The Unicorn Quest Page 3

  Suddenly, it threw back its head. For a split second, she had a clear glimpse of the monster’s face: a human skull filled with fangs. Then the beast howled—a murderous cry that made Claire feel as though her insides had been wrenched out.

  She screamed.

  The sound of her own voice snapped the world back in place, and Claire was aware again of Sophie, who grabbed her hand roughly.

  “Claire!” Sophie yelled. “Run!”

  Claire moved. Stumbling over the uneven ground, half-sobbing, her sister pulled her toward a clearing. Sophie had had a growth spurt in the spring, and for each of her long strides, Claire was forced to take an extra half step to keep up.

  Though she couldn’t hear the creature behind them, Claire knew it was there. She could feel its coldness chasing them.

  Hunting them.

  Ice-cold air rushed into her lungs. As they burst into the clearing, Claire felt a long cold finger brush against her neck and tug the collar of her shirt.

  She stumbled.

  A dry hand latched around her ankle.

  Claire sprawled onto grass and twigs. Trying to break the creature’s grip, she rolled onto her back, kicking helplessly as she looked up at the looming figure.

  “Sophie!” Her scream cut through her, slicing at her throat. Cold sunk into her bones and a pounding rush filled her ears, driving out all thought and reason.

  The thing swooped down in a wave of indistinguishable shadows under the moon’s glow, and Claire squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to truly see it.

  “Don’t touch her!” Sophie’s voice tore across the night. The creature roared.

  Claire opened her eyes. Her sister had thrown herself onto the thing’s back and was desperately pounding at its shoulder blades, her fists sinking into the shifting, smoky blackness that hung around it.

  With another mind-ripping howl, the Shadow Thing jerked, trying to rid itself of the Sophie-sized pest. Claire’s body flushed hot with panic.

  “Get up!” Sophie shouted. Her hair whipped wildly as the beast lunged side to side.

  Claire scooted away from the creature, but then there was another shriek—from Sophie this time—and Claire watched in horror as the beast’s clawed hand reached behind and finally peeled Sophie off its back, throwing her to the ground.

  “No!” Claire yelled. Without thinking, she leaped to her feet and grabbed her pencil from behind her ear. Clutching it in her fist, she charged the beast.

  Something whizzed past her head—a bird? an insect?—but she kept running forward, desperate to help her sister. A second later, something else whistled by her cheek, and she saw a streak of white light arcing toward the Shadow Thing. The light hit it squarely in its shadowed face, and the air filled with the sound of a hiss, like steam from a radiator.

  Claire skidded to a stop, bewildered, as the skeletal creature fell back from Sophie, clawing at its eyes. More streaks of light rained down on the beast, slicing away the shadows that surrounded it.

  Claire gasped, and a sparkling bit of light fell into her mouth. Oddly, she tasted dirt. She looked around, trying to see where the light was coming from, and for a moment, as though illuminated by a shooting star, she could make out two figures running away through the garden.

  The Shadow Thing screamed in rage, arms thrown over its head as it retreated into the bramble and disappeared.

  Claire ran to Sophie. “Are you okay?” Tears sprang into her eyes as she pulled Sophie to her feet.

  “I’m fine, but come on!” Her sister took a step, then winced. She flung her arm over Claire’s shoulder, and they hobbled toward the yawning mouth of the well. Sophie hurled herself in. Quickly, Claire put her pencil between her teeth and hoisted herself up with arms that felt about as solid as sponges. Her feet hit the top rung. Scrambling, she skimmed down the well …

  And then her foot crashed through a rung.

  Screaming, Claire snatched the ladder. Her fingertips slammed against the wood of the next rung, but then slipped away before she could grab hold. The back of her head cracked against the stone shaft—

  —She opened her eyes to find a blurry Sophie kneeling over her. As her face came into focus, Claire noticed that her sister’s freckles stood out more than usual and that she seemed to be shaking Claire’s shoulders. Either that, or Claire was experiencing a small earthquake in her head.

  “Oww,” Claire moaned.

  “You’re awake!” Sophie put cool hands to Claire’s cheeks. “You’re okay!”

