Hidden in Sealskin

by Thea van Diepen

  The garage door opened and a man exited, his shape silhouetted against the light from the lamps inside.

  “Close it up when you’re ready, then,” he shouted into the garage, “but give that thing a chance to air out first. You don’t want to be breathing it all night.”

  There came a muffled reply and the man went down the street away from Adren, whistling as he did. She wondered if the garage stayed open during the day. Once the man had gone from sight, she crept to the door and, upon reaching it, turned invisible and headed inside.

  On the outside, the garage’s modern design blended well with the more traditional architecture of the rest of the mansion. Past the door, however, all pretense of tradition disappeared. Adren tiptoed between the naked inner wall and one of the lines of motorized carts, their wood and metal painted a grotesque melange of colours. It was enough to give her a headache.

  A loud clang echoed from the far corner of the garage, followed by a curse. Although it hadn’t startled her enough for her to lose hold of her invisibility, Adren hid behind a cart and dropped the magic for a moment of rest before resuming it and passing a corner.

  Halfway down the second wall, her nose wrinkled at a burnt odour emanating from the far corner. The smell only grew as she approached. She hoped she would get used to it before it started to interfere with her concentration.

  There came a crack as something broke, a wordless yell close on its heels. Something flew though the air, banging against one of the carts as it went, and landing only a short distance from Adren. After a pause, the yeller sighed and came towards her. She froze, her breath slow and quiet. The yeller stopped, his shoes scraped the ground one at a time, and then nothing.

  “Ah!” The voice sounded familiar, but Adren couldn’t place it. It was masculine, definitely, and had cracked at the end, so she guessed it was a boy in the middle of adolescence. Her chest was tight from holding the magic, so she peered above the carts, standing on tip-toe to see where this boy was. At first, she saw no one, but then came the scrape of shoes again and his head rose over one of the carts. It was the same boy who had climbed the ladder and found her in the barn. Dirt and grease smudged his face, the freshest grease glinting in the lamplight as he turned and stared at Adren. She waited for his gaze to pass over her, or for him to walk away, but he did neither. Instead, his eyes widened and his mouth opened as his expression turned from annoyance to surprise. This unnerved Adren so much that she had to remind herself that the boy couldn’t possibly see her. He must have noticed something behind her.

  “Holy hell,” said the boy, “what are you doing here?”

  Adren’s gut squeezed. He should not be able to see her. Could not. The magic hadn’t slipped the entire time he’d seen her. She glanced back to see if there was anything that would explain this, but could only find an empty wall.

  The boy squinted. “You are the one who broke into my lord’s vault and then hid in my barn, right? Because I don’t think there’s anyone else around here with fairy glamour.”

  Adren dropped behind the cart. Her breathing quickened, near to hyperventilation, and she could feel her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest.

  Sweet saints, he should not be able to see her.

  “Wait!” said the boy. Soon after came a crash and a grunt of pain, then footsteps coming closer to her.

  In the back of her mind, Adren could feel the unicorn respond to her fear, and its resolve to help. Any moment now, it would try to act. She wanted to calm down, but reason had left her. Blood pounded in her ears, the unicorn’s madness burned within her, and she grabbed onto the wildness for strength. She let go of the invisibility and stood just as the boy reached her. He stopped a few paces away and Adren took the moment to lunge at him. As she did, he backed away, hands lifted, which she took to mean he wanted to avoid conflict.

  Good.

  Adren reached out with one arm and wrapped it around his neck. She sidestepped to come around behind him. Once there, she grabbed her other elbow and pressed his head with her free hand. Bent over and off balance, he tried to push her away. His movements became more frantic as she squeezed his neck, but she held fast, counting as she did.

  “One, two, three, four…” the boy panicked at her voice and kept trying to push her arms, not realizing that his own chin kept her hold secure. “…five, six, seven, eight…” his movements slowed and his strength waned. “Nine…” the boy had stopped moving. Adren let go at once and dashed out of the garage. It wouldn’t take him long to wake, and she couldn’t afford to have him see where she went.

  As she ran, she felt the unicorn’s concern fade and its focus return to its hurt. She wished her fear could leave so quickly.

  The moon had risen by the time Adren returned to camp. The gentle radiance could not keep all the dark at bay, but it could soften the edges, make silver out of cedar and ferns. Adren uncovered her pack by this light, taking from her pockets the dye, the fabric, the money, and removing them to their respective places. Then she took out her small store of wood and lit a fire. The flames hissed and spat, sending strange shadows through the trees before they settled into a comfortable red-orange.

  Adren was about to put another log on when she heard rustling in the bush. She froze, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. Only her eyes moved as she searched the underbrush. There wasn’t much in this forest, old as it was, but the spots that had grown between the trunks could hide someone with ease.

  The rustle came again, this time accompanied by an equine the colour of the moon, and Adren relaxed. Of course it was the unicorn. That boy couldn’t have woken in time to find her.

  Red made an awful contrast against the white along the unicorn’s flank and hindquarters where gashes, too deep and regularly spaced to have come from mere branches or thorns, marred its hide. The unicorn’s anxiety shivered in the back of Adren’s mind even as the unicorn shivered in front of her. She had expected this. Terrible as it was, she had expected this.

