"What task am I to
do?" I asked. I was a bit nervous. If we of the unicorn sort are called in, the
case is usually one that the humans have given up as hopeless. It would, I felt,
be very helpful to know what it was I must try to do.
"It is usually best to
read the situation for yourself," he said. "However, in this one I will give you
a clue. The child is no longer physically ill, yet she is dying, nevertheless.
She has given up her will to live." He poked me in the side with the tip of his
shiny horn and prodded me into position.
"Disguise . . . white
pony. Best for this case, we think," he said. "Now shut up and be still."
I felt giddy. I had
been called from my quiet life, my pleasant pastimes to be put under a spell and
sent who-knew-where to do a task I had no idea how to perform . . . and without
even time to polish my horn or pare my hooves. I felt as I suspect a person
might feel if sent away without time to pack clean underwear or a toothbrush.
The glade became very
still. Even the bees above the daisies stopped humming. A shiver went over me
from horn to fetlocks. Then the glade was busy with hums and chirps and the
whispers of breezes. My elder stepped away, looking tired.
"There," he said.
"You're ready. Be careful not to poke anyone with your horn . . . it's
invisible, but it's still there. Now go up through the glade and into the
Temporal World. I've arranged for you to emerge in just the right spot."
There was nothing left
to do but go. When I came through the fringe of birch and alder beyond the
glade, I found myself standing on bare soil, trodden hard by many hooves before
mine. There was an ugly fence of metal links. Beyond it was a paved street
leading into a stand of trees that looked dusty and shopworn. A park? I
suspected as much. Around me were many ponies, all tired-looking, and out on the
dirt track I could see in the park even more moved slowly, carrying human
children on their backs.
I felt that someone
was watching me from behind. Pretending to be looking for the watering trough,
I turned to amble through the other ponies. Brown, black, gray . . . I was the
only white one there. Beyond another fence stood three human beings . . . real
ones, not figments of the imagination.
They were staring at
me. A thin white pony was being led into the space where I was confined. Two of
the people were speaking emphatically to the third.
"You are the only one
within miles who deals in small ponies. She doesn't like the white one we bought
. . . she said he wasn't the pony she dreamed about. And you do, too, have
another . . . right there!" The man pointed to me and the woman nodded.
The third person,
evidently the owner of the ponies in the pen and on the track, looked a bit
dazed. I began to understand. A moment before, he had owned no white ponies at
all. Now he had two, one that the people had returned, and the other myself,
just fresh from the Forest Subliminal, and looking my best, if I do say so.
"Well . . ." he
drawled. I could see that he was thinking quickly. Not an easy thing for him, I
suspected. "I suppose I can make you a deal. Take the cost of Whitey there off
the cost of this one. You can see for yourselves he's a much better animal than
the other one. More breeding. More intelligence. He almost looks as if he
understands what we are saying. Will that suit you?"
"How much more will it
be?" asked the woman. She looked at her husband with worried eyes.
The pony man adjusted
his figures with lightning speed. "Ten bucks more. Not a bad deal at all. How
about it?"
The woman relaxed. Her
husband nodded, his expression brightening with relief.
"We'll take him. We
have the horse trailer, still, and we can take him right home before we return
it to the rental people. Thank you."
As I rode in solitary
splendor behind the oldish car, I mused on the situation. These two (I had
managed to hear the man calling them Mr. and Mrs. Allison) were terribly worried
about something. That something had to be the child who hadn't liked the first
white pony. My client was their child, I was sure. The child who had lost the
desire to live . . . the thought made me sad.
They unloaded me onto
a sloping drive, where the cement hurt my hooves. But Mrs. Allison led me into
a grassy garden, while her husband took away the horse trailer.
"Here, pony. You'll
live out here. There's the woodshed, where you can sleep. There's already hay
there. And here is
Carlie's window. Put your head right up to the screen, will
you?" She tugged at my lead, and I managed to turn my head so as to avoid poking
a hole with my horn. I got one eye focused to look in.
The room wasn't big.
There was a tumbled bed, in which a small figure was wound up in sheets and
coverlets until it looked like a cocoon . . . or a mummy. I snorted delicately,
whiffing my nostrils.
The cocoon jerked and
wriggled. A round face came into view, and the whole wad sat upright, thrusting
away the covers. A little girl, about ten years old, was staring at me as if she
had waited all her life for one glimpse of me.
"A unicorn!" she
breathed, and I saw that she was one of the very few of humankind who could see
us as we are, no matter how magically we may be disguised.
Beside me, her mother
laughed. "Not quite, dear. But it is another white pony. Does this one suit
you?"
