Wonder Light

by R. R. Russell

  Mr. Murley said, “Remember, girls, we have to watch very closely. Wild Light doesn’t know how to behave in a herd, and she doesn’t have a mare to protect her. I think she’s sure enough on her feet to get out of the way if there’s trouble, but…if she does something one of the others doesn’t want to tolerate, she could get hurt.”

  “I’ll keep hold of Sparkler,” Mandy offered. “She is the alpha mare. She’s not gonna like this.”

  Janessa rolled her eyes at Mandy, but followed her out to the pasture to wait with the ponies for Wild Light’s entrance.

  Wild Light skipped along the aisle toward the sunlight and open air, eager and carefree. Though Twig had her by the halter, it was clear she wasn’t in the lead.

  “Celeste!”

  Twig turned at Regina’s cry. Celeste was charging right at Wild Light—until Rain Cloud intercepted her. Celeste hesitated as Rain Cloud blocked her path, but the determination to run Wild Light off was still in her eyes. And then Sparkler intervened. All it took was a look from the alpha mare, and Celeste retreated.

  “No, Celeste!” Regina took hold of her pony. “That’s not nice!”

  “Don’t be too hard on her,” Mr. Murley said. “She’s at the low end of the pecking order. She wants to show Wild Light her dominance, so she won’t be at the bottom anymore.”

  Regina’s forehead creased with a compassion Twig had never seen in her before, and she whispered reassurances to her pony.

  With an impish whinny, Wild Light hopped and grabbed Gadget’s tail, giving it a little yank-nip. Gadget whinnied his outrage and kicked at Wild Light, but the filly sprang back just in time, and Rain Cloud stepped forward once again to defend her.

  Janessa calmed her pony while Mr. Murley took Rain Cloud by the halter, and Twig fumbled in a vain attempt to get hold of Wild Light again.

  Wild Light scampered behind Rain Cloud, then peeked around him and gave Gadget what could only be a look of defiance. Ha! I can do whatever I want!

  But Rain Cloud gave the filly an admonishing nip, and Wild Light bent her head down apologetically. Relieved to have her still for a moment, Twig grasped Wild Light’s halter. Mr. Murley had her take the filly into the next paddock, where she could taunt the ponies through the fence instead.

  Twig leaned on the ponies’ side of the fence, watching the little bolt of white test her legs. Rain Cloud nuzzled up to Twig, and she scratched his head. “You’re a good boy,” she whispered. “I’m proud of you.”

  Mr. Murley came and stood next to Twig. “Well, it’s going to take a while, but I think she’ll find her place all right.”

  Twig caught a hint of uncertainty in Mr. Murley’s tone. He was watching Wild Light hop. Watching the way she held her head high. Her strange gait, so unlike a horse—like a creature meant for something other than a pasture, something wilder. She might find a way to get along while she was small. But she was growing and maturing so fast. And Twig had a feeling no alpha pony would be able to keep a grown Wild Light in line. No fence would keep her in.

  May

  Chapter 18

  Twig paused to straighten Rain Cloud’s nameplate. She’d painted his name in pale blue, cursive letters. She glanced at Wild Light’s stall. It still said “Caper.” Wild Light stuck her head over the stall door and watched Twig pour the feed into Rain Cloud’s bin, as she’d done every morning for nearly two months. Rain Cloud dug into his breakfast with his usual noisy appreciation.

  “Twig!” Janessa came jogging in. “Mrs. M needs you right away!”

  “Okay. Be right back, Rainy-boy. Hang on, Wild Light.”

  Wild Light whickered her protest, but Rain Cloud just rotated an ear toward her. The rest of him stayed focused on breakfast. He was a good pony. Now that Twig knew a thing or two about ponies, she realized just how easy he was.

  Twig jogged toward the front door. Mrs. Murley was standing on the porch, waving her in. It was Saturday morning, and she supposed Mrs. Murley wanted her help with breakfast. She’d gotten pretty good with the apple cider syrup.

  Mrs. Murley called to her again. “Hurry, Twig!”

