The Fire Horse

Chapter 5 - Kate

     I ended up just bringing Fox home with me that night. I didn't want to risk running into My. Better she think I wasn't at the stable at all. Fox usually laid down to sleep so I wasn't worried about anyone seeing the empty stall. They would just assume he was asleep. My house didn't have a fenced yard so I told Fox "Just stay in my backyard for the night, don't wander off" when he had promised he wouldn't I went inside, took my note off the fridge and went up to bed. I looked at the time as I climbed into bed with my clothes still on. I was to tired to get changed. It was around four thirty in the morning. My mind was still racing from what had just happened but somehow I forced myself to sleep.
I got up about a half an hour before my mom usually does. I wanted to get Fox out of the yard before my mom noticed he was there. I walked down to the yard to see him peacefully grazing. "Good morning" I said walking up to Fox. "Good morning" he replied continuing to eat. I realized he'd probably missed his breakfast since he hadn't been at the stable. "Let's go back to stable before my mom wakes up, I'll get you some breakfast when we get there" Fox usually didn't get much breakfast, I'd simply asked them to give him a little in the morning since I was usually riding around lunch time. I grabbed the bridle, which I'd left hanging on my back doorknob. I quickly put it on and mounted from the ground. It had taken me a long time to be able to do that bareback. I remember falling many times trying to figure it out. I smiled at the memory as we trotted out of my yard. We galloped to the stables and got there pretty quickly. I put Fox in his stall and let him eat. As I ate I noticed the stable workers setting up two of the empty stalls in the barn. I then remembered what I'd heard My saying last night and realized they must be for her friends who were coming. I didn't want to see these people. I was pretty sure they were looking for us and I didn't know why. Of course I would still be friendly to My. She had been nice when she talked to me and even though I was skeptical I knew it would look suspicious if I wasn't. I knew she'd show up in here soon since her horse wasn't in his stall. I went out for another ride about twenty minutes later. We didn't do much since I'd ridden in the middle of the night, just cantered across the fields a little. We walked for at least two hours though just wandering around with nothing to do. When we got back to the stables I put Fox in his stall and started feeding him some treats. His new tactic for begging was to ask me if I had any treats and if other people were around he would just nudge me. As he finished the last of the treats in my hand I heard hoofbeats. I turned and saw three people on horses walk into the barn. The person in front was My. The girl on her left rode on a bay Andalusian and the girl on her right was on a black horse whose breed I couldn't recognize. I noticed she was riding tackless. My saw me and smiled "Hey Kate!" she said. She then noticed me looking at her friends. "That's Jacqueline" she said pointing at the girl on the black horse "and that's Nina". I knew these must be the people she was talking with on the phone but I decided to be nice. After all I wasn't supposed to hear that conversation, plus the best way to find out what they want is to get to know them. So I smiled at them and said "Nice to meet you, I'm Kate".
We chatted for about an hour. They told me they had ridden here all the way from Jorvik Stables. I wondered how My knew them if they lived that far away. When I asked they were very vague about it. "Oh, we just ran into each other in Valedale" Jacqueline had said casually. That was it. She didn't even say why they were in Valedale. I decided not push it and just let it go for now. We would've talked longer but My's phone rang. She picked it up and after a moment said "Ok we'll head down there now" she then looked at the other two girls and said "The baroness doesn't want to keep the arena closed for to long, we have to go down there now if we want the ring to ourselves" she glanced at me quickly before looking back and continued "let's not ride for to long, I know people want to use the ring" I could tell they weren't just going to ride. My's glance at me had said it all. As they left the barn I decided to follow them. I got on Fox bareback and followed them out the door careful to keep out of site.