Warped (6 page)

“Ha-ha,” Tessa replied. She hesitated, then asked, “Definitely not scary, right?”

Opal shook her head. “No scary unicorns.” She pointed. “Except for that one.”

Tessa looked again. It
did
look a little frightening, maybe because it seemed so real. As if the muscular forelegs could thrash through the air and the unicorn might leap forward at any moment. From the expression in its eyes to its defiant stance, the unicorn looked as if it was trying to tear itself free from some invisible restraint. “Does it look real to you?” Tessa asked.

“I guess,” Opal replied.

“Do me a favor,” said Tessa. She gave a nervous nod toward the tapestry. “Touch it.”

“Touch it?”

“The tapestry. The unicorn. Just touch it,” Tessa repeated. “Humor me, okay?”

Opal shrugged, walked up to the tapestry and put her hand on it.

“Feel it.”

Opal gave Tessa a dubious look and then rubbed her hands all over the surface. “Ooh,” she crooned. “Needlepoint.”

Tessa watched her. “Do you feel anything?”

“Besides goofy? No.”

Nothing had happened, Tessa realized. Opal hadn’t felt anything when she touched the tapestry. Neither had her father. It was only her. Why was it only her?

“Can I stop with the touching already?” Opal asked.

“Yeah. Sorry,” Tessa said. “I’m just—Never mind.” She sat down and fiddled with the laces on her sneakers. “Opal, do you believe in reincarnation or past lives, that kind of stuff?”

Opal shrugged. “I dunno. I guess. Maybe.”

“Do you ever have dreams about it?” Tessa asked.

“What, you mean where I’m Cleopatra or something? Nope. But I did have this dream last week that Bugs Bunny was chasing me through the school. Only he was a really mean Bugs. We had to have a lockdown and I hid under my desk.” Opal frowned. “Sorry. Got sidetracked. Why do you ask? You think you’re reincarnated?”

“No,” Tessa said quickly. “Of course not. Just wondering.”

Opal stepped back from the tapestry and frowned. “Are you really going to leave this up on your wall?”

Tessa shrugged. “Why not? You’re always saying my room looks like an obsessive-compulsive nun lives here. That it needs redecorating.”

“Uh, no, Miss Spartan-Pants. It needs decorating, not redecorating. Like more of your own artwork,” said Opal, giving her a pointed look. “Pictures of hotties. Democratic campaign buttons. Not gothic-looking fantasy creatures.” She stared again at the unicorn. “That’ll give you nightmares, Tessa.”

Tessa let her eyes roam over the tapestry, past the unicorn into the deep shadows of the background and back again to the creature. She reached out to touch it, then stopped. She didn’t know what was happening to her. But she was going to figure it out. “I’m going to keep it,” she whispered. “It’s so beautiful, and wild, and sad.”

Opal bounced back down on Tessa’s bed and opened the magazine. She glanced up once more and said with finality, “I think it looks rabid.”

Chapter 8

THE FOREST OF HARTESCROSS

CORNWALL

1511

D
eep in the forest, William de Chaucy walked his horse along a rough path. Fallen branches and moss-choked rivulets crisscrossed the way and made it slow going. He had traversed these woods often enough, but it seemed different today. The darkness was surprising. Outside, it was a clear day, but here the trees made a green canopy, hung like a thick blanket overhead. All around him cool emerald shadows played upon black. It was a different world. A dark world.

He listened. Only the snap of twigs beneath his feet and the moist snuffle of Hannibal’s breath against his neck broke the heavy stillness.

Will shook his head. “What am I doing here?” he murmured.

As if in answer, the horse threw his great dark head, making his livery jingle.

“You’re right, it’s foolish,” murmured Will with a smile, looking around. “I might as well hunt pixies.” And he was talking to his
horse
. Hugh would be vastly entertained.

Then he saw her. Her face peeked out at him from behind a curtain of leaves. She didn’t move, and for a moment he thought it was an animal, or some trick of the shadows. But no forest creature had eyes like that. They were deep blue, like faceted jewels. And they met his own and held his gaze for the length of a breath. Her skin was pale except for two spots of color on her cheeks where her exertions had made them rosy. Her dark hair was in a gleaming tumble upon her shoulders.

“Hello?” he said at last.

She bolted, tearing through the undergrowth with a faint cry.

