Ben rose and went to the fire. He picked up the poker stick and jabbed at the logs.
“But why would someone who wants to start a war between Eastland and Westland want Indy? How would someone from Eastland even know about Indy?” Ben shook his head. Emmie flapped off his lap, back to the doorway. “I’m not going to go to the queen just because this thief told me to. I won’t be threatened like this! How do I even know I’ll get Indy back? If someone will steal, he’ll lie too.”
Twig cringed inside. She’d stolen things, back when she’d lived with Mom. Stolen things for her mom. But I’m different now, she told herself. A new Twig. A Twig who could take back what was stolen this time. “Maybe the queen would be grateful that we could help find her unicorn.” Maybe she could even be persuaded to change her ways. Twig got up so she could look Ben in the eye. “If she’d offer us protection—”
“The queen protects no one! She has no idea what she’s done, what she’s doing to all of us!” Ben’s hand clenched around the stick. He spun around and tossed it at the far wall.
Merrill was on his feet with a quick jerk. “Then I suppose you’ll have to let her know—about a number of things.”
Ben stiffened, then deflated. Merrill’s words had not only burst the balloon of anger, but had also sucked all the heat and life out of him.
Twig spoke up. “I don’t know what’s going on here. But I do know that this thief—and who knows who else—has been going through the passage. Strangers, on our island. Our home, Ben. Sneaking around in the dark.” The passage was supposed to be locked. And then she remembered—“Only the queen can change the locks! You told me that once. She could change the locks, couldn’t she? We wouldn’t have to worry about who has a key now or how they got it. As long as she only gave us one. Everything could be how it was. We could go back and work with the herd—”
“Nothing can ever be how it was!” Ben’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I don’t know…this whole thing is…”
“It isn’t just Indy you miss. You miss him still…your dad.” And he was afraid of losing Indy forever, just like he’d lost Darian. “Couldn’t you try talking to the queen?” Twig said gently.
“She’s the last person I’d ask for help.”
Ben turned away with a snap of his cape. The flames flickered at his back, and the fire was back in his eyes.
Twig was about to snap back in her frustration. But she knew what it was to not want to ask for things, didn’t she?
Outside, Wonder cried out, her whinny strained with thinning patience, tinged with the threat of total rebellion. Rain Cloud nickered a reprimand, a reassurance, but his anxiousness was unmistakable too. Franklin’s bray from the other side of the shelter topped off the animals’ complaints.
“It’s time we get going,” Ben said coolly. “Do you have what we need?”
“Of course.” Merrill nodded toward the corner of the shelter, at what appeared to be a pile of folded clothes.
Twig followed Ben to the corner, where Merrill handed her a black tunic trimmed in red and yellow.
Ben took off his cape and slipped an identical garment over his shirt. “We’re messengers for the queen’s army.”
Twig put her tunic on over her shell and mini-backpack, then turned to Merrill. “Maybe you should come with us.”
“I have to get back home to Marble. I’m too well-known in certain circles besides. Too distinctive.” He patted his artificial leg.
“Oh.” Twig glanced sideways at Ben. She didn’t know how she was going to handle a stubborn pony, a wild-hearted unicorn, and this boy—just as stubborn and wild with grief and determination. Just as strange to her, as secretive as this world, hidden from the Earth Land by its circle of mist.
Merrill picked up a harness and bridle, adorned with black fabric and trimmed in red and yellow, just like Twig’s tunic. “Time to outfit Wonder and Rain Cloud.”
“How did you get this stuff?”
Merrill shrugged. “I’ve been working on it ever since I found out about you and your Wonder. Since I heard of Darian’s fate. I wanted to be prepared in case the two of you had to spend some time in Terracornus. Trouble is, I hadn’t planned on outfitting a pony. I’m afraid a grown unicorn’s trappings will make an awkward fit for little Rain Cloud.”
“We’ll make it do,” Ben said.
“But still, Rain Cloud is a pony. I mean, are there even ponies here in Terracornus?”
“There are horses, sure. They do the hauling and the plowing.”
