The beautiful, rhythmic strains of Pachelbel’s "Canon in D" filled the darkened room. The young man sat on the white-sheeted bed, his eyes closed. Sitting like this, alone in the dark, he could almost imagine that he was whole again, racing through woods and fields as fast as he could go, glorying in the simple fact of being alive. But no more. No more running, no more standing on a hill and overlooking the land with wise and gentle eyes. No more bringing joy to the few who glimpsed him through the trees of the deep forest. No more--
Someone opened the door and flicked the light on, causing the young man to wince. "I told you, no more of this dark room stuff," the nurse said, turning off the music. "You’ve got to get out and be with the others." She grabbed his arm and pulled him off the bed. "Now, get out of here, and don’t come back until it’s time for bed." Silently the young man walked out of his room and down the hall to the common lounge. A couple of the others looked up and then away. He sat in a chair by the window and stared outside. It’d be so nice to be outside, even if he wasn’t whole anymore.
A smile lifting the corners of his lips, he closed his deep blue eyes and called. This was one thing he could still do. When he opened his eyes, the ledge outside the window was full of birds: robins, finches, cardinals, and other songbirds. He opened the window, and they came inside, flying to land on him or the chair he sat in. Then they began singing; their tiny voices blending to make a melody that in its own way was as beautiful as the Canon. Sill smiling, he closed his eyes again and relaxed, the music of nature as soothing as the music of man. As his head settled back, his silvery hair fell back from his forehead to reveal a star-shaped scar, slightly darker than his pale, nearly white skin.
A high-pitched scream made him bolt upright. The birds, frightened by the scream and his sudden movement, took off. Some of them went right out the window, but the others flew around the room, scaring the screaming nurse even more and terrifying the other people. Standing, the young man closed his eyes yet again and began to radiate calm, drawing the birds back to him and settling down the humans. He gently directed the birds out the window and closed it. He turned around and quickly bowed his head at the scowl on the face of the nurse.
Jessie Bannon followed her dad, the Quests, and Hadji down the long white corridor. She was nervous about being here. "Dad, do we really have to do this?" she said, touching his hand.
"There’s nothing wrong with helping others out, Jessie."
"Yeah, but couldn’t we have picked a different place? Why a mental hospital?"
"No one else wanted it. Relax, Jess. The patients here are just like you and me, except they have a few problems. It’s not contagious."
"I know that, Dad."
The director of the hospital met them at the door to his office and shook Dr. Quest’s hand. "I was surprised and gratified when I heard you were coming. The patients here need contact with someone else besides each other, the nurses, and sometimes their families." He led the way down a side hall. "You can start out here." He opened the door to a large room set up with tables and chairs, couches, and a TV. "This is a common room for the patients in this wing."
Jessie looked around. Most of the patients ignored the visitors. A loud voice drew her attention, and she looked to see a nurse yelling at a patient. Jessie gasped. She’d never seen anyone quite so...beautiful. She knew that was the wrong word to describe a man, but that’s what he was. Pale skin, silvery hair that fell to his waist, high cheekbones. He was looking down, so she couldn’t see what color his eyes were, but he had long dark lashes that contrasted with his skin.
The director cleared his throat. "Ah, Nurse Richards...we have some guests here."
The nurse turned toward the director, but pointed at the young man. "I’m sick of him! We all are! Do you know what he was doing? He had let birds into the room! Birds!" She walked up to the director. "Put him in the lockdown wing, or get rid of him. He’s worse than any of the other loonies on this floor."
"I am the director here, Nurse Richards. Don’t try to order me around." He glanced up at the young man, who was looking out the window again. "I will take your complaint into consideration, though," he added. With a nod to the visitors, he left the room, the nurse following.
"Okay, everybody," Dr. Quest said. "Remember: Be friendly. Don’t do anything you think would scare them. All right?"
Everyone murmured an affirmative. They parted, and Jessie walked toward the young man. She wanted to get a closer look at him. He looked up at her when she was close, and she nearly gasped again. He had the most magnificent eyes she’d ever seen, a deep perfect blue. She felt like she could get lost in those eyes. She smiled as she sat down in a chair next to him. He just looked at her. "Hi," she said, "I’m Jessie. What’s your name?" He didn’t say anything.
The young man’s mind was reeling. Could it possibly be? Last night, instead of the usual vague dreams the sleeping drugs caused, he’d seen a girl with long red hair and sparkling green eyes. And here she was sitting right in front of him! As he looked at her, he could feel something. She was important. He knew that, but didn’t know why. Why was she important?
