The horses came the day my father died. That was the worst day and yet also the best. He always said that loss and gain went hand in hand.

My mother woke me early. It took all day to forage enough food and fuel, so getting up with the birds was usual. Except that there weren’t any birds left, or at least so few that they were something to cause excitement.

‘I saw a sparrow!’

‘No. Where?’

‘Over there – by the gate. Quick. There – oh, it’s gone.’

Early mornings were as common as birds used to be, so when Moth called me, I was already waking. She didn’t sound urgent, only quiet, same as always, so I stretched and assumed the fire had gone out or the goats had escaped again. I sat up, yawning, scrubbing my hands though my hair, starting as the door opened suddenly and Ginny looked in.

‘Moth’s calling.’

‘I heard. I’m on my way. What’s up?’

Her blue eyes were fearful. ‘It’s Dad.’

I moved then, fast, throwing back the covers and reaching for my jeans. I stepped out of bed and straight into them, heading for the door as I pulled on a sweatshirt. Dad hadn’t been the same since he was kicked in the head as we’d struggled to herd the half-wild highland cattle abandoned nearby. He’d been unconscious for a long time and afterwards had days when he was confused or simply couldn’t get out of bed.

I ran to sit beside him, realising that the steady downhill slide had picked up speed.

‘You okay, Dad?’ I asked, as cheerfully as I could manage. He gazed at me, then recognised me and reached out a hand to rest on my arm.

‘Not so hot, Joel.’

His voice was husky, as though he had a cold coming, but it had been like that for a while. I glanced up at Moth, sitting with Ginny on her knee. She’d accepted that we’d lose him some time ago and a sort of dullness had come over her, except when she bent over him, or he had a good day. Now she looked as though she’d had her feelings disconnected. I wanted to tune her in, like the radio in the kitchen but guessed she could only manage the same white noise crackle.

‘Can I get you anything?’ I peered into Dad’s face. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘No.’A pause while he struggled with pain, then he said, ‘There are things I need to show you.’

I wanted to cry but instead I helped Moth get him up and dressed. We always tried to laugh our way through the awkwardness of dressing a man of six foot three inches, still heavy though he was thin and weak now. It was laugh or cringe with embarrassment for him. So we made a game of it, lifting limbs for Ginny to tug, pull and ease clothes onto. Ginny liked the game but she was only eight and didn’t really understand. I often wished I was still eight.

Getting him downstairs was difficult, but we did it, then Moth said she’d make breakfast while Dad and I went outside. I sat him in the sun on a wooden bench in the sparse vegetable garden we were coaxing towards enthusiasm, then sped around to milk the goats and gather eggs. He was still sitting, looking over our field, when I got back and laid his hand on my shoulder as I sat beside him.

‘Well done, son. Now, we both know what’s happening, so let’s not pretend.’

I nodded and he ruffled my hair, trying to make me smile because I was past the hair-ruffling age, and his hand was so bony it hurt my head. I grinned anyway for him, giving him a light nudge with my elbow.

‘I know you’ll help Moth,’ he said, ‘and take care of Ginn. Moth’s not doing so well, Joel, so you’ll maybe have to be in charge now and again. But she’ll get better once…well, you know. It’s the waiting that’s dragged her down, waiting with no hope.’

He was silent then for a bit before he said, ‘If the chance comes, Jo – and it must be a good chance, not a wild risk – then get away from here. Find somewhere lower down where the going’s easier and there’ll be people to help you.’

‘You reckon there are people?’

‘Of course. We can’t be the only ones, can we?’ He rubbed at his head and I knew he was suffering. ‘You know where the shotgun is – don’t get careless with it. Keep it safe – and the cartridges – safe and hidden.’ He went on, rambling a little when the pain got bad, explaining to me about mending the leaky roof and managing the imminent lambing of our few sheep, reminding me that the emerging daffodils were poisonous to the goats.

I wondered later if he’d known the horses were coming, because he said, ‘There’s a few old bridles and stuff in the workshop. I’ve got them cleaned up and mended.’

Then he fell silent for a long while and I sat with him, covering his hand with my own and noticing for the first time that there wasn’t much difference in size anymore. Moth called us for breakfast and he stirred as she came over, reaching out both hands to draw her face down to his. He kissed her on the mouth.

‘Not very hungry, Ell,’ he said, ‘but it’s nice here in the sun. Perhaps you could eat out here and I could sit for awhile?’

Moth did what he’d done, cradling his face and kissing him and I wished his lips weren’t cracked and peeling. I ran for the salve we’d made out of comfrey leaves, putting a little on his mouth while Moth fetched Ginny and we had a breakfast picnic beside him on the grass.

