Wonder Light

by R. R. Russell

  “Who made this one?” Twig asked, trying to hold it as she’d seen Ben hold his.

  “Darian,” Merrill whispered. “A man of many talents.”

  Twig lowered the bow. “I shouldn’t—I can’t—maybe a different bow.”

  “This one’s perfect for you,” Merrill said. “You’ll see.”

  Twig shook her head. “I don’t deserve it.”

  “Neither did I.” Ben’s chin trembled. “It’s a gift. You don’t have to deserve it. You just have to use it the best you can.”

  ***

  After chores and a big Saturday breakfast, Twig gently lifted the bow out of her closet, where she’d hidden it. The smooth wood was worn smoother where Ben’s hands had held it. How many hours had he practiced, starting when he was just a little boy? He’d learned to use it well, but could she, in so little time?

  The door flung open and Casey rushed in.

  “Twig, want to—wow!” She stopped, staring at the bow in Twig’s hands, then the quiver of arrows at her feet.

  Janessa ran in right behind Casey. “What is that?” she cried, loud enough to draw all the other girls in.

  “Where did you get it?” Taylor said.

  “Um…my closet,” Twig said lamely.

  Mr. Murley passed by the open door. Seeing the girls clustered around Twig, he paused and frowned. “What are you ladies up to in there?”

  “Mr. M! Look what Twig’s been hiding in that big old suitcase!” Janessa cried.

  Twig’s pulse raced. What was she going to say? What if they took it away because it was too dangerous? She should’ve kept it hidden. But she needed to practice in the daylight before she tried to use it in the dark. Though they were keeping her sword in the hollow for her, Ben and Merrill had insisted that she take the bow home and find a way to work with it.

  The girls parted and let Mr. Murley through. His eyes widened, and he reached out to run his finger over the bow. “Incredible craftsmanship! It looks like something straight out of history. What kind of fiber is this bowstring made of?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Twig said. “A friend gave it to me to use. I don’t know how yet…but I’m going to learn.” Twig lifted her chin, daring him to tell her she couldn’t.

  But Mr. Murley’s eyes sparkled with interest. “Archery! I always wanted to practice archery. I’ll make you a target, Twig—I’ve got some plywood in the shed—if you let me try my hand at it too.”

  Twig relaxed. “Deal,” she said.

  “I could do some research,” Taylor said, “about technique, how to take care of it…”

  All the girls began talking at once, clamoring to touch the bow.

  “Hey!” Casey pushed in front of Twig, and they all stopped. “It’s Twig’s.” Casey looked Twig right in the eye. At first she didn’t say anything more. But her eyes said she knew this bow was special, that it hadn’t been in her suitcase all this time. “Twig,” she finally said, “it’s the coolest thing I ever seen. None of us’ll touch it, except Mr. Murley. We promise.”

  The girls nodded solemnly. Mandy scowled, but she said, “Promise.”

  Mr. Murley gave Casey a squeeze. “That’s right. This isn’t a toy. Fun as it is, it’s a weapon. And a beautiful replica. We’ll all help Twig, and she’ll be handling it like a pro in no time.”

  If only Mr. Murley knew just what Twig had to handle. Learning to shoot an unmoving target in the daylight was one thing. Firing from the back of a leaping unicorn in the black of night was another.

  November

  Chapter 29

  Twig slipped through the night, head ducked against the pouring rain. The soggy earth sucked at her boots as she darted behind one of the pasture shelters. It was Friday, practice day.

  Anxiously, Twig peered into the brush. Ben raised a hand to greet her, his cloaked figure barely visible on Indy’s back. Relieved, Twig scrambled over. She didn’t like to enter the woods alone, even after all this time, even though she knew the herd wouldn’t be on the hunt tonight. She’d learned that wild unicorns’ scents and moods changed with the seasons. Now that it was well into fall, the herd was much less active, saving their energy in a natural response to the colder weather and the scarceness of food. The instinct to go after their rivals kicked in only in the spring.

  Twig climbed up behind Ben.

