Warped (12 page)

“Sounds like it,” said Opal. She sat at Tessa’s computer, tapping the keyboard, her eyes on the screen. “And she wants her stuff back.”

Give them back
. Tessa shivered as she remembered the message. She pulled her sweater tighter around her and faced Will. “So Gray Lily took your life from you, as a thread. How did she do that? What happened?”

Will gave her a strange, impassive look before casting his eyes down, remembering. “She spoke, making strange noises,” he said, “like a demon from Hell. She held a small yellow stone. She touched it to my chest and a cold ache began. Here.” He put a hand to his chest. “She pulled the thread from me, until there was nothing left.” The memory of it seemed to bring back an echo of the pain. Will rubbed his chest absently, as if soothing a healed but still-tender wound.

“Then she used your thread to make the unicorn,” Tessa said. “Why a unicorn?”

“I don’t know,” Will admitted with a weary shrug. “Perhaps as a creature of magic, I bestowed more strength to her.”

“Immortality,” Tessa murmured. In answer to Will’s questioning glance, she went on, “I read about it. The unicorn symbolizes eternal life.” She nodded. “Maybe that’s how she’s able to live so long. She used your life thread to make this magical creature, then she got the legendary power of the unicorn when she trapped you inside the tapestry.”

“So what did it feel like?” Opal asked Will. “You know, when you were a unicorn?”

She sounded, thought Tessa, like a daytime talk-show host.

Will didn’t answer right away. “I remember,” he began slowly, “at first, the warmth of sun on my back. The hunger for sweetgrasses. The joy of galloping.” He laughed, and for a second his lean face lost every trace of anger or fear. He looked like a little boy. “To be free was my happiness. But after I was trapped—” Here he stopped. The open, boyish expression vanished and his eyes met Tessa’s with an impenetrable stare. “I was imprisoned in the tapestry. It was a living death.”

Tessa said in a soft voice, “I’m sorry.”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “For what, mistress?”

The question took her by surprise. “That this happened to you,” Tessa answered, with a bewildered expression. “That she
did
this to you.”
What else would I be sorry for?

“So what do we do now?” Opal asked.

Tessa shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea.” She looked at Will, who had sat on the floor, back propped against the wall. One long leg was bent, and his elbow rested on his knee, forearm dangling. He leaned his head back. He looked lazy but elegant. There were shadows beneath his golden brown eyes, but he was watching her with a brooding intensity.

“I’ll take the tapestry, as well as the book, and go,” Will said suddenly. He spoke as if they had been having a silent argument about it and he had come up with the obvious and only solution.

Tessa reacted at once. “No. What do you think happens to
me
, and my father, if you take them?” she demanded. “The lawyer is coming tomorrow. He knows the tapestry and the book are here. He’s offered my father ten thousand dollars for them. And if he doesn’t get them—” She paused. “What will Gray Lily do?”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “So. Ten thousand dollars.” He turned to Opal. “It is a goodly sum in this realm?”

Opal nodded. “Pretty goodly. Not badly.”

He turned back to Tessa, regarded her for a moment and then said, “Perhaps you think you could get more.”

“What?” she sputtered.

“If it’s money you desire”—Will de Chaucy spoke slowly, coldly—“I will pay you, once I return to my estate.”

“I don’t give a damn about the stupid money,” Tessa said, angry that he could really think that about her. Why did he distrust her so much? Sometimes the way he looked at her, it almost seemed as if he felt nothing but coldness and contempt for her.

“I’m thinking about my father and me,” she told him. “Gray Lily already proved what she’s capable of doing, without even being present.” As she spoke, Tessa remembered the eerie message woven before her eyes in the kitchen. “Who knows what she’ll do if she gets really angry?”

“You could say I overpowered you and escaped. That I disappeared,” he reasoned. “I shall take one of those flying machines you described. A ‘plane,’ was it not? I will go to Cornwall and find my home as well as my family. Or my descendants, as I suppose they would be now,” he mused.

“I hate to tell you this, Will.” Opal frowned, peering at the screen of the desktop computer. “I searched everywhere. I can’t find a current Earl of Umbric or a Hartescross listed anywhere in the UK. And it looks like the last member of the de Chaucy family”—she paused, scrolling through one of the many genealogy sites they had checked—“was Gervais de Chaucy.”

