Wonder Light

by R. R. Russell

  “Ben—”

  “I’ll help you.”

  He looked so sure. How could he be so certain? “If I say yes—if I say yes—what exactly are you asking me to do?”

  “I want to turn them back. It will probably take killing Dagger to do that, but I’m trying to save them just as much as I’m trying to protect the people on this island. They are the last free herd after all.”

  Twig blinked at him. It was crazy to think of her, Twig Tupper, riding her very own unicorn and helping steer a herd of the wildest and rarest creatures back the way they belonged. There had to be something else, some other way. Ben’s plan was not going to work. Wild Light wouldn’t even be mature enough to ride for months. They’d never make it that long alone.

  Twig tipped her chin back up. “Take me back to Merrill.”

  Chapter 26

  Twig tumbled off Indy’s back in her haste, and Merrill’s strong hands grasped her under the armpits, pulled her away from Indy’s hooves, and set her on her feet.

  “Whoa, there. What’s going on here? You trying to get yourself killed, little one?”

  “No, Ben’s the one who’s going to get himself killed if you won’t help! Can’t you see that? Because he won’t—he—” A sob escaped. “He won’t give up on us. Ben won’t give up on what his father wanted, on those unicorns, on us girls who everybody else gave up on. That’s why he understands that the girls won’t give up on the ranch and the Murleys won’t give up on them.” She turned to Ben. “And neither will I. Even if your idea of me riding Wild Light is stupid and crazy.”

  Ben steadied Indy and dismounted. He didn’t say anything, but he reached for Twig and pulled her into a sideways hug.

  “You, little one, riding Wild Light?” Merrill said. “Wind Catcher’s filly?”

  Twig felt the heat of embarrassment under hotter tears. Stupid, stupid Twig. What was she thinking?

  But Merrill said, “Could be this boy’s not so stupid as you think, Twig-girl. Could be this old man was the stupid one. You helped me understand a thing or two myself, I think. If you’re willing to learn, then I’m willing to risk my hide to keep you and that ranch safe long enough to do it.”

  “You are?” Ben said.

  “The filly trusts her?”

  “More than anyone. She even lets Twig halter her and lead her.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a unicorn,” Merrill said to Twig. “That filly may not know it, but she’s chosen you to be her rider. Doubt she’d let anyone else take that role now.”

  “What do you mean,” Twig said between sniffs, “‘chosen’?”

  “When unicorns were hunted, they learned to fear men, and they passed that fear and hostility on, generation after generation. When men first tried to manage unicorns, it was clear we’d need to learn to ride a few of them, and those few would need to trust us. What can you herd a unicorn with but another unicorn? What other creature could keep up and defend itself? It seemed an impossible task, but those first herders discovered something about unicorns. Sometimes they’ll choose a human to trust. One who respects their intelligence, their independence, and who gives them a sense of purpose. They’ll work with that person, let her ride. And when a unicorn bonds with a rider, it’s like healing an ancient wound.”

  “She’ll need a sword and a bow,” Ben said. “She can practice on her own until Wild Light is big enough to ride.”

  “A sword and a bow?” Twig said.

  “That can be arranged,” Merrill said. “We’ll teach you to fight, to ride, and eventually to herd.”

  “A maiden,” Ben said with a smirk, “to tame the wild unicorns.”

  ***

  A pale sun was rising when Ben left Indy in the hollow and slipped through the trees with Twig. Twig could hear the truck’s engine as they made their way through the underbrush just outside Island Ranch. Frantic voices called her name.

  “Oh no.” She hesitated at the edge of the fence. “That’s not good.” She’d managed to come back in one piece, but too late.

  “Hey.” Ben caught her sleeve. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Take Indy and find somewhere good to hide. There might be people all over the island looking for me.”

  Why hadn’t she thought of that before? The Murleys weren’t Mom. Of course they’d notice she was gone. When they couldn’t find her, they’d do the responsible thing—call for help, have the authorities search the island. And then what would they find? What if they’d already found the herd?

