Mistwalker

by Terri Farley

  Running in boots wasn’t easy, or fast. By the time Darby reached the animals, Hoku was snorting and kicking. The filly hadn’t forgotten how Pip had scooted under the fence rails to tease her when she’d been recovering from a barbed-wire injury.

  Now, Pip yapped and dodged, bouncing like a piece of popcorn just inches from Hoku’s hooves.

  Darby’s clucking sound stopped Hoku from kicking for only a few seconds, but it was long enough for Darby to scoop up Pip.

  Turning back toward Sun House, Darby lectured the dog. “It’s a wonder Jonah allows you to live here. Every animal on this place has a purpose, and I sure don’t know what yours—ouch!” Pip’s nails scratched Darby’s arm as the dog squirmed. “Forget it. You’d better watch out for Hoku. She could really hurt you. Even though you’re a pest, I don’t want that to happen.”

  She carried Pip upstairs and inside, released her, and wondered why the dog was growling and wagging her tail at the same time.

  “This must be fun for you,” Darby grumbled.

  She’d just grabbed the two pink-and-white-striped hatboxes when she heard tires bumping over the cattle guard at the ‘Iolani Ranch entrance. A glance out the upstairs window told her the farrier was leaving, but Megan and Aunty Cathy sat in the idling ranch truck, waiting to drive in when the farrier had passed.

  And here she was in their house.

  Heat flooded Darby’s face. She was allowed to be here. She had permission to look at her mother’s stuff. So why did she feel like a burglar?

  “Stay,” she ordered Pip.

  As Darby clomped downstairs, Aunty Cathy and Megan climbed out of the parked truck. Then they stared up at her.

  Aunty Cathy pushed her brown-blond hair behind one ear and considered the hatboxes.

  Megan’s high color was more than her usual post-soccer practice flush as she said, “Cool, you decided to look at that stuff!”

  “Yeah,” Darby said. She couldn’t blame her friend for her excitement. Megan had lived with boxes of secrets in the corner of her home for over a year. Who wouldn’t be curious?

  “Now that my mom’s coming for sure, I just want to see if, you know, there’s more to why she left.” Darby took a deep breath, then blurted out the rest of it. “I want to find something that will help me make her want to stay.”

  Aunty Cathy started to say something, hesitated, then closed her mouth.

  “Don’t you think I should do it?” Darby asked.

  “That’s a tough one,” Aunty Cathy said. “You know for sure that she’s coming?”

  Darby nodded. “Aunt Babe was right. She told me to tell Mom that it would be a special favor to her if Mom came in time for the presentation. You know, so that the TV cameras show Ellen Kealoha at Sugar Sands Cove Resort.”

  “Playground of the stars,” Megan said, laughing.

  “If she’s going to be here tomorrow, you could ask her permission,” Aunty Cathy said.

  Darby’s stomach sank. Was it disappointment or embarrassment?

  “I won’t tell you not to do it, but if you’re asking me for advice…” Aunty Cathy’s voice trailed off.

  “I am,” Darby admitted, even though Megan rolled her eyes.

  “Just let your feelings be your guide,” Aunty Cathy suggested. “If you come across something that feels too personal, set it aside.”

  “But Jonah’s the one who packed it up,” Megan interrupted. “There can’t be anything that private, can there?”

  Aunty Cathy didn’t have to say a word. The look she shot her daughter was enough.

  “Sorry,” Megan apologized. “This is none of my business.” She pretended to zip her lips, then slung her soccer bag over her shoulder before heading up the stairs.

  “Jonah did pack it all up, and he planned to send it to Ellen when she got settled on the mainland,” Aunty Cathy said. “But she didn’t send him an address until years later.”

  Darby couldn’t imagine doing that to her parents.

  “Are you sure?” Darby asked.

  Aunty Cathy put a hand on Darby’s shoulder. “No, honey, I’m not. Jonah hasn’t been very”—she searched for the right word—“forthcoming? Or open, about your mother.”

  Jonah wasn’t open about much of anything, Darby thought, but she said, “I just hope they can work things out.”

