Sea Horses: Gathering Storm by Louise Cooper
When Tamzin Weston woke up in the middle of the night, she was instantly aware of two strange things. First, her room seemed to be shaking very slightly; the mattress underneath her quivering, ornaments rattling on the shelves and dressing table. And second, downstairs she could hear her nan’s fluffy black cat, Baggins, howling.
‘Baggins?’ Tamzin sat upright, feeling for the switch of her bedside lamp.
The light came on and she scrambled out of bed. But as she tried to stand up the room seemed to lurch, like the deck of a ship in a rough sea. Tamzin staggered and almost fell over. She could hear a low rumbling sound, though it was very faint. Thunder? she thought. But thunder didn’t make everything shake like a jelly.
Then along the passage a door banged, and a familiar voice called out, ‘Tamzin, are you all right?’
Tamzin stumbled to the door and opened it, to see Nan, in her dressing gown, on the landing. ‘Nan!’ she cried. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Nan’s black hair was loose and curling around her shoulders. ‘But whatever it is, it’s terrifying poor Baggins. I’d better go and rescue him.’
She started down the stairs. The shaking seemed to have stopped now, but Tamzin was afraid that at any moment it might start again and send Nan tumbling head over heels to the bottom. She waited, holding her breath, until she heard the click of the downstairs door latch. A second later Baggins came streaking up the stairs, ears flattened on his head and his tail fluffed out like a bottlebrush. He shot into Tamzin’s room and dived under the bed.
‘Poor old thing!’ Nan came in and crouched down to peer under the bed. ‘Come on, Baggins. Come on, puss; it’s all right. There’s nothing to be scared of.’
The only answer was a kind of ‘wowrrr’ noise and Baggins didn’t emerge. Nan straightened. ‘Well, whatever it was, it seems to have stopped now.’
She spoke too soon. As she said the word ‘now’, a new and more powerful vibration juddered through the house. Tamzin squealed in fright, Nan lost her balance and reeled against the bed. The ornaments rattled crazily, almost dancing on their shelves. And suddenly one of the pictures on the wall broke loose and fell to the floor with a terrific crash.
Then, shockingly, everything was still and silent.
Wide-eyed, Tamzin and Nan stared at each other. Nan was breathing deeply, and Tamzin’s heart pounded under her ribs like a hammer. Neither of them said a word. Then Tamzin turned and looked at the fallen picture, which lay face up on the floor.
It was one of Nan’s own paintings, and it showed a white horse galloping out of a moonlit blue-and-silver sea. Under the moon, the horse’s coat was tinged blue. The picture was very special to Tamzin. And it was the only one that had fallen.
‘Oh, Nan…’ Tamzin’s voice was a thin, frightened whisper. ‘Why that one, and none of the others?’ She hurried to lift the painting up. ‘The frame’s broken!’
Nan came to look. ‘The picture itself isn’t damaged.’ She studied Tamzin’s face. ‘Love, I know what you’re thinking. But whenever something happens, it doesn’t always mean the Grey Horse is behind it.’ She smiled kindly. ‘There is such a thing as coincidence, you know.’
Tamzin nodded and tried to smile back.
‘Look,’ Nan added, pointing. ‘Here’s Baggins coming out. Everything must be all right now: animals always know.’
Baggins emerged from under the bed and gazed up at them. His tail was back to normal and he looked a little bit sheepish.
‘What was it, Nan?’ Tamzin asked.
‘I don’t know for certain,’ said Nan, ‘but I think it might have been an earth tremor. It’s like a mini-earthquake; we do get them here in Britain, more often than most people realize. Mostly, though, they’re so small that no one notices.’ She put her arm round Tamzin’s shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. ‘Anyway, it’s over. Look at Baggins; he’s curling up on your bed. He’ll go back to sleep now – and so should we.’
‘Can he stay in my room tonight?’ Tamzin asked.
