Eye of the storm, p.1
Eye of the Storm, page 1
part #2 of Sky Horses Series
PUFFIN BOOKS
The Eye of the Storm
The fourth book in the quartet
Linda Chapman lives in Leicestershire with her family and two Bernese mountain dogs. When she is not writing, she spends her time looking after her two young daughters and baby son, horse riding and talking to people about writing.
You can find out more about Linda on her websites at lindachapman.co.uk and lindachapmanauthor.co.uk
Books by Linda Chapman
BRIGHT LIGHTS
CENTRE STAGE
MY SECRET UNICORN series
NOT QUITE A MERMAID series
SKY HORSES series
STARDUST series
UNICORN SCHOOL series
Illustrated by Ann Kronheimer
PUFFIN
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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First published 2009
Text copyright © Linda Chapman, 2009
Illustrations copyright © Ann Kronheimer, 2009
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-195641-1
To Iola, who always reads my books first
and whose comments are so important.
Sky Horses was written for you.
When the dark one returns, the door shall be reopened
And danger will threaten all living below.
If the binding is broken, they can be protected,
But one coming willingly lets the dark’s power grow
Until the first gateway is split by magic
And he who is trapped is free to go.
Two gateways now balance the light and the darkness,
One lost in memory, hidden by the sea.
The dark door is reserved for the hand that creates it.
The other lies close to a whispering tree,
Deep underground and made from moonlight.
When it is found, then two can be free.
Yet danger is found with the new gateway –
Beware the dark horse who leaps for the sky.
With arrow of fire and grey feather’s direction,
Two must help here or all hopes will die.
If the darkest impostor is not defeated,
Then never again will the cloud stallion fly.
CHAPTER
One
Erin sat on the window seat in her bedroom, writing in a diary. A second diary, an old leather-bound one, lay beside her. Pushing her long dark-blonde hair back behind her ears, she read over what she had just written.
Dear Mum,
I’ve decided to write to you because so much is happening and though you aren’t here any more I know you would understand. I love Jo and I’m glad she and Dad are married now, but of course I can’t tell them anything about stardust or weather weaving and it’s all getting so scary. I’ve been reading your diary – the two-year one you had when you were ten and eleven. I’m glad you wrote down so much about magic.
Erin picked up a stone from her window ledge. It had a hole in the centre. She held it up and looked through the hole at the clouds in the evening sky. Now she could see they weren’t just clouds, but a landscape with distinct hills and valleys, rivers and meadows. Beautiful horses of all different shades of grey moved slowly through their cloud world, their manes and tails sweeping to the floor.
Sky horses.
Erin bit her lip. She knew now that sky horses controlled the weather. When they were quiet, the skies were calm; when they moved about, clouds formed and rain fell. Erin remembered the first time she had seen them, almost a month ago. Back then, she had thought she was completely ordinary, just eleven-year-old Erin Davies who loved horses and lived with her dad, three stepbrothers and stepmum, Jo. But in one day she had found out that magic was real, sky horses existed and that she was a rare kind of stardust spirit, a weather weaver, who could work magic using special stones called hagstones.
Erin put the stone down and glanced at the diary beside her. Her mum had been a weather weaver too. Oh, Mum, she thought longingly. I really wish you were here.
She picked up her pen again and carried on writing:
If you were here, you would help show me the weather-weaving magic I need to do to stop Marianne. She’s gone into the clouds, Mum. It’s horrible.
A memory flashed vividly into Erin’s mind. Her pen hesitated over the paper as, for a moment, she saw Marianne, a dark stardust spirit, standing on top of a cliff, holding out a hagstone. A black mist was pouring out through the hole in the centre of the stone. It formed a swirling circle – a magic gateway into the sky horses’ world. Marianne had transformed into a horse and she had jumped through the gateway. Now she was up there. But she shouldn’t be. It was all wrong. Erin quickly started writing again.
You said in your diary that humans shouldn’t go into the cloud world – that it makes the horses sick and makes their magic flow away. Well, Marianne’s gone up there because she wants to control them. She doesn’t care that they will get ill. She just wants to have complete power over the weather so that everyone is scared of her. Tor says she could start a huge storm just like there was years and years ago before even Granny was born. People and animals could be injured and killed. There would be loads of damage. We have to stop her and find a way for Tor and Mistral to get back to their kingdom.
Despite her anxiety, Erin couldn’t help but smile as she thought of Tor, the majestic sky stallion, and his son, a young mischievous colt called Mistral. They were trapped on Earth at the moment, living in the woods near Erin’s house, but both of them longed to get back to the sky.
