The Secret Country

by PAMELA DEAN

  “Perhaps.”

  The unicorn sounded uncompromising. Laura thought harder. The unicorns around her were perfectly still. As she thought, they faded and slipped sideways into the periphery of her vision, and the things she had seen and not told crowded the leafy clearing.

  “On Midsummer’s Eve,” said Laura, “at supper, in Fence’s room, I looked at Randolph’s ring, and I saw a lot of shapes, all misty, but up in the sky was Claudia’s face. And it was the same as one of the faces I saw in the sword, before. It was big, bigger than the sun would be.”

  The silence held.

  “And later Ellie and I found the knife Claudia made, and I saw Ted’s face in it, all bloody. Hey!” said Laura, sitting up and trying to address a unicorn through the shifting shadows. “When Patrick broke—I mean, later, I did see Ted with blood on his face! Really. Except . . .” She frowned. “I think,” she said, slowly, staring straight before her to where a ghost of Claudia’s dagger winked, “I think when I saw him in the dagger his face was a lot dirtier. It’s hard to be sure.”

  “Certainty is a trap,” said a unicorn.

  “Well,” said Laura, “and that same night I looked at Fence’s robe and I saw a lot of people and beasts all running around on a flat place. And I think,” she ended, “that that’s all.” A great gust of wind swept through the trees, and the unicorns filtered back into view. Laura blinked. How had they done that?

  “Well, Child of Man,” said the unicorn she had ridden, “I think it is time we had your name.”

  “Laura,” said Laura. In the silence after she had spoken, a kind of resinous fragrance wafted by, prickling but sweet; on the very edge of hearing a horn blew happily.

  The unicorns drew back a little.

  Laura wondered if she had been rude. “May I have yours?” she asked.

  The one she had ridden came forward again. “Chryse,” it said. Laura, gazing upward, saw for the first time that its eyes were not violet like the others’, but a brilliant gold. The wind and the light sweetened suddenly into summer again, and the grass was full of dandelions.

  “That’s pretty,” said Laura, before she thought, but Chryse did not seem to take it amiss.

  “My thanks to you,” it said, graciously. Then its ears went back. “Yours,” it said, “is much more than pretty.”

  Chryse did not sound precisely pleased, so Laura changed the subject. “I guess you can’t answer my riddles?”

  “When you change time of your own power,” said Chryse, “when you have played the Flute of Cedric and found the unicorn in winter, bereft of the cardinal, then we will answer your riddles.”

  “Thank you,” said Laura, glumly. Ruth could change time of her own power, and she could play the flute, too, though she probably didn’t know who Cedric was; Laura saw no possibility of doing any of these things herself.

  “I think,” she said, “since it’s summer again and they might start to miss me, I’d better go back now.”

  “This is not your summer,” said Chryse. The other unicorns were slipping sideways again, sliding into sunbeams and not emerging on the other side. “But I will take you to it.” It knelt, and Laura climbed onto its back again.

  Chryse leaped, and things became a blur of green and blue and gold, and Laura fell off suddenly, flat into the middle of the abandoned fence from the hunt.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Due payment duly paid,” said Chryse, with a remote amusement, and it shot over the fence and disappeared.

  Laura picked herself up, brushed herself off, climbed over the fence, and followed the trampled trail of the others to the feast.

  CHAPTER 22

  IT seemed that Laura had not been gone very long. She caught up to Ellen, Benjamin, and the white horse before they had come to the feast. She trudged along behind them, looking at the wild tangle of Ellen’s hair, and found that she was still jealous, but that she no longer had to do anything about it. She was sure, without knowing why, that Ellen had not felt the harder edge of the unicorns’ character, the almost malicious mirth and the inhuman laughter. Ellen had behaved in accordance with custom, and the unicorns had been kind to her. Laura had not, and though they had not been unkind, they had been difficult. Laura tried to think of this as a superior adventure, but it felt more like a breach of manners. She shrugged and ran.

  “Wait for me!”

  The white horse shied and Benjamin spun around, but Ellen looked over her shoulder and grinned. “There you are,” she said. “Did you get to see everything?”

