Wonder Light (9 page)

Twig pivoted around, her throat closing. Ben's grip tightened on her hand, but he seemed unconcerned. He was Ghost Boy again, blending into the mysterious fog as if he were a part of it.

Twig almost pulled away. Almost ran.

“Where are we?” she managed to ask.

“Near the entrance to Silverforest in Westland—Terracornus.”

“Terracornus?”

“Sometimes one world bumps up against another, and people find a passage between them. This is one of those passages. I wish this one had been forgotten like the original passage from England to Terracornus. All I can do is keep the door locked.” Ben's expression darkened. “Unfortunately, I'm not the only one with a key, and only the queen can change the locks.”

“Door? What queen? The Queen of England?”

“The Queen of Westland. People first came to Terracornus from England. That's why we speak English. But they're a different people now. And yes, there is a door in here. Unicorns go through it whenever someone lets them.”

“This isn't funny, Ben. I don't like these kinds of stories.”

“No, it isn't funny. Dagger's healed. He's hunting again. The others were foraging, but now they're back to following Dagger's lead—back to being predators. You have to believe. You know there's more to this island, Twig.”

Ben reached under his shirt and pulled something out—a key. He approached the huge red cedar trunk.

Did Ben expect her to believe the tree was a magic door? That they were going to walk right through it? Twig scrutinized the rough bark in the semidarkness. She couldn't make out any seams.

She waited for Ben to mutter a spell, but he just slid the key right into the bark. Twig put her hand to the trunk where the key had gone in. The keyhole had been invisible in the shadows and the mist.

The key turned with a click, and Ben pulled the door open a crack. Thicker mist snaked through the crevice, finding Twig and wrapping her in its strange scent. Ben slid his fingers around the door and began to open it wider.

“No!” Twig choked. “That's enough.”

Ben pushed the door shut. The lock clicked.

“Is that where Wild Light came from? Is that where you want to send her?” Twig shook at the thought. But if Wild Light wasn't safe here on the island…

“She cannot go back. Terracornus isn't safe anymore. Now all the unicorns of Westland belong to the queen. She wants them for the war with Eastland. She'll take Wild Light or any unicorn she can get her hands on. There are only a few wild unicorns left in Terracornus, lonely, herdless, hiding. But the queen's rangers are always hunting for them.”

“They kill them?” Twig's hands clenched into fists.

“They round them up and train them for battle. Many of them die in training. More die in the war itself. The unicorns of Lonehorn Island are the last free herd.”

“In the real—in my world, a long time ago, armies used horses. A lot of them died.”

“They never used horses like the Terracornians use unicorns. In Terracornus, unicorns
are
the weapons. Horses never died here the way unicorns die there.”

“But here, Dagger and the others'll come after her to try to make her join their herd?”

Ben shook his head. “They'll come after her to
kill
her. Wild Light is Indy's daughter. They know that by her scent. Dagger sees Indy as a rival. Wild unicorns kill their rivals and their offspring.”

“What about Indy? You left him out there!”

“They hunt at night and stay hidden during the day. Besides, he can smell them coming and let me know if he needs my help.”

“You could've brought him with us.”

“I don't bring him here unless I have to. He doesn't like it. It's too close to Terracornus. He wants to stay here in the Earth Land. All unicorns do once they're here. One whiff of Lonehorn Island air, and they remember the Earth Land is the world they were really made for, where they belong.”

“Ter—Terracornus isn't where the unicorns come from?”

“It's where emerald pigeons are from. That's why Emmie's always more than willing to go. But the unicorns—they were taken there. When Terracornus was found, it was mostly empty, and they were sent to live in it, to keep them safe from humans.”

“But Wild Light is here, on the island, and she isn't safe.” Twig swallowed hard.

Ben nodded. “The herd will come after her. It's only a matter of time.”

“Twig!” The voice was so faint, muffled by branches and by fog, at first she thought she'd imagined it. “Twig!” It was Regina this time.

She broke away and ran back the way she'd come. Ben darted ahead, and for a moment Twig thought he was going to block her way, but he held the low hemlock boughs open for her instead.

“I need your help to make this island safe again. For Wild Light. For everyone.”

“I have to go!”

She ran through the mist, and she didn't look back. All Twig wanted was to feel the sun on her cheeks, to see the girls and the Murleys, to go home and throw her arms around Wild Light's neck—to forget about Lonehorn Island's secrets.

“I found her!” Regina said as soon as Twig burst into view.

Twig grabbed Regina's sleeve and pulled her toward the beach. They were still dangerously close to Ben and Indy, to the strange fog.

In the distance, Mandy called, “Regina found her!”

Girls came running from both directions of the beach, sand and water flying at their heels.

“Oh, good,” Mrs. Murley said. “We haven't lost our Twig after all.”

Mr. Murley counted the girls. “Six girls. All set to go?”

