Here is the tale as written from the young virgin from the perspective of a one-horned beast she allegedly aided in slaying:
THE UNICORN’S STORY – A BEGINNING
You think you see them—out of your eye’s corner. They may have been, just there, a moment ago, a few moments from now, but never quite, and certainly never now. He called them sages. Years ago my brother went looking for them, yet he refused my offer to help him.
“Stay invisible,” he said, “Stay in the forest. Stay alive.”
I listen often to the countryside’s peasants—the day to day tributes and escorts abounding to fulfill the newfangled rituals of time. They look for signs long past whilst trying to move forward.
A bride in an elegantly overstated tiara waits steadily in the forest for a unicorn—an old myth to beget a blessing from a horned beast who may visit a virgin bride, predicting a fruitful marriage with imminent prosperity.
I cannot tell you anything about prosperity. I do not visit the townspeople or the courtiers, the people we followed here from older lands to find new forests to dwell in and protect. Some people believe we led their cause, bringing the blessing of the alicorn across continents to heal a new and changing empire, but we too have always been searching.
I was never and I am always. I battle my unnatural curiosity of the aberrant and abysmal shadows that have become my forest. I know about my territory in the light, but stray away from the darkness in water, stark winter, and the high hidden rocks protruding only slightly from my meadows surrounding mountain cliffs.
You do not understand the alicorn and you will find the unicorns have no singular origin in earth’s history. Some will tell you how to capture us, but our truth resides in the traces of light scattered by the soul’s mirror. Some light and some darkness can only be seen out of the corner of your eye. I do not recommend seeking those visions. The true ugliness of evil and beauty of light are often shaded in the same gray area--a sight both frightening and wonderful enough to seal a man’s heart to cease.
I have watched many venture toward the novelty, but recently I crossed paths with a peculiar gentleman seeking fortune in the darker parts of the forest. He lived near the edge of the forest in a small estate with his large family, and his ventures led me to find things I cannot unsee. He never glimpsed me against the backdrop of atrocities partaking of his ignorance. He is the only person I have ever touched with my alicorn.
This is the story of my cursed burden through the eyes of a man so darkly affected; he was blind to my presence even as I saved him. These were his thoughts as he recanted the things half-seen in the forest:
THE FATHER’S STORY – UNWINDING
It was my son’s life I needed to make sense of. Chip was the youngest male Abbott. He was the strongest leader and never seemed afflicted with an overactive sense of self-importance or cruel abundance of curiosity.
I was taking my sunrise Sunday stroll along the eastern path of the family gardens when I saw massive amounts of blood clumped through the bushes and dotting thick strands along the dirt path. The ground almost eerily produced steam and coagulated with the red masses, creating a ghost-like appearance that palpitated my heart at an exponential rate as my walk increased from a steadied stroll to a panicked run toward the source of the monstrosity laying next to a form occupied by my son’s wild eyes.
In one hand, he adamantly clenched what looked like a knife; a solemnly florescent dagger with abnormal green coloration and ornate but opaque stone carvings. I almost cannot bear to remember in the other hand—which bore the half-present body of his baby sister, Margaret—her blood coating the pathways, staining the garden at his feet. The hand bearing the knife was his only clean appendage, the blood coating his person, myself awestruck in the nameless, accursed horror no father should witness.
My eyes fixed on that bloodless blade. It glimmered mysteriously, a warm angry edge gleaming in triumph over a stone. I felt it was meant to cleave against the pure sacrificial water from my innocent daughter, filling nature with unnatural infant’s blood. Its loathsome form freezing my body into painted silence, entrapped in a moment where I could not fear death, only affix my eyes to my youngest boy covered in the blood of my newest born daughter.
I thought about the stories about monsters I read to them; wolves in the forest, a young maiden waiting for a flock of sheep to cross a stream, and the small expected tragedies of children in the wilderness. I could not shift my focus. This tragedy bewitched my simple fact heart. I could not discern if the young man of my flesh was truly alive or if he was to commit patricide. Was he a madman and a murderer or an innocent child entrapped in a witch’s curse?
I woke up later in the evening, my skin cold to the touch, calling out for my family, but the night was silent, stark, and moistened by the taste of water condensing on bloodied stones. I do not know if my son had seen me there. I do not know if his sister’s death weighed upon his soul. I do not know if I had been intended dead, but as I surveyed my small stead, I felt as I had staring into the knife. A dark fascination came upon me. A combination of hatred, relief, admiration, and disgust haunted me, every step taking me closer to my home. As I reached the entrance, I was guided forward, a pale man nearly sleeping and edging toward the top of the tower.
There, I succumbed to a primordial reaching darkness, holding me stiff in the air, plunging me into thoughtlessness. My eyes flew open, the gore of the glistening, bloodless knife tattooing its image into my every sight. I was aware as my home and the rest of my family burned to the ground, but I did not see it. Only the knife was on my eyes as I heard the screams and felt the fire brush everything away. At the end of it all, I was just standing, on the grass, alone.
