***
Quinn had sullenly attended the meeting, the day after his arrival, to ostensibly tell Lucerna about the quest. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do, but it certainly wasn’t what he’d said he’d do.
The original plan seemed a safe bet. Organize a meeting with the priestess woman and get her to admit she didn’t believe in it either – there was no way she could believe in it – and make a deal that if he could have some of the proceeds from the unicorn horn, he would keep quiet.
He brought his copy of the stupid book, as was the rule; he sat down as usual. Lucerna noticed he was there at once. So he had managed to return within three weeks. It would seem he had followed her orders, which meant he was actually as gullible as the rest of his family then. She called for him to go and stand at the front. She noticed at once, also, no sign of injury or difficulty of movement. A tiny alarm bell warned her all might not be as she’d – perhaps naively – hoped. But then reality was not so defined in a rosy world of Rosé…
Everyone else seemed to be thinking the same, however. Quinn noticed whispering and frowning, and caught the words “injured?” and “She said…serious…”
Then something under the painted eye caught his interest.
Blood.
So Lilian hadn’t been lying, then. If that’s what it was. He was pretty sure he recognized blood by now though, he’d seen plenty of it while working around the horses. It got a strange look about it after a while that paint would never replicate.
Squeamishly, Quinn turned to them all.
“Well,” he began, with an expression of utter bemusement. They all went quiet, and everything he had thought of saying was sucked into a void. “I am here. With the unicorn horn. In this vile place, with blood on the floor –“ he pointed with an air of disgust. “You can’t even keep the floor clean. I am here, in this vile place, with no more than a paper cut, as opposed to the injury you all expected, or maybe hoped for. Because of course this stupid Deus is clever enough to fix me up in one go but not to fix my lame horse. Oh, yes. Yes, of course, none of this was done to make money, to satisfy this insane woman –“ he motioned to Lucerna, “- who ought to be institutionalized, no. Not to keep her safely in the drunk state she is blatantly in now. Are you all blind? She had some person killed in front of you and you not only didn’t mind, you actually agreed that it was a good thing? Will you go to any lengths for a pocket of fecking pennies?”
In stunned silence at the tirade, the entire room, including Lucerna, stared at Quinn as though he was an alien.
“You weren’t even listening, were you?” he accused of them all. “I despair of this. It is hopeless. Your Deus help you, and all.” Then he tore up the book. Tore it up, threw the shreds at Lucerna, at the eye on the wall, littered all over the audience. He chucked fistfuls of paper like confetti as he walked the aisle, opened the door and left.
The fresh air was cool, welcome, wonderful after the stuffy Hall; the malevolent clouds of the afternoon had broken and vague frizzles of thunder echoed above, like giant rats squabbling in a roof. A great purple spark squiggled across the sky and the crackles worried away into the distance a few moments later. Quinn’s relief at leaving the Hall was marred by a sudden anxiety for the horses. Daisy was in the stable but she hated storms. She would be going crazy in there probably. And Vanilla and Ishan were still out in the paddock…He had better get them in he supposed. This looked like it was going to be a big storm, and he didn’t want them to panic and hurt themselves on a fence.
Then he noticed something on the hill, the opposite way from his house. It was…it was a fire. A big fire. It was that posh house he’d seen many times but never thought about. Well, he thought about it now, now that it was burning down. There might be people in there, he thought. Nobody else would have seen it, they were all at home or in the Hall. Then he was torn between doing something about that and getting to the horses as quickly as possible. He figured he could do both instead of procrastinating here.
He turned back to the door of the Hall he’d just slammed, and opened it. Everyone turned to stare at him. They were all still just sat there? Then he realized it had literally been about ninety seconds since he’d left. Still, at least he had their attention now.
“Oy,” he said, “there’s kind of a big house burning down over there. Any ideas?”
Murmuring broke out. It seemed like nobody believed him. Then someone came out to have a look. They yelled as they saw it and this spurred a whole troop of Hall goers to rush out and witness the spectacle for themselves.
