Zombies vs. Unicorns (41 page)

She stared in my general direction, her eyes wide. I knew she couldn’t spot me. She turned to glance up the trail, and it was then that I saw the knife in her right hand. Not a kitchen knife. Longer and heavier.

Oh, no. Oh, no,
I thought.
Not yet
.
Please. Let me explain.

“Where are you?” she whispered.

I was afraid she’d run if she saw me, but more terrified she would end her own misery before I could talk her into loving me. I could feel her anger, her desperate pain, her beautiful need.

“Come out of the trees,” she whispered. “Stand where I can see you.”

Unicorns are fanciful creatures—pretty, even. But she might think she was going mad if I just stepped onto the path. I hesitated. There was another jogger coming. We heard him at the same time. She put the knife behind her back and stepped aside and waited until he had passed, was out of hearing distance. Then she turned to the dense scaffolds of pine boughs that hid me. “Why are you hiding?”

Such a good question. One I couldn’t answer. She did not have a gentle whisper. More like a snake hissing a warning. She was not afraid. My heart rose. She was perfect.
Perfect
. This would be a very difficult conquest.

“Show yourself or I will … ,” she began, then stopped when I heard a burst of music. She reached into her pocket for her phone.

Please don’t answer that … and please don’t leave. I really need help.

She looked at her phone, then put it back in her pocket and stared into the branches again. I did what I had done a thousand times with people who feared me. I took one step forward with my head lowered—just enough so that she could see the branches move, would know that I was too big to be a person, and the wrong shape. I heard her take in a long breath.

There is no reason to be afraid. I don’t mean to startle you.

I took one more step and lifted my head slowly, arching my neck like a parade horse. It’s a ridiculous pose, but I discovered a long time ago that humans love it. I heard her gasp.

Looking into her eyes, I pushed through the last of the pine boughs, slowly, slowly, until she could have reached out and touched my horn.
Will you take just a few steps this way? So I can stay hidden. If anyone else sees me, I will end up in the zoo.

“And if I try to tell anyone, we might end up roommates?”

She smiled for an instant. Then she slid the knife into her back pocket and pulled her shirt over it. I pretended not to notice that she was watching me to see if I noticed. She took a single step toward me. I backed up one step, and waited for her. Then we did it again, like a beginner’s dance class, until we were both swallowed by the tangle of boughs.

I looked at her steadily, holding the pose, trying to look noble and interesting and amazing and magical. She came closer, one thumb hooked in her jacket pocket. Her scars were truly awful. She was fortunate to be alive. I saw her stiffen, and I took control of my thoughts.
What do you know about unicorns?
I asked her.

She shrugged. “Only that they aren’t real?” She smiled again, another quick one, and she was close enough that this time I understood why. The scar tissue was taut, thick—it probably hurt to smile. One eyelid was higher than the other. Both were crinkled, mismatched, odd shades of beige and pink. She had no eyelashes.

“A fire,” she said, before I could frame another thought.
“The whole house burned down. My cousin lived in our basement and he was cooking meth. I knew, but I just didn’t say anything. So my parents and my sister were killed along with him. I hate myself for that. I live in a group home, and I hate it, too.” She paused, her chin high, staring at me. “Did I leave anything out?”

Her voice was brittle. How long had it taken her to work up that short, angry résumé, ready to throw at anyone who stared. I was framing a thought about being sorry for her misfortune, when she added this: “It was five years ago. Dr. Shrinkydink said I would begin to come to grips with things in about three years, but it turns out she was full of shit.”

She sounded so weary, so defeated, that I knew I had been right about the knife. She hadn’t brought it to cut mushrooms or to protect herself. Why had she stopped to talk to me? Had she been hoping someone would come out of the trees and kill her? I was thinking very quietly, but she heard the last part.

“It crossed my mind,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you, though, instead of Jack the Ripper. Or even just a white deer. But this must mean I am crazy now. On top of everything else.”

You aren’t insane,
I told her.
I am real. I want what you want. If you will help me, I will help you.

