The Darkest Unicorn

by Alice Hemming

  In the woods just outside Essendor, the river ran into a still pool, deep enough to swim in but shallow enough for Tib’s feet to reach the bottom should they need to. Finch had taught them all to float first, lying on their backs with their arms stretched out like stars. Hetty had struggled, floundering and complaining about the water going up her nose, but Thandie found it easy. She could even lie with her arms folded behind her head, or with her knees tucked up to her chest.

  “Once you can float on the water, then all you have to do is move your arms and legs a little and you’re swimming,” said Finch. He was right, and Thandie had become a good swimmer, although floating like a star was still her favourite thing. She didn’t get much of a chance to do it back in Essendor, though. If she relaxed for too long, then one of the others – usually Tib – would stage an underwater attack.

  But here, in the shadow of the mountains, there was no Tib to prevent her floating for as long as she liked. She may have been on a life-risking mission to save dozens of missing people, but she had never felt more relaxed. She laughed aloud at the thought.

  And then the strangest thing happened.

  The lake laughed back. She heard giggles and felt the water rise and fall beneath her, like a soft belly jiggling with laughter. It was a fun sound but, still, it shook her from her relaxed state. She splashed into an upright position, treading water and looking all around. She didn’t know what she was looking for as it hadn’t sounded like a person laughing; it had sounded like the lake itself. Perhaps the sound came from fairies or water sprites. Now, a low hum emanated from under the water.

  “He-llo?” she questioned tentatively, continuing to look around her.

  “Hello!” called a voice, or what must have been a dozen voices. High, pretty voices. Maybe it was fairies. The noise was friendly but still, Thandie didn’t trust anything that kept itself hidden when it spoke to her. She turned on to her front and began swimming back to the water’s edge, pulling back hard with her arms.

  The water shook with laughter again, this time rippling so forcefully that Thandie was sent riding backwards on a wave. Before she had time to recover, a group of colourful creatures burst out from the water and into the air, zipping past her ears and over her head. She ducked and then turned around to watch them swoop and dive into the water. Fish! There were maybe fifty colourful, giggling fish and the humming sound was coming from their tiny, reverberating wings. Thandie treaded water, admiring the rainbow sheen of their scales and their speed and agility in both the air and the water. They seemed to want to be near her. A group of them encircled her at waist level, arching out of the water and splashing back in. She reached out a hand to stroke one as it flew by and it screeched delightedly and squirmed like Tib did when she tickled him. Then the others wanted to be tickled and swarmed around her crying “Me! Me! Me!” and all Thandie could hear was humming and giggling and high fishy voices and all she could feel was delicate wings fluttering on her arms and it seemed as though she had been transported to their magical watery world. Every time they laughed, she laughed, which made them laugh harder.

  After just a few minutes, another shout went out among the fish “Rain! Rain! Rain!” and Thandie realized they were right; the sky had darkened and it was raining. Sudden, heavy raindrops that plopped from the sky into the lake, causing beautiful spotted patterns on the water’s surface. The fish swooped down under the water and disappeared from view, without saying goodbye. She wondered why they minded a drop of rain: weren’t they used to water? Thandie found it refreshing. She turned her face towards the sky and enjoyed the gentle massage of the raindrops on her skin. But then the rain grew heavier and almost painful and Thandie understood why the little fish, with their delicate wings, would prefer to hide underwater. She stayed in the lake until the rain had stopped but the fish did not return and she felt strangely lonely.

  She swam to the edge and heaved herself out on to the flat rocks. Almost immediately she began shaking violently. It was strange to feel so cold on such a hot summer’s day. She wrapped herself in a blanket and huddled under a tree. She was glad she’d been for the swim. It was just what she’d needed and would rejuvenate her for the journey ahead. She dressed, her numb fingers fumbling with the fastenings, and walked back to the camp. By the time she got there, the rain had cleared.

  Sander had packed everything neatly away and kept it all dry under some bushes. Now he was cleaning his pipe.

  He looked up at her. Her hands were still shaking violently and she squeezed them into her armpits.

  “Your lips are blue – are you cold?”

  Thandie nodded, teeth chattering.

  “Lets get moving straight away,” he said, handing her bag to her. “It is possible to get ill from a drop in temperature, even on a summer’s day.

  Thandie laughed. “I am just a little cold.”

  “Still, it is best not to sit still for too long.”

  HUMMINGFISH

  Sander

  On the way, Thandie told him what she had seen. “Those will be the hummingfish,” he said. He had seen them plenty of times. “They are attracted to human laughter. Were you laughing?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Thandie, looking embarrassed at the idea she would be laughing on her own.

  “Did they swim around you in a circle?”

  Thandie looked disappointed that he had guessed this detail, and stopped her excited chatter. That was a shame. Sander felt he had seen everything there was to see and heard everything there was to hear. Hearing Thandie talk about it made him feel as if he were experiencing it for the first time all over again. He wanted her to continue.

  “I’ve never seen them myself,” he lied. “What were they like?”

