Fourth Horseman by Kate Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

saw him. A man dressed in flowing white clothes, astride a white horse, shining in a patch of sunlight beneath the trees. My mind faltered. He couldn’t be there, and not only because of the wall and the gates. He couldn’t be there because he didn’t belong to the world I lived in. He was too big, too bright; like something that had walked out of the world of dreams. But he wasn’t a dream. He was there.
    I turned to Dad, wondering whether he had seen him too. I don’t know which scared me most, the horseman or what I saw on my father’s face. I was shocked and frightened but Dad’s reaction was entirely different. He was mesmerized. He looked like a sleepwalker, or someone who has been hypnotized. He was staring at the rider with glazed, dreamy eyes, and he was swaying slightly on his feet. I turned back to the horseman, and saw that he was looking directly at Dad. I had the sense of being an observer in an intensely powerful but private meeting. However dreamlike the horseman might appear, the power he had over Dad was real. I might have been a shadow or a photograph for all the significance I had during that exchange.
    I don’t know how long I stood, paralysed, staring. The horse was beautiful; a gleaming white pin-up of a creature. It was heavy, with big feet and feathered legs, but it wasn’t a carthorse. It had a handsome, noble head and soft brown eyes, and it stood quite still, strong and patient. The rider was tall and upright, with a noble bearing. His white robes flowed down over the horse’s flanks. Around them both, flies circled in the still air.
    It was Dad who broke the long, tense silence. He gave a strange little sigh, or moan, and took a few swaying steps towards the rider under the trees.
    ‘No! Dad!’ I acted instinctively, ungluing my feet from the ground and lunging at him, grabbing him round the neck. His eyes opened wide. He looked like someone startled out of a doze in front of the TV.
    ‘Huh?’ he said.
    ‘Don’t go near him!’ I didn’t mean to yell, but I couldn’t help it.
    ‘Near who?’ said Dad.
    I looked behind him. The woodland was silent and dark. There was no sunlight. There were no flies. There was no horseman.
    ‘Who was that?’ I gabbled. ‘What did he want? Why was he dressed like that?’
    ‘Who was who?’ said Dad. He still looked dazed; not quite with it, and I had a strong desire to shake him.
    ‘The rider. Over there in the trees!’
    Dad looked vaguely into the middle distance and, a little unsteadily, took out his cigarettes. He lit one and stood smoking it.
    ‘You saw him. I know you did.’
    He had started to shake. He sucked at the cigarette the way a man who was drowning would gasp for air.
    ‘Dad?’
    He looked straight through me, and I saw something dreadful in his eyes. Something cold and distant and heartless that I had never seen there before. Then he shook himself, as if he was cold, and said brightly, ‘Weren’t you going home?’
    I was speechless.
    ‘I’ll be along in an hour or two when I finish up here. You could peel some spuds if you have time.’
    He didn’t wait for me to reply, but turned and walked rapidly back to the building, flicking his finished cigarette into the gravel at the corner. I stood, rudderless, staring after him. From a branch nearby a magpie cackled. It made me jump. I swung round, stared into the trees, expecting to see the horseman again. The woods were calm and innocent. And dark. It made me realize something that I ought to have noticed at the time. The sky had been overcast all morning with a cover of pale cloud. There had been no breaks in it at all: it wasn’t that kind of cloud. So whatever had made the white horse and rider shine as they stood beneath the trees, it hadn’t been the sun.

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    I T WAS EARLY AFTERNOON when I got home. Alex was out and the house had never seemed emptier. I wished Mum was there. I was proud of my independence, but just then I could have done with a bit of