The Unicorn in the Barn

by Jacqueline Ogburn

  “Hey, beauty,” I said, pulling an apple out of my pocket. I held it on the flat of my hand for her and she gently grabbed it with her teeth. I stroked her neck and breathed in that wonderful sweet earthy unicorn smell. That calm, peaceful feeling settled over me, but I was still sad about Grandma.

  “I wish Grandma could have seen you; she would have loved you as much as I do,” I whispered. Moonpearl swiveled her ear back toward me. “She took care of all the special creatures of the woods, too. I guess you probably already knew that.”

  As I stepped to the side, my bad leg was jolted and pain shot through it. The colt, Gem, had stumbled into me. He looked up at me, then gave a stiff-legged little bounce, coming even closer. He leaned against my leg, so I reached down and stroked his head. His mane was very short and bristly, but the rest of his coat was really soft. On my other side, the filly, Jewel, had started to nurse. Her tail was flipping back and forth real fast.

  Moonpearl nickered again and turned to look at me. She rubbed my leg with her nose.

  “She wants to know what happened to your leg,” rumbled a voice behind me. Timothy rustled through the straw bedding to sit next to Moonpearl.

  So I explained about twisting my ankle and getting shot. “But it’s a lot better now,” I assured her.

  Moonpearl looked at Timothy. “Do you think it wise, my lady?” he asked. She rolled her eyes at him. She stepped up, pushing the colt away from me. When he took a couple of steps back, she dropped her head and laid her horn across my left leg. Soft light flowed down her horn, and that weird humming sensation filled the air. I felt something wash over me, like a hot shower on a cold day. I don’t have the right words to describe being touched by a unicorn horn. It made the hair on my arms and neck stand up, but not in a scary, goose-bumpy kind of way. The pain was gone from my leg and ankle. Even the cut on my chin quit stinging. I bent my knee and flopped my leg around. I couldn’t even feel any stretching or itching from the stitches.

  I threw my arms around her neck and hugged her. “Thank you!”

  “She wanted to thank you properly for all your kindness and for helping revive her colt,” Timothy explained.

  “You didn’t need to,” I told Moonpearl. “I was happy to take care of you and to help Gem. I couldn’t let him die.” Gem hopped back over to his mom, and tried pushing his sister away so he could nurse. She didn’t stop, just stepped to the side to make room for him.

  I went to fetch the curry combs and came back and groomed Moonpearl. Her sides were now much smaller, and firmer than I expected after being so stretched out. It felt great being surrounded by these beautiful creatures. I thought about Grandma and felt a stab of grief, and my eyes stung.

  “How come I still feel so sad?” I wondered out loud.

  Moonpearl snorted a bit. I began combing out her mane, carefully collecting the loose hairs.

  “The lady said that not even she can heal a broken heart right away. Grief takes its own time to unfold,” said Timothy.

  “I guess it does.” The foals had finished nursing and were bouncing around with their funny little stiff-legged strides. They were about the size of a skinny, long-legged breed of dog, like a greyhound, but much cuter.

  I heard the barn door slide open. Allegra came in, followed by Dr. B., who was carrying her blue box of medical stuff.

  “Hey, Eric,” said Allegra. “Aren’t they the cutest things?”

  “I guess,” I said. I didn’t admit I had just been thinking the same thing.

  “Just checking that everyone is still doing well,” said Dr. B. She took some measurements of the foals, then listened to their hearts and to Moonpearl’s too. I went to fetch some fresh water and Allegra got a bucket of feed.

  It was right nice, all of us working together, taking care of the unicorns.

  Dr. B. stood up and moved where Moonpearl could see her. “All three of you are perfectly healthy. You can go home whenever you are ready,” she said.

  I dropped the bucket, splashing water over my newly healed leg.

  “Home? But this is their home, this is where the babies were born. They don’t need to go, ever,” I said. It wasn’t fair. What with Grandma dying, and our saving the baby unicorn, they couldn’t leave.

  I couldn’t bear for them to leave.

  “Eric, we all knew this was coming. I know this is hard for you, especially now,” said Dr. B., in her soft voice, the one that I now knew was her bad news voice. It must be the voice she used to tell people that their pets were dead, or would be soon.

