by Lisa Mangum
“He’s done it, folks! Xonometer has rescued the miners! I have to admit, I was afraid there for a moment. And there is the Super himself! He seems to—Wait a minute. Something’s wrong. It appears that Xonometer is injured. Not to worry, folks, emergency workers are there. And he is a Super, after all. Hold on—he’s waving them into the mine. Oh dear. There must be casualties. I heard it years ago from Magnificent! himself that this is exactly what every Super Hero fears, folks.”
Diane finally seemed to notice Christine standing beside her. “Go change out of your nice dress, Chris. I’ll make us something to eat.” She muted the TV.
“Xonometer wouldn’t leave me on my birthday.…and he saved all those people.”
“How about I order a pizza?” her mother said, trying to cheer her up.
Christine shrugged. She did like pizza. “With extra cheese?”
“Of course.” Diane ran her fingers though Christine’s curls. “Go on.”
Christine did as she was told, putting on her favorite Xonometer T-shirt and some shorts. Hurrying back down the stairs, she stopped halfway when the phone rang just as her mother was about to use it to order pizza.
“Hello,” Diane answered, making a silly face. Christine giggled. “Yes. This is she.” The silly look melted away. “Wha … What?” The sudden change in her mother’s tone made Christine grip the banister. “I—I don’t understand. Was there an accident at the lab?” Diane looked at her, fear plain in her eyes. “Is—” She choked on her words and put her free hand over her mouth as tears welled. “Is he alive?”
“Mom?” Christine asked, scared now herself.
The tears streaked down her mother’s cheeks. “Thank you,” she said softly and hung up the phone. She stood silently, one hand still on the handset.
“Mom?” Christine said again, more urgently.
Diane seemed to come back to herself. “Put on your shoes, honey. Dad was in an accident. He’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Just put on your shoes!” her mother said sharply. She immediately softened her tone. “We need to hurry.”
In minutes they were in the car and on their way back into the city. Christine had never seen her mother drive so recklessly: honking, shouting, swerving, and without a doubt, speeding, she made the drive in record time. They reached the hospital, parked, and were on the third floor at the ICU station before Christine could think to ask any questions.
“Jim Gonzalez?” Diane asked the nurse.
“And you are?”
“His wife.”
“Right this way, Mrs. Gonzalez.” The nurse exited the station and motioned for them to follow. She led them to a waiting room. “Please wait here. A doctor will be with you shortly.”
The room was filled to overflowing with families. Christine reached her hand into her mother’s for reassurance. Diane weakly smiled down at her, though Christine could see that her mother was equally frightened.
They didn’t wait long before a doctor stepped into the room. “Diane Gonzalez?”
“Yes?”
The doctor offered his hand. “I’m Dr. Stanzek.”
Diane took his hand. “How is my husband?”
“Walk with me to his room?” Dr. Stanzek motioned toward the door.
Christine held tightly to her mother’s hand as they left the waiting room. The halls were bustling with busy staff.
“Your husband suffered a crushed rib cage, a collapsed lung, a concussion, several broken bones, and massive internal hemorrhaging,” Dr. Stanzek explained.
“How—how did this happen?”
“He was caught in a rock slide, part of the mining accident that occurred this morning.”
Christine’s heart crawled into her throat.
“This morning? He had breakfast with us this morning. And brought his daughter into the city for her birthday.…”
“Yes, well, the miners trapped in the collapsed mine weren’t rescued until almost an hour ago,” Dr. Stanzek explained. They came to a door inside the ICU. “Regardless of the details, he is lucky to be alive.” The doctor’s voice became hushed as he pushed open the door and led them into the room.
Christine fought the tears that threatened to fall once again. The figure lying in bed couldn’t be her father. Sections of his thick, curly, dark hair had been shaved from his head and a visible patchwork of stitching crisscrossed his scalp. The rest of him was covered in bloodied bandages and a bouquet of tubes sprouted from all over.
“Lucky to be alive?” Diana said, dazed.
