The unicorn flicked her head and the grey-haired guard who had stayed his comrade’s spear appeared. “Alkippe will accompany you to the edge of the city.” She nudged Kyra with her nose and she threw her hands around the shining white head. “I wish you joy. Perhaps you will come visit me again. Or I will come visit you.”
Two priests stepped forward. “The unicorn does not leave to see commoners.”
The unicorn shook her head, mane raging and then settling. “Perhaps I should.”
My heart a tumultuous disaster of sadness and failure, I held back tears as I clutched Kyra’s hand and bowed to the unicorn. “And I wish for you, your freedom. No creature should live restricted, defined by others.”
The unicorn bowed her head. “Good advice for your daughter, as well.”
No reply came to me so I steered Kyra away. She waved at the unicorn and pouted as we left.
Clay’s confused expression when he saw Kyra tore at my already shredded heart. I had no words, only shook my head at him. His face showed a moment of sadness but it was quickly replaced by a smile.
“Ready for a fun trip home?” he asked Kyra, who beamed back at him. He gave me a nod that held so much support it was hard for me to continue to meet his gaze. Would the others accept the unicorn’s decision, as Clay seemed to? Could I?
We made our way slowly away from Unicorn City. The day went well, though my heart felt heavy and my mind spun with worry. Cray’s wagon was a blessing, but was crowded with supplies from the city. I walked beside him when Kyra fell asleep.
“What do I do now?” I asked, so drained, so tired.
“Think on this,” Clay said. “Is she happy?”
“Yes.” I choked back tears.
“Is she loved?”
“Yes,” I smiled, despite my anger. “So much. But that is why I want the best for her.”
“Is she at peace?” he asked.
“Most times,” I answered.
“Then all you need to do is love her.” He smiled down at me and I remembered my words the unicorn had thrown back at me.
“No one should be defined by others,” I whispered.
Kyra sat up in the wagon. Clay turned back to her. “The air is warm tonight. Should we camp?”
My daughter grinned. “Camp,” she shouted and threw her hands up.
“I guess we camp,” I told Clay. We found an area to stay and darkness fell over us as we set up for the night. The horse grazed as we ate beside the fire until the snaps of branches followed by footsteps made us all freeze.
Clay rose, taking out his hunting knife as I pulled Kyra to me.
“Who’s there?” Clay called out. “Show yourselves.”
I held Kyra tighter as my worst nightmare stomped out from between the trees. Bale and his two sons appeared in our circle of firelight, each holding a sword.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
Vaso, the younger of the brothers, always with the sharpest tongue, pointed his sword at Kyra. “You thought you freaks could just sneak away with our money?”
I shoved Kyra behind me. “It wasn’t your money.”
“Good as,” his father said. “Taken from our people.”
Clay moved forward, knife at the ready. “What do you want, Bale?”
My heart raced as his eyes settled on Kyra, peeking out from behind my legs. They could see she hadn’t changed, they’d know we hadn’t used our offering. “Here.” I grabbed the bag of coin the unicorn had insisted I take back. I threw it to the ground near him. “Take it.”
He glanced down his nose at the bag. “That’s a start,” he said.
“That money does not belong to you,” Clay stepped forward again.
The older brother, Alon, slid toward Clay, sword pointed. “Back off, old man.”
Clay shot me a sideways glance and I saw the decision cross his face. “Clay, don’t,” I tried.
“Your daughter,” Bale spat at me, “is a curse on our village. You are not taking her back there.”
My grieving heart turned to stone. “It’s our home as much as yours.”
“Wrong,” he snapped back, pointing his sword at us. “That worthless thing doesn’t deserve to live, least of all among normal folk.”
“Unicorn,” Kyra said, and lifted her head higher.
I nodded. “That’s right, Kyra. The unicorn said she wasn’t normal either.” The memory of her presence gave me strength. “Leave us alone, Bale. We are going home.”
He cleared his throat and his sons stepped to either side of him, swords ready. “We can’t let you do that.”
Clay took another step forward. “You’ve got no business here. Leave, now.”
