“That’s a yarmulke, right?” Lisa asked.
“Right,” Phil said. “It’s also called a kippah. That’s the Hebrew word; yarmulke is the Yiddish word.”
“So what other presents did you get?” Stevie asked, peering into Phil’s backpack.
“Mostly money,” Phil said matter-of-factly. “All my relatives and my parents’ friends have been sending checks. I’ll probably get a lot more on the day of the bar mitzvah. My sisters will probably chip in together to get me something.”
“Wow,” Stevie said. “It sounds like you’ll be rich when it’s all over.”
“Don’t start hitting me up for loans yet, Stevie,” Phil teased. “Most of the money I get will go straight into my college fund.” He grinned. “Although I may have just enough left to take my three favorite Saddle Club members out for ice cream—my treat.”
“It’s a deal,” Stevie said quickly, and her friends laughed.
Phil showed them how he put on the prayer shawl and let them each examine his yarmulke.
“Your bar mitzvah sounds like it will be great, Phil,” Lisa said, watching Phil put the tallith away in its bag and tuck the yarmulke on top of it. “I’m glad you invited us.”
“Me too,” Stevie said. But as the four friends got up and headed back toward the party, she couldn’t help feeling a little jealous. The bar mitzvah sounded to her like a bigger and better version of a birthday party. And afterward Phil was going to be practically as rich as Shannon Brice. Stevie usually got some birthday money from her relatives, but her parents always made her put most of it in the bank. The amount they let her spend was barely enough to cover a few weeks’ worth of bills at TD’s, The Saddle Club’s favorite ice cream parlor. Even if Phil had to put most of his money away for college, too, it didn’t seem fair that because he was Jewish he got a huge celebration just for turning thirteen.
At that moment Phil turned to her with a smile, then reached over and took her hand in his. Stevie smiled back, feeling a little guilty about her thoughts. Fair or not, she was glad Phil liked her enough to invite her and her friends to share his special day. She squeezed his hand and felt him squeeze back. She wouldn’t miss this bar mitzvah for the world.
WHEN THE SADDLE CLUB and Phil returned to the party, they saw a group of people gathered around Max and Red O’Malley.
“I wonder what’s going on?” Stevie said. Without waiting for a response from her friends, she hurried forward to find out.
Max looked up and saw her. “Ah, Stevie, you’re just in time. Red and I were just saying that it wouldn’t be Halloween without some good ghost stories. What do you say?”
“I say count me in,” Stevie said as her friends joined the group. “Can I start? I have a good one.”
Max nodded, and Stevie sat down and waited for the partygoers to gather around her on the floor. When everyone was comfortable, Max lowered the overhead lights so that the strings of orange-reddish bulbs were the only illumination in the room.
When a silence fell over the group, Stevie began.
“It was a dark and stormy night,” she intoned in a low, serious voice. “A night much like this one.”
“It’s not stormy tonight,” a rider named Betsy Cavanaugh pointed out.
Stevie glared at her. “Quiet,” she commanded. “The spirits don’t like it when you interrupt me.”
“Sorry,” Betsy said with a giggle.
Stevie cleared her throat and continued. “As I was saying, it was a dark and stormy night—a night much like this one, at a stable much like this one. A rider was there taking care of her horse, and she was all alone in the night. Not another human was in the place. She had just finished cleaning the horse’s water bucket when she suddenly heard it.” Stevie paused for effect. “Thump! Thump! Thump! The noise was coming from the hayloft overhead.”
“Rats?” Phil guessed with a grin.
“Big rats,” Meg Durham added.
Stevie frowned at them but ignored their comments. “It sounded like something big, something … inhuman. She was scared, and she thought about running away. But she knew she couldn’t leave the horses in danger. She had to find out what it was. So she walked slowly toward the ladder leading up to the loft. She walked step … by step … by step … by step …”
Stevie glanced around at her audience to see if her story was having the intended effect. Everyone looked attentive, if not particularly scared.
“At last she reached the ladder,” Stevie went on. “And now she knew she couldn’t turn back. She had to climb it. So she did … step … by step … by step … by step … by step …”
“We get the picture, Stevie,” Adam Levine called from the back of the group. “Step it up, okay?”
