Once Upon a Unicorn

by Lou Anders

  “I don’t know,” said Curious.

  Curious looked at the night mares. He saw their yellow fires. He saw the purple light of the portal they were opening. He saw the reddish-golden light of the glowing runes of the Singing Stones.

  These were all the colors of magic. He might not fart rainbows, but he knew what rainbows were. All the colors were just different shades of the same light. And all the colors of magic, they were different shades too. Right now the purple magic was winning. They needed magic of another color. Magic of a goldish, reddish variety. And lots of it. Like Midnight’s wild fire. That was powerful magic.

  He remembered how it had charged the Silent Stones when it was under control. How it had blown the center stone over when she’d lost that control.

  “Midnight,” he said. “I don’t think your wild fire hurt the Silent Stones. I think it overpowered them.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Midnight.

  “They could use some of that extra power now to drown out Jack’s magic.”

  “But I don’t have my fire anymore,” she said. “I’m a unicorn now.”

  “I know,” Curious said. “But what we need is fire. I wish you were still a night mare.”

  “You do?” said Midnight. “If I were a night mare, then we couldn’t be friends.”

  “Of course we’d be friends,” said Curious. “We’ll always be friends.”

  Midnight thought about that. And what she wanted to be. Who she really was. In all her wild, untamed, fiery self.

  “My wild fire would really help now?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Curious. “Forgive me, but I wish the fairy queen hadn’t changed you into a unicorn.”

  “Oh, but she didn’t,” said Midnight. “She didn’t change me at all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She didn’t change me,” said Midnight. “She healed me. I—and all of us night mares—we are unicorns. We’ve always been unicorns.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Curious.

  “Then I’ll show you.”

  Then Midnight lifted her head high.

  And brought it down hard.

  She smashed her horn on the ground.

  And it broke right off.

  Wild fire poured from her forehead.

  Wild fire shot from her hooves.

  Wild fire danced from her mane.

  And in the heat of that wild fire, she changed back to her old self again. And she was blazing. And beautiful.

  And maybe because she was the one in charge now, she didn’t lose her memories or forget where she was or who she was. She was Midnight, the night mare, and she was going to save the day.

  “Now stand back,” she said. “I can’t control this. And I’m not gonna try.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Curious.

  “I’m going to Stomp!”

  And Stomp she did.

  Midnight stomped circles around the Curse. She stomped circles around Jack o’ the Hunt. She danced in and she danced out. She stomped her feet as hard as she’d ever stomped. And her fire was as wild as ever. As wild as it was on the day she first lost her horn. And any wild day thereafter.

  Where she stomped, her fire leapt through the ring of running night mares. And it struck the Singing Stones. Now they blazed in reddish-golden light.

  It was so bright and blazing, in fact, that Sabledusk had trouble seeing the wispy wood wink in its pumpkin shell. And so did Vision and Stormcloud, and Phantasm, and Shadowbutt, and Old Sooty. In fact, all the night mares were finding that the blazing light of Midnight’s wild fire was filling up their eyes and awakening them from being charmed. As they woke, they slowed down. Their own fires began to flicker in time with Midnight’s. In fact, all the fires burned the same color.

  “No, no, no!” shouted Jack.

  “That’s not the way this is supposed to go.

  You’re all my ponies, it’s very true….”

  “You know what,” said Curious. “I’m sick of you.”

  He leapt and kicked Jack in his pumpkin head with his ironshod foot. Jack hollered as the horseshoe burnt his shell. And he kept hollering as the pumpkin flew right off Jack’s body and crashed into the Whisperwood.

  Jack’s headless body leapt from the back of the new night mare and chased after the head, crashing into the forest. They heard it crashing through the undergrowth, and then it was gone.

  But then Midnight’s fire reached critical level.

  It exploded.

  Kaboom!

  Midnight stood alone in the center of a big ring of burned grass. Smoke rose from the ground. Her ears were ringing.

  Atop her head, she wore the Crown of Horns. It must have fallen there, in the aftermath of the explosion.

  “Wh-what happened?” she said.

  “You did it,” said Curious.

  He trotted over to her, careful where he put his hooves. Little fires blazed everywhere.

  “The stones?” she asked.

  “See for yourself.”

  Around them, the Silent Stones were back where they had always been. Or mostly. One or two of them might have switched places.

  “They aren’t singing anymore,” said Midnight.

  “No,” said Curious. “I think they are pretty worn out.”

  “Sleepy,” said Wartle from Curious’s back.

  Wartle hopped to the ground and began to sniff around.

  It wasn’t long before he discovered what he was looking for.

  “Winky!” he shouted. Wartle lifted an Absorbing Orb out of the remains of a smashed and smoldering pumpkin shell.

  The various members of the Curse were shaking their manes and stamping their feet. They looked like they’d all woken up from a dream. Or maybe, if you’ll pardon me, a nightmare.

  Each horse had a burnt and smoldering pumpkin shell in front of it.

  “What do we do now?” said Curious.

  “We should let the wisps go free,” said Midnight.

  “All of them?” said Curious. “You don’t want one to focus your fire?”

