on the blanket box with Beanie on one side of her and Pumpkin on her lap. She started to read aloud:
I’m writing this sitting under the cherry tree in the black horse’s paddock. Right now she is very weak and it’s like she’s not aware of me being here, but at the same time I can tell that she’d rather that I wasn’t here at all. The paddock’s huge, but she still seems to think it’s too small for both of us. But if I stay here long enough, I’m hoping that might just change.
The description hit Charlie – it sounded just like Phantom. He never responded to her presence much any more, yet it still felt as if he hated and resented it. In an instant, she knew exactly what to do.
“As cosy as it is in here,” Charlie said, gently moving Pumpkin and standing up, “I think I should be reading this with Phantom. Caitlin wrote this while she was near Fable, so the mare could get used to her. I’m going to try the same with Phantom.”
Charlie walked quietly over to Phantom’s stable. As usual, the black horse was standing in the shadows in his freshly laid, thick straw bed, his coat glistening. He shook his head as Charlie let herself in, and tried to swing away from her as she caught his headcollar. She clipped him to the lead rope, which she tied loosely to the baler twine attached to the metal ring at the front of the stable, near his haynet so that he could still pick at it if he wanted to. The black horse reluctantly stood near her, stretching his lead rope as far as it would go so that he could keep as much distance between them as possible.
At first Charlie was alert to every twitch Phantom made, her heart racing with each thudof his back hoof or irritable swish of his tail. But the more absorbed she became with the black horse in the diary, the less aware she grew of Phantom. She gasped as she raced through Caitlin’s early struggle to keep the mare alive. She felt her eyes well up as she got to the part when Caitlin truly feared that she was going to lose Fable, and smiled in relief at the happiness that spilled out on the page from Caitlin’s pen, when the mare finally began to take an interest in the world around her.
As Charlie read on through blurred eyes, Caitlin described Fable’s introduction to Molly the Hope Farm sheep and how Molly’s solid, quiet presence seemed to settle her. Fable still didn’t trust Caitlin to get too near, but she and Molly quickly became inseparable. Caitlin then began to patch together the life that Fable had endured before she finally ended up at Hope Farm. She even traced her original breeder, who described her as a cheeky, feisty foal, and clearlypromising. But that part of her character was quickly forgotten as she gained a reputation and got labelled as ‘difficult’ instead. She’d been shipped about from new yard to new yard, with expectations of her ability high, but was given no time to settle. Her nature was delicate, and Caitlin could track the change in her behaviour as it became increasingly unsettled and fractious. Each owner had sold her on, keen to get rid of the tricky-to-handle mare, until she’d ended up, broken, misunderstood and unloved, with Tim Leech – the nasty breeder who was going to take her to the knackers’ yard. Tim said that Fable was defensive, ill-tempered and dangerous. But Caitlin could see beyond that to a fragile horse of whom too much had been asked, too quickly. Caitlin had found her just minutes before it was too late. Now it was down to Caitlin and Molly to mend Fable, whose heart had finally cracked on the day that her foal had been taken from her.
Charlie felt a lump in her throat, and a teartrickled down her cheek. She heard a big sigh, fluttering through velvety nostrils.
She looked up. She realised that while she’d been reading, Phantom had stopped standing so rigidly, and was no longer filling the box with his unease. She sat quietly for a second, looking at him. He was so beautiful, but she’d stopped
I’m writing this sitting under the cherry tree in the black horse’s paddock. Right now she is very weak and it’s like she’s not aware of me being here, but at the same time I can tell that she’d rather that I wasn’t here at all. The paddock’s huge, but she still seems to think it’s too small for both of us. But if I stay here long enough, I’m hoping that might just change.
The description hit Charlie – it sounded just like Phantom. He never responded to her presence much any more, yet it still felt as if he hated and resented it. In an instant, she knew exactly what to do.
“As cosy as it is in here,” Charlie said, gently moving Pumpkin and standing up, “I think I should be reading this with Phantom. Caitlin wrote this while she was near Fable, so the mare could get used to her. I’m going to try the same with Phantom.”
Charlie walked quietly over to Phantom’s stable. As usual, the black horse was standing in the shadows in his freshly laid, thick straw bed, his coat glistening. He shook his head as Charlie let herself in, and tried to swing away from her as she caught his headcollar. She clipped him to the lead rope, which she tied loosely to the baler twine attached to the metal ring at the front of the stable, near his haynet so that he could still pick at it if he wanted to. The black horse reluctantly stood near her, stretching his lead rope as far as it would go so that he could keep as much distance between them as possible.
At first Charlie was alert to every twitch Phantom made, her heart racing with each thudof his back hoof or irritable swish of his tail. But the more absorbed she became with the black horse in the diary, the less aware she grew of Phantom. She gasped as she raced through Caitlin’s early struggle to keep the mare alive. She felt her eyes well up as she got to the part when Caitlin truly feared that she was going to lose Fable, and smiled in relief at the happiness that spilled out on the page from Caitlin’s pen, when the mare finally began to take an interest in the world around her.
As Charlie read on through blurred eyes, Caitlin described Fable’s introduction to Molly the Hope Farm sheep and how Molly’s solid, quiet presence seemed to settle her. Fable still didn’t trust Caitlin to get too near, but she and Molly quickly became inseparable. Caitlin then began to patch together the life that Fable had endured before she finally ended up at Hope Farm. She even traced her original breeder, who described her as a cheeky, feisty foal, and clearlypromising. But that part of her character was quickly forgotten as she gained a reputation and got labelled as ‘difficult’ instead. She’d been shipped about from new yard to new yard, with expectations of her ability high, but was given no time to settle. Her nature was delicate, and Caitlin could track the change in her behaviour as it became increasingly unsettled and fractious. Each owner had sold her on, keen to get rid of the tricky-to-handle mare, until she’d ended up, broken, misunderstood and unloved, with Tim Leech – the nasty breeder who was going to take her to the knackers’ yard. Tim said that Fable was defensive, ill-tempered and dangerous. But Caitlin could see beyond that to a fragile horse of whom too much had been asked, too quickly. Caitlin had found her just minutes before it was too late. Now it was down to Caitlin and Molly to mend Fable, whose heart had finally cracked on the day that her foal had been taken from her.
Charlie felt a lump in her throat, and a teartrickled down her cheek. She heard a big sigh, fluttering through velvety nostrils.
She looked up. She realised that while she’d been reading, Phantom had stopped standing so rigidly, and was no longer filling the box with his unease. She sat quietly for a second, looking at him. He was so beautiful, but she’d stopped
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