The Very Best of F & SF v1 (57 page)

Peter Beagle
never showed much interest in revisiting his 1968 masterpiece,
The Last Unicorn
, until a colleague named Connor Cochran got him thinking about
Schmendrick, Molly, and the unicorn again. The results were worth the wait.

My
brother Wilfrid
keeps saying it’s not fair that
it should all have happened to me. Me being a girl, and a baby, and too stupid
to lace up my own sandals properly. But
I
think it’s fair. I think
everything happened exactly the way it should have done. Except for the sad
parts, and maybe those too.

I’m Sooz, and I
am nine years old. Ten next month, on the anniversary of the day the griffin
came. Wilfrid says it was because of me, that the griffin heard that the
ugliest baby in the world had just been born, and it was going to eat me, but I
was
too
ugly, even for a
griffin. So it nested in the Midwood (we call it that, but its real name is the
Midnight Wood, because of the darkness under the trees), and stayed to eat our
sheep and our goats. Griffins do that if they like a place.

But it didn’t
ever eat children, not until this year.

I only saw it
once—I mean, once
before
—rising up above the trees one night, like a second moon. Only there
wasn’t a moon, then. There was nothing in the whole world but the griffin,
golden feathers all blazing on its lion’s body and eagle’s wings, with its
great front claws like teeth, and that monstrous beak that looked so huge for
its head.... Wilfrid says I screamed for three days, but he’s lying, and I
didn’t
hide in the root
cellar like he says either, I slept in the
Two
Hearts
barn those two nights, with our dog
Malka. Because I knew Malka wouldn’t let anything get me.

I mean my
parents wouldn’t have, either, not if they could have stopped it. It’s just
that Malka is the biggest, fiercest dog in the whole village, and she’s not
afraid of anything. And after the griffin took Jehane, the blacksmith’s little
girl, you couldn’t help seeing how frightened my father was, running back and
forth with the other men, trying to organize some sort of patrol, so people
could always tell when the griffin was coming. I know he was frightened for me
and my mother, and doing everything he could to protect us, but it didn’t make
me feel any safer, and Malka did.

But nobody knew
what to do, anyway. Not my father, nobody. It was bad enough when the griffin
was only taking the sheep, because almost everyone here sells wool or cheese or
sheepskin things to make a living. But once it took Jehane, early last spring,
that changed everything. We sent messengers to the king—three of them—and each
time the king sent someone back to us with them. The first time, it was one
knight, all by himself. His name was Douros, and he gave me an apple. He rode
away into the Midwood, singing, to look for the griffin, and we never saw him
again.

The second
time—after the griffin took Louli, the boy who worked for the miller—the king
sent five knights together. One of them did come back, but he died before he
could tell anyone what happened.

The third time
an entire squadron came. That’s what my father said, anyway. I don’t know how
many soldiers there are in a squadron, but it was a lot, and they were all over
the village for two days, pitching their tents everywhere, stabling their
horses in every barn, and boasting in the tavern how they’d soon take care of
that griffin for us poor peasants. They had musicians playing when they marched
into the Midwood—I remember that, and I remember when the music stopped, and
the sounds we heard afterward.

After that, the
village didn’t send to the king anymore. We didn’t want more of his men to die,
and besides they weren’t any help. So from then on all the children were
hurried indoors when the sun went down, and the griffin woke from its day’s
rest to hunt again. We couldn’t play together, or run errands or watch the
flocks for our parents, or even sleep near open windows, for fear of the
griffin. There was nothing for me to do but read books I already knew by heart,
and complain to my mother and father, who were too tired from watching after
Wilfrid and me to bother with us. They were guarding the other  children too,
turn and turn about with the other families—
and
our sheep,
and
our goats—so they were always tired, as well as frightened, and we
were all angry with each other most of the time. It was the same for everybody.

And then the
griffin took Felicitas.

Felicitas couldn’t
talk, but she was my best friend, always, since we were little. I always
understood what she wanted to say, and she understood me, better than anyone,
and we played in a special way that I won’t ever play with anyone else. Her
family thought she was a waste of food, because no boy would marry a dumb girl,
so they let her eat with us most of the time. Wilfrid used to make fun of the
whispery quack that was the one sound she could make, but I hit him with a rock,
and after that he didn’t do it anymore.

I didn’t see it
happen, but I still see it in my head. She
knew
not to go out, but she was always just so happy coming to us in the
evening. And nobody at her house would have noticed her being gone. None of
them ever noticed Felicitas.

The day I
learned Felicitas was gone, that was the day I set off to see the king myself.

Well, the same
night
, actually—because
there wasn’t any chance of getting away from my house or the village in
daylight. I don’t know what I’d have done, really, except that my Uncle Ambrose
was carting a load of sheepskins to market in Hagsgate, and you have to start
long before sunup to be there by the time the market opens. Uncle Ambrose is my
best uncle, but I knew I couldn’t ask him to take me to the king—he’d have gone
straight to my mother instead, and told her to give me sulphur and molasses and
put me to bed with a mustard plaster. He gives his
horse
sulphur and molasses,
even.

So I went to bed
early that night, and I waited until everyone was asleep. I wanted to leave a
note on my pillow, but I kept writing things and then tearing the notes up and
throwing them in the fireplace, and I was afraid of somebody waking, or Uncle
Ambrose leaving without me. Finally I just wrote,
I will come home soon.
I
didn’t take any clothes with me, or anything else, except a bit of cheese,
because I thought the king must live somewhere near Hagsgate, which is the only
big town I’ve ever seen. My mother and father were snoring in their room, but
Wilfrid had fallen asleep right in front of the hearth, and they always leave
him there when he does. If you rouse him to go to his own bed, he comes up
fighting and crying. I don’t know why.