  Twig hurried, imagining lumpy syrup or some other breakfast emergency. But Mrs. Murley steered her toward the office instead. Twig held back, confused. The girls weren’t allowed in there, not without special permission.

  “Go on, Twig, there’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”

  “Here?”

  “There.” Mrs. Murley pointed to the laptop, sitting open on her desk.

  Twig’s heart stopped, then started again double time. A blurry image moved on the screen. A face. Daddy. Twig sank into the chair in front of the screen.

  “Twig,” Daddy said, “how are you doing, baby?”

  Oh, Daddy, you’re so far away. That was all Twig could think, but she couldn’t say it, or she’d cry. And she couldn’t cry or she’d never stop. She bolted up, sending the office chair rolling into the wall, and she ducked under Mrs. Murley’s arm and ran for her bedroom.

  A minute later Mrs. Murley came in and shut the door softly behind her. “Twig?”

  Twig’s head was buried in her pillow, but she felt Mrs. Murley sink onto the bed beside her.

  “Oh, Twig.” She brushed her hair with her hand. “I’m sorry. He just messaged me. I knew I should’ve talked to you first, but he insisted. He was afraid you’d say no again if I asked. You haven’t spoken to him in months, Twig…I’m sorry.”

  Twig turned her face slightly to the side and peeked at Mrs. Murley through her tangles. She’d pulled her neat ponytail out at the same time she’d thrown herself onto the bed. How could she explain why she couldn’t talk to him now? Now that he knew she’d turned bad like Mom. Now that he’d let Keely send her away.

  “Maybe sometime,” Mrs. Murley said tentatively, “you could tell me about your dad. He misses you. You could write him a letter instead.”

  Twig shoved her face back into the pillow. He didn’t miss this Twig. He missed the little girl she used to be.

  “Or just draw a picture?”

  Twig lifted her head. Daddy had loved her drawings when she was small, when things were different. But she was too old for crayons and drippy paintings now.

  “Those sketches you did for our botany study were beautiful, Twig. I’ll bet your dad would love to see something like that.”

  “I wouldn’t have to say anything?”

  “Not a word.” Mrs. Murley smiled. “A picture is worth a thousand, and all that.”

  Chapter 19

  Rain Cloud let out an impatient breath, making Twig’s hair tickle the back of her neck.

  “Be good. I’m almost done.” Twig patted him absently, then went back to darkening the shadows beneath the wild violets she was sketching at the edge of the meadow.

  Maybe she’d send this one to Daddy too. Yesterday she’d gotten a letter from him, telling her he’d gotten her drawings, all of plants growing on the island. She’d felt like the old Twig he’d loved.

  But was that who she was anymore? One day he’d come back and he’d realize she was still the snapped-in-half Twig. The Twig that had seen and done too many bad things. Then what?

  “Aaah!” a shriek from the edge of the woods interrupted the quiet footsteps and laughter of the girls in the meadow, the nickers and tail swishes of their ponies. “Look!” Taylor said.

  Twig dropped her sketchbook and plunged through the ferns with Mrs. Murley and the other girls.

  “Ew!” Janessa scrunched her eyes shut.

  Mandy reached for Casey’s hand. Regina looked pale.

  At their feet were the remains of a raccoon. But that wasn’t all. Around it, the brush had been trampled. Leaves were marked with blood.

  “What do you think did it?” Taylor asked Mrs. Murley.

  “Maybe we have a mountain lion here on the island,” Mrs. Murley said.

&n
bsp; Stomach churning, Twig bent down and examined the ground. It wasn’t marred by paw prints; it was gouged with the distinctive pattern of hooves—cloven hooves. Taylor knelt next to her.

  “A deer?” She looked questioningly at Twig.

  Twig shrugged, but her heart was pounding. She took a big step back. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” Regina said. “This is gross.”

  Twig ran for the open sky and the tall meadow grass. She stuffed her sketchbook in her backpack and mounted Rain Cloud.

  Maybe when they got back, she’d try to slip away to Ben’s hollow and look for him again. She’d only checked for him there once and found the hollow empty. Then she’d worried that she would be followed there and he’d be discovered.