“No. Don’t—wait!” Without thinking, Will dropped Hannibal’s reins and dashed after her. But he soon realized that he hadn’t a prayer of catching her. He only glimpsed the flash of a pair of slim legs leaping over a bent sapling before she was gone, as quickly as a will-o’-the-wisp.

He’d frightened her. He hadn’t meant to.

Will stopped running and listened. There was only silence, not even the chatter of birds. He took a deep breath, filling his chest with the liquid scent of the forest and letting it out again. His breath made faint plumes of vapor on the cool air. It was getting darker, and the girl couldn’t know these woods. How the devil did she think she’d find her way back?

“Hello?” he called again. “Mistress?” Leaves brushed his shoulders, and small prickly vines tugged at his boots as if they were reaching out to embrace him, or to hold him back. “Are you there?” he shouted.

Then he came upon it.

Tucked among the trees there was a small—Will squinted at it—house? Little more than a hovel, really, and nearly invisible. It was hidden, not just by its location, which was some distance from the path and without any clearing of the surrounding trees, but by the curious way it was fashioned. The walls of the structure seem to be
woven
. Young living trees still rooted in the ground made up its framework, and between these were laced green leafy branches, to make solid walls. One rounded opening made a door, around which paler green vines twined, sprigged with small, bell-shaped yellow flowers.

Will went closer, examining the small cottage in amazement. He tore a leaf from one bough and fingered it. A living house.

“Welcome,” said a voice from inside.

He went in, ducking his head.

In what might have been a trick of the darkness, an old woman seemed to appear before his eyes, taking form from the green shadows around her. Her frail, bent figure and her shabby clothes were unremarkable, resembling those of any grandmother from the village. Except for one thing. The old woman watched Will with the smallest, blackest eyes he had ever seen. They were flat and depthless eyes with no shine to them at all. The woman stood beside a huge loom. He glanced around the rest of the tiny room. It was empty.

“I have looked forward to this meeting, young
master.
” The crone gave a curious emphasis to the last word and smiled, showing a dark, toothless mouth. “You are the earl’s son.”

“Yes,” Will said, puzzled. “I am William de Chaucy. These are my father’s lands.” He straightened, and the top of his head nearly brushed the roof of the strange little house. He’d never noticed such a dwelling here before, nor this strange old woman. “You’re not from the village,” he remarked. “Who are you?”

“They call me”—she paused, with the air of trying to remember an unimportant fact—“Gray Lily. Just a simple weaver, milord.” She beckoned to him with a withered hand. “Come closer. May I show you my work?”

Will stepped forward, wondering how many coins were in the pouch on his saddle. He would give the old woman something; it would ease the sting of having to tell her she must leave. But he pushed these thoughts aside as the object in the center of the room snared his attention. It was a loom, but unlike any he’d seen before.

The huge frame was made of a dark, oily wood. An unfinished piece of tapestry work was stretched upon it. The brilliantly colored yarns wove through thick, lengthwise threads of a white, glistening material strung through notches in the wood. The support threads reminded Will of something, but he couldn’t say what.

Will drew closer, intrigued by the scene. A castle was on a distant hillside. The old woman must have used Hartescross as inspiration, Will thought, for it looked identical. In the foreground was an empty, sunlit clearing of grass, surrounded by dark trees and brilliant flowers. Small creatures were tucked here and there among the greenery. Will spotted a snake with yellow eyes that clung to one branch. It seemed to stare at him.

Will blinked. “ ’Tis fine work,” he remarked. “But—”

The woman stepped forward. “You think it’s missing something,” she said. She pointed to the center, the clearing. “There.”

“That was not what I—”

Will broke off, staring at the tapestry. He felt an odd dizziness. He took a step away from it. With the distance it seemed to him that his head became somewhat clearer. Curious.

“Have you seen a girl here?” he asked, turning to the woman. “I think she ran this way. She may be lost. She has blue eyes and long, dark hair.”

The old woman’s mouth closed, her lips flattened into a grim line. She threw a watchful glance to the opening of the hut. “Your sweetheart, is she?”

“No,” Will replied. The remark annoyed him somehow. “She is a girl from the village. She may be lost.”

