"We could try dreamwalking," Max said, gripping Tess' hand tightly.

"What good would that do? It's not like you could convince her to wake up, she doesn't want to look at you, let alone have you walking in her dreams," Liz murmured, looking forlornly at her friend.

"We could go in pairs, Isabel, you could take Alex, Michael, you take Liz, and I'd go with Max," Tess said, smiling.

"That sounds real good," Michael said coldly, "you and Max can go in and she'll get pissed all to hell and gone and die. Real good."

"I was trying to help, I don't even know her!"

"Then leave, Tess, we don't need you here!" Alex said sharply. The girl was silenced and curled up into Max.

"If we go in, we have to go in pairs," Isabel said sadly, "I think the best would be if Max and Liz, and Alex and myself went in together," she looked at Alex, as if begging him to agree. He nodded, looking at Liz, who sighed.

"What about me?" Michael asked, standing quickly.

"You'd do more harm than good, Michael," Isabel said quietly.

"Fine, Maximillion get going, wake the blabber mouth up," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and staring out the window.

Max looked at Liz and took her hand. "Ready?" he asked, Liz only nodded. Max touched Maria's shoulder and the two of them slipped silently into the girl's dream.

MARIA'S DREAM:

They stood in a lush wood, the colors rich, and it was spring. Nearby there sat a unicorn, looking intently into a pond. She was small, of purest white, and her down-like mane fell halfway down her back. Her one horn was long and beautiful, like to the texture of a seashell.

"What is this?" Max asked, while Liz was smiling.

"The last unicorn," she murmured, "it's always been her favorite."

Maria's voice broke the silence, "Is it true what they say?" she murmured, and the two onlookers found that it was the unicorn that spoke as Maria, "am I truly the last?"

She stood and began to trot towards the mouth of the wood.

"There has never been a time without unicorns, we are as old as the sky, old as the moon, we cannot simply vanish!" her pace picked up, but somehow Max and Liz were able to keep up with her easily.

They seemed to run forever, before she slowed, and silver tears dropped to the dusty path.

A butterfly came fluttering over to her. "I am a roving gamble, how do you do?" it asked in Max's voice, and the two onlookers were shocked to say the least.

"Hello butterfly, welcome, how far have you traveled?"

"How far would I travel to be where you are?" he sang, and Max seemed to frown, while Liz giggled. The butterfly swirled around her, singing and quoting more songs, until her settled on her horn, hugging it tightly.

"Have some respect, butterfly, do you know who I am?" she asked, laughingly as the butterfly began to dance on the wind again.

"Why, you're a fishmonger!" he laughed, and Max's irritation grew. "You are my everything, you are my sunshine! You are old and gray and full of sleep, you are my pickle-faced, consumptive Mary-Jane!"

Maria sighed, shaking her head, and her horn around the butterfly. "Say my name then, if you know me!" she cried, desperately.

"Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart, I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name!" it cried, but his voice fell serious after a moment, "Unicorn. Old french: unicore. Latin: unicornis. Literally, one-horned: unus, one, and cornu, a horn. A fabulous animal, resembling a horse with one horn. An alien, alone outside of her own forest." He laughed and danced around once again.

Liz's face softened and understood, having heard Michael's cruel words to her, the last words she had heard.

"Oh you do know me!" she cried joyfully. "Butterfly, if you truly know who I am, have you seen others like me? Can you tell me where they are? Can you tell my which way I should go?"

"Butterfly, butterfly where shall I hide?" he laughed, dancing, around her again.

"Please!" she begged, "All I want to know is if there are other like me in the world!"

"Over the mountains of the moon," the butterfly laughed, still dancing, "down the Valley of Shadow, rid, boldly ride!" but his solemn tone returned and he began, "No, no, don't listen to me! Listen! You can find your people if you are brave!" the unicorn reared at the butterfly's closeness to her, but he continued to recite, "They passed down all the roads long ago, and the Red Bull ran close behind them, and covered their footprints."

"The Red Bull?" she asked, confused and terribly hopeful, "What is the Red Bull?"

"His firstling Bull has majesty, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he shall push the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth. Listen, listen, listen quickly!"

"I am listening!" she cried in desperation, "Where are my people and what is the Red Bull?" she felt tears push past her and desperately followed the fleeting butterfly.

But the butterfly laughed, and danced off in the wind, "it's you and me, moth. Hand to hand to hand to hand to hand…"

"No wait!" she cried, chasing after him. She slowed and sighed. "At least he did recognize me," she sighed sadly.

"No, that means nothing at all, except that somebody once made up a song about unicorns. But the Red Bull…" she sighed a continued on. "Another song?"

Max looked down at Liz as they continued to follow, days and nights passed, and still she moved on, until one day she passed a farm.

The farmer was fat, and old, and hoeing the garden, "say there!" he called to her, and she stopped.

