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Joel brings the car round to the front door, then comes back to the bathroom to help me take the unicorn downstairs.

At first we try to carry her together, but it’s easier for Joel to do it himself – she weighs about as much as a packet of marshmallows.

I run ahead and open the car door. Before Joel steps out, a voice makes me jump.

“Hiya, love.” I turn round to see Carrie sitting on her front step. “How are things?”

“Oh, f-fine, thanks,” I stammer. My eyes flit to Joel: he’s frozen in the doorway, the unicorn cradled in his arms like an oversized puppy. “How are you?”

“Not so good, to be honest.” Carrie sighs. “I heard this morning that the puppet theatre in Estonia that I worked for has closed down. Those were three of the best years of my life.”

My heart sinks – we’re going to be stuck here for half an hour if Carrie launches into one of her stories. I need to create a distraction fast.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Actually, Carrie, I was wondering if you had the recipe for that shepherd’s pie you brought us the other day? It was so good, I want to try making it myself.”

Her eyes light up. “Of course I do! You know me, I keep everything. Come on in. I’ll find it for you.”

She turns and beckons for me to follow her inside.

I stare at Joel as I walk past, telepathically telling him to hurry out while he can.

Still hidden in our doorway, he nods and shifts the unicorn in his arms. If we weren’t in such a hurry, I’d take a photo – it’s the weirdest sight I’ve ever seen in my life, and also one of the best.

Inside, I follow Carrie down her hallway.

I’ve only been in her house a couple of times.

She babysat Joel and me quite often when we were younger, but she always came to ours since all our toys and games were there.

The place looks a lot more normal than you’d expect from someone as quirky as her, except for a few very Carrie touches – she’s got a framed photo of herself shaking hands with Nelson Mandela in the hallway and a tapestry of the solar system that she made herself hanging up in her living room.

She turns into her kitchen and opens a drawer beside the sink.

“It’s somewhere in here…” Carrie begins riffling through hundreds of scraps of paper and newspaper clippings. There are so many that I doubt she’ll be able to find what she’s looking for but, after a few seconds, she pulls one out and waves it at me. “Got it!”

“Thanks so much.” I carefully fold the recipe and slip it into my back pocket. “I’d better go. Joel’s giving me a lift over to my friend’s house. I’ll let you know how the pie turns out!”

I hurry out but Carrie follows me down the hallway. “How did your performance go? I heard you and your friend practising the other day – you sounded great. I love a bit of Journey. I saw them in Osaka in 2004, while I was playing Shrek at Universal Studios.”

“Oh, I actually decided not to do it this time. I get really bad stage fright, but…”

I stop abruptly as I reach the front door.

To the right of the hallway is the living room, with Carrie’s squashy yellow sofa and the fireplace in view.

Lined up on the mantelpiece are a dozen unicorns.

One is in a snow globe and one is in an open music box, but the rest are figurines in various shades of pink, white and purple.

“Do you like unicorns, Carrie?”

She follows my gaze to her collection. “Oh, I love them. My friends and family always get me one on my birthday. I know it’s a bit silly but they make me happy. They’re so magical, aren’t they?”

I nod weakly. “Really magical.” I pause, unsure of how to phrase my next question. “But you don’t … think they’re real, do you?”

Carrie looks confused but laughs lightly.

“Well, I know I’m not going to spot one any time soon, but I’m sure they existed at one stage!

There have been some skulls found in Siberia that look like they belonged to unicorns, and there’s a painting of one in the Lascaux Cave in France – those are some of the oldest paintings in the world.

Plus, they’re Scotland’s national animal, so it makes sense they would have existed at some stage. ”

I don’t point out that the national animal of Wales is a red dragon and you don’t see many of those flying around, either.

This must be how the unicorn got here – because Carrie believes in them enough to have summoned one.

I’ve always thought she was a bit eccentric, but I didn’t think she was believes-in-mythical-creatures eccentric.

She tells me about how unicorn sightings have been recorded by cultures all across the world, her words picking up speed as she gets swept up in the explanation. I steal a glance through the front door. The back of Joel’s head is now visible in the car window. Looks like the coast is clear.

“That’s amazing,” I blurt out. “Joel’s waiting for me, but we should talk more about this another time.”

“I’d love that, Laurie. Come round whenever you like.”

Carrie says goodbye, waves to Joel and closes the door behind me.

When I get back to the car, the unicorn is sitting quietly across the back seat with a blanket over her head to shield her from view.

I try to pull one of the seat belts over her but she’s too big, so I climb in beside her and drape an arm across her instead.

“Is she OK back there?” Joel glances at the unicorn in the rear-view mirror. “Make sure nobody sees her!”