Jessie saw his eyes go out of focus. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked, leaning forward and touching his arm. She felt him twitch, but was amazed by the hair on his arms. It was white, so she didn’t notice how much there was until she touched it. It was like a fine white pelt under her hand. Then her fingers started to tingle, and she pulled her hand away, startled. He grabbed it with one of his hands, and she looked up at him. Their eyes locked and stayed that way. Jessie felt the tingle start again, and wanted desperately to pull away, but she was paralyzed. Then something strange started to happen. It was like she could see the young man changing. The outline of some other creature shimmered around him. She could almost see what it was--
The contact was broken as the young man was yanked out of his chair by two burly orderlies. Jessie blinked. Sounds assaulted her ears. She looked around and saw her dad watching her worriedly. "Jessie, you okay?"
"Yeah, Dad, I’m fine. He was just holding my hand. What’s wrong?"
He squatted down so he could look directly into her eyes. "Jessie, you were sitting like that for half an hour. I called your name a couple of times, and when you didn’t respond, I called the nurse."
Jessie stood up and looked at the young man, eyes wide. "I don’t understand," she said. "It felt like only a few minutes." He looked at the floor, silent.
"Don’t expect him to answer you," the nurse said. "He’s mute. And as for you," she continued, turning to the young man, "you’ve got a new home for a while." Her small smile was anything but pleasant.
The young man walked along with the orderlies, frustrated. That girl, Jessie she said her name was, she’d begun to see. If he’d only had a few more minutes, she would have known, and then she might have helped him become whole again. He gasped and straightened. That’s why she was important. She could help him become whole again. The others she was with, the one with the graying hair and the beard, he looked like the scholarly type. He could help, too. He probably had access to things the ordinary person didn’t. The young man closed his eyes, calling, and got a faint echo. It couldn’t be that far away. He cursed to himself. If only he’d had more time! He needed to connect with her again, show her, so she would see and help him.
When they stepped off the elevator, though, he knew it wouldn’t be any time soon. Steel bars, thick glass, and surveillance cameras were everywhere. The lockdown wing.
Jessie was silent on the way back to the Quest Compound. "What’s the matter, Jessie?" Jonny asked.
"I don’t know. I feel like...there’s something I need to do. Something important. Something...I don’t know. I feel like there’s a need I have to fulfill, although it’s not my own, but someone else’s." Jessie looked up. Jonny and Hadji were staring at her with confused looks on their faces. "I was about to say ‘Do you know what I mean’ but I don’t think you do. I don’t even know what I mean."
The young man jolted awake, a cold sweat covering his body. That man...the incredible evil that emanated from him... A chill swept through his body when he realized that the evil man was after it, too. A battle was coming. He could feel it.
Jessie sat upright, terrified by her dream of a strange man. Who was he? What was going on? And what was behind him that had glowed with a brilliant white light?
Jessie and the others went back every day for the next week to talk to the patients at the mental hospital. She missed the pale young man. On the day of their last visit, she opened the door and stopped still. He was sitting in the same chair, an open window next to him. Three birds perched on his fingers, singing their hearts out. Jessie took a few steps toward him, but Race’s hand came down on her shoulder. "Jessie," he said.
"I’ll be fine, Dad," she said, freeing herself and walking over to the young man. She sat quietly in a chair opposite him, hoping she wouldn’t scare the birds. They barely noticed her, their bright eyes on him. Then she stood up again, shielding them from view of the nurse that had just walked in. The young man blinked, a little startled, but he quickly realized what was going on and let the birds out the window. Jessie sat down again. He almost reached for her hands, but stopped himself. "What’s going on?" Jessie asked. "Who is that guy? Do you dream about him, too?" The young man nodded. "Do you know who it is?" He shook his head, then frowned. His hands moved, and Jessie could see he was trying to tell her something. "What?" He extended his hands toward her. Slowly she reached out and put her hands on top of his, fingertips barely touching his palm. Something flooded her body, and she gasped and jerked away. "Evil!" she said in a whispered shout. "He’s evil?" she asked a little louder. The young man nodded again.
Jessie tossed and turned that night, unable to sleep. Her thoughts kept drifting to the young man. She could almost see him in bed, lying there, thinking about her. Now why would he be thinking about her? She sat upright and frowned. That was undeniably the feeling she got. He was thinking about her. Then she lay back down and closed her eyes, letting herself focus on him. She could see him getting up and going to the window in his room, staring out. Her breathing deepened and her body relaxed, but she wasn’t asleep yet.
