“What is it?” said Will sharply.
Tessa only shook her head and put down the tray with a clatter. Half of the sandwich pile flopped over and a pickle rolled onto the floor. She couldn’t speak but held her icy hands together, blew on them and turned to look at the tapestry. With its center of tangled black it wasn’t beautiful anymore. The background was the same, with the forest and the distant castle, but the spot where the unicorn had stood seemed dark and full of secret dangers. She was afraid to look too closely at the shadowy threads but afraid to turn her back on them as well.
“I just got a message,” she said in a shaky voice. “In a dishcloth.”
Opal gaped at her. “Huh?”
Will said nothing, but his face was watchful, wary.
“It flopped around and remade itself right in front of me,” Tessa went on. “The threads made letters. It said, ‘Give them back.’ Dish towels are not supposed to do that,” she said, turning to Will. “Just in case you’re wondering if it’s some twenty-first-century thing. This is insane.” She slumped onto the chair and put her face in her hands. “I’m babbling.”
“No,” Opal said doubtfully. “Well, maybe a little. Babble-ish.”
“Where is this cloth?” Will asked.
“In the kitchen. I didn’t want to touch it,” Tessa confessed. A shiver began low in her spine and she straightened, trying to make it stop. “I guess it’s still down there.”
“ ‘Give them back’?” Will repeated. “What does it mean?” His glance swept to the tapestry and back to Tessa.
The shiver started again and Tessa hugged her arms tight to her body. Why couldn’t she warm up? “It means the tapestry, I guess,” she answered. “And the book.”
Opal frowned. “Freaky. So you think it’s a message from the witch that did the unicorn thing to Will. Right?”
“What book?” demanded Will.
Tessa nodded to Opal. “I guess so.”
“What book?” Will repeated, clipping off each word like an angry elocution teacher.
“I’ll show you.” Tessa stood. “But you have to stay here.” She hesitated at the door. Suddenly she couldn’t bear the thought of going down to the kitchen again. Especially alone. “Opal, would you come with?”
“Yeah. Right behind you,” Opal said, grabbing a tennis racket that leaned against the wall.
Tessa padded downstairs and flicked on the kitchen light. The dishcloth lay exactly where she had left it on the countertop. Except now it was normal. It was just a plain old red and white checkered towel.
“The letters are gone,” Tessa said slowly.
Opal lowered the racket from a batter’s stance and they stared at the towel for a moment.
Opal shot Tessa a reassuring glance. “I believe you,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Tessa. “I’m not sure I do.” She took a deep breath, snatched up the dish towel, stepped on the pedal of the trash can and with a quick toss, threw the towel inside and let the lid slam down. She looked at Opal and both of them broke out in nervous giggles.
“This isn’t funny!” Tessa gasped.
“I know, I know. Why are you laughing?” said Opal, and bit her lip.
Tessa shook her head and sobered, tugging her fingers through her hair as she thought about what to do. She turned and looked at the book on the table. “C’mon,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s bring this upstairs. Maybe we’ll find some answers.”
The Texo Vita lay open on her desk, illuminated by a greenish pool of light from the adjustable lamp. Outside, the wind rattled against the dark pane of the window as Tessa turned the crisp yellowed pages with a gloved hand. The lines of black script were so small and ornate, they looked like spiders crawling off the page. She could make out some of the letters here and there, and some dates. That was about it.
Opal leaned over Tessa’s shoulder. Will paced behind them, finishing the last of a ham sandwich.
“Do you recognize any of this writing?” Tessa asked him, turning and leaning back in the chair.
“No,” said Will, giving the book a brief glance. “Should I?”
“I suppose not.” Tessa closed the book with a sigh. “I don’t know how this can tell us anything.”
Will stopped pacing. He reached over her and plucked the book away. “I said I did not recognize it,” he said quietly. “That does not mean I am incapable of reading it.”
Tessa gave him an exasperated look. “You might have said so.”
“You might have asked.”