It was dawn. My murdered daughter, my disturbed son, dispersed somewhere in the wind and ash. My disoriented walk and perusal of the newspaper documented a fire in my home, no expected survivors; yet I walked in the woods. Now I needed answers. I wanted to absolve myself through seeking the answers to questions that may likely be asked later. For now, hiding was my only option.
I shrugged. There was a large scar on my shoulder. I thought a few moments. I could not find accurate or studious contemplation to aide me in explaining the deaths of my family nor my survival. I set off deeper into the forest to avoid interviews. I passed through clean areas, animal habitation, until I did not feel alone anymore.
I stopped to rest midday in a small meadow. The forest fell deathly quiet without a birdsong in earshot. The grass seemed to sparkle in short, indescribable shimmering, like the ocean in a soft breeze. I slept in the meadow until darkness fell upon me.
In sleep, I began to dream.
There was a man walking on stairs of ink black stone that was quartered and halved, creating only what I could imagine the labyrinth of a greater minotaur from the ancient cultures would look like. It was uncomfortably smooth, beautiful, and racing against my efforts for restfulness. I became afraid of the dark.
There was always something in the light, but I did not dream of it. Only the cold stone, with the door or gates at the abysmal creation of the netherworld, could compare to my deepest felt horrors and losses of the day. I may have stayed in the meadow for days or weeks. I had no concern for food or human interaction – I wanted to find the knife my son had used. I kept falling into the catastrophic stone obelisk and steps – staring into the stark, black undertones for the answers to questions I feared asking.
Were all of their bodies in the fire?
The meadow nourished me. The curse of searching leading to knowing the full extent of the horror-some life in which I’d just been cast, left me sleeping there; a long undeserved surprise for the devil just laid in the grass, awaiting execution.
I was once a good man with a decent family, a versatile plot of land, and humble estate that may have become more had my heirs continued. Headlines for a psychotic, murderous rampage and familial extinction might bear my name.
Distracted by horses, in the wind I saw a wate
ry elastic agent, spewing nature with grotesque, oblique, dark strands as large as ponytails. I saw slimy horses’ tails in only one part and big black eyes. I saw wings, and a bloody hand resting in the squirming snakelike beard of the creature standing in front of me. I saw the black stone again.
Silent screams of desperation lifted from my lungs and other beings of the forest, a panic fondled by shadows waiting to suck the light from the soul as blood soaked my hands. Fire set to my hair, and my own shrieking began to sound beautiful as I touched a hand dangling there, it rose from the center of hair almost lifted by a dark mud rising into the air. It calmed my asphyxiation as if I was resting by the mouth of the sea.
I saw star-burned stone covered by long legs and pulsating eyes. I grabbed at cold air and fainted. The last thing I saw was a spiral of golden shell, poignant against the burning sky.
I smelled ash, and then truly awoke as myself again. I’d survived three weeks in the meadow not nearly alone with the shadows and light that will forever occupy my nightmares.
THE UNICORN’S STORY – AN ENDING
We survived the bloodiest day in Westport. He did not know it was a unicorn that saved him in the meadow. He had never heard of the alicorn’s magical properties or attempted to capture one of us. He is the only man to have drained my alicorn’s magic to be healed. He was the only reason that I have come up to humanity or lent aide. And it was because of that decision on that day that I am here---awaiting my execution.
After saving the father, I rested my head in the lap of a beautiful thirteen year old virgin. I rested a long while as I dreamed of the hideous and unnatural shadows of the past weeks. She was a servant girl, and had enough kindness in her heart to be a princess ten times over.
As some of the poison from the experience drained from me, I saw in her young face the horror of ancient mysteries too incomprehensible to share. Her eyes darted as the man’s had, as if staring into that unbloodied yet murderous knife.
And in that realization, we were surrounded by a pen. Without time to remove the curse I’d disposed in her comfort, she was removed from the iron cage.
As I’d slept, the enclosure was built around me, and I am here with this silent, pale child, awaiting my execution for harvest of my body and horn – if only I had listened to my brother.
I could still read parts of her soul—she’d been promised a sweet pet if she sat down in the meadow. She had experienced her first horror and betrayal in one day. Did she know that we unicorns fight against forces older than time? Could she see any beguiling selfish acts, or hear villainous hearts beating in the leaders of her town and her country? Had she seen where we came from? Why we were here? Would I remain an unrecognized inkling in the book of time because I stayed with a grieving father?
Sometimes poison is of the mind and I could only remove so much. Those details he needed to remember that time had passed would remain, but I took away the evil poisoning of the black rock, and dark madness which man cannot comprehend. My horn was drained, my life will be lost, and now, I will lose my soul for placing such evil within an innocent.
I thought timelessness made me weary, but here, about to be absorbed and finished after an unrest sleep has trapped me into a cycle of simultaneous indescribable moments of the past that is, the now that was, and the future that may be.
This is how most battles are lost: magic is lost to the beauty of the innocent for the sake of an old, grieving fool.
MARY WROTE
The only remaining text read, “Help me.”
It sent chills down my spine as I inquired with the good professor if I might keep the girl’s memoir with my other strange writing, but he refused and asked for its return. I took time to inquire around town of the disappearances and rumors in the story, but I was unable to obtain any empirical backing. Before planning to return to Newport, as a last resort, I ventured into an apothecary, and noticed a bottle on the shelf. The shelf was newly dusted and there was a green bottle clearly labeled ‘Unicorn’s Alicorn’. I asked the shopkeeper what ailments he would use the contents for.