  Chapter 27

  Twig ran for the house. The sooner she got back, the sooner they’d stop searching the island. The truck was crunching along the gravel driveway when Twig came sprinting across the pasture.

  Mandy met her at the pasture gate. “You’re in big trouble.”

  Twig didn’t stop running until she got closer to the house, and Mr. Murley slammed the truck door shut behind him and came running up to her. Mrs. Murley came out and stood on the front porch and just stared at her.

  “Twig,” Mr. Murley said, “where have you been?” His face was creased with worry, and Mrs. Murley’s eyes were wet with tears.

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” She wanted to say that it wouldn’t happen again; she hated that the truth was just the opposite. She’d agreed to meet with Ben and Merrill again in the hemlock circle.

  “Twig,” Mrs. Murley said in a cracked, quiet voice, “we had to call your stepmother—before we called the police.”

  “You called the police?”

  “Not yet, thank God. I just called her to tell her I was contacting the Sheriff’s Department.” Mrs. Murley hugged her arms around herself, and Twig wished she would hug her instead.

  The other girls trickled toward the porch from all corners of the property. They murmured and shushed each other. Twig looked at her boots and wished she’d never come back.

  Mr. Murley put his arm around her. He gave her a slow, firm hug, but then he pulled back. “Do you have any idea the things a parent imagines when a child just vanishes on an island?”

  Twig was about to remind him that Keely wasn’t her parent, when she realized that Mr. Murley was talking just as much about himself and Mrs. Murley. Had they thought she’d fallen and hit her head on the rocks? Wandered into the woods and got her leg caught on a tree root and broken it? Clambered out in the tide pools and gotten smashed by a rogue wave and swept out to sea, never to be seen again?

  Mr. Murley’s cell phone rang. “It’s your stepmother.” He turned it on. “Hello, Mrs. Tupper. We have good news. Yes, she’s turned up. Well, we’re just sitting down to talk about it. She just—yes, of course. Sure. I’ll be there…just a minute.”

  Mr. Murley covered the speaker with his hand. “She wants to talk to you, Twig.”

  “Is she coming here?”

  “Well, yes. She’s on her way. She was ready to help with a search and rescue operation.”

  “But I’m back, and I’m fine. She can go back home now.”

  “Twig, I don’t think you realize how serious this is. You were missing. She wants to see you and she wants to…check on things.”

  Twig’s jaw tensed. She reached out her hand and Mr. Murley put the phone in it. “Keely?”

  “Twig!”

  “I don’t want you coming here and I don’t have anything else to say!”

  Twig pressed the red button, tossed the phone back to Mr. Murley, and spun around. She waited for Mr. Murley to grab her arm and yank her back, for Mrs. Murley to say something, but no one moved, except to fumble for the phone.

  She went to the stable to see Wild Light and to see if Rain Cloud needed anything too. She cleaned some stray bedding out of Rain Cloud’s water bucket and refilled it with fresh water. When she apologized for missing breakfast, Rain Cloud gave her a disapproving glare that made Twig want to cry.

  She l
eft Rain Cloud and went to Wild Light and whispered the whole story into her ears. Wild Light nuzzled against Twig and told her that she understood.

  Janessa came to the stable to get Twig at lunchtime, but Twig said she wasn’t hungry. She took her sketchbook and her ebony pencil out of her backpack and sketched Wild Light instead. She drew her beside Indy. Then she drew Ben riding Indy and herself riding Wild Light. Ben had his sword drawn. Twig shaded in a sword for herself too. She flipped over the page. She wanted to draw Dagger, but nothing she envisioned seemed quite right. The unicorns she drew were fierce but beautiful, light, graceful. She couldn’t picture a unicorn who matched the malicious sounds in the woods, the horrific story of Darian’s death, or what she imagined had happened to Merrill’s leg.

  Casey’s distinctive steps entered the stable, and Story’s stall door creaked open. Twig put away her drawing materials and said good-bye to Wild Light.

  She went to Story’s stall. Casey sniffed, stroking her pony’s nose. “I can’t ride today. I don’t know when they’ll let me ride again.”

