“How long have you been having these visions or whatever of Hot Springs?” asks Nicholas.
“Since after the surgery,” Mystic says from behind.
“You told Mystic and not me!”
“Maybe because I knew you’d act like this.” I turn and look at him.
“Act like what? I’m acting perfectly normal. So wait, when did you start seeing the unicorn?”
“Carmen,” Noah and I say at the same time.
“Okay, Carmen,” Nicholas says. “How long have you been seeing her?”
“Forever,” I say.
“Sixth grade for me,” adds Noah. “After Jewel’s horn . . .” He points to his stomach.
“But like how much do you see her,” Nicholas asks. “Once a month, once a—”
“Every day,” I say. “I mean, everywhere I go, she goes.” I can tell it’s a lot for him to take in because he goes silent, until—
“EVERY DAY! Are you freaking kidding me? You saw a unicorn every day and didn’t tell me about it?” He lets out an exaggerated sigh, then suddenly regroups. “Wait, you said she knocked over my books? Carmen was around me?”
I almost snort with laughter. “You’re just getting that.”
“Whenever I’d see her,” Noah says, “she was usually with Jewel. And you were with Jewel a lot. So therefore, you were with Carmen a lot.”
I can tell Nicholas head’s about to pop off. He looks at Noah. “And you saw her this whole time? Why didn’t you tell anybody?”
“He told me,” Ethan says.
“Yeah, but you thought I was crazy,” says Noah.
“So are you saying that if you had nicked me with your horn, I could’ve been seeing Carmen this whole time?” Nicholas asks.
“Hey!” Noah says. “Way more than a nick, Nick.”
“Does any of this relate to you abandoning us for jerk-face Emma?”
I look back at Mystic. “No, that was all me.”
She nods. “As I suspected.”
We crunch over dead leaves and wind through a cluster of trees.
“Hey, isn’t your French competition today?” Mystic asks.
“Yeah. We’re supposed to leave at noon, but—”
“You can’t miss that! If you’re not there, you know who will be happy to take your place.”
Of course. Brooklyn. I feel so confused about her right now. I mean, for the past week, she’s actually been nice to me. I was starting to feel like we could be friends. But last night she just stood by while Emma was so mean to Mystic, which makes me think I can’t trust her after all. She’s definitely Team Emma, right? So, do I want her to take my place at the competition? No! I’ve come so far. I want to do it!
But Carmen comes first. She’s more important than all the competitions in the world right now.
The trail narrows, and Noah slips in front of Nicholas as we walk single file.
“I have one question though,” he says quietly. “If Carmen’s so important, why were you always pushing her away? Every time I saw Carmen come near you, you tried to ignore her, or you pretended she wasn’t there. Which made me think either she wasn’t really there and I was totally bonkers, or that you were messing with that unicorn’s head.”
I stop and look at them. “You don’t understand.” Hearing it from someone else’s perspective, I feel like a horrible person. “When you’re so different for so long, you just . . . you want to push it away. When the thing happened with you, Noah, I blamed Carmen. I thought if I could get away from her, maybe my horn would go away, just disappear, and I’d be normal. I’d get to do things that regular people do. Like go places. Like do French competitions.”
“But didn’t you go to LA with a horn on your head?” Nicholas says.
“And Monsieur Oliver wanted you to compete in the competition with your horn,” adds Mystic.
“You don’t know what it’s like. You should have seen me in LA before my horn came off. I can’t—couldn’t be seen like that. By all those strangers. Watching me like I was a fr—” I can’t finish the sentence.
A sharp wind sets the pine trees in motion over our heads, and everyone goes quiet.
“You know, none of us has a horn, but I definitely don’t feel normal either,” Noah says. “I’m sure none of us does.”
Nicholas’s hands fly up. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her!” He nods at Noah as if they just became friends.
“A horn is a little different, you guys.”
“A horn is cool,” Ethan says.
“Yeah, what Ethan said.” And Noah smiles at me.
“Well, you’re normal now,” says Nicholas. “How’s that going for you?”