  “Oh, come here,” she said as she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around its neck. Its anxiety dissolved at her touch, leaving behind only contentment. She stroked it until the tension in its muscles had ebbed away to nothing, then she kissed it at the base of its horn and stepped back to inspect.

  At the unicorn’s rate of healing, the wounds weren't serious, but would still benefit from some basic measures to protect against infection. Adren pulled a jar of salve from her pack and applied it with care to the wounds. The salve stung, and the unicorn flinched. Adren could feel the pain, but she gritted her teeth and remained calm for the unicorn’s sake. It echoed her.

  The first time she had done this, she had pressed too hard on the unicorn’s wounds, and it had fled. By the time she had found it again, it had new wounds and would not let her near it. She had had to wait until it fell asleep before she could treat it and, by then, dirt had been rubbed into the raw flesh. It had taken a long time to clean and bandage everything. So now, she kept her touch as soft as possible, and her emotions as still as she was capable. The latter was the most difficult. It pained Adren to see the unicorn like this, with the consequences of its madness most clear. She didn’t know where it went and what it encountered that attacked it and she didn’t know why it kept rushing to these places where she could neither stop nor protect it, but she knew that no sane creature would act in such a way.

  Her fingers brushed against silvery scars as she worked, yet another reminder of all the unicorn had lost. Or perhaps had never had, but Adren didn’t want to believe that. While she had not met another unicorn, she knew they were wise, intelligent, and powerful. They should be able to understand speech and communicate. They should be beautiful and strong without acting like mere animals. Their healing should leave no mark.

  After so many years, it was clear that the others could not help this one, or else they would have come. They may have, before it had been with Adren. Healers by nature, they would have known if one of their own was ill. They wo
uld have done all they could to bring it back to wholeness. But, with this one, their power had not been enough. Perhaps they had left the unicorn with her so that she would go into the human places and navigate their shades of deceit to find the treasure they hid. Much as she hated humans, they did tend to collect knowledge about all they came across, and so it was with them she had the best chance of finding a cure, if one existed.

  Adren shook her head as she wiped the last of the salve onto the unicorn’s hide. Of course there was a cure. She couldn’t doubt that. Not now, not ever.

  The unicorn lay down, its pain faded down to a level they both could ignore. After she retrieved some dried meat from her pack and tended the fire, Adren joined it. It put its head in her lap, sighing. This made eating awkward, with the horn jutting up in front of Adren, but she was used to it. She sometimes missed the more subtle of the unicorn’s emotions, especially if something contradictory held her attention, and this action confirmed for her that the unicorn was truly at peace.

  With a snap from the fire, flecks of bright ash shot into the air and went out before they touched anything. Lighting it had been unnecessary, as the night remained warm. She had gone through the trouble mostly for the ritual of it, which soothed her.

  “And it’s nice to look at,” she said to the unicorn after swallowing the last of her food.

  With the warmth before her and the unicorn behind, Adren slipped toward the border between reality and dreams.

  “There once was a girl in a big house with many pretty dresses,” she said, hardly aware of what she said or why. The words made a nice counterpoint to the wind in the canopy of cedar, and that was enough. “She would dance in them all the time, twirling the skirts this way and that. It was silly, but she loved it. She loved it and would do it every day to make everyone smile and, so long as she could dance, there was nothing wrong in the world. Nothing at all…”

  Adren woke with a start. The fire burned lower than before, and the unicorn was no longer behind her. Emotions boiled within the back of her mind, threatening to burst. The unicorn’s tail flicked in her face and she heard the undergrowth shift as its hooves danced. She turned to see it on its feet, horn lowered and pointed out of the clearing. Only a few steps away stood a figure. Adren rose for a better look. It was the boy.

  “How did you find us?” she asked. Her hostility fed into the unicorn. It started to charge, but the boy lashed out with magic that bruised the unicorn's skin in an instant. Pain flooded through both the unicorn and Adren. The unicorn faltered. It shied away, but kept its horn pointed at him. Anger had turned to rage and now it wanted violence.

  The boy attacked again with magic, and Adren saw him pull out a knife as he did so. The unicorn screamed, ready to kill, and the boy’s stance became more stable. He would not be able to withstand the unicorn, but his magic would do a great deal of damage before he died, and Adren didn’t want the unicorn to sustain any more injury. Neither did she want to deal with the people who would come looking for the boy later.

  The unicorn tensed, about to charge. Adren leapt forward. She grabbed it by the neck, doing all she could to remain stoic. The boy’s eyes narrowed as he raised his knife. Despite herself, Adren’s throat closed.

  “Put that away!” she yelled at the boy, keeping her grip on the unicorn tight. It strained to be free, but had not yet lost itself enough to ignore her. The boy stared. “Put it away, or I won’t be able to keep the unicorn back!” Adren smoothed her emotions again and pressed against the unicorn. She hoped her calm would transfer and pacify the creature before it could act.

  With a frown, the boy put away his knife. He took a step back and held up his hands.