Strictly speaking, cats on beds were against the rules, but Nan smiled. ‘Of course he can, just this once. Will you be all right now?’
Tamzin hesitated, looking at the picture. ‘I think so,’ she said at last.
Nan understood. ‘I’ll mend the frame first thing in the morning,’ she promised. ‘Go on; back to bed. Leave your light on, if you want to.’
She kissed Tamzin and went out, and Tamzin climbed back under her duvet. Baggins closed his eyes, made a happy noise and stretched his front paws out to claim more than his fair share of the bed, but she didn’t mind. She stroked him and he started to purr. It was comforting. It made her feel a lot better. She didn’t need the light on.
She switched the lamp off, and settled down to go to sleep.
At breakfast time the local radio news was bubbling with the story of the strange shaking in the night. Nan had been right; it was an earth tremor, centred, the newsreader said, some way out to sea off the Isles of Scilly. Most of Cornwall had felt it, but it had been strongest along the north coast, where Nan lived.
‘I wonder if it’s done any damage,’ Nan said, as they ate toast.
‘Damage?’ Tamzin looked up quickly.
‘Along the beaches. We sometimes get rockfalls in the big winter storms, that bring down pieces of the cliffs.’ She looked out of the kitchen window. ‘It’s a nice day, and the tide will be low by lunchtime. I might walk to our beach and see if anything’s happened.’ Then a smile spread across her face. ‘An earth tremor, eh? That’ll be something to tell your mum and dad when they phone tonight, won’t it!’
Tamzin’s parents were in Canada, where Dad was working for a year. His work involved travelling a great deal, so Tamzin had been sent to live with Nan while they were away. It was hard to believe that five months had already passed since she came here. She had expected the time to drag horribly. But though she missed her parents, life in Cornwall had turned out to be anything but boring. She and Nan had become close friends; and Tamzin had made other friends, too – in particular a boy a year or so older than her, whose name was Joel Richards. Joel lived a short way up the valley from Nan’s house, and his parents owned and ran a riding stable. Horses were Tamzin’s great passion, but in her city home she had never had the chance to learn to ride. Now, that had all changed. At weekends and in the school holidays she helped at the stables in exchange for riding lessons, and Joel said now that she was almost as good as he was. That wasn’t true, of course, for Joel had started riding almost as soon as he could walk. But her dearest dream had come true.
Yet with the dream had also come a nightmare…
The painting with the broken frame was in Nan’s studio now, waiting to be mended, and the thought of it sent an unpleasant shiver down Tamzin’s spine. Broken. It brought back the memory of the little stone statue of a grey horse, centuries old, that had been passed down through the family and kept safe… until she had defied Nan’s warning and taken it from its shelf when no one was about. Even after five months Tamzin had a clear and awful memory of how the statue had seemed to writhe and twist in her hands, before it fell from her grasp and shattered in pieces on the floor.
Tamzin’s dismay at breaking the statue had turned to horror when Nan finally told her why she should never have touched it. There was a legend, Nan said, of two spirits: the Blue Horse, bringer of calm seas and fair weather, and the Grey Horse, who hated humankind and blighted the land with storms and gales. When the Grey Horse threatened to wreak disaster on the coast and the people who lived here, Nan’s own ancestors had called on the spirit of the Blue Horse to save them. The two powers battled; with the help of his human friends the Blue Horse was victorious, and the Grey Horse’s spirit was imprisoned in a stone statue, and entrusted to the family to keep safe for always. Now, the statue was broken, and the evil power of the Grey Horse had been set free again. It wanted revenge – revenge on the family who had trapped it for so long. And Tamzin was its target.
Tamzin had desperately wanted to believe that the legend could not be true. But twice now she had faced the Grey Horse, and it had nearly succeeded in killing her. It had not given up. It would never give up. Unless it could be captured and imprisoned once more, she would be in danger.
