Cloud Magic

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Sky Horses

  Cloud Magic

  The first 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

  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

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  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: 978-0-14-195644-2

  To the four grey horses and

  ponies who lit up my life

  High

  Above…

  The snow-white stallion raised his head. His ears flickered. Something was wrong, but what? Tor’s dark eyes swept over the jagged mountains, deep valleys and the meadows and streams of his cloud kingdom, searching for something that looked out of place. But his herd was peaceful. The mares were grazing, lifting their heads every so often to check on the foals, who were chasing each other nearby. Further off a group of six young stallions were play fighting, testing their strength. Tor’s nostrils flared. Everything looked normal. Down below he knew that the people who lived on the coast would be seeing white clouds floating slowly across a calm sky. So what was bothering him? Tor could feel his eyes being drawn to a wood nearby. Just outside it there was a large cloud with a hole in the centre. Tor hesitated. Could it be that? It had been seven years since anyone had used it…

  He tossed his head and trotted towards it.

  One of the foals broke away from the others and galloped over. A beautiful pale grey, he was only young – his legs long and gangly, his short mane sticking up – but already his neck had the same proud arch as the stallion’s.

  ‘Mistral!’ The stallion stopped to greet his son.

  ‘Is everything all right, Father?’ the foal asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Tor reassured him, nuzzling him gently. ‘Everything is fine.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Mistral asked eagerly. ‘Can I come with you?’

  Tor hesitated. But just then there was a soft whinny and he looked round to see Snowdance, his lead mare and Mistral’s mother, cantering over, her long mane sweeping almost to the ground. ‘Stop bothering your father, Mistral,’ she told the colt. ‘Go back to your friends and play.’

  Mistral looked as if he was about to argue, but his mother flattened her ears slightly and he gave in. Plunging round, he cantered back to the group of foals, kicking his heels up defiantly as he went.

  Snowdance smiled as she watched him go and then she stepped towards Tor. They touched muzzles. His eyes searched her beautiful face. He could see she looked troubled.

  ‘Do you feel it too?’ he asked quietly.

  Snowdance nodded. ‘There is something in the air that feels wrong.’

  He glanced towards the strange cloud formation by the trees and she followed his gaze.

  ‘Perhaps someone is trying to speak to us again.’

  ‘It does not feel quite like that… but maybe.’

  Tor felt almost as if he was being pulled, urged closer. ‘I will go to the gateway and see.’

  They touched noses again and Tor plunged away. He cantered across the meadow towards the trees, his mane and tail streaming behind him. Anyone watching from below would have seen the clouds begin to move a little faster across the sky.

  But what no one saw, not even Tor, was that in the shadow of the trees a dark figure waited…

  C H A P T E R

  One

  Erin walked down the lane, the wind catching at her long dark-blonde hair. Breathing in the sharp smell of seaweed, she looked longingly towards the path that led over the cliff top. ‘Can I go down to the beach, Jo?’ she asked.

  Her stepmum, Jo, nodded. ‘Of course. Just come and say a quick hello to Aunt Alice first. You know how much she likes to see you.’

  Jo headed towards the small stone cottage at the side of the lane. Overhead the seagulls cried out with high-pitched shrieks as they swooped across the cloudy sky, buffeted by the breeze. Glancing up at them, Erin thought how wonderful it would be to be a bird and be able to fly like that.

  Black-headed gull, kittiwake, common gull… she thought, recognizing the different types of gull. She loved all animals and birds and wanted to be a vet when she was older – either that or a riding instructor. Horses were her favourite animals of all.

  Jo glanced over her shoulder. ‘Come on, Dizzy Daydreamer!’

  Erin sighed. She was always getting teased by her family for daydreaming. Jo, her dad and her three older stepbrothers were all really loud and sporty and thought she was odd because she was quiet and liked reading. Erin loved books, particularly ones about magic, although now she was eleven she didn’t dare admit that she still believed in magic because she knew how much she would be teased at school and at home. No one understood.

  If only I had a proper best friend, she thought, someone who loves the same things as me. But she didn’t. Her two best friends had once been Fran and Katie who she sat with at school and also went riding with, but ever since they’d found out they were going to a different secondary school from her in September they had been going off together and whispering behind her back.

  She tried not to think about them as she ran to join Jo at the cottage door. Jo’s great-aunt opened it. She was slightly stooped with short grey hair.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ Aunt Alice said, moving forward stiffly to kiss Jo on the cheek. ‘And Erin too,’ she said, her cloudy blue eyes lighting up. ‘How lovely to see you. Come in, both of you. Come in.’