‘Do you remember the caravan,’ he asked, nodding towards its shabby hulk, ‘before it was a box-room?’

We all knew the ‘do-you-remember?’ game and joined in.

‘Fold away beds,’ said Moth and I added,

‘Pumping the water.’

‘And the little cupboard with the telly in,’ said Ginny, laughing. She liked cupboards and hiding places.

‘We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?’ Dad said, watching us all, and one big tear slid down his face. ‘All those miles, and the songs and collecting car numbers…’

‘Stopping for ice-cream,’ shouted Ginn and Dad grinned. ‘Chocolate ice-cream.’

Ginny clambered onto his knees but when I went to stop her, Dad shook his head and they sang the song they’d made, their foreheads resting against each other.

‘Give me a kiss, as sweet as a dream,

Your kisses are sweeter than chocolate ice-cream.’

Moth smiled at me. We all knew it was me and Moth, and Dad and Ginny, but that was all right because it was me and Dad, and Moth and Ginny too.

Dad sent Ginny off to climb to the tree house and wave at him from the top, with me to keep an eye on her. When we looked down, Moth was kneeling between his feet with her arms around his neck and her head on his shoulder. They weren’t speaking, just holding each other quietly. We sat quietly too, high above them, Ginny on my knee with her thumb in her mouth and I think that’s when she knew. She got a bit tearful but when at last Dad looked up and waved, she jumped up and down, laughing, waving back and I was proud of her.

It was Ginny’s turn next, so Moth and I cleared away the breakfast things while she and Dad drew a picture with the last stubs of her crayons. It was a good picture with us all eating our picnic in the sunshine. She and Dad were sharing a big bowl of chocolate ice-cream and all our favourite foods were there – strawberries for Moth and pizza for me. Even the animals had big buckets of carrots and there were birds of all colours lined up along the fence waiting for crumbs.

‘It’s a great picture, Ginn,’ I said. ‘But what are these, here, on the skyline?’

I pointed to a line of vague animal shapes looking down on our picnicking family.

‘Oh, those are horses,’ Ginny said, and shared a secret smile with Dad. ‘I like horses.’

Then it was me. Dad said, ‘Come on, Jo. Help your old man have a bit of a walk.’

He kissed Moth and Ginny and asked me to bring a blanket. He put his arm around my shoulders, half because he loved me and half because he couldn’t walk without help.

‘Let’s go to the wood,’ I suggested, meaning the small huddle of trees down by the barn, because I didn’t want to go where I guessed we were headed.

‘Let’s make this easy, Joel.’

I nodded, trying to hold back the sigh that kept shuddering up in my throat and we headed down beyond the barn to the meadow. We were proud of the meadow. The four of us had worked hard on it that first summer before Dad got kicked, to mend the dry-stone wall so our ragged collection of stock couldn’t stray. It was big, about fifteen acres, strong and green with good soil and Dad said the surrounding hills had sheltered it when the clouds blew over, burning the land beyond until all the rain that came after could wash away the poisons. Those hills had protected us too, while we watched the changed world through the windows of the farmhouse. The holiday Dad had always wanted to take in the caravan to the highlands had saved us.

Dad and I walked slowly round the outside, close to the wall we’d mended and Dad kept asking me to pick him a leaf or a flower to hold in his hand.

‘Look at that, Jo,’ he said suddenly and a great eagle rose lazily from a tall pine. ‘Well, I never thought I’d see one of those again. I was afraid they’d all gone forever. Now, that’s a good sign.’

Something caught my eye and I ran to where a red-gold feather was floating down. It was long and wide and I fancied it still warm from the bird’s body. I offered it to Dad and he stroked it.

‘What a beauty, Jo.’ He handed it back to me. ‘You keep it – keep it and think of me.’

I nodded, unable to see him clearly though my blurring eyes, but when I ducked my head, he said, ‘It’s okay, son, come here.’

I stood for a long time with my head on his chest, hearing the slow thud of his heart and feeling his hands, one stroking my hair and one on my back, holding me safe. At last, he hugged me, then looked down at me with a smile. ‘What are you never too old to do?’

I grinned, remembering my grandfather’s voice. ‘Kiss the people you love,’ I said and reached up to kiss his cheek.

‘Never forget that,’ he said, and he kissed me too, on my forehead twice, holding my head carefully.

‘I’ve had a fine family, Jo.’ He looked at me and his eyes were bright. ‘And since it’s been just us, well, it’s been hard, but, you know, it’s been good too.’

I nodded. I knew.

