The Girl Who Saw Unicorns

The Girl Who Saw Unicorns

She saw the unicorn on a cool, fall evening when the air was scented with woodsmoke and the leaves danced in slow pirouettes on flows of air. It came slowly out of the woods, drooping tail and mane dotted with oranges and browns of fallen leaves. Its neck sagged as if under a great weight and its horn almost brushed the tips of the grass.

She saw it over the rounded humps of the orange pumpkins, and a soundless gasp passed her lips. The unicorn raised its head and saw her face in its large liquid eyes. The two of them stood, the girl and the unicorn, trapped for a moment in time. Then the wind blew, and she blinked, and it was gone.

She stood for a moment in the pumpkin patch trying to find the breath she had lost and then picked up a pumpkin and walked slowly back to the low roofed farm house, where her mother cut a large block of cheese for dinner.

“I saw a unicorn in the woods today.”

The flashing of the knife paused for a fraction of an instant and then resumed its steady pace.

“My dear Lidya, unicorns don’t exist. Well, not anymore at least.”

Lidya leaned against the door frame and inhaled the scent of the jasmine strung about the kitchen. “But I saw one. Near the wood. It was the color of Miss Belle’s milk.”

Her mother put down the cheese and dried her hands with a rag. Her face was still oddly beautiful yet marked by age and worry. Her hair caught in the rays of light showing just as much gray as blonde. But her eyes, the color of the deep wood were still young and those eyes showed an emotion Lidya could not recognize. “My dear, I think you may have been out in the sun too long...or else the wood was playing tricks on you.”

“That’s quite possible,” said Thom’s husky voice as he brushed by Lidya smelling of sweat and the outdoors. “This land was once steeped in magic. Old magic. Sometimes it comes to the surface.” He sat down at the kitchen table and bit into an apple.

Their mother snorted and crossed her arms. “And what do you know of old magic.”

“Not too much,” Thom replied, wiping off the sweet apple juice from his chin. “Just that this land is full of secrets and full of magic. Or at least it was a long time ago. The land itself mind you. Places like the woods or the fields or even the pumpkin patch.”

“What happened to the magic?” Lidya asked, words slipping unbidden from her lips.

Thom appraised her for an instant then shrugged. “For all I know it’s hidden in the horn of your unicorn.”

Lidya opened her mouth to ask more of her brother, but her mother broke in. “Now stop this. I’m tired of hearing about unicorns that might or might not have been visions. I’m much more interested in seeing my family seated comfortably around the table. Go get cleaned up for dinner and Lidya, call your father.”

She saw the unicorn again in winter. Her skirts were filled with firewood and she shivered against the biting wind that worked its way under her heavy shawl. At first she thought she missed it, at second glance she thought it was the mist from her breath mingling with the slowly falling snowflakes, then, on third glance, she believed her eyes.

It stood again, drooping under the weight of the snow that piled on its back, but at the sight of Lidya, its neck rose gracefully and it speared her with its eyes. It held her in confines of greens, then golds, then liquid purples and as it took a small, tentative step forward on its dainty hooves, Lidya stood as she had among the pumpkins. Time slowed and the snowflakes hung, suspended in the air in front of them. All that existed was Lidya and the unicorn.

Then a screen door slammed and a snowflake landed softly on Lidya’s hand. She blinked and glanced at the wood she had been carrying in her skirts that now lay in the snow at her feet. Looking up, she scanned the naked trees for a flash of white or a flare of gold from a horn.

“Lidya! The wood…it’s all wet now.” Her mothers disparaging voice shook her. “Now it’s no good until we dry it out again. You know how precious wood is this time of year. If you knew you couldn’t carry a lot…”

“I saw the unicorn again.”

Her mother paused and her lips tightened. The wind played about them both, whipping their hair around their heads and making them squint against the onslaught. “Excuses about unicorns.” She closed her eyes and crossed her arms.

“But look over there, by the wood. I saw…”

“Lidya, there’s no unicorn there and I don’t want to hear about your unicorn fantasy anymore. Now come, pick up that wood and let’s go inside.”

Lidya stole one last glance at the wood behind her and followed her mother back into the low roofed farm house.

She looked for the unicorn in spring but it chose to remain hidden. Whether among the sprays of baby’s breath at the wood’s edge or among the boughs of the trees where the air was thick with the scent of roses, the unicorn could not be found. It wasn’t until summer that Lidya saw the unicorn again.

It had been many months since she had seen it last, but this time, unlike the others, she did not doubt her eyes. She stood, barefoot among the buttercups and met it, eye for eye, and was then lost in a world of color. They moved and swirled and she moved with them until the colors separated, evened out and she stood on grass beneath a flowering dogwood in front of cliffs that plunged into the sea. She lost her breath to the beauty and found her way back to her world. The unicorn stared at her than dipped its head and walked slowly back into the woods.

