel, but Raphael would probably need Steve as well – he was no job for a beginner like Hazel.

Breaking-in young horses requires trust between humans and horse; each has to be confident the other won’t hurt them. “You start by putting a mouthing bit in a bridle, with no reins attached,” Dora explained to Hazel. “See the little copper rollers in the middle? The horse plays with them, like a baby with a rattle. He rolls them with his tongue, and he gets more saliva in his mouth because he’s tasting the copper, so he thinks it’s all quite comfortable. With no reins, there’s no pressure on his gums.” She slipped the bridle – and the unaccustomed bit – expertly onto Cezanne’s head. The colt mouthed the strange bit, but philosophically. “Let’s just leave him for a while in his stable so he can get used to it.”

Dora explained they’d start lungeing him the next day; he’d wear the bridle and a special headcollar called a cavesson, which had rings on the noseband you attached the lungeing rein to. He’d also wear the lungeing roller, but with no side reins attached between the bit and the roller – that would come later.

“It’ll take weeks before we can get on his back,” she said to Hazel, “So you mustn’t be impatient.”

“He’s so quiet, though.” Wistfully.

“Weeks.” She patted the colt and scratched his neck. “Promise me you won’t try.”

“Okay,” Hazel sighed. Dora, it seemed, could read her mind.

Raphael was less willing to accept the kind nursery bit, and it took a lot of cajoling from both Steve and Dora to get the bit in his mouth.

“He won’t be easy.” Steve used a handful of straw to wipe saliva from his fingers. Raphael rolled his eyes dramatically. “If you weren’t a bloke,” he said to the colt, “I’d call you a drama queen.”

Dora giggled. Steve had forgotten how her face lit up when she was genuinely relaxed and happy – it seemed ages since that carefree look had been on her face. Perhaps she too liked it that he spent half of each day at Chadwick’s.

But it seemed that wasn’t the case. “You WILL be around to help me with him won’t you?” she pleaded, serious again. “Our horses are fine with Bill Chadwick, we need you here. Especially as he’s got Jason now.” She’d been at Chadwick’s that morning, reassuring herself that her old four-legged friends were enjoying a warm, happy winter, and meeting Bill’s nephew who was now working at the yard.

“Are you sure we can work together, girl?” In the dimness of the stable, Steve’s eyes were big and dark.

“We did before. We can again. For the horses.” Dora fiddled unnecessarily with Raphael’s bridle. She’d missed Steve every morning, lived in dread of him telling her he was leaving to go and live and work at Chadwick’s full time. She did her best to hide her love from him, to treat him as the friend he wanted to be, and had spent many nights twisting and turning in her cold little bed, picturing a life without Steve and feeling even colder at the thought.

She hadn’t given him a straight answer, Steve felt. He wasn’t thinking of the horses’ feelings right now, Dora’s were more important. He didn’t push it, though. They hadn’t argued for weeks and the truce was holding up nicely.

“Leave the horse for now, Dora, I bet Slugger’s got the kettle on. One thing about Bill Chadwick – he makes better tea!”

Dora smiled again, and Steve impulsively said, “Last one back gets the mashings at the bottom of the pot!” before darting out of the stable and shooting the bolt behind him.

Shrieking, Dora fiddled with the bolt, slipped out, slammed it shut and tore after him.

“Hurry up, slowcoach!” He waited by the end stable then sprinted for all he was worth to the gate, vaulting over it as Dora got close and then holding it tight so she couldn’t open it.

“You – you beast, Steve!” Dora gave up and started climbing over the top, so Steve opened the gate and swung it backwards, making her scream again.

Dora jumped from the top of the gate and bolted after Steve, catching his jacket as he opened the farmhouse door and pulling him backwards. They fought their way through the door at the same time, shouting and shoving.

Slugger had seen them fooling around with the gate from his window, and grinned. About time, too, he said to himself. There had been too many tears and worry lately – it was grand to see them getting on like old times. He stirred the teapot as the kitchen door was flung open and Dora and Steve raced to sit down.

“’Ope you remembered to wipe them dirty boots on the mat,” was all he said, putting mugs on the table.

Ron’s tea radar was infallible; he appeared with Hazel in tow a minute or two later. “Blimey,” he groaned, peering into his mug. “I’ve got the mashings. Again.”

