Author's Note: I wouldn't include the old and new versions except that I basically started completely over. I figured out that what was blocking me in moving on with the story was that I was trying to write a hero who was reluctant to live up to her prophecy due to an inferiority complex.
The whole story broke open for me when I realized that Jane is eager and even desperate to live up to the prophecy so that she can make the glory of her future cancel or even just balance out the horrific events in her younger life (an impossible but relatable task). Throughout the story, she has to come to terms with who she fantasizes will be her future self with who she actually is. I feel like this is more authentic to the way that I approach life, which makes the writing easier.
In this story, I always wanted Jane to be close to her mother, to capture the dynamic I had with my own mom, but figured out that the approach I had initially in this regard was also wrong. I think that there is a lot of room to explore a complicated and co-dependent relationship and her mother's mental illnesses but I wanted to introduce Jane's mother more as how I saw my mom when I was younger, rather than how I saw her later in life. Re-writing this part, which is currently in the third chapter, also feels a lot more organic. It helps me remember why I was so enamored of her in the first place and why I miss her so much.
I'm trying to find a balance between info-dumping and insight. I also don't want to bog down the beginning of the story with flashbacks, as these can come later, but I also don't want to get too into my head about the "never tell, always show" rule because I think that that rule doesn't always apply, particularly as what I really liked reading when I was younger was the inner voice of the character. I'm not saying I have this perfect in this version, but I feel a lot closer to it here than what I was writing before.
I'll include the old and new versions of each chapter up until I stopped writing, which I think is around Chapter 12 or 13.
New Version:
Jane slogged toward the barn, breathing in the promise of more rain. Most days, her father's huge, old boots were conveniently easy to slip and out of. Today, that fact made each step a tug-of-war with the muddy path.
Pig slop splashed out of the full bucket with each step, but Jane didn't notice. In her mind, the gray-brown sludge of the path transformed into a trail of slippery gold coins and the barn's peeling red paint morphed into a massive, emerald green dragon with nostrils the size of her head.
Jane wore a silver-and-gold breastplate and a gold diadem wrapped around her forehead. The righteousness of her quest glowed within her, brighter than the dragon's fire as it bounced off of her magical shield.
"I don't want to have to hurt you," she warned, when the dragon paused to draw in another breath. Jane's fierce gaze burned into the dragon's soul.
The dragon's head reared back and her eyes narrowed as she regarded Jane. "Isn't that what humans do," she asked. "Hurt? Take? Kill?"
"Not all of us," Jane said, refraining from mentioning anything about pots or kettles.
"Then why are you here?"
Jane planted her sword in the pile of gold and then slipped off her backpack. Without breaking eye contact with the dragon, she tipped the pack over. Gold coins spilled out, mingling with the dragon's hoard. "I'm here to pay your ransom." She retrieved her sword. "Now hand over the prince."
"Ooh, the the prince," came a voice from behind Jane.
Jane found herself surrounded by a red-eyed sow and her hungry piglets, Jane's empty fist in the air. She dropped her imaginary sword and picked up the slop bucket as the piglets nudged her away from the trough.
Her best friend, Bear, stood in the doorway. Although Bear only looked a few years older than Jane in his human incarnation, he was thousands of years old. He could have passed as human, except for the golden horn protruding from his forehead. Oh, and also the pale white skin with violet shadows beneath purple eyes. And although he wore a tunic with pants tucked into boots like any average farmer, his clothes were made of silk. His clothes and soft, leather boots were spotless despite the fact that he had walked over a mile from his home in the forest and through the sodden fields of Jane's farm.
"Slaying imaginary beasts in the barn again," he said, with a grin. "Very bad sign."
I talk to unicorns in the barn, too," Jane retorted. "Is that a bad sign?" She stepped over the pigpen fence and set the empty bucket by the door.
Bear ran a finger down the length of his horn. A sound like the strum of a harp echoed through the barn. "One unicorn, and I can't think of a better portent for an auspicious future."
