Page 22 of Persephone's Curse
“Ready,” I said.
She turned and walked away, not waiting for me.
That night, in bed, stuck in the in-between place, both sleep and awakeness so close and equally so far away at the same time, I keptdreaming I was the unicorn. I could feel the collar around my neck, the grass underneath my hooves, the way the long, skinny horn on my forehead weighed down my neck. I could smell the pomegranates, thick and ripe just above me. Did I want to stay here, in this walled garden, or did I want to be free again? What did I want? Why was my own mind so hard to read? You would think that would be the one thing you’d always know, what your own heartwanted.
“What the hell?” Clara said from the foot of my bed. I hadn’t heard the door open. “You keep, like,neighing.” Her voice was thick with sleep.
I tried to rub my eyes, but my hand was still a hoof. I smacked myself in the face.
“Ouch.” Not a hoof. Just a hand, but asleep. Coming awake now with a million pricks.
“Neighing,” Clara repeated.
“I wasn’t.”
“Youwere. I had just fallen asleep, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She sat on the edge of my bed. “It’s almost two in the morning, you know.”
“Two?” I’d gone to bed at eleven, which meant I’d been stuck in the in-between forhours,fighting off the strange unicorn nightmare.
“I was working on my painting,” Clara said. “Henry was there. He looked so sad.” She looked upward, as if she could see through the ceiling, then she shrugged and sighed. “I almost know what it is now.”
“Your painting?”
“Almost.”
“Can you remember your dream any better?”
“Not at all. I just let my hand go.” She swiped her hand through the air, like she was conducting an invisible orchestra with an invisible paintbrush. “I don’t know. It will come to me.”
“It always does.”
“Mostly, yeah,” she agreed.
“I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“It’s fine. Are you okay now? No more horse dreams?”
“I was the unicorn,” I said.
“Ahh,” she said, nodding. “That makes more sense.” She hopped up from the bed. “Night.”
“Night, Clara.”
“Hey,” she said, turning around at my door. “You can always come back.”
“What?”
“If you’re the unicorn in the tapestry, and youdodecide to break free, you can always come back. If you decide freedom isn’t your bag, you know. Hop right back over that fence and go back to resting in the garden.”
“Whatisfreedom, anyway?” I asked, fake-dramatic.
“Exactly,” she said, and left the room, closing my door behind me.
“You can always come back,” I whispered to my empty room.