  The hungry howls had died down after the night Wild Light was born, but they’d come back a few nights ago. Distant, but for how long? Now she knew that Dagger wasn’t gone. But was Ben? Sometimes she thought about riding Rain Cloud off the trails and looking for Ben. Rain Cloud minded Twig now, and Twig rode well enough too. But Rain Cloud wouldn’t veer off the path into the woods. None of the ponies would, not for Twig or for anyone else.

  Sometimes, when she was standing at the stove stirring the syrup and watching Mrs. Murley drop pancake batter onto the electric skillet, she wanted to tell her about Ben. She imagined Mrs. Murley’s concern, her sending Mr. Murley after Ben, then Mr. Murley bringing him inside, where it was warm. But something told her Ben would not be found. And he wouldn’t come if he were. For so long, Twig hadn’t wanted to tell people things. Now she had people she wanted to tell, and too many things she had to keep secret instead—the truth about what had happened to her stepsister, Emily. The unicorns. Ben.

  June

  Chapter 20

  Twig leaned against the corner of Wild Light’s stall, balancing her sketchbook against her chest. “Stay right there, girl. That’s good.”

  Wild Light was grown enough that Twig had to lift her chin up a little to look into her eyes. She was strong and sleek and beautiful, and still pure white, except for her pale silver-gray mane and tail.

  Twig had learned that when it came to drawing, white was more than just white. Slowly, gradually, she shaded the shadows that defined Wild Light’s shape. Twig took her gum eraser from the pocket of her shell and rubbed at a highlight that had gotten smudged, to make it whiter again. She blew off the eraser bits, stuck the ebony pencil in her mouth, and used her fingertips to blend the soft, dark graphite and smooth the edge between shadow and highlight.

  Wild Light’s ears perked up, and she nickered—her nicker that meant, Hello. Hello, friend. Twig heard the stable door shut. She frowned. She’d been concentrating so hard on her drawing, she’d missed the sound of it opening. Who would be out here this late? Mr. and Mrs. Murley knew she was in the stable sketching. Maybe it was later than she thought and they’d sent one of the girls to get her. She lowered her pencil and peered over the stall wall.

  Ben’s light brown eyes stared back at her. She dropped her pencil in the wood shavings.

  “Hi,” she managed to say.

  “Hello.” He pushed the hood of his cloak back. His hair was longer now, though the ends of the waves looked like someone had sawed at them with a knife. “I come in here at night sometimes, to see her. When no one else is here.”

  “Me too.”

  He gestured at the stall door with his head. “Can I come in?”

  “Oh.” Twig tucked her sketchbook under her arm and reached for the latch, but he opened it himself first.

  Wild Light went right to him and nuzzled his head. Ben laughed softly and rubbed her neck. “Wild Light,” Ben whispered in her ear. “This Twig girl wasn’t born a herder, but she’ll make you a good enough rider just the same, I think.”

  Herder? Rider? Twig wanted to ask Ben what he meant; she wanted to ask him so many things. But his attention was focused on Wild Light. He whispered to her and listened to her soft, breathy answers, and Twig knew better, after these months at Island Ranch, than to interrupt that sort of conversation.

  When he and Wild Light were done talking, Ben plucked the pencil out of the bedding and handed it to Twig. “Can I see?” He gestured at the sketchbook.

  Twig shrugged. Before, she would’ve refused. Now that she was used to the girls peeking over her shoulder all the time, she felt only the slightest knot in her stomach as she folded the sketchbook cover back and held it out to Ben.

  He studied the drawing and one corner of his mouth turned up. She’d drawn Wild Light leaping, dancelike. She’d been sketching her at play in the pasture most of the day, and now she’d come in here with her for a closer look, to fill in the details on her final drawing—the drawing she was going to send to Daddy. It was something more than flowers and leaves this time. Something new.

  “It’s amazing,” Ben said, “but something’s missing.”

  Oh. “What?”

  Ben passed the sketchbook back to her. He reached his hands up to Wild Light’s head, worked his fingers through the silky mass of her forelock, and rubbed them in a circular motion.

