by Anna Leonard
Unless it was to protect her older sister.
But no matter how she tried, Elizabeth could not imagine how Maggie’s ability could be misused.
“I hope that you’re right,” Josh said, and she was startled for a moment before realizing that he was replying to what she had said before, not what she was thinking. “Do you have a fallback plan?” he asked. “Once you had alerted the cops that someone was after you, what had you intended to do then?”
She did have a backup plan, sort of. “There is a woman, a friend of my father’s when they were younger. She left the Community a long time ago, but kept in touch with my parents, and I know they live downstate. Her husband’s from Outside, and he never had any patience with Ray, even before this. Said he was a megalomaniac, that he didn’t care about the Community at all, just what it could do for him.
“I think they would take us in, take care of Maggie, at least. They don’t have any children of their own, and Maggie was named for her. I’d... I have skills, I’d get a job. I hadn’t really thought beyond that.”
In the panic while gathering their things, while she’d made her hasty plans, it had seemed a good idea to go to Meg, someone who understood where she was coming from, and what she would need to do to live in the outside world. Then she had thought only that Meg and her husband could have helped them, taught them, given Maggie the background she would need to grow up away from the Community.
Now...her nerves were tingling, and the more she listened to them the worse it got. “There’s something going on, something more than I thought at first. It’s not just a power grab—that doesn’t make sense. If Ray’s willing to use force to take us back, willing to involve the outside authorities, the bad publicity that would bring, I’m not sure I can just run away and try to pretend it wasn’t happening. I just can’t bring anyone else into it. Not even you.”
“What do you mean?” Josh scowled, running one hand through his hair in exasperation. “Elizabeth, I think you need to tell me what’s going on. Let me decide what risks I’m willing to take, all right?”
She wanted to refuse him, to take Maggie and run. The last time she had told anyone what she feared... The memory of Cody’s face, slack and uncomprehending above the rope around his neck, made her stomach heave, and she thought she was going to be ill all over the carpet. He hadn’t been able to deal with it, had left her alone with this. Or...Ray had killed him, to keep him from helping Elizabeth, to isolate them even more. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, caught between two horrible truths, but the possibility had to be faced.
What was Ray capable of? If she knew what he was planning, she might understand. But she had no clue.
“Elizabeth?”
Her silence had clearly sent the wrong message, because an expression of hurt passed over Josh’s square-boned face. “You can trust me. Maggie wouldn’t have called me if I wasn’t to be trusted.”
His logic didn’t follow; Maggie called squirrels and raccoons and in one rather startling instance a half-grown black bear. None of them were to be trusted except to follow their own nature. What was the nature of a...a were-unicorn?
To be faithful, and true, a little voice told her. To protect and defend, fierce as any lion.
Joshua wasn’t Cody. He was a grown man, used to taking care of himself. Nobody would slip a rope over his head and hang him from a tree; he would kill before he let himself be killed that way.
Elizabeth, you know he was ill, depressed after everything that happened. Ray, after the funeral, when she had blurted that she didn’t believe he would kill himself. It’s a tragedy, of course, but your accusations... It’s dangerous to make people doubt the truth that way.
Yes. It would have been dangerous to suggest that Cody hadn’t thrown the rope over that branch by himself. That it wasn’t coincidence that, the day after she had shared her suspicions about Ray with her best, oldest friend, he had killed himself. Dangerous to even think that he had been killed so that she and Maggie would be left entirely on their own.
“Elizabeth?”
“My name is Libby.” She looked at him, and in her exhaustion and worry it was as though the man was overlaid by the beast, a shimmering outline of white and gold, the only thing the same those deep brown eyes watching her, fringed by a lock of shaggy blond hair. The phantom horn dipped, and she could almost feel the sharp tip of it touch her face, light as a caress. “My family calls me Libby.”
“I think you’re always going to be Elizabeth to me,” he said, and there was a meaning in his voice that she didn’t quite understand. Nonetheless she felt herself blushing, and started talking again before she came to her senses.
“Maggie and I were raised in a separatist enclave called the Community. I know, it’s clichéd, but when it was started, by our grandfather and some of his friends, they didn’t think they needed a fancy name.”
Her grandfather had been plain, in the Amish sense. No frivolity...but he had the most marvelous laugh, she remembered that. A laugh like warm water, and hands that could hammer a nail or hold a baby with equal care. Her father’s laugh had been the same; her mother was quieter, but she had a way of looking at problems that made them almost solve themselves, without her ever getting fussed or worried. Like the way she brushed Elizabeth’s hair, the knots almost sliding apart on their own, like...
Like magic.
The thought occurred to her, and she paused, then shook her head at her own foolishness. Her mother had been a thoughtful, pragmatic woman with a skill for seeing solutions, that was all.
“We’re not isolationist—we go to the county schools, and we trade with the local farmers and stores, stuff like that. It’s not a cult. People come and go as they like, but most people stay. My parents were born there. Maggie and I were born there.”
Josh nodded, as though he understood. Maybe he did. He grew up in a herd, he’d said. He knew the bonds that family could put on you.
