Wonder Light

by R. R. Russell

  Mr. Murley’s face was ash white.

  “David! What is it?”

  “Something’s smashed right through the fence!”

  “What?”

  “Wild horses,” Mr. Murley said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “It was hard to see in the fog. They were circling the stable. Circling it like prey. Howling like hounds. When I fired, they ran off. They’re gone for now. They’re gone.”

  “I told you I heard things howling!” Mandy said. “I told you!”

  Twig shoved her foot into her boot, scrunching her sock awkwardly under her heel. She bolted out the door, her shell dangling from her arm, one sleeve on, one off.

  She was halfway to the stable when a lone, high whinny-howl cut through the mist. The Murleys and their girls, all running across the lawn behind her, stopped shouting Twig’s name and gasped. Then, an eerie chorus joined the howl, and the ever-unconcerned Regina burst loudly into tears.

  “What is it? What’s that noise?” Mandy cried. “Horses don’t make that noise!”

  Janessa clamped her hands over her ears, and Taylor, who always looked stern, tried to look stern and brave. She scooched closer to Regina and put an arm around her. Casey didn’t say a word; she just sprinted to Twig’s side and slipped her hand into Twig’s.

  Twig’s heart was pounding, pounding. Should she get Ben? What if he was already here? What if Mr. Murley misunderstood and shot him?

  Twig tried to let go of Casey’s hand and hurry the rest of the way to the stable, but Casey hung on tight, so Twig dragged her along. The stable door was scarred and scratched, raw wood showing pale and woundlike through the deep red paint. Here and there were dents made with the point of a hard, sharp instrument—a horn. Twig put her finger in one. It wasn’t just a dent; it was a hole. Her finger went all the way through. She unlatched the door, ran in, and flipped the main light switch, flooding the stable with light.

  Mrs. Murley and the other girls followed her inside while Mr. Murley stood at the door with his shotgun ready, alternately squinting at the damage and at the mist-shrouded woods surrounding the property.

  The ponies were quaking and crying out pitifully with fear, but still safe in their stalls. But Wonder wasn’t quaking; she was rearing and kicking at her stall door in an absolute fury.

  Mrs. Murley shouted a warning to Twig, but Twig said, “Casey, get me some tack. Hurry!”

  Twig dug through the pile of cedar shavings in the corner of Wonder’s stall and pulled out the sword she’d begun hiding there once it got close to springtime.

  By the time Casey emerged, staggering, with an armful of tack, Twig was wearing her scabbard and she had Wonder in the aisle, her frenzy restrained to an anxious pacing.

  “My bow and quiver!” Twig said. “Quick!”

  Casey ran back to the tack room, where Twig kept the bow.

  Twig got Wonder saddled up while Mrs. Murley tried to talk some sense into her. But Mrs. Murley was too wary of Wonder in her agitated state to get close. Each time Mrs. Murley attempted to touch Twig, Wonder snapped a toothy warning. Breathless, Casey handed Twig the bow and quiver.

  “You need to stay here, Twig,” Mrs. Murley said. “Just let Mr. Murley handle it.”

  “He can’t. Not this.”

  “Twig, do you know something about this?”

  Twig paused with her foot in the stirrup. “Maybe.”

  “What is that?” Mrs. Murley pointed to the scabbard.

  Twig didn’t answer. Mrs. Murley’s hands dropped to her sides. She stared at Twig and Wonder. Twig mounted and rode out of the stable. “Just keep the ponies in and fix the fence,” she called as she passed Mr. Murley. “Don’t come after me. Don’t go out there! I’ll be back!”

  Mrs. Murley came to her senses. She darted out after her, shouting, “Twig!”

  “You let her go?” Mr. Murley said helplessly. “Why did you let her go?”

  “I don’t know! Oh God! I don’t know. David, what is going on?”

  Twig just rode on, fighting back her tears. She wanted to yell for Ben, but his secret was still a secret and not hers to tell. Just before she reached the broken section of fence, Twig glanced back and saw Mr. Murley hand his shotgun to Mrs. Murley and run into the stable. He was going to get Feather, going to come after her.