“All right, all right,” Stevie said. “The girl was quivering with fear by the time she reached the top of the ladder. It was dark in the hayloft, so she had to wait until her eyes adjusted before she could see. And when she could, she saw a huge … black … shadowy shape in the corner of the loft. It wasn’t moving. Quietly and slowly, she climbed up into the loft and started moving verrry slowly toward the shape. Step—”
“By step, by step, by step,” chanted the audience.
Stevie couldn’t help grinning. “That’s right,” she said. “By this time she was shaking and quivering and quaking. She tiptoed over to the big dark shape, and when she was only a couple of feet away she realized what it was. It was nothing more than a big stack of hay bales piled against the wall. She heaved a sigh of relief and began to relax. But then, suddenly, a swarm of vampire bats flew out from behind the hay and attacked her. And from that day on she was never heard from again.”
Phil snorted. “Is that it? I’m quaking in my boots,” he said sarcastically. “I mean, I’m shaking and quivering and quaking.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “I may never be able to go up in the loft again.”
“So Stevie, if it was just bats up there, what were the thumps?” asked Betsy.
Carole grinned as she watched Stevie defend her story against its critics. Then she glanced around and noticed that a few people weren’t paying much attention to the storytelling. One was Veronica, who had managed to slide over so that she was sitting next to Troy. She was leaning close to him, glancing at him adoringly as she whispered into his ear. He wasn’t looking back; in fact, he was frowning and looking as though he would rather be anyplace else. Carole’s grin widened. Then it faded as she noticed Shannon Brice. She was sitting beside Joe, but she didn’t seem to be having much fun. Her face was pale, and she kept glancing around anxiously at the dark corners of the ring. If Carole hadn’t known better, she would have sworn that Stevie’s silly story had actually scared Shannon.
Finally Stevie held up her hands against her questioners.
“Fine,” she said. “I guess you didn’t like that one. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to resort to this, but I’m going to have to tell you a really scary story.”
“It’s about time,” Adam called out.
“You asked for it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Stevie said. “Okay, this one also takes place at a stable very much like this one. A new rider came to the owner of the stable and asked if she could board her horse there. The owner told her that the stable was almost full. In fact, there was only one empty stall left, and he didn’t think she’d want that one. The girl asked why, and the owner told her the stall was haunted. The girl said that was silly—she didn’t believe in ghosts. She wanted the stall. At first the stable owner argued, but finally he gave in and agreed to let her horse move in. After all, he knew she would only find out what many others had found out before her.
“The next morning the girl brought her horse in. She put fresh straw down and filled the water bucket. Then she went off to school, planning to come back that afternoon to take a ride.”
“Boy, this is a scary one, all right,” Joe said with a fake yawn.
“Quiet,” Stevie commanded. “After school the girl came back, just the
way she’d planned. Despite what she’d told the stable owner, she was a little worried. She didn’t believe a stall could be haunted, but you never know. She was relieved when she arrived and saw that her horse looked just fine. The only problem was that his stall was dirty—much dirtier than it usually was after just one day. Still, she figured it was because he was getting used to his new home or something. She cross-tied him and mucked out the stall, then tacked him up and went for a ride.
“It was a very pleasant ride, but when the girl got back, an unpleasant surprise was waiting for her. The stall, which she had just cleaned, was dirty again! And now the girl realized what the stable owner had been warning her about. It was every rider’s worst nightmare come true—a stall that’s always dirty, no matter how often it’s mucked out! She jumped on her horse and rode screaming from the stable, and neither one of them was ever heard from again.”
By the time Stevie finished, most of her listeners were roaring with laughter. Mucking out stalls was everyone’s least favorite job around the stable. To a rider who’d already spent hours cleaning tack, grooming horses, and other work, it often seemed as if all the stalls at Pine Hollow were haunted, so everyone could appreciate Stevie’s story. She grinned proudly.
“See? I knew that one would scare you,” she said.
Max shook his head, smiling. “No argument there,” he said. “In fact, I think it might be time for you to step down as storyteller and let someone else have a chance. We wouldn’t want anyone to die of fright.”
