Pony Farm Mystery - L. A. Milton (e textbook reader txt) 📗

Prologue:
There had always been something different about the statue of the boy and his pony in Grandma's garden at Cedar Hill Farm. Something... well, mysterious and perhaps even a little bit deliciously scary.
The small stone statue stood on a chunky column in the middle of a shaggy patch of grass. It could be approached only by a narrow opening cut through the dense hedge that enclosed the area. This was a secluded place, frosted and stark in winter, but scented in summer by the old roses and specks of herbs that clambered around the foot of the statue. Small hoof-prints sometimes marked the grass, where no hoof-print should have been.
When my twin sister Emily and I were younger and would go to visit Grandma with our parents, I'd immediately tear through the maze of unused stable yards and the tangled orchard to the hidden garden beyond, in a panic lest the spunky little guardians were gone.
They never were, of course.
The boy grinned impishly, keeping one hand on the bridle of his mount. His eyes seemed to look right at me with a challenging stare. The pony's head was tossed as he pranced on the high block. With one fore-hoof raised, he was ready and willing for adventure.
Once, I'd confided to Grandma how I'd climbed up behind the boy onto the pony's back and we'd gone for a cross-country gallop. Only it wasn't the fields and woods by Grandma's that we traveled but a wilder landscape, where horses roamed freely in great thundering herds and there was not a single house or other building to be seen.
"Oh, Hannah, what fun!" Grandma had replied. And she'd flashed me her quirky turned-down-at-the-corners smile, acknowledging a shared secret.
The statue, Grandma said, was very old - so much so that nobody knew it's history. An understanding existed between the pony boy and me. We were friends. At least I hoped we were. It was a fact that things happened here in the hidden garden. Strange things. Things that could be given no rational explanation.
Topping it all off was that eventful summer when Emily and I were going to turn fifteen. Grandma was convalescing after an operation. With Mom and Dad both frantically busy at work, there was no chance of a family vacation that year, so Grandma suggested that Emily and I visit her. We could keep her company and get in plenty of riding in the glorious Cedar Hill Farm countryside. We were old enough now to be considered responsible enough to cope. It seemed like the ideal solution.
None of us could have guess that something truly momentous would happen there. Something that would completely change all of our lives.


Chapter 1:

"Nearly there," said Dad as he downshifted to negotiate the narrow, twisting lane to Cedar Hill Farm. He glanced in the rearview mirror, to check the trailer that carried our mare, Sirius.
Emily - slumped beside me on the back seat of the car - gave the end of her long braid of reddish-gold hair a sudden, discontented tweak. "Wish we didn't have to go," she said, keeping her voice low so that Dad could not hear her. "Some vacation this will be. Bet we'll end up doing all the work around the place."
"Don't think so," I whispered back. "Mom said that's all been taken care of. Anyway, it'll be great to see Grandma and the dogs again."
"Grandma's old. They all are at Cedar Hill Farm. Even the hens are geriatric. Just think, Hannah. Instead we could be getting ready for the August show at the riding center right now."
"Grandma doesn't act old," I said swiftly in her defense. Grandma dug in her garden, walked her dogs, and began every single day with a brisk canter in the woods. I had no problem with Grandma or Cedar Hill Farm. Besides, I had a personal reason for wanting to get away, one called Duane. "At least we've got Sirius with us," I went on encouragingly. "Benedict will need exercise too. For once, we'll each have a horse."
Benedict was Grandma's warmblood, a sixteen-two hands veteran with a heart of pure gold. I deliberately did not mention the pony boy statue, which I found intriguing but Emily said it creeped her out. Nor did I dwell on the empty and desolate stable block that had once echoed with the clamor of many hooves and was now home only to the one horse, his donkey companion and scurrying mice. Once, before Emily and I were born, Cedar Hill Farm had been an up-and-coming racehorse stable, but something had gone very badly wrong and our grandfather, Jon Wesley, had lost his training license. He had died a broken man soon after, Grandma said.
Instead I pointed out how great it would be to have a choice of stabling for Sirius. "We won't even have to clean up after her if we don't want to. We can bed her down in the next stall," I said with a laugh.
"Disgusting," said Emily witheringly. I should have known that my sister, a stickler for cleanliness, would never have tolerated for anything so shabby.
We broke out of the shade of dark overhanging trees into brilliant sunlight. And there it was. Cedar Fill Farm - stone-built, gracefully proportioned, a smiling house with deep-set windows open to the summer's day. Inside was a fantastic hodgepodge of rough plaster walls, old dark beams, creaky staircases and leaping winter fires, where you could curl up with a book and nobody would bother you.
We drove through the entrance - with its crumbling stone pillars and sagging gates- and bumped slowly up the rutted drive, passing under the weathered stone clock arch before pulling up into the main stable yard. from the house, the dogs started to woof and grumble. Scrambling out of the car, we stood stretching our legs and looking around after the long journey. On the back doorstep a group of tabby cats lay sunning themselves. The dogs had fallen silent and Cedar Hill Farm sounds settled on the warm still air: birds singing, hens clucking in the orchard, and a group of riders trotting past on the road.
In the bright sunshine, the once-handsome stable yard appeared more derelict than ever. The cobblestones were sunken and matted with weeds, and the old water pump in the middle was broken and boarded over. All but two of the stalls closed

Publication Date: 07-22-2011

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Dedication:
Horses.