“It’s the big house over the way,” somebody declared.
“We’d better get the fire crew,” another prompted.
“Who might be in there? Who does it belong to?” an urgent voice questioned.
Lucerna strode to the door, shoving people out of the way. Interrogation followed her and she batted it off angrily.
As soon as she saw it, she froze.
“The Deus damn you, Lilian,” she whispered.
***
Lilian was running down the hill, away from the disaster she had just caused and hoping to find shelter from the rapidly brewing storm. It seemed like a timely metaphor for the current situation.
A streak of dull electric pink crossed the matrix of cloud layers and Lilian flinched. She scudded through a farmyard, vaulted over some straw bales, and hurried past a row of cows all bellowing softly over the rail by which they were contained in their barn. As she passed the farmhouse a dog hallooed into a barking frenzy and Lilian ran even faster, unsure whether the dog was as contained as the cows, or whether it was free range. Diving into a web of unrecognizable dwellings, she swerved to avoid an approaching figure and dashed away, anywhere… it was really getting difficult to see now.
All at once, the world seemed very dangerous.
A horse whinnied somewhere close by, and a burst of lightning lit the surroundings. A horse? Thought Lilian. Then a flickering light appeared, a warm, yellow light, a lamp. It mirrored the distant inferno. Lilian realized the cinnamon scent was all around her and that the smoke from the fire had flowed over the hill and descended on to the town.
Lilian heard voices, saw people running about in the glow of the lamp.
Then she realized who was holding it…
Lucerna stopped in her tracks and sniffed. She had gone back in to fetch a light in order to organize some of the fracas that would inevitably ensue, and now she was fully appreciating exactly what had happened. Because she knew exactly what had happened, in an instant: because Lilian, who had blatantly not been sick at all, was cowering in front of her. The round, innocent-looking face was suddenly evil to Lucerna. Who would have thought that this lowly housekeeper girl, so clumsy and unworldly, such a child, could have undermined the very foundations of her plans? Cause so much trouble? Seemingly effortlessly tear apart and interfere with things surely completely beyond her?
Well, not anymore.
It felt like a déjà vu. Where had this happened before? The dense grey fog smoke, the fire above, and Lucerna was holding out the lamp – holding it out while walking alone into the fog.
The dream.
Doubt swept in, like the tide. Had it been a prediction of this? How would it end? She had woken up before it had been concluded… And what about the other dream, where it had all gone wrong?
She determined that this time, it would go right.
The fire crew were rushing off to get the hoses and water tank, and everyone else was going back home to secure their houses against the storm, which was beginning to rage with real ferocity. But some of Lucerna’s most dedicated fans remained by her, and she called to them then.
“My people, my believers,” she implored. “You witness evil. Kill it. Kill them. Kill them, the girl, and the boy, who probably told her to do this. They are followers of the evil unicorn, apprentices…kill them, at once!”
She held up the lamp and pointed at Lilian, so that they could be
sure who their target was. Lilian backed away, found herself cornered against a wall. Distract! Defend! Run, jump, something! Her mind screamed at her. Yet the rage of the storm and the fire seemed to stack up in her blood and she found herself speaking shakily with anger.
“I was not told to do this. I chose to myself.”
How dare Lucerna suggest that Lilian was nothing but a slave…
Five hideous people approached to attack and Lilian threw herself to the floor, crawled under their snatching hands and gasped for air as she hurtled away again. She collided with some unknown person as she went, and heard a faint protest of, “that is my son…”
Footsteps careered after Lilian; she bolted into the blackness and then without warning was doused in cold rain. It pelted down and the sounds of the killers following her were drowned in the roll of thunder and gush of water. The ground was liquid glass. Lilian slid over it perilously, not sure where to move to escape… A crush of noise slammed in her ears…she tripped over and fell on to a cold stone floor.