“You would defend them?” Alon demanded.
Clay was no fighter and we all knew it, but he nodded. Alon started to laugh, but Clay rushed forward and slashed with his knife. Alon brushed off the attack and countered, his sword coming up and into Clay’s gut. He exhaled like he’d been punched, went limp and collapsed to the ground. Alon’s withdrew a sword covered in dark red blood.
Kyra screamed and I buried her face in my chest. “It’s okay, my love,” I lied, staring at Clay’s motionless body.
Kyra’s little hands gripped my neck. “Unicorn,” she said again and I hushed her just as the unicorn ran through the trees behind Bale and his sons, her horn glowing golden as the sun. Alkippe stood by her side, spear at the ready.
“Step away from them. Now.” The unicorn’s voice rang through the night air and my soul leapt with hope.
“Boys.” Bale’s voice was low, overly controlled and determined. “The unicorn seems to have left the city with one old guard for protection. How much do you think they’d pay to have her back?”
“Dead or alive?” Vaso growled.
Bale smiled at his son. “I’m sure there’s money in it either way.”
My legs went limp. She was immortal but not invincible.
Bale, Alon and Vaso spread out slightly and advanced on the unicorn. Kyra broke free from my grasp. I screamed at her as she ran past Bale and wrapped her arms around one of the unicorn’s front legs. “Hello again, little one,” the unicorn said as though everything was fine, but it wasn’t.
“Attack,” Bale yelled at his sons and they charged. The unicorn pushed Kyra away from harm, reared and slashed at the men with her front hooves. The older brother Alon sidestepped and Alkippe mostly deflected his strike to her flank, but it still drew blood. The unicorn rose up, swung her head toward Alon and planted her horn into his chest.
Bale screamed with rage as his son sank to his knees. I grabbed a log from the fire, the end hot but bearable for me to handle. The unicorn backed up, pulling her horn back out and Bale raised his sword with both hands above her exposed neck. My daughter’s horrified cries propelled me faster than I ever knew I could move and with both hands, I swung the fiery branch at Bale’s midsection. He buckled and stumbled back which gave the unicorn time to face him full on. She reared again and I went to Kyra, the branch flames lighting her teary face.
“Mama.” She reached for me and I threw the branch down to pick her up.
“You do not need to die,” the unicorn said. I spun around to find her standing over Bale, one delicate hoof pressing on his chest. His sword lay on the ground out of reach. “Nor him.”
Closer to the fire, Alkippe held his spear against Vaso’s throat. Bale squirmed and grabbed the unicorn’s leg with both hands, screamed and yanked them away. Even in the dim firelight I could see the red burns and bubbles where he’d touched her. He tried kicking his legs, but stopped as the unicorn leaned on him. “You will not return to the home of these ones,” the unicorn said.
“It’s our home!” Bale spat, writhing beneath her hoof.
The unicorn flicked her head up once then touched her horn to the side of his neck and he screamed as it burned a black, swirled marking into his skin.
Bale changed instantly. He became still and gave a nod. “We will not return,” he wailed.<
br />
“Good.” The unicorn lifted her hoof and Alkippe released Vaso. Bale and Vaso retrieved Alon’s body and scurried back into the trees.
The unicorn went straight to Clay and touched his wound with her horn. He groaned and after a tense moment, to my utter joy, he sat up. He startled at the unicorn’s closeness, then grasped his stomach, checking for a wound no longer there.
We gathered around the fire, Kyra clinging to me, Clay clinging to the blanket around him. Alkippe kept vigilant watch on the edge of camp, but I was sure no one else would bother us this night.
The unicorn’s eyes shone sad in the flickering firelight. “I am sorry this has happened, but glad I found you.”
“You left?” I asked.
She lifted her head a bit higher. “I wanted to know if you were right. If I was a prisoner.”
“And?”
She snorted. “I was, but no longer. I had some help leaving.” I looked at Alkippe and he gave a small bow.
I nodded understanding. “Thank you for helping us.”