We wandered with our arms around each other, through the gate into the meadow and down to the hole I’d dug with Moth. No-one had ever admitted what this long deep trench was for but Dad had insisted on it being made, little by little, over the past few weeks.

‘Better this way than when it’s needed at once,’ he’d said cheerfully.

It was covered over with boards and now he and I sat beside it on the blanket, our backs against the sun-warmed wall alongside.

‘I love it here,’ he said, looking out over the little world we’d found for ourselves. ‘I like to look at that skyline and imagine what might come over it.’

We sat and watched as though we were expecting something, talking now and again and the spring morning passed. It was a quiet sort of day, warm and still. The few birds around gave us something to look out for, while our sheep and cattle grazed peacefully and the three goats on their tethers browsed the hedge that lined the drive. The green of the meadow surrounded by its stone wall looked rich and fertile amongst the scrubby surrounding fields. The hill leading up to the sky was green too, though it petered out half way down the far slope. We couldn’t see that, but we could see a few celandines and a ragged robin or two.

‘It’s all coming back slowly, Jo,’ Dad said. ‘You’ll see a change this summer.’

I nodded, trying to look full of anticipation but I didn’t want to think beyond that moment. Dad put his hand over mine and we sat quietly for a bit longer.

Moth and Ginny came out to sit with us after a while and we spent the day just watching the sky and the fields. In a strange way, it was a good day. It was the four of us for the last time. Dad needed to lie down in the early afternoon so we all lay in a line, looking up at the cloud patterns.

‘There’s a rose for you, Ell,’ said Dad and we all clamoured –

‘Where?’

‘Which one?’

‘What, that one?’

‘It’s more like a piece of cake.’

‘There’s a horse,’ said Ginny, ‘with a foal.’

‘Where?’ asked Moth. ‘Oh yes, I see – why yes, it really is.’

I saw it too. ‘Good one, Ginn – I think they’re galloping. D’you see, Dad?’

He didn’t reply and we all fell into a breath-holding sort of silence. I didn’t dare look but felt Moth lean over him.

‘He’s drifting now,’ she said softly.

I looked. He seemed asleep but I could tell it was deeper than that. We sat and watched him, holding his hands, and little by little his breathing slowed until he’d quietly gone.

Moth started to sob softly and I felt a dam in my chest burst as tears torrented down my face. But Ginny patted us both on the head then leaned over to kiss Dad.

‘He’s gone to meet them,’ she said. ‘Go on, Daddy, show them how to find us.’

Moth looked up, bewildered. ‘What do you mean, sweetie?’

Ginny had a glow about her, even though she was crying.

‘It’s a special secret me and Dad had. You’ll see. He said they’d come when he had to go.’

Moth looked at her a moment. ‘Go and gather something pretty for Daddy, Ginn. Flowers and leaves, grasses – whatever you can find.’

Ginny touched Dad’s forehead then scampered off, scattering the sheep.

We said our goodbyes, then worked quickly, using the blanket to lower him into the grave he’d supervised us making, wrapping it carefully round him. I didn’t want to shovel earth onto him and hesitated. Moth laid a hand on my arm. ‘I want that big round stone, Jo – the one just inside the gate. Can you lift it?’

By the time I got back, she’d done it. I’d never have believed she could work so fast because she was little and frail-looking. But she was tough too. We put the stone at the head and Ginny laid the few yellow cowslips she’d found close to it in an old jam-jar with water from the stream, then scattered daisies over the rest of the fresh earth.

Then we sat awhile before we walked hand-in-hand back to the house, Moth in the middle. It was a fine, clear evening and the sun was falling behind the skyline.

‘What’s that noise?’ Moth stopped walking at the same moment that I heard it too. We were so used to silence by then that the soft distant drumming seemed loud as thunder.

‘They’re coming. Oh, they’re coming!’ Ginny was bouncing up and down with excitement, clapping her hands.

‘Who, love? Who’s coming?’

‘The horses – the horses – oh, look!’

And, as we followed the line of her pointing arm, there they were. A few at first, cresting the hill to gallop along the ridge, then more, until ten or twelve were streaming along the skyline. They shimmered and gleamed as though they’d come straight out of the setting sun, manes and tails flying, hooves pounding, shadows doubling their number as they poured down the long slope into our valley. They were wild with the thrill of running together and I suddenly remembered the days when I had friends to run and climb and bike with. I knew the exhilaration of being carried along by the group and wished I could run with them. I started to cry again and Moth put her arms around me. We lifted Ginny up between us and hugged each other in a tight group.

