Animal Voices, Unicorn Whispers

1

STRANGER THAN A SWAN

Eggshell cracked, and the dome of the world broke away, showing a whole other world, infinitely larger and more complicated, beyond the confines of the duckling’s natal home. It was time to lift her head—breaking the eggshell further, widening the crack in it—and then spread her wings, shaking out the scraggly, wet feathers plastered to her dimpled skin, letting them begin to dry into soft, yellow down.

The duckling sat in the bottom half of her shattered egg, rump cupped by the curve of shell. She stared out at the chaos of colors and confusion of shapes, all so much more than she’d ever expected while curled into a fetal pretzel of duckling limbs inside a perfect oblong spheroid. Her own heartbeat had been everything. Now it was merely a pinpoint, and the world was so huge, it could swallow her up and never notice her at all.

Blue stretched across the horizon, blotted with sways and spikes of green around the edges, mirroring even more blue up above. More green and dark brown stretched and reached towards the higher blue. Other colors—stars of yellow and sworls of pink—dotted the various greens. It would have been peaceful, perhaps, if it were familiar. For the duckling, it was entirely new, and entirely overwhelming.

Then her bright, dark, confused, and troubled eyes landed on a shape that instantly triggered a sensation of warmth and comfort deep in her tiny, flickering breast. Her heart stuttered; her breathing slowed. And she knew this was her mother:

Purple tentacles writhed around her mother’s face, ringing her glowing, red eyes. Darker purple, almost black, feathers and spines prickled from her hunched back, and her limbs were even more tentacles, pale lavender and puckered with perfectly round sucker disks. She was beautiful. She was glorious. And she made her duckling daughter feel safe.

The duckling flapped her wings and opened her flat beak to cheep her love. Her voice came out high and strong, and the tentacled mother creature looked down, noticing the duckling for the first time.

The two beings stared at each other, bright brown eyes and glowing red eyes, sizing each other up. The duckling had literally nothing to compare this mother to. The tentacled creature had become, in an instant, the measure by which she would judge the rest of the world, for the rest of her life.

The tentacled creature, though, had visited many worlds in her flying saucer. She had lived for relativistic centuries, trading any semblance of a permanent life on a planet, surrounded by loved ones, for the temporary skipping of a stone across the lake of the sky. She dipped down to visit planets, see their wonders, and then move on.

Today, she had come to Earth.

Today, she looked at a brand new, just hatched duckling, and her tentacular mouthparts twisted and curled into her species’ semblance of a smile. The duckling was adorable. A funny little thing with wet black feathers already drying into downy yellow fluff. Its round head wobbled at the end of a long neck, and its eyes stared at her so steadily.

She felt, perhaps, like a human feels when a butterfly deigns to land on your hand, delicate, breakable, and yet, even if for just a moment, trusting.

The elder creature reached one of her lavender limbs down and stroked the duckling’s soft yellow neck with her puckering sucker discs. The duckling closed her eyes, shutting out the visual chaos of the world, so she could focus better on this tender expression of her mother’s love.

But the moment was a moment. Only a moment.

And then the tentacled creature moved on. Her lavender limbs pulled her across the grassy ground, back over the hill beside the lake, to where she’d parked her gleaming, silver, flying saucer. Pictures of it flying through the sky would flood social media and show up on human news shows later that day, snapped with camera apps on personal cell phones. Everyone would say they were a hoax.

And of everyone in the world, only one duckling, wordless and confused, would know who had been inside.

Two grown ducks—one brown and speckled; the other with a handsome, gleaming, green head—waddled down to the bank, followed by a gaggle of fluffy yellow ducklings, just like the one still sitting in her half egg.

The ducks flapped their wings joyously at the sight of their lost egg, now a hatchling. The other ducklings mimicked their parents, flapping their stubby little wings too.

But the duckling in her half egg shell stared at the family of ducks, confused. Her mother was gone. The moment of imprinting had passed. She didn’t know who these ducks were, or why they weren’t a glorious range of purples, from sunrise lavender tentacles to royal dusk spines. They looked like her, and they would care for her. But they were not like the image of herself that she would carry in her head for the rest of her days.

An image mirroring the mother who had never been her mother.

An image that no one else would ever understand.

2

GERTY AND THE DOESN'T-SMELL-LIKE-A-MELON

Gerty had been snuffle-snorting about the melon patches all morning. She was looking for Little People to play with, but all the bugs and mice seemed to be hiding today. Dormancy was in the air.

She tried asking a bird to play with her, but it was so high in the branches of the karillow tree that she had to shout at it. And the master scolded her for barking. The bird flew away anyway. They always did.