  She rode Wonder through the jagged gap where the herd had broken through the fence and into the thick, terrifying blackness of the forest.

  “Ben!” she screamed. “Ben! Are you there?”

  Twig held Wonder steady and listened. She could still hear the howls, but they were growing increasingly distant, and they had a different, more frightened sound. Those gunshots had really scared them off. Maybe they were safer than she’d feared, at least for now—as long as Mr. Murley stayed on watch with his shotgun. Maybe she should go back before he left the ranch and tell him so.

  A blur of movement caught her eye. A unicorn. Wonder’s forelock parted as her sharp white horn extended in response to its presence. Twig stiffened and had a fleeting argument with herself whether to run or to hide. But Wonder gave the creature a whinny—strained, but a greeting just the same.

  Indy flowed around the underbrush like a silver-white stream, then drew alongside her. Ben’s face was hard and determined, his cheeks flushed, his cloak pushed back, and his hair dripping with sweat.

  “They broke through the fence and then they tried to break down the stable door.”

  Ben nodded. “I heard gunshots.”

  “That was Mr. Murley. I don’t think he got any of them, but he scared them off.”

  “They’ll keep their distance, but I don’t know how long. Not when they’re like this.”

  “Mr. Murley’s coming. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. He’s trying to protect me.”

  “He needs to stay there, to shoot if they come back. He needs to stay there!”

  “I know. I have to go back, then. He won’t leave me out here.”

  “And I have to get to the passage. We’re not safe here anymore, me and Indy. And neither is she.” Ben nodded at Wonder.

  Dread hung as heavy in Twig’s heart as the mist around the passage to Terracornus.

  “But they’re not safe in Terracornus either. You said—”

  “I can take them to Merrill. He’ll hide them for a while, while I figure things out. Here, right now, they’ll die. Dagger is out for blood—their blood. Could be they’ll attack those ponies, just because Dagger’s got them hungry for a kill. But Wonder’s the one who’s been driving Dagger to a frenzy. The last couple days have brought out the spring in her, something new in her scent. She’s the offspring of his rival. Even for a normal unicorn, it’s his instinct to kill her. And Dagger—”

  “You have to take her with you. You have to!” Twig gripped Wonder’s mane in her hands along with the reins. “And you can’t take them both by yourself. I have to come.”

  Ben nodded slowly, solemnly. “Yes, if you want to save her, you’ll have to come.”

  “I’ll come. I’ll be right back.”

  “Twig!” Ben protested.

  But she wheeled Wonder around and urged her back toward the ranch. Wonder flew through the forest at her strange, fluid, leaplike gallop, a creature made to flow in and out of the cedars like the island’s breath.

  Just before they reached the fence line, Twig pulled Wonder back abruptly and pressed her horn back down.

  “Mr. Murley!” she called into the fog. “I’m here! I’m here! Come back!”

  Mrs. Murley came running toward her, a shadow in the mist, surrounded by a circle of flashlight glow. Her form sharpened as she and Twig closed the space between them. She didn’t have the shotgun.

  “Twig!” Mrs. Murley said with relief. Then she pulled her phone out and desperately dialed Mr. Murley’s cell while all the girls ran to the fence, flashlights bo
bbing in their hands, yelling for him.

  Twig rode into the yard. “Get in the house! Everyone get in the house and lock the doors!” But the girls ran toward her and Wonder instead.

  Mrs. Murley held her phone to her tear-streaked face. “David?”

  Oh, thank God. He’d answered.

  “Yes. She’s here. Come back. Hurry.”

  Seconds later, he galloped up the driveway. Janessa and Taylor threw the gate open for him, then shut it behind him. The shotgun was balanced across his lap, held steady with one hand, Feather’s reins in the other.

  “You have to stay here,” Twig said. “Please. And I have to go.”

  “Go?”

  “I’ll come back. There’s something I have to take care of. But I’ll come back.” Her voice broke on the last word because she knew that she might not—not if the island’s herd had its way.

  Mr. Murley pulled Feather right in front of Wonder. He shone his own flashlight, the small one he kept in his pocket, on Twig. “I won’t let you go, Twig. I don’t know what’s going on here, but there’s no way you’re going back into those woods. Now get down and put that horse back in the stable, and we’ll figure this out.”

