by Lou Anders
So give it here, you need not fear,
All you want so soon shall be.”
Jack gestured at the crown with the unicorn horn.
The queen looked at it with greedy eyes. Then she snatched the horn from Jack’s hand. The wisp and her orb were forgotten.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It practically ripples with magic. I can feel the power coursing through it.”
Jack nodded, stepping back to give her space with the crown.
“Only the biggest horns I fetch,
And this one here was quite a catch.
A frightened filly who roamed too far.
Upon her brow she had a—”
“Quiet, Jack,” said the queen, waving a hand to silence the pumpkin. “Don’t spoil my mood with your inane rhymes. Not now, when all my plans are coming together.”
She admired the horn a few more moments in her own palm, then slipped it into place in the front of the crown.
“Crown me, Jack,” she said.
At her command, vines snaked out to lift the crown from its cushion. They gingerly settled it on Queen Titania’s head.
“How do I look?”
Jack kissed his fingertips and winked.
The queen in her new crown truly was an impressive sight. Though it was a ghoulish sight too. Especially if you were a unicorn.
“His service done, Jack’s off to fun.
I’ll leave you now, your crown complete.
Until, fair queen, when next we meet.”
Jack bowed deeply as he retreated. He would take a few steps, bow, a few more steps, a bow. Curious wasn’t fooled. Neither was Midnight. It was an act. But they saw how the queen ate up the flattery. Watching her, Curious realized how pride blinded her. Glancing at Midnight, he saw how it had blinded him too.
When Jack disappeared through the mirror, the queen strode down the dais steps into the center of the room.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “I can feel the magic of the Crown of Horns. So much power. And so much to do. I only need to test it out. Perhaps”—and here her eyes drifted about the room—“on a wicked pair of misbehaving little horsies!”
The queen swished her fingers and Curious and Midnight found themselves carried on a puff of air.
But not Wartle. Wartle scurried aside at the last moment. He dashed through another tiny door. And like that, he was gone.
Meanwhile, Curious and Midnight sailed out from behind their hiding spot. It was like surfing on an invisible wave. It carried them straight to the queen. Then it deposited them in a frightened and embarrassed lump in the middle of the floor.
“You’re not in my dungeon,” she said to Midnight. “And you’re not in the fairy ring in your glen,” she said to Curious. “Neither one of you is where you are supposed to be, and that is a problem. It is a problem for me, true. But it’s a bigger problem for you.”
But Curious wasn’t going to be discounted so easily.
“No, it isn’t,” Curious said. “I’ve got questions, and I demand answers. Why didn’t you take Midnight home like you promised? What has Jack been doing? What is that thing on your head?”
Now, you would think that the queen would be angry at such an outburst. After all, a magical monarch isn’t used to being yelled at. And nobody demands answers from a queen, fairy or otherwise.
But the queen just smiled. And maybe that was a little more frightening than if she had merely gotten angry.
“Let’s take your questions in reverse order, shall we?” she said. “What is on my head? Why, it’s my Crown of Horns. And it’s very powerful. After all, it’s full of all that unicorn healing magic. So let’s just see what it can do.”
And with that she pointed at Midnight.
“Come here, ugly horsey.”
“Me?” said Midnight. She stepped away from the queen and whatever she was about to do.
“Why not you?” said the queen.
She tapped a finger to her forehead, right on the band of the crown.
A golden light, not unlike unicorn light but with a tinge of purple, began to shine from all the broken horns. Then a big beam of that light struck Midnight square in the forehead.
The night mare yelped. Fire and smoke arced from her hooves and mane and nose, but then she froze, transfixed. She was held in place by the beam of purple-tinged golden magic.
Midnight couldn’t move. She couldn’t flame. She couldn’t snort. And she felt a pain right above her eyes where the purplish-golden light fell.
Then she felt something horrible.
Her wild fires were changing.
No, they were extinguishing! They were snuffing out!
Her fire was going! Her fire was gone!
Her wonderful midnight-black coloring was turning gray. Gray, and then silver. Midnight wasn’t the color of midnight anymore.
And something was pushing hard at her skull. Something was sprouting. Right from her forehead, something was growing!
Curious gasped.
“What—what’s happening to me?” Midnight stammered.
“You’re…you’re changing,” he replied.
“Changing? Into what?”
But then she felt something pushing outward from her forehead. Jutting into the air. Curling around in a spiral. And she knew. Before Curious even spoke she knew.
“A unicorn,” said Curious.
It was true.
Midnight was a unicorn.
A rather beautiful one. Silver-gray, with a blue-black mane and tail. And a large, gleaming golden horn.
“What have you…what have you done to me?” Midnight said.
“I’ve made you into a unicorn,” said the fairy queen.
“What?” said Midnight. “That’s impossible. I can’t be a unicorn. I hate unicorns.”
The queen shrugged.
“Well, now your life is complicated,” she said. “But I’ve got things to do.”
