Wonder Light (13 page)

March

It was still mostly dark when Twig stirred. She shut her eyes and tried to get back to sleep. How long had it been since she'd slipped back into bed? Sneaking out in the middle of the night to train Wonder with Ben and Merrill was really wearing on her. So was keeping it a secret. Mrs. Murley joked about her afternoon naps, teased that she was trying to get a jump-start on being a teenager. She wouldn't be able to joke about that for long; her thirteenth birthday was the day after tomorrow, the twenty-ninth of March.

She'd been out even longer than usual with Ben and Merrill, finalizing their plan of attack. Ben had been scouting on foot and found the area where the herd was resting during the day. Twig was supposed to sneak Wonder out of the pasture in the daytime, so they could catch Dagger by surprise, hopefully still in a sleepy winter state. She just had to come up with something to tell the Murleys so they wouldn't come looking for her…

There was a loud sniffle, and Twig realized a warm little lump was curled up next to her in her bed.

“Casey?” Twig wriggled her arm around her and pulled her closer. “Bad dream?”

Casey shook her head. “I couldn't sleep. The howls…”

Twig shot up. “They were close?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How close?”

Casey shuddered. “Close as they could get.”

Twig jumped out of bed and yanked the curtains aside, peering into the predawn darkness. The stable doors were shut. Everything looked normal. Had the herd attacked? Had Ben and Merrill stopped them? She had to make sure they were okay. Twig rushed outside without her shell, running through a fine, misty rain. It was so warm, almost as warm as yesterday. This year, spring had come early to Lonehorn Island.

She climbed over the fence, but it was slippery and she lost her balance. Something sharp jabbed into her hand. Twig dropped to the ground and examined her palm. An ugly splinter had pierced the skin, sending a trickle of blood down her wrist. A wedge was ripped out of the fence rail. The ground was trampled.

With a gasp, Twig pulled the splinter out, then slipped into the woods, headed for Ben's hollow.

“Ben?” Her voice was high with fear for him.

“I'm all right, Twig.”

Twig ducked into the hollow. Ben was alone, rubbing Indy down. The unicorn was shaking.

“What about Merrill?”

“He's fine. But Marble isn't.”

Marble! Marble, who'd come so far, bonding with Merrill, letting him ride. “Is he—”

“He's alive, but barely.”

“Where?”

“Merrill took him through the passage. He's going to find somewhere to hide him there until he's better.”

If
he
gets
better. If he isn't discovered
. Taken, for the queen's army. Merrill, sent to the Barrenlands.

“He'd die for sure here,” Ben said. “He cannot defend himself.”

“What about the ranch? You left Wonder there for safekeeping. Couldn't we take Marble there? I could say I found him.”

“One unicorn on the ranch is risky. Two is impossible. Their horns would extend, and they'd be given away.”

Of course. “If Wind Catcher hadn't…”

“I'd planned on taking Wind Catcher back out as soon as I could. I was desperate to keep her safe while I took care of my father, especially in her condition. And then, it seemed the perfect solution for her filly. She'd be fed and cared for, safe inside the stable at night.”

Ben looked away, but not before she saw the fear in his eyes, that Wonder was no longer safe inside that stable at night.

“They tried to break through the fence.”

“I know.” Twig reached for his arm. “It wasn't a mistake, Ben. Wonder and me…”

He nodded.

But what were they going to do now? They were down one unicorn and rider, just when Twig and Wonder were ready to do their part—just when they'd planned to take out Dagger.

“We can still do it, Ben.”

Ben shook his head. “I promised Merrill I'd wait for him.”

“It'll be too late!”

“It's too late already! They're up. They're hunting.”

Twig glared at him, then rubbed roughly at the tears that escaped down her cheeks.

Ben straightened up and tried to sound brave. “We'll just have to come up with a new plan, that's all. We'll figure it out, Twig.”

***

Twig leaned back on the couch with her book, trying to concentrate. She'd chosen it from the list of classics Mrs. Murley had given her. She was supposed to have a book report written on it by the end of next week.

“I hate that book.” Mandy, sitting on the floor nearby, made a face.

Twig glowered at her. She'd thought she would hate it too, but the story had soon swept her away. It had been hard to put down until now. Now she couldn't stop thinking about Ben and Indy.

“He dies, you know.”

Twig jolted. Regina stood over her. She nodded at Twig's book.

“He does not!” Next to Twig, Casey thunked her own book onto the side table in protest.