  Twig opened her mouth to protest, but behind her, Regina screamed. Mandy gasped, and Wonder whirled around. A figure was running across the yard, headed right for them.

  “It’s him!” Casey said, a hint of triumph mixed with the awe and the surprise. “The wild boy!”

  Ben’s cloak billowed out behind him as he flew toward them, on foot. His quiver bounced on his back and his scabbard swung at one side, his pouch at the other.

  Mr. Murley jolted, and Twig cried, “Ben! He’s my friend, Mr. Murley.”

  “Your friend?”

  Ben stopped a few yards away. He regarded Mr. Murley with a look half wary, half bold. He was out in the open—there were no shadows, no trees, no eaves, and no cover of night, for half a dozen flashlight beams shone right at him through the mist—but he stood there in the yard and he lifted his chin and he held his shoulders back.

  Casey smiled, and Mrs. Murley grabbed her hand, as though she were afraid she’d take off too, and pulled her close to her side.

  “It’s all right, Twig,” Ben said. “Show them.”

  “Show them?”

  He gave her a nod. She slid her hand under Wonder’s mane and drew her horn out. The girls screamed and grabbed at each other.

  Mr. Murley almost fell off Feather. He stumbled over to Twig and Wonder.

  “Crazy Uncle Matt,” he said breathily. “You weren’t crazy after all. ‘You’ve got to keep that island.’ That’s what he kept saying before he died. He made me promise I wouldn’t sell it. ‘For the other Murleys,’ he said, ‘in case they want to come back.’”

  “Back?” Twig said.

  “From the land of unicorns,” Mrs. Murley said in a lost sort of whisper. “That’s where you went, isn’t it, Twig?”

  “That’s where I’m going.”

  “I’ll bring her back,” Ben said.

  “I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t important,” Twig added.

  No one said anything. No one moved. Then Ben cupped his hands and called out to the woods. A neigh answered, and in a moment Indy came galloping through the mist. He slowed to a trot at the edge of the crowd. His great horn was extended, and the water droplets left on it by the misty air reflected back the flashlight beams like something shimmering and magic.

  Ben mounted with a perfect swiftness that seemed nearly as magical.

  “I love you,” Twig called over her shoulder as she followed Ben and Indy. “I love all of you.”

  The woods were so black, squeezing around them, but Indy knew the way, and Wonder knew just how to follow her father. Twig held on tight and tried to trust her unicorn, even as the howling grew louder.

  The brush rustled. Wonder cried out, and Indy answered with a warning neigh. Just ahead, the branches parted, and Twig saw the horn, dark as midnight. The edge of its spiraling rib glistened razor sharp with the wet of the gloom. Dagger!

  Chapter 34

  Wonder pivoted and darted to the side. To Twig’s horror, Dagger dipped his head to attack. She couldn’t see the menacing horn; she could only imagine it piercing Wonder’s side, slashing at her own legs. Dagger was going to charge.

  Dagger let out an outraged utterance of pain, and Twig glanced back. Indy was there, raising his horn, stained dark and wet. Ben shouted commandingly at Indy and gave him his heels, urging him out of Dagger’s reach, though it was clear that his unicorn’s desire was to stay and fight.

  Dagger lurched after Indy. The gash on his flank forced him to take a slower, more awkward stride, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. Wonder sidestepped, wavering between her fear—her urge to flee and survive—and her desire to defend her father. Then she sprinted to Indy’s side.

  Dagger paused and howled into the night. Several howls answered him, so close. In the distance, more responded. The herd was coming.

  Twig struggled to nock an arrow and take aim. Dagger turned, his lip curled back. It looked like he was smiling in anticipation as he leaped, nimbly as ever, toward the sound of his approaching herd.

  Twig’s arrow whooshed toward Dagger, then arched down, just behind Dagger’s flank. It cut through the ferns and stuck in the ground.

  “Hurry! To the passage!” Ben cried.

  As they wove through the trees and the brush, some of the shadows in the thickening mist began to move with them. Wonder’s eyes widened, but she seemed too afraid to even make the usual sounds of fear. Wonder’s and Indy’s ears flattened back completely. They galloped side by side, communicating silently to each other.

