“It’s all right,” she said to the pair of young unicorns, keeping her tone soft and reassuring. “You’re not in trouble. I just want to talk. You two are behind all the recent ‘ghost sightings,’ aren’t you?”
The two sisters hung their heads guiltily. Flash, the older and taller of the pair, had a king-sized bedsheet caught on her horn. The thin white fabric draped over her back and flanks like a Halloween ghost costume. Someone had even cut two holes for the eyes. Since it was hard to use scissors with hooves, it wasn’t hard to work out who.
Leonie sighed. “Did Estelle put you up to this?”
Whether they ran about on two legs or four, kids were still kids. The two unicorns exchanged the universal worried glances of youngsters caught between adult authority and the unspoken rules of friendship. They both shook their heads.
Leonie felt Shan’s chest lift under her palm, but he let the breath out again, unused. That was all the confirmation she needed.
She dropped her hand, briefly touching his arm to show that she’d understood. Trusting him to leave the talking to her, she crouched to put herself on eye-level with the wild unicorns. They were much smaller than their shifter counterparts—not that thereweremany unicorn shifters. She only knew of three, and that was including Estelle.
Though they couldn’t take human form, the wild unicorns were intelligent, sentient beings. Unfortunately, their mental language made mythic shifter telepathy seem like someone burping the alphabet. While Flash and Leaf understood spoken words perfectly well, without a translator, she would only be able to grasp the barest outline of anything they attempted to communicate in return.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean to worry anyone,” she said to the unicorns, and got fervent head-nods in response. “Though you certainly had us all fooled. Can you show me how you did it?”
The two unicorns looked at each other again. Leonie caught the edge of a brief flicker of telepathic communication, like light dancing on the surface of a lake.
Then both unicorns’ horns started to glow. Without anyone touching it, the sheet drew itself up over Flash’s head, until she was completely hidden. Leaf seemed to concentrate, and Flash rose into the air. With the fluttering sheet lit from within by her horn, the overall effect was definitely ghostlike.
The glow around Leaf’s horn started to flicker, as if the effort of levitating her sister was draining her strength. Flash whinnied in alarm as she lurched sideways. In a sudden flash of light, she vanished, reappearing six feet from where she’d started, hooves back on the ground.
Shan stared at the two unicorns. “What just happened?”
Leonie blinked purple after-images out of her vision. “All unicorns have special powers. Flash can teleport, and Leaf can move things with her mind. Though I didn’t know you could do that with living things, Leaf.”
The younger unicorn pranced a bit, neck arching in pride. Flash flattened her ears at her little sister. Leonie didn’t need to understand unicorn telepathy to be able to interpretthatlook:Stop showing off, idiot! We’re still in trouble!
“I’m not angry,” she reassured the pair. “It’s a clever trick. But you’ve been scaring some of the kids at camp. I need you to promise to stop, okay?”
Two silky white tails drooped. Both unicorns nodded, hangdog.
Shan cleared his throat. “Have you pranked campers like this before? In previous summers?”
From the puzzled looks, the unicorns were somewhat confused by the question. They both shook their heads.
Leonie glanced at Shan, and he nodded slightly in confirmation. They were telling the truth.
Shoot. A couple of bored unicorns deciding to spook the two-legs would have explained everything. But evidently, solving the mystery wasn’t going to be that simple.
“Have any of the other unicorns been hanging around the public hiking trails?” she asked hopefully. “Or mentioned guiding a lost kid back to camp, perhaps?”
More blank stares. More head-shakes.
Before she could ask the foals any more questions, Shan gripped her arm. He was staring past the unicorns, his whole body abruptly tense. Following his gaze, she saw a pale, silvery light filtering through the trees.
“Uh-oh.” She caught Shan’s shirt as he started to move, holding him back. “No, don’t. Kids, you’d better get out of here.”
The unicorns didn’t need telling twice. Leaf snuggled up to her sister, flank to flank. In another flash of light, they both disappeared.
Shan was poised on the balls of his feet, all his attention fixed on the approaching light. “Stay behind me.”
“No need. That’s not our ghost either.” She sighed. “Let me do the talking, okay?”
Sure enough, the light resolved into a figure she knew only too well. The tall unicorn pushed his way through the undergrowth, gray flanks shining like polished silver. He glanced around as if searching for something, then looked down his long nose at them.
Leonie sighed. “Hi, Alder. I assume you’re looking for Flash and Leaf again.”
*An all-too-common occurrence.*The stallion’s telepathic voice was crisply masculine, every syllable ringing in her mind with crystal precision. His ears flattened in mild irritation.*And my name is Alder-in-Winter. As you should know by now, Lioness.*
