Melody's Unicorn

by Richard Swan

  ‘What do you mean?’ Melody asked after a pause.

  Corann looked up and gazed at her. He had a thoughtful, concerned expression which she realised was a permanent feature of his personality. He regarded her steadily with his deep brown eyes, and she returned his look, neither embarrassed nor offended by his appraisal of her. It was as if he were trying to look inside her, to see more than her features revealed. Eventually he smiled.

  ‘I mean what I say, like I usually do. Tamar’s not alone in failing to understand you, although he finds it hard to understand anybody at all. He’s too wrapped up in himself and his own troubles. For a change, however, I can’t understand you either. That’s not a boast. Normally I can see what people are, what they want and what their purpose is. That’s my gift, as it is yours, but in this case we’re both unsure.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘Yes. There’s something odd about you – I mean something mysterious, and I don’t know what it is. Neither do you. For such a perceptive girl, you have a very restricted view of yourself.’

  Melody was inclined to resent such a remark and an angry reply rose to her lips, but she stifled it. Her curiosity made her want to know more. She merely looked her annoyance, and let him continue.

  ‘You think you’re like Tamar. You think your power lies in breaking things down, like your front door trick. That’s part of you, sure, but there’s more to you. There’s another side you can’t see, and a side I can’t see.’

  ‘That’s three sides,’ Melody couldn’t help pointing out.

  Corann laughed as he so often did. It seemed impossible to upset or rile him.

  ‘Surely. It would be a poor human being who only had two sides. I’ve got eleven myself.’

  Melody laughed too, snapping out of her irritation. ‘All right. But what are these other sides which I’m so blind to?’

  Corann became serious again.

  ‘You’re a girl. No, don’t get offended,’ he said quickly, raising a hand to forestall any response from her. ‘I’m not sexist like Tamar. I’m merely pointing out that he’s partially right – girls are more often menders, not breakers, and as you’re a girl that part of you is just as strong as anything else. You’ve ignored it, that’s all, for reasons I can’t quite see.’

  Melody turned this over in her mind. He was touching on her secret grief, the effect of the loss of her mother. Her mother had taught her to be caring and loving, and had betrayed her by disappearing just when Melody needed her most. Melody’s father had attempted to take up where her mother had left off, but Melody had locked away her sorrow and tried not to let anyone know her so closely again. Her loss fuelled her power, she knew that, and she didn’t want Corann to start uncovering that private pain. She decided to turn the conversation.

  ‘So what’s this third side that has even you baffled?’ Her reluctance to talk about her mother made her sound petulant, but as ever he remained placid.

  ‘It has you baffled too. There’s something that drives you, some will that isn’t connected with your sadness. I can’t believe you’re here by accident – indeed I know you’re not – but I can’t work out the strength of purpose inside you, given that you don’t know yourself.’

  Melody strove to remain calm, but she was shocked at how clearly he sensed the secret she was trying to keep from him. His remarks about her purpose also fitted in with what she had thought following her encounter with the dryad, and she realised just how perceptive he was.

  ‘So how am I supposed to found out what this purpose is?’

  Corann shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It will reveal itself in time, I hope. Meanwhile you must stay and learn, which is what you came here for, after all.’

  ‘How do I learn?’

  ‘You’re already learning. Already you’re a different person from the one who arrived yesterday, and you won’t be the same person tomorrow, or the day after.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Tomorrow, I think, you should work with Cush.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘She. She’s a healer, a mender. She’s coming to fix the front door. I want you to help her. After that I think it’s time for you to go into London and start finding your way about. And soon I’ll send you to meet Alwyn.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘A seer.’

  ‘A seer?’ echoed Melody. ‘You mean a fortune teller? Someone who can see the future?’

  ‘Nobody can do that. No, she can’t see the future, but she can see many things, some of which aren’t obvious to the rest of us. She may be able to see more in you than we can. It’s worth a try, anyway. Now, I have jobs to do, so you’ll have to excuse me. You can go and find Tamar, see if you can convince him you’re not the devil in disguise.’

  ‘Building bridges?’

  Corann laughed once more. ‘Building bridges,’ he agreed.

  Melody spent the rest of the afternoon trying to build bridges, but by the end of it she felt she’d got nowhere. It was all in vain anyway, as any faint scaffolding she’d tried to put in place was rudely swept away in the evening. The four of them had eaten another dinner in near silence; not the calm of shared companionship, but the uneasy quiet sometimes maintained by warring factions who are trying not to fight. Or, as Melody thought, enemies manoeuvring for position before the start of a battle.

  If it was warfare, Melody was completely wrong-footed shortly after the meal. Ruric had disappeared upstairs, leaving the rest of them to wash and dry the dishes. They had just taken coffee and tea into the lounge when he came in looking determined but grim, as if he had decided on a course of action that was against his better judgment.

  ‘Here,’ he said without preliminaries, as if he wanted to get it over with quickly, ‘take this.’ He held something out to Melody, and when she opened her hand to receive it she found the object was a gold ring. She recognised it instantly.

  ‘But it’s your ring!’ she protested.

