Born That Way by Susan Ketchen Page A

going to have a boarding stable. I don’t know how many will come.”
    A boarding stable. A place to keep my horse. If I didn’t know better I’d think I was dreaming.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The river isn’t very deep but there are a lot of big rocks visible under the surface so my horse has to pick its way carefully. So okay, I’m dreaming. We’re about half-way across the river when I hear a shout, and it’s the girl with the wavy ash-blonde hair coming up beside me on her gray horse. I try to bring her face into clear focus because I need to figure out if this is Kansas or not.
    â€œWhatcha looking at? Do I have mud on my face?”
    â€œWho are you?” I ask. “Do you have a name?”
    â€œThat’s not a good idea, Sylvia. I know what you’re driving at but you don’t want to be building bridges from one place to another. That leaves paths for others to follow.”
    â€œWell can I just call you Kansas, for my convenience, because you look like her and remind me so much of her?”
    Kansas drops her head and looks at me through her eyebrows. “Oh boy,” she says. “This should take about three seconds.”
    She’s riding bareback, and suddenly I see tucked in behind her, holding her around the waist, is someone who looks a lot like Taylor. She’s wearing a pink ballet leotard and black knit leggings.
    â€œHoly bananarama,” she says.
    It’s Taylor all right.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” I’m not exactly happy about this, having to share not only my dream but also my dream friend. “You don’t even like horses.”
    Taylor’s eyes are the size of tennis balls though not the same shade of yellow-green. “I wouldn’t say I didn’t like them. More like I’m terrified of them.”
    â€œKansas, what’s she doing here?”
    â€œI warned you about the naming thing—don’t build bridges, don’t make links. Not yet, not until you know what you’re doing.”
    â€œBut you’ve been calling me Sylvia.”
    â€œIt’s your dream—so there’s no bridging.”
    â€œBut why Taylor?”
    â€œOh Sylvia—you’ve done it again.”
    I have disappointed her and it is crushing for me. She sees my crestfallen look and softens. “No, no—it’s okay, it’s nothing bad, but it quickens things.”
    â€œThere!” shouts Taylor. She’s pointing to a beach on the far side of the river. “Do you see him? He’s coming out of the woods!” She doesn’t sound terrified any more. She sounds ecstatic, as though she’s found her long-lost best friend—or more than that, as though she’s seen some famous singing star, or Jesus. She sounds like I would sound if Ian Miller, Captain of the Canadian Equestrian team, were to leap out of the woods in his red show-jumping jacket, riding Big Ben, who is now dead.
    At first I think it is a horse that Taylor is pointing to, a white Morgan maybe, or an Arab-cross, all sleek and shiny and muscley, with a wavy mane that’s so glossy it could be made of threads of silver.
    Then I see the long horn sticking straight out of its forehead.
    â€œOh give me a break!” I say. “A unicorn?”
    â€œThat’s what it looks like, all right,” says Kansas.
    â€œBut I don’t believe in unicorns.”
    That’s when the unicorn looks straight at me and laughs—not a whinny, not a nicker; he definitely opens his mouth and laughs at me.
    â€œI believe in unicorns,” says Taylor.
    â€œBut it’s not your dream. It’s my dream.”
    â€œNot any more,” says Kansas. She is checking her watch. “Thank goodness . . . ”
    And I hear my alarm buzzing but I’m not ready to wake up. “Wait a minute—you have to tell me what’s going on here.”
    But Taylor has disappeared, the unicorn has gone and Kansas is