Mom had taken flyers I had made the night before to work with her, my name and cell phone number, and 'found horse' on the front. I got a call almost as soon as I pulled into the driveway after school. I got out at 12:40, while the boys had to stay there until 2:15. The woman on the other line sounded older, and she introduced herself as Ariel. I was emerging from my blazer and speaking to her.
"Hello Ariel, you are missing a horse?" I say, walking through the front door.
"Yes, dear. I went into the vet clinic today to see if anyone had found him, and the woman at the front desk handed me the flyer. " I set my backpack and binder in the kitchen table, and let Hudson into the back yard with me.
"Would you mind describing your missing horse to me? You'd be surprised how many people call saying it's theirs and can't tell you what the pet looks like." I went down the path to the barn, seeing Shadow in his corral pushing around a ball I had thrown in there.
"I believe it." She described Shadow to me in perfect detail. She informed me that he had been spooked and broke through the wood fence that served at his corral and disappeared into the woods.
"I need to get the fence fixed, but I don't know how. I live by myself, and I would have to find someone to fix it, or he will leave again and I don't have another corral." She seemed to drift into thought, maybe thinking of who would help her. "Would you mind helping me, dear? I can pay you for your work. "
I thought for a moment. "Yeah sure. I can't today, I have to go pick my brothers up from school in a bit. .."
"Oh, not today, I don't have the materials yet. They should be here by Friday, would that work?" She sounded very hopeful. I smiled at the fact.
"Friday is fine. I get off school at 10:30, I can come by after that if you will be home."
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The week went by in a blur, and before I knew It, it was Friday. I went to school, math, English, and Spanish classes flew by, the boy who was being picked on the first day, Sam, was quiet and unsure about me and I knew there was something to him that was different. His long dark hair touched the tops of his ears, and his emerald green eyes held years of pain and something else I couldn't place. I had befriended two others, Alysha and Sarah , who were not part of the bitch Brooke and jackass Jason's group. They sat with me all week, and I sat with Sam, who seemed uncomfortable with my companionship at first, but began to relax around me as the week wore on.
I went home after school, letting the dog out to go to the bathroom and went upstairs to change into some work clothes, cut off shorts, a stained dull orAnge tank top, and my boots. I fixed my hair into a bun, grabbed my pocket knife, phone, and a few water bottles, and put Hudson inside before I got back into my car and headed for the address Ariel had given me. It took me twenty minutes to get there, winding down a few well tended dirt roads to one long not so well tended dirt driveway to her house.
Surrounded in tall, 6 foot fencing with barbed wire razor wire across the top, the whole yard was huge, the house set closer to the grate. The house was not very welcoming, it's weathered shutters drawn and peeling yellow paint showing its age. The front door seemed rotten, thought went I knocked it was sturdy and thick. A woman answered the door, with wispy blonde hair tied up in a messy knot, piercing dark brown eyes And a long thin face. She was a few inches taller than me, and her thin but still slightly curvy body was clothed in jeans and a white T-shirt, and sneakers on her feet. Her thin lips were pulled into an ear to ear smile.
"Hello dear. You must be Emily, it's nice to meet you." She shook my hand with a cold embrace of her thin fingers. "I'm glad you came."
"I'm glad I was the one who ran across shadow, and not someone else who would have kept him for themselves. He's a beautiful boy."
"Yes he is. I'll show you where his corral is."
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It took only a few hours to have the old corral removed and the new corral put up. The old one was rusted and falling apart. Ariel had new fence panels she had ordered, she helped me set the up and hold the heavy duty paneling in place while I bolted them together. The corral was set next to a barn that was meant for supplies, so it was closed off save for a door that was shut tight. The entire was surrounded in a barbed wire fence, and, besides the corral and the barn, was filled with trees and brush with a worn path from the house to the barn and corral
Ariel and I conversed for a bit, the older woman asking me about the day I found Shadow, I told her of the wolf my brothers and I saw by the lake and she acted surprised. She asked me about how I was raised, what kinds of things I liked to do and why, she asked about my brothers and mother, and if loved them. The first few questions she asked me seemed odd, but when she asked this one... I don't know. I answered that of course I loved them, they were all I had. They were the only ones ever there, and that I would do anything for them. Ariel seemed satisfied by this answer.
I asked her a few questions, why she lived alone, where did she work, where she got shadow. She had answered the first with little detail, and when I asked about shadow, she just smiled and said it was a long story, and that it was getting dark, and I should head home. I would bring Shadow the next day. So I went back to my car, started it, and drove off, just noticing the eyes shining in the brush along the road.
YOU ARE READING
Codename: SSP-57
Science Fiction(RENAMED! Previously Mountain Mystery) ***Cover by Luluutique*** Do you trust any and every elderly woman you see? I did, and I now see my mistake. This is a perfect example. She came after me with a syringe, and what was in that syringe changed my...