  As Erin and Jo went inside, Aunt Alice’s two cats, Sooty and Muffin, padded over and started winding round Erin’s legs. Erin crouched down and tickled their heads. ‘Hi, boys.’ They both purred and pressed their
heads against her fingers. She picked Sooty up and gave him a cuddle.

  ‘Now let me guess,’ Aunt Alice said. ‘It’s not raining at the moment, Erin, so I imagine you’ll be wanting to go to the beach.’

  Erin smiled and nodded. Aunt Alice knew how much she loved going to the beach on her own.

  ‘Off you run then, dear. We can catch up later.’ Kissing Sooty’s head, Erin put him down.

  ‘Come back if it starts looking like it’s going to rain again,’ Jo said. She turned to Aunt Alice. ‘I can hardly believe the weather we’ve had recently. It’s so changeable. Storms one minute, bright sunshine the next. I’ve never known anything like it.’

  ‘There was weather like this once years ago when I was about four,’ said Aunt Alice. ‘We had days of wild storms followed by days of burning sun. It ended in the great storm of 1923. I’ve told you about that, haven’t I, Erin?’

  Erin nodded and shivered as she remembered Aunt Alice’s story of the enormous storm. The sea had flooded the villages on the coast, the rivers had burst their banks, houses had been wrecked and lots of people and animals had died.

  ‘I remember learning about the Great Storm when I was at school,’ Jo commented. ‘Can you imagine how dreadful it would be if something like that happened again?’

  Leaving the grown-ups to discuss the weather, Erin slipped back outside.

  The weather had changed again already, the wind dying down to just a gentle breeze. Patches of blue sky, the same colour as Erin’s eyes, were showing through the clouds overhead. It was weird what the weather was doing at the moment. Maybe it’s something to do with global warming, Erin thought, remembering what they had been learning about the term before.

  She ran down the lane and took the footpath at the end that led between high hedges towards the sea. Happiness bubbled through her as she let her mind fill with thoughts of horses. What horse would she have if she could have any in the world? A black stallion with a white star? A chestnut show-jumping pony? A dapple-grey Arab pony? Yes. That’s what she would choose.

  Imagining she was riding him, Erin held her hands as if she was holding reins, clicked her tongue and cantered forward, changing legs every few strides. ‘There’s a good boy,’ she said. She shied, pretending he had seen something in the hedge that had spooked him, and cantered on round the corner to where the footpath opened out on to the cliff top.

  Erin stopped, her cheeks flushing as she saw a woman and two girls about her age walking towards her on the cliff path. The woman, who had long wavy blonde hair, smiled at her. ‘Hello.’

  The girls also grinned in a friendly way. One looked as if she might be the woman’s daughter. She had blonde corkscrew curls and a mischievous face. The other girl had lively hazel eyes and skin the colour of milk chocolate. Her hair was a thick mass of dark brown ringlets that reached her shoulders.

  Erin groaned inside. How embarrassing! They must have seen her pretending to ride a horse. ‘Hi,’ she muttered, her cheeks burning. She hurried on past them.

  ‘Come on, Allegra!’ she heard the dark-haired girl call as the three of them passed her, turning down the footpath. ‘Race you back to the village!’

  Erin ran on along the cliff top, glad to leave them behind and be on her own again. The sea was on her left, the waves dragging on the pebbles of the strip of stony beach. On her right there was a patchwork of green and yellow fields divided by grey stone walls and hedges bursting with the white hawthorn flowers that always bloomed in May. In several of the fields were horses and ponies.

  Erin stopped to stroke one pony who had his face over the fence, but the grumpy local farmer was in the field and he shouted at her. Erin hurried on her way.

  Daydreaming about the ponies she would have if she lived in a farmhouse with a stable block and fields of her own, Erin turned on to a path half hidden by overgrown bushes and small trees. It led down to the beach. The stones were rough beneath her feet and the path was so steep in places she had to hang on to tufts of grass, but she had been down it so often she knew exactly where she had to be careful.

  She reached the small beach and walked along it a little way before sitting down on a large dry rock. This was one of her favourite places in the world. It was very quiet apart from the birds, completely different from the busy touristy beach down the coast where her stepbrothers loved to hang out.

  Her eyes followed the jagged headland round. At the furthest tip there was a spit of land that ended in three enormous stones. They jutted up out of the sea, two standing upright and a round one that looked like an enormous Polo. The hole in it was so large that an adult could easily climb through it. The three rocks were known locally as World’s End. It was just about possible to walk to them from the beach, but if the tide was high the spit of land got covered up.

  Erin moved her toes in the stones. They tumbled over each other, grey, white and brown. Her gaze searched across them. Could she see any hagstones? They were stones with holes in the middle, like miniature versions of the round World’s End stone.