  ‘True, but it’s no use to me anymore, as Corann has kindly pointed out to me.’ The bitterness in his voice was evident. ‘He thinks you may be able to make use of it. Maybe he’s right.’

  ‘But it’s yours!’ Melody protested again, attempting to give it back. She didn’t know what Corann or Ruric were trying to achieve, but she did know she didn’t want anything of Ruric’s.

  ‘It was mine. It’s yours now. I’ve given it to you.’

  ‘But I don’t want it.’

  ‘You may do,’ Corann broke in. ‘Listen to me, Melody. You don’t want it because it’s Ruric’s ring. But it hasn’t always been his. Far from it. It’s an ancient thing. How old, we don’t know. Centuries old, certainly, so you could say that Ruric’s merely been its keeper for a while. If you like, you can think that you’re just its keeper for a while too. It will pass to other owners after you’ve finished with it. But there’s more to it even than that.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘This ring has been to the other world, to Faërie.’

  Melody looked at Ruric. ‘You’ve been across the border?’

  ‘No. I’m not that stupid. One of its former owners did. We don’t know who, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a ring that has touched the other world, so its real age cannot be guessed. Time passes differently there, as we all know, so this ring may be thousands of years old in our reckoning.’

  ‘The point is,’ put in Corann, ‘that you can tell from the ring itself that it has travelled across the border. I don’t know if that will help you discover more, but it’s worth trying.’

  Melody hesitated, torn between curiosity and distaste. She still didn’t want a ring that Ruric had used, but she was excited by the chance that it might help her in some way.

  ‘What will it do? Does it have special powers?’

  Ruric shook his head. ‘Not at all. Like all rings, it only focuses your own power. It will give you nothing that you don’t have yourself.’

  ‘To an ordinary person it’s an ordinary gold ring,’ added Corann.
‘You’re not ordinary, and it may help you use the power within you better, so that you understand it more clearly. That’s our hope.’

  ‘Your hope,’ said Ruric. ‘I don’t know any such thing. However, Corann has persuaded me that you should have it.’

  Reluctantly, Melody closed her fingers over the ring, accepting the gift. She didn’t want to put it on yet, but held it in her closed hand and looked up to thank the others. Corann was smiling, pleased that his plan had worked. Ruric was stony-faced, closed against her. Tamar, who had witnessed the whole event in silence, looked miserable. So much for building bridges, thought Melody. He’ll probably never speak to me again. If there’s anything guaranteed to turn him further against me, it’s favouring me with a magical ring that he must yearn to have himself. Great.

  She avoided looking directly at Tamar, and thanked Ruric for being willing to part with the ring. She said that she understood that he didn’t do it willingly, and she would treat the ring as only on loan. If it didn’t work for her, she would return it.

  ‘Try it,’ said Ruric coldly.

  There was no help for it. Melody would have preferred to put the ring on in private, to test it when nobody could see, but she couldn’t do that when Ruric challenged her so openly. She slipped her own brass ring off her finger and put it in her pocket. The gold ring was heavier, and she examined it closely. It consisted of a plain gold band that seemed to glow with its own light, and a flat bezel with engraved lines on it. She couldn’t work out whether they were supposed to form a pattern, or even letters. There was nothing she could recognise. She cautiously put the ring on the forefinger of her left hand, wondering if there would be any particular sensation to tell her that it was special. There was nothing, except that to her surprise the ring fitted her finger perfectly.

  ‘It fits!’ she said in surprise. ‘How can that be? Your finger must be bigger than mine.’

  Corann leaned forward to look closely at her hand. ‘Certainly it does,’ he said calmly. ‘All rings do that. Even your simple brass ring adapts itself to the size of your finger. This one certainly will. It’s not a question of whether the ring fits the wearer. It’s a question of whether the wearer fits the ring.’

  It wasn’t clear if this was meant as a challenge, but Melody took it as such. Deliberately she raised her left arm straight in front of her, pointing her outstretched index finger, where the ring gleamed, directly at a small vase that stood on the mantelpiece opposite.

  Without a word spoken, and with no discernible change in her face or manner, the vase cracked and shivered into a thousand pieces. Melody looked at the heap of fragments, slightly shocked at the ease with which she had released the power. The other three looked at her.

  ‘It’s a good job that was a cheap vase,’ said Ruric icily.

  ‘I never liked it,’ put in Corann.

  ‘You certainly won’t put it back together like the door,’ said Tamar, and stormed out of the room.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Melody. ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ said Corann. ‘There’s nothing you can do. You can’t help what you are, any more than Tamar can help what he is. I’ll talk to him. You’d better stay and sweep up the pieces. Tamar’s right in that at least – there’s no point thinking about a repair job.’ With that he left to follow Tamar, and Melody found herself alone in the awkward company of Ruric.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated.

  ‘You keep saying that. What are you sorry for? Sorry for breaking the vase, sorry for using the ring, or sorry for showing off?’

  Melody kept her anger in check. ‘Sorry for all of them. But I didn’t mean to show off that time. Really. I wasn’t thinking about the impression I was making. I really wanted to see if the ring made any difference.’

  ‘And it does.’

  ‘Yes. Did you expect it to?’

  ‘I didn’t know. It was possible, but I didn’t expect it.’