“You helped me to escape what I’d become. I thank you.” She bowed her head slightly and my world flipped on its head. A unicorn had bowed to me.
“You may have your wish,” she continued. “If you want your daughter to be like everyone else, I can do so.”
What I thought would bring joy instead roused defensiveness. My grandest wish had been for my daughter to be like everyone else, but now I knew better.
“No,” I shook my head. “You were right. My daughter is perfect as she is and I wouldn’t want her any other way.”
“What about others like Bale?” Clay asked, voice gruff, injecting a cold dose of reality into the dreamlike scene.
I took a deep breath and smiled down at my daughter. “It’s not Kyra that needs to be different, it’s the world that needs to change. I have to start making that happen for her. For now, she has me and others who will protect her.”
“She does.”
The unicorn lowered her head and Kyra wriggled from my arms. She wrapped her arms around the unicorn’s neck. “Unicorn,” she whispered.
“I would come with you, for a bit at least,” the unicorn said. “If you would allow. It has been so long since I felt another’s touch. Your daughter has captured my heart.”
Tears flowed and I didn’t fight them. “She has that way,” I replied.
***
Sandra Wickham lives in Vancouver, Canada with her husband, toddler son and two cats. Her friends call her a needle crafting aficionado, health guru and ninja-in-training. Sandra’s short stories have appeared in Evolve: Vampires of the New Undead, Evolve: Vampires of the Future Undead, Chronicles of the Order, Crossed Genres magazine, LocoThology: Tales of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Urban Green Man, Luna Station Quarterly and Sirens. She slush reads for Lightspeed Magazine and promotes the Creative Ink Festival for writers and readers.
To Ride a Steel Horse
Stephanie A. Cain
The magic wouldn’t leave Demy alone tonight. All the usual tricks—solving math theorems, reciting poetry, kickboxing—had failed. This close to Samhain, the human world and otherworld drew nearer to one another, the border between them thinning.
She leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window, staring out into the darkness. It had rained earlier, and it was still windy, but she couldn’t stand to be cooped up inside any longer.
She pulled on her leather jacket, went out to the garage, and gunned the Triumph Bonneville out of her drive. The cold air that hit her face smelled of wet leaves, bonfires, and harvest.
Highway Eighteen curved along the shore of Whiskey Lake between the trees on one side and the expensive lakeside houses on the other. She took a deep breath, enjoying the ache of the cold wind against her teeth. This was exactly what she’d needed—the sound of the Triumph’s engine, the throb of power between her thighs, and the wind in her face to drown out the magic’s seductive song. It took her back to her childhood, when she’d outrun her problems on the back of her horse Foxy. This was louder, more thought-drowning, but it had the same freedom.
Her mother would be ashamed of her but Demy had seen the magic take and take from her mother and grandmother, driving her sister Brenna away and barely giving anything back. Demy wasn’t going to let it have her.
She opened up the throttle. She would ride past midnight, ride until dawn if she had to, just to silence the call.
She was halfway around the lake, approaching Bear’s Roadhouse, when a bang-clank ripped through the sound of the engine. The bike shuddered and died.
Swearing, Demy managed to guide it to the side of the highway before it quit rolling altogether. A car she’d passed two miles back flew past, horn taunting her. She restrained herself from putting up a finger, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and centered herself. “Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred—”
The sharp blare of a horn broke off her recitation. A truck slowed to a crawl next to her, the passenger window cranked down.
“Need a hand, Demy?” called the driver, a burly guy who happened to be her neighbor—and the owner of the nearby roadhouse.
She grunted and shook her hair out of her face. “Just have my Moundbuilder waiting for me when I get there,” she called back.
She could hear his laughter as he pulled ahead again.
The bike let her down occasionally, but she’d taken it as a challenge, an entirely non-magical hobby to keep her mind occupied. A lot of her skill she’d learned from Jack, who ran the bike garage next to the roadhouse. What Jack couldn’t teach her, he fixed himself.
Demy pooched her lower lip out and blew her hair out of her face again. Another hundred feet and she’d be able to turn the bike over to Jack.
