Free The White Horse Trick by Kate Thompson

big rock in a field and they asked him for his help. So he leaned off the horse to help them move it and he lost his balance and fell.’
    Pup studied the height of the horse. ‘That must have been sore.’
    ‘A bit worse than that,’ said Jenny. ‘He turned to dust. His life had all passed away in his own land while he was in Tír na n’Óg, you see. That’s why it might not be possible for you to go back, Pup. There’s no way of knowing on this side how much time is passing over there. It might be only hours since you left there or it might be a hundred years.’
    ‘Huh,’ said Pup, in the same dismissive tone he had used when Jenny mentioned the fairy powers.
    ‘You’ll see,’ she said, setting out on the road again.
    Around the next bend they saw another group ofthin, ragged people making their way towards them. This time there were two soldiers with them. Before Jenny had time to speak, Pup dived into the hedgerow and disappeared. Jenny waited where she was, but these new people were wandering towards her so slowly she decided to go ahead and meet them. Pup would have to look after himself.
    All of them, even the soldiers, looked lost and bewildered.
    ‘Welcome to Tír na n’Óg,’ said Jenny. ‘Make yourselves at home.’
    ‘Where did you say we were?’ said one of the soldiers.
    ‘Tír na n’Óg,’ said Jenny. ‘The land of eternal youth.’
    There were about eight of the wet, muddy people, and all of them gazed at her blankly. The soldiers did, too, and Jenny noticed that both of them looked nearly as thin and worn out as the people they were guarding. Her scrutiny clearly made them uncomfortable, because one of them made a visible effort to pull himself together, and said, ‘Where will we find supplies?’
    ‘Oh,’ said Jenny. ‘You’re looking for stuff, too, are you?’
    ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Have the others been along?’
    ‘They have,’ she said. ‘And they’re all getting on fine. The best thing you can do is carry on down this road until you come to the village. Then look for JJ. He’ll tell you what to do.’
    ‘JJ who?’ said the soldier.
    He had nasty sores around his mouth and Jenny triedhard not to look at them. ‘Just JJ,’ she said. ‘There’s only one JJ.’
    ‘And he’ll tell us where the stuff is?’
    ‘If there’s stuff to be had, then JJ is the man to tell you where to find it,’ said Jenny.
    A flicker of something keen and greedy crossed the soldier’s face, then melted away again, replaced by the familiar dazed expression. But it worried Jenny, and she began to wonder if she was taking all this soldier business less seriously than she ought to. She stood aside and let the weary group shuffle past her, and then, when the soldiers drew level, she turned them, one after the other, into sheepdogs.
    She was disappointed by the reaction she got, or didn’t get, to her magic. The people in the raiding party were all so dazed that they didn’t turn round, even when the guns clattered noisily to the ground. And when Pup caught up with her, it was clear that he had been keeping himself hidden behind the hedge and had seen nothing. Jenny didn’t bother to tell him. It would just sound like showing off, and he probably wouldn’t believe her anyway.

23
    Aengus and Maureen began walking along the road together, and Maureen chatted happily, clinking her coins together in her pocket like a primitive percussion instrument. But before they had covered a mile of the road her mood began to change.
    ‘This will be a great help,’ she said, jingling the coins one last time, ‘but I can’t see anything saving us in the long run. Not unless the weather gets better, and there’s no sign of that happening, is there?’
    ‘It’s not too bad just now,’ Aengus said. The sun was still out, the sticky, steamy mist had burned away and he was at last drying out quite rapidly.
    ‘I don’t mean today,’ she said. ‘I mean the rain and the storms and the droughts and the