As though this were a signal, the horses wheeled off the sloping path and hurtled towards us. Ginny began to laugh, her arms around our necks quivering with terrified delight as they careered on either side of us, raising stones and dust. I could hear their panting breath and smell the warm sweat, feeling the heat of their bodies and the shaking of the earth beneath their hooves, as they swept past us and down into the valley. We turned and watched, realising that the meadow gate was open and they were going to charge through.

‘I closed the gate,’ I said slowly, my voice croaky with tears and dust and Moth replied with the same bewilderment, ‘I know you did. I saw you.’

The horses circled the meadow at a gallop, the cattle and sheep gathering to a huddled group in the centre, then paused to breathe, ears pricked and necks outstretched, around Dad’s grave. Ginny was running and we sped after her, afraid they’d turn again and she’d be trampled. But she closed the gate, calling out to them, ‘You’re safe now. We’ll take care of you. Daddy sent you here for us.’

They swung their heads to look at her, then settled down, starting to graze and roll, as though they’d reached home.

Watching the horses had lifted us all a little, but when we got back to the house, Dad’s absence was so noticeable that we could only sit around crying. At last, Moth persuaded us to eat something then I had to go and see to the animals for the night. One of the good things about the animals was that they had to be taken care of, no matter how bad things were. So their needs hauled me to my feet. I told them they were a pain, but felt better by the time I’d done everything. Once I’d locked the chickens and goats away, I went to watch the horses in the dusk for a while.

They were wandering around, swishing their tails, checking the meadow out. I wondered if they’d been from here in the first place and were making sure it was all the same. One of them was lying down by Dad’s grave and I went over to say goodnight to Dad and get a closer look at the horse at the same time.

I already liked him. I’d been watching him earlier, when they were all settling down. He was a dark dappled grey, with a long mane, almost black, and his tail was the same colour. I liked his eyes – they were intelligent and curious. He showed no fear as I wandered over to lean on the wall. After lifting his head to glance at me, he carried on grazing, even though he was lying down. I’d not had much to do with horses before and I’d never seen one do that.

‘Supper in bed, is it?’ I asked him and he pricked up his ears at the sound of my voice. ‘Well, you look like you had a long journey, so I suppose you’re tired. That’s my Dad, there, keeping you company, you know.’

I had a feeling he already knew and wondered if I was going mad, talking to a horse about my dead father. But it didn’t seem mad. I noticed that none of the animals had touched the cowslips on the grave or trampled it, though there was a path round it where the horses had circled to pay their respects. I stayed a while longer before I said aloud, ‘’Night, Dad. I’ll be down in the morning.’ Then I headed back to the house, feeling as though I’d abandoned him.

We had a bad night. Ginny got in Moth’s bed straight away but she had a nightmare almost as soon as she fell asleep. I went in to see if they were all right and, when Moth said, ‘There’s room for three in here,’ I stayed. It was a long time since I’d slept in my parents’ bed but I was beyond the stage when proving I was independent mattered to me. Dad said that when the world you know ends, you have to pick the bits and pieces out of it that matter and build a new world. So, I slept in my parents’ bed and felt better.

I didn’t sleep much though. I lay awake most of the night looking at the pale-coloured ceiling in the moonlight. Ginny fell asleep, safe between me and Moth, but Moth was awake too. We talked now and again, quietly, about Dad. His love of hiking, corny jokes and wildlife books; his hatred of mobile phones but insistence that Ginn and I carried one everywhere so we could call if we needed backup ‘…anytime, do you hear? Day or night, I don’t care what brainless thing you’ve done or where you are’. Ideas he and Moth had for us before it all changed – university, travel, a round-the-world ticket for our twenty-first birthdays.

‘We never planned that you’d learn how to take care of chickens, though,’ Moth said. ‘Or make goat’s milk cheese.’

‘Or fix a sewer pipe,’ I reminded her. ‘I bet you never planned that one.’

I heard the laughter in her breath in the half-light. ‘No. We missed that out. What a bit of luck, eh, Jo, that you got the opportunity anyway?’

‘Sure. I’ve got a great future in sewerage when the world gets going again.’

‘Do you think it will, Jo? What are we going to do?’

There was silence as we contemplated the empty future, then I said, ‘Dad told me that if a good chance comes to get away, we should take it. Find more people and a place that’s not so remote and wild in the winter.’

She was quiet again and I could almost hear her thinking about the horses, as I was.

‘We should. He was right,’ she said, after a bit. ‘It’s safe here. But it’s a struggle. We’d need to be sure it was right to leave, though, because we’ve worked hard to make this place somewhere we can survive.’

‘And Dad’s here,’ I said, because I heard it in the silence when she stopped speaking. ‘We won’t leave Dad unless we’re sure.’

