I never knew how the unicorns arrived on the farm, or when one would. They may have scented one another. One day there would be seven in the herd, the next day eight, the newcomer not hard to spot—burrs in his mane and tail, perhaps with a limp or scratches left by barbed wire, wild-eyed when Father approached, bolting to the far end of the paddock and not easily soothed.
How did a newcomer ever get into the paddock? I've often wondered that. Sometimes I think any of them could have leapt the fence at any time, that they stayed only because they wanted to. Sometimes I think they knew how to lift the latch of the gate using their horns, and let the newcomer in themselves. But I suppose it's possible that Father was part of a network of secret unicorn fanciers, and was known to be good with wild ones. Possibly a truck would pull up, well past midnight when Leonore and I were safely dreaming, and the animal would be unloaded and led out to the paddock.
Father never cajoled a newly arrived unicorn, or tried to coax. He just set out the feed, saw to the water, and let the beast get used to his presence in its own time. A month might pass before it would let him curry it. Occasionally they favored me instead of Father, especially as I got older. There was one male that I named Charger, who would always come close when I appeared at the fence. After I fed him, he would—sometimes, not always—permit me to comb his silky mane with my fingers.
"Could I ride Charger?” I asked Father once. “Could we saddle him like a horse?"
Father shook his head. “A unicorn can never be saddled. They won't stand for it. Years ago I heard it said you could possibly mount one and ride it bareback, but you wouldn't want to, Mary."
"Why not?"
"If you mount a unicorn, it will run off bearing you, swift as the wind. It will never tire and never stop, and you'll never be able to dismount again. When at last Jesus calls the faithful up to sit beside Him in Heaven, you'll still be astride the unicorn, and you'll be left behind."
I think he must have made that up, just to keep me from spooking Charger and possibly breaking my leg or my skull when I got thrown off. I don't honestly know where he might have met anyone who could tell him a single thing about unicorns. He told me once about a thing called the Internet, which had flourished when he was younger. You could meet almost anyone on the Internet, he said, or read about no end of wicked, sinful things. But after the Final Conversion of the Heathen, Godless things like the Internet were no longer needed.
I think he would have found a way to take Leonore to choir practice and Saturday picnics, if I had wanted to go too. That's why I have to shoulder some of the blame for what happened. I should have been more interested in socializing, but I had always been a shy, moody, awkward girl. I knew if we went, Leonore would get all the attention while I'd be left standing off in a corner by myself, a miserable lump. I much preferred to stay home and look after the unicorns. Not that they needed much looking after; but if I held out a handful of tulip petals, one would edge closer, curious but skittish, and eventually nibble daintily from my hand.
Sometimes I think Leonore was jealous. They would never eat from her hand, but then she never truly tried. She was always too impatient. She would twitch, or make some wry comment under her breath, and then the unicorn would bound away to the far side of the paddock, where it would gaze at her reproachfully or go back to cropping daisies.
But saying she was jealous isn't fair to her. In truth, our father should not have had the unicorns in the first place. Reverend McFadden delivered several heartfelt sermons every year describing how Satan would tempt the faithful with seeming miracles. Father sat there and listened to the sermons, and nodded and said, “Amen,” but it was as if he never heard a word. So maybe Satan had entered into his heart. I don't like to think so, but Satan never rests. He's always looking for an opening. I know this.
Leonore would have done anything—well, almost anything—to get Tim McFadden to notice and approve of her. But Father and I were being no help. It was as if we had entered into a sort of pact and shut poor Leonore out. At the dinner table we would talk mostly about the unicorns. Was Sparky or Noble the faster runner? Would Desdemona foal this year? Leonore would sit there, poking at her food. Through gritted teeth she would say, “Could we please talk about something else?"
In the end, it was too much for such a good Christian soul to bear.
The first we knew about what she had done was when Reverend McFadden and four of five of the church elders appeared at our gate one Saturday morning. They wouldn't enter the property, but called out to Father: “We need to speak with you, Mr. Pritchard."
He went striding out to meet them. I had heard them drive up, and came out on the front porch to listen.
"We've received a disturbing report,” Reverend McFadden said. He was a portly man, always well dressed, but his eyes were set close together, which made him look as if he was squinting even when he wasn't. “We understand you're harboring horned animals on the property."
"I don't know who would have told you that,” my father said.
"Someone who is in a position to know. Can you tell us, then, on your word as a Christian, is it true or is it not?"
"If I tell you it's not, that's as good as calling another man a liar, am I right?"
"That would be one way of looking at it, I suppose."
"Well, I don't think I could do that,” Father said. “If a man utters a falsehood, or says anything against me meaning to hurt me, it's between him and his God. It's not for me to judge him."
That set them back, but not by much. “Would it disturb you,” Reverend McFadden went on, “if we were to come onto your property and see for ourselves?"
"No!” I cried. “Don't let them!"