  “Yes,” said Laura.

  “Now I know what you meant about the lake,” said Ellen confidentially.

  “You were braver,” said Laura, with an effort, and felt a little better.

  “But you were first,” said Ellen.

  Laura looked at Benjamin, but he seemed to be busy leading the horse. He was a little grim, but Benjamin had never, either in the game or in the reality, been a very cheerful man.

  The avenue of trees ended and they came out into a wide sunlit space crowded with people. There were three pavilions of dark blue with banners flying from them. The banners all bore a running fox, like the one on the tunic Ted had worn for Midsummer’s Eve—or, come to think of it, like the one on the seal Ellen had used for the note they had sent to Fence.

  Laura turned to Ellen as Benjamin helped her off the horse.

  “You see why it couldn’t be a unicorn on the banner,” she said.

  “What?” said Ellen, rubbing the horse’s neck. “Will it have a feast too?” she asked Benjamin.

  “Of a certainty,” said Benjamin, and took the horse away.

  “You see why it couldn’t be a unicorn on the banner,” repeated Laura.

  “Oh,” said Ellen. “No, I suppose it couldn’t. It would be wrong.”

  “It would be asking for trouble,” muttered Laura.

  “Let’s eat,” said Ellen.

  “I have to tell you something,” said Laura, following her through the crowd. “The unicorn said I had to tell you.”

  “At the hunt?”

  “No.”

  “Oh,” said Ellen, “the one this morning, in the lake.”

  Laura blessed her for the mistake. “I see things in things,” she said.

  “What?”

  Laura explained.

  “That’s weird,” said Ellen, stopping in the middle of the crowd, so that a young woman carrying a tray of pasties had to dodge her, and two pasties flew off the tray. The young woman looked as if she would have liked to swear, but a small boy caught one pasty and a large dog the other, and she smiled and went on.

  “What all have you seen?”

  Laura told her. Ellen was unconvinced by Laura’s feeling that Ted’s face had been too dirty, in her vision, for the vision to have been of Ted in the tower after Patrick broke the Crystal of Earth. She became very excited.

  “You’re a fortune-teller!” she said.

  “I am not,” said Laura. “What’s the use of telling people they’re going to have blood on their faces sometime?”

  “I wonder what it meant about Claudia,” said Ellen.

  “Well,” said Laura, “when I saw her looking in the mirror but she wasn’t in the mirror, that means that Randolph is right and she can use those mirrors he and Fence use to see other places. But I don’t know what her face in the sky means.”

  Ellen’s gleeful expression vanished. “Brr,” she said. “You know, if we were what she was looking at in the mirror, and we could see her, wouldn’t her face look huge?”

  Laura’s stomach jerked. “I guess it would,” she said. “But I don’t know if she was looking at us, then,” she added hopefully. “She was looking at a battle, I think.”

  “Well, we’re going to be in a battle,” said Ellen.

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t think I’m so hungry after all,” said Ellen.

  “I was wondering if I should tell Fence that Claudia can really use those mirrors,” said Laura. S
he thought Fence might make her feel better.

  “You sure should,” said Ellen. “Let’s find him.” She began to push through the crowd, and Laura followed her.

  “Why,” Ellen demanded over her shoulder as they stood waiting for a cart full of bread to pass by, “didn’t you tell anybody sooner?”

  Laura was indignant. “They don’t listen, you know they don’t.”

  “I do.”

  “You do not. You were right there when I tried to say things, and you didn’t pay any attention either.”

  “Everybody’s so loud,” said Ellen, more thoughtful than defensive. This being true, Laura could not say anything to it.

  “There’s Fence,” said Ellen.

  Laura looked to where she pointed. Fence, distinguishable mainly by his shortness, stood between the King and Randolph. They were all laughing. The sight of the King laughing made Laura very uncomfortable. He was going to be poisoned soon; this might be his last feast. It would not seem so bad if he were unhappy anyway.

  “You know,” said Ellen, “I don’t know if we’re allowed to be serious today.”