Oh, Mum, I wish you could meet Tor – and Mistral. They’re amazing. Marianne captured Tor and then trapped Mistral too; that’s why they’re here. They’re free from her now. Me and Chloe – she’s my best friend and a stardust spirit too – are going to try to help them get back to the clouds using the magic gateway that’s hidden in the cliffs, the one you wrote about in your diary. The trouble is, of course, that it can only be used when the tide is out, otherwise you just can’t reach it. But when Tor does get to use it and returns to the sky, he’s going to fight Marianne and chase her back to Earth, and when she gets here we have to destroy the dark gateway she has made using a hagstone so she can’t go into the cloud world again. But I’m scared, Mum. I have to destroy the gateway all by myself. Although Tor can help me by telling me what to do, he can’t do the magic and Chloe isn’t a weather weaver – she can only do normal stardust magic. So, it’s all down to me. But what if I can’t do it? Marianne is so powerful. How can I possibly fight her? I really wish you were here…
‘Erin!’
Erin broke off as she heard her dad calling her from the landing.
‘Time to get ready for bed!’ he called.
Erin quickly shut the diary. ‘OK!’
I don’t know how we’ll do it, but we’ll stop Marianne, she thought. We’ll get her out of Tor and Mistral’s kingdom.
She looked out of the window. There were bands of clouds across the pale early-evening sky now. Swirling shafts of golden sun shot through the clouds like thin columns of light. It was a beautiful sight. But Erin felt as if an icy hand was running along her spine. It was as if she was seeing the magic flowing away from the sky horses down to the ground. She thought of the horses up there who would grow weaker and weaker, thought of the massive storms that might come, and bit her lip. She and Chloe would stop Marianne – they had to before it was too late.
CHAPTER
Two
Erin changed into her pyjamas. She could hear her stepbrothers arguing about what TV channel to watch in the lounge.
Jo, her stepmum, was in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher. She smiled as Erin came in. ‘Hi, Erin. Would you like a hot chocolate?’
‘I’ll get it,’ said Erin, seeing how tired Jo looked. ‘Shall I make you a cup of tea at the same time?’
Jo smiled. ‘Yes, please. I’ve been running around all day trying to get things packed up for the boys.’
Sam and Ben, Erin’s two eldest stepbrothers, were going to Wales f
‘So, how are you?’ Jo asked as Erin got two mugs out. ‘I’ve been so busy recently with all the boys’ sporting activities and you’ve been at the stables day and night it seems – I feel like I haven’t seen you at all. What have you been up to?’
Erin wondered what Jo would say if she replied, Oh, you know, flying around at night, trying to find a hidden gateway that leads to the clouds, fighting a dark spirit…
‘Nothing much,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Just going to the stables and stuff.’ Erin rode at Hawthorn Stables. She had lessons there and helped with the ponies. Now she was eleven and the nights were lighter, her dad and Jo had started letting her cycle there after school too.
‘How’s Kestrel?’ asked Jo.
‘He’s great!’ Erin enthused. Kestrel was a grey, part-Arab pony. He was new to the riding school and Jackie, the owner of the stables, had asked her if she would help look after him because he was having trouble settling in.
Jo looked at her. ‘I was talking to Jackie the other day and she was saying that she’s not sure he’s cut out to be a riding-school pony, but she seems very pleased with how you’re getting on with him.’
Erin frowned. ‘He’s fine whenever I ride him. I’m sure he’ll soon get used to being ridden by lots of people. He just needs a bit more time. What else did Jackie say? Why were you talking to her?’
‘No real reason,’ Jo said, shrugging. She changed the subject. ‘So, how’s Chloe getting on with Ziggy? Her mum was saying she’s over the moon about him.’
Ziggy was Chloe’s new pony. She had got him for her birthday three days ago.
‘Yeah.’ Erin tried not to sigh. She’d always longed for a pony herself, but she knew her dad and Jo couldn’t afford to buy one. She’d been trying very hard not to be jealous of Chloe having Ziggy. At least she had Kestrel, and Chloe kept saying that she could ride Ziggy as much as she liked.
‘It must be hard not to mind,’ said Jo, as if reading her thoughts.
‘It is a bit,’ Erin confided, handing her a mug of tea. ‘But I’m glad Chloe’s happy.’
Jo smiled at her. ‘That’s because you’re a real friend. I’m proud of you.’ She gave her a quick hug. ‘Now, bedtime.’
‘Can I read for half an hour?’
Jo nodded. ‘And then light off.’
Erin went upstairs. In just a few hours she would be able to turn into her stardust self and go to meet up with Chloe, Tor and Mistral. She took a deep breath. What was the night going to hold?
‘I believe in stardust. I believe in stardust. I believe in stardust!’