Lilian writhed forwards with all her might and not a moment too soon, because what sounded like a bomb going off blasted around her into the Hall, which she had inadvertently just fallen into. Catastrophic-sounding crashes resounded, unthinkably bright light blinded her as she crouched under chairs, and after a while she became aware of a deep, unnatural silence. Her own breathing anchored her slowly to reality, and she opened her eyes into almost complete darkness. Water was pouring in from somewhere and a glimmer of reflected light showed her that the rain was filling up the small space left in the ruined building, engulfing the painted eye and the bloodstains and the reams of paper oppression. They melted and blurred in the water…the water –
Lilian began to panic. First fire, now water. Now what?
Lilian crawled from beneath pieces of wreckage and away from the water, trying to see around her. Everywhere seemed to be blocked, the best she could do was clamber as far up the piles of crumpled stone as possible and wait for the shock to pass.
***
Lucerna saw the lightning bolt and the collapse of the Hall as if in a trance. She fell to the floor with the shockwave, just preserving the lamp, and hoping that Lilian was underneath the pile. She had convinced herself that there really was an evil plan at work and that Lilian was directly allied to the unicorn or whatever had caused all this mess. Unless it was Quinn? She hauled herself to her feet, wringing out the water from her sleeves. Her eyes searched around and all she could see in the crashing rain was anonymous silhouettes hurrying away, leaving her alone in the downpour. She looked up to the hill where the fire crew had headed to put out the fireball her house had become. It seemed to be greatly diminished, just a murky yellow smudge. Lucerna thought dubiously that it had little to do with anybody’s daring intervention and a lot to do with this torrential rain, which would take care of destroying anything that the fire hadn’t.
But the Deus will…the Deus will have planned it all, will make sure it all works out, Lucerna told herself. She lurched unsteadily forward, with a vague notion of sheltering in somebody’s accommodating household. They certainly owed it to her, after all this…
Then the lamp she was carrying sputtered and went out.
In the inches of water beneath her feet, she saw the reflection of a cloud sliding away from the moon. Next to it was a star or several, clearly winking away in the water as though the sky had become the ground. Gradually the rain eased, turned to a fine mist as Lucerna waded along the street. As the water became still it turned eerily silver, and Lucerna found the old dream playing back in her mind again and again…
Chapter 9
Quinn had scarpered a while ago and brought all the horses in. Then he’d sat in Daisy’s stall, comforting her from her terror of the storm. After a while he’d heard his parents arrive back and so had ensued the argument.
They dragged him back to the house, and his mother began her sales pitch. “Really, Quinn, of course we care about you! We were very worried and we just wanted –“
Quinn cut her off. “Yeah, of course,” he said coldly. “Now you care. Don’t pretend I’m not just going to disappoint you again.”
“I don’t know what on earth the Priestess was talking about, she seemed to think you had something to do with that awful little arsonist servant of hers, and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t under that impression, so I told her that you were my son, and that seemed to –“
“Seemed to what?” Quinn exclaimed. His father had behaved as though this situation was a mild irksomeness and vacated the room to finish writing a letter. His mother looked taken aback, at last.
“Well, never mind,” she replied with a huff. Somewhere upstairs the baby started screaming again. The conversation had to be yelled for it to be heard at all.
“You really think that’s enough?” Quinn pressed. “You’re that deluded, that you think that’s why? As though saying that would really change anything? And I suppose you’ll be running back to her when she’s got new premises and trying to convert me into an accountant again.”
Quinn didn’t wait for a retort. He walked out of the room, whistling merrily, and decided to go and check on Daisy again before going to sleep. Hopefully baby Henrietta would learn about being depressed and silent soon.
The next morning, Quinn woke up early and was about to go out to feed the horses when somebody knocked on the door. It was probably one of the wretched neighbours come to gossip or complain about something. He wondered how he could get rid of them.
