It was very difficult to tell if the look I got back was a murderous look or a disinterested one. Like when Monty does something even slightly bad, you can see it in her eyes immediately. I guess horses are like cats, that way; cats being the most duplicitous and hard-to-read creatures on the planet. (Bjorn comes and demands pats just minutes after barfing on my bed, and you can’t tell at all that he’s done something wrong.)

I took hold of the saddle, increasingly off-kilter as it continued to slide around the horse’s. . .waist? So it was almost under his belly. Upon closer inspection, one stirrup was unbuckled and looked like it had been. . .pulled.

Lending a little bit more than a bit of worry to the situation.

“Where is Gilly? Huh, buddy? You remember? Is she okay?”

As if on cue, the horse, aka Buddy, turned and started charging through the woods, yanking me along with him. As I tried to keep up and not get trampled, a million images flashed through my brain, none of them good. What if Gilly was lying on the ground with a broken neck or something? I mean, I thought this as someone whose mother (or one of them) is convinced that roller-skating means at some point I’m going to end up brained on the side of the road.

Which I’d always thought—until today—was an overreaction.

I scanned the distance for signs of a reason for alarm.

Clearing the thicker trees, we broke out into a field of tall grass. At which point I spotted the first clue; a lone riding boot in the mud.

Crap.

I cupped my hands to my mouth, “GILLY!”

The horse picked up the pace, basically dragging me over the grass as I ran next to him, my heart beating as I searched.

“GIL-LY! GIIIIIIIIIIILLY!”

A distant voice carried over the breeze. “Hello?”

My feet sinking into the mud, I yanked on the horse’s reins, which apparently you shouldn’t do because he gave me a really dirty look, but still. . .

“Gilly?”

“Uh, yeah?” a small voice called back. “I’m here! Can you see me?”

At first she was just a little blond bump on the horizon that, as we got closer, became a person sitting on the ground, like a doll that had been dropped there.

She was covered in dirt; it was in her hair and on her face and caked on her clothes. She had her helmet, also covered in mud, in her lap, her legs stretched out; one sock, one boot (to match the one in my hand). Her eyes peered out from the mud, two lights of brilliant blue.

“Hey!”

“Hey!”

“It’s Anne,” I said, because I am the most awkward.

“Uh.” Gilly smiled a dirt-covered tired smile. “Yeah, I know.”

“Um.” I held up the horse’s reins. “I found your horse.”

Gilly smiled bigger. “I see that. Thanks.”