  “Should we cancel when it rains like this, do you think?” Ben’s words were muffled by his hood and an even more vigorous pelting of rain.

  “It’s fall. It’s always raining. It’ll be worse in winter.”

  “Unless it snows.” Ben urged Indy on. His voice lifted with excitement. “I’m glad you came anyway. We have something new to show you.”

  “What is it?”

  Had Merrill made a new dummy for her to slash at with the sword he’d given her from Terracornus? Her arms ached at the idea. She’d spent too many nights lifting that sword, swooshing and stabbing through mist and rain, hoping she’d never have to use it and, at the same time, praying she’d use it well if she did.

  “You’ll have to see it to believe it.”

  Indy bounded through the darkness and the driving rain. When he slowed down, Twig knew they were near the hollow. She looked up and saw Indy’s horn extending, all on its own, as it did only when another unicorn was present. Twig went cold with fear. Without thinking, she reached for Ben’s sword.

  Ben put his hand over hers. “It’s all right. You’ll see.”

  “But they must be here!”

  At the edge of the hollow, rain cascaded down the evergreen branches. Twig braced herself for a dousing, but Ben steered Indy through a gap between waterfalls, and then they were safe under the perfect umbrella of trees—where another unicorn was waiting, its horn fully extended in a deadly spiral.

  Twig choked on a cry, then saw the rope around the creature’s neck, tethering it to a tree, and Merrill standing nearby. The lantern hanging from a branch overhead cast a dim, bobbing light over the unicorn and the herder, illuminating a slice of apple in his open palm.

  Twig let out a breath. “You got one!”

  She undid the Velcro at the collar of her shell and pushed her hood back to get a better look. It was a young stallion, a mottled gray-white, with a whiter mane. He bent his knees and ducked his head nervously, submissively to the side. Indy gave him a superior nicker, then turned away, accepting his desire for peace with an air of indifference.

  Last Friday, Twig, Ben, and Merrill had been debating how to deal with the herd. They all agreed it would be ideal to track the herd, to go on the offensive during their months of winter lethargy, and try to eliminate Dagger before they started hunting again in the spring. If they all had unicorns to ride, Ben could take Dagger out with his bow, then join Twig and Merrill in herding the others. The problem was, they were two unicorns short.

  Maybe now they were a step closer to being able to carry out that plan.

  “We call him Marble. His coat looks like the stone. He wandered away from the others while they were asleep,” Merrill explained. “I’m sure the trail of carrot pieces I dropped helped him wander farther than he would’ve.”

  “Too bad Dagger never wanders away from the others,” said Twig.

  “I know,” Ben said. “But this one’s been so easy.”

  “He does give us hope for the rest of the herd, though I’ve had a little help from the mixture of herbs I wrapped around those carrots. A little something to help keep him docile.”

  “Will you be able to ride him, Merrill?”

  “In time, I hope. But it’s too soon to try. He’s still wild, still looking for the others.”

  Twig looked into the unicorn’s eyes. “He doesn’t look so wild to me. His eyes look kind of cloudy.”

  “That would be the concoction I fed him. Hate to do it, but we cannot have him calling out to the others, stirring them
up. I’m hoping if we keep him away from them for a while, if he gets used to us and appreciates our tasty oats and apples, he’ll calm down a bit on his own.”

  “That’s going to take a long time, isn’t it?”

  “That filly was born in April by your calendar, right?” Merrill said.

  “Right.”

  Merrill turned to Ben. “You’ve seen her. When do you think she’ll be ready to ride?”

  “February at the earliest. About three months from now.”

  “That just might be enough time for Twig to learn to ride her before spring comes in full force. We’ll have to hope I have Marble’s trust by then and that it’s not too soon for Wild Light.”

  “Or too late for the rest of us,” Twig said.

  “None of that, now, Twig,” Merrill said. “You’ve got training to do tonight and quick, so you can slip back into bed before the sun rises.”

  Ben’s eyes glittered with new excitement. “Tonight you’re going to practice shooting while you ride.”