“You want …”

…
to die. Yes. More than anything else.

“Why?”

She said it with such a gush of breath, her voice going girlishly high, that for an instant I could see the child she had been, pretty, happy, full of faith in herself and her life. And I
knew, because she could hear me, that the childish purity was still within her.

Tomorrow morning,
I began,
before it’s light out, I want you to come with me into the woods, farther from the city. I will explain everything and—

“Said the spider to the fly,” she cut me off.

I had never heard the expression, but the meaning was clear.
I just want to help you and for you to help me—

“No,” she interrupted again. “You don’t need help. Not if you’re serious. Not if you really want to die. The ones who
try
to commit suicide make sure it doesn’t work, make sure that someone finds them. With luck, the finder feels like a hero and sticks around for a while. I started there. I’ve been found twice—but this time I’m serious. I just want to be … finished. And I won’t need help, thank you.”

She was about to walk away, and I knew she would not come back. I said this:
If your scars were gone, would you want to live?
And then I held my breath.

She was quiet. Then she shrugged, looking at her feet. “Maybe. Because I wouldn’t have to tell anyone I didn’t want to tell. I could hide it sometimes.” She lifted her head. “Maybe I could make real friends instead of just collecting a revolving cast of junior social workers.”

I can erase the scars.

She stared. “Don’t fuck with me.”

Cut me.

She looked startled. I lifted one foreleg.
Not deep. I just want to show you something.

She took the knife out of her pocket and held it loosely across her palm, like someone who has used knives and is comfortable with them. “It’s razor sharp,” she said, and I knew she had heard my thoughts. “It was my father’s.”

Did he ever take you hunting with him?
I asked, hoping.

“Usually.” She looked puzzled at the question. “Why do you want me to cut you?”

To prove something.

I set my hoof on a fallen log to make it easier.
Just deep enough to bleed
. She stared at me, then drew the thin, sharp blade over my skin. The cut was straight, finger length, and it began to seep blood.

She looked up. “What am I supposed to—”

Just watch.
I touched my horn to the bloody place, for theatrics and to mislead her. Within a moment the bleeding had stopped. Both ends of the cut rejoined first, the little wound shrinking, my skin zipping itself back together. I can’t begin to explain what I was feeling. I had watched my body mend itself thousands of times. I had never watched it
with
anyone. She glanced at me over and over, her eyes wide, then looked back at the cut.

I can heal you, just like that. And I will. And then you can help me die.
I could tell she wanted to believe me. I turned aside and lowered my head a little.
Please.
Meet me here tomorrow? Before sunrise?

She looked down at my leg. There was no trace of the cut. She nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

Bring that knife, a new pruning saw, and a heavy rope—and
put everything in a sturdy bag. You won’t need a shovel. The river will take care of the memorial service.

She took one step back. “Oooo. Creepy. A serial-killer-unicorn-comedian?” Her chin was high, but her voice wasn’t quite steady.

I am not a killer,
I lied.
I will erase your scars. Then you will help me die. What you do after that is up to you.

She hesitated, her tongue sliding across her lower lip. She was trying to decide. Or so I thought. But what she asked me was this: “What’s your name?”

I blinked. No one had ever asked me that.
I don’t have a name. What’s yours?

“It’s Reeym.
Ree-um
,” she added, pronouncing it slowly and precisely in a joking hillbilly accent. It was another one of her practiced responses. “It means ‘unicorn.’ Weird, huh? People call me Ree.”

I was stunned.

“It might mean ‘a big bullock,’” she said a little louder. “Depends on which biblical scholar you trust. My parents …” She stopped to look at the sky, then back at me. “My mother loved unicorns. She would have fainted from fan-joy if she had ever seen you.”

The last three words were squeezed into a whisper. I kept my thoughts still, excited that she was trusting me like this, with her sorrow, with her heart. She squared her shoulders. “Mom thought it was a lucky name, magical, that it would guarantee me a smooth ride. At least she didn’t live to see this.” She gestured at her own face. Then her voice changed,
all the pain hidden again. “Knife, rope, saw, in a sturdy bag. Do you need me to bring anything else?”

