The Wild Path

by Sarah R. Baughman

  But all I can think about is the rest of the letter. In between the joke and the promise to ride was the truth: Andy doesn’t believe me.

  CHAPTER 11

  I try to push Andy out of my mind, shift my focus to Ethan Hamilton.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m going to call him.”

  Maya smiles. “Want to practice first?”

  Sparrows are already soaring down from the rafters of the barn. “I wrote a few notes at school. I think I’d better just do it.”

  I move to the corner of the hayloft. The box is still there, hidden under a little mound of hay I scooped over it, and my heart starts knocking against my ribs. I peek inside and everything’s exactly as I left it: the bits, the harness, the stone.

  And the article. I lift it out and it shakes a little in my hands.

  The sparrows swoop down through my throat and up to my head, then tumble into one another. I squeeze my eyes shut tight. The flutter feeling isn’t supposed to happen here. The barn is my safe place, with nobody but me and the people and animals I trust. This is definitely the best place to make a phone call to some stranger.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m not nervous.

  I look at Jack Hamilton’s eyes, staring out at me from nearly a century ago. I rest my hands against my belly button and breathe in. Then out. Then in again. And out again.

  Jack’s eyes stay the same. They watch as the sparrows inside me blink and quiet and disappear.

  I press SEND.

  Ring, ring.

  “Hello?” The voice sounds like sandpaper: gritty. Like it hasn’t been used in a while but knows it has a job to do now.

  “Hi, this is Claire Barton.” I clear my throat. “I’m in the seventh grade at Pebble Village School.”

  Across the loft, Maya gives me two thumbs-up. I turn toward the wall so I can’t see her, even though having her nearby makes me feel better.

  Then I completely forget everything I planned to say next. My silence grows like a welt.

  But the sandpaper voice comes back. “Your teacher mentioned you’d be calling,” it says. “I’m Mr. Hamilton. Ethan Hamilton.”

  I nod, even though he obviously can’t see me. Focus, I tell myself. “Yes. Thank you. I, um—I wanted to ask you about Jack Hamilton. It’s for a research project. About how people used to use horses.”

  Silence again. Then: “Your teacher might have told you that Jack Hamilton was my dad. How did you find out about him?”

  I know I have to tell Mr. Hamilton about the box. It’s not that I thought I could keep it a secret forever. But still, talking about it with someone I don’t know feels strange, especially when I haven’t even shown it to Andy yet.

  “I found a box in my barn,” I say.

  “A box in your barn?” Mr. Hamilton’s voice rises a little.

  I nod again. Why do I keep nodding? It doesn’t count for much over the phone. “Under a loose floorboard in the hayloft. I tripped over it.” I read the article’s headline and describe the picture.

  Mr. Hamilton doesn’t speak at first. Then he says: “That sounds interesting. Was there anything else in the box?”

  I run my fingers over the curled leather, cracked and stiff. Over the cold bits and the heavy, smooth stone. One by one, I describe them all.

  “Would you mind bringing the box with you when you visit?” Mr. Hamilton asks. “I’d be interested to see it.”

  I barely hear what he says next, about his address and when to arrive on Saturday morning. But I manage to thumb the details into a text message and send it to Mom and Dad.

  When I press END, silence comes back into the barn. I lie against a hay bale, the box at my feet, and look up at the cobwebby ceiling, the braces joined together. A long time ago, before nails were easy to come by, somebody had made holes in all these pieces of wood and carved out pegs to fit perfectly in each one so they could stand together and prop up a whole barn.

  “How’d it go?” Maya asks, settling into the hay next to me. “It sounded like you did awesome. Your voice didn’t shake or anything.”

  “It felt different on the inside,” I say.

  “Nobody sees the inside.” Maya’s trying to help, like always, but her voice has that heavy sound again.

  As I cradle the weight of the box, I think about how Maya’s right. The outside never tells the whole story. Just looking at the box, nobody would ever know it meant anything at all.

  I sit up and close the box gently until the metal cover clicks into place. “Hey. We should go on a ride.”

