likely to begin this way. “Yes please,” she said, and rooted around in the big ceramic bread crock for the loaf. “Where’s Aunt Annie?”
“Down at the riding school, waiting for the farrier. She said to tell you to come on down if you want to.”
“Okay,” Nita said, and cut herself a slice of bread and put it in the toaster. The butter was already out on the counter, along with a basket of eggs from the farm’s hens, various packages of bacon and a gruesome-looking sausage called “black pudding,” more toast, some of it with bites out of it, boxes of cereal, and spilled sugar. Breakfast was a hurried business in this house, from the look of things.
Nita sat down with her tea and toast and pulled over the local weekly paper, the Wicklow People. Its front-page story was about someone’s car catching on fire in the main street of Wicklow town, and Nita sat there paging through it in total wonder that anyplace in the world should be so quiet and uneventful that a story like that would make the front page. Derval looked over her shoulder and chuckled, pointing with one finger at an advertisement in the classifieds that said BOGS FOR SALE. Nita burst out laughing: she remembered seeing somewhere that “bog” was slang not just for something you dug peat out of, but also for the toilet.
“If you’re going to be around the stable block,” Derval said to Nita, while going to get another piece of bread out of the toaster, “just one thing. Watch out for the horse in number five. He bites.”
“Uh, yeah,” Nita said. She had been wondering when she was going to have to mention this. “I’m a little scared of horses...I hadn’t been planning to get too close to them.”
“Scared of horses!” Joe said. “We’ll fix that.”
“Uh, maybe tomorrow,” Nita said. She had been unwillingly put up on a horse once, several years ago on vacation, and had immediately fallen off it… twenty or thirty feet down, it had seemed at the time. This had colored Nita’s opinions about horses ever since. From her newer wizardly point of view she was sure that horses were probably very nice people, but she had no desire to get on top of one again.
Joe and Derval finished their breakfasts and headed out, leaving Nita surrounded by cats eager to shake her down for another handout. “No way, you guys!” she said. “Once was a special occasion. You want more, you’d better talk to your boss.”
They looked at her in thinly disguised disgust and stalked off. Nita finished her tea and toast, washed her cup and plate, and then wandered out into the concrete yard again. There was a pathway past the back of her trailer into the farm area proper, and the road that wound past the front of the house curved around to meet it. Here there was another large concreted area with two or three large brown, metal-sided, barnlike buildings arranged in a loose triangle around it. The field on the right-hand side as she faced it was full of horse-jumping paraphernalia, jumps and stiles; all around the edge of it ran a big track covered with wood shavings and chips for the horses to run on. Further down and on her right was the stabling barn, and beyond it what Derval had referred to as “the riding school,” a big covered building that had nothing in it except a floor thickly covered with the same chips as on the track outside. This was where the riders practiced when the weather was bad.
Nita took a little while to look around in there, found nothing of interest, and made her way back to the stables. There were about fifteen box stalls with various horses looking out over the doors, or eating hay from baskets hanging from the walls of their boxes, or just standing looking out with vaguely bored expressions.
Nita paused briefly in front of the horse in number five, who was a big handsome glossy black beast. Yes, he did have a bad look in his eye. But who knows? He might have his reasons. Nita glanced around, saw no
“Down at the riding school, waiting for the farrier. She said to tell you to come on down if you want to.”
“Okay,” Nita said, and cut herself a slice of bread and put it in the toaster. The butter was already out on the counter, along with a basket of eggs from the farm’s hens, various packages of bacon and a gruesome-looking sausage called “black pudding,” more toast, some of it with bites out of it, boxes of cereal, and spilled sugar. Breakfast was a hurried business in this house, from the look of things.
Nita sat down with her tea and toast and pulled over the local weekly paper, the Wicklow People. Its front-page story was about someone’s car catching on fire in the main street of Wicklow town, and Nita sat there paging through it in total wonder that anyplace in the world should be so quiet and uneventful that a story like that would make the front page. Derval looked over her shoulder and chuckled, pointing with one finger at an advertisement in the classifieds that said BOGS FOR SALE. Nita burst out laughing: she remembered seeing somewhere that “bog” was slang not just for something you dug peat out of, but also for the toilet.
“If you’re going to be around the stable block,” Derval said to Nita, while going to get another piece of bread out of the toaster, “just one thing. Watch out for the horse in number five. He bites.”
“Uh, yeah,” Nita said. She had been wondering when she was going to have to mention this. “I’m a little scared of horses...I hadn’t been planning to get too close to them.”
“Scared of horses!” Joe said. “We’ll fix that.”
“Uh, maybe tomorrow,” Nita said. She had been unwillingly put up on a horse once, several years ago on vacation, and had immediately fallen off it… twenty or thirty feet down, it had seemed at the time. This had colored Nita’s opinions about horses ever since. From her newer wizardly point of view she was sure that horses were probably very nice people, but she had no desire to get on top of one again.
Joe and Derval finished their breakfasts and headed out, leaving Nita surrounded by cats eager to shake her down for another handout. “No way, you guys!” she said. “Once was a special occasion. You want more, you’d better talk to your boss.”
They looked at her in thinly disguised disgust and stalked off. Nita finished her tea and toast, washed her cup and plate, and then wandered out into the concrete yard again. There was a pathway past the back of her trailer into the farm area proper, and the road that wound past the front of the house curved around to meet it. Here there was another large concreted area with two or three large brown, metal-sided, barnlike buildings arranged in a loose triangle around it. The field on the right-hand side as she faced it was full of horse-jumping paraphernalia, jumps and stiles; all around the edge of it ran a big track covered with wood shavings and chips for the horses to run on. Further down and on her right was the stabling barn, and beyond it what Derval had referred to as “the riding school,” a big covered building that had nothing in it except a floor thickly covered with the same chips as on the track outside. This was where the riders practiced when the weather was bad.
Nita took a little while to look around in there, found nothing of interest, and made her way back to the stables. There were about fifteen box stalls with various horses looking out over the doors, or eating hay from baskets hanging from the walls of their boxes, or just standing looking out with vaguely bored expressions.
Nita paused briefly in front of the horse in number five, who was a big handsome glossy black beast. Yes, he did have a bad look in his eye. But who knows? He might have his reasons. Nita glanced around, saw no
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