Twig bent to pick up a stick but quickly stood when she glimpsed movement in the woods. The movement stopped, and Twig wondered if it was only wishful thinking. Then she saw it again—a hand raised, partly obscured by the brush. It had to be Ben. Twig dropped the stick.
“I’m going to go over there and read, okay?” she called to the Murleys, loud enough that Ben could hear. She pointed to an outcrop of rock about a hundred yards away.
“Sure, Twig,” Mr. Murley said. “Just don’t go so far you can’t hear us, okay?”
“Okay.”
Twig ran across the sand, barefoot, and scrambled up the rough rock, then slowed down to step carefully around the slippery black areas, where sea urchins and barnacles waited for the tide to come in. She slid down the other side of the rock and into the sand.
Ben was right there, waiting. He stepped back awkwardly. It was strange to see him out in the open, in the sunshine. He seemed different than he had in the stable.
“Hi,” Twig made herself say.
“Hi. I heard you say you were coming over here to read. Is that what you keep in there? Books?”
Twig never showed anyone what was in her backpack. Most of the girls had never asked. The others only asked once. But Ben’s eyes were red, like he’d been crying.
She took off her backpack, stepped into a niche in the rock, and sat down on the sand. “No one can see us here. We’ll hear them coming first.”
He sat beside her, and she took out the only book in her backpack, a little Bible Mr. Murley had given her, and laid it on the sand.
He nodded at it. “I had a lot of my own books, back home.”
It was difficult to imagine Ben having a home other than the island, to imagine Ben sitting indoors, reading a book. She opened the backpack and took out a carefully folded piece of paper. She’d made just one copy of this drawing; she’d had to sneak into the Murleys’ office to do it.
“It’s for you.”
“Thanks.”
Ben unfolded the paper and held it up in the sunlight. Wild Light danced across the page. Twig had shaded the sky around her, so she could show the light glinting off the point of her horn. Sometimes she imagined it was sunlight, sometimes moonlight.
“Wow,” Ben said.
“I wish I could see her, just like that. Leaping in the pasture, but with her horn.”
“Me too. And I wish my father could see her.”
Ben let his hair fall over his face. He folded the picture back up and set it aside.
“Want to see a picture of my dad?” Twig regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. His dad was dead; why would he want to see hers?
But Ben said, “Sure.”
Twig took the portrait of Daddy in his dress uniform from her backpack and handed it to Ben. Then she took out a bright orange fishing lure and a picture of her and Mom all dressed up. Daddy wasn’t in that picture because he’d taken it. His princesses, he’d called them. And she’d really felt like one that day.
She told Ben about the first fish she’d caught with Daddy. She told him about the fancy dinner he’d treated them to for her fifth birthday, right after Daddy took that picture. Ben leaned in intently as she spoke, and then he leaned back against the rocks in a satisfied way when she was finished.
“Those are great stories, Twig.”
She nodded. He believed them. He believed them because they were true. It was so hard for them to feel true to her anymore. He handed back the pictures and the fishing lure, and her eyes wandered to the leather pack at his hip. She’d never noticed it before. His cloak had always covered it.
He saw her looking and said, “I don’t have any stories in there. Just lunch.” He picked up the Bible. “I miss stories.”
“You can have it. You must get…bored.” Lonely, she’d almost said, but she didn’t want to embarrass him. “Besides, you like miracles, and that’s what it’s about—miracles.”
Ben slipped it, then the drawing, into the leather pouch at his hip. “It will be safe there.” He tapped the pouch nervously. Abruptly he stood up. “Come on. I have something to show you. Something too big to fit in here.”
“Where are we going? I don’t know if I should…”
“I just want to show you my home. That’s all.”
“Oh.” Twig imagined a little cave, perhaps tucked away along the coastline. Was it warm and cozy or damp and gloomy? Maybe it wasn’t a cave at all, but a treehouse! High up in the cedars, safe from the wild unicorns.
She followed him around the rocks, over a pile of driftwood, and into the lichen-draped trees. Under her bare feet, the sand gave way to dirt.
Ben paused a few yards into the woods and picked up his quiver and bow, which he’d left tucked between some tree roots.
There was a flutter of green in the air, brighter than the evergreens surrounding them. “Mr. Murley’s bird!” It swooped right toward them.
Ben smiled and held out his arm and made a cooing noise. “My bird. Emmie.”