  “Why?” Twig said meekly.

  “’Cause I told them you were in the bathroom. That you were sick. Not to bother you because you were embarrassed.”

  “What!”

  “I told them you had the poops. It worked too, until breakfast!”

  “I didn’t expect you to lie like that.”

  “Well, what did you expect me to do, then?”

  “I don’t know.” Twig picked a strand of stray hair out of Casey’s puffy eyes.

  “I told them I knew you were okay, but they wouldn’t believe me ’cause I couldn’t tell them why.”

  “I’m sorry.” Twig slipped her arm around Casey’s shoulders. “But—the poops?” Under her arm, Casey’s shoulders shook with a little laugh. Twig laughed too. “I wish I could tell you all about it, but I made a promise not to, you know?”

  “A promise to the wild boy?”

  Twig didn’t answer. Maybe she’d ask Ben if she could tell Casey, but not now. Not before they had things figured out. Casey didn’t need to know how bad it was.

  Another familiar pair of boot steps approached. Twig inched out of the stall and stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets and stared up at Mrs. Murley. Mrs. Murley looked even more troubled than she had before.

  “Twig,” she said, “your stepmother is here.”

  Chapter 28

  Mrs. Murley led Twig to the office.

  Keely rose from the office couch as soon as she saw Twig. “I got hold of your dad. He’s concerned, and—”

  “I’m happy here,” Twig blurted. “I’m me here. Doesn’t that count for anything?” Daddy knew? He’d make Keely take her home for sure!

  “Twig, you just disappeared! You were gone all morning, and you won’t tell anyone where you went or why. It’s clear you aren’t making much progress here. I mean, you did your schoolwork this spring and that’s good, but you haven’t even spoken about what happened. Before you came here, I mean. It’s important to talk about things if you’re going to get better. And you haven’t even mentioned…Twig, sweetie, maybe you need a professional with a different approach.”

  “You’re going to send me somewhere else? Just because you don’t want me doesn’t mean nobody else does. People want me, Keely. People want me here!”

  As soon as she said it, Twig throbbed with the fear that it wasn’t true. What if the Murleys didn’t want her anymore after what she’d done? She’d just broken their trust, and she couldn’t even offer them an explanation, and now Keely was reminding them why she’d been sent here in the first place.

  “This isn’t about you not being wanted, for Chr—for heaven’s sake. We want you to get better so you can come home. But if you’re still a danger to other children…”

  There was an awful silence. Twig squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to remember the thud of Emily’s body on the hood of the car. It had been the most awful sound Twig had ever heard, and Twig had heard a lot of awful things. But then the tires had screeched and the driver had screamed and Emily had bounced and landed with a horrible crunch on the road, and that had been worse.

  Twig’s mind rewound the memory, back to when she’d tried to stop Emily from riding that bike. “Wait!” she’d said. “Please!” Emily hadn’t listened. Twig had run after her, down the hill, but it had been too late. Emily had picked up speed and picked up speed until she was hurtling down the hill. The wheel of her bike had flown off and so had Emily. And then the car had come, with terribly perfect timing.

  Twig opened her eyes and met Mrs. Murley’s grief-filled gaze. Grief for what Keely had told her Twig had done, or grief that Twig was going to have to leave? It was too much.

  “I never hurt anybody!” Twig shouted at Keely. “I never would. Corey did that to Emily’s bike, not me!”

  Keely gasped. “Now you’re going to try to blame Corey? Emily saw you with the tools, messing with her bike right before she got on it!”

  “I was trying to fix it! I saw Corey doing something to it, and I was trying to fix it. He was mad at her for smashing his Lego tower to get back at him for—”

  “Stop. Just stop with these lies.”

  Twig shook her head. “They are not lies.” Corey hadn’t even had to tell a lie in order for Keely to believe one. He’d sobbed and sobbed when Emily had gotten hurt, so hard he couldn’t even talk. Keely and Emily had drawn their own conclusions, and Corey hadn’t looked anyone in the eye from that moment until Twig left. Maybe he still hadn’t.

