Page 66 of Silver Linings

The unicorn tapped the ground with his foot.

What was that supposed to mean, exactly? One tap for no, two for yes?

“But it is a portal,” Sidney said softly.

Two stamps.

Well, that seemed to reinforce Ben’s theory…unless, of course, he had it backward and it was one for yes, two for no.

“And my mother and grandmother went through it.”

The unicorn shook his mane again, followed by another quick staccato of two stamps of his foot.

“Then I need to go,” she said, her tone now urgent. “I need to find them.”

Almost before she was done speaking, the unicorn reared. Ben ran to Sidney, taking her by the arm so he could pull her out of harm’s way. Not that he’d really thought the creature had meant to hurt her, but those flailing hooves could have injured her even if that hadn’t been the animal’s intention.

“I think he’s trying to tell you that’s not such a good idea,” he said.

For a second or two, he could feel the resistance in the limb he held, the way it seemed as if she was going to yank her arm away in impatience.

But then she went still, her gaze fixed on the unicorn. “Why don’t you want me to go after them?”

In response, the unicorn looked up toward the forest canopy above and then swept his horn from one side to the other, as though to indicate all the woods that stood strong and silent around them.

Was he trying to say that they needed to stay here, that even with Victor Maplehurst gone, there were still those who would attempt to exploit and destroy this place?

Or maybe Ben was trying to read way too much into a single gesture.

Before either of them could say anything in response, the unicorn reared one more time, then turned and bolted into the stone circle. He immediately disappeared, which seemed to be all the evidence anyone might need to prove that the arrangement of standing stones truly was a portal to a different reality.

Sidney stared at the empty space between the stones, then looked down at Maplehurst’s body. The bloody wound in his chest had disappeared, and although he still stared at the trees above with glassy, blank eyes, any evidence of the true manner of his death somehow seemed to have vanished.

Nice trick.

Her eyes met Ben’s.

“What now?” she asked simply.

Chapter Twenty-One

Everything had happened so fast that my head was still spinning. Victor Maplehurst’s bloody death. The unicorn all but saying out loud that I shouldn’t go through the portal.

The creature disappearing in the circle of stones.

And Ben’s hand still on my arm, strong and reassuring, a signal that he was willing to be there no matter what might be going on around me.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

A very good question. My legs might as well have been made of jelly, but I supposed I could be excused for feeling that way, considering how I’d just seen the logging company exec brutally gored right in front of me.

Except….

“How is that possible?” I breathed as I stared at the man’s apparently unharmed body, and Ben shook his head.

“I have no idea. But I suppose if we’re willing to accept the existence of unicorns and extradimensional portals, then wounds that magically heal themselves should be kind of par for the course.”

Drawn despite myself, I moved closer to Victor Maplehurst’s body. It was absolutely still, and I knew he was dead, even if the unicorn had somehow managed to erase any evidence of the true nature of his death. The utter absence of any sign to show how he had died made the scene that much more unreal, and I had no idea how I was supposed to act now.

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