“You were late,” Steve said.

“Garn, I’m never late for me tea. You two clownin’ abaht and racin’ like kids, you got ‘ere early. Nice to be grownup, innit Hazel?”

“Everso,” Hazel replied primly, blowing on her tea.

Steve met Dora’s eyes for a brief moment. Slugger noticed and smiled beatifically. “’Ave a biscuit,” he said graciously, “Made ‘em this morning.”

And then all any of them could think about was a polite way to decline the little blackened discs that Slugger proudly put on the table.

* * *

Steve watched while Dora and Hazel took Cezanne for his first lungeing lesson.

“He has to walk in a circle around me,” Dora explained to a willing Hazel as the colt nuzzled her placidly and sniffed at the lunge rein hanging on the ground. “He won’t know what to do at first, so I’ll need you to lead him and walk with him.”

“What about that whip?”

Dora glanced at the long lunge whip, lying beside her. “That’s for later. We never hit him with him, not ever. Once he’s used to you leading him, I’ll pick it up and point behind him, so he knows it’s there, and he’ll instinctively go forward away from it. The idea is that his head, the whip and I form a triangle –“

“Isosceles?” Steve queried mildly, amused at Dora’s schoolteacher voice.

“Oh, shut up, you! Hazel, can you just take Cezzy’s headcollar?” Her eyes didn’t leave Steve’s face and his grinning mouth.

* * *

With Raphael it was much more difficult. The lunge rein was obviously a snake, out to get him. The jangle of the rings on the cavesson headcollar meant danger, and the more he tried to shake them off the noisier they got, until he went up on his hind legs in protest.

It took a lot of cajoling from all three humans to calm him and reassure him. And this was before the lungeing lesson even got started.

Finally both Dora and Hazel walked at the colt’s head, talking soft nonsense to him and patting him, while Steve stood in the middle and held the lunge rein. Once Raphael was quiet they only lunged him for fifteen minutes before Steve said he’d had enough for the first day.

“But Cezanne had half an hour,” Hazel said.

“Cezanne wasn’t so worried about it. We’ve probably achieved more in getting fifteen calm minutes out of this mad horse. He deserves a reward.” Steve clapped the colt’s neck. “So do you two, you were fantastic with him.”

Hazel noticed Steve was looking at Dora as he spoke.

* * *

“Are you going to marry Dora, Steve?”

“Whatever gave you that daft idea?”

“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. And the way you look at her. She loves you. You love her too, don’t you?”

“Hazel, not being rude, but apart from saying ‘no’ that’s none of your business. Pass the saddle soap, won’t you?”

“He loves her.”

“Now you sound like Slugger.”

* * *

Steve gazed unseeingly out the window of his loft bedroom. Even if the glass had been clear, rather than grimy with cobwebs gracefully decorating one corner, the peaceful stable yard outside needn’t have existed.

It was a teenager’s fancy, he told himself. Girls loved romance. The idea that he and Dora were in love appealed to Hazel. She probably read “True Love” magazine or something equally soppy before she went to sleep each night.

Did he love her? Of course he bloody did! But he wasn’t daft enough to tell her; it would ruin everything. His place wasn’t as her husband – God only knows when she found someone suitable it would rip him in two, it had been bad enough watching her with Joe Rimmington last year – but as a partner, a manager, in Follyfoot, being at her side every day, being her confidant, her best friend. He wouldn’t fit into her world socially; he’d never be accepted by the squire and other local high society. He’d destroy her life.

He could still go. He could say his grandmother and aunt needed him to help with their farm – and they probably did!

But without her…he’d only be half a person. He needed Dora, and her dreams and rainbows. Her strength.

Absently he rubbed at the dirty windows with the elbow of his sweater, making a clean patch; his focus sharpened and he saw Dora in her pale-coloured coat, leaning against the lightning tree.

In the darkness of late afternoon, she shone like a beacon. Glowed like a goddess.

Then she put her hands in her pockets and walked back to the farmhouse, and the vision was gone.

At dinner, they’d talk normally, discuss the horses, have a joke with Slugger. Tomorrow, they’d work with the colts, feed the horses, clean the stables. The very normality of it all made it bearable.

