Daring to Dream by Suzanne Weyn

Author:Suzanne Weyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Despite the burning pain of her badly skinned knee that throbbed beneath her newly torn jeans, Taylor let out a small snort of laughter when she looked up. She was staring at a bent, rusted street sign overgrown with vines: WILDWOOD LANE. She could barely make out the name beneath all the plant life tangled around the sign. If she hadn’t spun all the way across the road and crashed into it, she’d probably never have found the lane.

Taylor winced as she tried to straighten her leg. Reaching out to the signpost for support, she pulled herself up. Although it hurt like crazy when she let go of the post, she could stand — which meant her leg wasn’t broken, at least.

Grabbing the handlebars of her dented bike, she spun the front wheel with her toe. It turned easily. She was relieved that the bike, although scraped and dinged, was otherwise unharmed. She wheeled it to a tangle of overgrown forsythia bushes that were turning brown and stashed the bike inside its branches.

So this was Wildwood Lane.

She was standing on a narrow dirt road leading off of Quail Ridge. It was just wide enough for one car or truck. Taylor took a step and discovered that her knee buckled slightly, causing her to limp. The pain wasn’t unbearable, though, so she continued down the road. No tire tracks marred the dirt, which meant that no one had driven through here at least since the rain last Saturday. Judging from the flatness of the dirt, Taylor guessed no one had been down Wildwood Lane in a very long time. There were only bushes and scrubby trees on either side of the road and for as far as she could see. But the road turned sharply, and she was curious about what lay around the bend.

When Taylor finally turned the corner, she breathed in a slow, awestruck breath. In front of her was the long-abandoned ranch. Blistered wooden buildings and a stable stood silently behind two corrals with broken, splintered fences. Silence hung so thickly over the ranch that Taylor felt she could almost reach out to touch the deep quiet.

Continuing on the dirt road, she came to a large wooden sign that must have once announced the name of the ranch. Now it was so badly faded and peeled that Taylor couldn’t read it.

A sudden wind blasted through and shook the loose shutters of the main building. With a bang, a door of another building slammed and made Taylor jump. In the surrounding woods, a loose limb creaked ominously.

Taylor passed a towering maple with knotty roots and widespread branches as she headed to the main building and slid the big front door to one side. She entered a hall with a dirt floor. Even now she inhaled the unmistakable aroma of the horses that had once lived here. To the left was an office, its door hanging off one hinge. A ripped leather couch and a big, badly worn desk were its only furniture.

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