“Okay, kids,” said Opal under her breath. “Let’s all get along.”
Will read the cover aloud. “Texo Vita.”
Tessa recalled the conversation with her father. “That means ‘the weave of life,’ right?” she asked.
He ran a considering hand over the letters. “More precisely it means ‘to weave life.’ ”
“Okay. That makes more sense,” Tessa murmured. She looked at the tapestry. “Not in a good way, but more sense.”
Will gripped the book by the spine and began to riffle through it.
“Hey!” Tessa cried. She peeled off the cotton gloves and shook them at Will, but he only turned away, completely absorbed in scanning the pages. She tossed the gloves down with a sigh. The book had survived for five hundred years. A little spicy brown mustard probably wouldn’t hurt it now.
“It looks like a diary,” he said after a moment. “Where shall I begin?”
“Anywhere,” Tessa said.
Will put a finger on the page and read rapidly:
Thirteenth December, 1506
A baby born last night in village to whey-faced daughter of Winna Humphries. Girl child. Darkling Well-formed and red-faced, took teat. I was paid four eggs and a plank of dried fish for delivering.
The weaving becomes harder. My joints ache so, and I am clumsy with the fine work. But I must keep working. I must find a way to obtain the threads.
Will turned a number of pages slowly, his eyes scanning the scrawled writing with apparent ease before reading again:
Dunnington. Nineteenth April, 1507
Guinea hens not laying for four days. Killed one for dinner and ate with mashed peas and soaked trencher of manchet. Teeth are hurting most painfully and bleeding some.
But it does not matter. I have discovered the key to obtaining my desire. It was sold to me by an Arabian trader.
The key was discovered on the shores of an eastern sea. I now have the key. I have the craft. I shall soon have what I seek.
Seventh July
Have not yet mastered the way to bind them.
Harvested ten canes of young ash sapling. To be cured in sea brine and char wort, then thistle-smoked and dried on untouched stone. This shall be the frame. The path of the thread must pass through the center of the crossing weft.
Wove four cubits of linen broadcloth and sold at market cross for five shillings.
Will shifted his stance and his voice slowed:
Fourteenth June, 1510
Must find proper manner of warp fiber to contain the thread. Saw a fine, long-legged calf in John Haysmith’s pen. Sinew?
Will stopped abruptly and looked up. “There’s no doubt of it. Gray Lily wrote this,” he said. “This is the diary of the witch who trapped me.” Will scanned quickly through several more entries. Then he stopped and read silently.
“What is it?” asked Tessa, going closer and peering over the edge of the page.
“This—this is some years later,” he said in a low, hoarse voice.
Opal stood on his other side. “That’s weird,” she said. “The handwriting looks the same. But it’s clearer. Less wobbly than the earlier pages.”
“Read it,” Tessa said. She glanced at Will’s face and added, “Please.”
In a slow voice Will began:
Hartescross. Twelfth September, 1511
The hunt is complete. I thought the older son, Hugh de Chaucy, would kill the unicorn. He is as brawny and stupid as a young bull. He thoug
ht of nothing but vengeance for his brother. I do believe he thought me mad with my laughing. ’Twas only that he did not know the jest. He cut a gash over the creature’s face with his sword but was knocked aside, his shoulder split open to the bone by the unicorn’s horn. The girl did not stay in the clearing as she was bid. She lost her wits from fear of the hounds and ran away. The unicorn followed her, stumbling and bloodied from the lances. He laid his head on her lap. The girl did scream and cover her face.…
Will’s voice slowed and stopped. The muscles of his jaw were clenched, and his hands gripped the book so hard, Tessa could see the white of his knuckles straining through the skin.
“Stop reading,” she said in a faint voice. The wound on his cheek had broken and two fresh drops of blood clung to it, bright and glittering as tiny rubies.