She snorted and walked past Bear over to Moose's stall. Moose was Jane's mare. Moose had been named, when Jane was three, after the type of embarrassing mistake that parents of a toddler think is hilarious. Jane swung open the stall door. Moose meandered out and found a bale of hay to munch on as Jane wheeled the wheelbarrow over to the stall. She grabbed a pitchfork.
Bear draped himself over the stall door and watched Jane with gleaming, amethyst eyes. His gaze was lazy and watchful at the same time, like a cat.
"What are you doing here?" Jane asked, tossing a forkful droppings into the wheelbarrow.
"I wanted to see if you wanted to go swimming."
Jane groaned. It was a perfect day for swimming in the rain, but she had too much to do. "Maybe tomorrow," she said. "I have to finish this and then go into town."
"Your mom is sending you to town in the rain?" Bear asked. "Why?"
"It's been raining for two weeks straight," Jane said. "This is the first break we've gotten and it's likely the last for another two. I need to get my boots fixed and a new horseshoe for Moose, and there are a few other things Mom wants me to trade while I'm there."
"I'll go with you." Bear said.
Jane hid her surprise and continued mucking out the stall. "Okay," she said. "Mom made stew. Do you want to eat while I finish up here?"
"Ooh, yes. I love your mom's stew." He detached himself from the stall door. "By the way," he said, and then paused until she looked up. "Your form with an invisible sword is impeccable." He kissed his fingers.
Jane grabbed a grooming brush from a nail on the wall and threw it at Bear. He danced out of the way, easily avoiding the brush. He turned to leave, his laughter echoing through the rafters.
Jane picked up a forkful of hay and tossed it at the side of the stall. Her form with an imaginary sword WAS impeccable. And, thanks to hours of training with Bear, her form with an actual sword wasn’t bad, either.
She tried to resume her daydream, but was distracted by Bear's offer to go into town with her. Bear didn't go into town much. The villagers liked Bear well enough; in fact, they treated him like an honorary doctor.Villagers had survived near-fatal injuries and illnesses just by having a friend or family member cart them out to Bear's cabin in the woods. He seemed happy enough to help but said that he found it exhausting to be around a lot of people for long periods of time -- hence the cabin in the woods. And his real home, in a nearby clearing that nobody but Jane seemed to know about.
So why had he offered? She sighed, wondering if she should ask. Sometimes, talking to Bear felt like reading her own diary -- the connection between them was so complete that they were almost the same person. But when Jane would stumble onto a topic that Bear was reluctant to talk about, it was like dropping out of a warm hug into an icy lake.
Jane finished mucking out Moose's stall. She led Moose back to her stall, locked the door, and then let Moose nuzzle Jane's palm. "Mooooooose," she crooned, resting her forehead against the horse's. In reply, Moose whuffled against Jane's fingers.
She patted Moose on the neck and shrugged off her questions. She'd either figure out why Bear had offered to go with her, or she wouldn't. It probably didn't matter, anyway.
Jane retrieved the slop bucket, closed up the barn, and then headed back to the cabin.
Some people remember their first step or their first day of school or the first time they made a friend. The first thing I remember is fighting the urge to scream. My mother in my ear, her arms wrapped so tight around mine that I couldn’t move. I wanted to cry out, to punish her for her fear, to prove that she was wrong to try to make me afraid. But that would have made me a thing separate from her, and I wasn’t ready for that.
We sank further into the musty, wet ground, huddled together against the base of a tree so old that the roots were as thick as my body. I shivered against the dank, dark moss, suppressed rage rattling against the cage bars of my chattering teeth.
Of course, now I realize that had I cried out, we would both have been slaughtered. But I often wonder if it would have been better to die, then. It’s inborn arrogance to assume that we are precious gifts to the world and that we’re going to live forever. It’s that delusion that keeps us moving forward, building up momentum that will take us through the rest of our lives as we stumble over the inevitabilities of cruelty, greed, and stupidity. I was slapped down by knowledge of these things as a small child and have been doggedly dragging my soul toward death ever since.
