Season of Ponies Read online

  Season of Ponies

  Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  TO Susan AND Douglas

  Contents

  A Morning of Hope

  An Afternoon of Sorrow

  A Magic Evening

  Pamela Makes a Choice

  A Warning

  A Pale Pink Clue

  In a Forest Clearing

  A Glimpse of Fear

  On a Stormy Night

  In the Old Granary

  Shadow Glen

  Fear Comes Closer

  A Puzzling Surprise

  The Circus Game

  In the Pig Woman’s Swamp

  The Pig Woman

  Back to Oak Farm

  An Unexpected Visitor

  Old Questions Answered

  Endings and Beginnings

  A Biography of Zilpha K. Snyder

  A Morning of Hope

  THE DAY BEGAN AS June days are supposed to, in a burst of sunshine; but before noon, dark clouds were sweeping across the sky. In the afternoon, rain fell in dull gray torrents; and just before nightfall, a strange swirling ground fog, heavy and white, swept through the valley. Afterward, Pamela heard Aunt Sarah say she’d never seen fog like that in the valley before.

  It started out to be the day that Pamela was to leave Oak Farm. When she awoke that morning, even the weather seemed to be celebrating. A few bright rays of sun had somehow managed to slip through the thick branches that hovered over the old house, and then to find the tall narrow windows of Pamela’s room. Bright cheerful splotches warmed the faded rug and the dark wood of the high old bed.

  Pamela bounced to the floor and ran to the window seat. From her window on the second floor, she could see the huge sloping lawn edged with oak trees, the creek, the bridge and patches of the road. To the left she could see a part of the deserted farmyard. It all looked much better than usual in the bright new sunshine of that very important morning.

  It was a view Pamela had seen thousands of times in the last five years. She turned away from the window and faced the room. Her feet touched the floor below the window seat now. When she had first come to live at Oak Farm, she couldn’t even touch with her toes. She had sat there on the window seat for hours watching the road and looking for Father. She didn’t do that any more. He always wrote when he was coming, and there wasn’t any use hoping he’d come unexpectedly.

  It had been a long time since that first year at Oak Farm, but Pamela could remember a time before that when she had lived with her father. When she thought hard, she could bring back blurry pictures of long rides in trains and cars, rooms where they didn’t stay long, and laughter and good times. There were dim memories, too, of long lonely hours of waiting in the car while her father talked to people who wanted to buy the trucks and machinery he sold. But the clearest memories were good ones. There had been picnics and trips to parks and zoos. She could remember how sometimes Father used to say, “Today is for you, Pam. What shall we do?” Pamela remembered that even then she usually chose to go where there were horses, if she could.

  And before that, there had been another time when her mother was still alive. That was hardly a memory at all, mostly a feeling. A good feeling—and there was something about her mother in a filmy white dress, sitting on a white horse. It was a dim and shadowy memory, almost like a scene from a dream; but still it was the clearest memory Pamela had of her mother, and she often thought about it. Sometimes she wondered if it was a real memory at all. Perhaps it was just a dream. After all, riding a white horse in a fluffy white dress was not the sort of thing people’s mothers were likely to do. Not any mothers she’d ever heard of anyway.

  She would have liked to ask about that memory, but she knew better than to ask Aunt Sarah or Aunt Elsie. She had learned long ago that no one at Oak Farm would talk about her mother. Even Father said very little.

  Pamela decided to think about something else. It always made her unhappy to wonder why people didn’t want to talk about her mother. “No, I won’t think about it,” she said right out loud. But still, she wondered if Father would tell about her, if she asked, before he left.

  “Before he leaves!” Pamela laughed. For a minute she had almost forgotten that she was going with him this time. Imagine forgetting that—even for a minute!

  Just then the hall clock struck eight. Pamela leaped off the window seat, scrambled into her clothes, and quickly brushed and braided her long dark hair. Even if it were her last day at Oak Farm, there was no point in making Aunt Sarah angry by being late to breakfast. In fact, today would be particularly bad because it was very possible that Aunt Sarah would already be angry about Father’s decision. No sense in making it worse.