  Aunt Alice had told her that in the old days people used to hang hagstones up outside the houses to keep witches away and that they had tried to do magic with them. She’d said that people used to believe that they could be used for working weather magic or healing magic or casting spells of protection. Witchstones, they were called then. Erin had always been very good at finding them.

  There! she thought, suddenly spotting one.

  It was a round, grey stone with lines of white shot through it. She picked it up. In the centre there was one circular hole, big enough for her to fit a finger through. Erin turned the stone over in her hand. It was cold and smooth. Sometimes hagstones had lots of holes, sometimes they had a hole on one side that hadn’t gone through to the other side completely and sometimes there was a small hole blocked by a chip of rock or shell. They were all different. She kept the best ones for her collection at home.

  Erin studied the stone carefully.

  She liked the way the grey and white streaked together and the smoothness of the sides. She would definitely keep this one. As she held it, the rattle of the stones on the beach seemed to grow slightly louder.

  What would it be like if hagstones really could be used for working magic like people used to believe? she thought. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

  Lifting the stone up so that it was pointing at the clouds she looked idly through the hole.

  Erin almost dropped the stone in shock. Horses! There were grey horses in the sky! Some were cantering, some walking, others were standing in groups in a cloud land of hills and valleys, streams and rivers…

  Abruptly, she blinked and looked up at the skies without the stone. The clouds looked normal again. ‘Weird,’ she muttered. Was it just her imagination? She had often watched the sky and imagined a cloud take on the shape of a dragon or a castle or something else. But something about this felt different. It had been like looking at a film. There had been loads of horses – a whole land full of them. Erin stared at the stone in her hand. It had been just her imagination, hadn’t it?

  It can’t be real, she told herself. You know it can’t be. Quickly, she lifted the hagstone again, her heart thudding in her chest.

  She gasped as she watched a young grey colt rear up playfully at another and a group of older mares trot past in the clouds. There really were horses in the sky!

  C H A P T E R

  Two

  Erin tore along the cliff. By the time she reached the lane she had a stitch in her side from running so fast, but she didn’t stop. She raced up to the cottage and banged on the door.

  Jo opened it. Taking one look at Erin’s wide eyes, she frowned. ‘What is it, Erin? Are you OK?’

  ‘In the sky! I’ve seen something in the sky!’ Erin’s lungs hurt as she grabbed great mouthfuls of air.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Jo said in astonishment.

  Aunt Alice appeared in the lounge doorway. ‘Is everything all right, Erin?’

&
nbsp; ‘No,’ said Erin, staring wildly at them both. ‘There are horses in the sky!’

  ‘Horses in the sky?’ Jo’s face visibly relaxed. ‘Oh, Erin. You had me worried there for a moment. You and your imagination!’

  ‘I’m not making it up. It’s true!’ Erin exclaimed. ‘Look!’ She thrust the hagstone into Jo’s hand. ‘Look at the clouds through that!’

  Jo shook her head disbelievingly and lifted the stone up. As she looked through it, she gasped and clutched her heart. ‘Yes! Horses!’

  ‘You can see them too!’ Erin exclaimed in relief. She wasn’t going mad after all!

  ‘Yes, and a fire-breathing monster and a fairy.’ Jo laughed and handed the stone back.

  Erin felt the air rush out of her as if she was a balloon that had just been punctured. ‘But there are horses there,’ she said in confusion. ‘I can see them.’ She turned desperately to Aunt Alice. ‘Can you see them, Aunt Alice?’

  ‘Oh, Erin…’ Jo started to frown.

  But Aunt Alice came to the door, took the stone and looked through it. Erin held her breath, but the old lady shook her head. ‘All I can see is clouds, my dear.’ She looked thoughtfully at Erin. ‘I do remember, though, that when I was little there was a story told about horses made of clouds – sky horses, they were called. People said their movements controlled the weather. If the horses were quiet, the clouds moved gently, but if they were restless there would be wind and rain, and if they fought that would bring great storms. It was rumoured that if you looked up on very stormy days you could sometimes see them. I looked and looked, but I never did see them even though I really wanted to.’

  ‘Aunt Alice, don’t encourage her!’ exclaimed Jo. ‘She’s got a vivid enough imagination as it is.’

  Erin took no notice. Sky horses, she thought. She looked up at the skies through the stone again. Even if Aunt Alice and Jo couldn’t see them, she could – a herd of grey horses ranging in colour from the palest white to the darkest steel grey, tossing their manes, trotting together, wheeling round and breaking into a canter as more and more clouds covered the skies.