  “Fence didn’t like it at breakfast,” said Laura, grateful for any excuse for staying away from King William.

  “We’ll tell him first thing tomorrow, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  One of the undercooks, dressed in motley, came by and popped a sticky confection into each of their mouths.

  “Well,” said Ellen around it, indistinctly, “maybe I could eat after all.”

  Laura laughed. “And you have to tell me about the unicorn.”

  They helped themselves to the more portable sorts of food, shook their heads at the long tables full of potential eavesdroppers, and went and sat under an oak tree at the edge of the clearing.

  Ellen had many things to say about the unicorn, but only two of them, Laura thought, were important. The first was that the unicorn had, Ellen thought, found the entire hunt, including the most solemn and formal portions of it, enormously funny. Laura had suspected this herself. The second important thing was what the unicorn had said in response to Ellen’s, “Not for them, but for you.” It had said, “For such a sentiment, my house owes a debt to yours.”

  “Did it think that was funny?” asked Laura.

  “Well, I don’t think so,” said Ellen. “It’s hard to tell what they think. It said it quite seriously.”

  Laura chewed thoughtfully on a piece of marzipan. When it was gone, she said, “I didn’t tell you everything.” Then she did.

  Ellen kindly overlooked all mention of jealousy, an emotion Laura had often thought her to know nothing about. She was excited all over again by what the unicorns had told Laura.

  “Do you remember any of it?” Laura asked her anxiously. “Did you make it up? Do you know anything about Cedric?”

  “Not a thing,” said Ellen, with every evidence of satisfaction. “It’s all new. Isn’t it great?”

  Laura gave up on her, and ate in silence. They were about two-thirds of the way through their collection of food, and considering whether they had perhaps taken too much, when Ruth, Ted, and Patrick joined them.

  “Laura has something to tell you,” said Ellen, by way of greeting.

  Ted sat down next to her. “I have something to tell you.” Laura stared at him, almost forgetting her own news. He no longer reminded her of Lord Randolph.

  “No, you don’t,” said Ellen. “Laura first. She’s been in terrible trouble for not telling you already.”

  Laura thought this an exaggeration; the unicorns had been discomforting, certainly, but as terrible trouble they had nothing on Aunt Kathy in a responsible rage.

  “Who’s been yelling at you?” asked Ruth, showing that her ideas of terrible trouble were like Laura’s.

  “Unicorns,” said Laura, with some pleasure.

  She had expected a babble of comment after her explanation, but they received it in a profound silence.

  “I wish you’d seen something more definite,” said Ruth at last.

  Laura, suddenly knowing how Patrick felt at times, just shrugged.

  None of them knew how she might change time of her own power, none of them remembered anything about Cedric, let alone his flute, none of them knew what it might signify to find the unicorn in winter.

  “Does that mean we’ll be here in winter?” inquired Ellen. “I thought we were going to leave so Ted wouldn’t kill Randolph.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk about,” said Ted. “When we lost the hunt—after you and Matthew disappeared, Ruthie—Pat and I found a pomegranate tree.”

  “Pomegranate trees don’t grow in this climate,” pronounced Ellen.

  “Well, all right. It was a tree with pomegranates growing on it, I promise you. And we were talking about trying to change the game, by saying that for every seed we ate of a pomegranate from the Enchanted Forest, we would get to spend one month out of every year in the Secret Country. We didn’t try it,” he said hastily, stilling several furious protests. “We thought we should consult you. But listen. We could have done it. You know how the magic swords make your hand fall asleep? The ground in the Enchanted Forest feels the same way. We could stand on it and change anything. I could tell.”

  “Anything?” said Ruth. “Make it that Randolph and Fence didn’t take the swords away? Make it that Randolph doesn’t kill the King, and the King sees reason?”

  “I think so,” said Ted.

  “That’s cheating,” said Ellen.

  “Ellen Jennifer Carroll,” said Ruth, “for the millionth time, this is not a game.”

  “It is,” said Ellen, turning red, “if you can change it just like that.”

