Free Sea Horses by Louise Cooper Page B

not!’
    Joel opened his mouth to argue again, then realized that it would be no use. Tamzin was determined, and nothing he could say would stop her.
    ‘All right.’ He nodded sharply. ‘But I'll wait by the headland, where I can keep watch on the sea. Here, take the torch. If the tide starts getting too close I'll shout – and whatever you're doing, stop it and come running!’
    ‘I will,’ she promised. She glanced at the sea. It did look perilously close, and she suppressed a shiver.
    ‘Give me Moonlight's halter rope,’ Joel added. ‘He'd better stay here with me. He's overexcited, and you might not be able to handle him on your own.’ Tamzin hesitated, but he didn't give her time to protest. ‘ Go on !’
    Moonlight didn't want Tamzin to go alone. He fussed and danced and fought, but Joel had a strong grip on his halter and made him stay. Tamzin took a few paces, then looked back at them both. Moonlight was staring after her, but Joel's face was in shadow. She took a deep breath and entered the cave.
    The sound of the sea changed to a hollow echo as she moved deeper in. It was cold in here, a dank, clammy coldness that seemed to clutch at her bones. What was she supposed to do? She didn't like being in the cave alone, and was tempted to run back and ask Joel to bring Moonlight and come with her. But when she turned to look at the silver-grey beach she saw how close the tide was. It was better, safer, that Joel should stay outside, to keep watch. She had so little time…
    She turned again and started to move the torch slowly from side to side, scanning the cave walls. At first the beam lit only the craggy, broken rock face, veined with dull colours. But as the light reached the back of the cave, it was echoed by a quick, bright flicker that wasn't made by the torch.
    Tamzin's heart stopped, thumped, then started to beat very fast. Right at the back of the cave was a long fissure. Something was there. Something that glowed with a small light of its own.
    She switched the torch off, to be sure. The glow was still there, and it showed a small object wedged in the fissure, about three metres up. From here Tamzin couldn't see what it was. But a powerful intuition told her that this was what Moonlight had wanted her to find.
    She switched the torch on again and looked at the cave floor. There was a pool at the back of the cave but it didn't look too deep, and beyond it were rocks that she could scramble up. She should be able to reach the fissure quite easily.
    She pulled off her shoes and socks, rolled up the legs of her jeans and waded cautiously into the pool. The water only came to her knees, but it was stunningly cold and her feet tingled as she climbed up on to the lowest rock. The glow was still there, but it seemed to be fading. No matter: she knew where the object was. All she had to do was reach it.
    Tamzin searched around for a safe foothold. Climbing with the torch in her hand wasn't as easy as she had hoped, but she went slowly and carefully, and within a couple of minutes her head was on a level with the object. The glow around it had vanished altogether now, and a rock spur cast a shadow in the torch beam, so she couldn't see it clearly. But it looked like a piece of stone, smaller than her fist… and with a thrill she realized what it must be. The missing piece from the statue she had broken – part of the head of the Grey Horse, which would make the figure whole again! It must have been washed here when she threw it into the sea. And, somehow, Moonlight had known .
    Here was the chance she had been so desperately hoping for – the chance to put right all the wrong she had done. Tamzin took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. Then she reached out and her fingers closed round the stone fragment. It was slippery, so that when she tried to prise it from the crevice she found it hard to get a grip. But after a few seconds of scrabbling and wiggling, it came free. Tamzin thrust it deep into a pocket of