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At that time of year, daylight lingered far past the hour when I closed up shop at five-thirty.

Ever since I’d returned to Silver Hollow — when I’d had to deal with what felt like endless questions from the local sheriff and the FBI regarding my mother’s and grandmother’s disappearance, not to mention the sympathetic glances and words of the people in town — I’d steadfastly avoided going out into the forest. Logic suggested there was no reason in the world to believe the woods would swallow me up, not when I’d wandered there all the time before I’d gone off to college, but the fear still lingered that somehow I’d stumble across the same portal or wormhole or whatever it had been that had taken my mother and grandmother and would disappear forever.

True, if that happened, maybe I’d discover where they’d gone, but there was no real way to know whether there was a single alternate world out there, or many.

The creatures that appeared in the forest couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell the women of my family where they’d come from, so the only real thing we could do was guess as to their origins.

Fear had kept me away, but now the shock and worry had finally begun to subside, and in their place was anger.

Why in the world had that first unicorn appeared here, now almost 170 years ago? What was its purpose?

And why had it approached Mary Welling, of all people? She certainly wasn’t the only one from her settlement to wander in the woods, so if the unicorn simply wanted company, there were other people it could have gone to.

But it had laid its head in her lap, and for whatever reason, all the women of our line seemed to have the same power to attract the strange creatures, although most of them weren’t quite as friendly as the unicorn.

Still, even though some inner force I couldn’t quite explain had driven me to come back to the forest at last, that didn’t mean I planned to be reckless.

I drove my mother’s trusty old Subaru Outback to a popular trailhead, thinking it was smarter to stick to a path where I had a decent chance of seeing other people.

If nothing else, there might be someone around to report seeing me in that general vicinity just in case I ended up missing.

The fog had lifted a little that day, and although the sun still didn’t feel exactly warm, the air was just a bit milder, slightly less damp, than it generally was around these parts.

Because I wore pretty much the same uniform every day — a T-shirt, either long- or short-sleeve depending on the weather, jeans, and boots — it wasn’t as if I’d had to worry about going home to change before I headed into the woods.

A woman who looked as if she was around my own age of twenty-seven or possibly a little older came out of the woods just as I was locking up the Outback.

A faint sheen of perspiration covered her forehead, and I got the feeling she’d done some serious hiking before she decided it was time to head back to her car.

I didn’t recognize her, so I only inclined my head in her direction as I began to move toward the trail. She did the same thing, telling me she was just fine with us acknowledging each other’s presence but didn’t see the need to actually say anything.

Fine by me. I talked to customers all day, so I was perfectly happy to get some peace and quiet once I was done at the pet store.

Besides, this fit my plans very well. Now someone had seen me out here, which meant if I did go missing, she’d be able to tell the authorities that she’d encountered me not too long before I vanished.

Even though I knew the odds of that happening were pretty low. My mother and grandmother had purposely come out here to try to find the portal that allowed all those legendary creatures to gain access to our world, and, I supposed, had been following a trail of some sort when they disappeared.

I wasn’t doing anything like that, however. No, I’d come to the woods to reacquaint myself with the forest, and to do my best to get over my fear of being alone there. Nothing would happen, and then I could go home, content in the knowledge that at least I’d given it a try.

Once I was among the trees, the pale sun that had been drifting in and out of the clouds all day effectively vanished.

A shiver moved down my spine, even as I told myself there was nothing to worry about, that I was only chilled because I didn’t have even the spurious warmth of that listless sun to warm my bones.

Sure, Sidney.

Birds chirped from the trees — I recognized the songs of chickadees and Steller’s jays, of gold-crowned sparrows and kinglets — and I had to admit their cheerful little songs reassured me somewhat.

After all, if something dark and menacing lurked out here, or if there was imminent danger of falling into a wormhole, I kind of doubted all those birds would sound quite so happy.

But then I glimpsed a flash of white among the dark pines and the slender birch trees — something white that I doubted was the T-shirt of someone wandering in the woods, doing their best to get in a hike at the end of the day before it got too dark to be out here.

No, that pale glimmer was a unicorn approaching through the woods.

It stopped a few feet away from me and tilted its head, almost as though it was trying to ask a question.

About what, I had no idea.

No, I was the one who was full of questions.

At least a decade had passed since the last time I’d seen a unicorn out here.

Now, despite the worry and anger that had overtaken me ever since I learned exactly why my mother and grandmother had gone into the woods and vanished, I couldn’t ignore the sensation of awe that rose in me as I stared at the glorious creature, at its milky white mane and smooth white coat, its deep, dark eyes…

the faint glow that surrounded the silvery horn protruding from its forehead.

