Wild Girl Read Online Free

be afraid.”
    I felt a quick flash of anger. They didn’t know me, not at all. They were thinking I was the seven-year-old they’d left behind. I swallowed over the burning in my throat, reaching into my pocket, curving my fingers around the lemon.
    Tio Paulo had said once that I was born knowing how to ride. I thought of Cavalo and the rides we’d taken, bending my head against the overhanging tree branches, climbing the rocks….
    Oh, Cavalo
.
    I took a breath. They didn’t know that. How could they?
    “I can…,” I began, but Rafael was pushing his egg around his plate, and the Horseman’s head was bent over his coffee. I closed my mouth again.
    Under a leaden sky, we took the path with its deepening snow around the track to the barn. The roof was low, with icicles hanging along the edge. Rafael reached up, knocking two off, and handed one to me. “It’s the taste of winter,” he said.
    The icicle was cold in my fingers, cold against my lips, reminding me of ice cubes that clinked in a soda glass on a summer day.
    We went through the open doors into the barn, where a few chickens wandered around in the hay. Stalls lined both sides of the aisle, and horses looked out over half doors: three chestnuts, and a bay so dark his coat gleamed almost black. They were as curious to see me as I was to see them, their eyes wide under their long curving eyelashes.
    I brushed my hand against one of the chestnuts, and reached down into a pail of carrots. I stood watching as the horse took the carrot and chewed with her thick yellow teeth.
    A man with leathery skin sat on a stool in the aisle.
    “José. That’s me. I do everything around here.” He laughed, his Portuguese thick on his tongue. “Well, a few things, anyway.”
    “Lidie,” I said. “And that’s me. I saw you carrying a pail before.”
    That reminded me. “Is the cat…” I hesitated before I said
ours
. The word seemed wrong; nothing here really belonged to me.
    Pai lifted one shoulder. “The orange cat? A stray. He doesn’t belong to anyone.”
    I swallowed. “Poor cat.”
    Pai’s hand swept around the stalls. “Only one horse here is actually mine, but two more are coming. One who might race someday …” He paused. “And another …”
    “Who won’t.” Rafael rolled his eyes. He beckoned to me, and we walked to the end stall. “Doce, our horse. Sweet like his name.”
    I raised my hand to touch his soft muzzle and to rub his chestnut forehead.
    “I’ll ride her in a few weeks,” Rafael said. “And by that time, Lidie, you’ll know how to ride, too.”
    I smiled, a secret smile. I pictured how it would be, how I’d surprise him.
    Rafael would be on one horse and I on another. I might even hold back and let him get a head start. And then …
    Then.
    He’d see.
    And so would the Horseman, who didn’t remember the lemon.
    Even Tio Paulo would be smiling if he knew about my plan.

7
AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA
    During the night, the filly heard the sound of the bay whinnying, and the low grunts of the roan. She heard the creature, too, his footsteps outside her stall
.
    Next to her, the mare’s ears were pricked forward, listening. The filly raised one hoof uneasily and moved behind the mare. She felt the swish of that long thick tail and nibbled at it
.
    After a while, she slept again
.
    In the morning, she and the mare were led out to the field. She looked for the roan and the bay, but they never came
.
    Later the creature moved along the outside of the fence. She watched as he opened the gate to the far field—the field with sweet grass and clover
.
    The creature was gone
.
    The filly moved slowly, taking her time. Even when she was within a few feet of the gate, she wasn’t sure if she’d go through
.
    She glanced back at the mare, then took a step, and another, into the field with its wonderful smell of clover
.
    And behind her …
    Behind her …
    The gate slammed shut
.
    She ran along the fence, once, twice, back and forth, but there