“Yes. If he hadn’t been brought to us so quickly, he would not have lasted long.”
Diane looked at the doctor. “The mines are at least an hour away. How did he get here so quickly?”
Dr. Stanzek nodded toward the corner of the room. “You can thank him for that.” A figure rose from the darkness, large, formidable, and masked. “I’ll leave you to talk, but your husband needs to know that you are here. He needs to hear that you love him.” He looked at Christine. “Both of you.”
The door closed behind him, and only the sound of the machine breathing air into her father’s lungs and the occasional beep filled the quiet. Stepping into the light, the figure raised his head to reveal bloodshot eyes.
Christine’s breath caught in her throat. It was him. Xonometer. His armor was battered and scuffed, some pieces even missing. The crimson and blue suit he wore beneath the armor was torn in many places. Stitches were visible under some of the larger tears, and dried blood stained the tough fabric, darkening the hue.
“Dia—Mrs. Gonzalez … I am so sorry.” Even his soft words had power to them.
“I don’t understand,” Diane replied.
“I couldn’t—I wasn’t strong enough.”
“What was my husband doing there?” Diane asked forcefully.
Xonometer looked at the bed. “He was helping me.”
“Why?”
The Super looked to the bed again. “Very few know this, but a side effect of using my powers is radiation. It causes rapid damage to my cells. It didn’t occur to me that it would be amplified inside the mine when my plasmight was centered around me. I—I should have known better.”
Christine overcame her awe and took a step forward. “You’re my hero.”
Xonometer squatted before her and smiled sadly. “I’m no hero. I’m no different than anyone else. I just have some nifty tricks.”
“Why was he helping you?” Diane demanded.
The hero’s smile vanished. “For the last two years, Jim has worked tirelessly to help me,” he explained, looking back and forth from mother to daughter. “I know he has neglected you to do so, and I am sorry for that, too.”
“To help you what?” Diane pushed.
“Stay alive.”
Christine’s breath caught in her throat.
Diane shook her head. “You are superhuman. How could he help you?”
“His serums have kept my powers from destroying me. They stabilize my cells and allow them to repair. He promised that he wouldn’t let the plasmight kill me. He wanted to tell you but, we knew if word got out that he was keeping me alive, you two would have become targets for my enemies.” He smiled again at Christine. “He came into the mine … I could hear the emergency workers shouting at him to stay back.”
Diane gasped, and Christine realized the truth. The lone figure running into the mine had been her father.
Xonometer rose and turned to face the bed. “Everyone would have died in that mine today if it hadn’t been for him, including me. So you could say that he is my hero.”
“Why are you telling us this if it puts us in danger?” Diane instinctively pulled Christine closer to her.
Xonometer turned to face them. “My world can’t know who the real hero is, but Jim told me once that you are his world. We probably should have told you long ago. There should be no danger, if you tell no one.”
Looking at the bed, Christine remembered the last words
she had said to her father as he had left her. Left her to go save her hero.
* * *
“Mommy?” Alora said again, distraught.
Christine’s mind returned to the present, brought back by the worry in her daughter’s voice. Smiling, she wiped the tears from her face. “I never thought I would see this again.” She sat back, and Alora snuggled up next to her.
“What is it?”
“It’s a purple unicorn your grandfather gave to me on my tenth birthday. I lost it when your father and I moved, shortly before you were born. I don’t know how it ended up here, of all places.”
Alora reached out and toyed with the clumps of melted plastic hair. “What happened to it?”
“A misunderstanding.” Christine handed the unicorn to her daughter. “I want you to keep this safe for me. It was the best gift Grandpa ever gave me.”
Alora took the toy and examined it more closely. “What was Grandpa like, then?”
“He was a hero.” Christine’s voice wavered as she tried to suppress her tears. “My hero.”
***
Of Unicorns and Pie
Nathan Dodge and Sharon Dodge
“No returns,” he growled at the customer at the counter as I watched nervously from near the shop door. You never think you’re going to be sneaking into a semi-legal exotic pet emporium, but when you realize you’ve forgotten your kid’s sixth birthday, you find yourself doing drastic things.