I stood and
looked down at him for the longest time. Wilfrid doesn’t look nearly so mean
when he’s sleeping. My mother had banked the coals to make
sure
there’d be a fire for tomorrow’s bread, and my father’s moleskin trews were
hanging there to dry, because he’d had to wade into the stockpond that
afternoon to rescue a lamb. I moved them a little bit, so they wouldn’t burn. I
wound the clock—Wilfrid’s supposed to do that every night, but he always
forgets—and I thought how they’d all be hearing it ticking in the morning while
they were looking everywhere for me, too frightened to eat any breakfast, and I
turned to go back to my room.

But then I
turned around again, and I climbed out of the kitchen window, because our front
door squeaks so. I was afraid that Malka might wake in the barn and right away
know I was up to something, because I can’t ever fool Malka, only she didn’t,
and then I held my breath almost the whole way as I ran to Uncle Ambrose’s
house and scrambled right into his cart with the sheepskins. It was a cold
night, but under that pile of sheepskins it was hot and nasty-smelling, and
there wasn’t anything to do but lie still and wait for Uncle Ambrose. So I
mostly thought about Felicitas, to keep from feeling so bad about leaving home
and everyone. That was bad enough—I never really
lost
anybody close before,
not
forever
—but anyway it was different.

I don’t know
when Uncle Ambrose finally came, because I dozed off in the cart, and didn’t
wake until there was this jolt and a rattle and the sort of floppy grumble a
horse makes when
he’s
been waked up and doesn’t like it—and we were off for Hagsgate. The
moon was setting early, but I could see the village bumping by, not looking
silvery in the light, but small and dull, no color to anything. And all the
same I almost began to cry, because it already seemed so far away, though we
hadn’t even passed the stockpond yet, and I felt as though I’d never see it
again. I would have climbed back out of the cart right then, if I hadn’t known
better.

Because the
griffin was still up and hunting. I couldn’t see it, of course, under the sheepskins
(and I had my eyes shut, anyway), but its wings made a sound like a lot of
knives being sharpened all together, and sometimes it gave a cry that was
dreadful because it was so soft and gentle, and even a little sad and
scared
, as though it were
imitating the sound Felicitas might have made when it took her. I burrowed deep
down as I could, and tried to sleep again, but I couldn’t.

Which was just
as well, because I didn’t want to ride all the way into Hagsgate, where Uncle
Ambrose was bound to find me when he unloaded his sheepskins in the
marketplace. So when I didn’t hear the griffin anymore (they won’t hunt far
from their nests, if they don’t have to), I put my head out over the tailboard
of the cart and watched the stars going out, one by one, as the sky grew
lighter. The dawn breeze came up as the moon went down.

When the cart
stopped jouncing and shaking so much, I knew we must have turned onto the Kings
Highway, and when I could hear cows munching and talking softly to each other,
I dropped into the road. I stood there for a little, brushing off lint and wool
bits, and watching Uncle Ambroses cart rolling on away from me. I hadn’t ever
been this far from home by myself. Or so lonely. The breeze brushed dry grass
against my ankles, and I didn’t have any idea which way to go.

I didn’t even
know the king’s name—I’d never heard anyone call him anything but
the king.
I knew he didn’t
live in Hagsgate, but in a big castle somewhere nearby, only nearby’s one thing
when you’re riding in a cart and different when you’re walking. And I kept
thinking about my family waking up and looking for me, and the cows’ grazing
sounds made me hungry, and I’d eaten all my cheese in the cart. I wished I had
a penny with me—not to buy anything with, but only to toss up and let it tell
me if I should turn left or right. I tried it with flat stones, but I never
could find them after they came down. Finally I started off going left, not for
any reason, but only because I have a little silver ring on my left hand that
my mother gave me. There was a sort of path that way too, and I thought maybe I
could walk around Hagsgate and then I’d think about what to do after that. I’m
a good walker. I can walk anywhere, if you give me time.

Only it’s easier
on a real road. The path gave out after a while, and I had to push my way
through trees growing too close together, and then through so many brambly
vines that my hair was full of stickers and my arms were all stinging and
bleeding. I was tired and sweating, and almost crying—
almost—
and whenever I sat
down to rest, bugs and things kept crawling over me. Then I heard running water
nearby, and that made me thirsty right away, so I tried to get down to the
sound. I had to crawl most of the way, scratching my knees and elbows up
something awful.

It wasn’t much
of a stream—in some places the water came up barely above my ankles—but I was
so glad to see it I practically hugged and kissed it, flopping down with my
face buried in it, the way I do with Malka’s smelly old fur. And I drank until
I couldn’t hold any more, and then I sat on a stone and let the tiny fish
tickle my nice cold feet, and felt the sun on my shoulders, and I didn’t think
about griffins or kings or my family or anything.

I only looked up
when I heard the horses whickering a little way upstream. They were playing
with the water, the way horses do, blowing bubbles like children. Plain old
livery-stable horses, one brownish, one grayish. The gray’s rider was out of
the saddle, peering at the horse’s left forefoot. I couldn’t get a good
look—they both had on plain cloaks, dark green, and trews so worn you couldn’t
make out the color—so I didn’t know that one was a woman until I heard her
voice. A nice voice, low, like Silky Joan, the lady my mother won’t ever let me
ask about, but with something rough in it too, as though she could scream like
a hawk if she wanted to. She was saying, “There’s no stone I can see. Maybe a
thorn?”