  “What?” Maya raises her eyebrows. “By ourselves?”

  “Follow me.” I climb down the ladder and stop by the door leading to Sunny’s and Sam’s stalls. “Mom and Dad let me ride by myself in the woods now.”

  Maya’s jaw drops. “Are you kidding?”

  “I convinced them,” I say. “All I had to do was explain what Sharon said. She wanted us to figure out something we could do by ourselves, that we really liked.”

  “Well, yours would be pretty obvious,” Maya says, gesturing around the barn. “You like being here.”

  “Yeah, but Mom’s been coming to help with chores more lately, and I like to be by myself.” I step into the stable. “So I told them I wanted to ride in the woods alone.”

  “Like, whenever you want?” Maya follows me into the stable.

  “I mean, there are some rules.” I take out my phone and start a text.

  “Wait a second,” Maya says. “If I went with you, you wouldn’t technically be by yourself.”

  “Being with you counts,” I say. Maya’s voice has more lightness in it now, and I don’t want to ruin that. “And riding always helps anyway.”

  “You’re right,” Maya says quietly. “It always does.”

  “Since I’ve been researching equine therapy so much, I’ve learned that people actually study this kind of stuff,” I say. “Horses can help people with all kinds of issues: physical disabilities, developmental delays, emotional problems…”

  “Emotional problems?” Maya asks. “How does that work?”

  “Horses are kind of like mirrors that show what people are thinking and feeling,” I explain.

  Maya takes a deep breath. “Really?”

  “They actually have a special membrane in their nose that allows them to sense human emotion,” I explain. “You know how I’ve said before if I’m feeling upset about something, Sunny—but even Sam too—kind of acts weird? Like more jumpy?”

  Maya nods. “They’re like mind readers.”

  “Exactly. And it ends up being really helpful. Because horses can show people how their feelings are affecting their actions. And that helps people change certain patterns.” I think of Sam’s quiet eyes. “Maybe that’s why I don’t need to talk to feel better when I’m around horses.”

  I can’t read Maya’s face. She folds her arms across her chest.

  “Hey,” I say, nudging her with my elbow. “You good?”

  Maya shrugs, and when she looks at me, her eyes crinkle with worry. “I don’t even know, Claire,” she says. “What you said about equine therapy and emotions—it made me think about Papi.”

  “Your dad likes horses?” I’ve never heard Mr. Gonzalez even ask about Sunny and Sam before.

  “No, that’s not it.” Maya shakes her head. “He had to go to the doctor yesterday. Something to do with stress. He really isn’t feeling well. My mom’s worried.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  To my surprise, Maya’s eyes fill with tears. “I wish I knew how to help him.”

  “He’ll be okay,” I say.

  Maya shakes her head. “How do you know that?”

  I feel my cheeks redden. I hate saying the wrong thing. “Because he has to be.”

  Then, before Maya can ask anything else, I stand up and hold out my hand. “Let’s go,” I say. Getting out in the woods will help us both feel better.

  Maya wipes her eyes, then retrieves the brush box from the tack room and hands me
a currycomb. “So does this mean you’ll be riding Sunny?”

  I haven’t ridden Sunny in a while. The last time was in the ring this summer, with Mom and Andy coaching me. Thinking about her springy nervousness as I tried to give her the right cues makes me wonder, for a second, if it’s a good idea to try again.

  But my urge to catch another glimpse of the wild horses, or to see if more stones like the silvery-black ones surrounding the cavern by the lake have found their way to the forest floor, crawls over my fear. “Totally,” I say. “It’s no problem.”

  “Okay,” Maya says slowly, and we get the horses ready in silence.

  I can feel Sunny’s questions pulsing in every step we take outside. Why are you here? Where are we going? Her head moves jerkily up and down with each careful step. It feels like an electric current runs through her body. Under my legs she’s tense, ready to burst at any moment.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper, patting her neck, but my fingertips are as fluttery as sparrow wings. Don’t be nervous, I tell myself. If you’re nervous, she’ll be nervous.