  Thandie told him about the laughter that made her laugh, the echoing that sounded like it was coming from the trees and he nodded, interested, as if he had not seen this himself countless times before. He liked to see her in animated storytelling mode. Her enthusiasm reminded her of his own, when he had started on his journey. When everything was new and everything was an adventure. Now he felt he had seen it all. Maybe he would never have that feeling of newness ever again.

  DIARY

  Thandie

  After the sudden downpour, the sun soon returned and she was warm again. They walked for a couple of miles, Thandie plaiting her hair as they went. They were both hungry and so they stopped in a grassy clearing for another short break. While they ate, Thandie reached into the pocket of her dress for her diary. She had been planning to write an account that evening, but decided to do it now instead, as she could hardly wait to describe her lake swim. She knew that Tib would ask her to name all the colours of hummingfish and she wanted to record them while they were still fresh in her memory.

  As she felt in her empty dress pocket, she remembered her diary wasn’t there: she had put it in the top of her bag when she went for her lake swim. She opened the top flap and her reading book fell out, but not the diary. Sheran her hand underneath, feeling for the soft leather cover in vain.

  She felt a creeping sense of dread. She knew she couldn’t have lost her diary: the flap of the bag had been tightly buckled. She ran her hand around the insides of the bag and then tipped the contents out on to the floor.

  Sander looked up. “What are you looking for?”

  “My diary.” Thandie scrutinized his face. Sander was always very interested in what she was writing and he had been left alone with it for a good hour.

  “Ah, the precious diary. Perhaps it has been taken by elves who will fastidiously copy out your wise words and distribute them to all four corners of the kingdom. Thandie’s Thoughts, it could be called. You will be rich.”

  Thandie was not in the frame of mind for teasing of this nature. The diary was precious to her and couldn’t be replaced. She continued to search through the pile from her bag, shaking out her clothes one by one. “It’s not here. I know I left it here when I went for a swim.”

  “Perhaps it fell o
ut along the way, or when I moved our things into the bushes,” said Sander, more concerned now.

  Thandie shook her head. “The bag was tightly fastened and the reading book is still here. It could not have done. Did anyone else come to the camp while you were there?” She knew they had not, as he would have mentioned it.

  He shook his head and she felt herself beginning to shake again, as she had done when she had emerged from the cold water, but this time it was anger. There was only one explanation for what had happened to the diary: Sander had stolen it. The idea of him reading her private thoughts incensed her. “Did you take it?”

  Sander laughed. “No, I did not.”

  “This is not a laughing matter!”

  “And I am not amused.”

  Thandie put her hands on her hips. “Then prove it. Turn out your own bag.”

  Sander raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  Thandie nodded. “You’ve always been interested in what I’m writing.” Sander upended his bag so that the contents spilled on to the ground. He did not have many possessions. A money pouch, a comb. No book of any kind.

  “It’s not here – see?”

  Thandie crumpled and sat on the grass. She felt suddenly broken. She didn’t know what to believe. “It’s not just my diary. The people’s names were in there and the song from Linnell’s father was tucked inside. How are we going to free them without all that information?”

  Sander shrugged. “I’m not sure that all of that would have helped, anyway.”

  Thandie ran through some of the names. “ There was Linnell of course, and Posy Tweed from Arvale. Then there was a John or a Jack. And an Ivy. The boy from the circus – Aldo, or was it an Eldo? And then the Essendor ones: Clover Malling, Lilith Grain and Tonno Green. But that’s about all I can remember. Only about six or seven names out of forty-three! Why didn’t I memorize the list?” Thandie put her head in her hands and mumbled. “What are we going to do?”

  “Why don’t we retrace our steps – see if it’s fallen out along the way?” Sander suggested.

  Thandie shook her head. “I won’t find it that way. We have been walking cross country – we’d never find the same path again.”

  She was still struggling to believe that this was as simple as a lost diary. She studied her feet, trying not to look at Sander’s innocent expression. If he had taken it – what then? Would she stay on the journey with him? Or make her way back to Essendor alone? Her mind raced like the hummingfish speeding around her in the lake. Why had she even gone with him in the first place? Hetty never would have. Nobody she knew would disappear into the night with a strange man.

  Even before she found out about Linnell, she had never been really sure that she trusted Sander. Even now, as he protested his innocence, there seemed to be something a little strange about him. She opened her mouth to tell him all of this. To pour out everything that she felt. After all, she had nothing to lose now. But just as she was about to speak, he put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Thandie, I’ve got something to confess.”

  Her heart raced. She had been right all along!

  He shook his head. “No – I didn’t take your diary. But there’s something I should tell you – the reason that I didn’t take your book. There would have been no point.”

  “Why?

  “I can’t read.”

  READING

  Thandie

  “You can’t read?” Thandie tried to imagine a world without books.

  “No. I was never interested in schoolwork and books. I wanted to see the real world. When I was a youngster my mother and brothers tried to make me go but I wouldn’t stay in the schoolroom. I found all sorts of ways to escape. Once I climbed up inside the chimney while the schoolmaster was writing on the board. I know my letters – that’s about it.”

