Blaze and the Dark Rider

“Are you kidding?” Stella grinned. “It’s so obvious that she is jealous of you, Issie. She’s never recovered from the time you beat her at the one-day event.”

Even Natasha’s cattiness couldn’t crush Issie’s good mood. She had made the team. That night, as a celebration, Mrs Brown made Issie’s favourite dinner—cottage pie with minted peas and chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Afterwards, Issie lay on her bed, still in her jodhpurs, feeling too tired and stiff to take them off and change into her pyjamas. She was just thinking that this was possibly one of the best days she had ever had when the phone rang.

“Mum! Can you get it? I can’t stand up because my legs have fallen off!” Issie yelled out.

She heard her mother yell something back, but then she heard her get up from the kitchen table and walk towards the phone. Her legs-falling-off excuse must have worked. She could hear her mum talking in her proper phone voice that she reserved for people she didn’t know very well, and then she called out, “Isadora, it’s for you.”

“Who is it?” Issie asked as she took the receiver. Her mother just smiled and handed her the phone.

The voice on the other end of the line was syrupy and warm, with a strong French accent. “Bonjour, Isadora,” said Francoise D’arth. “Ça va? How are you? I am calling as you suggested to ask if you are free tomorrow? I would love to come and meet your pony.”

As she cycled towards the pony club the next morning Issie felt sick with nerves. She had never dreamt that the glamorous Francoise D’arth would really be interested in Blaze. To Issie, Blaze was the most beautiful horse in the world—but what would an expert horsewoman like Francoise think? Francoise would probably be disappointed when she came all the way to the pony club to meet her and saw that Blaze was just an ordinary pony not anything special at all.

It was eight a.m. and the morning air still had a slight spring chill in it, despite the fact that summer was almost here. Issie wished she’d worn her jacket. By the time she reached the pony-club gates, though, the bike ride had warmed her up and her cheeks were flushed from the fresh air. Next to the gates was a black car, and out of it stepped Francoise, who had been waiting for her.

“Bonjour, Isadora,” she said. “Thank you very much for meeting with me. Now, where is this pony of yours that looks so much like my dancing horses?”

Issie grabbed Blaze’s halter out of the tack room, and she and Francoise set out together across the paddocks.

“I usually graze her at the River Paddock,” Issie explained, “but we had a pony-club rally yesterday and I kept her here. Avery says we can graze them at the pony club for as long as we like now that we’re in the team.”

The pony club was divided into three fields. You came off the main road down a long gravel driveway lined with giant magnolia trees. The first gate opened into the paddock where the cars and horse floats usually parked on rally days. There were large plane trees running like a leafy spine through the paddocks, providing extra shade for the horses and riders on hot days, and the clubroom which straddled the fence line between paddocks one and two. Paddock three was the furthest away. The jumping arena had been erected there, and the perimeter of this paddock was bordered by a thick privet hedge. Issie looked out to the far paddock where she could see the outline of three horses grazing—Blaze, Coco and Toby.

“There she is,” Issie pointed. “She’s the one standing by the stack of cavaletti.”

Issie and Francoise climbed over the turnstile in the fence and began to walk through the lush, spring grass towards the far paddock.

As they got closer, Issie made a clucking noise with her tongue and Blaze raised her head from the rich, green spring grass to look up at her. She gave a soft nicker.

“She usually comes if I call her,” Issie said proudly. She made the clucking noise again and Blaze gave another little whinny now and broke into a high-stepping trot. When she reached the fence line that separated her from Issie she looked for a moment as if she were considering jumping the fence, but instead she came reluctantly to a stop. Snorting and shaking out her mane with frustration, Blaze trotted up and down along the fence line impatiently.

Issie watched her horse in motion, her flaxen mane and tail flowing freely and her dark liver chestnut coat glinting in the morning sun. Blaze’s paces were so light she seemed to be floating above the ground. Her neck was arched and her ears were pricked forward. Issie smiled at how beautiful her horse was when she moved—surely Francoise would be impressed by how gorgeous the chestnut mare looked.

She turned expectantly to look at the dark-haired Frenchwoman next to her. But Francoise was not smiling. Far from it. She was standing perfectly still, and the look on her face was one of shock. It was almost as if she had seen a ghost.

Issie noticed that her hands were trembling. Francoise seemed to realise this too because she now entwined her hands together to steady herself, clasping them under her chin as if she were praying.

Francoise stood perfectly still in this way for a long time. Issie heard her muttering something under her breath in French. Then Francoise raised her hands to her face, cupping them around her mouth. She pouted her lips and blew a shrill high whistle.