Warped by Maurissa Guibord

about it, something that could help.” She frowned, trying to recall the name.
    Meanwhile, William de Chaucy’s face was set in firm lines that seemed to express cool disdain for the idea. “Thank you, but I shall take my own counsel on the matter,” he replied.
    “We should find out, at least,” Tessa argued. “Besides,” she reasoned, “where would you go?”
    “Home,” Will said, as if it were just that simple.
    Opal looked back and forth from Tessa to Will. “You know, the two of you are acting like this isn’t totally whacked.” She waggled a finger between them. “Do you think you could both be crazy together? I’ve heard of stuff like that happening—mass hypnosis or psychosis. Hysteria, that’s it.”
    “Hello?” said Tessa, raising a hand. “Not hysterical here.”
    “I am standing before you, Mistress Opal,” said Will dryly. “And that”—he pointed to the empty clearing in the tapestry—“is where I was. ”
    Tessa allowed herself to gaze at the tapestry once more. She took a step toward it. “What is it like?” she asked. “Inside there?”
    Will de Chaucy regarded her gravely. “As you see. A forest,” he answered. “Exquisitely beautiful. And deadly. And endless.”
    She stared at the dark center of the tapestry, then said in a quiet voice, “I wonder if there might be a way for you to go back?”
    He stiffened. “Is that what you wish?”
    “No,” said Tessa simply. “I didn’t mean—”
    “I will never go back into the tapestry,” Will said. He glared at her. “I would die first.”
    Opal shook her head. “A unicorn,” she said, eyeing Will. “People just don’t get turned into unicorns. I mean, this is a mythical creature we’re talking about.”
    Will picked up a snow globe from Tessa’s desk and turned it in his hands, studying it. “I don’t know how Gray Lily performed the witchery.” He looked at Tessa closely, and again she saw distrust in his eyes. “Or how you managed to reverse it, mistress. But I am, as you can see, real. And as for the unicorn,” he added to Opal, “it is not mythical. It’s legendary.”
    “Okay. So what’s the difference?” said Tessa.
    Will shrugged and set down the globe. “Mythical creatures are imaginary. A fiction. Legends are based on something real.”
    “Right,” said Opal, nodding agreement. “I get it. Kind of like Elvis.”
    Will turned to her. “Who?”
    “The singer. Elvis.” Opal held up an invisible microphone, slicked back an imaginary pompadour and swiveled her skinny hips.
    Tessa smiled despite herself. This was getting crazier by the minute.
    “Elvis is a legend, right?” said Opal. “But he was a real guy first. The King of Rock and Roll.”
    Will nodded thoughtfully. “Yes.” He turned back to Tessa. “I am like Elvis.”
    Tessa gave in to a helpless laugh at his serious expression. William de Chaucy cocked his head, looked at her and raised one brow. Someone knocked on the door.
    “Tessa?” her father called. “May I come in?”
    “Oh. Just. Perfect,” Tessa bit out under her breath. Then she yelled, “Uh. No. Wait a minute, Dad. I’ll be right out!”
    She grabbed Will by the arm and pushed him toward her closet. “Come on, Elvis . I don’t want my father to find you. I am so not ready to have that conversation.”
    Will allowed himself to be pushed, but ambling backward, he shot a smile down at her. A real smile that went straight into her eyes. “That was King Elvis, I believe,” he said in a low voice as she shut the door.
    “Is Opal staying over tonight?” Tessa’s father asked when she scrambled downstairs to the kitchen.
    Staying over? Tessa thought, suddenly panicking. Was he? Where was she going to put him? What could she do with the sixteenth-century-tapestry-unicorn-turned-really-good-looking-though-very-disturbing-and-kind-of-snotty guy upstairs, hiding in her closet?
    “Staying over? Yeah, I think so,” she choked out. “Is that okay?”
    “Of course. I