“No, I’m not.” I shake my head. “I thought I’d get rid of my horn and magically change inside. But I never did. Horn or no horn, I don’t feel normal. I still feel like me.”
I start moving again, and the freaks and nerds follow. For the first time, I feel my friends around me like a security blanket. I linger in the feeling as long as I can before raising my concern. “That magical connection you were talking about, Noah? I’m scared that’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“If our horns are magically connected, and I cut mine off, what did I do to her?” I pause and nobody answers, so it spills out—my greatest fear. “What if I killed my unicorn?”
I look back at them, but of course no one has an answer. So, silently, we walk on, treading deeper into the woods. White clouds block the blue sky above the swaying pines. The trail is fainter now. In some places, it’s hardly there at all. “What time is it?” I finally ask.
Noah says, “Ten-twenty.” We’ve been walking for half an hour.
“I’m not getting reception out here,” Nicholas says, staring at his phone. “Are you sure you know where we’re going?”
“No!” I suddenly snap, seeing the trail go cold. “I don’t know where we’re going.”
“Hey, calm down,” Nicholas says soothingly. “We’ll find it.”
“But what if we don’t? What if this is the wrong trail?” I look at him, panicking inside. “Nicholas, what are we doing? We’re looking for some portal to some faraway place from a comic book—”
“It showed up with this global address,” he says firmly.
“It’s a comic book!” I yell. “It’s not real! What if there are no portals? What if there are no global addresses?!” Nicholas stares at me, and I watch his confidence crack. If Nicholas isn’t sure about this, we’re lost. I put my hands to my hornless face and want to cry. I took off my horn. My unicorn left me. And now I’m leading a mission to rescue her from some place I visited seven years ago. To find some portal. TO A COMIC BOOK!
“I’m an idiot,” I say, and look at my friends. An uncomfortable quiet swells between us. For all these years, I thought people wouldn’t believe me if I told them about Carmen, but what if I invented her as a way to deal with having a horn on my head?
Then again, Noah says he saw her, too, and I remember that night so clearly, when I was six and Carmen brought me out here, but how can I be sure that any of it was real? What if it’s not here? What if coming out here the first time was just a dream? What if we’re at the wrong spot? What if—oh my gosh. I’m an idiot.
“Hey, idiot,” Mystic says.
“What?” I answer.
“Is it just me, or does anyone else hear that creek?”
My head spins around. We all get quiet again, and then . . . I hear it, too. The sound of running water. A stream.
“Where?” I call out.
“There.” Ethan points to our right and we fan out through the trees.
I trip over a fallen tree limb but stumble on. All I can see are pine trees, pine straw, and pine cones. No water, no boulder.
“Here!” It’s Nicholas’s voice. Mystic shows up beside me and we hurry toward the sound. We burst into a clearing, and—
Nicholas is smiling. “Found it,” he says.
I exhale as I see
the boulder beside him. It’s still large, but smaller than I remember, I guess because I’m bigger now. Beyond the boulder is the canopy of vines. I rush past Nicholas and gaze at the trail that descends steeply under that canopy. “It’s that way,” I say, pointing down the trail.
Nicholas steps beside me. We stand silently for a moment until he says, “This is the global address.”
“This place is in Highwaymen?” Mystic asks, appearing at my other side.
“Kind of,” I tell her. “It’s the place that leads there. I hope. Carmen took me here when I was six. I wasn’t completely sure it existed in real life.”
“It’s a portal,” Nicholas says matter-of-factly.
“A portal?” Noah asks. “Like to another world?”
Nicholas nods. “Exactly.”
Ethan lifts the coil of rope over his head and sets it on the boulder. “So why the rope?”
“Because I don’t want to go completely alone.”
“You’re not going alone,” Nicholas says.
“I have to,” I say, and look into his eyes. “I can’t explain it, Nicholas. I just know it’s how it has to be.” I expect him to argue with me, but for once, he doesn’t.
I pull out the box from my backpack, and place it on the boulder. When I open it, Ethan asks, “Is that your horn?”
