by Mindi Meltz
What makes the motion of the river? Not the passion of the water itself but only its reaction to the land that shapes it. The water only outlines the contour of the land; it is a song about that shape, a song about the land, or the empty spaces in the land….
Sometimes Yora hears new voices now—not the voices in her head or of people, so heavy, but voices from the river itself. She hears the minnows that remain, pretty and quick, and now holding completely still even as the stream glides past them. She hears the dragonfly nymph, gripping the loose soil at the bottom with crooked legs, and the algae sunning itself on the stone. Yora, they say. Yora, come home. How do they know her name?
She can look at the river in different ways. She can watch the image of its form, for it has a form, though the form is glossy and blurred and made of pure motion. Every drop of water that passes follows the same looping roll over the same stones, and that continuity gives the impression of permanent shape. Yet she can also follow the motion of the river—each drop passing so swiftly she can barely understand it. It is here and then gone. She could never run that fast.
The river is like a person, like a human being. Like Lil. The way she seems to be the same person, day after day—every time Yora sees her, she’s in the same form, the same image, with the same gestures and ways of speaking. Yet the cells that make up a human body die and are reborn constantly, just as the river’s water is replaced by other water, coming and coming, instant by instant. So it is not the same river, and not the same Lil. Maybe that’s the secret to magic. Maybe that’s the secret to the river’s freedom.
Still, the illusion holds.
Except that Yora has sat here long enough to see that even the illusory sameness of the river will change very gradually over time. The water flowing again and again over the same spot will begin to wear it down, or at some moment that cannot be predicted or explained, a pebble will finally come loose. Then the pathway will change just a little, and the shape of the water will change—but only enough to be seen by someone who has watched it for a very long time.
This happens because of the conversation between the river and the stones. Things change because of conversation. Yora knows this.
Also she knows the relationship between the river and the sun. She knows why the drops of the river move not only onward but upward, why they lift into the air by the thousands without ever being seen, why one day in early winter there will be nothing left but a channel of dust where the river once was.
Sometimes Dragon comes near. Yora can hear him calling her name, or she can feel him pulling at her heart. But more and more, the river pulls stronger. She cannot go to him yet, because she is figuring something out, and it excites her, though it pains her too. She wants to call out to him, to reassure him, to comfort him in some way, but when she speaks, her voice sounds like the voice of the river. And Dragon isn’t listening to the river, because he doesn’t know that’s who she is.
But Lil knows. Maybe that’s why only Lil can see Yora, when Yora is here with the river. Or maybe it’s because Lil is a woman.
It was Mira’s father who first told her about the Unicorn. All the original peoples, he said, know about these things.
The Unicorn is descended from the moon, he said. The Unicorn brought the people written language, and stood by the people, right beside their souls, throughout all the centuries of their mistakes and arrogance and hope and failure. It is the only immortal animal. One day, when we see it walk among us, we will know that we can feel hope again.
But where is the Unicorn now? asked Mira.
Ask the animals and the plants—they are the only ones who know.
So she asked them. She knelt in the grass, pressed her lips to the cold earth, and whispered. She called to the Unicorn, whom she had begun to dream of at night, whose smooth face was cold and pure, and whose eyes were her mother’s eyes before her father had changed. She knew she could never be like that princess from the stories who tempted the Unicorn to lie down beside her, and who was rewarded for her beauty by the unicorn’s white, magical fields of comfort. She was too ugly inside, too hateful and frightened, too guilty.
haven’t you ever felt the Unicorn? said the grass. when it comes, you feel the air snap and spark, like when the sky holds its breath before a thunder storm.
there are many Unicorns, said the ants, their voice a wave that made her close her eyes.
no, there is only One, said the praying mantis, his arms flexing, his green face more human than Mira felt her own to be.
the Unicorn is very proud, said the caterpillar, hurrying away. he won’t speak to you.
But the butterfly said, the Unicorn is the humblest animal alive. she travels round and round the world, but will spend all day hearing out the sorrows and longings of a single flower in a single meadow.
Mira crawled on. In those days, she’d taken to moving about the meadow almost entirely on her hands and knees. It felt too dangerous to stand up. And also lonely.
everyone loves the Unicorn, explained the dandelion, who trembled because it was not in his nature to speak. but we can’t understand our love. we can’t say what moves us, what happens to us. when the Unicorn is near, we know, suddenly, what we are. we can even perceive our own beauty, or understand suddenly what beauty is, and that we are a part of it—something larger than us—and the colors, when one looks upon us…but what is color? it isn’t something i understand, but when the Unicorn comes, i know it is in me!
Mira stroked the dandelion with her finger.
the Unicorn is masculine, said the dragonfly. He seized the body of his mate with thin brutal legs, curling his body to touch its tip to hers, and Mira began to weep. when He comes, the flowers overflow with pollen and all females are immediately fulfilled.
no, whispered the mosquito, hiding in the grass so the dragonfly wouldn’t see her, the Unicorn is infinitely female.
