Short Story: December's Unicorn
Jun. 30th, 2009 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twistdfateangelDecember and I were friends, once. We played in the woods behind the old abandoned church, sisters in our fancies. We loved the trees, the ruins, the dead leaves that littered the ground. In that intense, close way that people fear between two girls, we loved each other. But, that was in springtime. Winter always comes and, for us, it came much too soon.
We met as teenagers in the heat and freedom of June. She came from a city far away with books and fine clothes. December seemed so thin and pale, like a curl of smoke that would fade on the breeze. Her pale blond hair spiraled in unreal ringlets and her mother dressed her in light gray. When the breeze kicked up, it caught her fine calico skirt and her curls and nearly blew her away. There was only a fence between our yards. So I waved to her and offered her a cookie. My mother and I cut them like unicorns, beasts I'd only ever seen on television. But, December had read very old books. She told me about the real unicorns, wild, vicious things, half- lion, half-goat, half-stag. I didn't want to believe something so gentle could be so mean or even exist. Yet, there was something in the way she spoke that forced me to believe in the great paradox of the unicorn.
She came over the fence the next day, still wearing thin gray calico and curls so pale they looked white in the sun.
“I saw one,” December told me, “There's a unicorn in the woods. They won't hurt us. They like young girls.”
We gamboled off into the green fields beyond my fence, two grown girls of fifteen acting like fawns in spring. There were poppies and marguerites and cornflowers as big as saucers. We wove them into chaplets and crowned each other Queens of the Field Beyond. I taught December to dance and she taught me to sing about two crows and rambling and gypsies. We ran home as the sun sank in the sky.
“Will we find it tomorrow?” I asked her, only just remembering what we'd meant to do.
“Oh, Sadie,” she laughed softly, “there's always a tomorrow for finding unicorns.”
And there was. All summer long, we chased the unicorn. We ran through the field and into the woods. We found hollowed trees and bird's nests, but there was no sign of December's unicorn. We found the old church, its paint peeling away in the hot sun, and December declared it to be the Joyous Gard. We met there from that day on. It became our Camelot and, from there, our quest roamed on.
I envied December. Her crowns of flowers were the brightest and most skilled. Her eyes were sharper, finding glittering stones and gleaming feathers where I saw only leaf mold carpets. Her mind saw what I couldn't, too. The pebbles in the stream were pirate treasure and the scales of a dragon. The feathers were dropped by angels, fairies and phoenixes. She knew words I had never heard, her feet were lighter and more delicate. But, the grayness of her dress sometimes leaked up to her eyes like spilled ink on paper. Most days, she wouldn't acknowledge it. She ran with me after the squirrels and gentle deer in the woods, laughter on her lips and tears in her eyes. Some days, though, she looked even paler and thinner and she cried as we walked.
“There's always a tomorrow for finding unicorns,” she said to me, in a voice like an autumn breeze, “but there isn't always a tomorrow for dancing. I'm sick, Sadie, in fact, I've never been well. I was born dead and I should still be dead.”
“Don't be silly!” I told her, “Only old people die from being sick! You're young like me. You can't die like that.”
“But, I can, Sadie,” she said, “Mother lives her life in mourning, she has for fifteen years. I dress in gray, so, I'll be ready when it happens.”
“But, you haven't found your unicorn yet,” I said.
“Our unicorn,” she corrected me, “I may never find it, no matter how many tomorrows there are. So, you have to find it for me.” She kissed me and took my hand. “You'll always have tomorrow.”
“So will you.”
She shook her head. “Not in these woods. My quest won't let me search here forever. There's another field and another forest. Somewhere, there's another Joyous Gard where the corbies nest and the deer run. I'll look there and you'll look here, and we'll both keep looking.”
“Where?” I felt like crying.
“Somewhere else, far away, just down the road a little.”
I kissed her hand. “There's always another tomorrow for finding unicorns, for both of us.”
“Of course,” said December.
The next day, she was laughing again.
In the last days of July, however, December changed. It was small shuffles to the left of what she had been, so small I barely noticed. We stayed out a little later, she searched a bit more urgently. Her crowns of flowers lost their color, falling apart as she went along. Her dresses became a darker gray. By the first day of August, I realized how thin she'd become. Her cheekbones jutted from her face, her blue-gray eyes were like shadows in the depths of her face, yet they burned with desperation.
“I found them,” she said to me as we met that day, “the unicorn's tracks. He's been here! He's looking for me.” She hugged me and pulled me through brambles and brush to a chain of delicate, cloven hoofprints. They looked to me like ordinary deer tracks, perhaps a fawn's, they were so small and light.