  ‘Because I’m a girl?’

  ‘Partly. But not mainly. I didn’t expect it, because that is not the nature of power. It works differently for different people.’

  ‘Why do you dislike me?’

  Ruric hesitated, as if unsure how to counter this direct question. ‘It’s not a question of dislike. It’s your presence. Tamar and I had formed a close working relationship. He was studying well. Your arrival has disturbed all that, and I fear its consequences as far as he’s concerned.’

  ‘Well then, I’m sorry for that too. But there’s not much I can do about it. I’m here now, and even if I left it wouldn’t help Tamar. He’s seen me now, and he’ll have to adjust his thinking to accommodate me.’

  ‘As will we all.’

  ‘I suppose so. I suppose we all have to adjust when things change. Isn’t that what Corann said? I’ll do my best to smooth things out with Tamar. I’ll build bridges if I can.’

  ‘That’s Corann’s phrase too.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it is. Do I have to apologise for everything?’

  ‘Not everything. Some things are harder to accept than others, that’s all. Corann tells me you have a purpose, and that you don’t know what it is. That’s why he persuaded me to give you the ring. I hope that you will find it soon, and perhaps leave us in peace.’

  With that Ruric left the room and went upstairs. Melody got a dustpan and brush from the cupboard in the hall, and swept up the mess she had made. She reflected that it was easy to clear up the pieces, but that wouldn’t help with the situation she seemed to have created in the house. North, south, east, west. They seemed farther apart than ever. At the same time, she was excited by her new ring. She didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she could sense that her life would change even more rapidly than it had done. She would need to be as patient as she could, and she resolved to be less impulsive, to think about the consequences of her behaviour before she acted. She hoped that Corann would have some success in talking to Tamar, so that she could have a chance of repairing the damage she had done to his self-belief.

  Mending

  In the event, Melody didn’t see Tamar the next morning. Corann had sent him off on some early errand, and Melody was able to have breakfast in relative peace, although the brooding presence of Ruric inhibited conversation. She used the time to examine her companions more closely, while they sat immersed in the morning papers. Corann she felt she already knew. He had the soft West Indian features, the dark eyes and the full mouth, the expression of interest that she’d already come to think of as characteristic. At the same time he was tall and lean, which gave an edge to him that accurately mirrored the intelligence within. He didn’t miss much, she felt, and would always consider and reflect and give matters his full attention. She liked him and trusted him, because she couldn’t sense anything hidden in his character. Not that there weren’t depths to him; simply that she believed those depths held clear water.

  Ruric was as different as a man could be. Not physically; he was of similar build to Corann and had the same edgy look. She couldn’t decide where he came from. Not Britain, she thought. Eastern Europe maybe, although she was no good at geography and hadn’t met enough people from the continent to form a clear sense of distinctions. But where Corann was open and readable, Ruric was entirely closed. She was sure that was deliberate. He didn’t want anyone to know him, or even to know about him, and every part of his personality was disguised or hidden. When he smiled you weren’t sure what he was smiling for; when he was stern, he locked every emotion away and you couldn’t get an idea of what he was thinking. The immediate impression was of grimness, although Melody felt that there was more to him than that. There was just no way of approaching him, and her usually strong sense of understanding was defeated; not that he encouraged you to make the attempt.

  He worked as a bookseller, Corann had told her, running a second-hand bookshop nearby in Turnham. He always had a book with him, often something unidentifiable with a plain cloth cover and no dust jacket. Earlier she’d seen on
e of his books on the side: And Quiet Flows the Don. She’d flicked through it, a Russian novel, in translation. It meant nothing to her, but it seemed like the kind of book he’d read.

  She studied his face as he pored over the Daily Telegraph. A long face, framed by dark hair. Narrow shaded eyes, and a strong nose. His expression was set in a slight frown, which seemed as much a part of him as Corann’s ready laughter. She smiled to herself as she thought of her description of them as north and south. Unfortunately, Ruric noticed her expression and looked up, catching her gazing at him. She hurriedly lowered her eyes and attended to her toast, wondering why she found it so difficult to speak to him. She wasn’t famous for her reticence, she thought, but she found him intimidating.

  She was pleased to be saved by a diversion, for Corann put down his paper and looked at her.

  ‘Cush is coming this morning, like I told you. She’ll be here about ten. I think you’ll find it rewarding to work with her.’

  Melody could see that Corann had more in mind than he said, but she kept quiet. She’d find out soon enough, although she had no desire to meet this new person. Cush was supposed to be coming to mend the door, and Melody didn’t have any interest in helping her. However, Corann thought that some good would come of it, so she decided she’d better keep an open mind.

  When she arrived, Cush turned out to be a large, friendly woman in her mid-twenties. Melody’s immediate impression was of total calmness and imperturbability, the kind of woman who would treat the worst disaster as a minor mishap, and probably sing right through it. She was singing even as she came up the front path, and singing as she directed her attention to the door. Corann sent Melody out to meet her.

  ‘Bad business, that,’ said Cush, indicating the cracked door. ‘Somebody’s been careless. That’d be you, would it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Melody, unsure of how to approach this new figure.