Wendy's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

By morning Wendy had a meeting spot and no way to reach it. The secret address sat three streets from the first, closer than the northern town but still too far to walk with an animal in tow. The woman had been clear. Bring the pony, or she would not show. Wendy stood in the barn doorway and looked at the only creature that could ruin everything. The pony stared back. It planted its four short legs and flattened its shaggy ears. Wendy lifted the harness from the rail and stepped closer. The pony swung its head away. "You're coming," she said. "He bought you. You owe me this much." She worked the straps over its neck. The pony held still, which she mistook for surrender. Then it sat. All of it. Rump on the straw, forelegs braced, like a dog refusing a bath. Wendy pulled the lead rope. The pony did not move. She pulled harder. Her polished shoes slid across the floor and she landed on her back in the dirt. She lay there, breathing hard. Her blazer was smeared. Her careful plans meant nothing to a hundred pounds of stubborn muscle. She could not carry it. She could not drag it. And the woman would wait only so long. Wendy sat up and looked at the small cart beside the rail. The harness she'd been fighting to put on the pony's back was a cart harness. She had been trying to lead a driving animal. It didn't want to be led. It wanted to pull. She crawled to her feet. She backed the cart toward the pony and hitched the traces the way she'd seen in the feed-store diagram taped to the wall. Then she climbed onto the seat and clicked her tongue, the way the innkeeper had. The pony rose. It shook its mane and leaned into the harness. The cart lurched forward, out of the barn, into the gray light. Wendy gripped the reins and did not smile, but something in her chest loosened. She had a way to the meeting. She had the pony. She had the bait the frightened woman demanded. She steered onto the road with the address open in her planner on her knee. The wheels rattled under her. The pony trotted, grudging but moving. Then the woman's warning came back, clear as the call. If you bring that animal, you'll bring him too. Wendy had just solved the one problem she could solve. The cart carried her toward the woman. It also carried the exact thing that might draw her runaway groom out of hiding. She had wanted to find him. Now she was hauling a signal straight to a stranger who was terrified of being found. She flicked the reins and kept going. There was no turning the cart around on a road this narrow.