Courage.

She stepped forward and slapped me. I was so startled that I reared, like a horse. It embarrassed me. She was backing away, talking fast. “Tomorrow, as soon as the sky is gray,” she said. “If you change your mind and don’t come, I’ll just do what I meant to do today.”

I will be here.

She didn’t respond. She whirled and ran away without looking back.

I went deeper into the forest, my heart beating hard. I had never expected things to progress so quickly, for her to trust me so readily. I galloped all the way to the hidden meadow with its swift little creek, about twenty paces from the Willamette River.

I had found it years before.

It was still perfect.

I stood close to the water and waited. I could not stop imagining Ree’s face when I explained what I needed her to do. She would agonize over it. But she would be very grateful to me for healing her scars. So maybe she would. Maybe I would know what it felt like to be loved.

In the morning I started off in the dark. Halfway there I smelled a campfire. I would take a different way back so we wouldn’t stumble into a group of illegal overnighters. We? The word swung back and forth in my thoughts as I veered off to follow the least-used trails, sometimes just going through the woods.

I got there when the sky was just beginning to gray. I settled in to wait, savoring my fear that she wouldn’t come. But she did, within minutes.

She appeared, her shoulders squared, walking, fast and sure.

My heart swelled. I loved her steadiness and I loved her scars—without them she would never have spoken to me. She had the knife, in a sheath this time, and she showed me what she called “loppers,” along with the rest. I looked at her closely. No. She hadn’t figured it out. She thought we were going to cut interfering branches, were going to make a hanging tree.

She looked at me. “Are you sure you—”

Yes.

“Really sure?”

I heard doubt in her voice. I had planned to talk to her as we walked through the woods, to convince her slowly, to give her time to get used to the idea. But maybe that would give her too much time to think about it—to back out. I shook my mane and pawed the ground, which made her laugh.
Have you ever ridden a horse?

She nodded. “My father had three Appaloosas and a pack mule.”

In a trice she was on my back, clutching the canvas bag.
You can hold on to my mane if you need—

“I won’t need to,” she interrupted me.

I started off slowly, in case she was bluffing. Then I cantered—and we ended up galloping. She kept her weight centered and I barely felt her on my back. But it was still very strange. When I finally stopped, she slid off instantly, as uneasy with it as I was.
My skin was sweaty and warm where her legs had been.

The sun was coming up, and the dawn-dusk was lifting. She looked around the clearing and went to the creek, kneeling after a moment to wash her hands and splash her face. When she came back she was shivering a little.

“Have you picked out your tree?” she whispered. “I found instructions last night and practiced the noose knot.”

I turned away, to hide my gratitude for her trying to make it easier for us both—and my fear that the truth would set her running. Staring at the trees, I explained, quickly, what I needed her to do like it was a detail, not something that might make her change her mind. Then I was quiet for a moment before I asked her if she would do it for me. And then I held my breath.

“This isn’t what I thought,” she said, very quietly. My breath caught. She exhaled, long, and came close enough to lean on me. I could feel her heartbeat and I was sure she could feel mine.

I know
, I told her.

She slapped my shoulder. “Can’t you heal yourself? Can’t you make yourself happier somehow?”

No.

“Why?” She was angry. “I get that you’re lonely, but you could make friends. You’re beautiful, you’re strong, and you’re magical. You could do a lot of good if you—”

No,
I said, to stop her, and then I spoke the truth.
I can’t. I never have. I deserve this. I deserve much worse.

She shook her head, and I could feel her pulling away emotionally. She didn’t believe me. She thought I just wanted her to talk me out of it, and that pissed her off. She was two
words and twenty heartbeats away from changing her mind. I couldn’t let that happen. I wanted to feel loved more than I had every wanted anything. And if I died proving to myself that her love was real, it would be a perfect ending to my painful life.