Autumn by Lisa Ann Brown Page A

saddle. She relaxed into the rhythm, shutting her eyes briefly as the horse ate up the ground. The grey vista stretched ahead as far as she could see. There were no homes here, no businesses, no other traffic out today at all it seemed. Arabel appeared to be quite alone. But there was something out there, something she just couldn’t put her finger on. There was some energy she could feel but not see, as there was no visible accompanying movement or colour.
                  Arabel felt a sudden uneasiness, as if furtive eyes were observing her. She glanced around but she could not see anyone. The crow turned its head, looking as well, and Whipsie kept pace as they turned a corner on the path. In the pocket of her riding habit Arabel carried the red stones from Eli’s father. Her fingers found the stones and she wrapped her hand around them. Arabel felt instantly safer and she kept her eyes to the path in front of her, wanting only to arrive at her destination and hoping for a further respite from the grey swirling energy, the man with the dead grey eyes. 
                  Ahead was a small gully and Whipsie jumped it easily. The crow flew off of Arabel’s shoulder and circled above the racing horse. Arabel watched its flight uneasily. The crow, whom Arabel had decided to call Ira, flew ahead of them, scouting out their path. Whipsie glanced back and Arabel patted her neck reassuringly.
                  “Let’s just get there,” Arabel said softly, keeping her tone and her energy as calm as possible, despite the fact that her heart had begun to race and a slick thread of fear had worked its way into her solar plexus.
                  The trees here in this part of the forest seemed to cast an air of desolation to the environment. Their great branches blocked out the view of the sky and their massive trunks hampered Arabel’s desire to urge Whipsie to accelerate her pace. Arabel realized she couldn’t ensure safety if she hastened the pace and she resigned herself to arriving in Magpie Moor soon, even if it wasn’t as soon as she would like.
                  Whipsie seemed to have picked up the fear bug after all, despite Arabel’s attempts to bury her unease. The roan was sensitive; she seemed to lose some of her sure-footedness and Arabel felt concern for the horse pricking her uneasily. Above them, the crow circled, dipping and swooping as they moved quickly toward the Rosewood Inn. 
                  The woods seemed to close in on Arabel and the sensation was one of suffocation. There were no ghostly fingers indenting her tender throat but the choking feeling persisted. Arabel could breathe, but not as deeply as she would like and her lungs burned with the desire for greater oxygen intake.
                  Arabel clutched the red stones and a bit of an old nursery rhyme entered her mind. “Safe at last, danger is past, on and on we go!”
                  The old chant from Arabel’s early school days rang within her head, as if a thousand naughty children were singing it, shouting it, with high piercing voices and a menacing undertone. Arabel whispered the words to the wind and felt a sliver of the tension abate, as if the old childhood refrain held some magic in its lyrics, some safety she could call upon instinctively. The stones were warm in Arabel’s hand, Ira landed back upon her shoulder and Whipsie carried them forward into the grey landscape.
                  Out of the corner of her eye, Arabel spotted a flash of bright yellow, completely impossible to miss in the otherwise muted environment. Arabel gazed speculatively at the yellow object; it seemed to be moving. She slowed Whipsie down to have a better look and could see very clearly now that a person was attempting to move stealthily within the densely treed thicket. The yellow colour was screaming-out-loud, however, so stealth seemed wasted upon