into the mud with a sickening thud. She was trapped, and struggling was only making it worse.
I kept running to her until I felt the ground beneath my feet go really soft. From here on in I had to test the ground with each step. I circled right round the horse, padding as I stepped, trying to find the best spot to approach from, where the ground was more solid.
My horse was foaming with sweat and shaking all over. She didn’t seem scared of me though; she was too focused on fighting her way out of the mud. I could see the whites of her eyes showing at the edges, making her blue eyes look even wilder. I could feel my heart hammering, but I had to get closer if I was going to help her, so I kept edging forward. I’d only taken a couple of steps when I felt the mud beneath me give way. I let out a squeal and the horse stopped thrashing and looked at me. Stay calm, I told myself, you can do this. I was almost close enough to reach her.
I ploughed on and felt the ground devouring me with each step. Then my foot got stuck and I collapsed hard against her.
The horse swung her neck as I fell, trying to move away from me, but she had nowhere to go. I grasped her soaking wet mane and clung on to it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I tried to push myself back off her but I was stuck. Her shoulder was pressed up hard against my thigh and I sank further into the mud.
“Easy, girl. Stay calm. I’m going to get you out.”
I still had the rope halter slung over my shoulder. With fumbling hands I tried to slip the loop over her nose and then I lifted the earpiece over her head. She didn’t flinch from my touch. It was like she knew I was trying to help her.
Once I got the halter on, the hard work really began. It took me ages to pull myself back out of the mud. I would work one leg free only to have it suctioned back down as I fought to loosen the other limb. In the end I managed to crawl free by clawing my way out with my hands, using my fingers like grappling hooks to pull myself out. At least I knew that I could get free again if I needed to. But while I was light enough to get out of the mud hole, my horse wasn’t. And the more she struggled, the deeper she sank.
I moved round so that I was facing her, and then, grasping on with one hand each side of the rope halter, I leant back with all my weight, dug in my heels and I pulled. I pulled with all my strength, as hard as I could.
And… Nothing. The only thing that happened was I began sinking faster than before back into the mud.
I tried again, really yanking at the halter so that the ropes dug into the horse’s face. But even as I tried again I knew it wasn’t going to work. The horse must have weighed at least ten times as much as me and she was stuck deep.
I looked around me for something I could use – a stick or a branch. But there was nothing except marsh grass and tidal pools. And the sea. The sea, which, as I now noticed, was getting closer. The tide was coming in.
This whole mudflat must end up underwater when the tide was high. My horse would end up underwater. I searched more desperately for something to pull her out with. And then, when I couldn’t find anything, I began to dig. Maybe I could make a channel through the mud so that she could fight her way back to the surface again.
I used both hands, scooping up the sand through my legs like a dog. There was a frenzy to my digging as I shovelled the mud up and threw it aside, and I flung myself into the task, digging the channel as fast as I could. With every handful of mud that I dug up, more mud oozed in to take its place. All I was doing was making the hole more and more squishy and unstable.
I tried to dig closer to the horse, and felt the mud cave away completely so that I was up to my thighs once more.
It was futile to try and get her out. So instead, I made up my mind that I would stay with her for as long as possible. She struggled less if I stayed close and stroked her, spoke soothing words to her. I could drag myself out when the time came, but until that moment I would not abandon her.
“It’s OK.” I cradled her head. “It’s going to be OK.” But I believed this less and less. She was exhausted and so was I. The sun was right overhead and it was hot, really hot. My head was throbbing, and I felt prickly all over, like my skin had hot needles pressing into it.
I became mesmerised by the lapping of the sea, the way it kept creeping forward, slowly but surely. We had another hour left at most before it reached us.
“I’m sorry,” I kept saying to my horse. Because I knew now that I couldn’t save her. But I couldn’t leave her. Not yet.
Maybe it was the sun that made me dizzy, I don’t know, but at some point I must have begun slipping in and out of consciousness. I would wake up with a jolt and then sink back into a dream.
Get up, I told myself. Things have gone too far now. It was time to get myself out of the mud. It probably sounds weird to say I was freezing, because the sun was right up overhead, but suddenly I felt chilled to the bone.
It was when I realised that I couldn’t move my legs that I truly began to panic. They’d gone completely numb under the mud. I tried to kick and felt myself sink deeper.
I clawed at the mud, driven on by raw adrenaline, but even the fear wasn’t enough to bring the strength back to my exhausted arms. My muscles were jelly.
“Help me!” The words came out weak and strangled. My throat was thick and dry, my tongue swollen. “Help me!”
I swear the parrots laughed at me. I heard them caw-caw. Why were they so horrible?
“Help me…” My words were choked with tears. I was so stupid. I should have left Mom a note. What if she never ever found me? I didn’t want to die out here in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t want to die.
My head was all woozy. I shut my eyes to block out the glare and my world became darkness and sounds. There was the constant lap and swell of the sea as it crept up on me, and the birds calling in the sky above us, the rattle of the horse’s breath and the mud gurgling beneath me. And then, cutting through all of these, I heard a shrill whine, like a mosquito at first, then growing closer and louder until it filled my ears. I opened my eyes and squinted into the sun.
It was a motorbike.
The horse had lost all her fight. She lay submerged in the mud beside me, each rattling, heaving gasp she took seeming like it might be her last. Then the motorbike roared into the silence and brought her violently back to her senses.
She began to thrash about, legs flailing in the mud alongside me. I felt one of her front hooves accidentally glance against the hard bone of my ankle and I swallowed the pain in a wrenching gasp of agony. Trying to get away from her, I uselessly clawed at the mud again. But I had no strength left.
I tried to cry out again, to say, “I’m here!” but my tongue had turned to rubber. The motorbike noise filled my head, piercing my brain.
And then it stopped.
I could see a figure walking towards me. I screwed my face up against the blinding glare. My eyes hurt so much I had to shut them tight. When I opened them there was a shadow looming above me, blocking out the sun.
“My goodness, child! How long is you been like dis?”
I squinted up at the silhouette.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Hours, I guess.” I could barely get the words out of my dry mouth. I was still sun-blind but when the figure bent down really low, putting her face near mine, I could see that it was a woman. She had dark coffee-coloured skin and her hair was matted in dreadlocks, tangled with grey. She had a thick, broad nose, and swollen lips. Her eyes stared into mine with a keen brightness.
“Here.” She held my head by the chin and pushed a water bottle to my lips. “Drink it.”
I