The old woman smiled and raised a finger to her lips in a playful, secretive gesture. “I’ve not seen her,” she whispered. She shuffled closer. “Here, now.” She reached out. In her hand she held a small lump. A waxy-looking yellow stone. She pressed the stone to his chest, over his heart.

Will looked at the old woman in surprise. The poor old thing was mad. She was staring fixedly at the spot where the stone touched him, whispering something.

With a short laugh Will reached up to push her hand away. But he found he couldn’t move his hands.
He couldn’t move at all
. The realization sent a deep bolt of fear through him. He tried to back away and run. He stayed. He was fixed to the ground as if nailed there.

“What—”

That was all he could say. His voice was silenced as if an invisible gag had been jammed down his throat.

“As I said, young lordling,” the crone whispered while Will struggled silently, “I am a simple weaver. But the threads for my loom are priceless indeed. We are each given but one. One life. One thread.”

Now the old woman’s mouth opened wide. Her lips didn’t move, but sounds came out. Not words, but foul grunts and guttural cries, like nothing a human voice should ever utter. The noises poured out of her gaping mouth, a language from Hell. Will’s whole body shook with disgust as they washed over him.

Her touch was hurting him. Piercing him. Will stared down at her hand. The old woman still held the small, dull, yellowish rock to his chest. Through his shirt he could feel it, burning him with a searing pain. Not from hot or cold, but burning all the same.

Slowly, as Will stared, the old woman drew her hand away. Will staggered, his eyes wide. Something drifted out of his chest. A faint wisp of silvery thread.

Gray Lily let out a delighted cackle of laughter and spoke. “That’s it. Come out.” She took hold and pulled the silver thread, and as she did, Will felt himself being drained, being emptied. Of everything. Meanwhile, the woman’s lightless eyes twitched back and forth and her tongue flicked out from her black mouth. The cold yet fiery pain seeped through Will’s chest, and he could only stare as Gray Lily wound the thread over her hands, faster and faster.

The thread was his life, and as the thread left him, his body grew thinner. His flesh withered. His muscles shrank. The color left his cheeks, his hair, and finally even his eyes. For a moment he was a pale wraith. Then he was gone.

Only the old woman remained, clutching a skein of shimmering thread. “Strong young thing,” she said, nearly cooing to it. She spoke as if the young nobleman still stood before her. “Your life is mine now.” Her gaze drifted, became thoughtful. “I have been waiting for the proper thread to complete my work.” Her gnarled fingers stroked the thread. “One such as you. Handsome, young and proud.” Suddenly her black, lusterless eyes widened. She started to laugh. “You shall remain so. Forever.”

The laughter changed and turned back into the dreadful sounds of her incantations. Her hands plucked and pulled at the strand of thread as she worked it. Faster. “This is the part I like best,” she grunted. “I am creator now. Not
them.
”

She worked the beautiful thread, using only her dirty, crooked fingers and the power of the strange little lump of yellow stone. She remade the living thread into flesh. She crafted bone and blood. Wove hoof and horn and hair. And last, even breath.

Until finally the creature stood before her, its muscled haunches shivering like a newborn foal’s. And so it was. So pure, so white. But the creature still had those large, lively brown eyes; those were the same, though they were now filled with pain and confusion.

“A unicorn,” she whispered with satisfaction. “My unicorn. At last. The symbol of immortality made flesh. And when I weave you into my tapestry, I will have your youth, your strength.”

The unicorn stamped and backed away from the old woman but couldn’t go far in the confines of the small hut.

“Not so proud now, are you?” the old woman exulted. “But you should be. You’re a creature of magic. And I am your master. When I pull your thread once more, it shall retain this form and all the power it possesses, and then you will live in my tapestry. A unicorn forevermore. Come here.” She clapped her hands.

It might have been a cannon shot. At the noise Will let out a scream, but it emerged as a whinnying cry. He reared up on strongly muscled hind legs, and the sharp spiral horn that protruded from his forehead ripped through the roof, tearing boughs and leaves. He crashed down again on his front hooves. A torn, flowered vine fell and hung across his neck in a mockery of adornment.

Gray Lily reached out and grabbed for his thick, flowing mane, but Will yanked his head back and hurtled past her. He crashed through the woven greenery, snapping boughs and tearing branches. The old woman let out a snarl as she watched him gallop away. The horse Hannibal laid back his ears and trotted nervously after the unicorn, his reins trailing on the ground.