  A white tip poked through the forelock. Slowly, it lengthened, turning as it did so, like a twist of rope unwinding. It was pure white.

  “Her horn! I kept expecting it to pop out like magic, but it never did.”

  Ben smiled a crooked, impish little smile, looking, just for an instant, like a very different boy. “I told you, it’s not magic. It’s retractable. See how her head curves up a little higher than your ponies’? There’s an extra space there. The horn is hollow. Most of it slides within itself, and it pulls back into that space—the cornal cavity.”

  Twig’s mouth dropped open. Cornal cavity?

  “Don’t worry,” Ben assured her. “I can coax it back down.”

  “I did that,” Twig recalled in a whisper. “After her mother died. I saw you do it with Mys—with Wind Catcher.”

  He nodded. “They only extend their horns when they’re around other unicorns, but they’ll let a rider draw it out or ease it in if he asks right.”

  “Why’d she let me?”

  “She trusted you,” Ben said, as though that were obvious.

  Twig felt a brief flicker of pride but quickly checked it. Wild Light had been so new to the world then, so alone and afraid, she probably would have trusted anyone.

  Twig put her hand on the side of the horn; she was afraid that if she touched the end of it, she might accidentally push it, and it would go down again. She traced the slight ribbing that spiraled around it with her finger. It was so smooth, almost sharp. Ben let her admire it in peace.

  After a minute, she stood back and opened her sketchbook to a fresh page and she sketched just the horn. It wasn’t so bad, drawing with Ben there. He was quiet, and he looked at Wild Light, not at her.

  “I’ll add it to the drawing of Wild Light tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll show you—if I see you again.”

  “You’ll see me. Soon.”

  Then he took her hand and placed it on the tip of the horn. “Go on. Just a little push.”

  That was all it took, just a gentle, steady pressure, until the horn disappeared into Wild Light’s forelock, and she was something unnameable again.

  “I’d better go,” Ben said. “Indy gets impatient.”

  “He probably worries about you,” Twig said, then blushed and ducked her head quickly, afraid she’d revealed her own concern.

  “Of course he does,” Ben said matter-of-factly. “There’s enough to worry about. For anybody,” he added.

  Twig looked back up, but this time Ben was avoiding her eyes. “I have to go too,” she said. “To go in.”

  “I’ll see you.” Ben pulled his cloak around him and swept out of the stable into the night, alone. At least he had Indy. That was something. Much more than she’d realized it could be before s
he’d gotten to know Wild Light.

  As Twig headed back to the house, she considered adding the horn to the drawing in her room tonight. Casey wouldn’t complain if she turned on her flashlight. Once the drawing was done, she’d be able to see Wild Light as she was meant to be, whenever she wanted.

  No, the Murleys were waiting to look at it, and all the girls wanted to see it. If they saw that picture of Wild Light with her horn, would they think Twig just had an imagination, or would that be just what it took for them to understand what Wild Light really was? She couldn’t risk that.

  She could draw Wild Light with her horn, but she’d have to wait until after she showed them the drawing without it. Then she’d have Mrs. Murley make some copies of the drawing with the printer, and she’d use one of them, along with her sketches of the horn, to draw a new, complete picture of Wild Light with her horn.

  Chapter 21

  Twig knelt on the cool, wet sand beside the other girls. They were writing their names in the sand with their fingers. She traced the outline of a unicorn instead. Even in the mid-June sun, the sand was cold and it hurt when it ground too far under her nails, so Twig headed for the tree line to find a stick.

  Mr. and Mrs. Murley knelt on a blanket on the dry sand farther up the beach, packing what was left of the picnic. With their schoolwork done for the year, they’d all decided to take a hike after their morning chores, rather than riding.

  They’d climbed up to Bald Peak, the highest point on the island. The steep hill was capped with smooth rock, free of trees, offering a stunning view of the shoreline and of Cedar Harbor beyond. Twig had turned to head back down the slope and taken in the view of the island itself. A mass of fog covered the interior of the island. On the sunniest of days, in the deep of the woods, Lonehorn Island was still Lonehorn Island.