“We did have...quirks, though. The purpose of the Community was to stay away from the mass media as much as we can, not spend our lives online, simplify and pare down to what was really important—family and friends and living within our means.
“But it’s changed.” Her voice caught in her throat, and she had to stop a moment to collect herself. “Small ways at first. Things I didn’t even see at the time, but looking back now I can see a pattern. More strangers in town, and people leaving without a word.” Like she and Maggie had done, she realized. Had they, too, been driven out?
“Then last autumn, in October, a bad strain of flu hit us. Really bad. We don’t have a hospital, just a little clinic, and by the time our doctors knew what was going on...a lot of people died. Including our parents—and Shawna.”
She paused a minute to remember Shawna: tiny, with a temper like the smiting of God—and a booming voice that could fill the entire meeting hall.
“Shawna led the Elders, sort of a city council. They’re not all old, it’s just a courtesy title. Someone with a sense of humor, I guess. They’re elected from the adult population, and the leader is chosen by the other Elders. Usually the one with the best horse sense—sorry, you know what I mean. The one who was most practical, who could calm everyone else down, or see every side of an argument and decide impartially what to do.” She recited the names from memory, as familiar with them as her own family—most of them were, in fact, members of her family, one way or another. “My grandfather had been the first, and then there was Micah, who died early, and then Eliza, who I was named for, and then Shawna.
“Shawna was leader for years—all Maggie’s life. Everyone listened to her, even if they didn’t agree with her.” It still seemed impossible that she died. No virus, no bug should have been able to stop Shawna.
“After the epidemic passed, and we had to elect a new leader...there were only two Elders left who had enough experience, enough b
acking. Even though Ray was younger, he won. He had been courting support for years, I guess. He had been part of the emergency medical committee, the one that brought in extra doctors and supplies, convinced the Board of Elders to upgrade our facilities. People were convinced he could do no wrong. That was when I—”
“Noooo!”
Elizabeth was already moving by the time Josh recovered from the sudden, pained yowl, but they both were at the bedside in seconds. He waited, while she took the shaken, still-sleeping girl in her arms, rocking her slowly to wakefulness.
“It’s all right, Maggie, it’s all right, baby, it’s all right,” Elizabeth crooned. “It’s just a bad dream, only a dream, and we’re here, we’re here.”
Hesitant, as though he were afraid of the reaction he might get, Josh reached his hand out and touched the top of Maggie’s head, letting his pale fingers rest lightly on her dark hair.
Between the unicorn’s touch and her sister’s embrace, slowly Maggie stopped sobbing. With a faint, painful hiccup, she wiggled out of their reach and scooted up against the headboard. They let her, sensing a need for distance now, not comfort.
Her eyes were wide, staring past them into something only she could see, and her hands shook as she wrapped them around her knees.
“The bad animals. They’re coming.”
Chapter 7
Elizabeth felt panic clutch her throat at Maggie’s words. No. Not now. Maggie wasn’t a dreamer. She was just stressed, that was all, it was her imagination using what she knew—animals—to express her fear. That was all.
“Oh, baby...”
Maggie shook her head, refusing her sister’s attempt to soothe her, or tell her it was only a nightmare. “They’re real, Elizabeth. They are, I know they are. I can see them and I can hear them...and they can hear me, too.” Her face was red-mottled with tears and frustration, and her voice hitched as she spoke. Elizabeth felt the ever-present fear crawl back into her throat.
“It’s all right, Maggie.” Josh sat on the edge of the bed across from Elizabeth and put his hand out. After a moment of hesitation, Maggie took it.
“You know what I am.”
She nodded, a little uncertain.
“You know what I am,” he said again, and her nod was more emphatic this time.
“What am I?”
“You’re...” She cast a look at her sister, as though checking to make sure that it was all right to say what she wanted to say. Elizabeth had an idea where Josh was going with this, and gave an encouraging nod.
“You’re a unicorn. A were-unicorn.”
Josh nodded, his pale hair picking up the glints of light from the lamp, and when he tilted his head, Elizabeth could see the ghost echo of the Mustang again, the golden mane and bone-white horn. “I’m a Mustang. I am strong and fierce and my hooves can crush a wolf’s skull if he is foolish enough to threaten my herd. My horn can toss a catamount a dozen paces, if he so much as snarls at a foal. And I am smart enough to outwit the cowboys who tried to rope us and treat us like pack animals. No bad animal will harm you, while I have the breath to move.”
Elizabeth felt something press inside her chest, and tears welled in her eyes. His words sounded overblown, but he spoke simply, calmly, without any dramatics, and the truth in those words was like a deep church bell chiming. She could see the stress in Maggie’s slender body starting to fade.
She could trust him. They both could trust him with their lives.
“Libby?” her sister asked, not looking away from Josh’s face.
“Yes, baby?” she asked.
“You have a plan?”
Elizabeth swallowed at the trust in her sister’s voice, and, for the first time ever, lied to her.
“Yes, baby. I have a plan.”