So, Gerty gave up her search and scratched out a comfortable spot under the karillow tree. She napped and dozed, keeping her ears tuned for the voice of the master. When he spoke, she woke.

Damned converter! he shouted, and Gerty knew he was working on the vehicle parked beside the house. She was proud; her master was handy.

Does the sky know what I know? he sang, and Gerty knew he had moved inside, his voice carrying through an open window as he washed the dishes. She was proud; her master’s voice was beautiful. She drowsed to sleep again.

Lainey! he cried, and Gerty woke again. She knew he was calling to his eight-year-old daughter; he was such a good family-man. Gerty was proud and began to close her eyes to go back to sleep.

Lainey! he cried again, ...Lainey? and Gerty reopened her eyes. She picked her head up off the comfortable, dusty ground to listen better.

Lainey?? There was strain in the master’s voice. Gerty stood up and woofed, a soft woof her master wouldn’t hear. She started sniffing the air, her nose working overtime in search of the scent of Lainey. But, before Gerty could get too worried, a high, piping voice answered, Here, Papa!

Lainey came skipping along the road completely unaware of the great concern she’d caused Gerty.

Come with me, the master said, we’ll check the melon patches.

Gerty circled around the little girl several times, wagging her tail eagerly. She was glad the master’s daughter was all right, but to be sure—to be on the safe side—Gerty decided to accompany master and daughter on their excursion.

Besides, it was a lazy day.

Clomp, clomp, clomp, Lainey announced with each enthusiastic, stomping, footstep. Though, despite her ‘clomping,’ Lainey was actually stepping carefully, placing each foot delicately between the tender green melon vines. Whenever they came to a hub where the vines thickened around a round lump of melon, Lainey squatted down to get a look at it. Gerty, being a quadruped and shorter, already had the melons at nose height.

The two girls, biped and quadruped, sniffed at the melon while Master laid his hands on it, gently rocking the bulbous green-striped sphere, just enough to judge its ripeness—not too much, for that might rip its life-giving vines.

The master didn’t stop at every melon. Sampling a few here and there, as the troupe continued progressing around the curve of the lake, was enough to ensure the overall health of their melon patch.

Gerty, however, was a diligent servant, and she made it her job to sniff all the melons the master didn’t rock in his hands. Her nose was a more sensitive tool than the master’s hands anyway.

As they walked, the master told his daughter about ancient times, many, many years before, when the master was a mere boy. Neither Lainey nor Gerty could picture it.

Gerty had to miss parts of the story as she strayed farther and closer to the lake than the master, checking every melon. But, she tried to listen and catch what she could.

My dad bought this farm when I was about your age, Lainey. It was already a melon farm, but a little run down. So, Dad had to renovate it.

The melons all smelled so good. Gerty’s mouth watered as she checked them.

We checked the vines, like we’re doing now. And we cleared the forest over there of vermin that came to eat our melons. Little rodents that would burrow into them, making homes as well of meals of the melons.

Gerty wrinkled her nose. She didn’t smell vermin in any of these melons, but she could sure imagine them. The imagined smell made the fur on her neck bristle.

There were bigger animals in the forest too. Gryphons used to nest in the trees. They slept in their nests, but during the day they’d run around the ground, hunting vermin like dogs.

They didn’t fly? Lainey asked.

Not much. I think the wings were mostly vestigial. They used them to glide down from their nests, but they climbed the trees to get back up.

Lainey held her arms out and jumped up and down, pretending she was a gryphon. Gerty watched affectionately, before turning back to her important business. Checking melons. All the melons.

It took a few years for Dad to clear all the vermin. I think they were pretty much gone by the time I was ten. I tried to keep a small one as a pet. The master looked his daughter up and down. I was about your age when I got that idea in my head. Mom was furious.

A gryphon would be a better pet, Lainey said.

Harder to catch, the master said. And harder to hide under my bed.

They continued on for a while, neither father nor daughter speaking. They were to the far side of the lake when Lainey said, I’ve never seen a gryphon in the forest. She was looking over her shoulder at the thick green of the woods. Gerty looked over at the woods too. She sniffed the air.

There was no gryphon scent. As far as Gerty knew, there never had been.

Of course not, the master said, crouched down, still mostly paying attention to the melon cupped in his hands. The melon must have checked out okay, because he set it back and stood up. What do you think they’d eat with the vermin gone?

Lainey shrugged. Melons?

The master laughed. Right, he said and tousled Lainey’s hair. Vegetarian gryphons. Good idea.

Master and daughter continued on. Lainey kept asking about what the gryphons had been like, and the master told her what he remembered about them. Gerty, however, couldn’t keep listening. She was too worried by her latest find.

