Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn (47): Moving Her Out

With the fence down, I tried to think of other ways to test the unicorn's readiness for embarkation.  I sat alone and cross-legged, a little paranoid the trees were watching and waiting for a second pop.  Their problem had to be the fence, though, not me or they would have attacked long before now.  So I kept telling myself. 

I sat thinking for five minutes or so before deciding the unicorn's presence would help to inspire me in one way or another.  I went into the stable and led her out, one hand in her mane.  Perhaps this should have been enough.  Instead it gave me an idea. 

The unicorn sat down and I strapped a nosebag over her head.  I then sat down myself at her other end and began to plait her tail.  It had been years and years since I had last plaited hair.  The skill came back pretty quickly, though - much, so they say, like riding a bike.

I grew up with four sisters, all older than me.  I didn't like to play by myself, especially when those four, or combinations thereof, always seemed to be having so much fun without me.  That's why I played with dolls a lot as a child.  Helping to arrange their homes, marrying them off to one another and the like.  And, also to fit in and have company, I helped do their hair.  Becoming a bit of an expert at some styles.  The youngest of the four even had me do her hair for her sixth form ball.

My dad, the great buffoon, always seemed terribly worried I would "turn out" gay.  He must have been ecstatic, then, when I got old enough to disappear into the woods and play more at being a boy.  Something the girls never followed me into.  Mind you, if he had known about Randy....

I sat, then, creating a tight and near-perfect plait, brushing the hair through as I went. Then I gave her coat a brush (I had also gone horse riding to fit in, too) through before combing her mane down to the side and over one eye.

Throughout it all she did not budge and made no fuss.  I knew the time had come and, with the tree's hostility, was shaken enough to not wait about.

I packed everything I thought would be needed immediately and rushed it back to the van.  The stable I would leave as I had a more permanent one waiting for the handover. 

She was still chewing on the contents of the nosebag when I returned for her.  I took it off her and slung it into the cart before pouring more oats in, all at one end.  Then I encouraged her to get in, which she did and sat.  I was ready for the act I had been preparing for for months.

Pulling the handle seemed like I was pushing a destruct button.  A button that started up the program that was designed to undo all that I had done: as simply as blowing over a house of cards; because, apparently, that's what it had become all of a sudden.  Or maybe it had always been.

I never heard or saw them come.  The five apparitions were circling around the edge of the clearing.  They were neither solid nor the transparent nothingness of a ghost.  Rather like a milky white liquid that was one whole.  Like a mini milk if it could flow or move.  They had no legs, only a vague body and a head complete with pointy protrusion to identify them by.

Round and round they whirled, blocking my exit.  Creating an almost complete white rotating wall as their bodies stretched out. 

Then one broke rank, the others quickly stretching to fill the void left behind.  I started to move, to try and block its approach to the unicorn.  But it went nowhere near her, instead floating toward the root I had savaged, disappearing into the fence hole containing the cut tree root.  There it stayed for a full minute, the hole looking like it was full to the brim with frozen milk or plasticine.

The full circling procession continued, though it now began to work its way inward.  I pulled the cart to the centre of the clearing and stood ready to try and block any attack that came my way.

Nearer they came until they were just five feet away.  In they worked until one broke free, the rest following, and moved toward us.  I braced myself but it swerved and the line moved upward and started to spiral round us from top to toe tighter and tighter until I was suddenly thrown aside and the unicorn was engulfed in a milky glob for a second and they were moving out of the clearing again, a smaller pointy-headed apparition following at the rear.

In shocked disbelief I stood alone in the clearing for the first time in a long time.  The first thing I did was to look into the hole.  The root's gash had been filled with what looked like moss mixed with mud and lavender.  I was later told that, though I had angered the trees (and most of the forest) by trying to create my own private space, their ferocity in attack had stemmed from my not applying this or any other form of remedy.  Initially they were only going to rot my fence posts slowly, but were concerned that that tactic would not have had enough time to work.

I wound up staying in the clearing for a further week.  I had been so fucking close and they had stopped me right at the death.  When she didn’t come back I decided to go home.  For the first few weeks before going back to work I kept returning on Saturdays, albeit without plans.  She never joined me and eventually I stopped returning and got on with my life.