What if all you trusted was to crumble about you?
When a new pony arrives at Valley Riding School, volunteer Abby has no idea of the integral role that he has to play in the unfolding of her life. She goes from riding once per week to preparing for...
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The autumn breeze cavorts around my boots and tattered jeans the moment I step off the bus, and rips the warmth from my face and neck only a second later. Leaves rush along the tarmac road as the wind blows by- the first of the season.
However, winter is not the culprit for the cold that starts at my heart, spreading to my chest and even my legs. I don't want to walk down the lane, to turn the corner. The sensation is strange, to stand here in the wake of the departing bus and have to force myself to move. To shake at the prospect of visiting my favourite place in the world. I make a step forwards, mutter encouraging words to myself until my throat begins to tighten, then calm in silence.
I mustn't cry.
It only takes a minute to round the corner, and a second to find the familiar lane down which the best, and the worst, days of my life have evolved. A sign hangs on a tree on the left, creaking as it swings. It reads Valley Farmhouse, and beneath the first sign hangs a second- Valley Riding School.
I study the writing for a second, it is bold but small, and the same as it always has been- just today it seems that a melancholy air has brushed the wooden sign and left knots of grief that had not been present the week before. She had lain just to my left, the horse, still as a stone and just as lifeless.
Ghostly white, Kerys kneeling over her like some kind of avenging angel, all sharp lines and icy tears.
I shiver. My eyes scan the fields as I turn down the drive, subconsciously checking that they are all still there, that none have followed Polly over the last week. But no, there's Bob, steady and dependable, the skewbald Sally-Ann, little Star- the Shetland of the yard. They stand together beneath a tree next to the stables, and having established that they are all there I search the next field- where Polly used to be.
Rosie huddles dejectedly by one of he piles of hay scattered around the field. She doesn't eat, just stares. Quinn grazes contentedly- he never cared for anything except food.
And that's where Polly lay, this time last week. Flowers lie untouched over the spot, but apart from that it is indistinguishable from the rest of the field.
It had been Penny's job to tell me. She had stood by the fence, tears in her eyes and told me to go, leave. She didn't want me to see her lying there, but I had already seen.
A flicker of movement catches the corner of my eye and my head snaps up; a pony steps out of the shadows of the hedge, crimson tones dancing beneath the meagre sunlight. He is majestic in a wild, rugged kind of way, although he has just been captured from the moors of Devon or the mountains of Wales. Under a matted forelock, the pony's eyes hold a life and mischief that I cannot quite place as I continue to watch.
A bird erupts from the bushes and he jumps. The pony's eyes go a little wild as he lifts his tail like a horse of the Bedouin and trots across the field, head high and exuberant, powered from behind with a high action and a quick stride. Ground covering. The other horses don't even look up.
