She jerked and opened her eyes to the cottage and rolling hills again. Grass tickled her wrists. She raised herself from the ground, shaking from the vision.
“Was that my memory?”
“Yes,” answered the unicorn. “I allowed you to truly see it clearly.”
Shawna slowly touched her head like it was something alien on her shoulders. As impossible as it seemed, she knew to her core that the memory was true. Her eyes flicked up to the unicorn. “And that was you?”
“Yes. I protected you and your father then, and later discovered where you had been sent.”
“But you were a statue that night at my—” she paused at house.
“I had to be enchanted. I could not be my actual form in that world for long without losing the power I needed to return us. Capella’s spell would break only when the molochs came.”
“Mo-locks? You mean those monsters? You were waiting for them? What are they? What do they want?” She felt dizzy and let herself sink back down into the cool grass.
She blinked and rubbed a hand over her face like a gauze covered it. “This…isn’t a dream. This is all real. What my par…what they were saying…It’s all real?” She felt by saying the words over and over she would be able to believe them.
“They?” The unicorn laid back her ears. “What do you mean? Who are ‘they?’”
“John and Mary, my…the people that raised me.”
She didn’t like sitting under the unicorn’s gaze. She stood up, though her legs felt weak.
“I heard them talking about me. They talked about those things coming after me when I turned sixteen.” I’m sixteen! Some sweet sixteenth. Then she said aloud, “And something about their reward they were promised.”
Shawna almost fell over again. It was more unnerving to hear a shout directly in her mind than out loud.
“Reward?!”
“Uh, something like that.” She was eyeing the unicorn. “That’s why I was leaving.” Her heart started to pound again. “Those were the things, right? I mean you…you’re not?”
The unicorn shook her mane. “I am not the one you need to fear. The molochs are what they were talking about, of that I’m sure.”
“What is a moloch?”
The unicorn remained silent, looking into the distance. When Shawna received no reply she tried to gain an answer with another question.
“So, they were going to give me to those moloch things? Why?”
“I don’t know. They shouldn’t have known anything about you.” The unicorn was tearing up the ground with a front hoof then began speaking as if to herself. “Yet, that is the only explanation as to how the molochs found you. She must have used it to eventually open a portal there.”
“It? She who?”
“You’ve had an exhausting experience,” said the unicorn, dodging the questions. “I think right now you need to gather yourself before anymore is revealed.” She pointed with her nose. “And listen to Capella.”
“Now, now, my little mouse dropping,” Capella cooed, coming up behind her. “Eat this, quit whining, and help me get the Troll out of the house.” She shoved a shimmering white apple into Shawna’s hands.
“What’s this?” she said, staring at the strange fruit like it was about to sprout legs and leap from her palm.
“It’s a pomum, nitwit. A pomum a day keeps torment, and suffering, and doom away.”
“Pomum?” It looked like a white apple to Shawna.
A crash, then a tiny scream, and a huge belch came from within the teetering hovel.
“Capella!” screeched Lula, zipping outside. “This is the twelfth time we’ve been infested with Trolls insisting on tea and toe-jam! If you don’t clean up this filthy goblin-hole I’ll do it myself.”
Capella chuckled and yelled, “Well, don’t be rude, you prissy little gnat, and put the tea on.” She slowly hobbled towards her home, pulling up her ragged sleeves.
Lula yelled again from the window, “I swear I’ll turn everything into pink lace!”
Shawna had never seen an old woman move so fast. She looked down at the snow-skinned ‘pomum,’ and touched her tongue to it. Seeing that she was still alive, and un-poisoned, she took a bite. It was the most delicious, and vibrantly red fleshed, fruit she had ever tasted. Tranquility washed over her like warm rain as she felt the weight of everything dissipate. She took a deep breath.
“Do you have a name?” she asked the unicorn, who had been watching her quietly.
“Mira.” She inclined her head, her long black mane waving slightly in the breeze. “I will be your guide and guardian on this journey.”
Guardian? Journey?! Shawna almost choked on the pomum.
Mira arched her neck, and raked the earth with a silver hoof. White flame flashed and burned where the ground was torn. Shawna stared at the unicorn, who she now saw more as a fire-breathing war-horse than a sparkle-pooping pony. Five feet from hoof to shoulder at least, she was well muscled with a noble head. Her mane and tail looked like wavering black flame, and long hair feathered around her hooves that could easily crush a moloch’s skull. Mira turned towards the cottage while Shawna watched her go, still holding the crimson-fleshed pomum an inch from her lips. She looked at it and remembered the apple she’d dropped while talking to Tara. Clutching the ghostly fruit, she followed Capella and Mira to the cottage as another giant belch rattled the windows from within.