  I know this, but it doesn’t help much. I fill my stomach with air, then let it out again, trying to focus on the trees ahead instead of Sunny’s trembling.

  “Do you think we’ll see them again?” Maya asks as we head into the woods.

  “Definitely.” I’m still not totally sure, but thinking about the possibility of the horses calms me, helps me refocus. I scan the woods, not just the whole of the forest but each tree, hoping for a swish of black circling the craggy bark of the white pine.

  And then there it is: first the imprint of hooves in the leaves, then the unmistakable curve of silvery haunches weaving through trees. The rustle of tails in the wind.

  They’re here.

  “Do you see them?” I ask Maya, pointing.

  Her eyes widen. “Hang on,” she says. “This time I think I sort of might.”

  We squint into the trees: The wild horses’ noses touch, and they toss their heads.

  Sunny and Sam stand perfectly still, but I don’t feel the kind of tension that comes from rock-hard fear in their muscles. Their heads hang, calm and quiet.

  I watch the wild horses, barely daring to breathe. They mince through the trees, their coats shining, the color of stars.

  But then, in all that quiet, there’s a clattering rush of sound: a pheasant. Pheasants always come out of nowhere. They nest on the ground and blend into the leaves and branches and dirt so well it’s impossible to see them until they lurch into the air, clapping their wings.

  I barely have time to register the pheasant before Sunny breaks into a run. This is no canter, no gentle rocking—I feel all four of her feet leaving the ground as she leaps forward. I hear Mom’s and Andy’s voices in my mind: Turn her! But no matter how I pull on the inside rein or how deep I sit, she won’t slow. All I can do is hang on, never mind applying pressure from my right leg to try to bend her body around.

  The world moves too fast for me to grab on to with my eyes or hands. Trees whip by in a blur of cherry, lemon, and orange. The path folds underneath pounding feet and the sky tilts crazily overhead, like it’s about to spill all that blue on our heads. The dappled horses move with us at first, hooves rattling the ground, manes and tails streaming like flags in the cold air.

  And then Sunny stops all of a sudden, at a point where the path in the woods splits. It’s like she wore herself out and can’t bring herself to go any farther, especially not into the darkness of thicker trees. The wild horses are gone, dissolved. Sunny breathes hard and I twist around, looking for any sign of what used to be there.

  The moment my breath slows and I return to the feel of the saddle beneath me, Sunny’s flanks still heaving, my heart seizes: Maya.

  I hear her speak before my fear has a chance to grow.

  “Claire!” Her voice has the trembly, frightened thrum of Sunny’s legs, only those have finally quieted. Sunny’s hanging her head so low her nose almost touches the matted leaves below. “Are you okay?”

  I turn to see Maya sitting straight up on Sam’s back, his walk slow and calm like always, as though nothing has happened, and I feel my shoulders slump in relief.

  “I’m fine,” I say, but my voice sounds so dry and quiet, almost a whisper. I clear my throat, then try again, louder: “Everything’s fine.”

  “What happened?” Maya clenches Sam’s reins, and her eyes flash, searching me over.

  I shake my head. “Sunny got spooked.” I press my heels into her side, just barely, enough to get her fully turned and walking next to Sam, toward home. “A pheasant.”

  “That freaked me out.” Maya’s voice shakes a little. “But Sam was really good. He just watched Sunny run. Finally, when you stopped, he started walking forward again. I lost track of the wild horses, though.”

  Relief melts through me, warm and sweet as Andy’s mountain coffee. It was a close call. If Sam hadn’t held it together, Maya could have gotten really hurt. I could have too. I was lucky.

  “So you finally saw them!” Hopefully changing the subject will keep that relief flooding past the nervousness that still pricks cold and sharp.

  “I think I might have,” Maya says. “I saw something kind of silvery, but dark too.”

  “That’s them.” My heartbeat slows.

  “I mean, I don’t think I saw them as clearly as you did,” Maya says, looking into the trees. “Where do you think they came from?”

  I picture the boy’s eyes from the old newspaper, dark and searching.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But I feel like they have something to do with Jack.”