But where is She? begged Mira. How can I find Her?
i have seen Her, said the ladybug.
no you haven’t, said the mole. no one sees the Unicorn and lives.
what do you know? countered the ladybug. you’re blind.
exactly, said the mole cryptically.
But how can I find Her? asked Mira again.
oh, answered the ladybug, you can’t find Her.
the Unicorn has a secret, hissed the deadly nightshade.
What secret? asked Mira.
the only secret. the secret that holds the world together.
you must tame the Unicorn, said the blackberry vine, pushing its way mercilessly through the field and over the heads of the less assertive plants. if only you could tame the Unicorn, we would all be free. no one would ever again be afraid.
Me? asked Mira.
whatever you are, the vine said carelessly, clutching her in its thorns as she tried to back out of the thicket. a human, or whatever.
I don’t want any blackberries, said Mira. Why are you tearing at me?
She had to crouch low to the ground, lay flat against it, and slither her way out.
the Unicorn smells like saltwater, the snake told her. Like tears.
Everyone said something different.
One rabbit, peaceful and still as he spoke about it—in a way that rabbits never are, not in their whole lives—said, the Unicorn is the gentlest of beings. when He comes near me, i finally feel safe.
But another twitched all over at the mention of the name. the Unicorn is terrifying! she said.
it draws you irresistibly, said the luna moth. you become obsessed. you lose yourself. it’s terrible. you must be careful.
it is only this, said the spider, when Mira finally returned to her—the one whose web spanned eighteen grass blades at the very center of the meadow, and who, if she was in the right mood, would always tell Mira the truth about what the other animals said, or what was really going on.
But often she was mysterious in her statements. Mira admired her but was a little afraid, too. The spider was giant and black and yellow. the Unicorn is the holiest aspect of every creature, she said today. your reaction to it depends on your relationship to your own divinity.
I don’t understand.
The spider tapped each central string of her web, as if testing for echoes.
don’t listen to what the other animals say. how will you react, when you come face to face with what you seek?
But it was a bee who spoke plainly to her, finally, one day when Mira had given up searching, and lay in the field with her spirit floating above her, trying to understand what her body was—what it was for, why it felt so awful. The bee bounced in the air, touching her skin, brushing it with his tiny feet, here and there, here and there, kissing and waking each sensation. To Mira it hurt more terribly than if he had stung her.
Stop, she cried. What are you doing to me?
the Unicorn is inside you, Mirr, said the bee. The animals did not call her Mira; they called her Mirr, the name she called herself by—the name that, even then, sounded like a murmur at the bottom of the sea.
What do you mean?
the way the color is inside a flower, but the flower can’t see it. the Unicorn is inside you. that’s why your father wants to get in. he wants the Unicorn.
Mirr remembers that time still, when all the animals surrounded her, when they knew her name, when they answered her. Each of the parts of her body was an animal. And over time, isolated here beneath the earth, beneath the sea, those animals have been dying one by one. Look now, if she holds out her arms, she can hardly see her hands. Look now, at her belly—it is pooling into hips that don’t belong to her, that belong to someone else. She cannot feel her feet. She cannot feel her ears. One by one, these animals that make her up are dying. No one can see her. No one knows her. Soon, there will be nothing left here in this corner of darkness under the sea but a space, and the smell that animals leave behind.
Her father overdosed the same night that he finally entered the girl he called Mia all the way. After that, Mira couldn’t feel her body any more, and she didn’t speak any more, not even to the smallest blade of grass. Because she believed he had found that Unicorn inside her, and taken it with him into the Other World. She had never seen it, never understood it for herself, but she thought she could tell that he had taken it away, the way a flower would be able to tell if it no longer had a color, but just stood bewildered, lightless and grey, in the sun.
On the last day of our journey, it rains nonstop. Lonely shivers all the time, her eyes bulging out of her head like the eyes of the dead. Water beads on the boar’s hairs and drips silver to the ground. But I keep my pace steady. I do not think about what will happen once we get there.
She doesn’t recognize the field when we arrive after nightfall. Her eyes are not registering things the way they used to, and anyway she has never faced it from this direction before.
She doesn’t recognize the waving grass because it is pink and brown, its tassels full of empty seed husks. The wind hurries a mass of chill mist across the hills and empties the rain like ice chips against her face. But there is something familiar about the shape of the darkness.
Then she sees the smoke rising and thinks of Delilah. What she learned about fire—its mystery, and the hope in that mystery. I carry her over the brink of a hill and she sees the little wooden house with the tiny yellow lights flickering inside. And she knows that fire is the spirit of the house, and that where fire is lit within a house, it means someone is alive inside. She feels something burning inside her, too, after all. She feels both relief and anger. Because she realizes now: she realizes how much she hoped that I was, all this time, taking her to him.
She realizes I wasn’t.
She sees she is back again, with nothing. Just as she will arrive one day soon at the feet of the old woman, trapped in the middle of the sea, with nothing to show for the love only she believes in. But I had to come here. I think she will be safe here, and that they will show her what to do next.