The child didn't note
the anxiety in the woman's voice, but I did. Carlie was struggling across the
bed to put her face up against the screen of the window.
I could see that she
was terribly weak. She dragged her legs behind her, pulling herself along with
her arms. Her hair was lackluster, and her eyes, even temporarily bright with
surprise, lacked something vital.
"Snow!" she said,
still softly, as if she had too little strength to speak loudly. "Snow . . . my
unicorn!"
The woman patted my
shoulder. I could feel her gratitude in her touch. She said to the child, "Lie
down again, dear. I'll feed Snow some grain, and then your father will be home.
I am making soufflé for supper."
The child lay down,
but I noted that the mention of food drew no response. That told me a lot. We
may spend our age-long lives sporting in the forests and lingering after
maidens, but we unicorns study the human animal closely. I understood Carlie,
now, as well as the pain in her parents' eyes.
The shed was
comfortable, though no Forest Subliminal, of course. The grain was acceptable,
and I had a nice view of the wood bordering the back of the neat farmhouse.
Beyond the fence on one side was a nice grassy space, just right for a paddock.
I would be more comfortable than I had thought.
"Caroline!" That was
the man's voice. He was back.
"Harold? I'm in the
kitchen. Carlie . . . Carlie likes the pony!"
The relief in their
voices, as they talked, was pleasant to me. Even with the acute hearing of my
kind, I couldn't hear their words, but I could tell by their tones that they
were joyful.
From time to time I
went to the window and gazed in at Carlie. She lay on her smoothed-up bed,
staring back at me. A book with a unicorn on the cover lay on her pillow . . .
sometimes longing to see us gives a few . . . very few . . . people the ability
to do just that. She was one of the lucky ones.
"Do pretend that I am
a pony," I whispered to her. "Grown-ups don't believe in unicorns, and you will
upset them."
Her eyes widened. Then
she nodded. "It will be our secret?"
"Our secret," I
replied. "Mum's the word?"
Her nod, this time,
was more feeble. I could see blue veins in her throat and at her wrists.
Something had to be done, very soon, or this child was going to waste away
quietly and sadly. For no reason, really, except discouragement and despair. I
knew why I had been sent so quickly.
"Tomorrow," I said to
Carlie, "you can ride on my back."
Her eyes, very blue,
widened even more. "I can't sit up!" she protested.
"You sat up just a
while ago, when I looked into your window. Straight, too, as if you had a poker
up your back."
She frowned. "I did,
didn't I? But mostly I'm too tired to sit up. Do you truly think I'll be able to
ride you? Ever?"
I gazed at her
thoughtfully. Tomorrow would be rushing it a bit. But with a good appetite to
fill her body with energy and an incentive . . . I thought she very well might.
"Perhaps not tomorrow,
but I suspect that we will soon be exploring together. Set your mind on that,
why don't you? Eat and rest, and then we shall see what happens."
"I rest all the time.
And it's too much trouble to eat," she grumbled. She looked at me as if I should
be able to wave my horn and fix everything instantly.
It just doesn't work
that way, though there are things I could do to help. I dipped my head, and the
tip of my horn poked a tiny hole in the screen.
"We'll add a bit of
magic . . . put your finger up and rub the tip of my horn . . . right there. Rub
it round and round, to make the magic come off."
She obeyed my
instructions, and the tingle that contact brought made me understand why my kind
took such pleasure in helping hers. I took away the horn from the screen and
focused an eye on her.
"When your mother
brings your supper, flavor it with that magic finger. I guarantee everything
will taste super-delicious."
It seemed to work
beautifully. I ambled about, pretending to browse on privet bushes and a young
lilac, while Caroline brought the child's supper. She propped her daughter up
and laid a tray on the girl's lap.
There was a tiny vase
with two pink rosebuds on one corner of the tray. A golden soufflé steamed on a
hot plate, and beside it were a crisp salad and a glass of milk. Carlie stared
down at the tray, then up at me. Tentatively, she touched the plate, the glass,
the salad plate with her magic finger. Then she picked up her fork.
I moved closer to the
window and chomped loudly. There's nothing like company when you eat.
Carlie didn't look
out, but I could see a grin curl her mouth, between bites. Several times she
touched her plate again, and every time she seemed to eat with more appetite.
Most of the food disappeared quickly.
Caroline stared out
into the twilight. She evidently saw my shape against the darkness, for she
said, "I believe that your pony has already done you good, dear. Would you like
some ice cream?"
I whinnied softly.
She was a quick-witted
child. She nodded. "Just a little," she said.