“Okay,” Stevie said agreeably. “I guess my story about the saddle soap that makes tack dirtier instead of cleaner will have to wait until next Halloween.”
“Right,” Max said. “Now, does anyone else have any scary stories for us?” He glanced around, but nobody seemed eager to volunteer. “Red? How about you?”
The head groom shrugged. “Sorry, Max. I can’t think of a single story that would scare this crowd.”
Lisa glanced around, wondering where Mrs. Reg had gone. “Mrs. Reg” was what all the riders at Pine Hollow called Max’s mother, who was also the stable manager. She was renowned for her stories, although they weren’t usually scary and often took a while to figure out. But she was nowhere in sight.
Finally, after another moment of silence, Troy stood up. “I’ll take a turn,” he said in his low, even voice.
The students glanced at each other, surprised, as Troy walked to the center of the group. The new groom usually didn’t have much to say to anyone. They couldn’t believe he was volunteering to tell ghost stories.
Stevie took her place next to her friends. “Who would have guessed Troy is a storyteller?” she commented quietly.
“He probably just volunteered to keep you from telling any more of your crazy stories,” Phil teased.
Before Stevie could retort, Troy began his first tale. It was about a stable in the mountains of West Virginia that was haunted by the ghost of a horse thief. It might have been the story itself, or Troy’s low, flowing voice, or some combination of the two, but for whatever reason, the story was spooky. Stevie found herself huddling closer to Phil, and once or twice she caught Lisa scooting closer to Carole.
When Troy finished, there was a moment of silence. Then the students broke out into excited chatter. Troy waited for a minute, then launched into another story.
For the next half hour he kept them enthralled with tales of spooky forests, dark haylofts, treacherous trails, and an evil riding instructor. Finally he stood up and announced that he was finished. The students protested, begging for another story.
At last Troy relented. “All right,” he said. “Just one more. But I’d better warn you, this is the scariest one I know. And that’s because every word of it is true.
“It all started long, long ago. Don’t ask me when, because I don’t know. But it was long before my grandparents were born, or their grandparents before them. It’s the story of the phantom horse. Now, I call it a horse, but it isn’t really a horse—it’s an evil spirit that takes over the body of a horse. It always chooses a horse that belongs to someone who loves it and trusts it. Once it has possessed the horse, the phantom is out for blood. To this day it’s roaming the earth, looking for its next victim.
“I first heard about the phantom horse years ago when I was a few years younger than most of you are now, when it made an appearance at a barn I know down along the coast of North Carolina—not so far from where we are here in Virginia, come to think of it. It seems there was a young man there by the name of Dixon, Colin Dixon. This fellow was a born rider, had loved horses all his life, and was never happier than when he was with them. But his family was poor, so he had to be content to ride the stable horses when he could, scraping together what money he could to pay for the rides and working off the rest with stable chores. But young Colin swore that one day he’d get together enough money to buy his own horse if it was the last thing he did.
“Time passed, and Colin managed to save a little here and there from odd jobs and the like. By the time he was thirteen or so he had almost enough in his bank account to buy a horse—if he was content with an old bag of bones past its prime, that is. He decided he wouldn’t settle for that and continued to save every penny he could. Then one autumn a hurricane hit the town where Colin and his family lived and just about swept the whole town out to sea. The Dixons considered themselves fortunate to have survived the storm without the loss of any family members, as many of their friends and neighbors hadn’t been so lucky. But the fact remained that everything else they had was gone—house, car, Papa Dixon’s tourist boat, everything. Most of it was covered by insurance, but not that boat, which was called the Moonshine. It was a clear loss, and that meant Colin’s papa had no way to earn a living. Now Colin, being the upstanding boy that he was, knew what he had to do. He went right on down to the bank—that was still standing, anyway—and withdrew all the money from his account. With all that Colin had saved, along with what his brothers and sisters could contribute, there was enough to buy their papa a new boat, which he named the Moonshine II.
