Chapter 5 Nightmares and Stallions

"But how did you know about the bomb?" asked his sister.

"How do you think?" answered Luke in exasperation. "Divine revelation. Goth God comes up at 10:00, says I have one hour to avert a disaster. So I sneak into the computer lab and write the message while everybody thinks I'm at the assembly. Fortunately nobody notices I'm missing. I guess I'm like that," he added bitterly.

"But how did you cover up your identity online?" asked Adam.

"Fortunately, I had done it before. Last fall we tried to send an Email to Ryan Hunter without getting tracked back. I persuaded Friedmann to teach me some tricks. I remembered how to do it. But if somebody gets through all that and traces it back to me, what am I supposed to say? That voices told me to send the message?"

"Let's focus on the more immediate problem," pursued Grace. "Goth God didn't tell you who really did it?"

"Nope. That would be too easy. Apparently we're supposed to figure out that part -- or let the grownups do it."

"Let's think," said Joan. "You didn't do it, Grace, and you claim your "club" didn't do it, but maybe somebody in the club knows somebody that did it. I mean, it WAS pretty radical. What's that Internet name called, Luke?"

"Six Degrees of Separation. This would be three degrees."

"OK. You wouldn't tell Lucy Preston about your club members' names, Grace, but will you tell us? Then we can divvy them up, and ask each member what they know."

"Sounds good," said Adam.

"I hate to betray a confidence, but my ass is on the line here," said Grace miserably. "I'll give you the names before we separate tomorrow."

After that they discussed sleeping arrangements. They eventually decided that Adam would take Kevin's old room, Luke would keep his own, and that Grace would share Joan's. Grace tried to joke that Joan would have more fun with Adam, but it fell flat. The Girardis were still too upset about her own bed switch two months ago.

She did not mind sharing a room and bed with Joan, but she made sure that Joan wasn't around when she opened her suitcase. Joan might wonder why she had packed clothes for several days, and not just overnight. Eventually the two girls got in bed together, exchanged some trivial conversation, and fell asleep.

Guards were dragging Agraciada Polca down a hall. She didn't seem to have any clothes on, but nobody seemed to notice that. That should have tipped Grace off that this was a dream, but it also fit the cruelty of the setting. Eventually they reached an office so ornate that it might be a throne room. And, indeed, the person who operated from here was one of the most powerful men of the Spanish Empire, the most extensive realm of the world.

A man dressed in the robes of a monk entered. To Grace's eyes he looked like a peculiar cross between Mr. Price and Lucy Preston, but one of the guards said:

"Bow to the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada!"

"Mr. Turkey-manure here doesn't deserve my reverence," said Agraciada.

One of the guards slapped her lower leg painfully with a stick, forcing her into a curtsey.

"Senorita Polca, so far we have dealt gently with you, trying to appeal to your better nature," said Torquemada. "I will give you one more chance. Where have your co-religionists hidden their so-called holy books?"

"To use a phrase from your own holy book, I do not cast pearls before a swine," Agraciada said boldly. The goyim might eat pigs, but they still considered swine a vile insult.

"Very well. Guards, conduct the Senorita to the torture chamber, and hold her until I decide upon the method of questioning. Place a hood over her head, so that she shall not see what her fate is until the pain begins. The foreboding might be enough to loosen her lips."

"No! I won't give in. Porca! Goy!" Agraciada struggled with the guards.

"Grace! Grace! Wake up! You're having a nightmare!" cried Joan.

Grace opened her eyes and found herself in Joan's bed. The bonds that she had struggled against turned out to be the bedspread, in which she was entangled. "What happened?"

"You were wiggling a lot and shouting something. I recognized "goy". I know that's a term for people like me--"

Grace felt herself turning red, and was glad that the room was too dark for Joan to notice that. "That wasn't meant for you. I dreamt that I was being questioned by the Spanish Inquisition."

"The Inquisition?"

"Supposedly they burned one of my ancestors at the stake. Their main targets were Jews, you know."

"I didn't know; I thought they were just nasty in general. But all that's centuries ago. Put it out of your head, and get some rest."

Grace pretended to comply, not wanting to let Joan know what was going through her mind. But as she lay silent afterward, pretending to sleep, she knew exactly what prompted her to dream of the Inquisition tonight.

The next morning she dutifully wrote out the members of her anarchist group and distributed the list among her three friends. But she had already decided on a more desperate strategy. After breakfast she asked her boyfriend: "Luke, can you drive me out to the Beghs' horse farm?"

"Sure."

"And promise not to tell anybody afterwards?"

Luke looked puzzled, but apparently thought it best not to pry into Grace's secrets. "OK".