  As Pamela pushed open the big double doors to the dining room, Aunt Sarah and Father were standing by the windows. Aunt Sarah was talking, and Father seemed to be looking at his shoes. They saw her and stopped talking quickly. Pamela suddenly felt afraid, but Father’s smiling, “Good morning, Pam,” was reassuring.

  Pamela smiled back a little weakly. “It must be all right,” she told herself. “He promised I could go.” But somehow she wasn’t quite convinced. There was something about the way Father looked.

  Aunt Elsie backed through the swinging doors from the kitchen with a silver tray, and Pamela was busy for a while helping to distribute plates and pour coffee. Aunt Sarah was talking about places Father would be visiting on his trip. Pamela found it hard to keep her mind on what she was doing. Surely something would be said about her going, too.

  “Pamela,” Aunt Sarah said sharply. “What are you thinking of? You served your father’s plate from the wrong side, and now you’ve spilled the coffee.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Sarah,” Pamela said. “I’ll clean it up.” She hurried to the kitchen for a cloth for the spilled coffee; and when she returned, Father’s trip was no longer being discussed.

  All through breakfast Pamela waited for the grownups to bring up the one thing that filled her mind. But Aunt Sarah began talking about old days at Oak Farm, and that always went on for a long time. Pamela couldn’t change the subject because Aunt Sarah believed that children should not speak unless spoken to.

  It began to look as if no one else was going to change the subject either. Father and Aunt Elsie were listening politely and even asking questions, just as if they had never heard about the garden parties before.

  “Let’s see. That must have been the year the summer house burned down, wasn’t it Elsie?” Aunt Sarah was saying. “I don’t suppose you remember the summer house burning, do you Randall? You were quite young. I was only seventeen that summer. You know it was Thayer Ashwood who tipped over the charcoal brazier—quite accidently, of course—right in the midst of one of the nicest garden parties. You do remember Thayer, don’t you? He was such a nice young man. The Ashwoods lived two miles down the valley where those Italian dirt farmers are now. It was called Ashwood Park then.”

  Father shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I don’t remember,” he said. “But I’ve heard so much about it all, it seems as if I do.”

  Pamela sighed quietly. She’d heard about it, too. She’d heard all about Oak Farm in the days when Aunt Sarah was young, before times started changing. She knew what a gay and busy place it had been before her grandparents died and left Aunt Sarah with all that land to manage and a much younger brother and sister to rear. She knew almost by heart how bad times had forced Aunt Sarah to sell all the animals, little by little. First the blooded horses for which Oak Farm had been famous and then the champion Black Angus cattle, until at last the farm buildings stood silent and empty.

  “But I haven’t sold one square foot of the land of Oak Farm,” Aunt Sarah always ended the story. “And I won’t! Why before I’d leave,
or even sell one little piece, I’d turn it into a hog ranch!” Her eyes burned darkly when she said that. Pamela was always glad that this time it wasn’t something she’d done that made Aunt Sarah look that way.

  It was mostly her eyes that were so frightening. Their dark gaze could make you feel frozen—helpless and speechless. Father’s eyes were very different, brown and smiling, and Aunt Elsie’s were a pale and gentle blue. But their eyes were not the only way that the three of them were different. They were so completely unlike each other that it was hard for Pamela to remember they were brother and sisters. They were no more alike than three different kinds of animals, Pamela decided.

  Aunt Elsie, of course, was a rabbit. Nothing else could be that pink and white and quivery. Aunt Sarah was hard to picture, but Pamela finally decided on a bird—a big bird with fierce beak, sharp eyes and smooth dark wings. And Father? That was easy. Her favorite animal—a horse. A bright bay mustang; strong and swift and full of fun.