“Oh, wow,” whispers Noah.
“Good idea,” Nicholas says. “There’s magic in that horn.”
I’m struck by how unmagical it actually appears. Without me, it’s just a horn. I lift it out of the box.
“Let’s do this,” Nicholas says. “Ethan, tie the rope around Jewel’s waist so it can’t get undone, okay?”
“Sure,” Ethan says, ready for instructions. This is the plan that Nicholas and I came up with on the bike ride from his house. I’ll walk down the trail, rope tied around my waist, and they won’t let go.
Ethan wraps the rope around me and starts tying. “Is it long enough?” I ask.
“Longest one we got,” Ethan says, looping the end into a complex knot. Of course—he’s a fireman’s son.
I take a deep breath and stare at the opening of the trail as Mystic comes up and squeezes my hand. “Bonne chance,” she says, and gives me a small smile. “It’ll be all right.”
I squeeze her hand back.
“Done.” Ethan backs away, inspecting his handiwork. “There’s no way you’re slipping out of that.”
“Everybody grab a spot on the rope,” Nicholas says as Ethan spreads the rope out among us. Ethan takes the far end, then Mystic, Noah, Nicholas, and me. We all stand there for a second and nobody moves. It’s Nicholas who finally speaks. “You ready?”
I nod, and the pulse on my forehead from this morning reappears. As I step under the branches and vines, the temperature drops. Am I imagining this? Or creating it? Either way, I’m filled with a quiet foreboding.
“I hope I’m right about this,” I say nervously as I take another step.
And Nicholas answers, “You are.”
My foot slips on the damp leaves beneath us, and Nicholas catches me by the arm. We take several careful steps together until we’re almost at the bottom of the trail—where it turns, and I can’t see beyond. Where I’ll have to go on alone.
“Hey Nicholas. I’m scared.”
“I can still come with you.”
“You can’t,” I whisper, and look back at him. “You have to stay right here.”
He wraps his fingers more tightly around the rope and gives me a nod. “Then you can do this. When you pull on the rope, we’ll pull you back.”
“Promise?” I say, and force a grin.
“Promise,” he says back.
Then slowly, I turn and ease myself down the trail, acutely aware of the rope that is tethering me to my friends. I know they won’t let go. Holding on to my horn tightly, I walk around the bend.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Some blinding light to appear, opening a portal to Carmen, who’s hidden somewhere outside of Hot Springs, circa 1888? It all seems ridiculous. I’m still in the woods outside of our town, circa present day. It’s just a regular trail, and I’m a regular girl with a rope tied around her waist who has her friends thinking that Hot Springs is an actual place. And that the magic in this horn is real.
Pushing these thoughts aside, I force myself to trudge on. I take step after step, until my foot suddenly sinks into the ground. Another step and my other foot becomes stuck. Oh, crap. Do I turn back now? Already?
And then: a whinny.
Carmen.
With everything I have, I wrench my feet from the sticky soup. Another step and my hands fall forward into what feels like wet concrete. I’m up to my elbows in it and sinking by the second.
“Carmen,” I call out, and as I do, I sink down farther. But instead of encasing me, the quicksand begins to come apart. I’m slipping through it, as if the planet is giving way. There’s nothing to hold on to, the vines above too far out of reach, so I keep sinking. I go completely under. And I’m drowning.
Until I fall through the bottom and land on—
—hard, dry dirt. The rope around my waist leads several feet above my head, where it disappears, quite literally, into thin air. It’s there and then it’s not.
Wiping the gunk from my face, I stand and gaze up at the two prehistoric teeth that I’ve seen so many times. The tall, skinny rock formations of Rock Canyon.
The pulse in my forehead is throbbing now. I circle the rock formation closest to me, and there they are. Esmeralda and Carmen, exactly as I last saw them: Carmen lying on the canyon floor and Esmeralda kneeling beside her. Carmen’s head flails when she sees me. She can’t get up.
Esmeralda stands. “It was Wesley,” she says. “Wesley did this.”