Father never turned toward me. “Go into the house, Mary,” he said over his shoulder. “Let me deal with this."
I slipped through the front door, and I think the screen banged a little, though I didn't mean it to. My heart was skipping so fast I couldn't breathe.
Leonore was standing at the foot of the stairs, her hand on the newel post. She was smirking.
"You!” I clenched my fist. “You told them!"
"What if I did?” she said archly. “There's no place in God's creation for devil-beasts. You'd know that perfectly well if you hadn't been picking your nose all through Bible study. We'll all be happier when they're gone."
I would like to think she truly believed that. I wouldn't like to think she did it to hurt Father and me; she is far too pure and good ever to have let such a temptation into her heart. Of course she must have thought she would impress Tim McFadden with how upstanding a Christian she was, how vigilant against the wiles of Satan. That was the main reason.
I stomped past her up the stairs to my room, and threw the pillows across the room and wept. Out the window I saw Father leading the men toward the back paddock. They weren't out there more than five minutes before they came back. Reverend McFadden was leading the way almost at a trot, as if he couldn't wait to get off of our place. “Put them down, Mr. Pritchard,” he said. “Put them down! You have a rifle. Use it."
Father went out to the front gate to see them off, and then came into the house. I heard him moving around downstairs, and then the awful creak of the rusty old hinges as he opened the gun cabinet.
I knew what I had to do. But when I burst out of my room, Leonore was standing in the hall right in front of me. “Where do you think you're going, missy?” I tried to get past her to the back stairs, but she shifted to block my path. “Want to say good-bye to your precious Charger?” She laughed. “The sooner you forget about him the better."
May God forgive me. I hit my sister with my fist and knocked her down. I think surprise showed in her eyes, but I was already past her, leaping down the back stairs three at a time.
I raced out to the paddock. All the way, I kept looking over my shoulder, but I didn't see Father coming.
I threw open the gate, charged into the paddock, and ran at the unicorns, waving my arms. “Run! Run! You h
ave to run!” They tried to stay away from me in the enclosed space, shy creatures that they were, so when I got to the far side of the paddock and circled back I was able to herd them out the gate, even that year's half-grown foal, Jewel.
Unicorns are much faster than horses, when they want to be. They can run like the wind itself. By the time Father came down from the house carrying his rifle, they had raced away. I could still hear their hoofbeats receding, or thought I could, but they had vanished from view. I was standing at the open gate hugging myself, shivering uncontrollably, though it was a warm day. “They're gone,” I said.
"Did you open the gate, then?"
"No, it was open when I got here. I think those—the men from the church must have forgotten to latch it.” I don't know why I lied. Was it because I didn't want Father to punish me? Or because I wanted the church elders to bear the blame for the unicorns being gone? Either way, it was a sin.
Father might have known I had lied, but he never said a word. He put his arm around my shoulders and led me back into the house.
It turned out I had split Leonore's lip when I hit her. She had bled all over the upstairs hall carpet, and Father had to drive her into town to get stitches. She wouldn't speak to me for a month, and I don't think she ever quite forgave me. Father never said a word about what had happened that afternoon, never again spoke about the unicorns at all. But it was like someone had switched off the light in his heart. After supper he would sit in the front room and not turn on a lamp or listen to the Gospel hour on the radio, just sit there in the dark all evening.
Once I walked in on him, sitting there in the dark, and saw he had the rifle cradled in his lap. That scared me a lot. But the next morning the rifle was locked up in the gun cabinet again, and later I found the key to the gun cabinet lying on my dresser. I hid it, which I guess was what he wanted me to do.
Leonore married a man named Howard Stith and they moved away to Indiana. She sends me Christmas greetings full of chatty news about her family, but we almost never talk on the phone. The year after she got married, Father died, and I closed up the farm and sold it. That was when I found the key to the gun cabinet, still tucked away in the bottom of my sock drawer. This was all a long time ago. I got married too, to a fine upstanding man, and now I have two daughters of my own. I wish they had known their grandfather, but I never talk about him. What would I say?
At night sometimes, as I lie in bed waiting for sleep to come, I think I hear, somewhere very far away, unicorns galloping, galloping like the wind. I imagine their manes and tails streaming out behind them as they run, the cool glow of their horns flickering among the trees like loose moonlight. I imagine what it would be like to ride one.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MARKET PLACE
* * * *
BOOKS-MAGAZINES
S-F FANZINES (back to 1930), pulps, books. 96 page Catalog. $5.00. Collections purchased. Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853.
—
19-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $4.00 or $38 for 12 issues, checks only. Dragon Press, PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.
—
Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues. Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.