Casey and Mandy picked up their backpacks and brushed the sand off. Janessa took a sandy shoe in each hand and clapped them together, and Mandy shrieked that Janessa had gotten sand in her eye and threw her own shoe at Janessa, and Taylor made them both apologize and everyone forgot to ask Twig where she'd been.

Casey reached for Twig's hand and smiled. It was just an afternoon at the beach, and Casey was enjoying it. Twig was glad for her, glad to be here with the Murleys and the girls, laughing and bickering and singing their way back to the path.

But Twig couldn't help feeling strange being with them, being normal—not just because she was Twig, but because she was the only one who knew the secrets at the heart of Lonehorn Island.

That evening, Twig called Rain Cloud in from the pasture first, to give Wild Light a little more time to dance, and to give herself a few minutes alone to watch her after she took care of Rain Cloud.

Twig was leaning against the pasture fence, laughing at Wild Light's antics and trying not to think about the sort of cruel creatures who'd like to put an end to them, when the unicorn stopped her leaping and sniffed. She perked her ears toward the woods and gave her
hello
nicker.

Twig jogged to the fence, toward the shadow she knew was Ben. Wild Light bounded after her, and Twig hurriedly took hold of her halter, for she seemed about to let her enthusiasm propel her right out of the pasture and into the woods.

“Hello there, Wild Light,” Ben whispered from the other side of the fence. “Calm down now before you get us all in trouble.”

“She's so determined to get to you. What are we going to do if she figures out how to jump the fence?”

“Another reason why I need you, Twig.”

Twig didn't answer.

“A friend of mine is coming to visit me tonight in the hemlock circle.”

The circle in the heart of the mist. The shadowy ring Twig never wanted to enter again.

“What kind of friend?”

“A great herder named Merrill. He worked with my father. I sent Emmie with a message for him to meet me.”

“Herders, Terracornus, passages—Ben, I just can't—”

“You cannot believe it? Even after what you've seen?”

Twig's shoulders sagged. “I don't want to.”

“You don't have a choice!” Ben reached for her arm. His expression softened. “I have a plan. A way we can work things out. I know it must seem strange. My father told me a bit about the Earth Land. It was hard to imagine the things he described, even that—truck?—they keep on the ranch.”

Twig nodded.

“I don't understand how it works,” Ben said.

“I guess I don't really understand how those things work either.”

“But you know they're real.”

Twig twisted her boot in the grass. She couldn't deny it.

“Just listen, and I'll try to explain. Everyone in Terracornus used to be a herder. Long ago, unicorns were hunted in the Earth Land, until there were only a few left. Their horns were very valuable, thought to be magic.”

Twig cringed. No wonder Ben had been so irritated by her calling them magic.

“When the passage was discovered, from England to Terracornus, those who knew better rounded up the last of the unicorns and herded them into that new, empty land, where they would be safe. The herders watched over them, and when their numbers increased, they separated one herd from another, so they wouldn't fight and kill each other off. That was hundreds of years ago. Things are different now. Terracornians have forgotten their plan to return the unicorns to the Earth Land. Most of them have forgotten the Earth Land altogether. And this world has moved on without them.”

Twig rubbed a strand of hair between her thumb and forefinger. “And your friend, the one you want me to meet, he's from Terracornus?”

“That's right.”

“Maybe he can help you send them back! What are they doing on Lonehorn Island anyway? Who let them through that door?”

“My father believed a herder who wanted to reintroduce unicorns to this world brought the first few here. Instead of just watching over the island, protecting the passage from being discovered, Lonehorn Island's herders watched over the island's herd too. We cannot send them back, Twig. They'll all die if we do. Unicorns as they're meant to be will die.”

“But with Dagger as their leader, they're not what they're meant to be anyway, are they?”

“Merrill can help me fix that, but he's going to need convincing. Seeing you—seeing what's at risk here on the island—might persuade him to come. I told him about you in my message.”

“Oh. Well…” Twig glanced over her shoulder at the house and the stable. Wild Light nudged her. Twig took her muzzle in her hands and stroked it and looked into her silvery eyes—wild but filled with love. That herd had once been like her. “I'll come. Just tell me when.”

“A couple hours before sunrise.”

In the dark. She'd just agreed to enter that strange, clinging fog in the dark.

***

Twig threw her covers back. She slid her bare feet onto the purple throw rug between her bed and Casey's. She sat there for a moment, listening, trying to detect any howls through the walls, through the woods. What if tonight they woke and went on the hunt?

She should just get back in bed, forget about this craziness. Even if nothing happened out there, if she got caught…

A shuddery breath escaped Casey, the kind that found its way out no matter how you tried, no matter how you didn't want somebody to hear. Twig knew what it was to be little and alone and to cry herself to sleep.

She tiptoed to Casey's bed and put a tentative hand on her hair. Casey wiggled closer, and Twig pulled her the rest of the way into her lap.

“It's okay now. You're here now. Whatever happened before, that stuff doesn't happen here.”