As Erin whispered the final word, she shot up into the air, her pyjamas becoming a glittering pale-blue dress as she turned into a stardust spirit. There were four types of stardust spirit – spring, summer, autumn and winter – and they each wore different-coloured clothes: spring spirits wore green, summer spirits wore gold, autumn spirits wore silver and winter spirits wore blue. They could also each do different magic. Erin was a winter spirit who could make it rain, hail or snow. Chloe was a summer spirit, which meant she could heat things up and start fires. Some stardust spirits had extra-special powers like weather weaving. Erin was only just learning what she could do. She could use hagstones – stones with holes in the centre – to make magic things happen. So far Tor had shown her how to use the stones to see visions, to talk to him and to protect herself. Sometimes the stones showed her visions of things she hadn’t asked to see. Tor said she must trust the magic in the stones; sometimes they would help her even when she didn’t ask. It was cool she had learnt so much, but she knew there was still so much else she had to learn.
Now Erin flew out of the window and into the dark night. ‘Camouflagus,’ she whispered. All stardust spirits could camouflage themselves, disappearing into the background so they appeared invisible. Erin headed towards the cliff tops, away from the village of Long Medlow where she lived. Heavy clouds were scudding across the night sky and the salt-filled wind buffeted her body.
Chloe was waiting for her on the shingle beach where they nearly always met, the waves lapping near her feet. ‘Hi!’ she called as Erin let her camouflage fade.
She flew up to meet Erin, her dark-brown curls bouncing on her shoulders, her gold dress swirling. ‘Isn’t it windy tonight? I heard on the TV there’s a big storm coming.’
Erin nodded. ‘I hope it’s not really bad.’
Chloe looked worried. ‘I bet it’s Marianne, up in the sky causing trouble. I wish we could get to the hidden gateway in the cliffs so that Tor and Mistral could go back to the sky and stop her. But with the tide coming in like this there’s no way we can get to it.’
‘Tor and I might be able to stop the storm, even from down here,’ said Erin, knowing she could use her weather-weaving powers.
‘I wish I was a weather weaver and could do something,’ sighed Chloe. ‘You’re really lucky!’
Erin didn’t feel lucky sometimes, but she knew Chloe wouldn’t believe her. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find him.’
As Erin and Chloe swooped down into the clearing in the centre of the woods, two grey horses emerged from the trees – a beautiful white stallion with wise dark eyes and a smaller, dark-grey colt with a sticking-up mane and a cheeky expression. The colt whinnied a shrill greeting.
Chloe flew down and hugged him. ‘Hello, Mistral.’ The colt butted her with his head, making her almost fall over.
Meanwhile Erin landed beside Tor.
The sky stallion whickered softly. ‘The horses are in turmoil in the skies, Erin,’ he said. ‘We must use your magic tonight to try to calm them.’
Erin could use her weather-weaving powers to send a vision of Tor into the sky. While his body stayed on Earth, an image of him appeared in the clouds so he could move among the other sky horses and talk to them, calm them and lead them. She had worked this kind of magic lots of times before, but not since Marianne had gone through the gateway the other night.
‘What about Marianne?’ she asked. ‘She’ll be there.’
‘Yes, Father,’ said Mistral, looking round anxiously. ‘What if the dark spirit sees your image? Won’t she try to hurt you or fight you?’
‘Will she be able to if you’re just an image?’ asked Chloe.
‘She will,’ replied Tor. ‘But it’s a risk I will have to take.’
Erin and Chloe marked out a large circle with stones on the forest floor. Tor stepped inside it and then Erin knelt down and took a hagstone out of her pocket. She looked at the hole in the centre of it and let her mind go blank. The shadow in the hole seemed to swell.
‘Sky horses, come,’ she whispered, feeling her fingers tingling with magic.
Tor’s body dissolved into a cloud of mist. He shrank down until he was the size of a small model horse. Around the edges of the circle sky horses began to appear, young and old. They moved about quickly, some trotting, others cantering, other rearing up. Erin knew she was seeing a picture of what was happening up in the clouds.
Snowdance, Tor’s lead mare and Mistral’s mother, came trotting over to him. She was a beautiful grey mare with large eyes. They nuzzled each other in greeting and then Tor swiftly began to move among the herd, calming them. Suddenly though, to Erin’s surprise, the horses in the circle began to dissolve into mist and fade away.
Erin blinked. What was happening? The sky horses had all vanished. There was just Tor left.
‘Sky horses, come,’ she said quickly. A few wisps of mist swirled across the circle, but then they too disappeared.
‘What’s happening?’ Chloe demanded from outside the circle.
‘Why have you stopped using your magic, Erin?’ whinnied Mistral.
‘I-I haven’t,’ Erin stammered in surprise. ‘One minute I was doing it. The next the horses just disappeared.’ Her eyes flew to Tor’s. He was now growing back to full size again. ‘Was it Marianne, Tor? Was she doing something to stop me – to stop us from calming the horses?’