—
DREADNOUGHT: INVASION SIX—SF comic distributed by Diamond Comics. In “Previews” catalog under talcMedia Press. Ask your retailer to stock it! www.DreadnoughtSeries.com
—
"Tonight's weather report contains some alarming material. Viewer discretion advised.” 101 Funny Things About Global Warming by Sidney Harris & colleagues. Now available www.bloomsburyusa.com
—
NEW MASSIVE 500-page LEIGH BRACKETT COLLECTION Lorelei of the Red Mist: Planetary Romances $40 (free shipping) to: HAFFNER PRESS, 5005 Crooks Road Suite 35, Royal Oak, MI 48073-1239, www.haffner press.com
—
Invaders from the Dark by Greye la Spina and Dr. Odin by Douglas Newton, unusual fiction from Ramble House—www.ramblehouse.com
—
Weaving a Way Home: A Personal Journey Exploring Place and Story from Univ. of Michigan Press. “No one with a working heart will fail to be moved."—Patrick Curry
—
Do you have Fourth Planet from the Sun yet? Signed hardcover copies are still available. Only $17.95 ppd from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
—
SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE 0. The first 58 F&SF contests are collected in Oi, Robot, edited by Edward L. Ferman and illustrated with cartoons. $11.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
—
BACK ISSUES OF F&SF: Including some collector's items, such as the Fiftieth Anniversary Issue. Limited quantities of many issues going back to 1990 are available. Send for free list: F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
—
MISCELLANEOUS
If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. www.undoingstress.com
—
Support the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Visit www.carlbrandon.org for more information on how to contribute.
—
You could be lounging about on Sunday, taking the day off, doing the crossword puzzle, and idly staring at things without thinking of them. Guilt Eaters of Philadelphia—Now International! Look for us in better magazines everywhere.
—
Witches, trolls, demons, ogres ... sometimes only evil can destroy evil! Greetmyre, a deliciously wicked gothic fantasy ... “A haunting read” (Midwest Book Review). Trade Paperback at Amazon.com or call troll free 1-877-Buy Book.
—
The Jamie Bishop Scholarship in Graphic Arts was established to honor the memory of this artist. Help support it. Send donations to: Advancement Services, LaGrange College, 601 Broad Street, LaGrange, GA 30240
—
F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words). 10% discount for 6 consecutive insertions, 15% for 12. You'll reach 100,000 high-income, highly educated readers each of whom spends hundreds of dollars a year on books, magazines, games, collectibles, audio and video tapes. Send copy and remittance to: F&SF Market Place, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: Curiosities: Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft by Sir Walter Scott (1830)
In ill health following a stroke, Scott (1771-1832) wrote Letters at the behest of his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, who worked for a publishing firm. Scott chose his unusual format (for a demonology) as a series of ten letters written to one John Lockhart. It proved popular and Scott was paid six hundred pounds, which he desperately needed. (Despite his success as a novelist, Scott was almost ruined when the Ballantyne publishing firm, where he was a partner, went bankrupt in 1826.)
Written when educated society believed itself in enlightened times due to advances in modern science and forsaking the superstition of darker ages, Letters reveals that all social classes still held belief in ghosts, witches, warlocks, fairies, elves, diabolism, the occult, and even werewolves (Letter Seven). Sourcing from prior sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treatises on demonology along with contemporary accounts from England, Europe, and North America (Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi, for one), Scott's discourses on the psychological, religious, physical, and preternatural explanations for these beliefs are essential reading for acolytes of the dark and macabre; the letters dealing with witch hunts, trials (Letters Eight and Nine), and torture are morbidly compelling.
Scott was neither fully pro-rational modernity nor totally anti-superstitious past, as his skepticism of one of the “new” sciences (skullology, as he calls it) is made clear in a private letter to a friend. Thus, Letters is also a personal and intellectual examination of conflicting belief systems, when popular science began to challenge superstition i
n earnest.
—Dave Truesdale
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: Notice to Subscribers
Our subscribers have received deceptive subscription mailings from firms named Magazine Payment Services (Sausalito, CA), Publishers Billing Exchange (La Habra, CA), Readers Payment Service (Reno, NV), Publishers Billing Agency (Capitola, CA), and Publishers Billing Agency (San Francisco, CA).
These mailings are subscription solicitations, but they look deceptively like renewal notices. They are not authorized by us, the rates quoted were not our usual rates, and it appears that they have mailed these solicitations to an older subscription list of ours, regardless of whether the subscriptions are due for renewal.
These firms are not connected with our magazine and their subscription offers are not authorized by us. If you are renewing your subscription, the best way to do it is by sending the renewal to our post office box in Hoboken, NJ. You can also renew your subscription safely through www.fsfmag.com.
We have posted a sample of these deceptive subscription notices on our message board: www.nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/378/7069.html?1186631324. Thank you for your cooperation.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: Coming Attractions
As we go to press with this issue, the contents for our anniversary issue are almost finalized.
We plan to bring you a new story by Stephen King, “The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates.” This short story finds the master in fine form, with a vintage tale of the uncanny.
FSF, September 2008 Page 18