Reassured, Maggie let them settle her back, this time actually tucking her under the coverlet.
“But where will you sleep?” Maggie asked, her eyes already closing again.
“Mustangs sleep standing up,” Josh told her. “Everyone knows that.”
Maggie giggled at the thought, and snuggled down into the pillow, as secure as if she were back in her own bed, surrounded by familiar walls. Elizabeth adjusted the coverlet, and looked across the bed at Josh, suddenly aware how very...domestic the scene was.
He tilted his head to indicate that they should move away. Reluctant to leave Maggie but even more loath to risk waking her, Elizabeth followed. To her surprise he opened the door to the room and went outside. She followed, blinking a little at the sudden sunlight, and closed the door gently behind her. The motel rooms were ranged along the narrow, badly paved parking lot in a slight angle, she noted suddenly, so that you could see every door clearly, no matter where you stood. All the doors were closed, the curtains all drawn.
There was only one car in the lot, down at the other end of the row, and another car pulled up to the manager’s office, a little wooden outbuilding where Josh had gotten the key. If anyone came toward them, from either side of the road, they would have enough time to go back inside before they were seen.
And nobody knew they were there. The manager had only seen Josh. Still, her shoulders ached from tension. Bad animals.
There was a bench in front of their room, and he sat on it, patting the plastic surface next to him to indicate that she should join him. Reluctantly, she did.
“Has she had this sort of dream before?” he asked.
“Once,” Elizabeth admitted. “Just before illness swept the Community.” She didn’t want to relive those terrible days, but they came to the fore anyway. “Everyone was so sick, so...we did everything we could, and people died anyway. Maggie was sick, too, running this terribly high fever, and she had the same nightmare then—she was convinced that ‘bad animals’ were coming, wanting to eat her.”
Her own dreams had been less clear, but no less fearsome—and unlike Maggie’s fever dream, she knew that they were true. Foreboding and doubt, the branches of a bare tree dappled in sunlight, the smell of freshly dug graves and a stink of something that wasn’t quite anything she had ever smelled before. They all came true, every single fear, every single image. Was there anything she could have done to stop it? Elizabeth didn’t think so...but she didn’t know for sure. And she didn’t know which was worse: inevitability, or the chance to change things slipping from her because she didn’t know what to do.
“Maggie’s never been afraid of anything before, not ever, and especially not animals.”
“And that’s why you ran? Because of the changes you mentioned, and Maggie’s fear?”
“No. I...” She looked at her hands, watching them twist together as though they belonged to someone else. Inevitable? Or could she, somehow, change what was going to happen? Could she do more than run? He was a stranger, someone who had resented being pulled to their aid...and yet the memory of the way he had spoken to Maggie made her continue.
“I told you, about Shawna dying, and Ray being voted up. About how after that...things changed. People, some people started looking at us—at Maggie and me and some of our friends—differently. Factions were forming, sides being chosen, but there wasn’t anything happening that I could point to. I had a bad feeling....”
Even as she spoke, Elizabeth knew that she wasn’t going to tell him about her own dreams, her forebodings. She felt bad about that—he had trusted them with the most amazing truth—but she had never even told Cody about the way her dreams came true, never mentioned it to her parents. Most days, she didn’t even admit it to herself. Maggie knew. Maggie had always known.
“And all that made you pack up your sister and leave the only home you ever knew?”
She expected him to laugh at her, or call her foolish. It sounded foolish, said out loud. Something someone spineless would do: run, because a shadow crossed her path.
Instead, he leaned forward, his gaze intent on her face. “My people have immense respect for instincts, especially ones that warn us about danger. But you have to tell me. I can’t protect you unless I know what it is that we’re facing.”
* * *
Listening to Elizabeth’s story, Josh kept losing the thread, feeling the rut slamming against him, like a bird frantic to break out of his abdomen. Elizabeth wasn’t a virgin, but she was female, very much an adult female, and it seemed that was enough to set it off. The itch to shift, to strike out at another male, to win a mate...ancient urges, all coming to the fore now, in one burning itch. The way her muscles flexed under that satiny skin, the shimmer of her hair, the low timbre of her voice as she spoke...
He couldn’t let it distract him. He was in control here, not the rut, damn it. He took a deep breath, and forced it to stillness, but the pressure remained, making him hot and itchy and more shorter-tempered than usual. But underneath it there was an equal fire, cooler but no less determined: to protect this woman, and her sister. He clutched at that fire, preferring its cool burn to the hot, mindless itch of the rut.
“Tell me,” he urged her, when she paused. Elizabeth was holding something back, and he needed to know what it was. Not that what she’d told him wasn’t bad enough; the thought that she and Maggie had been left alone, in danger. Was there nobody else she could have turned to, nobody who would protect them, believe in them?
Sure, he’d been kicked out of the herd, but that was normal, and he’d always known that they waited for him, eventually, when his wandering time was done. That was traditional. This... Her story was wrong, and it outraged him, that cool heat burning higher, clearing his soul of the rut, if only for a moment.