“How do you know? You haven't read it,” Regina said. “You're still reading baby books!”

Casey's lip quivered.

Mandy frowned sympathetically.

“It's all right, Casey, you're getting better every day. Isn't she, Janessa?” Taylor reached up from the rug to pat Casey's knee.

“They're not baby books! I like that series.” Janessa popped up from her own pillow on the floor. “Time travel! Magic…”

But Twig threw her book at Regina, grabbed Casey's hand, and stormed out of the house. She stood there on the porch, clutching Casey's hand, chest heaving.
He
doesn't die
, she kept telling herself.
He
doesn't
.

“Who cares?” Twig said. “Who cares about any of them?”

Casey stared up at her with those big, tear-filled eyes. She cared. They both cared. And caring hurt. Caring was as dangerous as the creatures lurking in the shadows of the cedars.

***

Twig lay in bed, waiting for the Murleys to go to sleep so she could sneak out and join Ben in protecting the ranch. Ben had come to the paddock fence and told her that Merrill had sent word. He'd found a hiding place for Marble and he'd be back tomorrow. They just had to get through tonight without him.

Twig listened for signs of wakefulness in the house. And then she heard it—a faint banging. The sound grew louder, more persistent—too deep and too distant to be someone knocking on the door.
Bang, bang, bang
—then a sharp
crack
and a tremendous
crash
!

Twig jumped up, and Casey woke with a wail. The sounds had come from outside, and now a series of cries, muffled by the stable walls, took their place—fearful pony wails and a louder, fiercer whinny. Wonder Light! Twig bolted to the window and tore at the curtains. A group of large animal forms leap-galloped through the mist. The wild herd.

“They're here!” Twig gasped. “They got in!”

Through the blur of fog, Twig thought she saw one of the unicorns dip its head and charge at the stable door.

Bang! Bang!
They were going to break into the stable next.

Twig ran from the room with a groggy, weepy Casey stumbling after her. Mrs. Murley was already in the entryway with her boots on. Mr. Murley was barefoot, but his shotgun was in his hands. He threw the door open, and it bashed against the wall. The other girls, who'd all come tumbling out of bed after them, jumped.

“Stay here, girls!” Mrs. Murley shut the door firmly behind Mr. Murley.

Twig grabbed her boots.

A gunshot cracked the air. The entryway walls shook with the boom, and the sound reverberated in Twig's chest. She dropped her boot. Janessa froze with her jacket half on.

Mr. Murley fired again. Twig recovered, ducked past Mrs. Murley, and reached for the door, but just as she did, it flew open.

Mr. Murley's face was ash white.

“David! What is it?”

“Something's smashed right through the fence!”

“What?”

“Wild horses,” Mr. Murley said, but he didn't sound convinced. “It was hard to see in the fog. They were circling the stable. Circling it like prey. Howling like hounds. When I fired, they ran off. They're gone for now. They're gone.”

“I told you I heard things howling!” Mandy said. “I told you!”

Twig shoved her foot into her boot, scrunching her sock awkwardly under her heel. She bolted out the door, her shell dangling from her arm, one sleeve on, one off.

She was halfway to the stable when a lone, high whinny-howl cut through the mist. The Murleys and their girls, all running across the lawn behind her, stopped shouting Twig's name and gasped. Then, an eerie chorus joined the howl, and the ever-unconcerned Regina burst loudly into tears.

“What is it? What's that noise?” Mandy cried. “Horses don't make that noise!”

Janessa clamped her hands over her ears, and Taylor, who always looked stern, tried to look stern
and
brave. She scooched closer to Regina and put an arm around her. Casey didn't say a word; she just sprinted to Twig's side and slipped her hand into Twig's.

Twig's heart was pounding, pounding. Should she get Ben? What if he was already here? What if Mr. Murley misunderstood and shot him?

Twig tried to let go of Casey's hand and hurry the rest of the way to the stable, but Casey hung on tight, so Twig dragged her along. The stable door was scarred and scratched, raw wood showing pale and woundlike through the deep red paint. Here and there were dents made with the point of a hard, sharp instrument—a horn. Twig put her finger in one. It wasn't just a dent; it was a hole. Her finger went all the way through. She unlatched the door, ran in, and flipped the main light switch, flooding the stable with light.

Mrs. Murley and the other girls followed her inside while Mr. Murley stood at the door with his shotgun ready, alternately squinting at the damage and at the mist-shrouded woods surrounding the property.