  “I like my fire as it is,” said Midnight. “Unfocused and wild. But what about you? Don’t you need to study the colors of magic?”

  “I think I’ve collected enough data for now,” said Curious. “Though of course I’m still interested in the subject.”

  Midnight nodded.

  Then she stamped on an Absorbing Orb. It shattered, and a wispy wood wink flew into the air.

  Following her lead, the horses of the Curse all stamped the orbs in front of them.

  Soon the air was alive with glowing blue lights. But they weren’t mesmerizing this time. Maybe they knew who had rescued them.

  The wispy wood winks bobbed away into the forest.

  “Good-bye, Winky,” said Wartle sadly.

  But then the last one turned. It floated back and began to circle the puckle.

  “Winky!” Wartle cried in delight. He ran around in happy circles. The wisp seemed happy too.

  “Is that everything, then?” asked Curious.

  “No, it’s not everything,” snarled the fairy in their midst.

  “Who are you?” asked Curious.

  The little fairy was thin and mousy, somewhat frumpy and disheveled. She had whiskers and long, droopy ears. And she was covered with the goopy, smoldering insides of burst and burnt pumpkin.

  But the look in her eyes was unmistakable.

  “Titania?” asked Midnight.

  “You’re supposed to say ‘Your Majesty,’ ” the fairy replied.

  “What happened to you?”

  “You happened to me, you stupid pony.”

  “I think she burned herself out,” explained Curious. “All that power coursing throu
gh her burned up her glamour. This is the real Titania, when she isn’t spinning illusions.”

  The queen glared at Curious angrily. Then she pointed at the Crown of Horns on Midnight’s head.

  “Well,” she said, “what are you waiting for?”

  “What am I waiting for?” asked the night mare.

  “You won. You have the crown now. Use it.”

  “Use it for what?”

  The fairy snorted.

  “To turn yourself into a unicorn again,” she said. “And to heal the Silent Stones.”

  “Lady,” said Curious, “we just stopped you from doing that. Why would we do it now?”

  “Because then you can drive out all the Wicked Fairies from the Whisperwood,” said Titania. “You can all be unicorns. You can have the entire isle to yourselves. Everything can be beautiful.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Midnight. “I don’t think everything that is beautiful is beautiful. Not really. And I think a lot of things that aren’t beautiful really are.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said the queen.

  “I think it does,” said Midnight. “Anyway, I’m not ready to judge who’s really a Good Fairy and who’s a Wicked one. I don’t think anyone should do that. Certainly not you.”

  “You simpleminded, ugly little pony,” said the queen. “Give me that.”

  She made a grab for the Crown. But she was tiny now, and weak.

  “Don’t you understand?” she said. Titania cast her eyes around at the Curse. “You could all be unicorns. All of you.”

  She tried to take the crown again.

  Just then something really big lumbered out of the Whisperwood. It was furry and sleepy. It had little red worms of flame running all over it.

  “It’s the Slumbering Cindersloth!” roared Old Sooty.

  The Slumbering Cindersloth raised its nose in the air, and it gave a great SNIFF.

  SNIFF, SNIFF, SNIFF, it went.

  It brought its nose to bear right in front of Queen Titania.

  “There’s something you should know,” said Midnight to the monarch. “The Slumbering Cindersloth really likes pumpkin.”

  The queen looked at the giant Cindersloth. Then she looked at the pumpkin innards spattered all over her.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “You really might want to run now,” suggested Midnight.

  The queen ran.

  With a happy bellow, the Slumbering Cindersloth took off after her.

  “You really might want to run now, Your Majesty,” they heard Titania call as she fled. “You’re supposed to call me ‘Your Majesty’!”

  And then they were gone.

  “What does she mean we could turn into unicorns?” asked Sabledusk, trotting up to them. “Who would want to be a unicorn?”

  “Well, actually,” explained Midnight, “you are a unicorn. We all are.”

  “I’m no unicorn,” snorted the leader of the Curse.

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” said Curious. “But you are. You see, the fairy queen was using Pumpkin Jack to collect your horns to make her crown. When Jack found a unicorn alone, one with a really powerful horn, he stole the horn for her. But the horn is what focuses a unicorn’s magic. Without a focus, your magic comes out all diffused and fiery. Hard to control. That’s what causes your fire. You’re all unicorns who have lost their horns.”

  “That’s why we night mares just appear in the Whisperwood,” said Midnight.

  “But I don’t remember being a unicorn,” said Sabledusk.

  “What’s your earliest memory?” Curious asked Midnight.

  “Running in a sort of dream, blazing fire, and my mother finding me.”

  “All that unfocused magic blazing out at once burns up your memories,” said Curious. “Unicorns are stuck-up. We’re prideful. We think a lot of our horns. Losing them is pretty traumatic. So you block it out. You forget what you can never have again.”

  “But why is Jack after our horns?” asked Midnight. “The crown wasn’t for him.”

  “No,” said Curious. “Jack rode each of you on the night he stole your horn. Somehow, when all that magic was released, he used it to enter the dreams of sleeping people. He told us himself that he fed on nightmares. It was that ability to open doorways to other places that he harnessed to send the stones away. He didn’t need the crown at all. He only wanted a whole herd of night mares and a bunch of Absorbing Orbs full of wispy wood winks. Helping the queen build the crown was just cover for his own plan.”