“Janie, you forgot the bucket!”
I sigh, and turn. My mother holds out the bucket for me, and I slog back toward her, annoyed by the ragged edges of her oft-mended dress. Like her clothing, her skin is worn. Her round shoulders slump with all of the defeats that she has ever suffered.
I take the bucket, but she doesn’t let go right away, which forces me to look up at her. I’m seventeen, nearly a woman, but she still towers over me, the gold-flecked eyes of a goddess staring out from behind plump, graying cheeks and a smile tinged with disillusionment. We all think we’re gods until we know we’re not.
“Remember the prophecy,” she murmurs. “You are special.”
I'm too infuriated by the reminder to respond. I avert my gaze from hers and yank the bucket from her grasp. Some of the slop spills out, barely making an impact on the muddy ground. I turn and stomp back toward the barn, flecks of mud and slop speckling the already muddy hem of my dress.
I’m special. I don’t know how she expects me to believe that when she used to be so much more - everything - than I could ever hope to be. And she’s done nothing with her life. She’s given up on believing in anything except for me.
In the barn, I dump the slop into the trough and let the pigs nudge me out of their way, wallowing in my lack of relevance.
***
I muck out Moose’s stall and brush her down. “I’m not any more important than you are,” I mutter.
“You’re talking to horses again,” comes a voice from the entrance to the barn. “Very bad sign.”
I step up on my tiptoes and peer over Moose’s back. As always, Bear gleams. He stands in the doorway, framed by brown fields and soggy clouds, yet a ray of light illuminates him from behind. Ugh.
Bear walks in, strokes Moose’s nose, and then sits down on a bale of hay. He wears a long-sleeved shirt with loose laces at the chest and trousers tucked into boots, similar in style to any farmer in the neighborhood -- except his clothes are pure white and made of silk. His golden leather boots are immaculate even though I know that it's more than a mile's walk from his forest home, through my muddy fields. He crosses one leg over the other and observes me with his usual aloof amusement.
“One unicorn,” he replies. He runs a finger along the golden horn in the center of his forehead. The stroke creates a short, sweet melody, similar to the strum of a harp. His every movement is like poetry, and even his speaking voice is melodic. Being around him makes me feel clumsy, and shabby. Sometimes, the only thing that saves me from hating him is the loneliness that lurks under his ready smile.
***
I met Bear when I was nine years old, a handful of years after I learned to stay quiet. I was picking berries for my mother in the forest. I had heard fables about stray children in the forest being eaten by wolves or witches, so I had resigned myself to a rustling in the bushes that would signal my fate.
Instead, I heard music.
Everyone knows that music in an empty forest means that one is about to be kidnapped by fairies. In the tales, when one is about to be kidnapped or killed, one tends to panic and try to run away.
I was determined that if I was going to be glamoured by fairies, that they would have to work to win me over. Running only makes one hungrier and thirstier and that’s how they get you. As it happened, I was still full from the large breakfast my mother had prepared and I had a flask of water slung across my chest. I sipped from the flask as I approached the music, but kept it strapped to me, and then replaced the cap with fingers that I pretended weren't trembling.
There was a clearing - isn’t there always? --with a clear green-blue pond, complete with lilypads floating in asymmetrical perfection. As I approached, I noticed that the croaking of the frogs and the chirping of the birds were seamlessly interwoven into the song. Wind blew through the meadow; that sweet, soft air that happens in that one perfect moment between spring and summer.
I mentally congratulated the fairies. I was already enchanted. They had done well. I stood at the edge of the clearing, set my gaze at the middle of the pond and relaxed my eyes, waiting for my peripheral vision to pick up the buzz of tiny wings.
Maybe it’s because of my mind couldn’t grasp it, or maybe it was the way the sunlight poured so brightly into that one spot, but it took me several moments to see the unicorn. He was small, foal-sized, although sleeker and with a pure white coat and mane.