He told me that the history of unicorns only confirmed they were rare creatures—most cultures had a form of the beast and only two things remained consistent. When I looked him in the eyes, awaiting a reply, he gulped and shrugged his shoulders.
“The unicorn can be attracted by a virgin woman, and the horn possesses magic and healing properties.” I nodded in acknowledgement, but the price for the horn was too extravagant for a professor returning home. I went to the local library and was unable to discern the origin of the unicorn mythos, or the credence in Mary Smith’s account of the unicorn’s story.
Although the sister had relayed that her sister had died, I was uncertain as to whether she had actually passed away, as there had been no obituary or plan for funeral services. I bought three white roses and went to the Smith home to seek out the virgin or pay my condolences to the family.
When I got to the estate on Farmer’s Landing, the doors and shutters were all closed. The house creaked in the slight wind and there was no answer to my knocks at the door. I was about to leave the home, when the police chief came to the home upon suspicion of breaking and entering. He stood next to me at the front and then he slowly twisted the door knob. On the walls, floor, and ceiling, there was black ink depicting asymmetrical stone walls, large eyes, tentacles, and dark shadows drawn into corners full of blood in charcoal and ash. The inside of the house looked burned, but the blood was not charred and the drawings were not disturbed.
A line of blood led out the back door toward the field. The young virgin, Miss Mary Smith sat cold and dead in the center of the meadow, clutching a small sac of white, unburned hair with silver streaks. One of her eyes had turned completely to green marble, but I was unable to obtain a copy of a coroner’s report or record a statement for my collection of these events.
The mysterious knife described in the father’s portion still baffles me and I have continued to try to find it. I also sent notes to a few of my colleagues to watch for additional texts containing information or conjecture on unicorns and their relation to light and shadow. I do not wish any unicorn ill-treatment, but if there are answers among more charitable beasts, the endeavor for more knowledge may prove more fruitful once we understand more about these magical creatures, and their place in recognizing the beings we may not wish to encounter, lurking out of time in the corner of our eyes, or in the appendices of our course books.
“Inspector Swinburne, Arkham Police Department!”
Swinburne’s announcement was followed by three loud raps on the door before it opened, revealing a small, toothless man who greeted him with an unsettling smile.
“Evening, officer,” he said with a nod. “What brings an officer of the Arkham Police all the way down past Dunwich to visit my home at this hour?
“Well, Mr. Planter, in case you haven’t noticed, the rest of your town has vanished,” Swinburne responded sternly. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the disappearance of 104 people on August 14, would you?”
“Now that you mention it, things have been mighty quiet over the last month,” the old man said while rubbing under his chin. “My wife and I usually keep to ourselves, though, so there wasn’t much reason for us to worry about there being no visitors these last few weeks. We don’t care much for the uneducated folks who live…or lived, I guess I should say…around here.”
“I see,” Swinburne replied. “And you didn’t find it at all strange that during your trips into Arkham or Kingsport, no one else from Dunwich was ever traveling to or from town along the same road?”
“Well…no,” Planter said with a wave of his hand. “You know as well as I do that folks around here are a bit backwards. They were all probably too embarrassed to go into town anyway after the calf skin debacle, anyway.”
Swinburne had wondered if Planter would bring that up. On August 10, a woman who worked for the mayor of Dunwich had traveled to Arkham to sell some
goods at the market. According to the vendors working that day, she attempted to unload an alarming number of cow hides for a ridiculous price. After being told by every one of them that she could get no more than 1 percent of what she was asking, the woman stormed back to her car and drove away.
The incident had been nothing more than a local source of amusement until a few weeks had passed. That’s when a few of the store owners began reporting that their regular customers from Dunwich had not come by for their usual purchases…except for Mr. Planter, who was able to buy more than he ever had before.
Going out to Dunwich was something that no one in the department ever wanted to do, but it was Swinburne’s turn to mingle with the ‘inbred yokels’, so he made the first trip out. To his surprise, however, the small town was almost completely deserted. The streets and shops were empty, making the tiny village feel even more eerie and unnatural than it already did.
The nearby farms were also completely abandoned, absent of both their owners and livestock. The only sign of inhabitance to be found was a herd of sheep grazing in the back yard of Mr. Planter’s home.
When Swinburne knocked on the door that afternoon, Mrs. Planter had nervously told him that her husband would be home later that evening. That brought him back to the now desolate town around 8:00 PM in the evening, where he stood in front of the only possible suspect and witness the department had for the missing townsfolk.
“Can you remember the last time that you saw any of your neighbors?” Swinburne asked while raising an eyebrow.
“You know, come to think of it, I do remember something,” Planter replied as a toothless smile stretched across his face. “There was some big hubbub up near Peasants Pond around the date you say everyone went missing. Seemed like almost the whole town was headed out there. I didn’t go, of course, on account of me not preferring the company of such backwards folk. But you may want to check there first.”
A Mythos Grimmly Page 13