  Laura, who had been waiting for some time for Patrick or Ellen to say a particular thing, decided that she had better say it herself. “How do you know you can change anything if you didn’t try it?”

  “I could tell,” said Ted, stubbornly.

  “Let’s go try it,” said Ellen, standing up and showering them with crumbs. “Right now.”

  They looked around. The clearing was still crowded with people, and the sun was still high. They could probably go and return with no one the wiser—except, Laura hoped, themselves.

  They shouldered through the crowd and walked in their best unconcerned manner down the avenue of trees, back toward the clearing where the unicorn had allowed Ellen to tame it. Once she had put the matter to herself that way, Laura found it hard to behave unconcernedly.

  The avenue of trees ended abruptly at the bank of the stream. The clearing and the circle of fence were gone. Laura, after a little effort, found the hedge of roses. It looked as if it had been planted a hundred years ago and left to itself ever since.

  “The ground doesn’t feel magical,” said Ellen.

  “Can you see the pomegranate tree?” Ted asked Patrick.

  “It’d be on the other side of the stream.”

  “That stream’s much deeper than it was,” said Ruth.

  “The forest is reverting,” said Patrick, looking at Ted. “What if it can change things only when the unicorns are in it?”

  Ted wore a very Patrick-like expression, an I’m-miles-ahead-of-you expression. “The ground didn’t prickle until after I’d said what I wanted to do.”

  “Well, what, then?” said Ruth.

  “Let’s say that Patrick and I didn’t practice with the magic swords, and therefore Fence and Randolph didn’t take them away from us.”

  The mild breeze went on moving the leaves, and the remains of the rose hedge blurred and wilted a little before Laura’s eyes.

  “Ted,” said Patrick, forestalling a scornful remark by Ellen, “the last time you wanted to change something, it was something that hadn’t happened yet.”

  “But we need a test,” said Ruth. “We need to see a change now.”

  “Let’s say,” said Laura, their ritual phrase giving her courage, “that Prince Patrick broke not the Crystal of Earth.”

  She yelped an
d sat down suddenly, as both arms and legs fell thoroughly asleep and then very slowly began coming awake again. The others stood over her in attitudes varying from exasperation to alarm.

  “Did a bee sting you?” asked Ruth.

  “No! The ground put me to sleep.”

  “You!” said Ted.

  “I can’t help it,” said Laura, hurt. He had the grace to look sorry.

  “Let’s go see!” said Ellen.

  “No, wait,” said Ted. “Laura, if it’s you who can do it, we might as well try everything, okay?”

  “Tell me what to say,” said Laura, who was beginning to feel frightened.

  “Let’s say Randolph and Fence didn’t take the magic swords away from Patrick and me.”

  Laura repeated this.

  “Did you feel anything?” asked Ted.

  Laura was still prickling and tingling too much to know how to answer this. After considering for a moment, she said, “Nothing special, I think. Not another prickle.”

  “Maybe the first one’s still working,” said Ted. “Say, ‘Let’s say that Randolph will convince the King to see reason about the strategy for the battle, and Randolph won’t have to poison the King.’ ”

  Laura said it, with no great conviction. She felt more normal and less magical every minute. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she could not help being relieved at this.

  “Anything else?” Ted asked the assembly in general.

  “Do you suppose we could keep your aunt and uncle and our mother and father from noticing we were gone, when we get back?” asked Ellen.

  “Better not,” said Ruth, to Laura’s great relief. “They’re outside the Secret Country. I think that really would be cheating.”

  “I know,” said Ted. “Let’s say, please, Laura, that, no matter what else happens, I don’t kill Lord Randolph.”

  Laura said this, resignedly. She would have been willing to bet a great deal that, somewhere, the unicorns were laughing at them.

  “Now let’s go see,” said Ellen.

  Ruth picked Laura up, and after a few most unpleasant moments, she was able to walk. They found the avenue of trees narrower and the ground of it rockier and beginning to be overgrown. Laura supposed the unicorns thought that this was funny too. She felt desolated. She wished she had not come back to see the forest in its everyday dress.