Wonder Light (6 page)

Twig stood at the stable door until Mrs. Murley came up behind her and pulled her shoulders to her chest and hugged her. She steered Twig back to the stall. Twig was sitting there with the filly's head in her lap when Mr. Murley came in, all wind- and sleep-rumpled.

He leaned into the stall. “So this is our new arrival. What a pretty little filly.” Mrs. Murley rose, and he gave her a quick hug. “There's no sign of Mystery, and the fences are all undamaged.”

“It's dark. I'm sure we'll find her in the morning.”

Twig spoke up. She nodded at the filly. “I think she's hungry.”

“I'm sure she is,” Mr. Murley said. “Hungry and confused.”

Mrs. Murley pulled her collar up and put her hands in her pockets. “I'll be right back.”

She returned a few minutes later with a bowl of milk and a rag. “Hold her head in your lap, Twig, and we'll see if we can get her to eat. Come on, wild one. I know it's not what you want, but it's all we've got.”

Twig dipped the rag in the milk herself and offered it to the filly.

“What should we call our little wild one?”

“Wild one,” Twig repeated absently, thinking more of the boy now than the filly. Who had he run to? Who would he tell about what had happened to Mystery? Twig realized she was no longer wondering who else was out there for her own curiosity, even for her own safety—she was wondering for the boy. The boy whose fear and grief had been every bit as real as his body once he came out of the shadows and stood in the faint glow of the dimmed stable lights.

“Yes,” Mrs. Murley said, “Wild One. Let's call her Wild One.”

But Twig's heart said,
No, she's a silver-white sliver of light in the darkest night.
“She should have
Light
in her name.”

Mrs. Murley smiled. “Wild Light, then. What a beautiful name for our little filly.”

“I'll have to go to the vet in the morning to get some supplies so we can feed her,” Mr. Murley said.

Twig stopped, letting the rag drip down the front of her jacket. The filly nuzzled the stream of milk. “You can't let the vet see her.”

Mr. Murley ran a finger over one of Wild Light's little cloven hooves. “No, I suppose we can't. Twig…”

He didn't say anything more, but his eyes said,
There's more, isn't there? More that you know.

***

Twig heard Mrs. Murley whispering to Casey to let her sleep. The memory of what had happened before Mrs. Murley ushered her to bed in the still-dark hours of the morning, assuring her that Mr. Murley would watch Wild Light, filtered through Twig's fatigue. She threw the covers off and shrugged away Mrs. Murley's protests. Twig slipped into her old shoes rather than taking the time to fumble with her boots, and followed the girls to the stable for early morning chores.

The girls were all murmuring about the filly and about Mystery's disappearance. Twig was quiet as she followed Casey's directions and fed Rain Cloud. She peeked at Wild Light real quick, but there were too many people poking around her and Mr. Murley, asking too many questions.

With the ponies fed, Mr. Murley shooed the girls out of the stable. Twig was the last one out, and she lingered on the path, gazing at the woods. How safe was the little filly, even in the daylight?

At the edge of the pasture beyond the stable yard, movement flickered in the trees—movement that seemed to want her attention just as much as it wanted to be hidden. Movement that now made her want to stay, just as much as yesterday it had made her want to run. The wild boy.

“Come on, Twig,” Taylor called as Twig drifted closer to the pasture.

Twig shoved her hands in her pockets and tipped her head to the morning sky, trying to give the impression that she was just enjoying having a look at the day wakening over the island.

“It's breakfast,” Casey added with a frown.

“Just a minute.”

Taylor sighed and took Casey's hand and tugged her toward the house. When they were far enough away, Twig ran for the pasture gate, and darted across the wet grass and behind one of the pony shelters. She stepped up to the fence line and stood still and waited. The boy's face emerged.

“The filly,” he whispered. His eyes, reddened and shadowed, were full of questions and fear.

“She's okay.” Twig twisted her toe in the damp earth. “She's beautiful.”

The boy smiled a small, sad, longing smile.

Twig looked down uncomfortably, and that was when she saw his hands. “What happened to you?”

He held out his muddied, bloodied hands, as if noticing them for the first time. His face got hard, then crumpled. He crossed his arms, stuffing his dirty, trembling hands under his cloak.

“They're after you, aren't they?” She nodded toward the woods behind him.

Twig took his silence for a yes. She wanted to grab his cloak and take him into the house and feed him hot chocolate and pancakes with apple cider syrup.

“I thought you were with them at first,” she said.

“Not now. But…it's complicated.”