* * *

As the days shortened, Follyfoot got busier. Hardacre sent four more horses, a filly and three geldings; these were already broken in but needed to be trained up for sale; to learn the elements of jumping and dressage, to go for hacks and not shy at wildlife and birds.

As Dora knew would happen, they had their share of old, unwanted horses get dropped at the gate, too. One was so frail and ill he could barely stumble to a stable, and Steve –aching at the memory of the horse he found when he went searching for his mother – hardly had time to phone the RSPCA and the vet before the horse, with one massive, relieved sigh, passed into the Elysian fields, where there was no pain but plenty of sunshine and green, lush grass, Hazel and Dora fighting tears as they stayed with him through that final, terrible breath.

The empty stables were filling, and Dora felt remorse about the row she’d had ages ago with Steve about using Chadwick’s. It was so obvious now they needed the extra room, the help. They shifted another four horses to Chadwick’s to make way for the new arrivals.

Hardacre’s young horses were almost obscenely fit and healthy in comparison to the sad, swaybacked ponies that needed shelter for the winter. Suddenly there were several horses that needed regular exercise, and lots of it: Copper, Alex, and the newcomers Mistinguette (swiftly shortened to Misty), Picasso, Matisse and Gauguin, to say nothing of breaking in the colts.

Dora was loathe to let anyone else ride Copper – he could be unpredictable with anyone but herself – but Steve let Hazel on board Alex when he and Dora rode the young horses out. Alex was a stolid, stable influence on the frisky youngsters, and gradually they learned that the world wasn’t full of frightening things and stopped snorting at every shrub or songbird.

Hazel was in heaven. Follyfoot was everything she’d ever dreamed of. She didn’t realise her hands and feet were frozen as she trotted Alex – or on rare days Gauguin, the quietest of the youngsters - along by the stream or out over the moors. Reform school was a forgotten memory on those chill winter days, when her breath came out white and the sun barely warmed the air. She was with horses, actually being asked to ride them, and felt that at last she was being accepted by Dora; the others had accepted her long ago.

For Dora and Steve, training the lovely young horses was a pleasure. They were pliant and willing, Hardacre’s stock, arching their necks to the bit, sidling under their riders like racehorses. Other than Copper or Alex, Follyfoot horses had to be pushed along, almost unwillingly; there was always a problem with any of them – eyesight, bad knees, psychological damage, unfixable bad habits.

They spent the mornings, if the weather wasn’t truly horrid, either training the youngsters in the field and practicing over cavaletti and low jumps, or taking them for a hack, controlling their paces and giving them experience. The afternoons were spent with the two colts, lungeing them and slowly bringing them forward to the day when they’d feel a rider on their backs.

Dora turned her face to the insipid blue sky above her; in her arms she held a saddle – one of the nicer old ones from the tack room – and a bridle with a big soft snaffle bit. She stood outside the tack room, considering. They really should try the cavaletti again today, but then the morning was so bright for winter, not a cloud in sight. It begged for a good long hack.

“Let’s go out for a ride, Steve,” Dora suggested. “It’s such a gorgeous day, look! No rain in sight.”

After what seemed like weeks of grey days, Steve had to agree. He grinned at the thought of the horses at their disposal – it was like a rich man’s yard! “Which horse do you want?”

“I think I’ll take Misty. If we only go out for an hour, I’ve got time to take Copper for a ride later. Poor old boy, since we’ve had these new horses he hasn’t had nearly enough exercise.”

“Picasso for me, then. Shall we let Hazel ride Gauguin?”

“Why not?” Steve’s joy was infectious, and besides, Alex could do with a day off!

Dora found herself softly singing the latest hit from Ron’s radio, Beautiful Sunday, as she tacked up the pretty grey Misty. “Sunday morning, up with the lark, I think I'll take a walk in the park, Hey, hey, hey, it's a beautiful day…”

“When you say, say, say, say that you love me,” carolled Ron in response over the stable door, “Oh my, my, my, it’s a beautiful day.”

“Oh, Ron!” Dora shook her head, smiling.

“Wot, not a beautiful day, or you don’t love me?” Ron put an injured expression on his face and played an imaginary violin.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Dora said. “That’s all I’ll agree to.”