“No,” said Will. He stared at her. “Listen.” He looked down at the page and went on, sounding breathless now, almost as if he’d been running:
They put the iron shackles on the unicorn and it lay still. The villagers didn’t want it killed. Some of them even marked how the creature did seem to have a keen look to its eye. Almost human. I laughed again at that.
Will stopped and let out a low breath, but his eyes stayed fixed on the words.
They stayed back—wisely enough, as they had seen how the thing had nearly flayed a man open with its horn. They cowered in fear as I took the thread from the creature.
I have my unicorn at last. He is woven into the tapestry and will remain imprisoned there forever. I am young again, beautiful and strong. I will travel far from this place, where no one will know me. My life is just begun.
Will let the book drop. The thud as it hit the floor made Tessa jump.
“She turned you into a unicorn,” Opal breathed. “A real unicorn? And then she put you in the tapestry.”
“Yes.” Will wiped his hands on his tunic, as if trying to clean them. “She steals the thread of a life, and from it she creates what she desires. Then she pulls the thread once more to place that creature in the tapestry.” He stared at the tapestry. “There may even be others trapped within her woven spell. As I was.”
Tessa turned to Will as the realization of what had happened to him struck deep inside her. “They never knew the unicorn was you?” she said, looking up at his face. “The people of Hartescross, even your brother tried to—” She broke off.
He faced her and his eyes narrowed on hers with a golden stare, blazing and cold at the same time. He touched the wound on his cheek.
“Yes. They tried to kill me. My brother nearly succeeded.”
Chapter 17
They read further, getting the rest of the story bit by bit. After capturing the unicorn and finishing her tapestry, Gray Lily had prospered. She’d moved from town to town, marrying and outliving (as she related in a gloating tone) a number of wealthy husbands. She became a lady of wealth and influence. And she never aged.
She kept the tapestry locked away from harm and prying eyes.
The last entry was dated October 12, 1842. Gray Lily was calling herself Madame Lillian Genoise and living in Paris.
“Gray Lily. Lillian Genoise,” Tessa murmured, and yawned. It was two in the morning. She rubbed her eyes. They felt like they’d been rolled in kitty litter. Not even clean kitty litter. All at once she stopped and straightened up. “Lila Gerome,” she said.
“Huh?” Opal’s eyes were bleary too.
“Lila Gerome,” Tessa repeated. “That’s who my father said the lawyer was working for.” She looked at Opal and Will. “Could it be her? Is Lila Gerome really Gray Lily?”
“Sounds like it,” said Opal. She sat at Tessa’s computer, tapping the keyboard, her eyes on the screen. “And she wants her stuff back.”
Give them back. Tessa shivered as she remembered the message. She pulled her sweater tighter around her and faced Will. “So Gray Lily took your life from you, as a thread. How did she do that? What happened?”
Will gave her a strange, impassive look before casting his eyes down, remembering. “She spoke, making strange noises,” he said, “like a demon from Hell. She held a small yellow stone. She touched it to my chest and a cold ache began. Here.” He put a hand to his chest. “She pulled the thread from me, until there was nothing left.” The memory of it seemed to bring back an echo of the pain. Will rubbed his chest absently, as if soothing a healed but still-tender wound.
“Then she used your thread to make the unicorn,” Tessa said. “Why a unicorn?”
“I don’t know,” Will admitted with a weary shrug. “Perhaps as a creature of magic, I bestowed more strength to her.”
“Immortality,” Tessa murmured. In answer to Will’s questioning glance, she went on, “I read about it. The unicorn symbolizes eternal life.” She nodded. “Maybe that’s how she’s able to live so long. She used your life thread to make this magical creature, then she got the legendary power of the unicorn when she trapped you inside the tapestry.”
“So what did it feel like?” Opal asked Will. “You know, when you were a unicorn?”
She sounded, thought Tessa, like a daytime talk-show host.