“You didn’t tell me it would get so crazy,” the guy whined, the pimply face adding no further weight to his case. He sounded like my daughter, Katie, when she didn’t get dessert.
“If you’d followed directions, you wouldn’t have a problem. Go clean up your mess. Not my problem.”
The guy started to protest, but the man just leaned in, like he was listening. It didn’t look threatening to me, but the guy stopped, his pale features turning another couple of shades lighter, and finally he ran out. The man behind the counter sighed. I gave him a minute before I approached him.
“Uh, I was wondering about your exotics,” I said, stumbling out of the gate. “I mostly see, like, turtles and fish. I heard you had weird stuff. My—”
“Do you bake?” he barked at me.
I blinked. I didn’t.
“Sure,” I fibbed. “Great rhubarb pie.” Grandmother Nettie used to make that, back when I lived in the proper South, not here in the dusty desert.
“Where’d you get the rhubarb? Don’t grow around here.” He stared me down, daring me to lie, again like Grandmother Nettie. But heck, I’d always risen to a challenge. A tiny smile found its way to my lips, and the story just came tumbling out.
“Grocery. Nowadays, they sell it just about anywhere. Plenty of sugar on top for a nice crisp crust. Put in just a touch of strawberry, but you shouldn’t overdo it. The pie loses its sense of self, otherwise.” That’s what my grandma used to say, anyhow.
The man nodded gravely, as if this conversation had anything to do with pets. For a second, I wondered if he had some sort of weird barter/trade thing going on, but his next words filled the gap.
“Can’t trust anybody to follow directions anymore. You bake, you can come look at ’em. Just follow the directions. Read it through first, ahead, plan it out. Then you make a nice pie.”
I nodded with him, oddly pleased with myself.
And then we entered the back room.
At first, I thought it was a bizarre aggregation of stuffed animals, like teddy bears, only not. There were a few dozen glass terrariums, the same kind as up front that held the turtles and fish, only here they were filled with other things. Everywhere I looked there was something unreal: tiny tigers with people faces, three-headed dogs, a harpy the size of a small chicken, and all sorts of other things. Only they weren’t stuffed. They moved and shimmied and coiled. Nasty things, things that seemed cool in textbooks, things that looked almost funny and quaint, only here they were in miniature with bright, beady eyes that watched me, weighed me, assessed me.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah, I mix it up,” he said calmly. “Whatcha looking for? Got a nice little salamander loves to cuddle—”
“It’s for Katie,” I interrupted. “Katie, my daughter. Got anything—sweet? Not so … dangerous?”
“Daughter?” he said, a frown twisting his lips. “Listen, these things are high-maintenance—”
“It’ll be taken care of,” I said. “I promise. It’s just … the harpy’s a little intense.”
“Yeah, Griselda always gets passed over. Such a sweet girl, too,” he sighed. “Hmm. I think I know the perfect pet—for a daughter. Come with me.”
Near the back, he stopped before a wire-mesh cage. Not a terrarium, or a fish tank—a cage like for a dog or a litter of kittens. I stopped, fascinated, feeling a warm tingle inside.
In the cage stood a unicorn. A real unicorn. No more than twelve inches high, light pink, its tiny, soft-looking horn covered with a haze of white fuzz, sort of like new deer antlers on a young buck.
“She’s very sweet and gentle,” he told me. “Thing is, she takes a good deal of care. She comes with a manual.”
“How much?”
“I’ve had her a while, and I need to move her, so she’s on sale. Normally fifteen hundred, but you can have her for half that, including the manual.”
I fretted. The budget I had in mind didn’t approach even the sale price. And yet … She—he’d said “she”—was so delicate, so comely, with large, dark eyes, delicate lines, and diminutive hooves, that I was quite taken. As I looked at her, she moved close to the metal mesh and made a sound not unlike a horse’s nicker, only about an octave higher.
