fifteen
colin puttered around gathering pencils and graph paper, and wrote a quick note to Grandpap telling him where we were going. Now that we had a “game plan,” Colin wanted to proceed in a scientific and methodical fashion, starting back at the hotel so we could survey the grounds of Castell Cyfareddol thoroughly, from one end to the other. Together we’d mark down everything we found that might have some relevance to the mysterious Morgan message in the woods.
We left the cottage, passing the jockey and his trusty steed (whom I now thought of as Seabiscuit, of course), and headed toward the boardwalk. Soon we reached the dragon statue. Colin stared at it curiously.
“How do they manage the iridescence in the scales, I wonder?”
“Scales?” Last time I’d seen the dragon it had been carved out of stone.
“I never noticed it before either, but there’s some kind of finish on the stone. Makes it look like the scales are catchin’ the light.” Colin reached up and ran his hand over the dragon’s enormous back. “See how it shimmers with all the colors o’ the rainbow? Must be the angle of the early mornin’ sun that’s makin’ it visible now.”
“Must be,” I said, while thinking, This is what the unicorns meant when they said the veil-slippage had already begun. Colin stroked his hand over the scales again. A deep rumble shook the ground where we stood.
Oh fek, I thought. The dragon is purring.
“Wow.” I forced a weak laugh. “Earthquakes in Wales, who knew?”
Colin shook his head. “Probably some eighteen-wheel lorry makin’ a delivery to the hotel.” The rumble subsided. We walked on, and I glanced back over my shoulder. The dragon’s eye was the size of a basketball, with a feline metallic sheen.
As if someone had drawn it with a pen, an ink-black vertical slit opened down the center of the eye. The pupil widened slightly. Then the dragon blinked.
I whipped my head around so fast it was like I’d walked in on my parents making out. It’s already started, I thought in a panic. I’ve got to find these Rules, fast.
“If it’s feedin’ time at the conservatory we might want to stop in,” Colin remarked, as we waited for the waterfall to let us pass. “Watching the plants eat is bound to attract crowds. Perfect lure for a chap cravin’ attention, like our hypothetical tagger.”
I didn’t get it. “Why would feeding plants attract crowds? I’ve seen my dad do it. It’s just like watering, except you sprinkle Miracle-Gro in the water. Totally boring.”
Colin smiled. “Not at Castell Cyfareddol. It’s a carnivorous plant conservatory. The place is brimmin’ with bloodthirsty petunias.”
“Carnivorous? What do they eat, cheeseburgers? Oh my God, look!”
“What’s the matter?” Colin asked, worried.
“Oh, nothing.” I waved it off. “Just noticed the gargoyles had been moved, that’s all.” Up and down the boardwalk, the stone pillars were empty. Damp reptilian footprints led from the boardwalk into the shrubs beyond.
“Huh. They probably took ’em off fer cleaning and repairs.” Colin kept walking, a little faster than before.
I followed, but I couldn’t help glancing into the shadows underneath the bushes. If the gargoyles weren’t on their perches, where were they? Would we soon see them skittering around the boardwalk like stray cats?
And if we did, what kind of scientific explanation would Colin come up with for that?
“careful, mor—see, i told ye to keep yer hands in yer pockets!”
I snatched my hand back from some creepy-looking flower that was visibly salivating at my presence.
Colin moved methodically through the conservatory, examining the walls, the floors, and—very carefully—the containers that housed the bloodthirsty vegetation. “It’s a fascinatin’ notion, innit? Shrubbery that eats meat. See any graffiti yet?”
“No,” I said, preoccupied. I was still thinking about the gargoyles. And the dragon. And these fekkin’ Rules of Succession that I needed to locate, pronto.
I tickled the mouth of a Venus flytrap with a twig I’d found lying on the floor, and watched in fascination as it closed. “I guess photosynthesis just isn’t enough for some plants,” I remarked.
“It turns the whole food chain concept on its arse, if ye ask me. Imagine if all the green grass of Ireland developed a taste for bangers and mash! There’d be a general panic, not to mention a run on the pubs. What’s this, then?” Colin’s voice had suddenly dropped half an octave. I moved to join him, but he gestured at me to stay back.
“Did you find something?”
Colin stood staring at the door that led out of the conservatory. Using his foot, he slowly pushed it open. He looked, and then stepped through. “Bloody hell,” I heard him mutter. Then he started to chuckle.
“What is it?” I pleaded.
“Yer man’s losin’ it. See fer yerself.”
Stenciled on the door in bright silver paint was the unmistakable silhouette of a unicorn.
“It’s not graffiti. It’s just a sign,” Colin explained, dragging me to the arrow-shaped marker in the center of the tiny courtyard. “Leadin’ visitors from one exhibit to the next. See? Go ahead, read it.”
This way to the Unicorn Tapestry Garden
I vaguely recalled what the unicorn tapestries were; I’d seen them in a museum in New York on a middle-school field trip. They were enormous wall hangings, woven many centuries ago when people had time to do stuff like that. And they told a story—a bloody, violent story about humans hunting a unicorn.
I remembered that the museum had looked exactly like a castle, and that, once our class arrived, Sarah and I made a pact to talk in English accents for the rest of the day. The task absorbed all of our concentration. As a result, I didn’t retain too much information about the tapestries—like why someone would plant a garden because of them.
Or whether the unicorn was killed in the end.
Colin squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “Just goes to show: If ye keep yer wits about ye, there’s always a rational, scientific explanation. Shall we have a look?”
i followed colin in the direction indicated by the sign. We passed through a curtain of vines and into a larger, square garden. In the center was a gnarled tree laden with strange-looking red fruit. Every remaining square inch of ground was planted with flowers, all in full bloom. The effect was dizzying.