She was silent but she reached over Ginny and pressed my arm. ‘Your Dad loved you, Joel.’

‘I know.’

It was a long night, long and sad, so I was glad when the sun started coming in through the window. But our routines had revolved around taking care of Dad for so long that we seemed to have lost our rhythm. We got up and I went to get dressed, then couldn’t think what to do for a minute. I usually fed the animals while Moth made breakfast and then we got Dad and Ginn up later, so that was the same. Me and Moth awake first. But it felt different. I had to make myself go downstairs like a toddler not sure which foot went first. I saw Moth standing by the stove, staring out of the window, the kettle in her hand as though she didn’t know what to do with it. I took it off her and checked it was full, then put it on the stove and hugged her round the shoulders.

‘We’ll be all right, Moth,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be hard for a bit, but we’ll be all right.’

She looked at me for a moment, as though I was even more bewildering than a kettle, then she nodded. ‘I’ll get breakfast,’ she said, and we lurched into action again.

Outside, things were better. The chickens started squawking as soon as they heard me coming and emerged in flurries of indignant feathers, telling me off for being too slow in getting the shed door open.

‘Shut up,’ I told them, ‘or it’s chicken soup for supper tonight.’

They knew I didn’t mean it and started scratching around in the scraps and peelings and bits of crust I’d thrown down for their breakfast. They foraged for themselves all day, but we kept all our food scraps for them. I collected the eggs – there were five, which was good – then ran back to the house with them, because I had a tendency to put them down and forget where I’d left them.

When I’d milked and tethered the goats to stop them getting in the garden, I ran down to the meadow and the horses were still there. I’d half expected them to be gone. I went over to the grave. I felt sick at the thought of Dad there with the soil on top of him and insects starting to crawl – I had to stop myself thinking because I wanted to howl at the top of my voice. The sensation of being watched made me turn round sharply and the horse behind me backed away, throwing his head up because I’d moved quickly.

‘I’m sorry, boy,’ I said, on instinct squatting down so I wouldn’t alarm him. ‘Did I scare you? Come on, let’s be friends.’

It was the grey one that had been lying by Dad the night before and I realised that though he was cautious, he wasn’t scared at all – he’d simply been startled. Now he stretched out his neck to an impossible length to sniff the grass in my outstretched hand and it made me laugh,

‘You’re not a horse – you’re a giraffe. I like your colour. I’m going to call you Gray, after my Dad, if Moth says that’s okay.’ Had I ever heard her call him ‘Graham’? I’d never thought about it before. ‘Come on, have a bit of grass.’

Gray sniffed again and I felt his warm breath on my skin. It was slightly damp and sent a shiver down my spine because it tickled and he was big while I felt small, squatting down in front of him. He was beautiful, graceful, with neat ears and a finely shaped head. But he was solid too. He had strong legs and lots of hair round the ankles, if horses had ankles. I wished I had some books about horses so I could learn if they were called ankles. His mane was long. The fringe on his forehead came down well below his eyes and the glossy length along his neck swung down like a dark curtain. He was on the thin side but muscular. I’d seen racehorses on the television, and I didn’t think he was one of those. He looked a bit like the Shire horses that pulled the beer-wagons round the city at home. I wondered what had happened to them when the world ended.

Back in the old life, when I was Ginny’s age and she was a baby, we’d put her in her buggy and go to watch the huge horses with their wagons setting out to do their rounds. Moth knew about horses from when she rode as a girl and I remember her telling me what they were called. She’d know about their ankles maybe. But Gray was much smaller than a Shire – as though he’d shrunk in the wash.

‘That it, lad?’ I asked him. ‘Did you used to be a really big guy, but you got caught in the rain?’

I thought of the rain in the early days, burning but bitterly cold, and hoped none of it had landed on him. He took the grass, but with an air that said he was only being polite, because there was plenty of it in the meadow.

‘He’s lovely, Jo,’ said Moth’s voice, behind me. ‘What are you going to call him?’

I hesitated, not wanting to upset her. I watched her walk over to the grave and she knelt down to rest her hand against the earth for a moment before coming closer to me and the horse.

‘Do you mind if I call him Gray?’

Her face worked for a moment then she smiled. ‘No, you call him that. Hello, Gray – are you Jo’s new friend?’

‘I sort of think he is,’ I said.

Moth slipped an arm around my waist. ‘When did you get taller than me?’ she asked hugging me. ‘My big son. Well, we’ve got a ranch now, it seems.’

We looked out at the meadow, with the cattle and sheep lost among the small herd of horses. Gray wandered casually off to join them.

