Marked by Fate title will change to Illuminated

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As soon as morning broke through the curtains Bailey awoke with sheer excitement. She was getting a horse today or hopefully anyhow. During the night she had had a hard time sleeping, she was too euphoric. When she finally slipped into unconsciousness she had a dream; horses galloped up and down the cliffs around the house, they ran through the fields, they stopped to graze and play in the sun. One horse in particular seemed to stand out the most, a Mustang.

The mustang was bigger than any mustang she had ever seen before; he stood about 16 hands, the size of a thoroughbred or large quarter horse. Mustangs today are more in the range of 13 hands maybe 15 but even that is hard to find. Mustangs have adapted to the terrain, giving them shorter stockier builds, for manoeuvring ridges and tight closed paths. The one that stood out was beautiful; buckskin with a rich gold coat, a long black as night, main and tail. He had one white stripe from below his right ear, across his throat and above his withers. It was almost like a long lightning bolt. The image of the horse seared into her mind, though there would never be a horse like that around here. She stretched and yawned and tried to wake up. She looked at the clock and saw it was 5 to 6, her mom said they would be leaving at 6:30.

Straining to listen she could hear her mom puttering downstairs in the kitchen. Then, the puttering turned into a clang, a very loud clang, metal bowls were protesting whatever she was doing to them. What is she doing down thereshe thought.

Turning her attention to Dean sleeping peacefully and looking devilishly handsome in his morning hair do, she raised her hand and extended her finger. She began to trail it behind his left ear, down his throat, to the front of his chest, hoping to wake him in a good mood. Sure enough, he gave in to the light touch of her finger and smiled as he woke up. He grabbed her hand and in a swift movement, flipped her over him so he could get a morning kiss in.

“Good morning” he said, with a yawn.

“Good morning to you Mr. Sleepy head, it’s time to get your butt up, we have things to do”. She said as she began to vibrate with joyousness.

Laying in the bed, she could hear her mom singing her wake up song, which remembering back to her child hood, meant it was about to get very loud down there. Her mother loved to sing, badly, but she enjoyed it. In the mornings she would sing a certain song when they were not at the table at a certain time. She would sing very off key “Good morning, Good morning, life’s sweet with cream of wheat, good morning good muffins to you”. She usually sang that verse about four times before she would belt out an ear splitting finally. So before the yelling part of the song started, they dashed to put on their clothes and headed downstairs.

“Oh good morning you two, how did you sleep? Well I hope.” asked her mom while still singing under her breath waiting for the punch line to kick it up a notch.

“Very well Mrs. Cale, thank you” replied Dean.

“OK mom you can stop singing now we are awake.” still hearing the tune in her head, not sure if it was just in her head or her mom still singing it.

“I haven’t even sang the best part yet.” her mother whined “That’s why you came down before the song ended, you wanted to hear it loud and clear right?” she smiled. Suddenly her voice shot up above the octaves of normal human hears as she belted out “If I’m up everybody’s UP, GOOOOOOD Morning NEW YORK.”

“You know mom, people may think you’re crazy but I don’t know what they’re talking about, you seem as normal as anyone, who belts out an annoyingly LOUD song at six AM. Please, please if you love me, tell me there is coffee, I really need it after that.”