The Transfigured Hart

  She led Hop silently, looking up at the sky to check the time and weather. That was why she did not notice the sleeping boy until she tripped over his outstretched foot.

  Straightening herself quickly, she looked down at him. “Who are you?” she demanded, louder than she meant. “What are you doing at my pool?”

  Richard woke with a start to see a skinny girl standing over him. Behind her was a spotted horse. Framed against the sky, they looked enormous.

  “What? I mean, who are you?” he shouted in return, his voice breaking on the last word as he jumped up to face her. Once on his feet, he could see she was actually small, smaller than he by half a head.

  “Who are you?” she flung back at him.

  “You first.”

  “I asked first.”

  “What does that matter?” He suddenly stopped shouting and added, in a hissing whisper, “Shhh.”

  Heather quieted, too, suddenly remembering the deer. “It matters because . . . oh, damn you.” Tears started in her eyes. The white deer secret, so beautiful and special and hers alone, was spoiled. She made a face to help control the tremble of her mouth, but the anger shaking her would not go away. Bending down, she picked up a forked stick and flung it savagely into the underbrush. It fell, with a soft thud, by the apple tree.

  Seven

  The white hart could hide no more. He started up with a shrill whistle and leaped away.

  All either child saw was his white tail and legs as he disappeared into the thicket.

  Once away from the danger, the white hart began a browsing search for food through a piney wood. All that afternoon, he kept well below the shoulder of the hills. His instincts were good, for his outline would not show up against the sky.

  Occasionally he stopped by a stream to drink deeply of the cold, clear water. Mostly he followed the barely discernible trails that he had worn away over five years. They were his paths, often running parallel with, but not touching, the trails that had been known and followed by generations of other deer.

  The afternoon was closing down, making shadows dance in the feathery pines. Yet the shadows did not frighten the white deer as he moved purposefully through the woods.

  He paused at the last lineof trees, grown many branchless feet high, their tops full, and green. The needles were soft underfoot and silent, but occasionally he crunched a tiny pinecone as he made his way to the wood’s edge.

  Beyond the pine forest lay a meadow, quite brown and sere, for the fall had been exceptionally dry. At evening, the hart could make out the movements of a herd of does near the far side. There were seven, and with them five fawns and several yearlings. Close by and yet not too close were four bucks, in pairs. It was no longer the time of rut, and so the pairs of bucks remained together, apart from the herd. Each pair consisted of an older male with a younger. They regarded the does with only a mild interest and then passed them by. They would seek their own food farther on.

  From the forest edge, the white hart watched the slow- paced ritual of does and bucks. That he was a deer made him part of them, yet he was separate. He did not seek any of them; they did not accept him.

  The setting sun went down entirely behind the mountains and the meadow was suddenly dark. The white hart moved his head, sniffed the air, turned, and was gone.

  Not one of the other deer remarked his leaving.

  Eight

  “Now you’ve done it,” said Richard angrily.

  “I’ve done it?” Heather’s body was rigid. “You’ve done it. Shouting like that. You’ve scared my white deer away.”

  “You were the one who threw the stick. You were the one who came clomping in here while I was quietly waiting. I’ve been waiting since this morning. And what do you mean yours? And what do you mean deer?”

  It was a long speech for Richard, and made to a stranger. The effort seemed to exhaust him. He sank back down again on his sweater, chin between his knees.

  “Hold on,” said Heather. She was used to dealing with boys who shouted and stood up to her. She was not sure what to do about one who started collapsing after the very first encounter. “Okay. I admit it. I was pretty noisy. And I admit I threw the stick, too. Bu twhat are you doing here, anyway? You weren’t waiting. You were sleeping. And what do you mean ‘what deer?’ Why, the white deer, of course. The albino. The one that just jumped up and ran off. You saw him, too. Don’t try and tell me you didn’t.” It seemed suddenly important that the boy not deny this, though moments before she had wanted the deer all to herself.

  Richard looked up at her warily. She was an intruder. She was a loud, angry intruder in this place of peace. But still, she had seen it. And called it a deer. He had to tell her what it really was. She knew about it anyhow, that it existed. She had to know its true name.

  “It’s not a deer,” he said. “It’s something more beautiful. It’s a unicorn.”

  “You’re crazy,” she said and started to walk away.

  “No, wait.” He jumped up again and came over to her. “Don’t go away. Let me explain. I know it seems strange. But I’ve been studying about it, the unicorn.”

  “Unicorns don’t exist,” said Heather. “And maybe you don’t exist either. Sleeping on sweaters with . . . with . . .” She noticed the cards fanned out around the apple tree. “With litter all over the place. You’re crazy.”

  “Wait, please,” he said. The last word came out as a special request, for Richard seldom said “please” to anyone. He either did something or he didn’t. But he hardly ever asked, for asking always seemed to lead to more questions. “Did you see a rack? I mean antlers. If it was a deer, you would have seen them.”

  “I know what a rack is,” said Heather. “And of course I did.” Then she stopped and looked down. Her braids swung back and forth. Lying was something she just couldn’t do. Her honesty was what made her an easy target for her brothers, though she didn’t realize it and couldn’t have changed if she did. Her hesitation made Richard bolder.

