Chapter Eighteen
“Shite! Fergus!” I leapt to my feet and burst through the trees, only to see the cart and Fergus’s wide bahoochie moving faster than I ever would have thought possible.
Bri and Finlay were beside me a moment later. “Come on,” Finlay called. “He’s headed right for the cliffs!”
We took off running, though I knew we’d never be able to catch Fergus on foot.
Still, we had to try. I screamed as another bolt of lightning hit a lone tree to our left.
Bri tripped, and I almost offered her my hand before she shook her head and pushed to her feet.
We ran across the road to the cliff, where Fergus was headed south toward home, perilously close to the edge.
“Fergus!” Finlay called, as though the pony were a dog that would heed its master’s call. The animal was in a clear panic. We all screeched to a halt as the cart hit a large rock, knocking it off-balance and sending it skittering toward the cliff’s edge, taking Fergus along with it.
Bri screamed and put her hands over her face while Finlay lunged for the bridle. He managed to grab hold of the reins, but one of the cart’s back wheels was already off the edge of the cliff, the other broken and caught on a stone.
“Come on, Fergus,” Finlay said through gritted teeth, trying to pull the pony forward. If the other back wheel dislodged, the weight of the cart was sure to drag Fergus backward over the cliff.
I reached Finlay and grabbed hold of his waist, pulling away from the edge with all my might. But Fergus had planted his hooves firmly in the dirt, afraid to take a step forward.
“Bri!” I screamed over the howling wind and booming thunder. “Help us!”
I turned over my shoulder to see her a few feet away, hesitating. “I can’t touch you!” she called. “I’m sorry!”
I remembered how she said she’d sooner drown than receive help if it meant touching someone, but I had never considered that we might find ourselves in a life-and-death situation.
I linked my hands around Finlay’s waist and pulled even harder, just as I heard a loud crack.
The other back wheel had finally given way.
Fergus let out a piercing whinny that made my blood run cold. Suddenly Finlay and I were being dragged forward by the weight of the cart and Fergus himself. I scrabbled for purchase with my feet, but the dirt had turned to mud in the rain.
“Let go of me, Willow!” Finlay screamed over his shoulder.
“Yer aff yer heid! You let go!”
“And leave the debt of this pony and cart on Ma’s shoulders? I’d sooner die!”
“You’re going to if you don’t let go, you daft eejit!”
Our feet were sliding through the mud toward the cliff. Any second, the front of the cart would go backward, and then there’d be no stopping us from plummeting to our deaths.
“Fergus!” Finlay called again. “Fight!”
I felt a sudden lurch, and then Finlay was slipping through my hands and Fergus was shrieking. Two strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling back with more force than I’d have thought possible.
I don’t know how Bri’s strength was enough to save us from what seemed like certain death.
Perhaps it was that the traces connecting Fergus’s harness to the cart snapped at that exact moment, freeing him from the weight and giving him just enough time to regain his footing before we all tumbled over after him.
Whatever the case, I found myself lying backward on top of Bri, Finlay on top of me, and Fergus staring down at us like we were the ones who had caused all the fuss in the first place.
A split second later, I heard the sound of shattering wood as the cart hit the rocks below.
“Look at that,” a voice said from underneath me. “The rain has stopped.”
Bri, Finlay, and I sat in the mud, our minds blank as we took stock of our body parts and confirmed that we had, indeed, survived.
Finlay was the first to rise, helping me stand before turning to Fergus, who, to his credit, hadn’t moved an inch since the cart went over.
“Is he all right?” I asked, not even bothering to straighten myself up.
I was completely mocket, covered in mud with my clothing still soaked through, and my arms felt like they’d been ripped from their sockets.
I turned around to see Bri in a similar state.
I was relieved she was standing, at least. I was afraid I’d squashed her in the upheaval.
“He’s fine,” Finlay said, running his hands down the pony’s legs to check for any injuries. “Miraculously.”
But I was still staring at Bri, who was looking down at her hands as though they belonged to someone else. “What’s wrong?” I asked her, trying to get a look at her palms to see what had her so upset.
She looked up at me, eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. “I … I’m so sorry, Willow.”
“For what?”
“I touched you.”
“And thank goodness for it,” Finlay said from behind me. “We’d be dead if you hadn’t.”