------

For most of her adolescence, Grace had regarded horseback riding as a rich girl's silly indulgence. But this past summer, soon after being let into Joan's secret, she had been taught to ride by God Herself, in the guise of a skilled equestrienne. God prophesied that there was a future task in which the skill would be crucial. And though Grace could not afford to buy or maintain a horse of her own, God had arranged for her to meet the Beghs. Professor Begh was a scholar who lectured on Muslim culture at a nearby university, but his family had bred horses for generations in Turkey, and he had decided to continue the tradition in America. Thus Grace could go riding whenever she liked -- and it turned out that she did.

Today, though, was a serious business. It might even be the crisis that God had foretold, and that reasoning spurred Grace on.

After Luke dropped her off, Grace walked to the ornate Moorish porch and rang the doorbell. It was answered by a man who was dressed like a butler but looked like a prizefighter. The Beghs had evidently decided to hire a bodyguard. "Yeah?"

"I'd like to see Maggie Begh."

"She doesn't wanna see nobody."

"Tell her it's Grace Polk."

He shut the door and Grace, left in the cold, hoped that he would carry out the commission and not just leave her stranded outdoors several miles from town.

Eventually the door was reopened, by Maggie herself. She was dressed in a far more "Turkish" outfit than she had ever worn at school: colorful with broad pantaloons. It was probably her idea of lounging-around clothes. "Come in."

"I haven't seen you at school for the past few days," Grace commented, following her friend.

"No, Baba has decided to pull me out. He does not think it is safe for me anymore. He's debating whether to put me in a different school or send me home."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, it is certainly not YOUR fault. You saved me from bullies. Twice, actually. And I have never returned the favor. Is there something I can do for you?"

"I know that it's an odd thing to ask, but could I borrow a horse?"

Maggie gave her an odd look. "That IS an odd request. Most schoolmates try to borrow pencils, and forget to return them. Will you be careful to return the horse when you're done?"

"Um---" Grace hadn't planned that far.

"Never mind. Let me put on something warm, and we'll go to the stables."

Grace followed the Turkish girl to her bedroom. She put on a heavy coat, then, as an afterthought, opened a jewelry box and took out two bracelets, which she shoved into a pocket. Then they went through another corridor to a side door. From there a path led to the stables.

Maggie let them in and shut the stable door behind her. Inside the air was warm but, rather inevitably, stank of horse droppings. She dropped her sardonic manner altogether.

"I may be new to your country, Grace, but I am not a dummy. You are in trouble, right?"

"Yeah. They think I had something to do with the bombing. And I'm dealing with police, not school bullies."

"I do not know what American prisons are like, but in Turkey--" she shuddered. "And you want to get away by riding on a horse. It is an odd choice. This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth."

"That's the idea. I don't drive, myself. If somebody else drives me, they get implicated. If I buy a ticket for a train or bus, they can trace it and find out where I'm going. But a horse won't leave a trail."

Maggie snorted. "Oh, really? Ever clean up behind a horse?"

"Actually, yes. But out in the country, who's going to go CSI on every pile of crap they find, and deduce it's from my mount?"

"Right." Maggie surveyed the horses in their stalls with an expert eye. From Grace's point of view, it was simply a long string of horses' rears. "I'll give you Ajax. He's not the fastest horse, but he's the hardiest. You can ride him for hours, and he can put up with the cold weather."

"Thanks. You named a horse after a detergent?"

"No, a Trojan War hero. Troy was in Turkey. Just keep in mind that a horse is not a car. It feels cold, and get tired. You can't simply drive it until it "runs out of petrol". No matter how desperate you feel, you MUST give it periods of rest."

"I understand."

Maggie went into an adjoining store-room. "We have our address engraved on every saddle. If you turn the horse loose at some point, and an honest person finds it, we'll get the horse back."

And if a dishonest person decides to throw away a saddle and keep a valuable horse, the Beghs will be out several thousand dollars. Maggie's really going out on a limb for me.

They opened Grace's suitcase and tried to stuff her possessions into a pair of saddlebags. It looked like Grace would have to leave some stuff behind. But Maggie drew the bracelets from her pocket. "If you get short of money, you can take these to a moneylender -- how do you say it in English?"

"Pawnshop." Grace had never had to visit one before, but that was the least of her difficulties today.

"Tell me where they are afterward and I will buy them back."

Possibly paying for them twice. "Maggie, you're taking a lot of risk."

"Bah, it is just money. This is friendship."

It's easy to be generous with money when you have a lot of it, thought Grace, then was a bit ashamed of the catty thought.

Maggie saddled Ajax, then led him outdoors by the reins. Grace put her foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself up into the saddle, taking the reins from Maggie. As usual when she mounted a horse, she felt conflicting emotions. First a sense of power at having a strong beast at her command, and at looking down on mere mortals from ten feet high. Then a realistic appraisal: a girl on horseback was easy outmatched by a powerful police force. All she could do was gallop away.

"Thank you for everything, Maggie."

"Good luck, Grace."

She urged her steed into a gallop, and began her flight.

TBC