“You can tell me. Maybe I can help.” What had possessed her to say that? What could
she
do?

He shook his head, so she shifted back to something more pleasant. “We named the filly Wild Light.”

“A good name for such a wonder.”

“A wonder?” Twig recalled something she'd read, a line about great signs and wonders. “You mean like a miracle?”

“Is that what you call it here?”

Twig shook her head. “I'd call a unicorn magic, here or anywhere else.”

The boy raised his eyebrows. He folded his arms again. “There's not a bit magic about unicorns.”

“What about their horns?”

“That's just how they're made.”

Twig raised her eyebrows right back. He didn't think horns that appeared and disappeared were magic? She shouldn't be surprised. This strange boy might have grown up on the island, learning nothing more than what the woods had to teach him.

“
Miracle
,” he whispered. “I like that word.” He was looking at his hands again. “My father's gone too. I was digging. The ground was so hard…”

He pulled his cloak tighter around him and shrank back into the brush.

“Your father?” Had he been here with the boy, on the island? And now that he was gone, was the boy all alone?

“Twig?” It was Janessa's voice, calling from the stable yard.

The Murleys had probably sent Janessa after her. She should go. But seeing the boy melting back into the shadows alone—

She clambered over the fence.

He stopped, startled, then turned his back on her. Twig wanted to hide in her shell, until he looked over his shoulder and said, “Are you not coming?”

Twig slipped after the boy. She hadn't meant to go anywhere, not really; she'd just wanted to—well, she wasn't entirely sure what she'd intended to do when she jumped over that fence. Make sure he was okay, somehow. She should go back. But before Twig could figure out a way to make her excuses, they came to a hollow under the trees.

In that hollow was a little shelter built of evergreen branches propped against a tree—and next to it, the wild boy's stallion. His ears pricked up at Twig, his nose out, nostrils slightly flared, neck arched—the body language that Mrs. Murley had told Twig meant a pony or a horse was curious and eager to meet a new creature.

“This is Indigo Independence. He's—he was Wind Catcher's mate.”

His coat was the palest of gray, his mane and tail a shade darker. Slowly, Twig extended a hand toward him. He gave her a sniff, then stepped back, his curiosity satisfied. She was merely a harmless, scrawny girl, his eyes seemed to say. He kept an ear tuned to her, but he turned his attention to the boy, giving him a nudge of reserved affection. The stallion carried himself with an intelligence, a knowing sort of pride—the pride of one whose prowess had been tested.

This was little Wild Light's father. Would she grow up to be like him?

“I call him Indy,” the boy said.

At first Twig thought he was just stroking the horse's forelock, but then the boy said, “Let's show her your horn, shall we?”

It rose under his palm, slowly spiraling, rougher, stronger, longer than Wind Catcher's. A fine, deep blue stripe followed the spiral.

“Unicorns aren't as big as most horses, but they are more agile, more swift, and they have these.” He nodded at the horn. “They aren't just for show.”

“The noises in the woods…?”

“Unicorns. There aren't many; they don't produce many young, but when they do, they grow quickly, and if nothing happens to them, they live long.” He gave Twig a piercing look. “You must make sure his filly is used to human contact. Unicorns are naturally wild—wilder than horses. We cannot afford for her to grow up wild.”

What? Who exactly did this boy think he was? Who did he think
she
was? “But I—I might not be here long. The Murleys aren't my parents.”

“You're not a Murley?”

“No.”

The boy frowned. “You're just visiting?”

“Well…not exactly. They're my guardians, for now.”

The boy lifted his chin as though he'd already won the argument. “One year—less, I think—and she'll be ready to ride. She'll be nearly grown, not like a horse.”

“I don't know anything about horses anyway. I don't—”

“Never mind, then,” he snapped. He took a clump of Indy's mane in his hand and leaped effortlessly onto his back.

He couldn't go, not yet. Not like that. “What's your name?” Twig said in a rush.

“Ben.”

“Ben what?”

“Just Ben.”

“Oh.” Twig didn't know what she'd expected, but certainly something less normal than
Ben
. “Everybody calls me Twig.”

He scowled and looked as though he were trying to decide whether it was worth his while to care what her name was.

“I'll be here for a year,” Twig said, trying not to think of Daddy. “At least. We're throwaway girls, all of us. The Murleys have us because nobody else who can take care of us wants us right now. I'll be here. I guess can help.”

He peered down at her from under shaggy bangs. He dismounted, walked over to her, and folded his arms. Awkwardly, Twig folded hers too.