“Not this time.” Jack King was a white-bearded guy of about seventy, with sinewy forearms and powerful shoulders. He was shaking his head. “It’s dead, Demeter. Threw a rod. That’s a whole engine rebuild. Don’t throw good money after bad.”
Demy blinked several times, staring at him. In six years, nothing had been too much for Jack to fix. She’d bought the used Triumph as an act of defiance in the face of turning twenty-five—her sister had laughed and called it a quarter-life crisis. That had been the only truly good thing about her twenty-sixth year. That had been the year the magic took her mother and sister both, but Demy had gotten through it because of the, well, zen of motorcycles.
“I’m sorry, D,” Jack said, patting her shoulder. “Go next door and make Bear feed ya. I’ll drop ya by home when I close up shop.”
Demy shook her head. Jack was open until seven, and it was already past six. She didn’t want to be stuck at home with five more hours to get past midnight—there was too much temptation there. As much as she’d refused to follow in the footsteps of her matriarchs, she hadn’t been able to part with the various magical paraphernalia she had inherited. If she were home when the witching hour of Samhain hit…
“It’s fine. I’ll get Bear to take me home when he closes.”
Jack’s thick, white eyebrows shot up, but he smirked. “Raise a glass for me, too, then,” he said. “Happy Halloween.”
Demy trudged across the parking lot, her boot heels grating on the gravel. There were two dozen bikes parked outside the roadhouse, mixed with a few trucks from local non-bikers, because Bear made the best breaded tenderloin in north central Indiana.
She paused halfway across the parking lot and shoved her hands in her jeans pockets, tilting her head back to stare up at the stars that were beginning to appear. This bike had gotten her through the toughest years of her life. How was she supposed to just turn her back on it?
You could fix it, whispered a voice in the back of her head. Magic can do anything.
“Not anything,” Demy snapped, her voice harsh. It hadn’t brought her sister back. It hadn’t kept her mother from dying.
The door to the roadhouse opened and a laughing couple came outs
ide, borne on a tide of southern rock music. Demy lowered her gaze, blinking away the tears in her eyes, and made herself go inside.
When Bear saw her, he set a plate next to the two glasses waiting for her at the bar. Demy couldn’t keep from smiling. He knew her too well—the plate held a breaded tenderloin and a small mountain of fries. One glass was a shot of bourbon, and the other was her requested IPA from the local People’s Brewing Company.
“How long’s it going to take him?” Bear asked over the Black Crowes.
Demy’s throat tightened. She shook her head and downed the shot before she answered. “It’s dead,” she whispered.
Bear leaned in, frowning. “What?”
Demy cleared her throat and repeated herself louder. “It’s dead. He can’t fix it.”
Bear’s face melted into a sympathetic expression. “Shit, Demy.”
She nodded, unable to speak. Somehow, Bear’s sympathy made it more real. He patted her hand and went down to the other end of the bar. Demy shoved a couple of fries in her mouth, grateful he wasn’t going to try to cheer her up. She started on the tenderloin, hoping Bear—or his Halloween-costumed wait staff—would keep the drinks coming. After all, it wasn’t like she was going to be driving herself home. She might as well mourn the bike properly.
“It’s like watching my horse die all over again,” Demy lamented. She was sprawled halfway across the bar, partly because the world was starting to do a slow roll and partly because she was just too sad to keep sitting up. “Did I ever tell you about that?”
“Maybe once or twice,” Bear said, setting another glass of water in front of her. This was, Demy calculated, her third glass of water. She probably should have gone a little slower with the bourbon shots.
“Foxy. She was just the color of a fox, that bright russet color.” Demy rubbed her face. “She was such a good horse.”
“Smart, too,” Bear agreed.
Demy felt her face heat up. She’d told him this already tonight. She just couldn’t get over how much it hurt to think about the bike.
“There are some things even magic can’t fix,” she said. “Magic can’t make a horse live forever.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting the stinging in her eyes. “Can’t make a person live forever, either.”
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