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Kenna: The Knock at the Door
KENNA The Knock at the Door
ON THE EVE OF THE summer solstice, Kenna Smith sat on the beach and watched the sun sink into the sea. As the lights of Margate sparkled to life behind her, she took Skandar’s letter out of her pocket, stared at the envelope, and then put it away again—unopened. She’d had it for three days. She wanted to read it. She really did. She missed her brother so much that sometimes when she was half-asleep, she’d take a breath to whisper to him in the dark. Something silly. Something scared. Something secret. And then she’d remember that his bed was empty. That it had been empty for almost a year. Instead, he slept in a treehouse on the Island, and in the daytime he learned elemental magic with his very own unicorn.
That was the problem with the letters. They reminded Kenna that she was never going to have a unicorn. Two years ago, she’d failed the Hatchery exam that determined whether she was destined to become a rider. That meant she was never going to bond with a unicorn, and she was never going to live on the Island. And ever since Kenna had visited Skandar a few weeks ago and met his unicorn, Scoundrel’s Luck, she was finding it much harder to read her brother’s letters.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the way Skandar and Scoundrel had mirrored each other’s movements like they were carved from the same soul. The way the muscles in the black unicorn’s neck had rippled, sparks flying off his wings like flecks of stardust. The fierce love in Skandar’s eyes when he’d looked at Scoundrel. A bond that went deeper than brother and sister. A bond that could make magic.
Kenna brushed sand off her feet and put her school shoes back on. Her friends had been here earlier—her new ones who didn’t care about unicorns. When she’d returned from watching Skandar’s Training Trial, she’d become so fed up with everyone asking about the Island that she’d venomously announced that it was a worse version of the Mainland and that unicorns were just scary horses with ugly wings. Most people hadn’t liked hearing that, but the anti-unicorn crowd had treated her like their queen.
At break they’d huddled around Kenna and laughed as she told them how the riders were forced to dress in battered old jackets and live up in trees. And Kenna had felt a glimmer of hope that she might belong here on the Mainland after all. That she could do this. She’d even refused to watch the Chaos Cup this year with her dad. She’d pretended not to see the hurt on his face when she’d left him by the TV to watch the world-famous unicorn race on his own. Kenna had stopped herself from thinking about how disappointed her mum would have been in her, and instead she’d wandered the deserted town center with her new friends.
That day Kenna had missed Nina Kazama becoming Commodore of Chaos—the first Mainlander in history to win the Chaos Cup. She’d acted like she wasn’t bothered. But when she’d shut herself away in her bedroom, she’d watched hundreds of clips of Nina and her unicorn, Lightning’s Mistake, passing under the finish arch. And she’d realized she didn’t really belong with her new friends, that she was only pretending.
Arriving home, Kenna punched in the code for the main door of Sunset Heights and thought about the treehouses she’d glimpsed on the Island. She couldn’t help wishing that she lived with Skandar and his friends in the Eyrie and that she had a unicorn like Scoundrel’s Luck in the stables below. The truth of it, even after two whole years, was that Kenna still wanted a unicorn more than anything else in the world.
“Kenna?”
“Hi, Dad,” she called as she let herself into Flat 207.
He was already dressed for his night shift at the gas station. She was relieved—some days she had to talk him into going to work, and some days there was no persuading him. But today was an easier day—the kind Kenna reported to Skandar in her letters, not one of the tougher ones she kept to herself.
They stepped round each other in the hallway—a familiar dance. She snagged her jacket on the hook behind his head, as he dropped his keys into the front pocket of his shirt.
“Did you check the mail?” Dad asked.
What he was really asking was whether there’d been a letter from Skandar.
“Yeah, I checked it. Nothing,” Kenna lied.
“Ah well. Won’t be long, I expect.” Dad kissed her on the top of the head. “Night, sweetheart. See you in the morning.”
Skandar’s letter burned in her pocket as she retreated to her bedroom. Kenna knew she should have shared it with Dad, but she couldn’t face it—not tonight. It was the eve of the summer solstice. Thirteen-year-olds across the country had taken their Hatchery exams today, all hoping to hear five knocks on the door at midnight—to be summoned to become unicorn riders. Kenna was sure that if she’d told Dad about the letter, all he would want to do was talk about Skandar being called to the Island this time last year.
In fact, all Dad ever wanted to talk about was Skandar and Scoundrel’s Luck. It made Kenna feel like anything she did—getting a high mark on a math test, making a new friend, crying herself to sleep—wasn’t even worth mentioning. Though she had to admit she loved seeing Dad happy—for most of her childhood he’d barely smiled. So Kenna was trapped between her own feelings and his.
But she was keeping something else from Dad besides her unhappiness. Kenna was convinced that there had been more to Skandar’s unusual journey to the Island than he was letting on. She’d combed through every book in the library, every website, every forum for evidence that some children were so talented they weren’t required to take the Hatchery exam.
There was nothing. Every child who turned thirteen before the summer solstice was required to take the Hatchery exam. It was in the Treaty. It was the law. Though, apparently, that hadn’t applied to Skandar. Kenna was ashamed of the unkind thoughts that filled her head. How she had always been stronger, faster, cleverer. She’d helped raise Skandar; she would have known if he was exceptional. And—although she loved him very much—he wasn’t. He’d always needed her. And that had to mean Skandar was hiding something.
It was late now. Kenna wriggled under her duvet, placing Skandar’s letter carefully on her bedside table. She’d read it tomorrow. Maybe. She stared up at the ceiling, willing herself not to wait for midnight. It would be the third midnight she’d been left without a knock on the door and a call to the Island. She tried not to imagine her own unicorn, the way she had on the summer solstice her whole life: its color, its wings, its elemental allegiance.
Knock. Knock.
Kenna sat bolt upright. Had Dad forgotten his keys? But, no, she’d seen him drop them into his pocket.
Knock. Knock.
She wasn’t dreaming. She was definitely awake.
Kenna tiptoed to the front door and hesitated. She’d answer the door if there was another knock. Otherwise she’d be sensible. She’d go back to bed.
KNOCK.
Heart pounding, Kenna threw open the door of Flat 207 and found herself facing a pale man dressed all in black. The man’s green eyes flicked to the left and right of her, and then settled unnervingly on her face. His cheekbones looked dangerously sharp in the corridor light, and a strange flash of silver came from his tongue as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Dorian Manning.” He held out a thin hand.
Kenna didn’t take it.
“President of the Hatchery and head of the Silver Circle.” He cleared his throat importantly and scrunched up his nose like he expected her to say something—it made him look like a sewer rat.
“Okay...” Kenna’s heart beat wildly at his mention of the Hatchery, but she managed to keep her voice level as she tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “And what are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to make you a deal,” he said pompously.
Kenna started to shut the door. This man was clearly some kind of unicorn eccentric. It was just a coincidence that he’d knocked in the first minutes of the summer solstice. The disappointment settled on top of all the others Kenna had suffered, and it hardened her heart a fraction more.
But the door wouldn’t close. Dorian Manning had blocked it with the toe of his shiny black boot.
“Aren’t you interested in finding your destined unicorn, Kenna Smith?”