Her hand went to a silver chain bracelet around her wrist, and she fingered a strangely shaped pendant that hung from it. The pendant was formed from two pieces of glass, of different shades of blue. Tamzin had found one piece after her first terrifying encounter with the Grey Horse, the other after her second… and some mysterious magic had caused them to fuse together, to form a delicate, curving shape. The pendant was her talisman, for she was sure it was a gift from the Blue Horse; a sign that the benevolent spirit was trying to reach out and help her. But the link was so fragile. The Grey Horse’s power was growing, and still she had not found a way to make contact with the Blue Horse.
And now there had been an earth tremor…
Nan started to clear the breakfast dishes, and the clatter brought Tamzin down to earth. With a great effort she pushed her thoughts away. Nan had been right last night; there was such a thing as coincidence. She had to hold on to that, believe in it, and think about other things. Such as the fact that the weather was lovely and the Easter holidays were just beginning, which meant three whole weeks of riding stretching ahead of her like a happy dream.
Nan saw her change of mood and smiled. ‘I can see you’re itching to get along to the stables,’ she said, ‘and on a day like this I don’t blame you. I’ll let you off the washing up – go on, go and get ready.’
‘Brilliant!’ Tamzin jumped to her feet and gave Nan a hug. ‘Thanks, Nan! I’ll see you later!’
[pag]Though it was still only March, the weather was warm enough for a lot of the riding stable horses to have been turned out in the field. Barney, the Richardses’ woolly dog, barked joyfully when he saw Tamzin approaching, and the horses too came crowding to the field gate to greet her, hoping for titbits. Tamzin took chunks of apple and carrot from her bulging jacket pockets and shared them around. She knew each horse by name now, and greeted them: ‘Hello, Sally-Ann, Dandy, Rosie – oh, Pippin, you greedyguts; stop pushing in!’ But all the while she was looking for one pony in particular. Moonlight was pure white with just a hint of dapple grey on his quarters and legs. He was Tamzin’s favourite – and far more than that, he was a very special friend. For twice now, when the Grey Horse had threatened her life, Moonlight had come to her rescue…
But Moonlight wasn’t in the field this morning. At last Tamzin left the gate and walked to the stable yard with Barney trotting at her heels.
‘Hi!’ A dark head appeared at one of the loose-box doors, and Joel waved to her. ‘I’m mucking out.’ He pulled a face. ‘I could do with some help!’
‘OK.’ Tamzin grinned. Mucking out was messy and smelly, as its name suggested, but she didn’t mind. ‘Where’s Moonlight?’ she asked.
‘In his box. He’s booked for a customer this morning, so you’ll have to ride another pony when we go out.’
‘Oh. Well, I’ll go and say hello to him, then I’ll give you a hand.’
Moonlight must have heard her voice, for the next moment he was whickering at the door of his box, tossing his head up and down and eager to nuzzle Tamzin’s face and hands as she hurried to him. She gave him two apples she had saved for him and he crunched them happily then blew on her fingers for more.
‘It’s all gone.’ She rubbed him between the ears, where his forelock flopped over his eyes. ‘We can’t go out together this morning, Moonlight. I’m sorry. But maybe tomorrow.’
‘Come on, Tam!’ Joel called. ‘Or I’ll be finished before you’ve even started!’
She gave Moonlight a final pat and went to join him.
As they mucked out, Tamzin and Joel talked about the earth tremor. The Richardses had all felt it, too; Barney had gone crazy, Joel said, and the horses had been so frightened that the family had had to go out to the stables in the dark to calm them. Luckily, though, no damage had been done, though it had been frightening while it lasted.
‘Nan says tremors happen quite often,’ Tamzin told him.
‘Mmm.’ Joel’s face clouded. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never felt one before. And I can’t help wondering…’
‘What?’ she prompted when he didn’t finish.
‘Ohh… Nothing.’ His expression cleared. ‘Come on. Let’s forget about it, and get on with the work. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can go riding!’