  “Indy?”

  Ben nodded, and Twig gulped.

  Though Ben kept him warm with blankets and, with Twig’s help, well fed, Indy was less energetic than he had been in the warmer months. As Twig approached him, contemplating this impossible new task, she was glad he was a little slower, that he couldn’t jump quite as high.

  Twig began to pull herself up, but Indy neighed his refusal, and she backed away. The last thing she wanted was for Indy to move to the next phase. For a pony, that would mean showing his teeth. But Indy’s horn was extended, and that’s what he’d show her, with little jabbing motions meant to remind her he could run her right through.

  “Whoa, boy,” Ben said, “I’m coming too.” He mounted and calmed Indy, then Twig joined him. “It will be different with Wild Light,” he told Twig.

  But what if it wasn’t? What if the unicorns knew something Ben and Merrill refused to see—that she wasn’t fit to ride?

  Soon they were bounding out of the hollow and through the shadows and Twig was nocking arrows, trying to shoot at the tree trunks Merrill had marked with bands of white cloth whenever he said, “Now!” Her aim wasn’t so bad, but she dropped every second arrow.

  Twig’s shell kept her warm, but she’d thrown off her hood in order to see better and her head was completely drenched. She tried to control her shivering, but it was so hard. She thought of the warm yellow house and the people she loved. She wanted to go back, and yet she wanted to keep trying, to do what she’d promised to do. Was this how Daddy felt when he went away for training, when he was deployed? The excitement mixed with the fatigue and the regret that it had to be done at all?

  “All right. That’s enough now, Twig-girl,” Merrill said.

  “It’s a miserable night, and you’ve worked hard,” Ben agreed.

  Twig shook her head. “A few more minutes. One more time around.”

  This time, she dropped only two. She dismounted, and Merrill caught her cold, thin hand in his leathery one. “Well done. You’re quite the archer.”

  “And soon you’ll be a unicorn rider too,” Ben said.

  Twig smiled, but her stomach tightened. If Wild Light refused her, it wouldn’t matter how good an archer she was. It wouldn’t matter that she was one of the ranch’s strongest riders now. All this would be for nothing.

  February

  Chapter 30

  As soon as her schoolwork was done, Twig put on her boots and grabbed her bow and quiver from the entryway. It was February, and as Twig headed for the pasture that now served as her bow range, she noticed that the crocuses were up in the flower beds around the porch, slim, green buds anxious for spring. Rather than a welcome reminder that glimpses of sunshine were just a couple months away, for Twig they were tiny warning flags, soon to unfurl.

  Wild Light was nearly grown, almost as big as Indy, and Ben thought she was ready to ride. He wanted Twig to try tonight. The days of the unicorn wearing herself out bounding around the pasture and testing the ponies, then curling up, asleep in the pasture shelter, while Rain Cloud stood there looking after her were now few and far between.

  More and more, Wild Light was separate from the ponies and Feather, searching and calling out to the woods, leaping, weaving, often with a sense of fierceness rather than playfulness. Sometimes she even seemed to charge at invisible opponents, tipping her head down, then up, to thrust with a horn that wasn’t there—a horn that was supposed to be there.

  Soon spring would be here, and the hungry howls would be back. Twig had to practice every chance she got. She took aim and shot. Her arrow hit its mark with a satisfying twang. But the real test, for her and for Wild Light, would come tonight.

  ***

  Twig crept to the stable. Ben slipped out of the shadow of the eaves. There was no moonlight tonight, only darkness shrouded in mist. He gave her a nod. Ben believed she could do this. Who had believed she could do anything before she came to Lonehorn Island?

  “I’ll be right here,” Ben said.

  Twig nodded back, heart fluttering. She went into the tack room and took down what she needed from the pegs on the wall, and then she went to Wild Light’s stall. Wild Light stirred from her sleep. She smelled Twig and she nickered at her, in the way she only did at Twig.