  “But you seem so knowledgeable.”

  “Perhaps so, but nothing I have learned has been from books. My classroom is the world around me.”

  Thandie sighed and sat down heavily. Sander might have done one bad thing but that didn’t mean he was guilty of everything. And she had accused him with no proof whatsoever. “I am sorry. But I don’t know where it can be. I am so sure that I didn’t take it into the water with me. And I really can’t lose that book.”

  Sander sat down next to her. “That book is probably bobbing about somewhere in the middle of that lake, the pages washed clean. Anyway, what can possibly be inside that’s so precious to you? As I said, I’m not sure those names would have helped us.”

  Thandie sighed again. “My memories.” The memories of her mother that threatened to evaporate. The memories that she couldn’t seem to share with anyone else.

  Sander looked at her for a long time. “Your memories aren’t kept in a book, Thandie. They are in here.” He tapped his temple. “And in here.” He put a hand to his chest. “I can’t write my memories down but they are still always with me. Even when I wish that they weren’t.”

  Thandie nodded. She knew this was true. She knew that the memory of her mother wouldn’t leave her just because her book was missing but still, she really wanted it back. Perhaps it wasn’t really lost. Perhaps it was caught in the lining of her bag or hidden inside a garment. She would have another look in a moment.

  She felt bad that she had accused Sander, and wanted to offer an olive branch.

  “I could teach you to read, just as you’ve been improving my pipe playing.”

  Sander shook his head. “I am too old to learn a new skill like reading. Besides, it is not the sort of skill one can master in a day or two, and our journey is nearly at an end.”

  “I know lots of people who learned to read at our sort of age,” said Thandie, thinking of Finch, poring over his schoolbooks with Madam Tilbury. But Sander didn’t reply, so she said no more about it.

  WENDING

  Thandie

  They approached the village of Wending in the middle of the night, after the ordinary folk had gone to bed but before the shepherds and bakers had risen for the day. This suited them, because they could take the quick route through the village to the mountains without the risk of being seen.

  The heat had quickly dissipated when the sun went down and it was cold and dark. The village was smaller than Arvale and there was enough moonlight for Thandie to tell it was just as pretty, set on a steep slope with all the houses clustered around the main road. At this hour, all the people were safely tucked up behind shutters and closed doors, and there were few sounds in the cobbled streets. Perhaps there was a curfew in Wending, just like in Essendor.

  A dark shadow scuttled past their feet. Thandie started.

  Sander didn’t flinch. “Just a rat,” he said, and she was reminded of what he’d said about being scared of nothing.

  Thandie wasn’t scared of rats but the unexpected movement put her on edge and she half-expected one of the doors to swing open, or for someone or something to jump out of the shadows. She quickened her pace, wanting to get through this sleeping village and into the mountains beyond.

  A low, distant howl sounded. Thandie couldn’t tell if it was the wind in the mountains, or an animal. “Was that the wolves?” she whispered.

  “Perhaps,” said Sander, “although I would expect them to be asleep at this hour. They normally howl just before hunting.”

  Thandie had heard wolves howling in the forest at Madam Tilbury’s although they were just the ordinary type, without wings. “Do the people of Wending know about the flying wolves?”

  “Of course. The flying wolf is their sacred animal. But the villagers do not talk about them widely. If they were to boast about their wolves then no doubt everyone would be here wanting to see them. Some things are best left unspoiled.”

  They were through the main part of the village now, by an old inn at the edge of the woods, called The Full Moon. Its name and a wolf howling at the moon were painted on a sign, which swung from an iron bracket on the side of the building. The place looked deserted, althou
gh it was possible the innkeeper and his family were all upstairs in bed.

  “I can’t quite remember the route from here,” said Sander. “It’s one of these two paths ahead. Let me have a quick look.”

  He disappeared into the darkness and Thandie sat on a low bench outside the inn. They had been walking all day and night and she was grateful of the chance to put her feet up. She gazed into the darkness of the trees, where Sander had vanished, and concentrated on listening out for the wolves, but all she heard was the creaking of the sign above her head.

  After a time, she stretched her arms and turned her head to relieve some of the tension in her neck. A printed notice nailed to the inn door caught her attention.

  WARNING

  She got up and moved closer to the door so that she could read the words below.

  Sketched roughly under the warning heading was a man or boy in a patchwork coat and pointed hat. The face could have belonged to anyone.

  Thandie read the print.

  A traveller in brightly coloured garments, playing a pipe, has been reported in these parts. He speaks of unicorns.

  There may be a connection to the stolen ones.

  If seen, report immediately to the village council and DO NOT APPROACH.

  Thandie ripped the notice down and read it twice more. The sounds of a twig breaking behind her made her turn sharply. She folded the notice and stuffed in her pocket, her heart beating quickly.

  “What are you looking at?” Sander stood a few yards behind her. She was not sure how long he’d been there.

  Thandie’s mind raced for a plausible explanation. “I was wondering if … the tavern was uninhabited or just shut for the night.”

  “And?”

  “I think there are people there.” Thandie spoke in a low voice and walked away from the building.