Will didn’t answer right away. “I remember,” he began slowly, “at first, the warmth of sun on my back. The hunger for sweetgrasses. The joy of galloping.” He laughed, and for a second his lean face lost every trace of anger or fear. He looked like a little boy. “To be free was my happiness. But after I was trapped—” Here he stopped. The open, boyish expression vanished and his eyes met Tessa’s with an impenetrable stare. “I was imprisoned in the tapestry. It was a living death.”
Tessa said in a soft voice, “I’m sorry.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “For what, mistress?”
The question took her by surprise. “That this happened to you,” Tessa answered, with a bewildered expression. “That she did this to you.” What else would I be sorry for?
“So what do we do now?” Opal asked.
Tessa shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea.” She looked at Will, who had sat on the floor, back propped against the wall. One long leg was bent, and his elbow rested on his knee, forearm dangling. He leaned his head back. He looked lazy but elegant. There were shadows beneath his golden brown eyes, but he was watching her with a brooding intensity.
“I’ll take the tapestry, as well as the book, and go,” Will said suddenly. He spoke as if they had been having a silent argument about it and he had come up with the obvious and only solution.
Tessa reacted at once. “No. What do you think happens to me, and my father, if you take them?” she demanded. “The lawyer is coming tomorrow. He knows the tapestry and the book are here. He’s offered my father ten thousand dollars for them. And if he doesn’t get them—” She paused. “What will Gray Lily do?”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “So. Ten thousand dollars.” He turned to Opal. “It is a goodly sum in this realm?”
Opal nodded. “Pretty goodly. Not badly.”
He turned back to Tessa, regarded her for a moment and then said, “Perhaps you think you could get more.”
“What?” she sputtered.
“If it’s money you desire”—Will de Chaucy spoke slowly, coldly—“I will pay you, once I return to my estate.”
“I don’t give a damn about the stupid money,” Tessa said, angry that he could really think that about her. Why did he distrust her so much? Sometimes the way he looked at her, it almost seemed as if he felt nothing but coldness and contempt for her.
“I’m thinking about my father and me,” she told him. “Gray Lily already proved what she’s capable of doing, without even being present.” As she spoke, Tessa remembered the eerie message woven before her eyes in the kitchen. “Who knows what she’ll do if she gets really angry?”
“You could say I overpowered you and escaped. That I disappeared,” he reasoned. “I shall take one of those flying machines you described. A ‘plane,’ was it not? I will go to Cornwall and find my home as well as my family. Or my de
scendants, as I suppose they would be now,” he mused.
“I hate to tell you this, Will.” Opal frowned, peering at the screen of the desktop computer. “I searched everywhere. I can’t find a current Earl of Umbric or a Hartescross listed anywhere in the UK. And it looks like the last member of the de Chaucy family”—she paused, scrolling through one of the many genealogy sites they had checked—“was Gervais de Chaucy.”
“That is my father,” said Will.
Tessa peered over Opal’s shoulder at the glowing screen. “He died in 1512,” she said softly. “One year after the disappearance of his younger son. Who, according to local legend, was killed by a unicorn.”
Will bent his head. He whispered something Tessa couldn’t hear, but seeing the devastated look on his face was enough. She turned away.
“What about his brother, Hugh?” she prompted Opal.
Opal tapped the keys, then shook her head and sat back. “Sorry. There’s nothing.” She yawned. “I am so fried.”
So was Tessa. She didn’t want to think about witches or unicorns or anything else. And especially not about the boy sitting a few feet away from her, who was charming one minute and sneering the next. Totally cut off from his whole world and yet no part of hers. She was exhausted. The weirdness and danger hadn’t gone away, but she had to sleep—she had to. Just a few hours of rest. Then, if he was still here when she woke up … well, she’d think of something.
Opal was already pulling a sleeping bag from the closet and unrolling it.
Both girls turned to look at Will. He was fast asleep.
Tessa dragged the puffy flowered comforter from her bed and tiptoed over to him. She covered him gently. She crawled into bed and reached over to adjust the alarm clock. Then Tessa burrowed her face and her fisted hands into her pillow and slept.
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