“Dear, dear, dear, me ‘eart’s broken.” Ron gave the violin a last desperate scrape with an invisible bow.

Dora smiled; you couldn’t help but smile at Ron.

“Go on,” said Ron. “’Ave a good ride. I know it’s not me you’re singin’ abaht. Ain’t you glad you didn’t go? Or that HE didn’t?”

“Ron, don’t.”

“Ah, the lady doff protest too much.” Ron bowed and pretended to take off a hat – quite a large one, from the flourish he made with his hands.

“Ron, there’s more to Follyfoot than Steve. There’s Slugger. There are the horses. The horses, Ron.”

“Yeah, the horses. You’d never leave the horses, would you, girl? You’d stay forever for the horses, but would Steve? Don’t leave it too long, girl. Or there’ll be others taking your place wiv ‘im.” He jerked his head towards the bottom of the yard, where Hazel, who’d tacked up Gauguin in record time, was chatting with Steve.

Dora felt the familiar dig of pain from the green-eyed monster, and fought it. “Ron, she’s too young for him. She’s just a girl.”

“She won’t always be. You almost lost him once.” Ron had put the violin and hat away, and was as serious as she’d ever seen him. “You knocked ‘im for six weeks ago when you was both fightin’. When you said you was leavin’ you scared the life out of ‘im. I reckon he got no sleep that night, not a flippin’ wink. An’ then the next day, when you said you weren’t leavin’, but told ‘IM to leave, I could just abaht ‘ear ‘is ‘eart break from the other side of the yard. You’re playin’ wiv fire, girl. ‘E’s willin’ to help you wiv your dreams, and you’re okay wiv the horses goin’ to Chadwick’s now, ain’t you? You’re workin’ fings aht, makin’ this place your own. So wot are you waitin’ for? Don’t you two ever really talk? You’re always on abaht the future for Follyfoot. Wot abaht the two of you?”

Dora was as stunned as if Copper had quoted Shakespeare to her. She stammered, “There’s no future. He’s said before that we can only be friends.”

“That was before, wuzzinit? This is now, girl. Fings have changed.” Ron gave her a piercing blue look then spun on his Cuban heels, leather fringes flying around his jacket. “Give ‘im a sign,” he said over his shoulder as he picked up his pitchfork and headed for Copper’s stable.

A sign? wondered Dora, angrily slamming her hat on. When Steve had made it clear all too often what their roles were? Fine for Ron to say! He fell in and out of love with never a bruise let alone a scar. He didn’t…didn’t… BURN for someone. ACHE for them. She dragged a surprised Misty down the yard and mounted as the other two rode out of the gate.

Dora’s mood lightened as they rode past the lake and over the crest of the hill, through the woods and the chilly creek. The young horses were still a bit unsure about the cold water, but the firm legs of their riders (who knew precisely just how cold it was and didn’t want to dismount to lead them) pushed them onwards to the safe far side and the wide spaces beyond. On a clear winter’s day like this, she couldn’t be blue for long.

Hazel still rode with her reins too long, and her seat sloppy. She’d improved a lot in the last couple of months, but needed reminding from time to time, especially on a young, frisky horse like Gauguin. Dora, aware she sounded like her hateful old headmistress, reminded her and Hazel, grinning, complied.

The plodding walk quickened to a jog, and then a trot. The cool air tickled the bellies of the young horses, and got up their nostrils. They were only babies, after all, and wanted to play.

One by one, their riders let them move into a controlled canter. Steve had the most trouble keeping Picasso under control. The sleek bay had the speed of a thoroughbred but had picked up the friskiness rather than the age-old intelligence of the Arab side of his breeding. The horse cantered almost sideways, Steve trying to be as gentle with his hands as possible to keep the horse collected.

Dora adored Misty: she was much like Copper, a controllable fire, eager to go but waiting for permission.

As for Hazel, every horse was a dream come true. Four months ago she never dared imagine days like these, for it was too heartbreaking to think she’d never experience it. Seaside donkeys and plodding trekking ponies hadn’t prepared her for raw young horses, but Gauguin was forgiving and calm; he enjoyed her long reins, because she left his mouth alone, and if she wasn’t constantly nagging him with her legs, that was a blessing too. His canter quickened without her hands checking him, and by the time she realised he’d pulled happily ahead of the other two, he had no intention of stopping.