  “Wild Light,” she said lovingly, “it’s Twig. I know you want out. I know you want to run. You can run all over the island, but I have something to talk to you about first.”

  Twig willed her hand to stop trembling. It was no use. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for courage, for a courage Wild Light could feel.

  What was she doing? This was stupid. No one was listening. Why would they? She was no unicorn rider. She was a worthless throwaway girl. She hadn’t been able to keep her family together. She hadn’t been enough for Daddy to stay or enough to make Mom happy. She hadn’t managed to stop her mom from getting worse and worse. And then she’d done things for Mom. Stolen things. Helped her do things she knew she shouldn’t. And all that time she’d been too big a coward to tell anyone what was going on. A coward, just like the night she’d first heard the howls.

  It shouldn’t have been Twig who got to be there when this unicorn was born. It should’ve been Taylor or Janessa who witnessed such a wonder. Or even Mandy.

  She put a hand on Wild Light’s muscular back. She was so beautiful—perfectly if unusually formed, her coat moonlight white perfection. The old Twig never would have thought such wonders were possible. The old Twig had never had friends like the Murleys and their girls—or like Ben.

  But what if she wasn’t a new Twig at all? What if she was just pretending she was more? That she ever could be more?

  She felt her tears, hot streaks on hotter cheeks. Not as hot as the burning lump in her heart. Feeling that lump again, she realized how long she’d been free of it. Even with all there was to fear on Lonehorn Island, she hadn’t been weighed down by that searing, heavy lump of worthlessness. It had died down to an ember of pain she could barely sense, a mere ash waiting to be blown away by a new wind. But now it was back, in full flame.

  She snapped the stall door shut without a word of explanation to Wild Light, without another glance. She ran outside, pulling on her hood and thinking only of sneaking back into the house and drawing her grass-green covers over her head. But Ben blocked her path.

  “What happened?”

  Twig shook her head.

  “Twig! I didn’t even hear her make a fuss.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “You didn’t try. You gave up. You just gave up.”

  You said you wouldn’t. He didn’t say it. Didn’t throw her words back at her, but he didn’t have to.

  She couldn’t let him count on her. She would fail. Everything would go wrong, just like it always had for Twig Tupper.

  “I thought I was someone new, but I’m not. I’m stil
l Twig. Still the same.”

  “No,” he said gruffly, “you’re not somebody else.”

  Twig choked back a sob. She knew it. She knew it was true, but hearing Ben say it—

  He grabbed one of her shoulders in each of his hands. “You’re still Twig. But you’re the Twig you were supposed to be. The Twig she needs you to be.” He nodded back at the stable. “The Twig”—he let go of one of her shoulders and pushed her hood back and looked her in the eye—“I need you to be.”

  He turned away, and Twig knew there were tears in his eyes. Her own desire to cry evaporated. He was just as much afraid to fail as she was. Maybe this wasn’t a worthless Twig thing, this fear. Maybe it didn’t mean that she was still worthless Twig at all. She reached for his hand.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Everything will be okay.”

  Ben’s hand tightened around hers. “Come out riding. I want to see you come out riding.”

  “I will.”

  Twig walked briskly back to the stall and lifted the saddle out of the cedar shavings, then set it down again. She was supposed to be taming a unicorn. Wild Light had better have her horn. She ran one palm up Wild Light’s forehead, found the smooth, round spot under her forelock with the other, and drew her horn out. Wild Light held her head even higher, and a new pride swirled in her quicksilver eyes.

  “Wild Light,” Twig said, loud and clear. Then she realized that she had no idea what to say next. She said a silent prayer that she wouldn’t run out of the stall again, and she blurted the only thing she could think of. “You’re a wonder. I’ll be your rider and we’ll ride into the darkness together and you’ll be a wonder and a light. How would you like a new name? Wonder Light.”

  Wonder Light raised her forelegs and gave an eager neigh.

  “Steady, girl. I’ll call you Wonder for short, okay?”

  She settled down, and with a deep breath, Twig picked up the saddle pad and laid it on her back. It would be a miracle if this worked.