  Pamela glanced at her father. He was smiling, but it wasn’t his real smile that made you feel like smiling, too. He nodded quickly to everything Aunt Sarah said. Pamela frowned. “He really doesn’t seem much like a wild mustang right now,” she admitted to herself. “But that’s what he is sometimes, anyway.”

  An Afternoon of Sorrow

  BREAKFAST WAS OVER WITH no mention of Pamela’s going away; but as they were leaving the dining room, Father put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going out to look the old place over and say good-by. Want to come along, Pam?”

  That sounded encouraging. She would be only too glad to say good-by to Oak Farm. They crossed the house yard and the silent dusty barnyard and started up the little hill in the old horse pasture. Pamela chattered happily. “It’s a good thing I like riding in trains and cars. I mean, some people get sick even. But I think it’s fun. I liked it even when I was little, didn’t I? And I won’t mind changing schools often because I’m not used to having lots of friends my own age anyway. And even if I have to leave my friends after a little while, it will be better than not having any at all.”

  Pamela’s father seemed unusually quiet. At the top of the hill they sat down in the tall grass. Below, they could see the empty farm buildings, the row of small houses where the farm workers had once lived, and beneath its clustering oaks, glimpses of the big house. Oak Farm House, silent and shadowed even on a sunny day.

  Pamela talked faster and faster, trying to bury with words her growing fear that something was wrong. “Remember the games we used to play when we were traveling? I remember we used to see who could count the most horses on his side of the road. I liked that game. And sometimes you’d stop the car if the horses were close to the road. You used to hold me up so I could pat them. Do you remember?”

  Pamela stopped. Her father’s silence could no longer be ignored. He was staring at a blade of grass that he held in his brown fingers and tearing off little pieces with quick, hard movements. “Pam,” he began, “I know you’ll have trouble understanding this, but ...

  A cold, thin slice of fear shot up Pamela’s spine. “But you said I could go with you!” she cried. “You promised!”

  “I guess I was fooling myself, too, Pam. Because I wanted to have you with me so much. But it just wouldn’t work. No real home, traveling from town to town, changing schools all the time, eating in restaurants. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  Suddenly Pamela was angry. “That’s not the reason!” she cried. “None of that’s the real reason. She won’t let you. She just won’t let you.” She flung herself down on the grass, and hard painful sobs shook her body and ached in her throat.

  She cried for a long time, while her father sat beside her saying nothing at all. She cried in bitter disappointment because she would be left behind again; but even more she cried because her father had broken his promise and would not tell her that what she had said was a lie. Finally he put a handkerchief under her clenched fist.

  “Dry your eyes, Pam, and sit up. I have something to show you.”

  She did as she was told, but she was careful to keep her face turned away. Her father took her hand and pushed something hard and round, like a very large coin, under her fingers.

  “This is for you, Pam. I don’t think I ever told you before, but when I first met your mother she lived with her old grandmother. Granny was a very wise and wonderful old lady. Right after your mother died, she gave me this and said it was for you. She said I would know when the time came for you to have it. I wondered about that, but—she was right. Somehow, I’m sure this is the time she meant.”

  Pamela tried not to look. She didn’t want him to think she had forgotten his betrayal. But she couldn’t help being curious. A gift given to her so long ago was fascinating enough, but when it concerned her mother, her mother who was so seldom mentioned, it was almost irresistible. Slowly she turned her head and opened her fingers.

  In her hand was a sort of amulet or medallion on a slender chain. On each side of the amulet were strange raised figures. On one side there was a small triangle at whose points were a cat, a snake, and a beetle. On the other, odd little symbols that seemed to be letters of some kind ran all around the outside, and in the center was a large eye.

  Through the depths of her disappointment there ran a sudden ripple of excitement. What was it? What did the mysterious symbols mean?

  “What is it?” she heard herself asking, almost against her will. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know myself, Pam. Granny wouldn’t say much, except that it was very old—and very powerful.”

