Lucky Break (15 page)

I just don’t get why Rebecca is so obsessed with the horses
, her mom had written.

Ivy stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t believe what she was reading.
That can’t be right!
Ivy thought. Her mom was horse-crazy. There were photos everywhere to prove it.

Ivy wracked her brain but realised that in all the journal entries she’d read so far, there hadn’t been any mention of her mom riding horses, just Rebecca.

She kept reading and walking, stepping over gnarled tree-roots as she went.

They are beautiful, but – I’d never tell Rebecca this – they are scary. And there are so many things to remember to do. I think I’ll never be a horsey person. Rebecca said that horses can sense your fear, and I think they can smell me a mile off. They always look like they want to run away from me.

Ivy was astounded. Her mom had the same problem that she had. Her mom wasn’t a vampire, which could mean only one thing.
I inherited my fear of horses from her!
Ivy couldn’t resist the spark of hope that lit up inside her. She had something in common with her mom, after all.

Olivia scrubbed at the plate, even though she could see that it was already clean.

She was helping Aunt Rebecca wash up after lunch. Hank and John had come back, with no
news except that they thought a heavy rainstorm was coming. Rebecca didn’t think the trails would be safe, so she decided to wait until it passed to set out again.

The idea of washing the dishes was to take her mind off Lucky, but not much could. It was an awful thing for such a magnificent creature to be lost and alone, especially one as vulnerable as Lucky.

‘Thank you for lunch,’ Mr Vega said. ‘I’ll head back home now.’

‘You are welcome,’ Rebecca said, with none of the warmth she used when talking to the girls. She was courteous, as always, but that’s as far as it went between the two of them.

Olivia gave her bio-dad a hug, and then he went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ivy! Come and say goodbye; I’m heading home.’

There was no answer.

‘Maybe she has her headphones on,’ Olivia suggested. ‘I’ll just run up and check.’

Olivia went upstairs to their shared bedroom, opened the door and saw … an empty room.

‘She’s gone!’ she called down the stairs. ‘Ivy’s gone!’

Ivy was entranced by the journal, reading as quickly as she could, glancing up only briefly to avoid being hit in the face by branches.

It’s like everyone telling me to grow my hair and wear flowery dresses. Why do I have to look like everyone else?

Her mom talked about feeling less pretty than Rebecca, even though they looked almost exactly the same, and how sometimes she felt the extended family preferred Rebecca.

Ivy clutched the journal tightly.

There was a time when her mother felt like she didn’t belong, too. But she didn’t let it upset
her, and she didn’t change who she was. Ivy knew she must have inherited that from her mom, too.

She flicked on a few pages and saw entries about the pregnant horse, Lavender.

I’ve decided I want to have tons of kids when I grow up – like five.

Ivy’s heart skipped a beat.

Lavender looks so huge. John says the foal will come any day now and he’s said I can help, if I want to. I definitely do! I just hope it happens before we have to go back to school.

Ivy didn’t know what exactly she was looking for but kept scanning the pages. After the entry about Lucky’s difficult birth and choosing his name, there was a section about how Lucky liked being sung to.

I tried ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’ but that didn’t work as well as ‘American Pie’.

Ivy didn’t really know either of those songs,
but if she ever managed to find Lucky, she could always try singing to him.

She looked back down at the journal and saw a fat raindrop splattered on the page. Then another.

Uh oh.
Ivy realised it was about to rain and she had no idea where she was. She quickly closed the journal and tucked it into the large pocket inside her coat. She didn’t want it to get wet.

She saw a clearing ahead through the trees and hurried there, raindrops plopping on the leaves at her feet. Then, she heard a shuffling coming from ahead, something like a creature.

Ivy froze and listened.

Then she heard a whinny.

Lucky?
Ivy sprinted into the clearing to see a rickety wooden shack on the other side of a high fence.

Surely Lucky can’t be in there
, Ivy thought.
The
fence was almost as tall as Ivy was, and Lucky would have had to jump over it.

She could hear a stomping and a snort. It had to be a horse.

Then, Ivy remembered what Rebecca had said – Lucky was a jumping champion. He could have jumped the fence!

Ivy hauled herself up the fence and had to swing her leg over, like she did to ride Topic. She jumped down carefully into the grassy field and hurried over to the shack.

Pulling open the door, Ivy wanted to weep with joy. It was Lucky!

‘Lucky, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘But I’m going to get you home. Don’t you worry.’

His lead had caught on a broken wooden board. Ivy noticed that there was a stack of old hay and a water butt that collected rain water from the roof that he had been surviving on. No
one had thought to look here before because of the fence.