“Don’t worry, she’s fine.” I take a nervous look around. “But drive extra carefully.”

Ten minutes later, we arrive at the farm, leave the car at the bottom of the road and lead the unicorn up the path.

We crouch behind the hedges as we draw closer to the farmhouse, checking Tilly’s parents aren’t around, then hurry down to the barn.

I throw a pebble at the door before we go in.

Neon’s face peeks through the gap – then falls when he sees the unicorn.

“You brought it here ?! What if someone saw you?”

“Well, we can’t keep her at ours,” I snap. “What were you thinking, putting her in our bathroom?”

Tilly follows him out. She lets out a shriek, then clamps both hands over her mouth when she sees who Joel and I have with us. “Is that…”

“A unicorn,” Neon says, sighing. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t have left it there like that. I’m sorry. But it was standing at the bottom of Carrie’s garden. I had to get it out of sight before she noticed it.”

The unicorn’s glow has become brighter. She seems happier here, in the wide open space and fresh air, than she was in the bathtub or the back of our car. She stomps at the ground and trots round us in a circle, throwing back her head and shaking her shimmering mane.

Tilly looks anxiously towards the farmhouse. “Let’s go inside. My parents are back. I don’t want them spotting it.”

The barn is already set up for Neon: there’s a sleeping bag laid out on top of a pile of hay, a space heater hooked up to a portable battery, and some pumpkin-shaped fairy lights hanging from the beams. I feel a rush of nostalgia remembering all the times Tilly and I played here as kids.

We tried to have a sleepover once but we got scared by the mice scurrying around and owls hooting outside and snuck back to her bedroom.

Her parents had warned us that would happen, but they were nice enough not to say, ‘I told you so.’

We beckon to the unicorn to follow us towards the hay, then gesture at her to sit. She lies down elegantly beside me, crossing her hooves and blowing her fringe out of her face.

“How did she get here?” Tilly asks, gawping at her.

“It’s because Carrie believes in unicorns.”

I fill them in on our conversation back at her house. A few hours ago, Joel would have found the idea of Carrie being a devout unicorn believer absolutely hilarious, but now he doesn’t even grin.

“Surely this can’t be a coincidence,” I tell Neon. “Not after the pink rabbit that we saw.”

“Um, sorry?” Joel looks from me to Neon and Tilly, who returns his blank expression with a shrug. “What pink rabbit?”

Neon and I are both too focused on the problem at hand to answer him right away. Neon sighs and rubs his face. “You’re right. There’s no way three of us would all turn up in the same small town unless something strange was going on.”

“Well, can you take her back?” I ask Neon. “Is there, like, a portal somewhere?”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that.

There’s not some door that magically appears for us to hop through.

Before I came here, I had this odd feeling – it was like I was in two places at once, here and there, and I could choose to step fully into the real world or stay in the Realm.

Then I blinked, and I was standing on the train as it arrived in Inverness. ”

“So how does anyone get back?” Joel asks.

“I think you can tap into that feeling again and take a step in the opposite direction. Going back shouldn’t be as difficult as coming here.

We’re supposed to be there.” Neon presses his lips together.

“It’s a bit more difficult with animals and other characters, though.

Some of them act like humans, so they can follow instructions.

You could tell them it’s time to go and they would understand, even though it might be tricky to get them to actually do it. ”

“But what about her?” I ask. The unicorn looks up at me with her sparkling amethyst eyes, as if she knows we’re talking about her.

“Maybe,” Neon says, nodding. “Unicorns are smart. I’m sure she’d understand.”

He shuffles on the ground so he’s facing the unicorn.

He gently puts both hands on her muzzle and looks deep into her eyes.

The unicorn meets his gaze, and for a long moment it seems as if some silent current of communication is passing between them.

But then she gives a light, tingling whinny and tosses her mane towards Neon.

She knows what he’s asking. But, like Neon, she doesn’t want to do it.

Neon sits back on his heels and sighs. “I guess I could take her myself. I’d need to hold on to her and lead us both back. It wouldn’t be hard.” He bites his lip. “The thing is, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to get back again.”

“Surely it’d be easier now?” Tilly asks. “Loads of people believe you’re real – everyone you’ve met at school, all the people in town.”

“That’s true,” Neon says, “but if they know I’ve done it once, they might stop me from leaving again. I don’t want to take that risk.”

“Who are ‘they’? Actually don’t tell me. I don’t think my brain can handle any more of this.” Joel rubs his eyes and looks at each of us in turn. “You three need to sort this out. And if you want to do it before Tilly’s parents find a literal unicorn in their barn, you’d better do it fast.”