He was in profile to me, and I saw that he was enjoying the music, as well. His head bent against and rose with the breeze in sync with the music, almost as though he were conducting the song. Then, I realized that the music was coming from the air caressing his horn. Fully under his spell, I stepped forward, into the clearing.
My movement startled him and he sprang up and pranced away from me, interrupting the song that he’d been composing, but the wind still danced off his horn, sending out sparks of music. He hissed at me.
“Unicorns don’t hiss,” I said with a frown. All of the wrongnesses of the situation washed over me. First, he shouldn’t be real. Second, if he was going to be real, he shouldn’t be so beautiful. Third, if some girl was going to find him in the forest, it shouldn’t be some dumb, boring peasant with dirty hands and a tainted heart. It should be a princess with a silk dress and glowing skin and - a purity of spirit or something stupid like that. My entire being burned with the humiliation of stumbling into someone else’s fairytale - one of the happy ones.
He turned around several times in quick short paces. I thought that he was going to run away but he finally turned toward me. He lowered his head and growled, another thing unicorns don’t do.
I stepped back, more out of embarrassment than fear. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” I said.
He narrowed his eyes, long thick black lashes a contrast against his dark fur. “I’m not afraid of you,” he said witheringly. “I have been alive for over three thousand years, have fought in hundreds of battles, been hunted by man and beast - it would take more than a little girl,” he said this part with a snarl, “to make me afraid.”
I sighed. Of course I would run into a unicorn in the woods only to annoy it. Any other girl would have offered him the fresh blueberries in her basket, or woven him a wreath made of daisies, or asked for three wishes - wait, was that unicorns?
“Besides,” he said, disdain dripping off of his tongue. “Bears aren’t afraid of anything.”
“You’re not a bear,” I said.
“Yes I am,” he said, with a toss of his mane. Sun glinted off of his horn.
“You’re not a bear,” I said, more firmly this time. Had I gone mad? I checked the basket. Ordinary blueberries - and I hadn’t eaten any of them anyway.
“How do you know?” he said. “Have you ever seen a bear?”
“Um, no,” I said. “I mean - but, bears are brown and fat with sharp teeth - and they don’t talk.”
“How do you know I’m talking, right now?” The unicorn said. “Maybe you’re just imagining it. Maybe you're crazy. Maybe that's why you can't tell that I'm a bear. And if you’ve never seen a bear, you don’t know that I’m not one.”
I was annoyed and confused. A unicorn pretending to be a bear? To what purpose? If it wasn’t going to eat me, I was just going to go home. I turned to walk away.
“Wait, where are you going?”
I turned back. “Why should I stay?” I asked. “You’re a liar, and I don’t know what you’re doing here, but it’s none of my business. If you need anything, I live on the farm at the edge of the forest.”
The unicorn’s eyes narrowed again. “What would I need from you?”
I set down the basket, and threw up my hands. “I don’t know! I wasn’t expecting to find a unicorn in the forest, today! I thought I was going to get eaten by a wolf! I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or what horrible adventure we’re supposed to go on together, but you don’t seem to either, so I’m going to go home, and if you figure it out -“
“Wait.” The unicorn pranced toward me, and then away again. “I have a riddle for you.”
That seemed more like it. “Okay, what is it?”
“How do you know I’m not a bear?”
“This again.” I picked up the basket.
“No, really. Is it because I don’t look like one?” As he asked the question, he transformed into a large, golden-furred bear. “Maybe I’m a frog,” he said, and turned into a frog. “Or a rabbit.” He transformed into a rabbit. “Or a dragon,” he said, looming over me, all golden scales and white teeth. I blinked up at him, impressed. He sighed, turned back into a unicorn and walked away from me, toward the pond. “If all you are is what you look like, what am I? I can look like anything.” He morphed again, this time into a boy, about my age, with a golden horn protruding from his forehead.