“All right,” I said.
The store owner provided a small travel cage that braced her and held her in place, though considering the amount of cash I was putting down, it seemed only fair. As he took my credit card, he frowned and gave me a barrelful of last-minute advice.
“Be sure to read the manual. She takes a lot of care, like I said. All the way through. Feed her organic oats regularly, fresh and uncooked. I’ll throw in five pounds, but you will need to warn me in advance to order more. No more than an ounce a day at first, adding proportionately as she grows. And add just a pinch of sugar in her oats for flavor; she likes that. She’ll need more fruit and flowers as she grows. And make sure she has plenty of water at all times.”
He helped bundle us out to my car, carrying the oats, and adding one last tidbit. “One thing. She can’t handle negativity or fighting or conflict. She needs a calm household, lots of love and attention. Give her that and she’ll flourish.” For a moment, I felt kind of insulted; it’s not like we walked around hitting one another at home or anything. But as I nodded to him and turned the engine, my stomach tightened. Katie and I didn’t have words often. Did we?
My worries vanished under the hero’s welcome I got at home. Katie loved her, took to her immediately. Named her, of course, an absurd name, like most children pick out: Maryella. A name you might give a child. Not Spot, or Fluffy, or Pinkie, or even some racehorse name like Pride of Arizona. Maryella.
“Are you sure?” I asked. Silly question.
Things went well that first month. Maryella this, Maryella that. She was all Katie could think or talk about. Katie’s pet quickly became potty-trained, acclimating to a cat box of litter, and being careful never to make a mess.
I was pleased with myself; I read the manual, mostly, and drove out to the farmer’s market to pick up some of the flowers the book mentioned—nasturtiums and dandelions, even some broccoli flowers. They weren’t organic, but I figured close enough. Katie braided Maryella’s hair and then fed the flowers to her petal by petal, Maryella rubbing up against her like a cat after each one.
After that, however, Katie began to forget feedings, so I had to remind her. She still forgot, or stubbornly pretended to forget, perhaps hoping that I’d pick up the slack and let it slide. I covered for her during the next few weeks, and mostl
y kept the grumbling to myself, though the flowers were tossed in the bucket and I didn’t have time to measure the oats. But I did it, and close enough. After all, Katie seemed happy with Maryella.
I did have to remind Katie to be careful, because Maryella, at twelve inches high, resembled a toy terrier or Chihuahua in size, with delicate bones and tiny, fragile ankles, and a little rough play could be dangerous. Most of the time, Katie remembered.
Then Katie started to school—not kindergarten, but all-day school. While first graders don’t have a lot of homework, she was practicing addition and reading simple sentences, and though she’d greet Maryella happily every day when she got home, she’d also complain whenever I reminded her of Maryella’s care.
A couple of times, I’d stare down at Maryella’s bowl, trying to tell whether Katie really had fed her or not, like she’d said. Would my Katie lie? I didn’t have much time to wonder. I started going to PTA meetings and somehow was signed up for a fundraiser on top of work hours, and then a new kid moved in down the street whose mother wouldn’t let her come over, which irritated me to no end. So between school and the new kid whose house Katie had to go to, and homework and just plain daily life, she began to spend less time with Maryella.
I checked the manual again a month or so later, vaguely horrified to see we’d already missed the critical parsley and violets feeding; I threw some dried parsley in her dish that night. The manual also said she needed to be fed blackberries or fresh-picked raspberries, then have her hair braided and her teeth and horn brushed. It also recommended releasing butterflies in the house to help ensure proper coloration, though it thankfully said that wasn’t absolutely necessary.
I told Katie to at least brush Maryella’s hair, but she just said “I’m busy.” I resorted to nagging and tried to make sure at least the poor thing had her oats, and occasionally, I did a quick braid. Only I forgot the sugar in her oats and the water one night, and the next morning Maryella got sick all over the couch. Katie blamed me and I yelled at her, furious, reminding her of all the promises she’d made.