“They killed my father,” he said, barely above a whisper. “My father,” he said louder, deeper, “who devoted his life to protecting them from each other, from people who would use them and destroy them. He taught me to do the same. He was Wind Catcher's rider. He tamed her, and when she chose Indigo Independence for her mate, I tamed him too, even though he was the fiercest, the wildest yearling my father ever saw.”

His voice lifted with admiration for a father who was now gone. “We guarded the island from intruders and kept its secret, just as the herders have always done. But they never had Dagger to deal with.”

“Dagger?” Twig scrunched deeper into her shell at the way Ben said that name.

“Midnight Dagger. When he was born, my father named him Midnight Dream. Indy's horn has a twist of blue.” Ben traced his finger along that fine stripe in the grooves of the spiral. “But Midnight Dream's entire horn is a deep midnight blue. When he turned to killing, Midnight Dream became Midnight Dagger.”

“Killing?”

Ben nodded. “Dagger is the leader of Lonehorn Island's herd. They follow him because he's strong in body, strong in spirit. But that spirit took a dark turn, and the others still followed his lead. When the Murleys came, and then all you girls, things got even more complicated.”

“They want to be left alone.”

“Unicorns are very territorial. They'll kill another herd, down to the last foal, over territory. Herders keep the peace between them. Lonehorn Island's herd has always known and accepted herders with their tame unicorns. They've never seen us as a threat. But Dagger started…”

“Tell me. Please.”

“They're omnivorous. They can eat plants or meat. But the more flesh in their diet, the more they crave it. Too much of it and sometimes they become aggressive, not just fighting to protect their territory and their young, but becoming predators, active at night instead of during the day. In rare cases, they begin killing just to kill.”

Twig stared wide-eyed at Indy's horn, imagining what a predator could do with such a weapon.

“We feared for the ponies on the ranch and for what would happen to any of you if you tried to defend them from an attack. We set up camp just outside the ranch. When we drove Dagger back, shooting one of his herd and wounding him, he turned against us. Once he'd healed, he came after us.”

Ben blinked hard. Indy nuzzled him, and he buried his face in his mane.

“Who else is here?” Twig whispered. “With you, I mean.”

Ben raised his head. “Just Indy now. The others all follow Dagger.”

“I mean
people
.”

“Oh. I lived…somewhere else. With my father. We spent a lot of time here, but we had to go home to…take care of some things. When we came back to the island, things were bad. Dagger and some of the others had gotten so bold, so vicious, they jumped the fence and attacked a horse in the pasture.”

Caper! “Casey—one of the other girls—she says they ate him.”

Ben didn't deny it. “Dagger came after Wind Catcher, and Indy fought him, but I wouldn't let Indy finish him off. I couldn't stop thinking about the one I'd shot and killed the last time. I took an oath to protect unicorns.” He shook his head and his eyes filled with tears of regret. “My father was riding Wind Catcher, and he was injured in the fight. I had to get him out of there. That was all I could think of. But he died anyway, and now Dagger's still out there. When he's strong enough, he'll be back.”

“All that happened because of us, because the Murleys brought us girls here.”

“It's not your fault. Dagger is the reason my father's gone, and Wind Catcher too…”

Indy rubbed up against Ben, and Ben whispered back affectionately.

“It's nothing like the fairy tales, is it? They say only a maiden can tame the unicorn.”

“It isn't true. I looked Indy in the eye. I touched his horn. I dared to say his name and to teach him to answer to it.” He paused, blinking hard. It was a while before he met her eyes again. When he did, the faraway look was gone.

“They said Mr. Murley built a higher fence after what happened to Caper. But you jumped it with Indy, didn't you?”

“Indy's a spectacular jumper. He's a natural, but I've also trained him to jump higher and farther. The others cannot jump it. But if they're determined enough, they'll find a way to get what they want.”

Twig cringed.

“Twig!”

Twig jumped and Ben stiffened. The shout was closer this time, and it was Mr. Murley, not just one of the girls.

“Go,” said Ben gruffly. “Someone wants you.”

Twig ran back. Mr. Murley stood at the fence. When he saw her, a smile replaced his look of concern.

“Let's go, Twig, before they eat all the waffles.”

Waffles! She clambered over the fence, feeling a strange ache inside.

“Twig,” Mr. Murley said as they walked side by side, “you need to stay inside the fence. It's not safe to go into the woods alone.”

Ben was in the woods alone—with his bow and his sword and Indy, yes, but still alone. Standing between them and a herd of wild unicorns that would soon be on the hunt again.