  Head pounding, Claire sat up on the soot-stained hearth of the fireplace. The whole world swayed for a moment, then righted itself. They were back in the unicorn gallery.

  Sunlight trickled around the thick drapes, and from somewhere far away, a cuckoo clock chimed a quarter past. Claire’s pencil lay a few inches away.

  “What happened?” she asked, reaching for her pencil. The slight weight of the wood was comforting against her palm.

  “You don’t remember?” Sophie’s eyes narrowed. “We climbed up the ladder.”

  The ladder. Images tumbled through Claire’s mind. She was possessed by a desperate feeling that everything was about to come crashing down.

  “The Shadow Thing!” she gasped. She began to shake uncontrollably and clenched her pencil, as though it were a knife.

  A warm arm slipped around her shoulders. “Hey, hey,” Sophie said softly as she pulled Claire into a hug. “It’s all right. It was only a bat.”

  “A bat?” Claire heard herself repeat.

  “A bat,” Sophie confirmed. “We had just started to climb when it flew at us. Then, I don’t know, you kind of lost your head for a second and started screaming. And you let go.” Her arm tightened around Claire. “Luckily we weren’t too high up.”

  Claire frowned—her head hurt so badly—could she have imagined the well and the sparkling light and the castle? A claw flashed across her mind.

  “But bats don’t have skeleton hands,” Claire protested. “They don’t make you feel cold inside.” She pointed at a red stain blossoming a little above Sophie’s knee, spreading across torn denim. “They don’t leave you bleeding!”

  Sophie glanced down. “My jeans got caught. It’s just a scratch. You have a few yourself.” She took Claire’s hands and flipped them over. Her knuckles were scraped pink. “And I think you hit your head pretty hard.”

  A concussion could explain it all, but there was also another explanation …

  “What about magic?” Claire blurted out.

  Sophie frowned. “Claire—”

  “No, listen,” she insisted. “The hospital said your recovery was magic. Why can’t other magical things happen?”

  “Because magic isn’t real,” Sophie said shortly.

  Claire’s head throbbed. “But you said that we were in another world—”

  “If you’re going to be all weird,” Sophie cut in, “I’m not sure we should have any more Experiences together. It’s too much for you.”

  Her swift dismissal swung down, crunching Claire to two inches. “You’re being unfair!” she cried.

  “I’m not the one talking about magic,” Sophie said. “But if you want to see for yourself, we can climb back up.”

  Claire’s shoulders tensed, and her eyes flew to the ladder. A chill shuddered down her spine. “Promise me you’ll never climb the ladder again.”

  “Claire—”

  “Promise me.”

  Sophie let out a long, gusty sigh, the kind only an older sister can make when a younger sister is being silly, irrational, and oh-so young. “Okay,” she said. “I promise.”

  “Swear it!”

  Sophie made a fist with her right hand and stuck out her thumb. Claire quickly did the same. It had been their own special code ever since Sophie told Claire years ago that pinkie promises were for babies, and offered a thumb promise instead.

  Pressing thumb to thumb, Sophie intoned, “I swear that I will never climb up the ladder again, even if the sun turns green and my eyes
fall out. Feel better?”

  “No,” Claire said. Weariness settled over her. “Not really.”

  “Wait a second.” Sophie stood up and began pulling sheets off more of the display stands, uncovering a polished hunting horn, a circlet of silver, and an alabaster vase. “That’s not it,” she murmured to herself.

  “What are you doing?” Claire asked.

  Sophie whipped off the next sheet with such force that dust exploded into the air. Underneath was a bookcase carved with flowers and vines.

  “Perfect,” Sophie declared, and Claire watched as Sophie threw her back against it, and the bookcase scraped forward a few inches. Claire tucked her pencil away and hurried to help. Together, they set the bookcase in front of the fireplace. It didn’t block the hearth completely—there were about six inches on either side of the shelves, and Claire could still see the ladder extending above it.

  Grabbing the alabaster vase, she stretched onto her tiptoes and placed it on top.

  Now the ladder was obscured, too.