“I touched you,” Bri repeated.
The horror on her face, the sheer guilt, made me want to pull her into my arms. “Aye, and I’m fine. It’s all right. You did a good thing, Bri.”
She shook her head, her wet curls plastered to her cheeks. “You don’t understand…”
“I don’t have magic, remember? I know something awful happened and you’re afraid, but I’m perfectly fine.” I held my hands out to her. “Go on, take them.”
Bri didn’t move. “You don’t feel … changed? Altered?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “I feel like I nearly died trying to save the world’s most doolally pony, but other than that, no.”
She slumped with relief. “I was so sure…” She stared at my hands, still outstretched toward her. Tentatively, as though she were reaching toward a wild animal, she allowed her fingers to brush mine.
She pulled away instantly, but it felt like progress. “I’m so glad you’re all right.” She craned her neck to look at Finlay and Fergus. “All of you.”
Finlay nodded, patting Fergus on the shoulder. “Thank you both. I’m sorry I put you in that situation. I should have let go, but I couldn’t…” At this, his eyes welled with tears. I’d never seen Finlay cry before. “I suppose I’ve grown fond of the old fellow.”
I had always prided myself on being practical.
Finlay’s sentimentality caught me off guard at times; even the way he fawned over Argyle was hard to wrap my head around.
(Da had no love for animals, which he believed belonged in the barnyard and not the house.) But as Fergus searched Finlay’s pockets for a snack, I could only feel deep, almost painfully sweet affection for Finlay.
Of course he hadn’t let go of the pony. I wouldn’t have liked him half as much if he had.
“Well, now that we’re all here and the storm is over, we just have one issue left to resolve.
” I walked to the edge of the cliff and felt my stomach drop at the sight of the cart smashed to smithereens on the rocks below.
That could have been all of us. Would have been all of us, if not for Bri.
“How on earth are we going to get home?”
“We’ll have to walk,” Finlay said. “You lassies will take turns riding on Fergus. I reckon we have about ten miles to go.”
“Which should get us home roughly around midnight.” I groaned at the thought, but there was nothing for it. We had to get back one way or another. “You take the first shift,” I said to Bri.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Need a boost?”
“I’m all right,” she said, swinging herself onto the pony’s back with impressive ease, especially considering she was wearing a dress.
Fortunately, we hadn’t brought many belongings with us, and we’d had them with us under the trees while we attempted to wait out the storm.
Even more fortunate, Bri had left her violin at home.
“You two go on while I get our things,” Finlay said. “I’ll catch up.”
I nodded and took Fergus’s reins, leading him back to the road as Finlay trotted off.
We walked in silence for a few minutes, my feet sticking to the mud, my body still on edge as the adrenaline drained out of me.
I’d gotten myself into scrapes before, but never anything like this.
In those seconds when I thought for sure we were going over, it had never once occurred to me to let go of Finlay.
I’d have sooner died with him than let go. That alone was a curious sentiment.
But my mind kept snagging on the fact that Bri had helped, when she’d said before she wouldn’t touch anyone no matter the cost. I supposed it was much harder to watch two friends die in reality than in theory. Still …
“What happened?” I asked her, glancing up to catch her eye. “Why were you so afraid to touch me?”
She sighed, leaning forward to rest on Fergus’s neck.
She clearly had experience with horses. “After the fire, I learned to sense magical potential and was very careful not to touch anything I didn’t already know was safe.
But one day, when my mother went to comb my hair after a bath, she let out a howl of pain and collapsed.
My father came running in to find my mother unconscious and me confused and crying.
“Days later, when she regained consciousness, she told him that as soon as she touched me, she’d felt a burning in her chest so fierce she thought she might die.
She never recovered, not fully. The doctors say her heart is permanently weakened, and my father forbid her from ever touching me again.
” She swallowed the tears clogging her throat. “He forbade everyone from touching me.”
“Oh, Bri.”
She swiped her tears away, staring off into the distance. “I was kept inside after that. I had a private tutor who came to the house, and a physician who would only examine me wearing thick leather gloves. I was gifted the violin as a means of keeping busy.”
I didn’t know what to say in response. It was too horrible to imagine, a little girl shunned by her own parents for something she had no control over.