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The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.
they hunted and loved and had children and died, and as the unicorn did none of these things, she never grew tired of watching them.
What could I ever search for in the world, except this again?”
and for the first time she began to feel the minutes crawling over her like worms.
Under the moon, the road that ran from the edge of her forest gleamed like water, but when she stepped out onto it, away from the trees, she felt how hard it was, and how long.
Time had always passed her by in her forest, but now it was she who passed through time as she traveled.
“I’ve never really understood,”
“what you dream of doing with me, once you’ve caught me.”
to look at them and see something else—what do they look like to one another, then?
If men no longer know what they are looking at, there may well be unicorns in the world yet, unknown and glad of it.
“Death takes what man would keep,” said the butterfly, “and leaves what man would lose.
You’re my everything, you are my sunshine,
“Your name is a golden bell
hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name.”
that my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again.”
You can find your people if you are brave.
Sparrows and cats will live in my shoe, Sooner than I will live with you. Fish will come walking out of the sea, Sooner than you will come back to me.
He lies only out of greed, but you lie out of fear. Or could it be kindness?”
“The touch of a human hand would wake her out of the deepest sleep the devil himself could lay on her.
her low head swaying like the head of an old white horse.
stormy dreams sprung from a grain of truth.
“There’s more meaning than magic to this.”
“I know you,”
It’s not much of a job, but I’ve had worse, and I’ll have better one day. This is not the end.”
The truth melts her magic, always,
“For all my air of mystery, I have a feeling heart.”
She looked so frail that the weight of the darkness should have crushed her, and so helpless and alone that the watchers should have rushed forward in pity to free her. Instead, they began to back silently away,
What is plucked will grow again,
What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain— What is gone is gone.
What is sea-born dies on land, Soft is trod upon. What is given burns the hand— What is gone is gone.
“I can turn her into wind if she escapes, or into snow, or into seven notes of music.
“Do not boast, old woman. Your death sits in that cage and hears you.”
“It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is,”
We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.
the false shining and the true, the lips’ laugh and the heart’s rue.”
Here is there, and high is low; All may be undone. What is true, no two men know— What is gone is gone.
The bars were drawing in, pitiless as the tide or the morning, and they would shear through her until they surrounded her heart, which they would keep a prisoner forever.
Unicorns know nought of need, or shame, or doubt, or debt—but mortals, as you may have noticed, take what they can get.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
I’ll change your heart into green grass, and all you love into a sheep.
The moon was gone, but to the magician’s eyes the unicorn was the moon, cold and white and very old, lighting his way to safety, or to madness.
“You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention.”
the tiny, dry sound of a spider weeping.
“I can never regret.”
can sorrow,” she offered gently, “but it’s not the same thing.”
Take me with you, for laughs, for luck, for the unknown. Take me with you.”
Have a taco.”
“Always, always,” it sighed, “faithfulness beyond any man’s deserving. I will keep the color of your eyes when no other in the world remembers your name.
There may be truth somewhere, but it never gets down to me.”
And I would run away And beg from door to door, Just to see your shadow Once, and never more.