  “So,” said Sabledusk, “if we’re all unicorns…that’s going to take some getting used to.”

  “For us too,” said Curious. “But when I tell Goldenmane, I think he’ll want to reexamine the way we’ve been doing things. I don’t know, but I think that maybe this could be a new beginning.”

  “It’s certainly not an ending,” said Midnight. “There’s still a lot to be done.”

  But it was an ending, of sorts. And in the end, Midnight left the stones alone. To keep the Curse safe at night, without driving out the entire forest of Wicked Fairies. And Midnight gave each of the members of the herd a choice. Some of the night mares in the Curse wanted to be unicorns again. She healed them, and they were. The new night mare was one of them, and Curious wasn’t at all surprised to find that she was his friend Grace.

  Vision, however, stayed a night mare. As did Sabledusk. In fact, most of the Curse chose to stay as they were and live in the Whisperwood.

  But the wood itself had changed. Now green things grew. There were even some flowers among the thistles. But some new things had appeared too, strange creatures that had slipped through from Elsewhither. The Whisperwood was both more beautiful and more mysterious than it had been. And that was okay too.

  Only now it had visitors. You can bet that when the unicorns of the Blessing met the new unicorns of the Curse, they were surprised. Several of them recognized old friends and family that had disappeared long ago. Goldenmane wasn’t sure what to make of it, but Poor Mad Tom’s raft soon had a lot of work, ferrying unicorns and night mares back and forth across the River Restless. There was even talk of building a bridge. Not a bridge of smoke and memories, like a fairy might build—a proper bridge with wooden planks. Curious thought that it should be a covered one, like the one that had started it all.

  As for Queen Titania, she escaped the Slumbering Cindersloth, but she stayed shut up in her palace and didn’t show her face. A big black cloud rained over her palace every day, and nowhere else.

  As for another fairy, no one reported seeing Jack o’ the Hunt anywhere, though they searched for him high and low. Perhaps he was really gone. Perhaps not.

  Curious and Midnight saw each other as often as they could. Curious kept the horseshoe. It didn’t bother him anymore, and it certainly had its uses. But Midnight didn’t think anyone should keep the Crown of Horns. So one day, when she had healed everyone who wanted healing and was certain all the work was done, she asked her friend to meet her.

  “Are you sure about this?” Curious asked her as they stood on the banks of the River Restless. “I mean, you were a unicorn before Jack stole your horn.”

  Midnight laughed. “I am a unicorn still.” Then she neighed and tossed her head. “That sounds so strange. I always hated unicorns. Now I’m best friends with one.”

  “Best friends?” said Curious. And he stamped his feet nervously.

  “Of course, you idiot,” she said. “Hasn’t your Scientific Mind worked that out already?”

  Curious smiled.

  “Sometimes a Scientific Mind needs a Scientific Heart.”

  He nudged the Crown of Horns with a hoof. It was sitting on a rock by the shore.

  “So, time for the Experiment, then,” he said.

  “Time for the Plan, you mean.”

 
“If you’re sure you’re sure.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “How are you going to do this?”

  “How do you think? I’m going to Stomp!”

  Midnight lifted her hoof high in the air. She brought her hoof down hard, and she smashed the Crown of Horns. She smashed it to bits.

  Together, they gathered up the remains in their teeth and tossed them into the river. Then they stood together on the shore. It no longer mattered what side of the water they were on. So I won’t bother telling you.

  Once Upon a Unicorn couldn’t have been written without the enthusiastic input of my daughter, who has read every version of the book multiple times and has been very free in her criticism as well as her praise. I owe her for the idea of Tangleheads and some other neat bits and bobs that made their way into the manuscript.

  My wonderful early readers also deserve a mention. Huge thanks for the valuable feedback from Janica York Carter, Rebekah Carter, Jessie Carter, Abigail Tassin, and Terry C. Simpson and his daughter, Kai.

  I’m also indebted to my friend Mark Chadbourn. Mark is a writer of adult fantasy books, many of which deal with the Good Neighbors of Celtic mythology. His fairies are much scarier than mine, but his work gave me a love for the fey and their myriad magical courts.

  I should acknowledge the work of Henry Fuseli as well. Fuseli was a Swiss painter who, in 1781, produced a painting called The Nightmare, which was the first time anyone made the connection between mare the word for a female horse and the mare in nightmare. The Nightmare shows a sleeping woman being tormented by an evil spirit, while a somewhat sinister and, I think, rather goofy-looking black horse watches from the shadows. It’s because of Fuseli’s painting that the idea of evil black horses called nightmares entered into folktales and fantasy.

  Which brings me to the debt I owe to my father and to musician Johnny Cash. One of my dad’s favorite songs has always been “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” It’s a song about cowboys doomed to chase the Devil’s herd forever, riding through the clouds on “horses snorting fire.” I’m not a very big country music fan, and neither is my father, but that song has fascinated me since he first played it for me when I was very young. So I suppose night mares have been in me ever since Dad and Johnny put them there, looking for a chance to come out.