“That is my father,” said Will.

Tessa peered over Opal’s shoulder at the glowing screen. “He died in 1512,” she said softly. “One year after the disappearance of his younger son. Who, according to local legend, was killed by a unicorn.”

Will bent his head. He whispered something Tessa couldn’t hear, but seeing the devastated look on his face was enough. She turned away.

“What about his brother, Hugh?” she prompted Opal.

Opal tapped the keys, then shook her head and sat back. “Sorry. There’s nothing.” She yawned. “I am so fried.”

So was Tessa. She didn’t want to think about witches or unicorns or anything else. And especially not about the boy sitting a few feet away from her, who was charming one minute and sneering the next. Totally cut off from his whole world and yet no part of hers. She was exhausted. The weirdness and danger hadn’t gone away, but she had to sleep—she had to. Just a few hours of rest. Then, if he was still here when she woke up . . . well, she’d think of something.

Opal was already pulling a sleeping bag from the closet and unrolling it.

Both girls turned to look at Will. He was fast asleep.

Tessa dragged the puffy flowered comforter from her bed and tiptoed over to him. She covered him gently. She crawled into bed and reached over to adjust the alarm clock. Then Tessa burrowed her face and her fisted hands into her pillow and slept.

And dreamed.

She lay helpless where she had fallen, her ankle twisted and throbbing with pain.

The huge animal fell to its knees beside her and laid its head in her lap. Leaves and small twigs clung to the tangled mane, and blood seeped from a gash in the sleek jaw. Her velvet dress was stained with the dark, sticky fluid. She put out a tentative hand and touched the unicorn’s side. She could feel the animal’s shallow breaths. Her eyes widened as she saw her own hand stained with blood. The smell was thick, nauseating.

The weaver woman approached and bent over her. Her wizened face was lit with eagerness as she looked over the unicorn. “You’ve done well, child. It will be over soon.”

“No!” she cried. “Don’t kill it! It’s not a monster. It didn’t kill Will de Chaucy. Its eyes—I think it’s
him.
”

“Clever girl,” snarled Gray Lily. She glanced at her. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill him.”

Men came. They put a cuff of dull gray metal on each of the unicorn’s forelegs and fastened them securely. “Iron will quell your spirit,” Gray Lily said. “And hold you.” She then took a small yellow stone from her pocket and pressed it to the unicorn’s chest.

Awful sounds filled the air as Gray Lily chanted strange words. And then something impossible happened.

The girl watched as a curling, silvery thread drifted up from the unicorn’s chest like a wisp of smoke. The unicorn shuddered and its eyes shot open, huge and dilated with fear. But it didn’t move. The thread spun away, faster and faster. The unicorn’s substance faded and finally disappeared. The silver thread drifted on the air.

Gray Lily held a tapestry. The unicorn’s silver thread undulated through the air and traveled toward her as she spoke. As the old woman worked her magic, the thread wove itself into the tapestry. It looked like streaks of light rippling through dark water. Gray Lily closed her eyes and spoke again, and this time the words rang out clear in the stillness of the wood.

“Spirit transformed, I call thee.

Magic enclosed, I capture thee.

Through warp and weft, I bind thee.

Let your power be mine for eternity.

The tapestry is complete.”

The unicorn was in the tapestry, frozen in a pose of wild torment. Its eyes stared out with a piercing sadness.
His
eyes.

The girl screamed. The men staggered back, muttering oaths. Several ran away in terror.

“You see? Isn’t he fine?” said Gray Lily. She straightened, and she was no longer old but youthful, with thick fair hair and a lissome figure. “I told you I wouldn’t kill him,” she drawled. She ran her hands over her supple body with a smile of delight that was almost obscene. Then her small, dark eyes flickered up. “Now, you, on the other hand . . . ”

She pulled a dagger from her cloak and advanced . . . .

Tessa moaned in her sleep. Her arms thrashed against the twisted covers.
Open your eyes
. It was dark. Strong hands gripped her arms. “Wake up.” Will de Chaucy leaned over her, the darkness shadowing his features.

“I had another dream,” Tessa rasped from her dry, constricted throat. “I saw Gray Lily. I saw what she did to you.”
And what she was going to do to me
.

“
Another
dream?” he asked. His voice was so gentle. Just like the touch that brushed her tousled hair back.