Except, when he opened the door, he almost considered just shutting it again straightaway. Lucerna was standing on the doorstep in her cream coloured dress thing, which looked decidedly less impressive now that it was covered in mud, but something about her reptilian expression was disturbing enough not to laugh. That and the fact that she had ordered for Quinn to be killed by her band of maniacs.
Instead he resisted the compulsion to slam the door in her face and asked, “Um, can we help you?”
“I have some questions to ask you, now,” said Lucerna through gritted teeth.
Quinn nodded, motioning as though to close the door. “We’ve already got double glazing, thank you,” he assured, “and we don’t need anybody to clean the guttering because that’s what I do when I’m bored. But next door could probably do with both those things, why don’t you try them?”
Lucerna was so angry that she grabbed Quinn’s arm, hauled him over the steps and pulled the door shut from the outside. Then, white faced with rage, she spat “You got that silly girl to do this, didn’t you? You told her everything. Where is the unicorn horn? What lies is this about you’re being injured? You never found a unicorn, did you?”
Quinn reeled away. “Whoa,” he said, “too many questions. Say that again, slowly.”
Lucerna looked like she might attack him, but repeated, “Did you tell Lilian to cause all this trouble?”
Quinn shook his head. “What trouble?” he asked airily.
“You know what I’m talking about! Burning my property down, messing around with evil things that should never be disturbed, undermining the very fabric of civilized belief that I have helped to build! This is a shameful, shameful crime and if you are found to be remotely responsible then your future is bleak indeed.”
Quinn couldn’t help grinning.
“All the more reason not to admit anything,” he said. Then he added, “but really, there is nothing to admit. Will I tell you, now? I went into the forest on my horse, as you advised me, with the map and all. It was a useless map, very instrumental in helping me to get lost. I was fine until something frightened my horse and she bolted; I fell off and bashed my head on something and must have been concussed because after that everything was a psychedelic disaster. I have no idea whether what I saw was real or imaginary. Luckily I did find water, in the most uninspiring way, so I didn’t die of thirst, but the experience did involve being captured by giant butterflies and yes, talking to a unicorn…so
I was injured, mentally, and maybe a little spiritually as well.”
Lucerna digested this silently and motionlessly.
“You thought you were mad, eh?” Quinn finished with careful emphasis.
Lucerna was about to speak, then changed her mind and for a microsecond looked deeply disconcerted. In that moment, Quinn knew that he’d won. What a difference a few well-chosen words could make.
“So what does the Lilian girl have to do with it?” he asked. “I haven’t seen or spoken to her at all.”
Lucerna glanced at Quinn sharply. “Not at all?” she interrogated.
Quinn shook his head, keeping his eyes level and disinterested, determined not to give anything away.
“So she made it all up?” Lucerna questioned wonderingly.
Quinn shrugged. “I thought everything was made up,” he offered casually. “I didn’t think you actually believed any of this stuff, I thought I knew a money making system when I saw one, what with living in a family of accountants,” he admitted honestly.
With a mutinous, disgusted, scandalized expression, Lucerna hissed, “How dare you. You dare insult the truth!”
Taken aback, Quinn said quietly, “No. I just explained what I thought was the truth.”
Lucerna seemed close to angry tears, and Quinn almost felt sorry for her. “Look, I just did what you told me to do,” he said reasonably. “Did you want to keep the unicorn horn? I brought it back.” He took it out of his jacket pocket – he’d forgotten it was there – and gave the bundle of cloth to Lucerna. She took it with alarm and suspicion, but when she opened it her face transformed into something very strange, like stony triumph, or maybe emotionless victory.
Quinn decided not to tell her that it would disappear within weeks.
Lucerna broke out of her bubble of self-absorption and stared at Quinn with what might be respect. “You killed it?” she stated.
Quinn took a deep breath, buying time, not sure what to say, what to say…would she continue this insane hunt if he said no? Would she believe him if he said yes? Then he decided to tell the truth.