She didn’t tell her mother about the unicorn or what she saw. She didn’t tell her mother when she saw it a second time or third or the many times after. She didn’t tell her mother about the visions of the places of beauty and light that the unicorn saw. Instead she kept quiet and did whatever tasks were asked of her with a smile and nod. But somehow, her mother knew. She didn’t say she knew but rather hung about Lidya doggedly whenever she went outside. When she went to hoe the furrows between the peas, she was there. When she went to water the mounds of earth where the pumpkins would grow, she was there. Even when Lidya was not outside she would see her mother, out of doors, watching the wood with fascination. If she heard the screen door slam and someone approach she would immediately begin some menial task that she claimed she had been doing all along. It was as if her mother, despite her vocal disbelief in the creature, believed deep within her soul and something within her called her to see the creature of myth and fantasy.

But the unicorn always found Lidya in the flashes of time when her mother was doing laundry or in the kitchen and not paying attention. It found her and showed her lands and places that took her breath away. Afterwards, she was sluggish and clumsy and would drop the milk pails or baskets of green beans. Her mother would watch her then, and, when normally she would frown at her daughter, her face would become expressionless and her eyes would wander to the wood.

As the summer wore on, her mother stopped eating, stopped caring for the house, and would spend all her time out of doors, watching for Lidya’s unicorn. She never affirmed that’s what she was doing but Lidya could see it in her eyes.

“Liddy,” her father said at dinner one night, “what has come over your mother?”

“She spends all her time, watching for the unicorns. But she can’t see it, it only comes to me.”

“I thought,” her father said with a frown, “that your mother told you not to speak of unicorns.”

“She has,” Lidya said around a mouthful of summer squash, “and I haven’t. I think, instead, she is the one speaking of the unicorns. Not aloud, she’d never admit it. But in her mind, there she is beginning to believe.”

It was in the span of time when summer turns to fall and the weather brings all its glory to earth that Lidya watched the unicorn from the pumpkin patch. She swam in a sea of silver and found her way back to the pumpkins, slowly turning to autumn. She smiled at the unicorn and gave it a slight curtsey, as she often did now, and watch it disappear. Still smiling, she felt a soft touch on her arm and her mother’s voice in her ear.

“Did you see the unicorn?” Lidya was silent, not knowing how to respond. “Please did you see it? Ah I have been a fool.”

Lidya turned and saw her mother, face gaunt, eyes sleepless and a lone tear running down her cheek. “Ma, you told me not to talk about it.”

She gave a small, tight smile. “That’s because I didn’t want to be reminded of the foolishness of a girl.” She gave a sigh and looked wistfully at the wood. “I didn’t think it was still around. I didn’t think it was even alive. Oh I saw the unicorn too,” she said, seeing Lidya’s curious expression. “I saw it too, when I was a girl. I made a promise to it, a long time ago. But I got married before I kept my promise and never saw the beast again. You know how unicorns are. They don’t like married women. I supposed I was jealous that you saw it and not me and that’s why I haven’t said anything earlier.”

“What promise did you make, Ma?”

“It’s been showing you places? Beautiful places that take your breath away?”

“Yes, but, Ma, what promise did you make?”

Her mother gave a sigh and sat down on one of the largest pumpkins and rested her chin on her hand. “You notice how you never see unicorns anymore? That’s because they all left. All of them except that one. Somehow it got left behind and it needs a girl, a pure maiden mind you,” she smiled sadly, “to take it home. It needs guidance from one world to another. I don’t know how I figured that out but I did. And maybe that is why it’s coming to you, because you are my daughter and since I know, I can tell you. And maybe also to punish me. I honesty didn’t think it would survive this long…”she said absently. Suddenly she stood and brushed off her skirts. “I can’t see the unicorn anymore, but you can. Maybe you can repay the favor that I could not keep.”

Her mother left her than and passed through the beams of light from the setting sun. She walked into the house and into the kitchen and began dinner under her fathers confused, questioning eyes. Lidya watched her, speechless for a moment, then turned back to the wood and saw the unicorn. It held her with its eyes and she knew it had been waiting.

She closed her eyes and saw a door of wrought iron and silver with golden leaves for handles. Around it were stands of rose and lilac and orchids climbed its lintels. I can’t open the door she heard a mournful, tired voice said in her ear. I’m so close but I can’t open the door.

“But I can,” Lidya whispered to the unicorn. “I can.”

She walked forward on a path lined with morning glories and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers. She reached the door and felt the cold metal under her finger tips. “Go home,” she murmured, “the promise is kept.” She jerked the door with all her strength and it opened onto a world of light. A blur of white and gold flashed by her and she heard the sound of hoof beats echo in the world beyond the door.

A pumpkin vine reached out from the flower beds and grabbed hold of Lidya’s ankle, but she was too busy listening to the hoof beats to notice it as her world formed once again around her.