  “At least they’ll be on the same side of the Pacific Ocean,” Aunty Cathy said. “That’s a start.”

  Darby stashed the boxes in her bedroom, then rushed outside. Mist was creeping in, blotting out edges of hills, and though it was still warm, Darby knew she’d feel soggy before she finished caring for Francie, the goat, and her orphan piglet, Pigolo.

  She glanced at Hoku, still tied by her neck rope at the hitching rail. Even though the filly nickered and pawed for attention, she’d save Hoku for last.

  “You’re feeding early,” Jonah observed as she emerged from Pigolo’s pen.

  “Homework,” Darby said, which was the truth, even though she usually left her weekend homework for Sunday night.

  “Hmm,” Jonah grunted.

  Darby didn’t stay to talk. If she did, her grandfather was sure to make a crack about fattening the piglet for Fourth of July dinner.

  Instead, she jogged to untie Hoku. Unclipping one end of the tangerine-and-white-striped rope, Darby led the filly toward her corral.

  At least, she tried to.

  “Ku’uipo,” she crooned when the horse braced all four legs and refused to move. “That means ‘sweetheart,’ remember? If you’re going to be a Hawaiian horse, you might as well learn the language.”

  Ears pointed toward the end of the dirt road that ran past the old fox cages and her own corral, Hoku ignored Darby.

  Darby brushed the beads of moisture from her eyelashes and followed the filly’s stare, but she didn’t spot anything worth Hoku’s attention.

  “What do you see, girl?” Darby asked.

  Mist obscured the place where the road came to an end and the rolling hills began. She could picture the grassland ahead. If you went that way long enough, you’d come to a place called the fold, where ‘Iolani Ranch crested and fell like a wave of green velvet.

  Darby’s pulse pounded as she remembered Black Lava lurking among the hills. Hoku had confronted the wild stallion there. Was she remembering, too?

  But Black Lava was corralled with his herd now at Lehua High School, and Hoku looked curious, not bold and ready to chase off an intruder.

  “Ow!”

  The lead rope jerked tight around Darby’s hand. Bones grated against each other.

  Amputation, Darby thought, but the lead rope slipped free of her hand as Hoku bolted.

  Darby cradled the hand against her ribs, but only for a second. Everyone on the ranch had warned her about wrapping the lead rope around her hand.

  Her hand ached with every stride she took after Hoku. Her filly wasn’t moving too fast. Her gait was a cautious trot. Still, the pain could have been avoided, Darby lectured herself. She’d never be so stupid again.

  She moved up along her filly’s right side, determined to snag the trailing rope with the hand that didn’t hurt. But then Hoku skidded to a stop.

  Playful as a colt, the sorrel tossed her nose in the direction of something only she could see, and gave a half buck.

  An invitation to kick up your heels, Darby thought as her eyes investigated each dip, curve, and shadow in the grass, hunting for the creature Hoku was greeting. Whoever you are, please don’t accept!

  There. A black-and-white form emerged from the mist and resolved itself into a beautiful paint horse.

  Don’t I know you? Darby asked silently.

  The strange horse gave a nicker and kept her eyes on Darby. The paint approached quietly. If Hoku went cavorting off, catching her would take all night.

  Since the horses were still assessing each other, Darby raised her left arm in tiny increments toward the lead rope.

  The last time she’d seen the horse, she’d been brindled
by shadows, not blurred with dusk. Medusa, Black Lava’s lead mare, had been disciplining the pinto, keeping her in the herd with a savage bite just above the tail.

  And then the volcano erupted, Darby thought. No wonder it took me a minute to remember.

  She couldn’t see the mare well enough to spot the bite. Besides, it had been weeks ago.

  The paint whisked her tail from side to side. Head lowered in friendliness, she strolled toward Hoku.

  Darby refused to let herself be hypnotized by the beautiful horse, but the closer she got, the more the mare smelled of a combination of grass and violets.

  Do it now, Darby ordered herself.

  Pretending she wasn’t recapturing Hoku, Darby raised her left arm the last inches she needed to grasp the lead rope.