  “Powerful,” Pamela repeated. “That sounds like it’s magic. Do you suppose it gives three wishes?”

  Father smiled. “That’s funny. You know, I asked the same thing. I was joking—but Granny didn’t seem to think I was very funny. She got quite indignant. ‘Do you think,’ she said, ‘I’d give my great-granddaughter anything so dangerous as that?’ ”

  “What do you suppose that meant?”

  “I don’t know, unless she felt most people wouldn’t use three wishes wisely. She wouldn’t say much more about it. But she did tell me what the writing says. It doesn’t make much sense to me. I wrote it down.” He took out his wallet and from a card pocket produced a small piece of worn and discolored paper.

  Pamela took it eagerly and read, “Give the searching heart an eye, and magic fills a summer’s sky.”

  “I don’t understand it,” she said after a moment. “It sounds like a riddle.” Disappointment welled up again, choking her throat and burning her eyes. “I wish it had been three wishes. Then I could have wished to go with you—and even Aunt Sarah couldn’t have stopped me.

  Father’s eyes dropped, and he reached for her hand. They sat quietly for a few moments, and then he took the amulet and fastened the chain around her neck. He let it slip down inside her dress. Their eyes met, and she recognized his “we’ve got a secret” grin. She turned away without smiling. She had always loved to share a secret with her father, but this time it only made her feel angry again.

  As they climbed down the hill, she noticed that dark clouds had begun to fill the sunny sky.

  Pamela felt no comfort in the amulet as she watched her father’s car disappear down the Valley Road that afternoon. The summer stretched before her as dreary and as endless as the huge bank of black clouds that by now completely hid the sun. It’s just an old necklace, she thought bitterly. It doesn’t make anything any better. It doesn’t change not seeing Father until October. It doesn’t change not having any friends or pets. It doesn’t change not ever going anywhere. Everything is just the way it always was, and it will always be the same.

  Her throat was getting tighter and tighter. The aunts had already gone back in the house, so no one saw Pamela as she turned and ran through the kitchen, up the backstairs, into her room and threw herself face down on her bed.

  She cried at first with angry bitter sorrow. Then for a long time she cried softly with old tired sorrow for al
l the sadness of her ten years of life. And much later she cried because she was tired of crying and couldn’t remember how to stop.

  The last thing she remembered was that rain had begun to beat on the windows and that she was very tired.

  A Magic Evening

  PAMELA WOKE UP SLOWLY and reluctantly. At first she couldn’t remember why she was lying on her bed with all her clothes on, or why she felt so sad. Then it all came back with a rush. She sighed a long quavering sigh and rubbed her eyes hard with her clenched fists.

  Something hard seemed to be pressing against one of her ribs making her vaguely uncomfortable. She sat up and, rubbing the spot, discovered that she had been lying on the amulet. She took it out and studied it carefully. It did look magical with all those weird figures and strange writing. But it certainly hadn’t done anything about Father’s leaving. She gave it a little shake. “Why don’t you do something?” she said impatiently.

  She looked around expectantly, but not a thing happened. It was very quiet in the big old house. Aunt Sarah and Aunt Elsie were probably taking naps. She looked at the clock on her dresser. Over two hours till dinnertime and nothing to do. And then there would be all the rest of the summer and part of the fall, stretching away, day after day. Pamela lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

  She lay limply, keeping her mind empty, trying not to hear the smothering silence of the old house. And then, quite suddenly, out of the quietness, there came a soft uncertain breath of distant music. The first faint rippling trill faded, and Pamela wondered if she had imagined it. But it came again, a little nearer now and she thought perhaps it was a bird singing. But then, as the sound grew stronger, she knew that it was not. It was too patterned to be the song of a bird or a brook and yet too free to be a human melody. The music rose and fell in lovely liquid spills of sound. Pamela knew now it was something she had never heard before. A secret singing sound that was not a voice, and yet sang a joyous open song of fun and freedom.