Cloud Magic

had his face over the fence, but the grumpy local farmer was in the field and he shouted at her. Erin hurried on her way.
    Daydreaming about the ponies she would have if she lived in a farmhouse with a stable block and fields of her own, Erin turned on to a path half hidden by overgrown bushes and small trees. It led down to the beach. The stones were rough beneath her feet and the path was so steep in places she had to hang on to tufts of grass, but she had been down it so often she knew exactly where she had to be careful.
    She reached the small beach and walked along it a little way before sitting down on a large dry rock. This was one of her favourite places in the world. It was very quiet apart from the birds, completely different from the busy touristy beach down the coast where her stepbrothers loved to hang out.

    Her eyes followed the jagged headland round. At the furthest tip there was a spit of land that ended in three enormous stones. They jutted up out of the sea, two standing upright and a round one that looked like an enormous Polo. The hole in it was so large that an adult could easily climb through it. The three rocks were known locally as World’s End. It was just about possible to walk to them from the beach, but if the tide was high the spit of land got covered up.
    Erin moved her toes in the stones. They tumbled over each other, grey, white and brown. Her gaze searched across them. Could she see any hagstones? They were stones with holes in the middle, like miniature versions of the round World’s End stone.
    Aunt Alice had told her that in the old days people used to hang hagstones up outside the houses to keep witches away and that they had tried to do magic with them. She’d said that people used to believe that they could be used for working weather magic or healing magic or casting spells of protection. Witchstones , they were called then. Erin had always been very good at finding them.
    There! she thought, suddenly spotting one.
    It was a round, grey stone with lines of white shot through it. She picked it up. In the centre there was one circular hole, big enough for her to fit a finger through. Erin turned the stone over in her hand. It was cold and smooth. Sometimes hagstones had lots of holes, sometimes they had a hole on one side that hadn’t gone through to the other side completely and sometimes there was a small hole blocked by a chip of rock or shell. They were all different. She kept the best ones for her collection at home.

    Erin studied the stone carefully.
    She liked the way the grey and white streaked together and the smoothness of the sides. She would definitely keep this one. As she held it, the rattle of the stones on the beach seemed to grow slightly louder.
    What would it be like if hagstones really could be used for working magic like people used to believe? she thought. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
    Lifting the stone up so that it was pointing at the clouds she looked idly through the hole.
    Erin almost dropped the stone in shock. Horses! There were grey horses in the sky! Some were cantering, some walking, others were standing in groups in a cloud land of hills and valleys, streams and rivers…
    Abruptly, she blinked and looked up at the skies without the stone. The clouds looked normal again. ‘Weird,’ she muttered. Was it just her imagination? She had often watched the sky and imagined a cloud take on the shape of a dragon or a castle or something else. But something about this felt different. It had been like looking at a film. There had been loads of horses – a whole land full of them. Erin stared at the stone in her hand. It had been just her imagination, hadn’t it?
    It can’t be real , she told herself. You know it can’t be . Quickly, she lifted the hagstone again, her heart thudding in her chest.
    She gasped as she watched a young grey colt rear up playfully at another and a group of older mares trot past in the clouds. There really were horses in the sky!

C H A P T E R
    Two
    Erin tore along the cliff. By the time she reached the lane she had a stitch in her side from running so fast, but she didn’t stop. She raced up to the cottage and banged on the door.
    Jo opened it. Taking one look at Erin’s wide eyes, she frowned. ‘What is it, Erin? Are you OK?’
    ‘In the sky! I’ve seen something in the sky!’ Erin’s lungs hurt as she grabbed great mouthfuls of air.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Jo said in astonishment.
    Aunt Alice