The young man looked out the window of his room. That girl had magic in her blood. He could feel them connect as soon as she stopped resisting his call, and the extra strength flooded his body. He opened the window and climbed out onto the small ledge. He was two stories up, but it was only one story to the roof. He balanced himself and then jumped, catching hold of the bars on the window above his own. He thanked the architect who decided to put the lockdown wing on the top floor. Pulling himself up, he gained a foothold on the bottom rail that held the bars together. He jumped again and grabbed the roof ledge. In a short time, he was standing on the roof, enjoying the way the wind lifted his hair. He gently severed the connection to Jessie and then went to the fire escape on the other side of the building.
In her bed, Jessie yawned and fell into a deep restful sleep.
"Guess what, kids?" Dr. Quest said the next morning at breakfast.
"What?" Jessie, Jonny, and Hadji chorused.
"We’re going to London!"
"All right!" Jonny shouted.
"London?" Jessie said. "Cool."
Soon they were in the Dragonfly, heading over the Atlantic to London, England.
When they got there, Race said, "Okay, kids, what do you want to see first?"
"The museum," Hadji said.
"Oh, come on, Hadj, there’s gotta be something more interesting to see than a museum," Jonny complained.
"What do you want to see, Jessie?" Dr. Quest asked her.
"The museum," she said.
"All right then, to the museum we go."
One of the museum guides informed the head curator that Dr. Quest was there, and he came out to meet them. "Ah, Dr. Benton Quest. I’ve heard a lot about you." The rest of his words faded as Jessie stared at him, her eyes growing wider with fear. It was him. It was the evil man from her dreams. He was tall, bald, with a long dark beard. His dark eyes glittered.
"--and his daughter, Jessie," Dr. Quest said, breaking into Jessie’s thoughts. The curator took her hand. She saw his eyebrows lift in surprise, then he smiled a smile that Jessie didn’t like at all.
"I’m very pleased to meet you," he said, tightening his grip on her hand. A burning feeling shot up her arm. Help! she screamed in her mind, trying desperately to jerk her hand out of his grasp.
Walking through a forest preserve, the young man lifted his head and turned toward London. He heard her again, crying for help. He closed his eyes.
Jessie felt cool energy shoot through her and down her arm. Now it was the curator’s turn to jerk away, grabbing his hand back as if she’d hurt him. She stepped backward to stand beside Race. "A charming girl," the curator said, smiling falsely.
"What did you do to him?" Race whispered to her when the curator turned back to Dr. Quest.
"I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what his problem is."
"What do you think? Race?" Dr. Quest was talking to him.
"I’m sorry, Doc. I was talking to Jessie. What did you say?"
"Dr. Babylon is offering to take us on a behind-the-scenes tour and show us some artifacts the public doesn’t see."
"Sounds great, Doc," Race replied. Jessie just nodded.
The tour was interesting, Jessie had to admit, but she was still scared of Dr. Babylon. "This is where I keep the really valuable artifacts," he said as he opened a door. He flipped on the lights and motioned for the others to precede him. As they neared the center of the room, he suddenly grabbed Jessie’s arm and yanked her against him. She screamed and Race turned around just as Jonny’s leg caught a tripwire and a net lifted them into the air.
"Hey, what’s going on!" Race yelled.
"What are you doing with Jessie!" Jonny added.
"At the moment," Dr. Babylon said, "I’m tying her up." Bound hand and foot, Jessie couldn’t do anything to get away as he set her against a high stone table. "I’ll be right back," he said, grinning at her. "Don’t go away." He disappeared through a side door. When he came back, he was dressed in a black robe with a hood and carried two boxes. He went behind the table and put the boxes down. Then he came back around and lifted Jessie onto the table.
"What you want is in this box," he said, patting the long one. "What you’re going to get is in this other box." As he opened it, Jessie gave a piercing scream of terror, suddenly realizing that the table wasn’t a table. It was an altar, and she was the sacrifice. "I’d completely forgotten the prophecy," he said, now holding an ornate knife.
"What prophecy?" she asked.
"You mean you don’t know? Well, I can’t have you dying without knowing why. There is a prophecy that says a girl with hair like fire and eyes like flawless emeralds will rid the world of evil. But if she is sacrificed to evil, then it will reign forever. I can’t let good take over. I would be powerless."