  Moonpearl nickered, looking at me with her greeny-brown eyes. She carefully picked her way out of the stall into the main floor of the barn and over to me. The foals followed her, first Jewel, then Gem.

  “Don’t leave. Please, don’t leave,” I whispered.

  Moonpearl snorted at me and rested her chin on the top of my shoulder for a minute. That unicorn smell washed over me, and even though my heart was cracking, some of that peaceful feeling soaked in too. I hugged her neck tight. I felt the foals bumping around my legs.

  “Can’t they stay a little bit longer?” Allegra said in a small voice.

  “It’s not our decision, sweetheart,” said Dr. B. “It’s Moonpearl’s.”

  Moonpearl lifted her head and blew into my ear. I dropped my arms and stepped back, and one of my hands brushed Gem’s back. He bumped his head under my hand and I rubbed his ears. I heard Allegra sniffling, and she was wiping her eyes as she came over to pet Jewel.

  Moonpearl walked to the door leading to the paddock in the back and waited. She turned and nodded at Timothy.

  “The lady says she will miss you too, but she needs to go home. Eric, she waited until she could say her goodbyes to you, but she is ready now. Her children need to meet the rest of the herd,” Timothy said.

  Dr. B. slid open the door. I followed Moonpearl out into the paddock, my hand still on Gem’s head. Allegra and Jewel came trailing behind. Dr. B. stroked Moonpearl’s cheek and the unicorn nudged the doctor on the arm. Dr. B. crossed the paddock and unlatched the gate that opened onto the trail into the woods. Allegra dashed past me and threw her arms around Moonpearl’s neck too. If she said anything, I couldn’t hear it over her crying.

  Moonpearl shook her head, breaking Allegra’s hold, and rubbed her check on Allegra’s arm. She turned and whinnied to her babies. She stepped out of the gate, her head held high and proud. She was so graceful, glowing in the sunlight. The foals trotted after her. The three of us—​well, four if you count Timothy—​stood and watched as they followed the trail into the woods, farther and farther in. Finally we could see only glimpses of white through the brush and trees and hear the leaves rustle under their hooves, until they were gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  DR. B. INVITED US OVER for Christmas dinner, since we had had them over for Thanksgiving. It was just as well, as Steve didn’t have much heart for cooking—​a Harper Christmas dinner that year would have been downright pathetic. We had dinner upstairs in the farmhouse and while it still felt strange with all the changes, nobody wanted to talk much about the biggest change, about Grandma being gone.

  Timothy helped a bit, although not in the way he intended. He jumped up onto the table after it was set, to snag a piece of ham. Dad hollered at him so loud, we all jumped. It scared the patients still in the clinic downstairs—​the two dogs started barking and the pet duck with the broken leg started quacking. That set the rest of us to laughing. The animals carried on for a good ten minutes. Timothy hid somewhere for the rest of the evening.

  Grandma was buried next to Poppaw in the churchyard. All that winter, Dad went to visit her grave every Sunday morning. I went a couple of times, but didn’t have much to say.

  Dad gave me the Harper book the day after Christmas. “It didn’t seem right to give it to you as a Christmas present. Didn’t want Steve asking questions either, so keep it hidden, OK?” he said. Steve had gotten a book from Grandma for Christmas—​her recipe book, a little gree
n cloth-covered binder with handwritten pages and recipes clipped out of the newspaper. He spent part of every Sunday afternoon cooking two or three dishes we would eat during the week.

  The Harper book was big, about the size of a laptop computer. It had a black leather cover, like an old Bible, and the pages were thick and yellowed. There were lots of entries, in different handwriting, each one with a date and signature. Most of them were hard to read, what with the fancy cursive and some strange spellings. There were drawings on a few of the entries, especially the ones from my great-great-grandmother, Lillian Harper. Some of them were about seeing the creatures in the woods; some of them were about taking the creatures in when they were hurt and helping them get better. Old Cletus Harper’s last entry was about seeing a unicorn, although not up close, like I had. I had so much to write about—​Moonpearl, her babies, the squonk, the wampus cat, Timothy.

  I found Grandma’s entry about the jackalope.