She moved her finger back and forth between the two horses, the two unicorns.
“Eena, mena, mona, mite,” she said, reciting the old counting game.
Her finger settled on Midnight.
“Well, I guess that’s fitting,” said the fairy queen. She snapped her fingers, and Midnight became strangely calm.
“What?” said the queen, in response to Curious’s look. “It’s not like I’m going to walk to the Silent Stones. No, I’ll go in style. On my own new mount.”
She floated up onto Midnight’s back. Then she tucked her fingers into Midnight’s mane. They set off across the room. Heading for the mirror, which had begun to ripple again.
“Wait!” shouted Curious.
“No time to wait,” said the queen.
“But…how can you have changed her into a unicorn?”
The fairy queen was already passing through the mirror. She looked over her shoulder at Curious.
“Oh, I didn’t change her at all, you silly unicorn,” said the queen. “Nothing so difficult. I just healed her.”
“What do you mean, ‘healed her’?”
The queen disappeared through the mirror, taking Midnight with her.
Curious tried to follow, but he bumped his nose on the glass.
Behind him, he heard the distinct and very heavy sound of the doors to the room bolting shut.
He was alone. And he was trapped.
The instant the queen’s magic scooped up Midnight and Curious, Wartle had darted through a portal straight into Elsewhither, the bright and shining land from where all fairies came.
Elsewhither was much, much brighter than even the Glistening Isles. If you were there now, you’d have to squint your eyes and hope someone had invented sunglasses.
But Wartle didn’t have to squint. This was his home. He caper
ed along, scurrying through a gorgeous meadow full of giant flowers. Or maybe trees. Or maybe mushrooms. It was hard to get specific when in Elsewhither, because things didn’t always stay what they were from one moment to the next like they do here.
It was also very hard to feel bad in Elsewhither, where everything was so beautiful and there was just so much magical energy everywhere. But Wartle was managing it.
He was worried about Curious. About Midnight. He was even worried about Winky.
But what could he do? Wartle the puckle. Who nobody regarded and nobody remembered.
The idea that a puckle could do anything against the might of a fairy queen was ridiculous. Preposterous. Absurd. Stupid-dupid.
But Curious was in trouble.
And when Curious was in trouble, the puckle knew what to do.
“Well,” Wartle said, “looks like it’s Wartle to the rescue again.”
So he found another little fairy door, and back to the Glistening Isles he went.
He’d been walking in Elsewhither for a bit, so he didn’t come out where he went in. He was still in the Court of Flowers, yes, but in another room.
A room full of the not-children. And lots of tables covered in tablecloths.
He scurried under a table and hid beneath the cloth.
Oh, but the smell from up above was really interesting.
He smelled cupcakes and flavored ice shavings and fruit and even occasional marshmallows. And it was all so, so, so tantalizingly close.
What was a puckle to do?
Wartle grabbed a corner of the tablecloth and tugged it a little bit. A little bit more. And a bit more again.
A tray of sugar biscuits tipped and fell.
Wartle shot out from the table and caught it before it clattered. Then he ducked into hiding again with his prize.
Oh, the sugar biscuits were good. He ate the entire tray of them, twenty in all, in half as many mouthfuls.
But what about his friend Curious?
Curious can get his own sugar biscuits.
No. What about the trouble Curious was in?
Oh, that.
Oh, right.
But first, one more snack from the table.
Wartle pulled another corner of the tablecloth.
And marshmallows rained down upon him.
He opened his mouth, and gulp, gulp, gulp they were gone.
It was time to rescue Curious.
Or…or he could dart under another table and see what treats it might offer first.
There was always time to rescue Curious later.
So scurry to another table he did. And tug and tug.
And plop—a tray of frosted cakes!
They didn’t last long at all.
Neither did the creamed tarts.
Scamper and scurry to a third table.
Tug and tug.
But whatever was on this table was heavy. The tablecloth wasn’t moving.
Wartle was not a puckle to be denied.
He slipped out from under cover, and he clambered up to the tabletop.
And there he saw a large silver platter full of—
“Fishy!” cried Wartle in delight.
There were plates of salmon, lots of salmon.
What Wartle didn’t know was that these were all Salmon of Wisdom. But Wartle didn’t care. He knew what he liked.
“Fishies!” he cried again.
Wartle began to stuff his face with scaly goodness. Munch, munch, munch. He was working his way through his third fish when he was spotted.
“Puckle!” shouted Baron Buttercup.
“Where?” said Wartle, looking back and forth before realizing who they meant.
“Eeeeeep!” screamed the Duchess of Daises. “Puckle, puckle, puckle!”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Wartle, with a little bow.
“Kill it kill it KILL IT,” shrieked Lady Lilac, flinging a marshmallow pie at Wartle.
“Gulp,” said Wartle, swallowing the pie.
He gulped again as he saw a horde of not-children descending on him.