It was oblong-round and green with paler green stripes: it looked like a melon. But... She sniffed all around it. And, then, she sniffed all around it again. It did not smell like a melon.

There was no full, gonging sweetness. It lacked the tang of fresh green vine. Instead, it was musty with the slight sour of twigs soaking in the lake’s edge. There was something very wrong with this melon. Gerty wasn’t even sure it was a melon. It was... It was... Well, it was a doesn’t-smell-like-a-melon. And it was right here at the edge of the lake in the melon patch. With the other melons. The real melons.

Gerty ran back to the master and circled around his feet looking up at him, concern about the doesn’t-smell-like-a-melon deep in her eyes. The master offered her no reassurance. He merely stepped around Gerty and kept telling Lainey about water dragons. Apparently, gryphons had been essential to their life cycle.

Gerty had more pressing concerns. She ran back to the wolf in melon’s clothing. She took another sniff; then a hacking sneeze to get the sour smell out of her nostrils. A few plaintive whines leaked from her jowls. A quick look over her shoulder showed Gerty that the master still wasn’t paying attention. His words floated across the melon patch toward her, Well, the last owners said there was one... But I never swam to the bottom of the lake to find out. And you’re not going to either. After a pause, Water dragons may not bother humans when they’re left alone, but I wouldn’t want to find out what a cranky one does if you wake it up at the bottom of its lair.

Gerty huffed her frustration. She was having to shoulder this burden all on her own. She pawed at the doesn’t-smell-like-a-melon, and it rocked in its place among the watery vines. It wasn’t attached to the vines, she realized.

She afforded the master a few more hopeful whines, followed by one or two more urgent woofs. No response. Lainey was crouched at the edge of the lake further along, trying to peer deep enough into the water to see a dragon curled up underneath. The master was telling her about how they only laid eggs every hundred years.

Gerty huffed. She’d have to deal with the doesn’t-smell-like-a-melon on her own. She pawed it again, scratching its surface with her claws. Its texture was harder than a melon’s. After another snuffle, she pawed the offending object, digging her claws in until she’d rolled it entirely out of its place, splashing a little in the shallow water.

Having rolled it over, Gerty could now see the doesn’t-smell-like-a-melon’s other side: a crack ran perpendicular to the pale green stripes. The fur on Gerty’s neck hackles started prickling, and she could feel her lip twitching into a snarl. Her snarl found full release and quickly turned into all out howling when the crack widened, growing and branching at either end.

The master came running. Lainey was right behind.

What’s wrong girl? the master asked.

Gerty had backed away from the doesn’t-smell-like-a-melon and was still bristling at it. The master looked down at the cracked, almost-melon-like object and said, Well, I’ll be. He squatted down and peered more closely. Just look at what the lake’s washed up. I didn’t think I’d ever see one of these.

The master’s presence emboldened Gerty and she edged her way closer to the cracking sphere again. She sniffed and huffed and quietly, nervously woofed. But she got her nose right up to it, and she could smell something inside. The smell was warm and pungent. Also, strangely pleasant and appealing. Gerty heard movement inside, and then she saw a blackened horn chipping away at the crack. Widening it.

Can you tell what it is? the master asked Lainey. She nodded, voraciously, her teeth biting her lower lip in anticipation. I halfway thought I was telling you myths, the master said.

Gerty was becoming ever more fascinated as she watched the crack grow. The creature inside was getting closer to breaking out of its camouflaged egg. Already, the crack was large enough for Gerty to stick her nose in and get a real smell.

Who’ll take care of it? Lainey asked. She watched Gerty nose the tiny, sinewy creature with its bewhiskered, leonine head and golden scales. If the gryphons always raised the baby... She trailed off, not quite able to bring herself to say the word ‘dragon’ in the actual face of it.

Master and daughter watched their dog snuffle the tiny dragon, checking every length of its body. The two animals couldn’t have been shaped more differently—the one a straightforward quadruped with that most familiar of all animal shapes; the other bizarrely twisty, with little feet all along its curving body and tiny, angular wings sprouting from its back here and there.

Yet, it was also like watching a bereaved mother dog find an abandoned stray puppy. The dragon-baby was clearly already imprinted on Gerty, and Gerty would be facing fewer lazy days of fruitlessly asking bugs and birds to be her playmates.

I wouldn’t worry about that, the master said. Shall we look and see if we can find any more of them?

The rest of the circuit around the lake revealed six more eggs, all close to the edge of the water where they’d surfaced after floating up from the depths. Two of the eggs never hatched, but the other four produced wriggling, writhing, puppy-sized dragons just like the first. All of them imprinted on Gerty and followed her wherever she went.