An hour later, they left the stables and rode down the valley path to the beach. Joel was on piebald Dandy, while Tamzin rode a pretty little mare called Lark, who was dark brown with a white star and four white socks. The sun was bright and warm, and the sea, between the ‘V’ of the cliffs to either side, was a brilliant sapphire blue.
They guided the ponies carefully down the boulder-strewn slope that led from the car park on to firm golden sand. The tide was going out, and it was possible to get round the headland.
‘If we go round to the left, we can have a gallop,’ Joel said.
‘Lovely!’ Tamzin pressed her heels to Lark’s sides and the ponies broke into a trot. As they rounded the jutting headland, the huge expanse of the beach stretched out before them. Wet sand shone at the sea’s edge, and the crests of the big breakers glittered in the sunlight. At first they thought the beach was deserted, but then Joel pointed to a lone figure walking near the rocks at the foot of the cliffs.
‘Isn’t that your nan?’ he asked.
Tamzin shaded her eyes. ‘Oh, yes – she said she was going to come down, to see if there have been any rockfalls. Let’s go and meet her.’
The ponies were eager to gallop, but Joel and Tamzin restrained them to a canter as they rode towards Nan. Nan saw them and waved, then pointed at the cliffs.
‘Wow!’ Joel said, as he saw what she was indicating. ‘There’s been a rockfall, all right! Look at that!’
There were caves in the cliffs, and the next one along was the largest of all. It had an entrance like a gaping mouth. Or rather, it used to have. Now, the mouth was completely blocked by a pile of enormous, jagged-edged boulders, piled one on top of another and spreading on to the sand. Above the cave was a great new V-shaped scar that ran down from the clifftop, showing where the chunks of rock had broken away.
Tamzin stared in astonishment. ‘That’s incredible!’ she said.
Joel nodded. ‘Just shows how unstable these cliffs can be. Come on, let’s go and see your nan.’
As they approached, they saw someone else standing at the foot of one of the fallen boulders. He was talking to Nan, and as the ponies arrived Nan turned to greet them.
‘Hello!’ she said. ‘Spectacular, isn’t it? This is Mr Brewer – he’s here on holiday. This is my granddaughter, Tamzin, and her friend Joel.’
‘Hello.’ The man, who was about Nan’s age, smiled at the two riders. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He had a pleasant, friendly face, with thinning fair hair and a bushy beard. He didn’t look like a beach holidaymaker; more like a hiker, with a belted jacket, heavy boots and trousers tucked into his thick socks. Near him on the sand was a canvas shoulder bag with a flashlight strapped to it.
Mr Brewer saw Joel looking curiously at the bag, and grinned. ‘Mrs Weston isn’t strictly right about the holiday bit. I’m here to do some research. Or I was, until this happened.’ He waved a hand towards the rockfall. ‘I’ve been told that there are some old tunnels and air shafts that link up with this cave. People say they were dug by miners, but I’ve got a theory that they’re a lot more ancient than anyone realizes.’
‘Are you an archaeologist?’ Tamzin asked.
‘Yes. My special interest is ancient Cornwall, and this area in particular. My ancestors came from here, way back, you see.’
‘Did they?’ Joel asked. His voice sounded a little sharp, Tamzin thought. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘Well, I’m not exactly sure where – or even when, for that matter. But it was certainly within a few miles. And a very long time ago.’ He smiled again. ‘Too long ago for me to call myself Cornish, I’m afraid!’
Nan and Tamzin both laughed, but Joel did not. His face was very serious, and he seemed to be thinking hard. Before he could say anything, though, Mr Brewer continued.
‘I gather your family has been here a long time, too, Tamzin. Your nan knows a lot about local history.’
‘Oh, yes, she does,’ Tamzin agreed. From the corner of her eye she saw Joel giving her a strange look, but she ignored it. Mr Brewer turned to Nan again.