  Lonnie Carson’s red tick hound chased a creature out of the woods that hid under the back porch. So I chased off the dog, and crawled under the porch to see what it was. It was one of the funnier-looking creatures, a trembling rabbit that still had the nerve to swipe at me with its little antlers. It had a gash on its right side, where the dog bit it. I managed to get hold of it and bandage it up. Found out it was called a jackalope.

  After three weeks, it had improved enough. I took it to the pond and let it go.

  I kept working at the clinic. The squonk was still there, and I added a cup of water to its jar every Friday. I never did see it, but Allegra said they heard it singing sometimes late at night.

  The rosebushes in front of the farmhouse grew like crazy, climbing up and curling along the porch rails. Georgie had had me spread the unicorn manure around the bushes, saying it would probably work as well as the cow manure from the hardware store. I guess it wasn’t too surprising that unicorn poop would help plants grow so big and healthy. The rose smell reminded me of Moonpearl, and I took a big bunch of them to put on Grandma’s grave at Easter.

  One evening in late spring, I was going back to my house, walking along the ridge. It was that pretty time, when the sun has just gone down and everything looks soft around the edges. I heard a rustling in the brush up ahead where the trail started to curve down just past my treehouse. I thought I caught a glimpse of something white moving in the bushes. I couldn’t help hoping it was Moonpearl.

  I heard some leaves shushing, so I stopped, holding my breath. A white shape, glowing in the twilight, slipped past a clump of bramble. I felt a stab of disappointment—the shape was too small to be Moonpearl. It stepped out of the brush onto the path. Then I saw a little horn rising a couple of inches above his ears. It was a unicorn all right. It was Gem, coming back to me.

  Acknowledgments

  Annie Dillard once wrote that a book is a thing that takes two to ten years to write. This book would have taken even longer without the help of so many people whom I am happy to thank here.

  First, my daughters: Emily Harper Deahl provided the initial inspiration with her comment, “Unicorns are hard to treat, you know, because of their horns,” and Claire Carson Deahl provided early encouragement by demanding to read fresh pages right after school.

  Dr. Bobby Schopler, wildlife veterinarian at the Duke University Lemur Center, discussed possible treatments, shared horse and cow birthing stories, read the manuscript, and corrected my medical mistakes. My volunteer stint at the Piedmont Wildlife Center provided invaluable background information.

  Becky Lallier shared the perfect writing retreat: a house at the lake with no phone or Internet and good company, including Anne Beardsley and Brett Batchelder. Thanks to my early readers, Zachary and Lauren Ogburn and Lia Willow Ogburn. Thanks to Frances Woods for telling me it was good, and to the rest of the Coven: Luli Gray and Louise Hawes. Thanks to Clare Reece-Glore and Susan Vann for reading the manuscript for horse sense. To the local children’s book community, including the Writers and Illustrators of North Carolina (WINC) and Stephen Messer, for realizing that adult beverages and children’s book writers are a great pairing, and to the Wilde reading group, for keeping me up on current books.

  My editor, Kate O’Sullivan, kept the flame alive for years after I first sent her a few ragged pages. Novels are a marathon, and my previous books had been picture books, the writing equivalent of the hundred-yard dash. I couldn’t ask for a better coach. Kate also found the wonderful Rebecca Green to illustrate the story. It’s a wonder and a privilege to see how my words are translated into another art form.

  Finally, thanks to my husband, Ben Deahl, for his long patience, and for holding down the fort while I am off in the clouds.

  MiddleGradeMania.com

  About the Author

  JACQUELINE K. OGBURN has published ten picture books, including The Bake Shop Ghost. This story is her first novel. A resident of a suddenly hip neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina, she works for a local major university. She and her husband have two daughters and a cat who sometimes disappears, but has yet to speak English.

  About the Illustrator

  REBECCA GREEN is an illustrator, painter, and make-believe-maker whose work has a home in young adult and children’s books, galleries, magazines, and more. Her illustrated books include classics such as Little Women and A Little Princess. When she is not making things, she can be found cooking, traveling, and starting too many books to finish. She currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, their dog, Mori, and their cat, Junie B.

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