We hear Rye’s and Fawn’s horses locked in their stable, stamping, whinnying, aware of our arrival. I remember when the mare called me to run with her. Life was easier then. I did not yet admit to who I was, and I had no responsibility. I was just an animal. Almost, I want to stop and speak with them, but I have no time. I have work to do.
I stop at the crest of the hill. Lonely thinks she sees movement inside the house. Her mouth waters suddenly at the thought of food.
“This is where I leave you,” I say.
Lonely looks down at a Unicorn’s wet mane. I am that Unicorn. I kneel.
She stumbles off, too surprised to resist. But as I stand again, she wraps her arms around my neck.
“You can’t,” she says. “Where are you going? You’re all I have. You said you would take me home.”
“This is as far as I can take you. You have to go the rest of the way yourself. So do I.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “But once before, long ago, someone owned me. And it destroyed me. I don’t want to be owned again.”
“But I won’t own you. I won’t ride you any more, not ever. Just be my friend. Please.”
“I am. I am going to help you,” I say desperately.
“How are you going to help me? Do you know where he is?”
I can see the stars behind her head, framing her face as if they are not billions of distances away, so much sharper in the cold. We speak more easily to each other now. “I think,” I say, “when a man feels unsure about his own power, he will always hurt the woman he loves. In one way or another.”
I know she isn’t fully listening, but to me this is what I’ve been meaning to say all along. This is the wound that must be healed. Now. I have to go and find him.
“But where is he?”
“The where does not matter,” I tell her.
“Of course it matters! I would do anything to have him here with me again, anything just to trace his face with my eyes—” She tries to see through her tears into my eyes.
I do not know what that feels like—the kind of need she speaks of. It is another language for me. But we both think of Sky and his fear.
“What do I do?” she whispers.
“You know things,” I say, suddenly angry. “You must realize the things you know, so that you will not get hurt this way, over and over again!”
We are both startled by my passion.
“Here,” I say, feeling sorry, “take this. I don’t need it.” I bow my head and rest my horn in her hands. When I lift my head, the horn remains in her hands, loosely glowing. I feel relief. For a moment, I glimpse again the easy, simple suffering of mortal life—and I think I will spend all my days running with the mare, and all my nights sleeping in hay, and I will never fear men, and I will have no body but this one, and when I die, any earth, anywhere, can claim me.
“But you do need this,” she says, frightened. “You’re somebody’s soul.”
I hang my head. In a way I don’t even know what the horn was for. But I know it was heavy.
“I know,” says Lonely suddenly. “I understand. I want to deny the darkness in me. It terrifies me. And you—you want to deny your light! That’s why we’re together.”
But I am moving now, because I can’t bear it any longer—I am a wind of fading light, flashing across the field faster than any animal can run, and gone into the darkness.
I don’t want to talk about myself any more. Not now.
Back in the field, Lonely looks down at the horn. Then she closes her eyes and remembers her lover’s face when she first looked up at him, his eyes illuminated beneath the wings of his brows, his jaw loose, his lips heavy, unconscious of their own hunger. She remembers the firmness of his hand in the clouds, and the way th
at certainty gave way to trembling.
She wraps the horn in a fold of the boar skin and tucks it against her body. She’s not sure what it means, but surely it means something. Surely it will help her somehow. She will keep it until she knows. Maybe it will help me to find him. But at the thought of losing the Unicorn, she begins to cry again, feeling she has lost the one and only thing she could depend on.
Cold and hunger make her walk onward toward the house. She doesn’t know what she will say when she comes to the door. She holds her humbled heart still, in its quiet womb of sorrow. She carries her heart carefully, like a jug of sacred light, and she wears the skin of that dark animal that feeds her in dreams—that dark animal that keeps her alive.
When she arrives at the door, knocks, and stands under the woodshed to keep out of the rain, she is holding her heart in her hands, as her beloved once held it in his, so she can use it to see by.
Delilah eats fruit only in the fall, when the pomegranates are ripe.
She picks one from the grove she knows, by the sandy cliffside at the river’s edge. It’s the last of the season, but still white like an old man’s head most of the way around, and it’ll be sour. She doesn’t mind. She likes them sour. Smiling to herself, she sits down by the waterless river and slices it open on a stone with her little meat-carving knife. Its bloody juice drips into the mud.
She sees the shimmer of Yora’s body where the water once was—like heat waves, like ice—but at the same time that human form is fading more and more into the movement of the river. At first Delilah was surprised that Dragon couldn’t see her, but now she knows why.
“But I don’t get it,” she tells Yora. “The river was always here, right? But I didn’t really feel it before. I don’t understand how you’re a person but also the river. I don’t understand what a god is. I don’t understand how you’re here with me, in one place, but you can’t be, because the river stretches all the way from the mountains to the sea, and isn’t your spirit everywhere?”
“Yes.”