  The shadows took form. They called out high cries of hunger, and they broke through the brush, headed straight for Wonder and Indy.

  In a blink, Dagger was at Wonder’s flanks, and this time, Indy wasn’t in position to rescue her. Wonder, the born jumper, leaped like never before. Twig’s fear-tightened stomach flopped as she hung on. When Wonder landed, her hooves met firmer ground. They’d reached the clearing in the mist around the hemlock circle. Ben pulled Indy back to let Twig go ahead.

  But Wonder reared at the seemingly impassable branches, no matter how Twig urged her to go—until Ben rode Indy right through. Then Wonder followed, crying out her protest.

  Ben dismounted. “I have to open the door. Get down. You’ll have to lead her through the passage.”

  Ben took out the key. Twig dismounted and snatched up Wonder’s lead.

  On the other side of the hemlocks, the wild unicorns stopped and screamed at the bristling branches.

  “They don’t want to come through. They don’t want to go to Terracornus,” Ben said breathlessly.

  They didn’t want to push their way through the boughs, to feel the needles scratching at their noses and their eyes, or, to hear Ben tell it, enter some distant nightmare beyond the passage, but their desire to kill Indy and Wonder was strong.

  “Hurry, Ben! Hurry anyway!”

  The key clicked in the lock, and Ben threw the door open and gave Indy a slap on the hindquarters that sent him reluctantly but obediently through. Then Ben joined Twig in trying to talk Wonder into following. Wonder tossed her head in confusion and protest.

  “She’s never been there,” Twig said. “Why won’t she go?”

  “She was made for this world, not that one, and she knows it.” Ben gave Wonder a harsh slap on the rump, and she bolted forward so fast that Twig barely had time to dive out of the way.

  Twig ran after Wonder and snatched her reins just as she emerged in the mist on the other side. Ben slammed and locked the door behind them. Twig leaned back against the tree trunk, digging her fingers into the rough bark. Her heart was beating so fast, her breath quick and gaspy.

  Ben emerged from the tunnel inside the cedar and s
lipped the key back under his shirt. Twig stumbled back to examine the tree. It was hard to see in the fog, but it looked like it was the exact same tree on Lonehorn Island, only on this side, the Terracornus side, the arched opening in the tree had no door.

  Twig was standing on a narrow dirt road that led to that opening. A pink and orange glow filtered through the mist surrounding the tree. “What is that light?”

  Ben glanced around him, confused, then said, “Oh. It’s the sunset.”

  “Sunset?” Twig gasped.

  “It’s a different world, a different time. Breathe deep, Twig. Make yourself breathe deep.”

  Twig nodded. She tried. The air was so heavy with moisture. Her legs were rubber. No, they were wet paper. They dissolved under her. She’d never ridden so hard in her life. But then she’d just ridden for her life. And she’d ridden into another world.

  Ben fished a flask of water out of his pouch. He squatted in front of her. She tried to take the flask and drink when he offered it, but her hand shook and sloshed it.

  “Not just yet, I think.” Ben screwed the cap back on but left it in her hands. “You hold on to it and give yourself a minute.”

  “I’m sorry, girl,” Ben told Wonder. “We’ll get you back there soon.

  “They all know it somewhere inside,” he said to Twig, “and every unicorn born in Terracornus spends his life longing to find this passage.”

  Twig listened to Ben talk soothingly to both of the unicorns. He told them about the nice fresh water he was going to lead them to once they’d caught their breath. Twig shut her eyes and breathed deeply the strange, musty air, and let him calm her too.

  Twig opened her eyes again, and she drank a gulp of cold, metallic water. She stood up on weak but steadier legs and passed the flask to Ben.

  He took a long drink, then stopped himself and screwed the lid back on. “We’ve got to get going now. There’s a stream not far from here, where we can rest and water the unicorns.”

  The road took a sharp turn not far ahead, and she couldn’t make out where it went, couldn’t see anything but forest. Along the roadside, tall, upright trees with smooth, silvery bark were interspersed with broader, smaller trees with birchlike white trunks and branches swelling with pale green leaf buds.