  “Jack?” Maya’s eyebrows wrinkle. “Wait—that Jack? The one from the article?”

  “I know,” I say. “I mean, I’m not saying they’re his. They’re not like hundred-year-old ghost horses. I just think the fact that I saw these wild horses, then found the box…” I trail off. How can I explain the way the air shimmers when I touch the box or see the horses?

  I started searching for the wild horses because of Andy, but finding them again and following where they lead feels as big somehow as one of the white pines towering far above me. It feels like I’m doing exactly what Sharon instructed: finding something that’s all my own.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Almost ready?” Mom asks. She rubs her hands together and smiles. “You know, your dad was telling me he remembers Owen Hamilton from when he was younger. That would be Mr. Hamilton’s son.”

  “I know, Mom.” We already talked about this, but for some reason repeating it seems to make Mom feel better. It doesn’t help me very much. I just end up thinking about how I’m going to have to talk to Mr. Hamilton in person now.

  “Good guy,” Dad says. “I used to hang out over at Owen’s house in high school.”

  “And Mr. Hamilton never said anything to you about his father’s accident with the horses?” I ask.

  “Guess he wouldn’t really have had a cause to,” Dad says. “Most of the time, Owen and I were headed out to hunt or fish or go mudding. We were teenagers—we didn’t sit around listening to his dad’s old stories.”

  “You never saw any old pictures hanging up around the house either?” I ask. “Like of ancestors or something?” If Mr. Hamilton has any pictures of Jack, I’m sure I’ll recognize him right away. Even in an old photo, his eyes shine bright as the silver-streaked stones.

  “Not that I remember,” Dad says.

  Mom shakes her head. “I still can’t believe that article.”

  When I showed it to her and Dad yesterday, I fibbed that I got it at the library because the box still feels too mysterious to share. They both squinted and scrunched their foreheads and tried to remember if they’d ever heard anything about Jack Hamilton, but his story didn’t sound familiar to either of them.

  “Good luck,” Mom tells me. “And Claire—you’ll do great.”

  I take the deep breath that’s been helping more and more lately. And then I open the door.

&nb
sp; The air outside stings a little. Every morning feels crisper now, colors still pretty but softer, fading, leaves falling like rain. I love how the air catches in my throat, how I have to breathe shallowly so its sharp edges don’t cut too deep. People think of fall as a time when everything starts to die, but they just aren’t paying attention. Coldness wakes me up.

  Dad’s already started the engine. Early frost coats the windshield and we lean over the hood from opposite sites, scraping crystals away. Working together, we get a clearer view.

  In the car, Dad’s quiet. He drives with one hand, his other hand squeezing the skin around his chin, his jaw working. We turn onto the dirt road that leads to Route 15, which curves around the mountains and past Pine Lake, then eventually veers off in two directions, the other leading to Cedar Lake and Belding.

  I look up at the gray face of Pebble Mountain. A waterfall tumbles down, shining, clutching the rock with bony fingers.

  “You have a good week, kiddo?” Dad fiddles with the radio dial, then turns it all the way off.

  “I guess so.” How can I sum up my week without talking about the box or the horses in the woods—or, more important, the pills and phone in Andy’s closet? I’m not ready to tell Dad about any of those things. I only just mentioned the horses to Andy, and that didn’t go the way I expected.

  “What’s on your mind?” Dad can always tell when I’m thinking hard.

  “I guess I’m a little nervous about talking to Mr. Hamilton.” Which is true—as curious as I am about Jack Hamilton and the box, having to sit next to a new person and talk for however long it will take me to get information doesn’t sound fun. “I kind of miss Andy too,” I add. Dad and I haven’t talked about him in a while.

  Dad’s jaw clenches, a hard line. “He’ll be back soon enough,” he says. “In the meantime, he’s got some learning to do.”

  His voice sounds harder than usual. Dad always said Andy was his right-hand guy and I was his right-hand girl. That he needed the both of us by his side. Sometimes it feels like he’s changed his mind. But if he has, he wouldn’t be the only one. Andy’s changing too, and getting letters from him makes me feel more upside-down than excited these days.