As Ivy went to free the lead, Lucky panicked. He starting rearing up, and Ivy knew she had to calm him down.

She sang the first thing that came into her head, which was the song Brendan had played for her on his phone: ‘I Wear My Sunglasses at Night’.

It seemed to work. Lucky stopped pawing the air and his breathing slowed. Ivy kept singing and moved in to take his lead. She wasn’t going to let it go this time.

She unhooked it from the board and led him out of the shack, into the light rain. Ivy didn’t want to make Lucky jump the fence so she walked along it until she found a rusty gate. It creaked open and Lucky stepped through.

‘Now, how to get home?’ Ivy wondered,
but Lucky seemed to want to pull her off to the left.

Ivy looked where Lucky was heading and saw a clear trail marking.

‘Yes!’ Ivy said. ‘Clever Lucky.’

‘
W
hat should we do?’ Rebecca said, clearly distraught.

‘I think she’s gone looking for Lucky,’ Olivia said. She knew her sister felt responsible and that Ivy wouldn’t be able to sit around doing nothing.

‘But she doesn’t know her way around those woods!’ Mr Vega declared. ‘We have to find her.’

‘We can’t let Ivy get lost!’ Olivia cried, her stomach doing a triple flip.

Just then, there was a clap of thunder.

‘There’s a storm coming,’ Rebecca said. ‘We’ve got to act fast.’

Knock, knock.

Someone was at the front door!

Olivia, Rebecca and Mr Vega rushed down the hall and Olivia flung open the door. It was Brendan, looking damp and worried. His black hair was sticking to his pale face and his boots were caked in mud.

‘I had two missed calls from Ivy but now her phone is off.’ He shivered on the porch. ‘Her phone is never off. Something’s wrong, so I got my parents to drop me here.’

Rebecca looked as stormy as the sky but didn’t say anything.

Olivia was even more worried seeing the state he was in. ‘Something is wrong. Ivy’s missing.’

‘Come in; come in,’ Mr Vega said, while Rebecca stayed silent.

Brendan stepped into the hall and wiped his feet on the mat. ‘I know I’m not exactly welcome,’
he said to Rebecca, ‘but I had to find out what was happening.’

‘I can tell you what’s happening,’ Rebecca snapped, blocking his way down the hall. ‘Because of you, my niece is wandering in unfamiliar woods looking for a lost and frightened horse with a storm on the way. You never should have been alone with Ivy in the stable.’

Olivia was stunned at Rebecca’s outburst. They were all upset, but there was no reason to take it out on Brendan.

‘Rebecca, please,’ Mr Vega said. ‘Brendan is a good kid; he’s just worried.’

Brendan looked miserable at having caused all this tension.

‘Of course you would defend him,’ Rebecca snapped. ‘He’s just like you.’

Mr Vega took a step back. ‘What does that mean?’

Rebecca’s eyes flashed. ‘It means he will take Ivy away from her family – just like you took Susannah.’

‘Stop!’ shouted Olivia. She couldn’t take it any more.

Mr Vega’s face was white with shock – even more than normal. ‘Is that really what you’ve thought all these years? Rebecca …’

But as he took a step towards her, holding out his hand, the house was rattled by another huge thunderclap and the sky outside glowed from the lightning.

Brendan turned on his heel and ran at full speed into the woods. ‘Ivy!’ he shouted.

‘Brendan!’ yelled Mr Vega, but he was gone.

Olivia started to run after him but Mr Vega grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘You are staying put. This is nearing crisis. We have two children out in the woods with a dangerous storm coming.’
He turned to Rebecca. ‘No matter what you may think of me, we need to focus on that.’

Rebecca nodded mutely. Olivia wondered if she was realising that she had practically driven Brendan out into the storm. ‘I’ll call the sheriff.’

Olivia closed her eyes as another thunderbolt hit.
Please let everything be OK. Please!

Ivy was struggling to see from all the water pouring down her face. She wasn’t going to relax her grip on Lucky’s lead for anything, which meant she only had one hand free to wipe the rain from her eyes.

‘Stay dark; gonna block out the light. I wear my sunglasses at night.’

Ivy had sung the chorus about a hundred times but it kept Lucky and her steadily moving forwards along the trail, which was turning into a little stream.

Her coat was soaked and so were her jeans. Rain was dripping off Lucky’s mane. Ivy had hoped the trail would lead them back to the ranch, but so far there hadn’t been any sight of her aunt’s home.

Then, an old barn came into view. It didn’t look recently used, but it was shelter and would do until the storm calmed.

She led Lucky inside the empty building, singing the whole time. There were several leaks in the roof, so the floor was wet, but at least there was some shelter.