Cloud Magic

appeared in the lounge doorway. ‘Is everything all right, Erin?’
    ‘No,’ said Erin, staring wildly at them both. ‘There are horses in the sky!’
    ‘Horses in the sky?’ Jo’s face visibly relaxed. ‘Oh, Erin. You had me worried there for a moment. You and your imagination!’
    ‘I’m not making it up. It’s true!’ Erin exclaimed. ‘Look!’ She thrust the hagstone into Jo’s hand. ‘Look at the clouds through that!’
    Jo shook her head disbelievingly and lifted the stone up. As she looked through it, she gasped and clutched her heart. ‘Yes! Horses!’
    ‘You can see them too!’ Erin exclaimed in relief. She wasn’t going mad after all!
    ‘Yes, and a fire-breathing monster and a fairy.’ Jo laughed and handed the stone back.
    Erin felt the air rush out of her as if she was a balloon that had just been punctured. ‘But there are horses there,’ she said in confusion. ‘I can see them.’ She turned desperately to Aunt Alice. ‘Can you see them, Aunt Alice?’
    ‘Oh, Erin…’ Jo started to frown.
    But Aunt Alice came to the door, took the stone and looked through it. Erin held her breath, but the old lady shook her head. ‘All I can see is clouds, my dear.’ She looked thoughtfully at Erin. ‘I do remember, though, that when I was little there was a story told about horses made of clouds – sky horses, they were called. People said their movements controlled the weather. If the horses were quiet, the clouds moved gently, but if they were restless there would be wind and rain, and if they fought that would bring great storms. It was rumoured that if you looked up on very stormy days you could sometimes see them. I looked and looked, but I never did see them even though I really wanted to.’
    ‘Aunt Alice, don’t encourage her!’ exclaimed Jo. ‘She’s got a vivid enough imagination as it is.’
    Erin took no notice. Sky horses , she thought. She looked up at the skies through the stone again. Even if Aunt Alice and Jo couldn’t see them, she could – a herd of grey horses ranging in colour from the palest white to the darkest steel grey, tossing their manes, trotting together, wheeling round and breaking into a canter as more and more clouds covered the skies.
    Aunt Alice squeezed Erin’s arm. ‘Would you like a biscuit and a drink?’
    Erin hesitated, but she could tell there was no point saying anything more about the sky horses to Aunt Alice and Jo. They would not believe her. It’s just me , she thought. Maybe I’m going mad. Unless… unless it’s magic !
    The word rang out in her head. Her mind whirled.
    Please let it be magic , she thought.
    Later that afternoon, Jo and Erin walked back to their house in the village. As they walked in through the front door, Jake, Erin’s twelve-year-old brother, came charging down the stairs with a ball under his arm.
    ‘Goal!’ he yelled, shooting the ball over the banisters so that it almost knocked Erin’s head off. It bounced on to the floor and crashed into a table.
    Ben and Sam, who were fourteen and fifteen, hurried through from the kitchen to the lounge where the telly was blaring out a football match. ‘It’s going to be two–one,’ Ben was saying.
    ‘Nah, I reckon it’s going to be three all and go to penalties,’ said Sam.
    ‘Hi, boys,’ Jo said wryly. ‘Nice to see you too.’
    Erin hurried up to her bedroom and closed the door, shutting out the sound of the TV and the voices. Her room was small, just big enough for a bed, a wardrobe and a desk. But it had a window at the end with a wide sill. There was an old dark wooden box on it filled with hagstones. It had once belonged to her mum. Not Jo, her stepmum, but her real mum, who had died when Erin was three. Erin had always liked to play with the stones.
    Sitting down on the windowsill, Erin pulled the box towards her. Putting the hagstone she had found at the beach down beside her, she nervously picked up another stone from the box. Would she still see the horses with a different stone?
    She held it to the skies. There they were! The clouds were grey and thick, jagged in places like mountain ranges. There were mares with young foals, older horses, a group of young stallions. She had never seen such beautiful horses. They had manes and tails that swept to the floor, large dark eyes, delicate legs and arched necks. They were just as she had always imagined unicorns would be, but without the horns.
    ‘Weather weaver!’ A commanding voice suddenly