  Hoku didn’t mind, but the black-and-white horse stopped with one hoof still raised.

  Friendly, but cautious.

  Tame, but wild.

  “Where’d you come from?” Darby whispered.

  The paint reversed in midstep. She backed away, slowly at first, then whirled in the other direction and disappeared.

  Hoku neighed after the horse.

  “Shh,” Darby hushed her filly, then scolded her. “Jonah’s pretty much had his fill of wild horses, so let’s just work on you being the best of your breed, okay?”

  Hoku blew a silvery blast of breath through her nostrils, and accompanied Darby back to the corral. She allowed herself to be slipped into her corral, and stood waiting for a few forkfuls of hay.

  “Good girl,” Darby whispered to her horse. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  But when Darby glanced over her shoulder toward the fold and caught Hoku doing the same, she knew both of them were pretending they weren’t sorry to see the mysterious horse go.

  Secrets were not Darby’s favorite thing. She wanted to burst into Sun House and ask Jonah, Cathy, and Megan about the black-and-white trespasser. But that might lead to a wild horse hunt, or a flurry of phone calls to neighbors, and someone else showing up for dinner. Since she already had those hidden hatboxes in her room and she was eager to discover their secrets, Darby sat on the entrance hall bench, tugged off her boots, and headed for the door at the end of the hall.

  Her snug room still smelled faintly of fresh paint. The mist outside didn’t blot out a sunbeam that slanted in her window, turning the leaves of her lucky bamboo plant spring green before falling onto a polished wood floor the color of peanut butter.

  For a minute, Darby couldn’t remember what her room at home in Pacific Pinnacles looked like. She could only picture that beautiful, mysterious mare.

  Horses were herd animals, she lectured herself. Why wouldn’t a lone mare be drawn to other horses? After all, Hoku was too. There was no mystery in that.

  She peeked under her bed. The boxes were still there.

  Pulling them out, Darby decided to open the boxes while sitting on the bed, instead of at her desk.

  Before she plopped on the bed, she closed her bedroom door. Hands on hips, she regarded it. The door didn’t have a lock.

  What if she wedged the back of her desk chair under the doorknob, so that no one could get in?

  “Stop it,” she whispered to herself. “If you feel so guilty, is this something you should be doing?”

  She looked away from the door and studied the two round boxes.

  What was the worst thing that could happen if she looked inside them? This was modern-day America, not ancient Greece, or wherever the mythical Pandora’s box was opened to let pain and evil into the world.

  Megan had made the point that Jonah had packed Ellen’s things away, so it wasn’t like Darby would be the first to see them. Besides, if she could learn what had driven a wedge between her mother and grandfather, maybe she could try to mend it.

  That’s the important thing, Darby decided, and she sat down on her bed.

  Leaning back against her headboard, Darby opened the first box.

  Clippings from Lehua High School’s newspaper lay on top. Her mom had gone there, too. All but one of them were about people and events that meant nothing to Darby.

  “Diary of Anne Frank a Sad Success,” read the headline on a review of the school play from years ago. Not only had Ellen played the lead role, but the reviewer said she’d made Anne come alive in a way that had playgoers departing in tears after the final curtain.

  “Good going, Mom,” Darby whispered, but her smile became a wince when she flattened out three letters that were folded one inside the other, and read them.

  They were rejection letters from colleges.

  “Because the admissions process is such a competitive one…”

  “We were honored by your application to…”

  “Few high school seniors have your qualifications, however…”

  All three letters said pretty much the same thing. Though Ellen Kealoha had high grades and outstanding test scores, each college sought more well-rounded students. If Ellen planned to major in drama, she needed more stage or even backstage experience.

  Poor Mom, Darby thought.

  Next, she studied a professionally printed photograph of Jonah and Ellen with Prettypaint, the horse that Tutu rode now.

  Tutu was Darby’s great-grandmother. A warm and gentle woman, Tutu lived in a rain-forest cottage with Prettypaint and an owl who was friendly only to her. Known as an herbal healer and wise woman, Tutu accepted Darby’s intuition for understanding horses as significant but not strange. She and Jonah shared the trait, and for all Darby knew, her mother had once been the same.