“What happened to them?” I demanded, knowing my voice sounded far too rough. Both my mother and grandmother had always impressed on me the need to speak softly and calmly when confronted by one of the otherworldly beasts, lest it bolt before it had a chance to interact with us.

Because they always did…when they appeared. I still had no idea what attracted the animals to the Welling women like iron filings to a magnet, and yet they always seemed drawn to the females of my family, no matter what.

Not that my last name now was Welling. No, I was Sidney Lowell, my name inherited from the father who, seventeen years ago, had decided he’d had enough of the secrecy and took off.

The first couple of years after that, he’d sent me cards and presents at Christmas and on my birthday…

even though the presents soon became gift certificates and gift cards, stuff that wouldn’t be too difficult to mail…

but all communication had dropped off afterward.

Well, except for a card that showed up a couple of weeks after I earned my bachelor’s degree. I still had no idea how he’d even learned about that, although I assumed my mother must have known where he was living — or had his phone number — and had either written him or texted.

That card had gone straight into the trash. I didn’t need his congratulations, not after he’d ghosted both my mother and me.

Saint that she was, she’d never complained.

No, she just said that the whole legendary creatures thing was too much for him, and their marriage hadn’t been strong enough to survive the necessary secrecy involved.

I’d often wondered what had kept his mouth shut all these years — I kept thinking I was going to see a story about unicorns wandering the forests of northern California pop up on the front page of the National Enquirer or get splashed all over TMZ — but he’d never spilled the beans.

Exactly why became obvious enough once I came home after my mother’s disappearance.

She and my grandmother and I all lived in the big Craftsman-style house that had been Grandma’s, since we’d moved in with her after my father split.

My grandfather had died in a car accident when I was only five, so my grandmother had plenty of room for all of us.

Anyway, when I was going through my mother’s files, looking for a copy of her will — officially, she was still listed as missing, but I knew my grandmother had deeded the house over to her years earlier, and I needed to be able to prove it was legally mine just in case things got ugly — I found a small folder full of canceled checks.

Each one was made out to my father, and each one was for ten thousand dollars. My mother had been buying his silence all those years.

To be honest, I hadn’t even realized she had access to that kind of money.

We lived modestly, and although she’d paid my tuition…

which was padded with a couple of scholarships and grants as well…

it wasn’t as though I’d ever thought she had the resources to be paying my deadbeat father six figures a year to keep his mouth shut.

Maybe I’d been na?ve about the situation. After all, my family had been in Silver Hollow for generations, and I supposed the money from investments and land we’d owned and then sold had been piling up all that time.

Nothing in the memo section of those checks to tell me where my father was living, though. They only provided mute evidence that he was still alive somewhere.

The unicorn took a step toward me and lowered his head, silver-pale forelock dropping low to hide his eyes. Was that some form of apology, or merely a sign that he had heard and understood the anger in my voice?

I couldn’t say. Years ago, when I’d come to the woods with my mother, I’d sat under a huge hemlock tree and the unicorn I’d seen then had come and lain down next to me. That one had been female, smaller and daintier than the creature who stood in front of me now.

Back then, I’d been utterly enchanted by the silkiness of the unicorn’s mane as it brushed against my bare arm, by the faint, flowery scent that seemed to surround it. Not cloying at all, but fresh and pure as a meadow of highland blooms.

However, I was anything but enchanted now.

“Where did they go?” I asked, and the unicorn shook his mane and began to walk away.

Leaving the scene of a confrontation…or leading me to the spot where my mother and grandmother had disappeared?

I followed, my stomach tense with an unpleasant mixture of worry and anticipation. If the unicorn was taking me to the wormhole or fold in reality or whatever it was, would I be brave enough to step across, the way the two most important women in my life had?

Whatever I might or might not have done, it turned out that it didn’t matter at all. No, the unicorn was there one moment…and then had disappeared into a pool of mist the very next.

I stopped and stared around me in consternation. As far as I could tell, there didn’t seem to be anything that differentiated this particular section of the path from any other.

But the unicorn was gone, and when I moved toward the spot where it had disappeared, nothing happened.

Well, except that I was standing there alone.

If it weren’t that my mother and grandmother had now been missing for three months, I might have said it was possible that the wormholes allowed only mystical creatures and not ordinary humans to go back and forth between worlds.

But they’d disappeared, and people from both the sheriff’s department and the FBI had combed these woods and found absolutely no evidence of any kind of foul play.

Whatever was going on here, it seemed obvious to me that I wouldn’t figure it out any time soon.

I made a disgusted sound and turned so I could head for home.