“Slow down, Hazel!” Dora called, as Misty fretted and shook her head impatiently as Copper did.

Picasso snorted and danced and tossed his nose high in the air, trying to free the reins and catch up with Gauguin.

Hazel gathered her reins, sat down hard and followed the directions that were supposed to slow your horse down. Gauguin ignored her. The cold had been nibbling at him, he longed to run and stretch, and instructions were something he was still learning to obey. First and foremost, he was a horse, and if ever a day was made for a really good gallop, just for the sheer joy of it, this was it. He lengthened his stride, and Hazel was no longer his rider, but just a passenger. She clung to his mane and his saddle, and hoped there were no rabbit holes. “Can’t stop!” she yelled back, her own mane whipping her face as she turned to call to Dora.

“Stupid girl!” grumbled Steve, and let Picasso have his head. “I’ll catch her.” In a stride the bay horse was past Misty, and his hooves tattooed a drum beat on the turf.

Misty fought at being last, being held back. She was more like Copper than Dora realised. Dora didn’t want to chase Gauguin as well – he might well run faster, as horses often did in a herd situation. The filly bounced and pulled at the reins. Fearing for damaging the soft young mouth, Dora gave her a tiny bit of rein.

Misty responded by lurching straight into a gallop, taking Dora by surprise. Until now the young horse had been tractable to ride. Not a beginner’s mount, but certainly controllable by someone with experience. This was totally unexpected. It took Dora a moment or two to collect her reins again. She suspected she’d have to do what she did with Copper when such a mood took him; let the horse run for a bit, until he got the oats of him, then try again to slow down.

They were galloping along the bottom of a valley, with tors and hills on either side carved by a river in millennia past. Dora knew that it narrowed at the end, quite significantly, with barely enough space for two horses to go through abreast let alone three. The end of the valley was marked with large boulders and fallen tree trunks – she and Steve jokingly called it The Giant’s Gateway, as the path beyond went into a more wooded area – The Giant’s Garden - with a bridle path that ran through it and out again onto the moors proper.

Steve hadn’t caught up with Hazel – or not enough to grab the reins. Gauguin was pummeling the ground for all he was worth, and Dora shuddered to think how much that was. The end of the valley was getting closer all too quickly.

Then the miracle happened. A pheasant – stupid, wonderful bird – flew up in alarm as Gauguin thundered too close to its nest. Snorting, Gauguin broke his stride and Hazel managed to get his head on the bit and pull him to a shuddering halt.

Steve wheeled a protesting Picasso and brought him close to the other horse, asking Hazel if she was okay.

Misty appeared to be looking anywhere but in front of her. It seemed to Dora, later, that she was only aware in the final second that her herd had stopped. Misty threw her head up, and Dora lost her balance trying to avoid being hit on the nose. The filly’s hind legs came in underneath her, trying to brake, and the sudden slowdown sent Dora spearing off, head first, into the ground that had had frost only just this morning.

She didn’t know how long she was unconscious; probably only as long as it took for Steve to jump from his horse and kneel at her side. She came to hazily, aware that her hat was off her head, and there was a hand – a cold, shaky hand – stroking her hair from her forehead. Steve’s voice was saying, “Dora? Dora, wake up, girl. I love you. You’ve got to wake up, don’t you hear, I love you!” Oh, it must be a dream then, her brain said, even though this bed is hard and cold. But the pillow felt like Steve’s knees, and Dora thought it was too real to be a dream.

She slowly opened her eyes to see Steve’s gazing into hers, troubled and in awful pain. His hand stopped stroking and just held her. “Dora?”

“Mmm?”

“Dora. Can you talk, girl?”

“’S real. I fell off.” Dora experimentally stretched each limb, relieved to find she could without too much pain. Her head pounded, though.

“You fell off,” Steve agreed gently. Slowly he raised up until she was sitting. Her head spun like a carousel. Her face was pale and colourless, even her lips had faded to the palest of pinks.

Dora brought her knees up and laid her arms and then head on them, until the spinning stopped. Steve rubbed her shoulders and back, leaning against her to keep her warm.

