Finding the North Star

CHAPTER 7 THE CASTLE

"What's the castle?" Becky asked after a while.

"It's a place where we used to play as kids. Me, John and Abe and some of our other cousins. It's a safe place . . . none of the grownups knew about it. Sometimes we'd camp out there. Summer, winter . . . Didn't really matter."

They were going downhill now. Becky was getting used to being on the back of the horse and was learning to adjust her body to its movement.

"We always used to say it would make a great hideout. It's funny, I never thought we would actually get to use it like that. I think John always hoped we would though." She laughed. "He's probably enjoying this."

The girls rode in silence along the floor of a shallow, dry ravine each lost in their own thoughts. Mary said it was best not to talk anyways as sounds travelled far in the woods. Aspen and birch had replaced evergreens now and they shook noisily in the breeze, scattering falling leaves in blizzards of colour.

It might have been the perfect autumn day.

At some point, the slope to their left had started to rise until it was no longer just forest but rocky outcrop as if a giant was slowly awakening, heaving itself up from the ground and at any moment would shake off the few trees that still clung to its back.

They followed the rock's craggy course for another half hour and still there was no end to it and still it grew. By now it towered over them so that Becky had to crane her neck to see the top.

Mary began to search its surface eventually backtracking a little. "You have to be right on top before you see the entrance, and it's been a while since I was here." She brought them to a stop. "Ah-ha, this is the spot."

A great crack appeared in the surface of the rock wall almost as if by magic – splitting it from top to bottom. And what Mary said was true – from a side angle it was virtually impossible to see the fissure. Even standing directly in front of it, it was difficult to detect unless you knew where to look.

Mary clambered off the horse and helped Becky down. "We have get everything off the horses, or they won't fit."

Becky looked over at the gap. It was very narrow.

In less than twenty minutes they had completely unloaded all the baggage – even the saddle off Molly the horse they had been riding – only the bridles remained. Becky had never really paid much attention to what kept a person seated on a horse before. She quickly realized that there were all sorts of straps and belts and buckles that seemed very complicated; and she wondered how anyone could remember how it all went back on again.

It was already getting dark when Mary led Molly in.

The crack went back for about the length of a horse and then appeared to come to an abrupt end. In fact, this was a sharp bend. What was beyond that, there was no way of telling.

Mary had to pull hard on Molly's bridle to coax the frightened animal in. Her body brushed both sides of the wall, and she didn't like it. Then they were past the worst of it, and Molly's rear end vanished around the corner. It was if horse and girl never existed and Becky panicked in the few seconds she was alone as the dark forest creaked and moaned about her.

Next it was Roam, the little pack horse's turn.

Becky had tried tugging, and clicked her tongue copying Mary as best she could; but Roam's ears were back and spit foamed out the sides of her mouth as she rolled her eyes and refused to budge.

Mary took the reins from Becky. Instead of pulling harder though, she went up to Roam and whispered and stroked her until gradually the horse calmed down enough to be led. It was still a tight fit. Roam was fatter and shorter than Molly, and seemed to find bits of jutting out rock that the taller horse missed. Becky followed in at a respectful distance, just in case the little horse decided to let fly with a hoof.