A tour guide stood at the far end of the garden with her back to us, chatting happily into a wireless lavalier microphone that fit snugly over her head. The mike seemed like overkill to me. The garden wasn’t that big, and there were only a half dozen visitors standing around listening to her spiel to begin with.
“More than a hundred different plants are depicted in the unicorn tapestries! A hundred, can you imagine? Honestly, I didn’t even know there were that many types of plants!”
What made the microphone even more out of place was that the tour guide was dressed in medieval style, in a floor-length, high-waisted dress. Her hair was piled high on her head, with a flowy, princess-style train pinned to the back.
“Let me see: We have wild orchids, and some thistle, and this skah-rumptious pomegranate tree, and ooh, just so many others! Great care has been taken to reproduce the plants shown in the tapestries exactly! Though I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why someone would bother. I mean, who cares, really? I’d much rather be out clubbing. But wait, we have some new arrivals.”
The tour guide wheeled and faced the newcomers—meaning, Colin and me. “Better late than never, I suppose! You just missed the part where I explained how this garden strives to reproduce the unicorn tapestries exactly, down to the last stitch. And of course, that includes the one-horned star of the show—that mysterious, mythical creature herself. Let’s hear it for . . . the unicorn!”
She clapped loudly and whistled right into her mike. The sound was so piercing I had to cover my ears. My eyes were wide open, though, and as I looked at the all-too-familiar face of Queen Titania, with that ridiculous microphone curved around her gaunt cheek, just like Madonna, I got angry. So angry that I could barely tear my eyes away from her mocking gaze to see the blinking, terrified creature that now stumbled reluctantly into the garden.
I heard Colin gasp.
“Holy moly!” one of the tourists exclaimed, reaching for her camera. “That is so realistic-looking!”
“Ringling Brothers used to have a unicorn,” her companion scoffed. “They do it by grafting a goat’s horn onto the middle of its head. I saw it on Mythbusters.”
The woman with the camera hesitated. “You mean—it’s a goat?”
“They shave it so it has a mane and tail. But, yeah, it’s a goat.”
We all stared at the graceful, silver-hued creature trembling before us. The ridiculous rhinestone-studded collar around its neck was attached to a long, sturdy-looking tether. Electric sparks zapped frantically along the spiraled edge of its horn, as if the animal were short-circuiting with fear.
“No way that’s a goat,” someone finally said.
“Well, what is it then?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not a goat.”
“I know what it is.” I found my voice and pushed to the front. “It’s a living creature that’s being mistreated. May I have a word with you privately, Titan—Tour Guide?”
“And you are?” she said haughtily. “If we’ve met before I apologize profusely for blocking it out. Obviously the experience was much too unpleasant to remember.”
“I am Special Admissions Candidate Rawlinson,” I declared, improvising like mad for the benefit of the tourists. “A representative of the newly formed Society for the Prevention of Meanness to Things That Are Alive.”
Titania yanked the mike off her head and hissed at me. “Morgan, honestly. SPMTTAA? What a perfectly appalling acronym; you’ll never get anywhere with a name like that.” Then she held the microphone to her mouth. “All right, tour’s over. Everybody have fun looking around the garden. And don’t make eye contact with the unicorn! It’s vicious and easily provoked.” She stared laser beams of rage at me as she spat out the words.
Obediently, the crowd scattered. I could sense Colin close behind me, but I didn’t dare turn to look at him. I had a sinking feeling that whatever was about to happen might be impossible to write off with one of those rational, scientific explanations he liked so much.
“Well, look who’s here.” Titania sounded just as nasty as I remembered. “Aren’t you on the wrong continent, dear?”
The unicorn nickered nervously.
“Let the unicorn go,” I said, glancing its way. “Now.”
“Unicorn?” Titania sneered. “Why, I thought it was a goat! Or are you implying that unicorns are real, Special Candidate Rawlinson?” She glanced at Colin. “Surely you wouldn’t want your all-too-human boyfriend here to think you believed in something as ridiculous as unicorns? What a humiliating revelation that would be!”
Colin stepped next to me. “Do ye know this woman, Mor?”
Titania exploded in icy laughter. “Does she know me, he says! That is high-larious. How I would love to dawdle long enough to hear you answer that fascinating question, my dear! But right now I have to run-run-run; I have a previous sporting engagement.” Then she turned to Colin. “What’s your name again, champ?”
“Colin.”
“Colin! Of course—but we’ve met before too, how could I forget? Be a love and go get my tennis bag. I left it behind the tree. Just thataway, tiger, that’s right, can’t miss it.”
Throwing me a concerned look, Colin went to get the bag.
As soon as he was out of earshot, I got right in Titania’s grill.
“The veil is slipping, Titania.”
She cackled. “Like I didn’t know that.”
“Are you making it happen?”
“What if I am?”
This was like arguing with Tammy. “The veil is slipping.” No, your face is slipping! “Are you making it happen?” No, your face is making it happen!
“Undoing the veil is a huge mistake,” I said. “It’s not too late to stop it.”
“Stop it? I’ve barely started. I am sick and tired of this ‘reality is off-limits,’ ‘don’t spill the beans to the humans’ crap. Anyone who believes that is nothing more than a party pooper!” She leaned down and snarled right in my face. “And if some deluded four-legged pep squad has given you the impression that you can somehow stand in my way, trust me: They are dead—and I mean dead—wrong.”
Colin returned with the bag. “Found yer bag, ma’am,” he said gruffly. “But your racquet’s in no shape to play tennis. It needs to be strung.”
A slow, evil smile spread across Titania’s face. “What a literal-minded person you are! Strings are only necessary if you believe they are. And please don’t call me ‘ma’am’—I much prefer ‘Your Majesty.’ ”
Then, in a foul-smelling puff of smoke like something out of a bad magic act, she disappeared.