I was stunned by the display, which was his intention, I think, but deep down, I knew what he meant. I’d always hated being treated like a little girl, but that was all people saw. Heroes and villains warred within me, all suppressed. Sometimes I felt like a house of dying whispers.
“Okay,” I said. I sat down next to the basket of berries and smoothed my tattered dress over my knees. “You’re a bear.”
The unicorn boy had stopped at the edge of the pond and was staring into the water, but when I said that, he turned and smiled at me. His eyes were the exact color of the sky at twilight in winter. I felt a hitch in my heart. I smiled back.
***
I shake my head, dismissing the memory and continue brushing Moose, allowing the smell of horse to bring me back to the present. “What are you doing here?” I ask Bear. Although he’s thousands of years old, Bear’s human (ish) incarnation has aged along with me, so now that I’m nearly 17, he looks nearly 20. He’s tall and slim, but muscled and his face is so stunning, it’s difficult for me to look at it directly.
He shrugs. “Just wanted to see if you’re ready to save the world yet.”
I throw the brush at Bear, but he catches it smoothly and grins at me. He always starts our conversations by asking me that. It infuriates me every time, and he knows it. The portents of the prophecy bring that day nearer and nearer and all I feel is less and less like a hero.
“Of course,” I say out loud. “But the moon hasn’t turned red three nights in a row, so I guess the world isn’t ready for me to save it yet.”
Bear laughs. “Great. Do you want to go swimming in the lake?”
“Swimming! It’s going to rain, and the lake is an hour away by foot.”
“So we’ll already be wet then.”
I roll my eyes. “My mother's making soup," I say.
Bear sighs. “You humans are so boring,” he says, but his eyes light up when I mention my mother. He immediately leads Moose into her stall and hangs the brush on the wall. I think he wants to be human more than he wants to be a bear. I follow him to the house slogging behind him, resenting the lightness and gracefulness of his footing. I wonder sometimes, too, if he’s friends with me because he loves my mother so much.
***
“Bear!” My mother greets us as we come through the door. She hugs him and slaps the ladle into my hand with the command, “Stir!” She leads Bear to the fireplace. “Dinner is almost ready. Have a seat.”
I stir the soup, letting the heat and spices warm away the muck of the day, and keep half an ear on my mother and Bear. The conversation way she lights up and becomes animated when anyone visits the house always fascinates me. She’s especially charming with men, but everyone loves her.
She doesn’t have a kind word to say about most people in the village and rarely leaves the house, preferring to send me on errands. But every time I go, I come back with an armful of well wishes, and it’s because of this - this person she becomes when she has an audience.
I ladle out two bowls of soup and bring them to the table. Bear sits by the fire, and my mom stands over him, her face lit by the firelight and by the story she’s telling. The fire picks up red highlights in her hair and the goddess gold in her eyes. Her skin glows bronze instead of her day-to-day gray and her voice is soft but compelling. Bear is entranced.
I return to the stove and ladle out another bowl, and bring it to the table along with a fresh loaf of bread. I fetch a bowl of butter from the pantry and make sure everyone has a spoon. Then I sit down, and wait.
My bowl is half empty by the time Bear and my mother surface from the depths of her tall tale. I've heard it so many times that I could tell it myself, but never as well. She glances over at the table. “Why didn’t you tell us dinner was ready?” she asks, coming over. Bear rises as well, and follows her to the table.
“I didn’t want to interrupt.” The truth is, I never love my mother more than when she is in the middle of a story. That is when her soul burns brightest. Too quickly, mortality reclaims my mother’s body and she sits down at the table with a soft grunt. She shifts a guilty glance toward me, misinterpreting the gruffness in my voice. She thinks I’m displeased at being made to wait.
Bear glides into his seat and diffuses the tension by breaking into the loaf of bread and passing it around. “The crocuses are coming in well,” he says.
My mother smiles at Bear. “Thank you.” She turns to me. “That reminds me, I need you to go into town."
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