‘I wish I could tell Hannah about you, Twilight,’ Lauren said, thinking about her fourteen-year-old cousin who was coming to stay in a day’s time. Hannah lived a long way away so they didn’t get to see each other much but Hannah loved ponies and Lauren got on with her really well. Lauren knew Hannah would have loved to have seen Twilight as a unicorn but unicorn magic had to be kept secret from anyone who didn’t have a unicorn of their own.

‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ Twilight said. ‘What’s she like?’

‘Pony crazy,’ Lauren answered with a grin. ‘Mum has arranged for her to borrow a horse from Orchard Stables while she’s here so we’ll be able to go on long rides together.’ She patted Twilight. She couldn’t wait for Hannah to meet him, even if she would only see him when he was a pony. ‘We’d better go home now,’ she said. ‘It’s getting late.’

They flew back to Granger’s Farm where Lauren lived with her mum, dad, eight-year-old brother, Max, and Buddy, his Bernese mountain dog. Twilight’s paddock was tucked away around the back of the farm and could only be seen from Lauren’s bedroom window. Behind it towered the shadowy wooded slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Twilight landed lightly on the short winter grass. Lauren dismounted and was immediately aware of the chill of the air on her face. When she was on Twilight’s back, his unicorn magic meant that she never felt cold, but now she was on the ground, she could feel the damp in the November air.

‘I’ll put your rug on you tonight to keep you warm,’ she told him.

He nuzzled her. ‘Thank you.’

Lauren quickly said the magic words of the Undoing Spell that changed him back into a pony.

There was a flash and suddenly Twilight was standing there looking just like any other regular grey pony. His winter coat was long and fluffy and his mane and tail were slightly tangled but there was still a magical sparkle in his eyes.

Lauren fetched his waterproof New Zealand rug from the tack room and quickly rugged him up. ‘See you in the morning,’ she whispered.

Twilight rubbed his head against her.

Smiling happily, Lauren ran to the house. Her parents and Max were fast asleep. Reaching her room, Lauren changed quickly into her nightdress and looked out of her bedroom window. Twilight was standing by the fence.

‘’Night, Twilight,’ she said softly.

Twilight glanced up at the window, almost as if he had heard her. She smiled and then, closing the curtains, got into bed.

‘Isn’t it cold today?’ Jessica Parker, Lauren’s friend, said the next day as she and Lauren and Mel Cassidy got off the school bus.

Lauren nodded and pulled her coat closer around her. The sky was grey and full of rain clouds. She thought longingly of the long hot days of summer – the picnic rides, taking the ponies to the creek in the woods – and sighed. ‘I wish it could be summer all year round.’