“Yes,” she whispered, suddenly very conscious of how close he was. “I’ve been having the strangest dreams ever since I first touched the tapestry. And now even if I’m not touching it. It was so real. It was like . . . ”

“You were there,” he finished. He straightened, drawing away.

Tessa sat up. “We have to do something. I can’t go on this way.”

“Agreed,” said Will de Chaucy in a low tone.

Chapter 18

T
he next morning the bell on the door of Brody’s Books jangled and a man entered. He was heavily built, with a thin salt-and-ginger-colored fringe of hair around a balding, freckled scalp. His dark gray suit looked rumpled, as if he’d slept in it, and he carried a worn leather attaché case. Tessa watched him from behind the counter, her fingers tapping a pencil on the morning newspaper.

The man’s glance darted toward Tessa. “Is Mr. Brody in?” he said in a gruff voice.

Tessa nodded and pointed to where her father was occupied with a broom in the far corner of the store. “Dad,” she called.

The man gave her a short nod of thanks and the corners of his mouth pressed inward in a curt, professional smile. But his gaze lingered on Tessa’s face. He had pale blue eyes, and there were bags of droopy flesh beneath them that gave him a gloomy expression. He strode past. Tessa wondered if the man could hear the knocking of her knees.

“Mr. Moncrieff?” said her father. “Hello.” He set down a push broom and dustpan and nudged a large paper bag out of the way with one foot. He strode forward, hand extended. “Jackson Brody.”

“Yes. I’m Moncrieff,” the lawyer said tersely as they shook hands.

“I was going to call you this morning,” her father began, his tone apologetic, “but I realized I didn’t have your number. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

“Of what kind, Mr. Brody?” Any trace of a smile, professional or otherwise, evaporated from the lawyer’s face. A look of hard suspicion took its place.

“We had a break-in last night.” Tessa’s father pointed to a small side window, one that looked out onto the alley. A piece of cardboard was fastened on where the lower pane of glass used to be. “They stole quite a few valuable books,” he said. “Including the one from the auction.”

Moncrieff set his case down with a thump. “What?” he said, staring at her father. An angry flush rose in his neck and cheeks. He swiveled to look around the store, and his eyes, now sharp and accusing, raked over Tessa once more. “What the hell are you trying to pull?”

“Nothing,” Jackson Brody replied. “We live upstairs but unfortunately never heard a thing. Came down this morning to find . . . well, someone had broken a window, gotten in and robbed us.”

“And you heard nothing?” the lawyer demanded.

“No,” said Tessa’s father with a shrug. “It’s a large building, and the bedrooms are on the opposite end.”

“But the tapestry,” Moncrieff said, glaring. “Where is the tapestry?” His freckled lips worked silently as he waited for the answer. His hands tightened into fists.

Tessa’s father looked taken aback but stayed calm as he replied, “The thieves got that too.” He glanced at Tessa. “My daughter packed it up together with the book last night. It was all ready to go.”

“That’s right,” Tessa said quickly. “I put them in the same packing crate they arrived in. It was sitting right here on the counter.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact. Her pencil was still tapping the paper, though maybe a little faster than before. She set it down.

“You—you’re lying!” The lawyer took a step and stopped. He raised a hand to his throat and swallowed.

“No, he’s not!” said Tessa. She jumped up and whipped around the counter to stand next to her father. “It’s true. They’re gone. It’s not my father’s fault. It—it’s mine. You can tell that to . . . Ms. Gerome.” She took a deep breath. “The box was here in plain sight. The thieves grabbed it. It’s
gone.
”

Outside, a police cruiser pulled up.

Moncrieff’s eyes darted around the store and then back to Tessa. They narrowed to watery blue slits. “Where is it?” he repeated. But his words were thick and seemed to come out with difficulty.

“Stolen, like we told you,” said her father.

“They’re gone,” Tessa said, trying to keep her own voice steady. She gestured to the window and the police car outside. “The police are here to investigate. You can stay and give them details if you want, about the book and the tapestry.” She looked the man straight in the eye. The lawyer frowned at Tessa, then stepped toward the storefront window and peered out. He eyed the police officer who was getting out of the cruiser. Moncrieff gave a dismissive snort and seemed about to say something when suddenly he stopped, his eyes fixed on something else outside. Slowly he shook his head no.