Page 49 of Silver Linings

This wasn’t just one or two individual plants, though. No, this was an entire glade of the delicate blossoms, all of them glowing with their own inner light, making the glade seem almost as bright as day. And they weren’t the only unearthly plants growing there — the very moss underfoot had its own bioluminescence, as did the spiky bushes that somehow reminded me of yucca, even though we were hundreds and hundreds of miles from any place where those desert shrubs would grow naturally.

But then, nothing about our surroundings felt terribly “natural.” No, it seemed to me as if the flora growing in this spot had also somehow slipped onto this plane from somewhere else, the same strange universe where creatures like unicorns and griffins and who knows what else lived.

In the glow from the plant life, Ben’s face was alight with wonder. He looked around us, his expression that of a little boy who’d just discovered that Santa Claus was real after all. His lips had parted slightly, but I could tell he wouldn’t speak unless I gave the signal, as if he thought I might know better what to do than he could.

I was on completely unfamiliar ground here, though. The various glimpses of legendary beasts I’d caught over the years hadn’t prepared me for what I was seeing now.

The unicorn seemed almost matter-of-fact as he forged ahead, however. Once we passed a clump of glittering pink bushes — not so dissimilar from the pink tinsel Christmas tree I’d wanted desperately when I was eight years old and my parents had firmly vetoed — we came into a clearing where the ground was covered by more of the bioluminescent moss.

Standing in the center of that clearing was a group of standing stones, much smaller in scale than Stonehenge, of course, but impressive…and unexpected…nonetheless.

Finally, Ben spoke.

“What is this place?” he asked in a reverent whisper.

“I don’t know,” I replied in the same sort of undertone. “I’ve never seen it before. I had no idea it was even here.”

During this exchange, the two of us had moved, almost unconsciously, toward the standing stones. The unicorn shook his mane and stepped closer to one that was a little larger than the others, then pointed his horn toward what I realized was a set of markings.

Ogham letters.

“I wish I could read them,” Ben said, and glanced over at the unicorn. “What do they mean?”

The unicorn shook again, almost like a dog who wanted to go out for a walk. I could sense the impatience in the movement, could somehow tell he was annoyed that we dense humans weren’t able to put it all together.

I gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. Do you think the same person who carved the symbols in the trees put these here, too?”

At once, Ben shook his head. “No. These are much older. See how the edges of the lines are blurred slightly? That’s from exposure to the elements over a span of years. Decades at least, probably even more. I haven’t done much study of the effects of erosion on stone in this part of the world.”

He knew that much, though, which was more than I did.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the unicorn neighed — the first sound I’d ever heard him make. He reared, horn glowing even more brightly, and promptly bolted off into the woods.

“Wait!” I called out, and took a few useless steps forward before I realized there was no way in the world I’d ever be able to follow him.

Ben didn’t appear too dismayed, though. In fact, he’d pulled a piece of paper and a pencil out of his jacket pocket and was taking a rubbing of the markings on the stone, probably so he could translate them once we got back to civilization.

If we got back to civilization.

“Well, that’s just great,” I said as I made my way back to the spot where he stood. “Stranded out in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back.”

“We can retrace our steps,” he replied calmly. “I’ve got this,” he added as he returned the paper and pencil to his pocket and bent down to pick up his flashlight.

When he went to turn it on, though, it gave one feeble flicker and then promptly went dark.

That’s the cherry on the cake of my day, went through my mind, although I thought it better to keep that sentiment to myself. We were in a tough enough spot as it was without me bitching and moaning the whole way.

Ben looked so crestfallen that I almost wanted to laugh. But again, I guessed that sort of reaction wouldn’t be very helpful.

“Now what?”

“We wait until dawn,” he said, calm reasserting itself. “There’s no point in blundering around in the darkness and getting even more lost.”

That suggestion didn’t seem too attractive to me. “That’s at least six hours from now.”

“True,” he said imperturbably. “But I’ve got water in my pack, and this moss seems soft enough. And we can lean against one of the trees over there.”

He pointed to a stand of what looked almost like birch trees, although their leaves gleamed like living silver coins in the darkness. Actually, it wasn’t dark here at all. The problem would be when we left this strange pocket of otherness and ventured into the normal, everyday forest, where none of the flora there helpfully provided enough light to mark our way.

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