“I know,” I tell her. Esmeralda looks at me like she’s never seen me before. I’m either unrecognizable under the muck or she doesn’t remember the visions.
Then she sees the unicorn horn in my hand.
Straightening, she pulls a knife from her belt. She must think it’s Carmen’s horn, and in a way, she’s right. “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend.”
“A friend who has a unicorn’s horn?” she says suspiciously. “We save magical creatures in these parts.”
“I’m here to do the saving. Just let me get to her.” I move toward Carmen, but Esmeralda gets between us, stopping me. I pull back my bangs to reveal the scar on my forehead. “I know this is going to sound weird, but the horn is mine.” I know all too well how stubborn Esmeralda is though. She won’t be tricked by strangers, and she would rather die than let a magical creature be hurt.
Carmen groans and her head falls back to the ground. She’s breathing heavy. Way too heavy. I have to do this—fast.
“Okay, listen. The unicorn is named Carmen. She’s my unicorn. She belongs with me.”
Unmoved, Esmeralda holds her ground. I have to gain her trust. But how?
“Truth or consequences.” It slips out of my mouth and I don’t know why. I chose consequences when Beaumont asked me before, and look where it got me.
Now I choose truth.
“I know about you,” I tell her. “I know how you play the violin and how you write to your mother who lives in Boston every week. I know you keep a gun in a holster strapped to your thigh. That you cheat at cards and that you love Chet. I know how Chet was saved by his horse, Billy, when he was left for dead in the desert. I know how Beaumont loves to read but never tells anyone, and how he built his cabin in the woods but almost always stays in town because he loves you. I know about Marv and Sheba, and I know about Wesley, too. And I hate him as much as you do.” Her face is giving way now. I pause, then say the last and most compelling truth I can think of.
“I come from the future and I’m here to help.”
Okay, I stole that line from a movie, but from the look on her face, I think it worked.
A figure appears from around one of the rock formations. It’s Beaumont.
Before I can answer, there’s a loud crackle behind me and I turn around. The space in the air where the rope dead-ends is sparking with electricity.
“I don’t think you have much time,” Esmeralda says. She looks at Beaumont, and carefully back at me—and then she steps aside so I can get to Carmen.
Plowing past her, I fall on my knees in front of my unicorn. I stroke her head, but she doesn’t rise to meet my touch. She’s breathing so slowly now. I lean down and whisper, “I’m sorry, Carmen. I was so wrong. I didn’t understand. I didn’t mean to leave you.” I’m crying now, hard, and I feel like I might never stop. “I need you, Carmen. Please don’t die.”
Carmen doesn’t respond. Her beautiful horn is gone and here she lies dying, and I don’t know how to do this. So I call upon whatever magic might be between us. I wrap my hands around my horn, with the blunt side down, and slowly, I raise it over my head.
I can feel Esmeralda’s fierce eyes on me. The pulse from my forehead is now in my hands. I take one last look at Beaumont, who nods, urging me on. Then, with everything I have, I drive my horn down onto Carmen’s head—into the space where her horn used to be.
And then I get the burst of light I was expecting before. It’s blinding. It’s intense. It blows me into oblivion.
Oblivion
Tall pines sway gently beneath the sky.
My forehead tingles.
“Jewel.”
I open my eyes and look up to see Nicholas standing over me. “Are you okay?” he asks.
Propping up on my elbow, I look around hazily. I’m back at the boulder, and Mystic, Noah, and Ethan are nearby, struggling to their feet. They look as dazed and confused as I feel. The issue of Highwaymen that was in my backpack lies open beside me.
“Where is she?” I ask, craning my neck, searching for Carmen.
Nicholas looks around. “She’s not here?”
I shake my head and look to Noah. “Do you see Carmen?”
“No,” he says, coming toward me.
I sit up and glance down at myself. I’m a dirty-dog mess, and the rope is still tied around my waist.
Mystic approaches. “What was that?”
“What?” I ask.
Not a Unicorn Page 19