The ponies were quaking and crying out pitifully with fear, but still safe in their stalls. But Wonder wasn't quaking; she was rearing and kicking at her stall door in an absolute fury.

Mrs. Murley shouted a warning to Twig, but Twig said, “Casey, get me some tack. Hurry!”

Twig dug through the pile of cedar shavings in the corner of Wonder's stall and pulled out the sword she'd begun hiding there once it got close to springtime.

By the time Casey emerged, staggering, with an armful of tack, Twig was wearing her scabbard and she had Wonder in the aisle, her frenzy restrained to an anxious pacing.

“My bow and quiver!” Twig said. “Quick!”

Casey ran back to the tack room, where Twig kept the bow.

Twig got Wonder saddled up while Mrs. Murley tried to talk some sense into her. But Mrs. Murley was too wary of Wonder in her agitated state to get close. Each time Mrs. Murley attempted to touch Twig, Wonder snapped a toothy warning. Breathless, Casey handed Twig the bow and quiver.

“You need to stay here, Twig,” Mrs. Murley said. “Just let Mr. Murley handle it.”

“He can't. Not this.”

“Twig, do you know something about this?”

Twig paused with her foot in the stirrup. “Maybe.”

“What is
that
?” Mrs. Murley pointed to the scabbard.

Twig didn't answer. Mrs. Murley's hands dropped to her sides. She stared at Twig and Wonder. Twig mounted and rode out of the stable. “Just keep the ponies in and fix the fence,” she called as she passed Mr. Murley. “Don't come after me. Don't go out there! I'll be back!”

Mrs. Murley came to her senses. She darted out after her, shouting, “Twig!”

“You let her go?” Mr. Murley said helplessly. “Why did you let her go?”

“I don't know! Oh God! I don't know. David,
what
is going on?”

Twig just rode on, fighting back her tears. She wanted to yell for Ben, but his secret was still a secret and not hers to tell. Just before she reached the broken section of fence, Twig glanced back and saw Mr. Murley hand his shotgun to Mrs. Murley and run into the stable. He was going to get Feather, going to come after her.

She rode Wonder through the jagged gap where the herd had broken through the fence and into the thick, terrifying blackness of the forest.

“Ben!” she screamed. “Ben! Are you there?”

Twig held Wonder steady and listened. She could still hear the howls, but they were growing increasingly distant, and they had a different, more frightened sound. Those gunshots had really scared them off. Maybe they were safer than she'd feared, at least for now—as long as Mr. Murley stayed on watch with his shotgun. Maybe she should go back before he left the ranch and tell him so.

A blur of movement caught her eye. A unicorn. Wonder's forelock parted as her sharp white horn extended in response to its presence. Twig stiffened and had a fleeting argument with herself whether to run or to hide. But Wonder gave the creature a whinny—strained, but a greeting just the same.

Indy flowed around the underbrush like a silver-white stream, then drew alongside her. Ben's face was hard and determined, his cheeks flushed, his cloak pushed back, and his hair dripping with sweat.

“They broke through the fence and then they tried to break down the stable door.”

Ben nodded. “I heard gunshots.”

“That was Mr. Murley. I don't think he got any of them, but he scared them off.”

“They'll keep their distance, but I don't know how long. Not when they're like this.”

“Mr. Murley's coming. He doesn't understand what's going on. He's trying to protect me.”

“He needs to stay there, to shoot if they come back. He needs to stay there!”

“I know. I have to go back, then. He won't leave me out here.”

“And I have to get to the passage. We're not safe here anymore, me and Indy. And neither is she.” Ben nodded at Wonder.

Dread hung as heavy in Twig's heart as the mist around the passage to Terracornus.

“But they're not safe in Terracornus either. You said—”

“I can take them to Merrill. He'll hide them for a while, while I figure things out. Here, right now, they'll die. Dagger is out for blood—their blood. Could be they'll attack those ponies, just because Dagger's got them hungry for a kill. But Wonder's the one who's been driving Dagger to a frenzy. The last couple days have brought out the spring in her, something new in her scent. She's the offspring of his rival. Even for a normal unicorn, it's his instinct to kill her. And Dagger—”

“You have to take her with you. You have to!” Twig gripped Wonder's mane in her hands along with the reins. “And you can't take them both by yourself. I have to come.”

Ben nodded slowly, solemnly. “Yes, if you want to save her, you'll have to come.”

