Even Demons Have Their Moments

Demon Hunt

I’m dedicating this chapter to the horsewritersclub. If it wasn’t for that club, I would never have even written this book. If you don’t know it and are a horsey person, check it out!

And I promise this is the last chapter before the show. I think. I’m not sure. This story seems to have taken on a life of its own and keeps writing chapters itself (help! I’m a slave to my own creation!)

The picture is of a fox-hunt. I just thought it was cool.

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Frustrated, I dropped the heavy, dust-and-spider-web-covered-coat on the floor. A startled moth actually flew out of it. Wow. I really needed to clean this place out sometime. Maybe next month.

I was digging through all the boxes and cupboards in our tackroom trying to find my longboots for the show. The nice, comfortable, ankle-high paddock boots that I usually rode in were ‘not suitable’ to wear at a proper dressage show, so I had to go with the full on, stiff leather longboots that went all the way up to my knee. I knew I had them, I had spent a whole day putting leather conditioner in them and then another week walking around the house just to wear them in before I rode in them and then they were still so stiff they gave me bruises. But that had been last summer. And I was sure I had left them in here.

I looked around the tackroom feeling dejected. They were hiding from me, I was sure. Or maybe Dad had already got them out. Yeah. And that made it his fault.

“Must be it,” I muttered as I looked at the three chests I hadn’t looked in. they looked filled with horrible surprises. Dad must have moved them.

Footsteps outside made me look up.

“Dad! Where did you put my longboots!” I yelled, storming out the tackroom.

It wasn’t Dad on the yard when I got out there but Sam, guiltily hiding something behind his back.

“Hey,” He smiled.

“Hey,” I sighed. Looks like I would have to open those chests. Great. “Do you happen to know where my dad is?” I asked hopefully.

“Um…nope. Don’t think so…”

“Oh, oh well.” I was just turning back to the awaiting chests when I froze, “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I…came to see you?”

“How’d you know I’d be here and not at the house?”

“You’re always here.”

I paused. That was a fair point, but he was still acting suspicious. “What’s behind your back?”

“This?” He pulled a plastic shopping bag out from behind his back, “Oh, this is just…something for Sally. She is my pig, too, you know.”

“A present for the pig?” I questioned, not buying it.

“Yep.”

“What is it?”

“Um…It’s a…”

He was cut off by the sound of a hunting horn coming down the lane.

All thoughts of suspicious boyfriends officially flew out my head. “What? No! No! No!” I cried, “What time is it?”

Sam glanced at his watch, but I was already running out the yard toward the horse fields.

“Quarter to three.”