“Vitamin supplement,” growled Mr. Walkwell, who was squatting beside a gray adult unicorn. It watched him nervously from the corner of its eye while it ate, and he in turn examined it for any signs of ill health.
“Yes, vitamins,” said Ragnar. “Because the grass alone is not enough to keep them healthy, I think. And there are other medicines in the food too. These are the only unicorns still living in the world, so we must take good care of them.”
“Yeah,” said Tyler. “Awesome.” He was certainly interested in the unicorns, but more interested in going back to see the dragon again.
Lucinda, who didn’t seem to have listened to anything said, was walking slowly toward the nearest trough, her eyes wide as though she was hypnotized. Tyler hoped she wouldn’t do anything embarrassing, like start crying with joy or some other girl-and-unicorn thing. She stopped only yards away from one of the young unicorns, which examined her with large gray eyes. It didn’t look fright ened, but Tyler thought it didn’t look happy, either. When Lucinda did not move any closer it put its head down again and nosed in the trough.
Mr. Walkwell and Ragnar were together off to the side, looking over other members of the herd. The young unicorn’s pearly horn moved back and forth in front of Lucinda as it fed.
Tyler watched his sister, who was staring at the creature as if she had just opened her front door to find her number-one boy-band heartthrob waiting there to take her on a surprise date. She slowly reached out her hand to touch the horn. Tyler watched, wondering if he should say something-the unicorns were wild animals, so they were dangerous, weren’t they? Or were they? It was hard to know in such a crazy place.
A lot of things suddenly happened all at the same time.
Haneb saw what Lucinda was doing and ran toward her, crying, “No! No!” The unicorn reared up and made a startled noise, something blaring and utterly strange. As it came down it shook its head violently from side to side. The horn whipped past Lucinda’s face so fast she didn’t even flinch until after it was gone.
Haneb reached her and pulled her away, but now all the unicorns were milling and snorting, prancing nervously, making little tornados of dust spin up. Mr. Walkwell whistled a single shrill burst and they began to calm, but still would not come close to the troughs again.
“You scared me!” Lucinda shouted at the scarred man, yanking herself free of his protective grasp. She burst into tears, then turned and retreated toward the wagon.
“Wow, are you nuts?” Tyler said to her as she hurried past. He was stunned and impressed that his boring sister would do something so
… Tyler-like. “They said not to touch anything. That thing almost stabbed you!”
Haneb, who looked as though what had happened was somehow his fault, shuffled off to gather up feed bags.
“Everyone back to the truck,” Ragnar said. He bent to pick something off the ground, then went to talk to Lucinda at the edge of the clearing, where she stood wiping her tears away. “You could not know,” he told her kindly, “but the ki-lin do not like their horns to be touched. Very sensitive.”
“I… I didn’t mean… ” Lucinda swallowed. “It was just so beautiful.”
“Yes, they are,” said Ragnar gently. “But it is no ordinary thing, like a bull’s horn or a deer’s antler. It is a sort of tooth that grows up through the skull, like the tusk of the white corpse whales-two teeth, actually, growing together. The enhjorning -as my people call it-uses it to test the air, the water-to smell, almost, as a cat uses its whiskers or a snake its tongue.”
“A tooth?” said Tyler. “ That’s weird.”
“Shut up,” Lucinda said, and gave him a dig with her elbow. Her eyes were red and puffy. “Just… don’t say anything.” She abruptly veered away from the two of them and walked over to Haneb, who was watching with a worried expression, but whatever she said seemed to put him at ease: he nodded his head vigorously as they walked and talked, still keeping his face turned away from her as much as possible.
“I am glad she thanks Haneb,” said Ragnar. “The little man may have saved her life.”
“Saved her life?” Tyler made a face. “You’re joking, right?”
Ragnar held out his large hand. Lying across the palm was a hank of Lucinda’s golden-brown hair, cut as neatly as if by a pair of scissors. “The horn did this. It came that close. It is not wise to startle a unicorn. They are lovely to see, but they are not pets and they are not even friends.”
A cold tingle went right up Tyler’s backbone. He wasn’t always crazy about his sister, but he didn’t want her shredded by some razor-horned horse, either.
“Are we done?” he asked as they climbed back onto the wagon and waited for Mr. Walkwell, who was still crunching toward them. “Where do we go next?”
Ragnar gave him a serious look. “It depends on whether you two learn to do as you are told. Because now we are going to show you some of the dangerous animals.”
Chapter 8
“B ut I still don’t get it-where did the unicorns come from?” Lucinda asked as the wagon bumped along. “And the dragon?”
Ragnar smiled and shook his head. “I have said many times: that is not for me to answer. But look there and you will see something.”
Lucinda didn’t want to look at anything else. She wanted to keep the amazing sight of the unicorns in her memory and not let anything else push it out-that cloud of manes and tails and flashing eyes and horns.
And horns, yes. Poor Haneb. The farmhand had only been trying to protect her. She still felt bad about how she had reacted.
“What is it?” Tyler asked. “It’s… huge!”
Lucinda looked up, suddenly fearful that they were being taken to something even more terrifying than the dragon-a chained ogre out of a story, or some monstrous, girl-grabbing gorilla. Instead she saw only a pale, whitewashed building stretched along the valley floor below them. But what a building it was, sunk half into the hillside, a single low wooden structure like a dozen oversized shoeboxes placed end to end, its roof covered in solar panels. It seemed as long as the immense playing field at her school. “It’s… a giant barn,” she said.
Ragnar nodded. “It is, child. That is the dragon barn. No dragons in it now, since Meseret is in the Sick Barn, but you will see what else is there.”
“Was it built just for the dragon?” Tyler asked as the wagon crunched to a stop.
“No, this was made for an earlier owner of the land who kept cattle. We tore out many of the stalls to make space for Meseret. You will see.”
“There are train tracks going right into it,” Lucinda said as they walked through the low, dry grass toward the high doors.
“Of a sort,” Ragnar said. “They are for a rolling flatcar, to bring feed. And to move Meseret when it must be done.”
“Why would you even do that?” Tyler asked. “That dragon must weigh as much as a whale!”
“A small one, yes. But these creatures are delicate, and what makes one animal sick can sweep through them all. So we move the sick ones to the special barn. But you are right-it is not easy to move Meseret, even with the lifting-thing.”
Lucinda was too startled by the smell and the heat that hit her as they went through the big doors to wonder what a “lifting-thing” might be. The ceiling of this barn was dauntingly high, twice as high as the Sick Barn’s, spider-webbed with metal girders and dozens of bright hanging lights. The odor of the place made her nose prickle and her eyes water. It smelled like the dragon, but more so-more musky, more sour, more… strange.
Stranger than a dragon? she couldn’t help thinking. A day ago she couldn’t even have imagined meeting a dragon at all. She heard a sound behind her and turned to see Colin Needle coming in after them.
“Hello, Lucinda,” he said. “Looks like I caught up with you.”
“Are you not supposed to be working on the feed budget, Master Needle?” asked Ragnar sternly.
For a moment, as the pale boy stared angrily at the big yellow-haired man, Colin didn’t look very nice at all.