“I'll come. I'll be right back.”

“Twig!” Ben protested.

But she wheeled Wonder around and urged her back toward the ranch. Wonder flew through the forest at her strange, fluid, leaplike gallop, a creature made to flow in and out of the cedars like the island's breath.

Just before they reached the fence line, Twig pulled Wonder back abruptly and pressed her horn back down.

“Mr. Murley!” she called into the fog. “I'm here! I'm here! Come back!”

Mrs. Murley came running toward her, a shadow in the mist, surrounded by a circle of flashlight glow. Her form sharpened as she and Twig closed the space between them. She didn't have the shotgun.

“Twig!” Mrs. Murley said with relief. Then she pulled her phone out and desperately dialed Mr. Murley's cell while all the girls ran to the fence, flashlights bobbing in their hands, yelling for him.

Twig rode into the yard. “Get in the house! Everyone get in the house and lock the doors!” But the girls ran toward her and Wonder instead.

Mrs. Murley held her phone to her tear-streaked face. “David?”

Oh, thank God. He'd answered.

“Yes. She's here. Come back. Hurry.”

Seconds later, he galloped up the driveway. Janessa and Taylor threw the gate open for him, then shut it behind him. The shotgun was balanced across his lap, held steady with one hand, Feather's reins in the other.

“You have to stay here,” Twig said. “Please. And I have to go.”

“Go?”

“I'll come back. There's something I have to take care of. But I'll come back.” Her voice broke on the last word because she knew that she might not—not if the island's herd had its way.

Mr. Murley pulled Feather right in front of Wonder. He shone his own flashlight, the small one he kept in his pocket, on Twig. “I won't let you go, Twig. I don't know what's going on here, but there's no way you're going back into those woods. Now get down and put that horse back in the stable, and we'll figure this out.”

Twig opened her mouth to protest, but behind her, Regina screamed. Mandy gasped, and Wonder whirled around. A figure was running across the yard, headed right for them.

“It's him!” Casey said, a hint of triumph mixed with the awe and the surprise. “The wild boy!”

Ben's cloak billowed out behind him as he flew toward them, on foot. His quiver bounced on his back and his scabbard swung at one side, his pouch at the other.

Mr. Murley jolted, and Twig cried, “Ben! He's my friend, Mr. Murley.”

“Your friend?”

Ben stopped a few yards away. He regarded Mr. Murley with a look half wary, half bold. He was out in the open—there were no shadows, no trees, no eaves, and no cover of night, for half a dozen flashlight beams shone right at him through the mist—but he stood there in the yard and he lifted his chin and he held his shoulders back.

Casey smiled, and Mrs. Murley grabbed her hand, as though she were afraid she'd take off too, and pulled her close to her side.

“It's all right, Twig,” Ben said. “Show them.”

“Show them?”

He gave her a nod. She slid her hand under Wonder's mane and drew her horn out. The girls screamed and grabbed at each other.

Mr. Murley almost fell off Feather. He stumbled over to Twig and Wonder.

“Crazy Uncle Matt,” he said breathily. “You weren't crazy after all. ‘You've got to keep that island.' That's what he kept saying before he died. He made me promise I wouldn't sell it. ‘For the other Murleys,' he said, ‘in case they want to come back.'”

“Back?” Twig said.

“From the land of unicorns,” Mrs. Murley said in a lost sort of whisper. “That's where you went, isn't it, Twig?”

“That's where I'm going.”

“I'll bring her back,” Ben said.

“I wouldn't go if it wasn't important,” Twig added.

No one said anything. No one moved. Then Ben cupped his hands and called out to the woods. A neigh answered, and in a moment Indy came galloping through the mist. He slowed to a trot at the edge of the crowd. His great horn was extended, and the water droplets left on it by the misty air reflected back the flashlight beams like something shimmering and magic.

Ben mounted with a perfect swiftness that seemed nearly as magical.

“I love you,” Twig called over her shoulder as she followed Ben and Indy. “I love all of you.”

The woods were so black, squeezing around them, but Indy knew the way, and Wonder knew just how to follow her father. Twig held on tight and tried to trust her unicorn, even as the howling grew louder.

The brush rustled. Wonder cried out, and Indy answered with a warning neigh. Just ahead, the branches parted, and Twig saw the horn, dark as midnight. The edge of its spiraling rib glistened razor sharp with the wet of the gloom. Dagger!