“The grunt work,” Ben put in.
“But not ponies,” Twig said.
“Well…”
Ben said, “It’s a good enough reason for him to be made a messenger. A stunted horse. Too small for heavier work.”
“Stunted!” They’d probably think Twig was stunted too, small and skinny as she was. People didn’t call her Twig for nothing.
Ben said, “You’ll have to think like a Terracornian from time to time in order to survive among them.”
Twig spun on her heel and headed for the open doorway. “If that’s how Terracornians think, then I’m glad I’m not one of them.”
A hand rested on Twig’s back. “You could never be one,” Ben said. “Your heart’s too big.”
“They can change, you know,” Merrill said. “Terracornus wasn’t always this way. We must never forget that.”
Twig shifted uncomfortably in the tunic. “If this world can turn one way, it can turn back the other,” she said hopefully.
But Ben didn’t look so sure.
Behind the shelter, they draped Rain Cloud and Wonder with the trappings.
Merrill gave the animals a confident nod. “We’re ready for the last bit, looks like.” He held a white disc in the palm of his hand. Fine leather straps dangled from it, over his arm. “Twig, we’re going to need your help with this.”
Twig’s fingers tightened in Wonder’s mane. “What is it?”
“A horn cap, to keep Wonder’s horn down.”
Twig’s stomach knotted up. “Why would we want to do that?”
“Because,” Ben said quietly, “the only reason a fine yearling unicorn like Wonder would be a messenger, the only reason she wouldn’t be training for battle instead, is if there was a flaw with her horn.”
“Misshapen, blunted, broken, missing…” Merrill said.
“So when she’s wearing this and she’s around other unicorns, her horn won’t extend?”
“It cannot,” Merrill explained. “The pressure keeps it down.”
“She isn’t going to like this, is she?”
“No, Twig.” Merrill put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll put it on her. Let her blame me.”
“Merrill…”
“He’s right. You’ll hate it, and she’ll feel it while you’re strapping it on.”
Thank God Wonder’s horn was already retracted. Merrill was so steady, Wonder only squirmed the slightest bit. He buckled the straps over her ears and under her chin. Twig adjusted her bridle to cover the horn cap’s straps, then arranged Wonder’s silky forelock over the disk.
Merrill said, “There’s some food packed up for the two of you, for your journey. Come and help me get it, Twig.”
“Sure.”
Inside the shelter, Twig said, “Thank you, Merrill, for everything.”
“Of course.” Merrill shook her hand, then pulled her into a hug. “You take care, Twig.”
Twig glanced out the door. Ben was leading Rain Cloud around the front already. Twig moved to go, but Merrill held her hand tight. He whispered, “A true friend is a rare thing, for anybody. A friend of any sort is rare enough for that boy. I know you’re true, Twig. And I know you’ll convince him to go to the queen.” Merrill leaned closer. “He thinks Darian wouldn’t want him to go to her, and could be he’s right. But even so, going to her is what’s right.”
Twig didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t really had friends either before she came to the Murleys. The girls were her friends now, truly; she was sure of that. So was Ben. But could she really influence someone like him? “I’ll try,” she said.
Merrill clapped her on the back. He gave her a confident smile. “You’ve got the heart of a herder. A herder from the old days. Days when we’d never give up on a single unicorn, let alone their whole kind. I almost gave up, Twig-girl. I helped Darian and Ben with supplies, with advice, so they could tend to the island’s herd. But mostly I gave up. I told myself it was because of this.” He thumped his palm on his artificial leg. “But that was just an excuse. And who do you think made me realize what I was doing—what I wasn’t doing?”
Twig blinked up at him.
“It was you, my girl. You gave me the push I needed to keep from staying a useless old man with my best days behind me. You can do the same for Ben.”
Twig thought of Mom. Mom, who’d done what she was going to do no matter how Twig had persuaded, pleaded, cried. “Sometimes people won’t see.”
“In time they all see, Twig. Just, for some, they see too late. Let’s hope Ben doesn’t make that mistake.”