‘Have horses got ankles?’ I asked. ‘What’s the hairy bit round their legs called?’

‘Fetlocks,’ Moth replied, ‘and the hair is called feather.’

‘Few birds, but lots of feathers,’ I said. ‘What shall we do with them? How do you think Dad and Ginny knew they were coming?’

‘I have no idea,’ Moth shook her head. ‘And as for what to do with them, well, I suppose we’ll take care of them and think about riding them. We could travel further looking for food and perhaps find out if there is anyone else around. I wish I remembered a bit more – it’s a long time since I rode, but I suppose it will come back to me.’

‘Are they old enough to ride?’

Moth surveyed the horses. ‘Your friend is, I think, though he looks quite young. And those two over there look mature enough. The big guy, he’s older than the others, and that mare with the foal. I’ll be able to tell better when they’re a bit more used to us – you tell their age by looking at their teeth. Take care with them, Jo, I don’t want you to get...’ Her voice trailed away before she could say ‘kicked’.

‘C’mon, breakfast is ready.’ We found Ginny in the sitting room. ‘I’ve got all the books out,’ she said and I went to have a look. ‘Moth! Look at this. Ginn, where did these come from?’

On the table were a dozen books on horses. Some looked quite old, but others were newer. There were ones on feeding, illness and injuries, horse breeds, a couple on riding, one on teaching a horse to pull a cart and some on general care. Moth came in and we stood staring at them and at Ginny.

‘Ginny, where did you find the books?’

‘In the cupboard under the stairs.’

We kept the cleaning things that we’d found in the house – brushes, dustpan, a sweeper, but not the vacuum, which was no use without power – in the cupboard. We used them every day. If there’d been books in there, we’d have known.

‘Don’t be silly, Ginny,’ said Moth and she sounded almost afraid. ‘There have never been books under the stairs.’

‘They were in that box,’ Ginny nodded towards a cardboard box discarded alongside her. She was too busy looking at pictures to take much interest in the box, but Moth and I examined it carefully. It was an ordinary old box and lying in the bottom was a collection of magazines, also about horses. It had a label on it, marked ‘Horse books’ and I felt cold. ‘Is that Dad’s writing?’

Moth gripped my arm so hard I thought it would fall off. ‘Joel, wherever did this come from?’

The writing was Dad’s, but it was faded, as though it had been written years ago. Yet, when I looked at the books and magazines, some were only dated from two years earlier.

Ginny looked up, frowning at us. ‘What’re you so worried about? The horses are here and the books are here, because we need them.’

Moth turned away then. ‘There’re lots of things we need, Ginny, that are not here.’ But she turned back and kissed Ginn on the head. ‘Come along, my love, breakfast.’

We didn’t talk about where the books came from anymore. That was the thing about the horses. Ginny was right. There was no understanding and no point worrying. They were with us, and the books were with us. And when I went to look for the bridles Dad had mentioned, I was hardly surprised at all when I found three, with halters, saddles and square pads that Moth said went underneath them. And there was a harness too, the sort a horse would wear to pull a cart. Finding a cart we’d never noticed before, behind the outhouse, well – we took that in our stride.

We were all upset and edgy, remembering the last day with Dad and torn between being unable to believe it was already a week and somehow wondering if it could really be only that long. Moth looked ill. The dullness had settled into her bones so that every movement seemed an effort to her.

When Ginny said, ‘I want to go and talk to Daddy,’ Moth replied, ‘I’ll come with you in a bit, love.’

‘I want to go now,’ said Ginny and, as I looked up to say I’d go with her, she turned on us both. ‘I want to go on my own. I can go and see my Daddy if I want to. How come I can’t go down to the meadow anymore? I used to go in there with Big Boss and he kicked Daddy in the head.’

‘Boss doesn’t move as quickly as the horses,’ said Moth. ‘And you don’t want to go and play with him.’

‘Well, he’s just a stupid old bull. I want to go and play with the horses because Dad sent them. I want to go and see them and Daddy now and I’m going!’

She flipped her nose in the air and swung her pony-tail at us in defiance then stormed off. I was about to go after her, but Moth crumpled in on herself, starting to sob. I went to her instead because I thought Ginny was perfectly safe with the horses, though I’d kept quiet. I could see why Moth was over-careful with us but Ginny and the horses had something special and I was sure they wouldn’t hurt her.

I gave Moth a hug and said, ‘Come on. It’s bad day today. Let’s follow her down and see if she’s okay. I think you’re going to have to trust her and the horses, Moth.’

‘But...but...’ She sobbed and snuffled and wiped her eyes on her shirt sleeve, then, with an effort, shook herself straight and said, ‘She’s so little, Jo.’