"How am I supposed to rid the world of evil? I’m just a human being, not God or something."
"I don’t know, and I don’t really care. The sacrifice must be done." He started chanting in some foreign language and raised the knife. Just as he was about to plunge it into her, the door crashed open, hitting the wall so hard it shattered. The pale young man stalked in, wearing nothing but a pure white loincloth. His eyes were fixed on Dr. Babylon as he moved forward with long, even strides.
The long box behind the altar flew open, and a brilliant white light flooded the room. Dr. Babylon screamed and fell, covering his eyes. Jessie realized that this was what she had seen in her dreams. Suddenly, Jessie’s bonds were loose, and she scrambled off the altar. One glance at the young man told her what she had to do, and she ran to the long box. The source of the light was a long, spiraling horn, iridescent colors dancing on its surface. She picked it up and cried out in pain as it burned her hands. She turned and started to walk around the altar toward the young man, but Dr. Babylon grabbed her ankle. She tried to get away, but couldn’t, so she threw the horn toward the young man. It followed a graceful arc and fell right into his open hands.
"NO!" Dr. Babylon screamed, and the knife plunged into Jessie’s back.
"Jessie!" Race shouted, stricken, but his voice was drowned out by the agonized cry of the young man. He collapsed to his knees, still holding the horn. He could see Jessie’s head, and it turned toward him. She blinked slowly, her breath rapid and shallow. The young man stood up shakily, but steadied when he was on his feet. Then, staring at Dr. Babylon with a triumphant look on his face, he drove the point of the horn into his heart.
If Jessie had been able to cry out, she would have. As it was, she could only watch while the young man seemingly committed suicide. But no blood welled up from the wound, and as the horn went deeper, it abruptly disappeared. The young man fell to his hands and knees as his body began to glow with the white light that had emanated from the horn. Then he began to change. When the glow died down, the three-foot-long horn projected from the forehead of a unicorn.
The unicorn strode toward Dr. Babylon, cloven hooves ringing on the stone surrounding the altar. His deep blue eyes were as cold as ice. Dr. Babylon was paralyzed. At the last second, he regained control of his body, but it was too late. The unicorn lunged forward and his horn pierced Dr. Babylon’s heart. Dr. Babylon died instantly. The unicorn reared back on his hind legs and voiced a cry that was both melodic and frightening.
Jessie saw the unicorn kill Dr. Babylon, and now he stepped to her. But she had no fear. As the horn touched her clothing, she closed her eyes.
There was a flash of pain, but then the most amazing feeling flooded her body, a tingling sensation not unlike the one she’d felt that first day at the mental hospital when she had touched his arm, but so much deeper, reaching down to her very soul. Then it went away, and she opened her eyes. And sat up, completely healed. He stood near her as she used the altar to heave herself to her feet. There was a small hole where he’d gone through her shirt, but there was no wound, only a small, star-shaped scar on her chest.
She found the crank that lowered the net, and she freed the others. Race ran to her and hugged her tightly. "Jessie, Jessie, are you all right?"
"I’m fine, Dad." Dr. Quest, Jonny, and Hadji stood a short way off.
The unicorn turned broadside to Jessie and knelt down on one knee. Smiling, she sat on his back. He straightened up, turned, and led the way out of the room and up the stairs to the main floor of the museum.
On the way to the doors, Jessie noticed something. People were staring, but not all of them seemed to see what was really there. She overheard someone saying, "What’s a horse doing in a museum?" But others knew, their hands half extended toward him, awe in their eyes. They were mostly children, little girls and some little boys, but there were older women, too. The unicorn stopped and looked at them, and they crowded around, touching his face, neck and shoulders, some even daring to run their fingertips along the horn. She wondered what that looked like to those who couldn’t see it.
Later, they were lucky that some people couldn’t see the horn. The airport officials didn’t give him a second glance as they led him through the gate to the Dragonfly. Once everyone was settled, they headed back to Maine.
Back home, the unicorn stood for a moment, sniffing the wind. He turned to Jessie and gently stroked her cheek with his horn. Then he trotted into the woods behind the Quest Compound, vanishing among the trees. "That’s it?" Jonny asked. "Not even a goodbye?" A robin suddenly flew down to his shoulder and began to sing. Startled, Jonny looked at Jessie, who was staring off in the direction the unicorn had taken. She turned her head, saw the bird perched on Jonny’s shoulder, and simply smiled.
Return to the Fan Fiction page.