“The rest of the Dixons were happy enough with that, but poor Colin was heartbroken. It seemed impossible that his dream of owning a fine horse would ever come true, and he resigned himself to riding borrowed nags for a long time to come. He figured it would take him years to save up enough money again. But one day less than a year later, the owner of the stable, whose name was Janssen, came to Colin and told him of a horse he’d heard of for sale in the next county. The horse’s owner had to get rid of him quick and was willing to sell him to the first fellow to show up with some cash. Mr. Janssen didn’t know why the horse was so cheap, but every vet who saw him swore he was in perfect condition, and he looked awfully fine, too. If Janssen hadn’t been full up with his own horses at the time, he would surely have snatched the creature up himself; but as it was he figured nobody deserved that kind of bargain more than the hardworking Colin.
“Before Colin knew it, and with Mr. Janssen’s help, the deal was done. The second he laid eyes on his new horse—a tall, good-looking bay with a sickle moon on his brow—Colin knew he’d found his perfect horse at last.
“For the first time in his life he had everything he wanted. He named the horse Moonshine after his papa’s new boat, and he spent every moment he could with him, training, grooming, and of course riding. And it appeared that the vets were right—there wasn’t a thing wrong with Moonshine. As far as Colin and everyone who knew him were concerned, he had the perfect horse.”
Troy’s voice grew even quieter and slower, forcing his listeners to lean forward to hear. “I guess young Colin was lucky in that he was allowed a few years of happiness before the phantom made its appearance. One cold autumn night Colin was working late at the stable, cleaning up some stalls to help pay Mr. Janssen back for Moonshine’s keep—the same way a lot of you do here at Pine Hollow. After he’d finished he ambled on back to Moonshine’s stall to say good night. At least that’s what others a
t the stable assumed later, because they knew it was the boy’s habit. Nobody knows for sure, of course. What I’m telling you is the best guess at what happened next.
“When Colin got to the stall, it was empty. He must have panicked, thinking some horse thief had come along and taken his beloved Moonshine. But as he turned around to go for help, he saw his horse standing in the stable aisle behind him. For just a second poor Colin may have felt only relief, but once that second passed he surely realized something was wrong, terribly wrong. Colin had never been truly afraid of any horse in his life, but now he must have felt real fear as he looked at the horse he had loved and thought he knew. Moonshine was still the tall, handsome horse he’d always been, but now there was something odd about him, something not quite right about the eyes and face. Moonshine started to snort and paw at the floor. And as he did, his eyes, which had always been beautiful and liquid brown, began to glow. Soon they were as red as the flames of hell, and Moonshine’s red gaze was directed straight at young Colin. The creature bared its teeth like a mad dog, and its mane and tail danced in the air, although there wasn’t a breath of wind in the stable that night. I’d wager that at this point the terrified Colin was frozen to the spot, not knowing what to do. Moonshine was blocking his exit from the building, and there was nobody around to help him. Finally Colin must have decided the only thing he could do was run into the empty stall that had been Moonshine’s, barricade himself in, and try to climb out the tiny window. But he’d barely gotten himself turned around before the beast came at him. He heard the terrible shriek, like no real horse has ever made in this world, and he looked over his shoulder in time to see the flashing hooves coming at him. He threw up his arms to try to protect his face, but it was too late. The phantom horse had laid claim to yet another victim.”
Troy paused for a moment, then went on. “The next day, Mr. Janssen was the one to find what was left of young Colin. When the stable owner told the story to some of the older folks around town, he learned something chilling. Thirteen years before, the same thing had happened in a stable in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And thirteen years before that, in one down toward New Orleans. One old-timer who’d lived out West in his younger days remembered hearing of the phantom horse showing up on a dude ranch thirteen years before that. Among them they managed to piece together what Colin’s last moments must have been like as the phantom horse made its horrible appearance. Nobody knows where it comes from, or where it goes between bodies, but everybody who knows about it knows one thing: It always comes back, every thirteen years, to do its worst to unsuspecting horse people.” Troy paused again. “Come to think of it, seems to me it’s about time for it to come around again. So next time a horse you think you know starts acting a little odd, it could be the weather or a change in its feed. But then again, it could be possessed by a phantom that’s biding its time … waiting to spill a river of blood.”
Phantom Horse Page 2