‘I don’t know if you’d be willing, Mrs Weston, but I’d love the chance to talk to you about that. Your knowledge might help me to a few short cuts with my research.’
‘I’d be delighted,’ said Nan. ‘I tell you what: why don’t you come to tea this afternoon, if you’re not busy?’ She nodded towards the cave. ‘You’re not going to make much progress here, after all.’
He beamed. ‘I’d like that very much!’
‘Then it’s settled. Chapel Cottage isn’t too difficult to find; it’s just –’
‘Tam, shall we ride on?’ said Joel quietly, as Nan started to give directions.
Tamzin blinked, surprised. ‘What? All right, then. If you’re in a hurry.’ She glanced at Nan for permission, Nan smiled and nodded, and Mr Brewer said, ‘See you later, I hope, Tamzin.’
‘Yes,’ said Tamzin. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’
Joel was waiting, and as Tamzin gathered up her reins ready to go, he suddenly dug his heels into Dandy’s flanks. Dandy took off at a gallop, sand scattering from his hooves.
‘Hey!’ Tamzin shouted. ‘What about our race? You said you’d give me a head start!’
Joel called back but she couldn’t hear what he said. Dandy was already almost at the sea’s edge and Lark pranced, wanting to gallop too. What on earth was the matter with Joel? Tamzin sighed, then gave Lark her head and they set off in pursuit with the wind flying in their faces.
She only caught up with Joel when he halted Dandy near the far end of the beach.
‘Joel,’ she said, ‘what’s the matter?’
For a few moments Joel didn’t reply, but stared out to sea. Then at last he said, ‘It’s that man.’
‘Who? Mr Brewer?’
‘Yes. I don’t trust him.’
‘You don’t even know him!’
‘Exactly,’ said Joel. ‘And I think it’s a bit weird that he should just happen to turn up when he did.’
The ponies were standing in the shallow water at the sea’s edge. Lark put her head down and snorted at the small wavelets.
‘Look,’ Joel went on, very quickly as though he wanted to get the words out before his nerve failed, ‘what if the earth tremor wasn’t a coincidence? Then the morning afterwards, a stranger suddenly comes along and gets involved with us. Well, that’s happened once before, hasn’t it? At Christmas. And you know as well as I do what it led to!’
‘You mean… Marga?’
‘Yes.’ Joel took a deep breath. ‘What I’m saying is, how do we know that this Mr Brewer isn’t something to do with the Grey Horse as well? This could be a trap, Tam. Just like last time!’
Tamzin sighed. Joel had not wanted to believe in the Grey Horse at first. But what had happened at Christmas had changed his mind. He had allowed himself to be fooled, and his mistake had almost ended in disaster. Since then he had felt guilty, and now he was suspicious of everyone and everything. The smallest incident, to him, was a new sign of the Grey Horse’s power, and he saw – or imagined – threats around every corner.
‘Joel,’ she said, ‘this is crazy! We can’t go around suspecting everyone we meet of working for the Grey Horse. Mr Brewer seems perfectly OK to me.’
‘Then why is he so interested in that particular cave? We both know what happened there last year!’
Tamzin shuddered as she recalled that night, when she had had her first direct encounter with the Grey Horse. But she pushed the memory away and said, ‘There’s such a thing as coincidence. That’s what Nan said last night. She’s no fool. If there was anything fishy about Mr Brewer, she would have sensed it. And she certainly wouldn’t have invited him to tea!’
‘She might be wrong, though. Mightn’t she?’
‘OK, she might. But I don’t think she is. She never met Marga, remember. If she had, things might not have gone wrong the way they did. I trust her, Joel. Can’t you do the same?’
Joel shrugged. ‘I want to. But…’
‘Please. We can’t let this get to us, or we’ll both go nuts with worrying all the time.’
He paused. Then at last he let out a long breath. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll try. But do me a favour, will you? Just be careful.’
‘Of course I will,’ said Tamzin.