  It didn’t matter much that Emily was all right now. She was only all right because she’d been wearing one of those helmets Keely insisted on and that Twig always forgot to put on.

  “Corey didn’t think something like that would happen. He felt terrible. He would’ve fessed up if you’d ever bothered to ask him. But you wanted to think it was me. You wanted me to be as bad as you thought I was. Well, I don’t care what you think of me, but this is my home now. Just leave me here, and leave me alone!”

  There was a long silence. “Twig,” Mr. Murley finally said, “why don’t you go wait in your room for a few minutes while we talk?”

  Twig gave Keely a good glare before she went.

  She climbed into bed and pulled the grass-green covers over her head. The suitcase was in the closet. She pictured herself having to pull it out and fill it with her things. She imagined it standing on the foot of her bed again like a tombstone. Her new life, over. Ben’s plans, ruined. Wild Light, abandoned.

  What if Keely believed her? Mrs. Murley did, she was sure of it. What if she convinced Keely? What excuse would Keely have to leave her here then? Oh, she’d messed everything up. Just like she always did.

  Twig flung the covers back and bolted upright. If she hurried, if she was quiet, maybe she could make it to the stable in time. Maybe—

  “Twig?” Mrs. Murley knocked on the door.

  “What?” Twig’s voice was little more than a squeak.

  “Come on out, honey, so we can all talk.”

  Twig wiped her sleeve across her eyes. She opened the door. Mrs. Murley handed her a tissue. The soft kind with scented lotion in it. She was going to miss those tissues. Twig blew her nose hard and Mrs. Murley hugged her harder.

  “I don’t know why you left, Twig, but I forgive you. I should’ve told you that right away. I’m sorry, honey.”

  Twig shook with a new sob. She was sorrier. Oh, she was so much sorrier.

  Mrs. Murley swept Twig’s hair out of her eyes, and Twig took a deep breath and gave them another wipe.

  “Everyone’s in the office.”

  Twig balled up the tissue in her fist and kept her arms locked around Mrs. Murley’s waist the whole way to the office, not caring one bit how she looked or what anyone thought. I love you, Mrs. Murley. I love it here and I love you. It was all she could think.

/>   Keely was on the office couch, and Mr. Murley sat on the edge of the desk across from her, looking tired and holding a box of tissues in one hand. The wastebasket at the end of the desk was full of them.

  “Twig.” Keely wiped the last bit of her mascara, a black trickle, from the corner of her eye. “I believe you. I just spoke to Corey on the phone. He told me everything. He was afraid to say anything, afraid I’d send him away.”

  Twig let go of Mrs. Murley. She took a step backward, toward the door. Keely was going to take her away. Away from Wild Light. Away from Casey. Away from the Murleys and their prayers and their hugs and the bottomless pot of hot chocolate. She should’ve made a run for it while she had the chance. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  “Twig.” Mr. Murley slid off the desk and put a firm hand on her back. He knew what she was thinking. And now there was no way out of this. “Your stepmother wants you back.”

  Twig pulled away.

  “But,” he said, nudging her back toward him, “she wants what’s best for you. We all do. She asked for my opinion, and I told her I think it would be good for you to stay here.”

  “Whatever you want, Twig,” Keely said.

  Twig dove at Mrs. Murley and threw her arms back around her. She’d been given a lot of hugs since she’d gotten here, but today was the first day Twig had given one to anyone who wasn’t a pony—or a unicorn. She ran back to Mr. Murley and she hugged him too.

  “This is what I want. I want to stay.”

  ***

  Ben adjusted the leather strap over Twig’s shoulder, and Merrill took a step back. He gave her an appraising look, then smiled. Hand shaking, Twig gripped the leather-bound hilt and drew the short sword. It rung in the still, misty night, singing of a different world, making Keely and the hopelessness of last week seem so far away.

  “It feels a little heavy now, but you’ll get stronger,” Merrill said.

  Twig sheathed the sword, and Ben handed her the bow. “It was mine until last year. Father said I was ready for a bigger one, and he helped me make the one I use now.”