  “You didn’t, did you?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Well, did you?”

  “I never saw him slowly. Or closely,” Heather admitted. “I mean, he was mostly just a bunch of white. And the antlers would be dark, anyway. So maybe I wouldn’t have seen them with all the white.” It sounded lame, even to her.

  “So you can’t say for sure it was just a deer,” Richard said.

  “Of course it was a deer; what else could it be?”

  “I told you,” Richard answered. “It’s a unicorn.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “But you didn’t see any antlers.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “And deer aren’t that white, that gleaming, that . . . that beautiful.”

  “Oh, they’re beautiful, all right.” Heather was definite. “There’s nothing more beautiful than a deer in the wood.”

  Richard went on as if he had not heard. “And the pool where a unicorn drinks is clear and blue and quiet. It is free from all poisons, because the unicorn dips its horn there. And all little animals are safe there. But if the unicorn leaves, or is driven away, the pool turns bracken. Like a swamp.”

  “You are crazy.”

  Richard turned then and looked straight at her. “This pool and that animal we both saw were different from any we have ever seen.” He ached to explain it in just the right way. “Just to look at the pool and the beast, you knew how different.”

  “Well . . .”

  “And it made me feel different, too. Important. No, special. Because I was allowed to see it when no one else did.”

  “I saw it.”

  Richard ignored her. “And inside me, it was like something that had been holding me had burst, like a chain had snapped. And something else, too. I felt . . . I felt I had always been a puzzle with pieces missing and now the pieces were all there, had been given to me, and all I had to do was put them in the right places. Only just when I was going to put them together, you came.” He looked u
p at her again, but not with bitterness. It was just an assessment he was making, painstakingly judging each word before dealing it out. It was as if nothing was true until he spoke it aloud, and then it became true.

  Heather responded immediately, for his hesitation seemed to beg for a response, and she was moved by the plea. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  It was all the encouragement he needed. Almost wildly he said, “You know!”

  “But it couldn’t be. They aren’t real. It couldn’t be.”

  “It was,” said Richard. “It is.”

  “A unicorn,” Heather whispered, and then was still.

  Nine

  “Tell me more about unicorns,” said Heather, finally, flopping down beside Richard. She landed half on, half off his spread-out sweater. One of her sneakers scuffed at a card and left a dirty mark on it.

  Richard hesitated a moment. He felt a great thudding in his chest and hoped he wouldn’t be sick.

  “Unicorns are ughm.” He cleared his throat of his voice, which had suddenly begun to squeak. “Unicorns were ughm.” The throat kept doing funny things. It was better when the girl had been an enemy. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m Richard Plante.” As he spoke he moved away a bit.

  “I know. The boy with the broken heart. You’ve just come to school. I’ve heard about you and seen you between classes. I’m Heather Fielding. We’re almost neighbors.”

  “It’s not broken. Just . . . just bruised a little.” It was a feeble joke, but Heather suddenly burst into great gales of laughter as if she thoroughly enjoyed it. Her laughter was contagious and Richard joined in. They both laughed until they were exhausted, and then Heather suddenly rolled over on her stomach, full on the sweater, her braids coiling on the ground. Richard, in an awkward scramble, was pushed onto the cold grass.

  Heather looked over at the boy. He seemed suddenly so uncomfortable—prickly or shy, like a wild animal unused to a human touch. She folded her hands together and was very quiet, as if to show him she wouldn’t try to hurt him. Then she said again in a very tiny voice, “Tell me more about unicorns.”

  Richard checked her out from the corner of his eye. She had said the last with such obvious sincerity. He sighed. He would try his voice again. “The books all say the unicorn is a mythical beast.” He looked down at her.

  Heather continued to stare quietly at her hands. At last she said, “Is there only one of it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Richard, at once bewildered at her leap and comforted by her interest. “I could look it up.”

  “Okay. But not now.” She smiled, but the smile went into the ground, not toward Richard. “Now finish telling me about unicorns.”

  “I haven’t begun yet.”

  Heather didn’t say anything, and her silence encouraged him.

  “The books say the unicorn is as old as Greek or Roman myths at least.”

  “At least,” agreed Heather.

  Richard looked over at her to see if she was mocking him. But she was just nodding and waiting for him to go on, plucking at some dry grass.

  “It’s supposed to look like a horse. Or a goat. Or maybe a deer. And it has this one golden horn in the middle of its head. A horn with a spiral twist.”

  “I like that,” Heather said. “The twist, I mean.”

  “The name ‘unicorn’ means ‘one-horn.’” Richard said it suddenly, almost triumphantly.

  “I know that!”

  “You do?”

  “I’m taking Latin,” said Heather.

  This so surprised Richard that he didn’t know what to say. Yet he didn’t know why he should be surprised. So he ignored it and went on. “Some unicorns seemed to have goat’s beards or lion’s tails.” He reached out to finger the card with the smudge on it.

  “So there are—I mean is, or do I mean are?—more than one in the world.”

  Richard was puzzled again at this leap. Then, just as suddenly, he understood the way her mind had gone. He said thoughtfully, “I think it’s just the difference between one storyteller and another. One added a tail. Another a beard.”