  “Sophie?” The doors at the end of the gallery opened, and Mom’s face peeked in. “There you are! We need to leave for Dr. Silva’s. Bring a book.”

  Claire watched as Sophie turned slightly away from their mother, concealing the bloodstain. “Okay. Give me a second.” She walked quickly from the room, limping slightly.

  Mom dropped a kiss on the top of Claire’s head. “There are leftovers in the fridge in case we get home late. Remind your father that you both need to eat dinner.”

  Claire spent the afternoon sketching in the field farthest from Windemere Manor. In the bright sun, she tried to draw the bat that had chased them down the chimney. A cute one, with fuzzy ears and wide eyes like the one she’d once seen in a picture book.

  But when Dad found her later and asked what she was working on, she looked down at her sketch pad. In every single drawing, there were claws and shadows and burning black eyes.

  Because she knew, deep down, that whatever it was that lived in the chimney hadn’t been a bat at all.

  It had been a monster.

  CHAPTER

  4

  It had been raining for three days, ever since Claire and Sophie had maybe or maybe not climbed up the fireplace and been attacked by a skeleton wearing a cloak of shadows. And although Claire could see the reason in her sister’s words—it was far more likely her imagination had created a world full of crumbling castles and terrifying creatures—that didn’t stop her from thinking about it. Or from feeling the chimney’s quiet tug, like a sweater’s thread that has snagged and begun to unravel.

  Luckily, there was a lot to keep her busy.

  Claire shuddered when she opened another cardboard box and saw what Dad had called “bone china.” He had explained that the plates were made of crushed animal bones that had been burned to ash and then melted together to create the dinner sets. They were often used for fancy parties, but Claire knew she didn’t want to eat on bones in any form, no matter how pretty they were.

  Using her pencil, she scrawled Murder Plates on a sticky note and put it on the box before writing on a yellow pad that the china was in box thirty-three. As an afterthought, she sketched a quick dog bone beside the entry. Then she scooted over to the next box in the billiards room: box number thirty-four out of a gazillion. August and the estate sale were still almost two whole months away, but Great-Aunt Diana’s stuff seemed to overflow into every nook and cranny of Windemere.

  From somewhere in the house, she heard loud voices. Probably Sophie and Mom, since Dad and Mom had only been talking in hushed tones lately.

  Sighing, Claire looked out the diamond-paned windows onto the gray lawn under a gray sky in the gray rain. She knew cataloging all the artifacts in the house must be hard on Dad, especially since no one really knew what had happened to Great-Aunt Diana. That explained why he was acting different from normal, but it didn’t explain why Sophie’s personality had suddenly changed … again.

  Because, for that brief moment before they climbed the ladder, Claire had thought the old Sophie was coming back, the fun Sophie. But after Claire had bumped her head, Sophie had become more sullen and grumpy than ever. And worse, she’d been avoiding Claire.

  Claire opened box thirty-four and snorted when she saw hundreds of earrings mixed together. It would take ages to sort and count.

  “Hi kiddo.”

  Claire looked up to see Dad had entered the room carrying another box. He set it down. “I heard a snort and thought you might have come across a wild boar or something.”

  She scowled, in no mood for Dad’s jokes. Not when he was bringing another box for her to sift through. “I think I’d rather be a wild boar,” she said.

  “No you wouldn’t,” Dad said. “Then you wouldn’t be able to hold a pencil.” He tugged one of her curls gently. “But you should take a break. Go see how your sister is doing.”

  Claire didn’t particularly feel like going to find a moody Sophie who’d probably just snap at her, but she was glad for a break. Not having any particular place in mind, Claire wandered through the mansion, drifting into a room filled with portraits and another that was completely empty except for a giant vase in the corner.

  Claire finally spotted Sophie in a hallway along the back wing of the manor, staring hard at a tapestry hanging on the wall. Claire recognized the same look of concentration on her face that Sophie had had when she was memorizing lines for her seventh-grade play.

  Claire looked at the tapestry, but she didn’t see anything special about the wall hanging. The piece of cloth, murky with age, was not even a full tapestry, only a fragment that seemed to have been ripped away from a larger picture.