  Prettypaint was young in the picture. Maybe a yearling. The photo looked like it had been taken at a horse show.

  Pale gray with bluish spots on her heels, Prettypaint wore a red ribbon on her halter. Jonah and her mom looked proud as each held one side of the filly’s halter, but they both also had an arm crossed across their stomachs and hands fisted with tension.

  Was she imagining things, or was she really seeing clues leading up to Mom’s decision to run away from the island?

  Jonah hadn’t packed things in any kind of order, that was for sure. A rosebud corsage and a triangular note folded origami tight and decorated with smeared pencil-drawn hearts was crammed in with an official-looking letter that wasn’t even Mom’s.

  The letter, from the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA), notified Jonah that Ellen Kealoha’s college scholarship would be awarded to another deserving student if she didn’t claim it in six weeks.

  Darby hadn’t known that the AQHA gave scholarships. That was something to remember. But why hadn’t her mom snapped it up?

  Darby’s curiosity intensified when she found the stack of report cards tied with a ribbon like love letters.

  Wow, of course she knew her mom was smart, but since elementary school, Ellen had earned almost straight A’s.

  Darby leafed through a bunch of honor certificates, including an award from Lehua High’s foreign language department and another for perfect attendance.

  Then came Mom’s senior-year report card. Her grades had all changed to C’s.

  The next box was heavier because it held three yearbooks.

  Darby flipped through them, looking alphabetically until she found her mother.

  This is like time travel, she thought, arranging the yearbooks side by side. Mom was beautiful in every picture, but the sparkle in her ponytailed freshman photograph was gone by her sophomore year. Her smile looked forced and her teeth didn’t show. By junior year, she looked, well, kind of stuck-up.

  Darby gazed into the mirror on the other side of her room and imitated her mother’s pose. She lifted her chin, tipped her head, and raised an eyebrow, but the effect wasn’t the same, because Mom had really loaded on the black eyeliner and crimson lipstick.

  No yearbook for senior year. Had the money for the keepsake gone to buy hay instead or had her mom taken it with her when she left?

  Darby was still searching for another yearbook when her finger
s grazed the black leather diary.

  It slipped free from the stuff around it as if it had been waiting for her.

  Holding the book in both hands, Darby argued with herself.

  Nothing is more private than a diary.

  But Mom left it behind.

  Not for you!

  How secret is a diary when it’s not even locked?

  She didn’t know she was going to have a daughter when she wrote it.

  Yeah, there’s got to be some juicy stuff in there.

  How would you feel if she read your diary?

  If it meant living happily ever after on Wild Horse Island, I’d forgive her.

  Haven’t you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?

  With stiff, good-girl fingers, Darby was returning the diary to the hatbox when the latch flopped open. A clump of pages, loosened from years of opening and closing, fell out and plopped on the bedspread, right in front of her.

  It’s a sign, Darby decided.

  “Dinner!” Aunty Cathy’s shout from the kitchen startled Darby.

  She latched the diary without replacing the fallen pages.

  “Coming!” she yelled back.

  Carefully, she returned the diary to its place among the yearbooks. Then she stood up and wedged both hatboxes back under her bed.

  With a cautious glance at her closed bedroom door, Darby folded back her white tufted bedspread and slipped the clump of pages under her pillow.

  “I’ll decide later,” she whispered to herself.

  Then she smoothed the bedspread back in place and left.

  Chapter Three

  It figured that on a night when she was preoccupied with a mystery mare, her mom’s arrival, the pages under her pillow, and Hoku’s spooky reaction to the one-rein stop, there’d be five people at the dinner table.

  In celebration of tomorrow’s ceremony, Aunty Cathy had invited Cade to dinner.

  As Darby came down the hall from her bedroom, Cade crossed the threshold of Sun House. Turning his hat in his hands and shifting from foot to foot, he glanced at her and nodded but kept talking to Jonah.

  As she passed, Darby heard Cade confide his uneasiness at intruding on a family dinner. Still, he’d accepted the invitation. That was a first since Darby had been here.