“Go back and tell Slugger,” he said to someone, and Dora remembered that they’d gone riding with Hazel. “Tell him to call the doctor. She’s got concussion.”

Far away, it seemed, a horse cantered off. Dora had only felt like this once before, and that was when she’d got drunk at the local hop with Ron. How funny, she thought vaguely, that you can feel like this without even having to drink.

Gentle, tender fingers felt around her head. She winced as they encountered a swelling duck’s egg. “Sorry.” The pain of it jerked her back to her full senses. She was in the Valley of the Giants, one of her favourite rides. Her head hurt like blazes but the nausea had gone.

“We should get back to Follyfoot,” she said shakily.

“You can’t ride,” Steve protested, his hand still around her shoulders.

“How else can we get back? I don’t feel like walking.” Dora rubbed her forehead. “If we ride slowly, I can hang on. Truly, Steve.” She turned to look at him, her pupils wide and unfocussed. Steve caught his breath. She was in no state to ride, but would making her upset and angry only aggravate her injuries?

So he helped her back onto Misty, who’d been nibbling grass and was now as content and quiet as any old Follyfoot hack. Dora wavered on the filly’s back, but held onto the saddle pommel grimly.

“I’ll lead you,” he said, and he did, through the valley, and through the stream, gritting his teeth as the icy water crept over the top of his old boots, and squelched back through the woods and around the lake, arriving at the gate at the same time as the doctor’s car.

* * *

Bed rest, said the doctor. For at least two days. It wasn’t severe, there was extremely little likelihood of internal bleeding, but if she showed signs of wanting to sleep all the time, they must call him, straight away.

Slugger fussed over Dora like an old mare, bringing her surprisingly edible beef broth and other invalid food all afternoon. Dora, loving him for it, tried her best to choke it all down.

Slugger was so protective that he didn’t even let Steve see Dora until much later that day.

Steve was always a bit shy in Dora’s room. It was significantly girly; sprigged wallpaper with tiny pink flowers augmented by shiny white painted wood on the skirtings and windowsills. A pretty bed, white painted iron with that white lacy stuff he always associated with his grandmother and aunt spilling over the top in pillowcases and counterpane. Tucked into all this splendour, wearing an awful frilly nightgown that owed, Steve suspected, more to her mother’s taste than her own, Dora looked wan and juvenile.

Uneasily, he moved around the bed, rubbing his hands; it was colder here than in the kitchen. There was a seat near the window, but he couldn’t see her clearly from there, so eventually he perched on the bed itself, Dora shifting slightly so he could sit near her pillow. “How are you?”

“Sore. No matter where I put my head, it hurts. Are the horses okay? Misty isn’t damaged?”

Steve smiled and shook his head. Dora – always thinking of the horses! “They’re fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” Finally his eyes met hers, and almost of its own accord one hand reached out and touched Dora’s soft cheek. “You were so pale, lying there. Your hat came off as you fell and I thought – I thought –“ He gulped. “You were out cold, and I said something to you.”

Dora said, almost in a whisper, “I heard you. I thought it was a dream, a lovely dream.”

“No dream, girl.”

“But I said those awful things to you a while back, asked you to leave.”

“Then you let me stay. Did you really want me to go?”

“No, but I could see no other way. We were fighting, we wanted different things. I wanted Follyfoot to stay as it’s always been, you wanted to make it pay its way. But now…these last few weeks… everything seems to be working out. Chadwick’s, Hazel, the new horses, and we can still give the old, unwanted horses a home and all the love they need.” Colour was creeping back into Dora’s face, and it felt warm under Steve’s gentle fingers.

Steve remembered what he’d said when he asked Dora if he could stay. That she could weave miracles and he’d give anything to do the same. It struck him that, together, they were in the middle of a miracle: Follyfoot, renewing and growing. But there was one thing he had to know to make the miracle real. He swallowed. “I told you I loved you. But you haven’t told me how you feel.”

So Dora told him, and he worried that he’d hurt her head if he kissed her, but she assured him it didn’t hurt at all, so he did it again, and she pulled him close, running her fingers into his hair with a sigh of satisfaction and feeling the slight stubble of his cheek against her face.

In the y