The bird perched on Ben’s arm and made expectant pecking motions at his sleeve. Ben took a pinch of seeds from his pocket and held them out.
“Open your hand.” He dropped the seeds into Twig’s palm, and the bird leaned toward it, but it still clung to Ben’s sleeve. “Hold it closer. Next time she’ll go to you, I think.”
“Is she some kind of parrot?” Twig admired the emerald-green plumage and the amber-colored beak pecking the seeds out of her hand.
“She’s a letter pigeon. Look at her leg.”
Twig examined the tiny leather tube attached to one of the pigeon’s legs.
“She’s the most beautiful pigeon I’ve ever seen. How many creatures do you have?”
“Just her and Indy.”
“Where is Indy?”
“You’ll see.”
Ben pulled his cloak around him and strode deeper into the trees, Emmie riding on his shoulder. Twig stumbled after him, head down, seeking the softest places to set her bare feet.
When Ben stopped, she almost bumped right into his back. Twig looked up, and there was Indy. The unicorn stallion shook his head and snorted softly. His ears were flattened. One ear turned at their approach, but the other he tuned straight ahead, at a strangely thick wall of fog. A shroud wrapped around the trees in the middle of the island.
The sun was warm on Twig’s back, but seeing that net of misty white just a few paces away made goose bumps rise along her skin. The frightening fog of her first moments on Lonehorn Island had hidden in the woods, waiting to creep out over the rest of the island again—or for Twig to wander in.
Ben said hello to Indy. Then, with Emmie the pigeon still perched on his shoulder, he stepped into the mist. It folded around him, swallowing him whole.
“Ben!” Without thinking, Twig lunged after him.
Ben’s misty form paused. “You cannot tell anyone about this.”
Twig’s heart pounded. The moist wind whistled in her ears, You don’t belong here, Twig. Get out. Get out while you can.
Twig just nodded at Ben. What would she say, anyway? I know where the mist hides, even when the sun comes out? I know where to find the island’s secrets? Twig hugged herself tight. Hadn’t enough of the island’s secrets found her already? She didn’t need any more to keep.
“Twig!” A real voice this time, solid and familiar, piercing the fog with a hint of out-of-place sunshine.
It was Janessa, somewhere in the woods nearby, looking for her.
“I have to go, Ben.”
“I need your help,” Ben blurted. “Please. Don’t go.”
Twig glanced over her shoulder. She knew Ben was the kind of boy who wasn’t used to asking, let alone begging. The word please sounded like it almost got stuck on the way out. She didn’t want to say no, but how could she say yes to moving even one step farther into tha
t strange, swirling chill? Why did she need to be here with him? How could she help?
But Ben took her hand, and her feet moved forward, after his, into the whispering veil. She shook off a shudder and tried to tell herself there was nothing strange going on. This was just a spot where the fog collected, and Ben was just a lonely boy.
A few moments later, Ben stopped again. He let go of Twig’s hand and glanced back at her.
“This is where you live?” she asked.
Ben gestured at a cluster of hemlocks whose branches swept through the curtain of mist, to the forest floor.
“In there. Through there.”
Ben pushed the evergreen branches open and stood aside for Twig. Emmie flew in first, her vibrant plumage becoming a dull blur in the cloudlike air. Twig entered the shadows of the branches after the bird. Those shadows were so deep, too dark for day. Lightened only by the misty white that hung in the air, thicker than ever. Twig stumbled backward and the boughs snagged at her hair. Ben caught her wrist, steadying her.
She emerged on the other side of the trees. Now she stood in the center of a ring of low-growing hemlocks clustered near the base of the massive, fluted trunk of a much older red cedar. No signs of a treehouse. Nothing that said home.
Emmie darted past. A breeze wafted through the mist, smelling musty, yet nothing like Lonehorn Island, or western Washington even. Nothing like the world Twig knew.
Emmie cooed. Far away, another pigeon returned her cry. Twig looked up just in time to see Emmie disappear into the lichen-draped branches of the red cedar. A flash of light illuminated a little circle of the mist, and for an instant, Emmie glittered jewel green.
Then the light was gone, and an eerie breeze, stirring up the mist rather than clearing it away, made the only sound, a faint swishing—until the branches snapped down behind Twig, locking her in.
Chapter 22
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.
Chapter 23
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?”
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