In the days that came, Lainey and the master looked at the lake a little differently, knowing what was obscured beneath it. Lainey said, it made her feel like she lived at the end of a rainbow. "They’re like living gold! Just imagine what their mother must be like." The master wasn’t sure he wanted to... Despite his assurances to Lainey that water dragons were perfectly safe, he couldn’t help but wonder. Gerty, however, was too absorbed in her new role, caring for and cavorting with the brood of five dragonlings, to worry about the giant they had come from. Or the giants they would one day become.

3

SHEEPERFLY’S LULLABY

Sheep tell many tales as they graze. There’s little to do in a grassy field but count the clouds, search for four-leafed clovers, and tell tall tales. Yet, some of the sheep’s tales are true, and when Soft-as-Snow stares at the clouds with her liquid brown eyes, she isn’t counting them. She’s searching, seeking, and hoping against hope—waiting for White Wings to return to her.

Soft-as-Snow is an old sheep now, and she spends her days watching the sky and waiting. But she isn’t sad. She knows that White Wings will return and fill the sky with the fluffy span of her cirrostratus wings.

When Soft-as-Snow was a young sheep, she watched and waited too—she watched the other ewes birth and raise lambs every spring; she waited through every winter, wondering why her body didn’t grow thick like the other ewes. She frolicked with the rams as much as any of them; she was healthy and ate well; but she bore no lambs. Other ewes swore she was blessed. Yet her heart filled with sadness.

One spring, Soft-as-Snow could stand watching the other ewes with their new lambs, hassled but happy, no longer. She waited until Sharp Eyes, the barker who guarded the sheep herd, was distracted by a lamb gamboling too close to the creek. Then she sneaked away from the meadow, and disappeared into the shadows of the alder tree woods.

Soft-as-Snow wandered among the ferns and foxgloves, peaceful but still sad. She sang the song that she had always longed to sing to a lamb of her own, bleating the words with such sorrow and longing that a tiny presence was moved by her emotion.

Do not cry, Mother Sheep, chimed a tiny voice.

I am not a mother sheep, said Soft-as-Snow peering into the fluttering shadows of the alder trees, searching for the source of the bell-like voice. My name is Soft-as-Snow; who are you?

Gold light dappled the undergrowth between the shadows. A gust of air rustled the leaves far above, and all the shadows moved. One of the gold dapples—at the tip of a fern frond—tilted, folded, and then flapped from the fiddlehead to the tip of Soft-as-Snow’s black, wet nose.

A butterfly! Soft-as-Snow exclaimed.

A fairy, the butterfly answered, preening his curled antenna with his foremost legs. With a fairy’s magic. I can help you.

With his gold wings and delicate legs, the butterfly perched between Soft-as-Snow’s eyes was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

For a price, the butterfly added in his tinkling voice.

Name your price. She would have given this handsome stranger anything, but all he asked was, Some of your wool. It looks so soft and light; I could make a nest from it and stay warm when the cool night breezes come.

Done. Soft-as-Snow ripped a hank of her wool out with her own teeth, and the butterfly grasped it with his six legs. He flew the ball of wool up into the trees, promising to return with everything Soft-as-Snow would need to bear a lamb of her own.

The butterfly took so long that Soft-as-Snow began to wonder if she had dreamed it all—dazzled, hypnotized by the dancing, dappled light of the wood. Then a spot of gold in the sky flapped toward her and the butterfly returned. He held a tiny, minuscule globe in one clawed hand—gold as his wings, luminescent, and small as a poppy seed.

The butterfly landed behind Soft-as-Snow’s ear and planted the tiny globe deep in her thick, white wool.

Sing to it every night, the butterfly said. If your song is as heartfelt as the one I heard today, you’ll have a lamb of your own in no time.

So Soft-as-Snow returned to the meadow with a secret. Sharp Eyes barked at her but was clearly relieved that he was no longer missing a sheep.

That night, Soft-as-Snow whisper-sang her lullaby to the tiny globe nestled in the wool behind her ear. As the days passed, Soft-as-Snow began to feel foolish; her body was not growing thick; had she given the butterfly a piece of her wool for nothing? It was a small price to pay, even for nothing... But she felt her heart would break permanently if she didn’t bear a lamb of her own this time.

Yet while she worried, a bump grew behind her ear as if her wool were developing a terrible mat. The bump grew to a lump the size of an acorn; then a chestnut; then one morning, when the meadow was fresh with dew and Soft-as-Snow had stayed up all night whisper-singing, she felt a pulling sensation in the lump of wool behind her ear. She roused herself and rambled over to the stream where she could see herself in the water’s reflection.

Tiny black hooves—as small as the butterfly’s claws—broke through the matted wool behind her ear.