He slipped his belt form the loops and formed a noose. She laughed and slipped, like liquid, away from his lunge, "Come on now Bessie. That's a good horse!"

"Horse?" she whinnied, and reared, furious. "Me, a horse?"

"Clean you up, take you to the fair," he coaxed, lunging again, "you'll be the prettiest mare anywhere!"

"A mare?" she demanded, stamping in the dirt, "is that what you see?"

The old farmer lunged again, and Maria hooked her horn through the noose and threw it aside, "A horse indeed!" she huffed, and took off down the road. Again, days and days passed before she finally stopped to lay down a sleep.

"Max," Liz asked quietly, "do you know what's going on?"

"I haven't the slightest idea, she must think poorly of me though, to have me as a butterfly," he said, almost bitterly.

"You can be so self absorbed sometimes," she huffed, "this has nothing to do with how she sees you."

"Then what is this," he motioned about nebulously, "what does it mean?"

"This is her subconscious, trying to grasp what it feels like," she sighed sadly, looking at the beautiful white creature her friend had become.

"Feels like?" he asked, his eyes falling on the white mare he saw, the unicorn's horn flickering and fading every so often.

"To be so completely different from everybody else, and yet be so in love with everything it blinds you," she repeated Michael's words softly, and the unicorn stirred.

A band of wagons pulled up along the road, and the old woman laughed, looking at the sleeping unicorn.

She hopped down from the cart that read 'Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival,' and hobbled over, staring in awe at the sleeping creature.

"Why, bless my old husk of a heart," she laughed, and it was Ms. Topolsky's voice that broke the serene silence of the night. "And here I thought I'd seen the last of them!"

She waved over the two men who sat on other carts. She looked at the two figures, a tall man cloaked in black and blue, and a small hunched man hobbling with a limp.

"If he knew," she thought aloud, and laughed, "but I don't think I'll tell him." She grabbed the smaller man's collar and asked harshly, "look there, what do you see?"

The man, Rhuk, looked hard for a moment before answering, "dead horse."

"You're a fool," Mommy Fortuna laughed, before turning to the taller man, "what about you, wizard? What do you see with your sorcerer's sight?"

The man looked, and saw the horn, the beautiful seashell texture, but when the old woman prodded him he stammered, "a horse, just-- just a white mare." It was Alex's voice, and Liz suppressed a laugh.

"Then you're a fool too magician," she laughed, "but a worse fool then Rhuk, and a more dangerous one. He lies only out of greed, but you lie out of fear. Or is it kindness?" she laughed coldly, looking at the unicorn.

"All right then," she said at length, "it's a white mare, I want her for the carnival, the ninth cage is empty."

"I'll need a rope," Rhuk said, and Liz recognized the voice this time, sheriff Valenti.

"A rope that could hold that mare has not been woven," she said, "we will have to do our best with cold steel."

She hobbled off, leaving the unicorn for the other two, and Liz looked at Max.

"I think we should leave now, see if Alex can do anything for her," she said softly, knowing the next part of this story was not for their eyes.

Max nodded, and the next thing they knew they were on Liz's bedroom floor, the group looking down on them.

"What did you find? Were you able to talk to her?" Michael asked anxiously, obviously upset that he, yet again, had to sit and wait for Max and Liz to tell them what was going on.

"We couldn't really get a word in edgewise," Liz said with a sly smile, "but maybe you and Isabel could find something if you go in," she looked up at Alex.

Isabel nodded and gripped Alex's hand. "Ready?" she asked with a half a smile, and Alex sighed, nodding resignedly.

Michael frowned as the two collapsed and Liz and Max laid them down on the floor, careful not to break the grasp Isabel had on either hand.

"I hate this," Tess grumbled, leaning against the wall.

"Then leave," Liz said coldly, "I didn't ask you to stay, nobody did."

The girl only shot Liz a glare and took Max's arm with a smug smirk.

"Bitch," Liz muttered, "I can imagine what Maria felt."

Michael caught the comment and looked at Liz with a doleful gaze.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, touching his shoulder as he looked back out the window, it had begun to rain, though they had only been inside the dream for a little over an hour.

"I'm sorry you had to hurt her, and I'm sorry you were forced into something you don't understand, and I'm sorry that you love her," she paused and sighed. "But you know that we're hurting too, Alex, Maria and me, we hurt a lot, and we don't have anything to stand on, we have a friendship that's lasted years, but nothing to love." She dropped her hand and turned to look at Max, who was doting on Tess as if she were a child. "And now Maria might not wake up," she frowned, "it's hard. And I'm sorry you were dragged into this."

Michael turned and placed a reassuring hand on Liz's shoulder. "I'm sorry too, Liz, for everything I did and didn't do, everything I did and didn't say, everything I did and didn't feel…"

Liz met his eyes and wiped her eye, "I know, but you have to tell her that," she whispered, before moving away from him, letting him return to the window.