  “Okay,” said Heather, plucking at the dry grass again, “but it might be important.” She noticed the sandwiches wrapped up and lying on the ground. She sat up then and picked them up, offering one to Richard and taking the other herself. She began to munch, and then, with a mouth full of peanut butter and apple jelly, said, “You see, we have to know everything we can about it if we’re going to tame it. If there’s a herd, or if it’s male or female, or what it likes to eat or . . .”

  “But how did you know?”

  Heather looked at him. “Know what?”

  “That I want to tame it.”

  “I want to tame it.”

  “But it’s my . . .”

  “Our unicorn,” said Heather. “So we will have to do it together. What do the books say about taming unicorns?”

  “Well,” admitted Richard, “they mostly say the unicorn can only be captured with a golden bridle by a pure Maid.”

  “We’ve got one of those at home,” said Heather excitedly.

  “A golden bridle?” asked Richard.

  “No,” said Heather. “The maid. Well, maybe not a maid, but a cleaning lady.”

  “Oh my God!” said Richard.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “A Maid, a pure Maid is . . .” He suddenly stopped talking.

  “Did I say something wrong?” asked Heather.

  “A Maid is a maiden.”

  “Oh,” said Heather, without thinking. “You mean a virgin.”

  They were both so embarrassed then, they flopped simultaneously on the grass, and their shoulders almost touched.

  “Well,” said Heather at last, “we do have one of those.” She looked down steadily at the ground as if summoning up the courage to say what had to be said next. And then suddenly she sat up on her knees and looked at Richard, her eyes and mouth smiling. She drew in a deep breath. “Then I could capture it. It would still be mine. You couldn’t, could you? I mean, I am. I am a Maid. And I can get the unicorn.”

  “It might be scary.”

  “I’m not afraid. Animals don’t scare me. I’ve tamed a raccoon and a whole family of chipmunks and a snake.”

  “You have to sit in the forest and let it put its head in your lap.”

  “I’m still not afraid.”

  “Horn and all?”

  Heather bit her lip. She had forgotten about that. Then she looked at Richard, who was watching her carefully. She nodded. “Horn and all.”

  “All right,” he said.

  They got up as if by mutual consent. Richard picked up the cards and the sandwich wrappings and stuffed them into his pockets. He tied his sweater carefully around his waist.

  While he got ready, in silence, Heather mounted Hop, leaping onto him with a light quick movement that surprised Richard.

  Richard walked over to the horse and girl. Cautiously he put his hand to the horse’s flank. It was warmer than he expected. The muscles under the skin flinched at his touch, but otherwise the horse did not move.

  Heather squeezed Hop with her knees and he started his long, slow, rolling walk. Richard kept his hand on the horse and they walked that way until they got to the road. Then Richard went toward his house and Heather turned Hop around and went home.

  Ten

  The hart came home, too, to his bed of fern by the pool, but he did not come home until morning.

  It was a strange pool, crystalline and blue, like a piece of polished sapphire. And it was strangely quiet, too, for birds did not call out idly there, nor did little animals scratch and scrabble wildly in the undergrowth.

  The white hart settled himself down, nose to the ground. In the summer, his ears kept up a constant twitching as he tried to rid himself of the tormenting flies. But this late in the fall, the flies were mostly gone. So the white hart lay absolutely still.

  He looked asleep, but he was alert. His eyes and ears and nose worked sil
ently for him. The November night was cold. Soon there would be rims of ice on the lake and ponds, a snowfall of light powder to dust the trails. But until the deep snows of winter, when he would seek the sheltered creek bottom or the southern slope of Little Sugarloaf Mountain, this clear, strange pool was his special home.

  The white hart sniffed the air again. The wind brought him the sweet pungence of pine and fern, and the late-blooming gentian, the sharper smell of several small animals upwind. But there was no danger his nose or ears warned him of.

  He closed his eyes and slept.

  Eleven

  By mutual assent, though neither had said a word about it, Richard and Heather did not talk to each other at school. They did not show, by the flicker of an eye, that they even knew one another’s names.

  For Richard, this meant no difference in his outward habits. He spoke to no one in his classes beyond answering direct questions or giving page references. As for Heather, her lighthearted talkiness just remained directed toward the crowd of girls that milled about her.

  Once, as he passed by her that week in school, Richard was startled to hear her say, “But I saw the deer . . .” and he stopped, unable to move farther down the hall, an emotion that was part anger, part fear, and part pure horror seething inside him.

  An older boy bumped into him at that moment, and Richard was thrown off balance. As he recovered, he heard the rest of the sentence: “. . . down in the far meadow by the piney woods. I hope my brothers don’t find out. If they knew there are a lot of them, they’d be all over Five Mile Wood.”

  Richard felt the steel band around his chest snap, just like Faithful John in the fairy tale. Only he hadn’t been faithful, he thought. He had thought Heather guilty of betraying their secret. Just because the word “deer” is both singular and plural. He couldn’t wait until school was over and he could meet Heather at the shimmering pool. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, tell her what happened, but he would be extra nice to her to make up for his suspicions.