Rebecca Martin was having dreams - strange dreams. To top it all, they were recurring every night over the past fortnight. In these identical dreams, she dreamt she was riding a white across desert sands toward some unknown destination, urging her mount forward to their destination which she knew was getting closer and closer....and then she woke up. It was the same every night - she appeared tantalizingly close to her destination somewhere in the desert before waking up quite suddenly without knowing what it was. This had continued for a fortnight.....
Rebecca was a 44 year old divorcee with an 18 year old son Mark who had just completed high school and wanted to take a year off before heading to college. Rebecca wondered what her dreams meant - she was an experienced horsewoman and loved visiting her friend Angie's horse farm not too far from her house and where she had spent many happy hours riding Angie's horses. She loved galloping across the countryside but what was she doing riding a horse in the desert?
It was Mark who suggested it when she recounted her dream to him - asking her to accompany him on a camping trip across Europe, which would hopefully stop these dreams recurring by the change of scene that a vacation in Europe would provide. Rebecca agreed - she needed a break from her high-pressure career as well as her dreams - dreams, which she thought, might have been induced by stress.
And so they set out on their fateful trip to Europe - landing in Paris and starting off toward the East. Rebecca's dreams got less frequent and soon stopped. Eventually they were camping their way across Eastern Europe and weeks after they started out found themselves in Slovakia where Rebecca's dreams started again with a vengeance. She could not believe it - she had thought the freakshow was over - and now this! The dreams were exactly the same - Rebecca found herself galloping on a white horse in the desert tantalizingly close to her destination and then time to wake.
They continued onward and soon found themselves in Romania - land of magic, werewolves, vampires...
And then it just happened. Rebecca and Mark had gone to bed one night in their adjacent tents - they were camping close to a gipsy settlement located in a meadow - when Rebecca heard something in Mark's tent and yelled out to him to go to sleep. Presently it was quiet again and Rebecca soon fell asleep... to dream again.....
The next morning she entered Mark's tent to wake him up thinking he was still asleep and was surprised to find it empty!
She called out to him again and again to no avail - Mark had disappeared! And then it happened. She heard hooves and turned out to find to her great surprise a middle-aged gipsy woman riding toward her on a white horse, one identical to the one in her dreams. The woman approached her and dismounted. She addressed Rebecca in surprisingly good English "Have you been having dreams recently"? Rebecca answered perplexed "Yes, I've been having recurring dreams where I am riding a horse just like this one here in the desert toward some unknown destination, but now my son is missing. Have you seen him around here?" "You are looking at him" the gipsy replied simply pointing at the horse. Rebecca could not believe her ears - she took a close look at the horse for the first time and saw that he was wearing a saddle and bridle identical to the ones her dream. "There must be a method to this madness" she thought to herself. Something was indeed happening - a horse just like the one in her dreams had appeared even wearing an identical saddle and her son was missing - could he actually be the horse? She looked quizzically at the horse asking aloud "Mark, is that you?" To her surprise, the horse nodded its head. The gipsy woman now intervened "Yes it is Mark. The dreams you have been having are not ordinary dreams. The desert you have been dreaming about is the Sahara, specifically the Egyptian desert. You have to ride to Egypt from here. Your steed is right before you - Yes Mark is your steed. You have to mount him and ride him to Egypt where you'll find something extra-ordinary, something that has been waiting for you" she finished as Rebecca asked "But who or what turned him into a horse if it is indeed him and how long is he going to be in his horse state? I need answers. And what were you doing n his back?" The gipsy replied calmly "Well actually he turned into a horse because of an ancient curse - anyone who violates our ancestral graveyard across the meadow turns into one - Mark violated it last night. Also do not worry - he will be a horse only for 9 months. He will be human again in time for college. As for me riding him, I was just putting him through his paces preparing him for the arduous journey that lies ahead. And I advice you - delay not, get on his back and ride to Egypt. Far as it is, you can make it together" handing over the reins to Rebecca.
Rebecca hesitated a moment, then took them in her hands. She had played horse with Mark before but this was the real thing. But then she thought of the chain of events so far - the dreams, telling Mark about them, Mark asking her to accompany him to Europe, Mark then venturing into the gipsy graveyard, then turning into a horse identical to the one in her dream, all this could not be a coincidence. So maybe it was destiny. Anyway, Mark would be a horse only for nine months if the gipsy woman was to be believed. There was no point in saying no to destiny. She knew the two of them faced a long and arduous journey ahead but wanted to go along with it.
She took the reins in her hands and mounted Mark's back. The saddle had been placed such that it positioned the rider centrally and was comfortable for the rider to sit in. Mark would also be able to give of his best. She however decided not to start the journey right then and there.
She decided to put Mark through his paces for the next couple of days since he had only just acquired his horse body and had to get used to move like a horse that too with a rider on his back. She rode him gently around the meadow over the next three days familiarizing him with obeying his rider's commands. As he had human intelligence in horse form, he quickly learnt how to move, then gallop with a rider on his back and also to quickly obey his rider's signals. Rebecca decided at the end of three days that no more delay was required and that they could start their journey on the morrow.