Wartle leapt to and fro on the table as little hands grasped for him. Platters of sweets were sent flying into the air, until the room was thick with sugar clouds.
It was high past time he left.
Wartle burped.
The burp didn’t sound like a normal burp.
It came out hot and throaty, like a burp should. But there were words in it. Wise words.
“Honey is sweet, but don’t lick it off a briar.”
Wartle clamped his hands over his mouth.
The not-children were taken aback. Puckles weren’t generally this eloquent.
“What did it say?” they said, pausing in their assault.
“Honey is sweet, but don’t lick it off a briar,” Wartle burped again.
“What does that mean?” asked the Duchess of Daisies.
“It means it’s time to go,” said Wartle. “Bye-bye.”
He took the opportunity of their confusion to run for his life. He might really like fish and sweets, but he wasn’t stupid.
Curious was furious.
He was trapped in the Court of Flowers. A place no unicorn ever would have thought to be trapped.
And his friend Midnight—if she was his friend, if she was still Midnight—had been ridden away by the queen of the good fairies.
The good fairies who weren’t that good.
He didn’t know what the queen was up to exactly, but he knew he had to try to stop her if he could.
But more than that, he knew he had to help Midnight.
First, though, he had to get out of the room.
He ran to the door and gave it a shove. It wouldn’t budge. Not an inch.
So then he spun around and gave it a good kick with both his back feet.
Bam. He made a loud noise, but that’s all he made. Not even a dent. The wooden door held firm.
Bam. Curious kicked the door again.
“Hey,” called a voice. “Cut that out. I can’t hear myself think in here.”
Curious looked around the room. He thought he was alone. He was alone.
He started to raise a hoof.
“I said knock it off,” said the voice.
“Who are you?” said Curious. “Where are you? Are you invisible?”
“Invisible? Of course not,” said the voice.
“Then are you very small?” asked Curious.
“I’m every bit as big as you are,” said the voice. “Exactly as big. Or I will be, if you come closer.”
That sounded almost like a puzzle. Curious was predictably curious.
The voice was definitely nearby. But he didn’t see anyone. Then he thought about the words “I’ll get bigger if you come closer.”
If it were a puzzle, he had an idea how to solve it.
Curious trotted over to the mirror. He had heard about magic mirrors that could talk. And this mirror was certainly magical.
But he didn’t see anything in the mirror. Just his own reflection. Of course, it got bigger as he got closer.
“There’s no one here,” said Curious.
“That’s right,” said his reflection. “There’s no ‘one’ here. There’s two here. Two of us.”
“Oh my goodness,” said Curious. “You’re me.”
The reflection blew an exasperated breath.
“Why do you automatically assume that I’m just a mirror version of you?”
“You are the one in the mirror. And you are my reflection.”
“Not from where I’m standing,” said the Mirror Curious.
Curious thought about this.
“Do you mean that you’re looking in a magic mirror too?”
&
nbsp; The Mirror Curious nodded.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re thinking, if the Mirror Curious is looking in a magic mirror too, how do you even know you’re the real Curious?”
“I am the real Curious,” said Curious. But the reflection was right, he had been thinking that.
“I am the real Curious,” mimicked the Mirror Curious. “See? Who is to say you’re not the reflection and the Curious you see in the mirror is the real one. How can you prove otherwise?”
He couldn’t. Not yet.
But he was a unicorn with a Scientific Mind.
“I admit it’s a bit of a puzzler,” said Curious.
The Mirror Curious smiled. Or maybe it was the real Curious smiling. There had to be a way to figure this out.
“A real conundrum,” said the reflection.
“It bears some thinking about,” said Curious. He started to run through all the proofs of his own existence he could come up with.
“It’s a good one,” said the reflection. “Why, I imagine that a unicorn with a Scientific Mind could puzzle on this for hours.”
“Days and days, even,” agreed Curious. And then he stopped.
It was a good mystery. And he loved a good mystery.
So much so that he’d forgotten his friend was in trouble. He’d forgotten that the fairy queen was wearing a grisly crown made out of broken unicorn horns.
“This isn’t a puzzle,” said Curious. “It’s a trap. The perfect trap for a curious unicorn. You’re not the real me at all. You’re just some shape-stealing fairy creature placed here by the queen to slow me down.”
The reflected unicorn’s face clouded with anger. Curious knew he had guessed correctly.
“Well,” said the Mirror Curious, “it doesn’t matter what I am. There’s no way out of this room. You’re still trapped.”
He kicked angrily at a candle holder beside the mirror, and it fell over. Remarkably, the one on Curious’s side of the mirror fell as well. This did not escape Curious’s notice. He decided to experiment.
Ignoring his reflection, Curious kicked the remaining candle over too. But the one in the reflection didn’t fall. It was still standing.
“It only works one way,” said the Mirror Curious smugly. “I can affect things in your realm, but you have no power here.”