“I found him! The quest is over!” she cried, embracing me again.
“But, we haven't actually seen him,” I pointed out, “These are just the tracks.”
“He'll be back,” she insisted, “We'll wait for him here!”
We sat in the ruins, barely talking. I tried to sing a little or to get December to say something. But, she only stared out the broken window at the darkening woods and the bramble-hidden path.
“It's getting late,” I said finally.
“I don't have much time,” said December, “I have to find him.”
“There's always tomorrow,” I began, but she turned back to me with a savagery I'd never seen before.
“Yes, tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next and all of them yours! Every last one! There are no more tomorrows for me! Never again! There never should have been! I've never had a day to go questing! I should never have clung to you! You're life and summer and happiness! I'm death! I'm winter! I am the ghost! You can wait until you're old! I can't!”
I shrank from her. Her lips had curled back and her gums were almost as white as her teeth. Her eyes bulged and she had rocked forward on all fours like some frail ghost of a lioness. I didn't want to tell her the truth, that I doubted the unicorn would ever come. This had been a lovely summer diversion, but it was over now. School would begin soon and the light would fade faster. December, my dearest friend and my sweetest love, was dying with the flowers of summer. I leaned in to kiss her snowy brow and she flung me away with the strength of unfettered hate.
“December,” I said gently, “What if the unicorn never comes?”
Her face shifted from shock, to grief, to rage, to shock again. “You beast. You never wanted to help me look.”
“December, no, that's not true.”
“Yes, you chased him away! He was here, looking for me, and you chased him away!” She turned her face away from me. I felt her pain, her loathing of me like a knife in my ribs. Even then, with that rejection, the word came from nowhere.
“Go.”
I went. In the darkness and the thin moonlight, the field and the woods and the two houses uphill were all shades of gray. My parents and hers, flashlights in hand came towards me, angry with relief. I went to the back porch and watched as they went into the woods. They returned with a ghostly, moon-pale figure. December looked more faded and lost than she had when we met. Her eyes never really met anyone's gaze.
I couldn't sleep, I couldn't cry at all that night. I felt like a vampire had drained my heart of all feeling. In the emptiness of my core, the memories bounced around like fawns in a forest. In my mind, she still smiled, bright as a harvest moon, her curly, white hair streaming out like smoke from a white-hot brand. Her lips kissed mine with refreshing, liberating coolness. She was the child born at Yuletide, born on the Sabbath day. Her heart was born dead and frozen. She would always be a child and a crone, living for the only day she had and reaching for one final tomorrow.
In the smallest hours of the morning, I got up and went back to the back porch. When, at last I sat back down, the tears finally came. My cheeks and eyes and lungs burned. I hated myself for breaking her heart. I had chased away the unicorn. I had destroyed a dying woman—no, a girl. December was a doomed girl and I had hammered in the final nail.
I lay there on the porch steps long after I had stopped crying. In my heart, winter had already come. The color and life had drained away, leaving the woods of summer barren and cold.
As I sat up, I heard a door in the distance close and a voice singing,
“As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the ither say,
'Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?'
With a down-hey-derry-down-down!”
December was frisking down the hill, towards the woods. She was dressed in her lightest, palest dress. Her hair was loose and she hopped the fence as blythly as any fawn. I got up and walked down to her, but she was already running for the treeline, arms full of poppies, marguerites and cornflowers. I kept after her, though the brambles tore at my night clothes and my feet. I followed her by sound alone, her singing and her footsteps, though they were both growing fainter and further away. I got lost so many times, I wondered if I was being punished by dying alone in the wood.
In the first light before dawn, I heard her, again.
“Sadie!” she called, “He's back! I can see him!”
I followed the echoes of her triumphant laughter. I saw the ruins, finally, but no December.
“Where?” I called out.
“Here! In the ruins! Sadie, he's beautiful!”
The sun broke free of the horizon as I reached the doorway. At that very moment, a flash of white bounded away silently and vanished in the brush. On the floor, where the altar once sat, lay December. She'd crowned herself with flowers and she was barefoot. Her eyes were closed and her smile was as clean and perfect as a child's. She was still as stone. Her hands were over her heart. But as the light of dawn touched her face, I saw that, finally, she was rosy-cheeked and her dress was white as snow.
My winter is coming now. I can feel it in the breezes of summer blowing through the trees and the ruined church. I have seen the unicorn galloping through the meadow behind the house and into the woods. The tracks are back and I know now it's too light even for a fawn. But, I would never have known that without December, with her city books and her pure, unsullied eyes of one dead from birth. I only hope that when the unicorn comes for me, December comes, too, with a perfect halo of summer flowers and the treasures only her quest could have found.
