Eye of the Storm

warding magic yet. She wound the hair through the seeing stone several times and tied the ends.
    ‘There,’ she said, holding it up.
    ‘This might seem simple,’ Tor told her. ‘The rest will not. We must now bring Marianne back from the sky, get the hagstone from her and destroy her dark gateway.’
    ‘How are we going to bring Marianne back, Father?’ Mistral asked, pawing eagerly at the soft ground.
    ‘We will go to the entrance of the hidden gateway down by the sea. When we are there, Erin and I will try to clear the clouds for long enough for the gateway to appear in the moonlight. You and I will go through the gateway and together we will chase Marianne down from the sky. It is our land, our kingdom. She has no right to be there.’ Tor’s eyes flashed with pride and he reared up on his hind legs. Erin suddenly realized he was relishing the thought of fighting the dark spirit who had been controlling and damaging his herd. He plunged forward, swirling into his cloud form. ‘Come! There is no time to waste!’
    With a wild, delighted whinny, Mistral galloped beside him.
    Erin and Chloe flew through the trees as the horses galloped beneath them, their cloud bodies moving like the wind. Erin’s heart was beating fast. Everything was suddenly happening! She gripped the hagstone in her hand. Might they really stop Marianne that very night?
    When they reached the edge of the woods, Tor and Mistral soared into the sky and, together with the girls, they swooped over the cliff top and down to the beach. Usually the jagged rocks were covered with deep water, but now at low tide there were just glittering rock pools. The entrance to the hidden gateway was almost completely blocked by a rockfall.
    ‘We will do the magic to clear the clouds here,’ Tor said to Erin. ‘You must be ready to use your great-grandmother’s powers to face Marianne when she returns and get the hagstone from her.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘Do not worry. I will be following her. You will not be on your own.’

    ‘She won’t be on her own anyway. I’ll be here,’ said Chloe fiercely, moving to stand alongside Erin.
    Erin picked up a sharp shard of stone from one of the rock pools and, pressing hard, scratched a circle on one of the largest, flattest rocks. Then she took the hagstone with her great-grandmother’s hair out of her pocket and began.
    The second she stared at the hole in the stone with her great-grandmother’s hair tied through it, the darkness expanded. She gasped as magic surged through her. Not the tingling that she usually felt, but rushing, racing, sweeping through her like a swift-flowing river, as the power of her great-grandmother joined with her own power. Erin had never felt anything like it. Every inch of her skin seemed to crackle with magic. She felt strong and powerful, able to do anything.
    ‘Sky horses, come!’ she commanded.
    This time they didn’t appear slowly. They were suddenly there in the circle, manes and tails blowing, ears flickering. Many looked sick. Marianne had been in the cloud world for too long. Foals were lying down, mares nuzzling them with dull eyes. But as Tor appeared they raised their heads, nudged the foals, made them get up. The herd gathered round him, whickering in relief. He whinnied to them all. They followed him obediently, clearing the circle and clearing the clouds from the moon overhead.
    At the edge of the circle Erin saw a dark cloud forming. Marianne! There was no time to waste!
    ‘Tor! Come back! Sky horses, be gone!’
    The sky horses vanished.
    Erin scrambled to her feet as Tor swirled to his normal size.
    ‘Mistral! We must go through the gateway before Marianne brings the clouds back!’ He gave the girls a searching look. ‘Be ready for when we return! Who knows what will happen then…’ And he leapt away, dissolving into a mist that flowed past the rockfall into the cave. Mistral followed him. There was a faint whinny and they were gone. The silence was broken only by the sound of the sea creeping back in towards the cliffs and the cry of a seagull overhead.
    Erin looked at Chloe.
    ‘Now what?’ Chloe said.
    ‘We wait, I guess,’ replied Erin. She went over to the cave and looked at the gap between the rockfall and the wall. It was just big enough for her to squeeze through. She knew the cave behind it led to a tunnel, which led to another underground cave where the gateway was. Tor and Mistral would have gone through it by now. She wondered