Her breath came in a small gasp. She had mounted the black unicorn without thinking, and her flight — for that indeed was what it had been — had been magical. There had been no sense of place or time; there had been only an acute sense of being. The unicorn had done more than carry her away from that meadow. The unicorn had carried her away from herself, down inside herself to see all about who and what she was and might be, until the thought of it had left her dazed and filled with wonder. The unicorn had shown her a texture and meaning to life that she would never have believed possible. Just its touch had been enough; nothing more was needed. There were tears in her eyes as she remembered how it had felt. The images were strangely clouded now, but the emotions she had experienced remained sharp and clear. How glorious it had been!
She brushed at the tears and let her gaze meet that of the watching unicorn. It still waited on her. It did not run as it might have, perhaps as it should. It simply waited.
But what was it waiting for? What did it want from her?
Confusion swept through her. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t know. She looked into the emerald eyes of the black unicorn and wished the fairy creature could tell her. She needed to know. Here it was, this wondrous being, waiting almost resignedly while she pondered, waiting on her once more — and she didn’t have any idea at all what she should do. She felt helpless and afraid. She felt herself a fool.
But she knew she could not afford such feelings, and she blocked them roughly from her mind. Meeks might still hunt them — probably did. That cat, whatever it was, would not delay the wizard long. He would come after her, after the unicorn, after them both. Meeks wanted the black unicorn; the stranger had been right about that. That meant that the stranger might have been right about the dreams as well.
And that, in turn, meant that the stranger might really be Ben.
A twinge of desperate longing raced through her, but she brushed it quickly aside. There was no time to consider the possibility now. The black unicorn was in immediate danger, and she had to do something to help it. It was clearly waiting on her, depending on her, and expecting something from her. She had to find out what.
There was only one way. She knew it instinctively. She would have to touch the unicorn, expose herself to its magic. She would have to open herself to its vision.
She breathed deeply, slowly, trying to steady herself. The sudden fear she experienced made her queasy. She was proposing the unthinkable. No one touched a unicorn and was ever herself again. No one. Oh, yes, she had touched the fairy creature already — a brushing against its body as she slipped the golden bridle in place and a clinging as she rode it to safety from that meadow. But both times she had been barely aware of what she was doing; it had all been something from a brief, wondrous dream that might never have been. What she would do now was entirely different, willful and deliberate, and she would be risking everything she was. The legends were uniform. Unicorns belonged to no one but themselves. Touch one and you were lost.
Yet she was going to do it anyway. The decision had already been made. The black unicorn was more than a legend out of tales a thousand years old, more than the dream that had drawn her on, more even than the reality of its physical being. It was an inescapable want that was an integral and undeniable part of her, a mystery that she must solve. The emerald eyes of the creature reflected her most secret urgings. She could keep nothing of herself hidden. Her own body betrayed her, its need for the unicorn an irresistible force. There was desire in her that surpassed anything she had ever known. The dangers that the black unicorn might pose, imagined or real, paled beside such desire. She had to solve its puzzle, whatever the cost. She had to know its truth.