  The unicorn shook, bewildered. Its desire to kill rang through their connection, hot as a bright coal and taut as a bowstring. Adren pressed her head into its neck and stroked it.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she whispered, her voice steady and gentle. She began to hum. The melody was sweet and simple, and it always worked to soothe the unicorn. Adren regretted that the boy could hear, but there was nothing to be done. The unicorn relaxed as it loosened its grip on rage—loosened, loosened, loosened, and let go. Both of its ears flicked towards her as it recognized the song. When it was more at peace, Adren also let go with a caress and stood as tall as she could next to it, one hand on its shoulder.

  “It lets you touch it?” The boy gaped.

  “How did you get here?” The fact that he could both see through her invisibility and use magic hinted at an explanation, but Adren couldn’t yet be sure.

  He shrugged. “I followed the trail.”

  “Like a hunter would?” Because paved roads and mossy ground were so terribly prone to showing off footprints.

  “Not exactly… What are you doing all the way out here?” The boy then looked at the unicorn, his expression sheepish.

  “How did you find us?” Adren demanded. “If you lie, I’ll know.” Well, sometimes she could. As far as she could tell, the ability was tied to her connection with the unicorn but, unlike that magic, this one was inconsistent, or consistent in a way she hadn’t discovered. Of course, she wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “I have the Sight.” The boy hesitated. “I’m the seventh son of a seventh son. It’s why I could see through your glamour.”

  He was a bad liar. Adren didn’t need a truth sense to tell her that. Anyone with an elementary knowledge of magic not based on superstition would know being the seventh son of anything did nothing for a person. That, and his ears were turning red. There were only two possible reasons for his magic, in order of likelihood: either he had fairy blood or someone with magic had tampered with him earlier in his life. Adren kept her expression neutral.

  “So, you can see through magic. How does that help?”

  “Don’t you know?” His eyes widened and his mouth clamped shut. With crossed arms, he continued: “I mean… with your glamour, I thought you might be a fairy, and they know about these things.”

  “Well, I’m not. And stop calling it glamour. It makes you sound stupid.” They paused. The red of the boy’s ears spread to his face. He glanced at the fire.

  “Could I sit down?”

  “You’re thinking of staying?”

  “No. But I came here on purpose, and I’m not going to leave just because someone tries to frighten me off. I wouldn’t come just to run away.” The boy’s posture straightened as he spoke. His arms dropped to his sides and his voice deepened with the last sentence. These changes seemed to Adren to be unconscious, which fascinated her. She wondered what there was behind these words that affected him so strongly.

  The unicorn headed back to the fire and lay down. If it felt that safe with the boy around, then Adren supposed she could lower her guard a bit, but only because she was sure he wasn’t fully human. And only until she decided what to do with him.

  “Come and sit,” she said. He obeyed. Once settled, he spoke.

  “I can sometimes see magic and feel when something or someone with magic is nearby, and I can usually track it down, too, if I pay attention. That’s how I found you. But maybe it was the unicorn, if you're not a fairy.” His forehead wrinkled.

  “Sometimes? Usually?” Adren kept her tone normal, but she was thinking of the sealskin and the magic jewel inside it.

  “It’s patchy,” said the boy, shrugging. “If I get distracted, I don’t notice it. And if I think too hard about it, then I lose it. I have to relax to see it and feel it best, I think. So, yeah. I can usually find magic things, but it takes a while most times.”

  Patchy as his ability was, Adren wondered whether it would be worth working with him. Would he even want to help her? She didn’t need him, per se, but she wanted to keep him an ally for as long as possible. After all, he had sought her out…

  “Are you human, then?” he asked.

  Adren grimaced. “Yes.” Mostly. Maybe. Not really. It was closer than changeling, at any rate.

  “But how can you use glam…” The bo
y gulped. “How can you make yourself, uh, seem invisible if you’re human?”

  “I just can.”

  The boy opened his mouth again, but Adren held up a hand. He kept interrupting her thoughts, and she was about to lose the question she wanted to ask. An owl hooted nearby, making the boy jump, but otherwise he remained still. They sat like that for a while, long enough for the unicorn to fall asleep. A fog fell over the connection between her and it until all she could feel was the fact of its presence and nothing more. What had she been wanting to ask? Ah! Yes. That.

  “Why did you try to find me?” The boy shrugged. Adren wished he would stop doing that.

  “I was curious. I wanted to know who you were and why you’d break into my lord’s vault. And his garage. Why would a fairy do that? But you’re not a fairy, and now I’m confused. Why were you there?”

  “I needed the money.”

  “But why the garage, then, if you already had what you needed? I don’t understand.”

  The sense of truth, like the taste and smell of honeysuckle, came to Adren so strongly that she could barely breathe. How naive was this boy that he didn’t even consider simple greed? Anyone else would have and dismissed her as driven by such. She chose not to answer. The boy didn’t seem to notice. He only stared into the fire and continued:

  “When I heard the officers shouting, I went outside and saw them run onto the street. They looked around, then a few went past my house, and the others came behind and searched everything. I asked what was going on, and they explained. When I saw some in the barn, I thought they would go right for the ladder, but they went by it like they didn’t even see it. After they’d left—”