When her light went
out, I retired to the shed to think. She had eaten well, and that was a good
beginning. I had to come up with enough ploys to keep her eating and moving
about and getting ready to rejoin the world she had so nearly left.
It wasn't as easy as
it had seemed at first. Though she ate pretty well, after that first night, her
small body had become used to failing slowly. It isn't easy to turn one around
when it has decided to die.
I stood by her window,
day after day, describing to her the things we would see if we rode together
into the wood beyond the fence. Bobolinks swung in the trees, guarding their
nests, I told her. Primroses dotted the aisles between the trees. Terrapins
trundled busily about their business, and butterflies were beginning to come
forth from their cocoons to see the world for a few brief days.
She listened. And over
the weeks she began moving about, sitting up for hours, then walking about the
house, and at last coming into the yard where I grazed.
One evening, when her
father had returned from his work, he lifted her onto my back. It was a strange
sensation . . . unicorns were not made for riding, and I had never had a human
being on my back before. Yet I found it delightful. This was the goal that had
kept her at the attempt to get better.
We took a cautious
turn about the garden. She sat straight, her small heels tucked under my belly.
I could feel her excitement through the blanket on my back.
When Harold lifted her
down again, I knew that she was going to make it. The feeling was far more
satisfactory than having flowers braided into my mane, believe me, and mentally
I thanked my elder for choosing me for this task.
As Carlie grew
stronger, I found to my astonishment that she grew more and more demanding. For
all my study of the human creature, I had never really believed that they could
be so irrational. I had known the term "spoiled," but I had never before seen it
in actuality.
One morning as we
moved around the garden, where her mother was weeding the vegetables, I said,
"Carlie, you are almost well. We need to begin planning what you will do . . .
you'll be going back to school. You'll begin helping your parents on the farm.
There are so many things you are going to be able to do that you haven't done in
a long time."
I could feel her
astonishment in the tension of her body on my back. She had thought this petted
life was to go on forever, I suspected.
"Why?" Her tone was
strange.
I choked on the bit in
my mouth, which was a terrible thing to try to talk around. Trust the child to
go right to the heart of the matter.
I didn't have a ready
answer. I could have told her, of course, but children seldom do what they are
told and even less often do they believe what their elders tell them . . . even
when that elder is a unicorn.
I tried something
else. "I was young once," I said. "I lived in a beautiful glade in the Forest
Subliminal with my mother, who was strong and beautiful and extremely wise. I
was just the sort of silly young colt that goes kicking its heels up, snorting
with joy, and never understanding that the world holds many things, some of
which are danger and sadness and trouble."
"Even for unicorns?"
she asked. Her tone was dubious.
"Even for unicorns. We
know perils that human beings cannot dream of, even in their nightmares. My
mother knew that, and she was determined that I must learn it." I sighed, for
even now the memory was painful.
"She took me into the
deepest, darkest part of the Forest Subliminal. There live the terrors that
sometimes break loose to stalk even the Temporal World. She led me into a black
glade, where even the flowers were brown and gray, and she said to me, 'Stay
here. Until you have learned to be independent of me, to think for yourself, to
disregard your own pain and fear, you will be no unicorn.' And she left me
there."
"How cruel!" said
Carlie.
"It would have been
more cruel not to do it," I replied. "For I stayed there, though I longed to
flee. I stood my ground, and I learned that a fear you will not allow to enter
your heart is a fear that cannot harm you. I learned that my mother would not
always be there to protect me, so I must learn to protect myself. When she
returned for me, I was a unicorn, instead of a thoughtless colt."
There was a long
pause. "My parents won't leave me!" said Carlie. "Nobody will ever leave me. I
don't want to grow up!"
"You almost didn't," I
observed. "Would you have liked that?"
She went silent. I
felt her shiver. She had felt the chilly touch of death, in her illness, and
suddenly she recalled it.
"People do leave. I
will, myself." The moment I said that I knew that the time was near. The last
gift I could offer her was the knowledge that all things must end. I stopped
beside the porch and allowed her to dismount.
She dropped onto the
scrubbed boards and came around to stare into my face, gently rubbing my
invisible horn. "You will go?" She sounded close to tears. "No! You can't go!"
"I must," I said.
"Soon. And that is not a bad thing but a good one. Once I have gone, you will be
on your way to growing up as I would want you to . . . independent and disciplined
and brave."
Her hand stroked my
horn harder, seeming to fondle the air. "But I'll never see you again!"
had my head in the lap of a very beautiful young
woman, who was braiding flowers into my mane, when the summons came. It should
have irritated me more than it did, for I am extremely partial to that
particular pastime.