We met as teenagers in the heat and freedom of June. She came from a city far away with books and fine clothes. December seemed so thin and pale, like a curl of smoke that would fade on the breeze. Her pale blond hair spiraled in unreal ringlets and her mother dressed her in light gray. When the breeze kicked up, it caught her fine calico skirt and her curls and nearly blew her away. There was only a fence between our yards. So I waved to her and offered her a cookie. My mother and I cut them like unicorns, beasts I'd only ever seen on television. But, December had read very old books. She told me about the real unicorns, wild, vicious things, half- lion, half-goat, half-stag. I didn't want to believe something so gentle could be so mean or even exist. Yet, there was something in the way she spoke that forced me to believe in the great paradox of the unicorn.
She came over the fence the next day, still wearing thin gray calico and curls so pale they looked white in the sun.
“I saw one,” December told me, “There's a unicorn in the woods. They won't hurt us. They like young girls.”
We gamboled off into the green fields beyond my fence, two grown girls of fifteen acting like fawns in spring. There were poppies and marguerites and cornflowers as big as saucers. We wove them into chaplets and crowned each other Queens of the Field Beyond. I taught December to dance and she taught me to sing about two crows and rambling and gypsies. We ran home as the sun sank in the sky.
“Will we find it tomorrow?” I asked her, only just remembering what we'd meant to do.
“Oh, Sadie,” she laughed softly, “there's always a tomorrow for finding unicorns.”
And there was. All summer long, we chased the unicorn. We ran through the field and into the woods. We found hollowed trees and bird's nests, but there was no sign of December's unicorn. We found the old church, its paint peeling away in the hot sun, and December declared it to be the Joyous Gard. We met there from that day on. It became our Camelot and, from there, our quest roamed on.
I envied December. Her crowns of flowers were the brightest and most skilled. Her eyes were sharper, finding glittering stones and gleaming feathers where I saw only leaf mold carpets. Her mind saw what I couldn't, too. The pebbles in the stream were pirate treasure and the scales of a dragon. The feathers were dropped by angels, fairies and phoenixes. She knew words I had never heard, her feet were lighter and more delicate. But, the grayness of her dress sometimes leaked up to her eyes like spilled ink on paper. Most days, she wouldn't acknowledge it. She ran with me after the squirrels and gentle deer in the woods, laughter on her lips and tears in her eyes. Some days, though, she looked even paler and thinner and she cried as we walked.
“There's always a tomorrow for finding unicorns,” she said to me, in a voice like an autumn breeze, “but there isn't always a tomorrow for dancing. I'm sick, Sadie, in fact, I've never been well. I was born dead and I should still be dead.”
“Don't be silly!” I told her, “Only old people die from being sick! You're young like me. You can't die like that.”
“But, I can, Sadie,” she said, “Mother lives her life in mourning, she has for fifteen years. I dress in gray, so, I'll be ready when it happens.”
“But, you haven't found your unicorn yet,” I said.
“Our unicorn,” she corrected me, “I may never find it, no matter how many tomorrows there are. So, you have to find it for me.” She kissed me and took my hand. “You'll always have tomorrow.”
“So will you.”
She shook her head. “Not in these woods. My quest won't let me search here forever. There's another field and another forest. Somewhere, there's another Joyous Gard where the corbies nest and the deer run. I'll look there and you'll look here, and we'll both keep looking.”
“Where?” I felt like crying.
“Somewhere else, far away, just down the road a little.”
I kissed her hand. “There's always another tomorrow for finding unicorns, for both of us.”
“Of course,” said December.
The next day, she was laughing again.
In the last days of July, however, December changed. It was small shuffles to the left of what she had been, so small I barely noticed. We stayed out a little later, she searched a bit more urgently. Her crowns of flowers lost their color, falling apart as she went along. Her dresses became a darker gray. By the first day of August, I realized how thin she'd become. Her cheekbones jutted from her face, her blue-gray eyes were like shadows in the depths of her face, yet they burned with desperation.
“I found them,” she said to me as we met that day, “the unicorn's tracks. He's been here! He's looking for me.” She hugged me and pulled me through brambles and brush to a chain of delicate, cloven hoofprints. They looked to me like ordinary deer tracks, perhaps a fawn's, they were so small and light.
“I found him! The quest is over!” she cried, embracing me again.
“But, we haven't actually seen him,” I pointed out, “These are just the tracks.”
