The Thunderbolt Pony. Stacy Gregg

breath. “There’s a pen,” I say, “and a takeaway container, and a pair of glasses and a notebook.”

      “And why these four things?” Willard Fox asks.

      “Because I like even numbers.”

      “Why else, Evie?”

      There’s a pause in the room and you can hear the clock. I listen to it ticking. Willard Fox is good at silence, though, and he holds on and he waits for me.

      “They were on my dad’s beside table,” I say. “In the hospital. When I did it.”

      “When you did what, Evie?” Willard Fox says.

      I don’t answer.

      “Evie, do you think you made something bad happen?”

      I am shaking. I look down at my hands and see that they’re bound in a tight knot. This was why I never wanted to come here! I knew it would come to this eventually. Willard Fox is too smart for me. I knew he would find out what I’ve done.

      “Yes … no … maybe.”

      “Well, that covers all the bases,” Willard Fox says.

      I haven’t admitted this before, not to Mum or even to Gus. But with Willard the words just come out before I realise I’ve said them.

      “That day when we visited Dad,” I say, “I … I was trying to stop having the OCD and I … I made myself do it.”

      “What did you do? What do you mean, Evie?”

      “I didn’t know it would happen! I was trying to be good.”

      There is no air in the room and the dust motes float and I am not in my body any more. And I can hear my voice but it sounds like it isn’t mine as I tell Willard Fox what I did.

      “I came home and I got out of the car and only slammed it once. And that was when it happened.”

      I’m in tears now, and I can barely sob the words out.

      “That was the day he died.”

      “Evie? Do you really think your dad died because you didn’t slam a car door twice?”

      He’s not being funny right now and his smile, for once, is gone.

      “Yes,” I say softly.

      Willard Fox leans forward and makes a steeple with his fingertips. “You know, if this was Ancient Greece, we could have blamed the gods for your dad, right? Maybe your sacrifice to Zeus wasn’t quite right. Or maybe you angered one of the other gods, like Hera, maybe?”

      I nod, my eyes misting with tears.

      “Things were a lot easier, I think,” Willard Fox says, “when we had gods to shoulder the responsibility for our fates. Because without gods, how do we explain famine and disease and war? Or the death of someone we love. Without gods, there is no reason. All we have is the randomness of life. So why does fate make our car tyre go flat, or make our horse go lame just before a big competition, or give us the cancer that kills us?

      Willard Fox hands me a tissue and I blow my nose.

      “Evie, your OCD wants you to believe that you can slam a car door twice and change the course of the future, that you are the mastermind of this universe, that your rituals will bring order. But they won’t. So here’s the deal. You have to accept that the world is beyond your control. Stop making sacrifices to fake gods and take back your real power.”

      He smiles at me. “Can you do it?”

      I sniffle a little and then I look him square in the eye and I say it: “I’m in charge, OCD. I’m taking the reins.”

      And this time, I really, really mean it.

      ***

      “Are you ready, Evie?”

      It’s the weekend after my last session with Willard Fox and I’m in the best place in the whole world. At the start line of a cross-country course.

      Mum is standing beside me with Gus in his full tack. He has a martingale on him, and his new cross-country tendon boots. I pull on my gloves and tighten the chinstrap on my helmet, and then Mum gives me a leg up. I feel a rush run through me as I land lightly in the saddle and slip my feet into the irons.

      My OCD has been bad this morning. As I was tacking up, I could hear the bees ready to swarm and at the last minute I caved in to them and hastily put two tiny braids into Gus’s mane after all. No big deal. Just to be safe. To be safe. Now, as they’re calling out my number, 23, I get another twinge of OCD. I look down at my bib and wish it was an even number. Even would be safer. Even would be good.

      “Two riders to go ahead of you …” Mum looks at number 21 who’s at the start box and about to be given the signal to set off on the course. “You can head down there now …”

      She smiles and gives Gus a slappy pat on his shoulder. “Remember to slow down into the woods to take the roll top,” she says. “You need to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the light in there. Evie, remember at the ditch, look up! Never, ever look down or he’ll stop. Your eyes will take you where you want to go …”

      At the warm-up area beside the start box I take a tight hold on Gus and look out over the fences and trace my battle plan in my mind. Mum and I have already walked the course twice this morning. There are sixteen jumps and it seemed to me that her advice for each fence was usually exactly the same. “Sit up, keep straight and kick on!”