Then the tears sprang up in Twig's eyes too, because she knew that it was true—that whatever was waiting and hunting in the woods around them, whatever was threatening to undo what the Murleys were trying to do, she was safe here, in these walls. The Murleys were for real, and the girls were liars and thieves and sulkers and impossible arguers and tantrum throwers, but they were for real too. And she was about to slip out of here, away from them, and maybe get herself hurt or killed and ruin it all. Forever.

She couldn't stay here forever anyway, she reasoned. It couldn't last forever. And if she didn't go, how long would it be safe here for anyone?

“Casey, I have to go somewhere for a little while.”

Casey pushed herself up onto her elbow. “Where?”

“Here, on the island, sort of. It has to do with the wild boy. But I'll be back.”

“How long are you gonna be gone?”

“I'll be back before chores. Don't worry.”

Twig tucked Casey's doll under her arm. She got dressed and made her bed. She'd sneaked her boots and jacket into her room earlier. She slid her backpack out from under her pillow and put it on and wriggled her feet into her boots.

Casey was still awake, watching. Twig paused, then shrugged her backpack off and took out her drawing of Wild Light, horn and all—the one she'd kept for herself. She'd decided to play it safe and send Daddy the one without the horn. She tiptoed to Casey's bed and held it out to her.

“It's only for you, okay? Don't let anyone else see it.”

“Okay.” Casey unfolded the drawing and held it up to the moonlight. She stared at it for a moment, then lowered the paper. “Is it for real?”

Twig just smiled. “I have to go.”

“Twig?”

“Yeah?”

“Come back.”

“I will.”

Ben was waiting for Twig behind the pasture shelter. He gave her a nod and hurdled the fence. Twig clambered after him, then stopped in the shadow of the tree line. It was so dark.

“I have a flashlight,” she offered.

Ben looked confused. “Flush light?”

“Flashlight. You know, you hold it in your hand and push the button, and it lights up.”

“No light.”

Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her into the deepening darkness of the woods. “Indy's in the hollow,” he whispered.

Twig gripped his hand tight. It was still night-dark, and it would be darker the farther they ventured into the trees, where the wild unicorns might be waiting.

Ben wove deftly into the woods, holding a branch back for her now and then. Twig tried to duck when he ducked, to step where he stepped, but she kept miscalculating, hitting her shin on a log, lurching down into a hole. Her stomach grew more fluttery and anxious each time she tripped, her steps more flustered and fumbling.

“How can you see?”

“I don't need to see much here because I know the path.”

“There's a path?”

“Not just one path. I try to vary which way I go so I don't wear things down too much, and make it obvious that someone comes through here. But I know the routes from the pasture to the hollow.”

Indy greeted them with a soft nicker before Twig even realized they were about to enter the hollow. Just a few more steps, and there they were, free of the underbrush, in the flat area beneath the trees.

“He always stays for you, doesn't he?”

“I had to train him to. It's not safe to tie him up.”

“If you tie him,” Twig said, holding back a shudder, “and they come after him, he can't escape.”

“That's right.”

Indy gave Ben an expectant look, and Ben took an apple from his pouch. The unicorn ate it with a crunch of satisfaction, but still with a wary ear turned toward the forest.

“There's another apple in my pouch.” Ben rubbed Indy's neck. “Get it out and feed it to him.”

“Me?”

“He's got to like you if you're to ride him.”

“I'm going to ride him?”

“With me of course. The more you dither about it,” he said in a confident, soothing tone meant to keep Indy at ease, “the more convincing we'll have to do, and we don't have much time.”

Twig held the apple tentatively out to Indy. She couldn't help recalling Ben's words:
He
was
the
fiercest, the wildest.

“See there, boy? She's a friend. She's going to ride with me, just for a little while.”

“That's right, Indy,” Twig added in the smoothest manner she could manage. “There's not much to me at all. You'll see.”

“There is more to you than you think, Twig.”

Heat rushed over Twig's face.

Ben mounted Indy and offered her a hand up. Twig climbed up behind him, and Indy let out a snort of protest, but it sounded more obligatory than angry. Twig slid her arms around Ben's waist. She'd never ridden anything other than a pony, let alone a unicorn, and she'd never been quite so close to Ben.

Ben said, “Hang on tighter,” to Twig, and, “Yah!” to Indy.

He leaned into Indy's neck, and the forest sped by in a black-green blur. Twig held on as tight as she could. She marveled at the unicorn's nimbleness in dark, thick woods that Rain Cloud would have picked his way complainingly, ploddingly through.

Twig squeezed her eyes shut, and she felt Indy's power and speed. She pressed her forehead against Ben's back. His cloak was softer than she'd expected, his heartbeat faster. She couldn't tell whether Ben's heart was racing with anticipation or with plain old fear. Strange things were happening. Stranger things were going to happen. And she was riding a unicorn in the purple-black before dawn to a passage that led into another world. To convince a man from that world to save everything she loved about her own.