“He'll be back,” she insisted, “We'll wait for him here!”
We sat in the ruins, barely talking. I tried to sing a little or to get December to say something. But, she only stared out the broken window at the darkening woods and the bramble-hidden path.
“It's getting late,” I said finally.
“I don't have much time,” said December, “I have to find him.”
“There's always tomorrow,” I began, but she turned back to me with a savagery I'd never seen before.
“Yes, tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next and all of them yours! Every last one! There are no more tomorrows for me! Never again! There never should have been! I've never had a day to go questing! I should never have clung to you! You're life and summer and happiness! I'm death! I'm winter! I am the ghost! You can wait until you're old! I can't!”
I shrank from her. Her lips had curled back and her gums were almost as white as her teeth. Her eyes bulged and she had rocked forward on all fours like some frail ghost of a lioness. I didn't want to tell her the truth, that I doubted the unicorn would ever come. This had been a lovely summer diversion, but it was over now. School would begin soon and the light would fade faster. December, my dearest friend and my sweetest love, was dying with the flowers of summer. I leaned in to kiss her snowy brow and she flung me away with the strength of unfettered hate.
“December,” I said gently, “What if the unicorn never comes?”
Her face shifted from shock, to grief, to rage, to shock again. “You beast. You never wanted to help me look.”
“December, no, that's not true.”
“Yes, you chased him away! He was here, looking for me, and you chased him away!” She turned her face away from me. I felt her pain, her loathing of me like a knife in my ribs. Even then, with that rejection, the word came from nowhere.
“Go.”
I went. In the darkness and the thin moonlight, the field and the woods and the two houses uphill were all shades of gray. My parents and hers, flashlights in hand came towards me, angry with relief. I went to the back porch and watched as they went into the woods. They returned with a ghostly, moon-pale figure. December looked more faded and lost than she had when we met. Her eyes never really met anyone's gaze.
I couldn't sleep, I couldn't cry at all that night. I felt like a vampire had drained my heart of all feeling. In the emptiness of my core, the memories bounced around like fawns in a forest. In my mind, she still smiled, bright as a harvest moon, her curly, white hair streaming out like smoke from a white-hot brand. Her lips kissed mine with refreshing, liberating coolness. She was the child born at Yuletide, born on the Sabbath day. Her heart was born dead and frozen. She would always be a child and a crone, living for the only day she had and reaching for one final tomorrow.
In the smallest hours of the morning, I got up and went back to the back porch. When, at last I sat back down, the tears finally came. My cheeks and eyes and lungs burned. I hated myself for breaking her heart. I had chased away the unicorn. I had destroyed a dying woman—no, a girl. December was a doomed girl and I had hammered in the final nail.
I lay there on the porch steps long after I had stopped crying. In my heart, winter had already come. The color and life had drained away, leaving the woods of summer barren and cold.
As I sat up, I heard a door in the distance close and a voice singing,
“As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the ither say,
'Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?'
With a down-hey-derry-down-down!”
December was frisking down the hill, towards the woods. She was dressed in her lightest, palest dress. Her hair was loose and she hopped the fence as blythly as any fawn. I got up and walked down to her, but she was already running for the treeline, arms full of poppies, marguerites and cornflowers. I kept after her, though the brambles tore at my night clothes and my feet. I followed her by sound alone, her singing and her footsteps, though they were both growing fainter and further away. I got lost so many times, I wondered if I was being punished by dying alone in the wood.
In the first light before dawn, I heard her, again.
“Sadie!” she called, “He's back! I can see him!”
I followed the echoes of her triumphant laughter. I saw the ruins, finally, but no December.
“Where?” I called out.
“Here! In the ruins! Sadie, he's beautiful!”
The sun broke free of the horizon as I reached the doorway. At that very moment, a flash of white bounded away silently and vanished in the brush. On the floor, where the altar once sat, lay December. She'd crowned herself with flowers and she was barefoot. Her eyes were closed and her smile was as clean and perfect as a child's. She was still as stone. Her hands were over her heart. But as the light of dawn touched her face, I saw that, finally, she was rosy-cheeked and her dress was white as snow.
My winter is coming now. I can feel it in the breezes of summer blowing through the trees and the ruined church. I have seen the unicorn galloping through the meadow behind the house and into the woods. The tracks are back and I know now it's too light even for a fawn. But, I would never have known that without December, with her city books and her pure, unsullied eyes of one dead from birth. I only hope that when the unicorn comes for me, December comes, too, with a perfect halo of summer flowers and the treasures only her quest could have found.