Creature In the Woods

Little fingers trembling, Kyra slowly reached in front of her face to brush the wet bracken aside, parting the underbrush to reveal the scene in front of her. Her heart racing, she peered through the small gap, and as she did so, her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. Her mouth popped open in disbelief as she stared.

It wasn’t what she was expecting. It wasn’t what she was expecting at all.

Her small size coming in handy, she shifted slightly, silently as she could to get a better view, and she dared to pull the bracken back a little more. Her eyes widened further.

Its coat the snowiest white she had ever seen, against the dark forested backdrop it looked almost ghostly. It was small, not quite as small as a deer but not quite as big as a horse. It moved silently through the brush, its head lowered to conceal itself, its bony haunches lolling from side to side as it moved, inches at a time before stopping to forage through the wet leaves.

Kyra watched intently, not daring to move a single muscle. She had seen its face once but it she was too fear-stricken and in the wrong position at the time to take it in. She waited, curiosity overriding her fears. She wanted to see it again. 

As if on cue, it moved out from the cluster of undergrowth and into view, its hooves treading so carefully on the soil as it did so that it made no sound apart from the sweeping of the bracken as it settled back into place. It shook its mane and raised its majestic head, its ears twitching as it studied its surroundings.

Kyra bit her lip to steady her breaths, completed frozen, and blinked a few times to check she was not imaging things. Her father liked to tell her she had a good imagination however this, she was pretty sure, was not her imagination. The feeling of the wetness dripping down her back and the stiffness and pain of her muscles as she remained still as she could felt far from her imagination. The subtle movements of this beast in front of her and how carefully it was treading to avoid noise, the twitching of its nostrils and the way its mane moved as it did so felt far from a dream. 

No, this was not a dream.

In front of Kyra’s very eyes, stood a unicorn. A real, true unicorn.

It had a single white horn firmly planted on its forehead, extending longer than she thought it could, and a body smaller than she had seen in the fairytale books her mother had read to her before bed. Rather than that of a huge great horse, it was more-so a deer-horse hybrid, with a tail that didn’t swish but rather was bendy, and had a white tuft at the end. Despite not being how she imaged unicorns to be, it was beautiful. Its face was dainty and its eyes were huge and brown, reflecting light that wasn’t even there. It had a pink muzzle; you could see the muscles working away in it as it chewed. Kyra was starstruck. The entire forest faded into the background as this haunting figure took centre stage.

But not for long.

In a sudden loss of balance, she leant too far onto her right foot and she toppled, ripping the bracken that was concealing her and tumbling into a heap on the damp floor. The creature froze, ears swivelling, and as the breath Kyra was holding inevitably came out in a gasp, suddenly its huge eyes were on her tiny frame. Despite being small, its horn was still big enough to easily impale her - and despite the fairytales describing unicorns as benevolent and majestic beasts, the reality of it could be starkly different. Kyra imaged her blood on its horn and she swallowed, unable to do anything but stare as she lay uncomfortably, her face pressed onto the forest floor, watching the events fold out.

Its eyes bore into hers, and she felt her body tingle in response. It felt like a lifetime she lay and it stood watching her and she returned the stare in fear, watching its horn glint in invisible light.

Unable to do anything else, she opened her mouth to speak but as she did so the beast turned on its thin legs and shot off in huge bounds into the depths of the forest, silently, the underbrush barely reacting as it did so.

And now it was Kyra’s turn to run, run back the way she came, the brambles scraping her exposed legs and the forest coming alive with buzzard cries. The light was fading and she new she was in trouble, she knew she wasn’t supposed to be out this long and no doubt her mother will be worried. But the heaviest worry on her mind was if she had just seen such a creature as a unicorn, what else is truly lurking in these woods? 

As she stumbled over the thickets and thorns, she routinely glanced back to see if she was being followed, whether that creature had summoned something far worse to finish her off. But she only ever looked back into the darkness of the fir-shadowed undergrowth. No ghostly flash of white. She wondered where it had gone to. 

She couldn't wait to tell her family, to see the look on their faces as she told them the story of how she met a real-life unicorn. Surely that would make up for the fact she was gone until dark. And surely it would make up for the fact she will be gone until dark tomorrow to see the beast again. She burst from the woods to see her house lit up warmly and invitingly against the rainy backdrop. Her mother was standing at the door, arms folded. 

She continued to stumble across the grass, unafraid of her mother’s wrath, the news almost ready to burst from her lips at her discovery.

“Mumma!” she cried, her stumbling turning to limping as the adrenaline started to wear off and she was made aware of her countless cuts and bruises from her expedition. “Mumma, you’ll never guess what!”

As she got closer, her mother’s stare did not welcome her to tell the tale. She slowed down to a walk, rubbing her arms frantically to remove the dirt. The woman pouted, her face scrunched into a disapproving frown and pointed upstairs. “I do not want to hear it, Kyra,” she started, her tone fierce, “you get upstairs, into the shower and go to your room immediately, young lady! I told you to be back before dark and you went against me!”

Tears welled in Kyra’s eyes. “But mumma, I saw something amazing! I -” suddenly, her voice petered out, leaving her in front of her mother under the full influence of her stare. Instant doubt crossed her mind, and questions whirred in her head. The words were on the edge of her tongue but there was something holding her back, an invisible force, a force that seemed to prevent her usual verbal deluge of her adventures. 

If she was to tell her mother of this beast in the woods, her father, an avid hunter who always brought back a feast on his expeditions, may hunt it down and kill it. A sharp pang of sadness struck her in her gut. She would have betrayed this unicorn’s life, she will never be able to see it again. And despite the fear that the creature caused, with its huge sharp horn and lighting speed, it was also the cause of such great awe and wonder and curiosity that she wanted to meet it again. She found her father’s hunting habits upsetting already, and she would resent him if she found out he had gone after this creature. She never really stopped to question her own thoughts but suddenly she was deep in her psyche, evaluating her choices on the spot.

Reality slapped her in the face, out of her musings, back to her mother’s stare which bore a fire into her forehead. She shrunk into herself, walked straight past her and upstairs.

She couldn’t bring herself to tell anybody. She now felt responsible for this creature, she now felt responsible for its life. What if she was the reason it suffered a brutal death at the hands of her father? What if she was the reason she was never to look into its brown eyes again? And what if it had a family she did not know about? Frustrated tears welled into her eyes again and she rubbed her muddy hands. She was never good at secrets, she always found a way to blurt out the wrong thing at the wrong time. The feeling burned inside of her.

Her eyes travelled up from the floor as there was a knock. She waited for her mother to come in and lecture her, all the while she would have to have held her words within herself, but instead, another small hand held gently onto the door and her younger sister’s head poked in.

“What doin’?” Sam asked, an innocent smile on her face.

Kyra shuffled her feet nervously, and thought for a few good seconds. She then beckoned her sister to come and sit on the bed with her.

“Why you all dirty?” she squeaked as she plonked next to her, her little stumpy legs kicking in the air. 

Kyra held her pillow in her arms, the image of the snow-white beast and those huge brown eyes pressing on the forefront of her thoughts. If there was somebody she could trust, it was Sam.

She took a deep breath, and turned to her, and watched Sam’s big brown eyes widening with anticipation, and her legs still.

“Sam,” she began, then quickly got up and pushed the door closed.

It was now just her, Sam, and the four walls of her room, the image of the ghostly creature filling her mind. She hesitated, and then leaned in.

“Can you keep a secret?”