‘She’s not so little as she would have been if we’d still been in the old home,’ I pointed out and she patted my cheek.

‘That’s what’s so hard, seeing both of you growing up too quickly and working all day when Ginn should be playing and you should be hanging out with your friends.’ She wiped her eyes again. ‘And thinking that in some ways it’s better. That’s the hardest bit of all, Jo.’

I knew what she meant. Was life really better when we’d not seen any other people in nearly two years and Dad was dead and if winter was hard we’d be short of food? But we spent most of the time outside with plenty to keep us busy and the air was clean and I liked growing things. Back in the old world we’d been surrounded by birds and I’d never noticed them. Now we saw only a few and I knew their calls and what type some of them were, and what they mostly chose to eat. I valued them. I liked the noise the chickens made when they were scratching in the yard, and watching the sun set over the skyline where the horses had appeared first. I liked talking and telling stories around the fire in the evening and I knew how to fix things and make soda bread and lots else I’d have laughed at the thought of doing before.

We wandered towards the meadow and when we found Ginny, Moth gave a little cry that she stifled at once. She was sitting near Dad’s grave with a book on her knee, and all the horses were with her. The foal lay stretched out close to her and the others were all crowded round so we could only see her through their legs. Gray looked as though he was reading over her shoulder and I couldn’t help but laugh.

‘Moth, she’s fine.’

Moth was struggling and then she suddenly let go. ‘Yes,’ she said with a sigh that came from the soles of her feet. We went down to join Ginny and, ignoring the horses, we walked through them and went to sit with her. The horses took no notice of us either and we all started sunbathing together.

Ginny kissed Moth’s cheek. ‘Sorry Moth, but see – they love me.’

‘I see. So what are they all called, then?’

Ginny was a great namer of things and, aside from accepting that I’d already named Gray, she’d demanded the right to the rest.

‘I’ve written them down in my book,’ she said. ‘There’s eleven of them, so it’s a lot to remember. There’s Gray, of course, and the other dark one like him is Momma Horse, then there’s Poppa Horse and the little foal is Whiskers.’ She reached out to tickle the chin of the sleepy foal who did have a wonderful set of long soft whiskers. ‘Then there’s Beauty – ’cos she’s black – and Flicka, she’s chestnut, like Poppa and Whiskers. Beauty and Flicka are Gray’s sisters and Momma and Poppa are their parents. Then the two light ones are Smoke and Misty. That leaves Sunset, Moonrise and Daybreak – they’re bay – I looked up the colours in the books.’

I was trying not to grin. ‘Those are some fancy names the last ones have got,’ I said, and Ginny looked at me severely. ‘They’re a family too. Smoke and Misty are strangers to the rest – they met up on the way here.’

‘How do you know all this, sweetie?’ Moth asked, holding out her hand to Misty, and Ginny shrugged. ‘I just do.’ She smiled at us. ‘Now we start learning to ride them. Oh and Momma and Poppa can pull a cart, by the way.’

I started riding Gray in the third week. Food was getting, well, not short, because it was spring and all the signs were that the world was getting going again. Things were growing, our vegetable plot was showing signs of life and with eggs, the ultimate sacrifice from a young cockerel now and then and some traps for rabbit, we could manage. Just about. We ate salads of young dandelions and sorrel most days and reminisced a lot about Dad and his nature walks.

‘All right, Ray Mears,’ Moth used to say in the old days, when he’d trek us all off looking for sweet chestnuts and chickenof-the-woods. ‘Just putting on my home-made sandals.’

‘Wove my own back-pack,’ I’d chip in, ‘out of willow-bark and badger fur.’

‘You may mock me now,’ Dad would wag his finger at us, and the memory of his grin made me happy and sad at the same time. ‘One day you’ll thank me.’

Well, now we thanked him every day and I sometimes felt chilled thinking about how right he’d been. But I could still see that once we’d grown and picked and foraged all we could, there probably wouldn’t be enough once the summer was over, even if Moth and I could face up to killing a sheep. It made sense to save as much as possible for the winter.

We’d done pretty well so far, because our farm and the hamlet three miles away, with its few houses and tiny shop, had all been well-stocked. We’d come across our valley by accident, completely lost after trying to take a short cut to save our dwindling fuel. The burning rains started soon after we arrived, so we sheltered in our little farm over the first winter till they stopped and we emerged into a silent world with no birds. By then we were sure no-one was coming back, so we’d gone though everything in the hamlet and carefully rationed what we found. We divided it up according to its shelf life and then managed it carefully, eked out with our foraging expeditions. But now, we were getting to the stage where I often wanted more to eat than we had to spare.