  “Where have you been?” Claire asked, secretly pleased when Sophie jumped a little. Clearly, she wasn’t the only Martinson sister who didn’t like to be spooked. “You weren’t in your room when I went in this morning.”

  “Around,” Sophie said, turning away from the wall. “What’s up?”

  If she squinted a little and tilted her head, Claire thought she could make out a creature on the tapestry. A white stag, maybe, drinking from a well.

  She averted her eyes quickly. Wells and fireplaces littered her dreams lately, along with the memory of cold and dark. An uncomfortable thought wedged itself somewhere between her ribs and gut. She decided she could no longer hold it in.

  Claire took a deep breath. “I saw a castle in the fireplace,” she said, “and some kind of terrible beast. You saw it, too. So don’t tell me any more stories about a bat.”

  Sophie turned back to the tapestry. “Claire,” she said with a sigh. “Your imagination will get you in trouble someday.”

  “It wasn’t my imagination,” Claire said, growing angry. “I know what I saw.”

  Still, Sophie didn’t look at her. Her profile was white and her mouth was a small dark slash. “Yeah, sure. You saw magic.” She said the word like she was saying “dirty socks.”

  “So what if I did?” Claire said, matching Sophie’s tone. “It’s not the most impossible thing to happen to us. You got better, after all, even when—”

  “Stop!” Sophie whirled around, grabbing Claire by the shoulders and leaning in so close that Claire could see the tiny rainbows trapped in the four dangling moonstones of Sophie’s necklace. Sophie had found it abandoned in a linen closet the first day they were in the house. Claire didn’t know when she’d started wearing it, and for some reason this made her feel like crying.

  “Magic. Does. Not. Exist. You have to grow up sometime!” The pressure lifted from Claire’s shoulders as Sophie dropped her hands. “You need to face reality!”

  Her sister’s words wrapped around her like the tentacles of a jellyfish, squeezing and stinging.

  “I have grown up,” Claire said, each word getting louder. “You’re the one who told me to climb the ladder!”

  At one time, Sophie would have yelled back at her, shouting just as loudly. But now her voice was infuriatingly level as she said, �
�I wouldn’t have if I had known what a baby you’d be about it.”

  Her calmness made Claire want to stomp her feet and stick out her tongue, but that would only prove that she really hadn’t grown up at all. She opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say next, but just then Dad appeared in the hallway, yet another box in hand.

  “We need to take everything in the billiards room to your mom. She’s in the sculpture gallery on the first floor,” he said. “Grab a box and let’s go.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes, but trudged toward the billiards room. Claire remained rooted in the hallway. No matter what had actually happened in that gallery, the dark cold had been real. She was sure of that, at least.

  Claire quickly touched the pencil behind her ear for good luck and hurried into the billiards room to snatch a box of tarnished candlesticks. Then, squaring her shoulders, she walked toward the gallery, her eyes sweeping over every corner.

  Mom was sitting in the middle of the floor, brown eyes pensive under the same loose curls that crowned Claire, as she haphazardly put a brass figurine into a box labeled Clothing.

  “Thank you,” Mom said when she saw the girls. Claire noted with worry that her mother’s loose bun was now sitting directly on top of her head instead of at the base of her neck—a sure sign of stress. “Set those boxes against that wall, next to the fireplace, please.”

  A sucking sensation filled Claire. She had the sudden thought that if she got too close, the chimney would whoosh her away and she’d never return. Not wanting to look, but unable to stop herself, she glanced in the direction of the fireplace.

  A spark shot through her body. The wooden rungs were clearly visible.

  Though the bookcase was still there, someone, probably her mother, had removed the alabaster vase that had hidden the ladder from view.

  Not real, Claire chanted, Not real. Not real. Not real. Knuckles white around the box, she slowly shuffled forward and dropped the candleholders where Mom had indicated.

  It was then that she noticed the deep grooves in the wooden floor, right in front of the flagstone hearth. It looked as if someone had been shoving the wooden bookshelf out of the way, then returning it to its position. A slimy feeling like egg whites poured over Claire.