So, if I could go further, I could get down to the sea to fish. It was a day’s walk each way and Moth didn’t want me to go alone, but we couldn’t all go because of the animals. I’d been with Dad a couple of times in our first spring a year earlier and it really needed a few nights stay to get a good catch, find seaweed for laver bread and driftwood – all sorts there was on the shore. And there were other places, places we’d never yet explored. On Gray and with another horse as a pack-carrier, I could go further, bring back more.

As I tried to persuade Moth, I heard in my own voice how trapped I’d felt since Dad died. I longed to get away and see what was over the hills. And I wanted to know what it felt like to fly over the grass like the horses did, and feel the wind and Gray’s muscles powering beneath me. I wanted all that and to have it I needed to convince Moth I could ride him safely. She was right of course – if anything happened to me or her, the other one and Ginny were completely alone and it was hard work as it was, because though Ginn did her best, she couldn’t lift or dig very well.

She was a natural with the horses though and the day I headed out with a halter, I found her reading her book sitting on Poppa Horse’s back. I almost fell over. There I was, having read the books and running it all over in my head, thinking carefully about how to approach Gray – and Ginn’s already perched up on the big chestnut stallion like he’s an oversized cuddly toy.

‘Hi, Ginn,’ I said, stroking Poppa’s neck.

They all let us stroke them by then. I’d found that once I did it the right way – moving calmly, stroking, not patting – they started coming over to be petted. “Make much of your horse,” it said in one of the old books. They all liked being made much of and sometimes Gray would scratch my back with his teeth while I scratched his with my nails. Well, although it hurt, I knew from the books that it was a compliment so I gritted my teeth and scratched all the more. Gray had a favourite spot on his withers – I knew all the terms now – and he’d stretch out his neck and curl up his lip in bliss while I scratched it for him.

Poppa liked having his neck rubbed and he nudged at me for more.

‘How long have you been getting up on his back?’ I asked. ‘Does Moth know?’

Ginny nodded. ‘She saw me a bit ago. I only did it for the first time yesterday. He looked at me and I knew he said I could. He’s done it before so he knows all about it. So I stood on the wall, over he came and I climbed up.’ She grinned. ‘Poor Moth. She looked and opened her mouth, then she shook her head and went back to hoe the veggies.’

‘Remember Ginn, we’re all she’s got. You mustn’t frighten her. She misses Dad really bad.’

‘I miss him too. But it’s better down here, ’cos Daddy’s here with the horses.’

I knew what she meant. The horses were Dad’s and Ginny’s in some way I never understood. But I had a glimpse of him when I was with them. It was as though he was watching from a distance or he’d gone up to the house and he’d be back soon.

‘Go on then, Jo. Ride Gray. He’s not been ridden before but he’ll be all right.’

I hesitated, wishing I was on my own, because I thought I’d probably fall off. But if I did, well, I’d get back on again. I went up to Gray and let him sniff the halter and his laid-back reaction made us laugh.

I fiddled with it a bit because it seemed all knots and ends but he stood patiently until I had it neatly on his head. Once it was secure, I walked a few steps. Gray threw up his head and started to pull back on the rope so, remembering the book, I stepped towards him to create some slack. Then I tried again, taking care not to go far enough to put pressure on, and he thought about it a moment, then dropped his head and followed me, like a big dog. We practised for ages and he seemed to like it, his ears pricked forward and his eyes full of curiosity. Before long I could get him to follow by walking forward and if I tapped my fingers lightly on his chest he’d go back. Pretty soon, I could stand in front of him, making the tapping gesture and he’d go back on his own. I thought it was the best fun I’d ever had. Watching him watching me and judging how he’d move – we soon had a game going where I’d run and he’d chase me, then I’d chase him and we were dodging and running and Ginny was laughing up on Poppa Horse while the others kept grazing, as though this was normal.

The books said to take it slowly and I reckoned I’d already done far more in one day than was recommended. But I couldn’t resist sitting on him for a moment.

‘Is that okay, Gray?’ I asked him. ‘If I sit on you bareback for a minute? You cool with that? Then we could try the saddle tomorrow.’

I led him over to the wall and he stood alongside without any trouble. But when I got up and leaned on his back, his head came up and I got an anxious feeling in my stomach. I’d read that horses pick up our feelings, so I stood there stroking him until we both felt better, then I leaned my weight on him, keeping my feet on the wall. His back muscles felt tight so I stroked him until they softened then I got off him. We tried that a few times then I climbed a higher bit of the wall and got right over him so I was leaning across him from the waist and my feet were hanging.