In the wild backwoods of your country, an old belief persisted: Any curse or blessing that befell you would be repaid tenfold in ten years’ time. Small superstitions surrounded it—iron to ward off a reversal of fortune, witch hazel to hasten it—but everyone knew that no matter what you did, a decade later, change was coming for you.
Your curse first came when you were twelve. It struck nearly everyone your age, but you were the only one who considered it a curse. Yours and the other girl’s bodies began to morph, began to grow breasts and shift shape. You wore an iron cross around your neck for weeks, but it didn’t slow the transformation.
You fainted when you had your first blood. When you came to, it was with an epiphany on your lips: Being a girl was unbearable. You were not one. You would not be one any longer.
You wrapped yourself in a heavy cloak and ran from your village that night, holding tight to the promise of a blessing ten years down the line.
A decade later, you thought you had been cursed again.
You had always wanted to be a father, but dear god, not like this. Since fleeing your village, you’d made your home in a smokestack city where no one knew your old name. Some might have accepted you for who you were, but you knew that they would still look at you differently afterwards. So you had kept the truth of your body a secret from everyone and stayed celibate, contenting yourself with longing glances at the men and women who passed you by. You found trade as a tailor and buried yourself in your work. You had a good life, if unremarkable.
And still—somehow—you found yourself pregnant, ten years to the day. You felt the fetus squirming within you one day as if it had always been there. You groaned and pressed a palm to your stretched-tight stomach. The sister spirits of luck and fate were laughing at you—here was your deepest desire delivered in the worst way. You knew enough of the myths to understand that this child would not be normal. There was something deep and magical afoot. You needed to protect yourself.
You could have gotten rid of it, of course. Everyone with a womb knew which herbs made it barren. But that would mean trusting a healer with your story, and you had stayed secret for so long you weren’t sure you could even find the words to explain yourself.
Besides, you wanted the child. You just didn’t want to birth it. And if magic had delivered it to your womb, then magic could get it out.
You stayed in the city for as long as you could stand it. The smell of smoke began to burn the back of your nose, and your stomach began to swell, and soon enough your friends noticed you weren’t drinking anymore. You knew then that you had to leave, and you fled the city as you had once fled your village: wrapped in a cloak to conceal your body, praying for a change of fate.
You drifted from town to town for some months. You sought after myths and superstitions, curses and blessings, twists of fate that no one could explain. You learned of babies swapped at birth, once-cheerful children suddenly strange and solemn. You heard stories of women finding offspring in rivers, in tree stumps, in flower pistils—but it was always women, and they were always discovering babies that were already born. Your situation was different. The magic was older. Stranger. More painful.
The only thing you could find that fit your situation were the stories of the unicorn.
In every tale, unicorns protected virgins. You were still a virgin, albeit an uncomfortably pregnant one. Unicorns were also symbols of fertility, giving birth-blessings to pious families. You pored over ancient manuscripts, wrote down oral legends that had been passed down from person to person through generations.
You learned three things:
1) Unicorns appeared when a person’s fate was about to change.
2) All the stories had three quintessential characters: a knight, a maiden, and a unicorn. Sometimes the knight saved the maiden from the unicorn. Sometimes the unicorn saved the maiden from the knight. Sometimes the maiden tried to run from both of them. Regardless of who was saving who, the story always ended well—that was what fairy tales were for, after all. If you could be brave enough and clever enough and good enough, you and your child would get your happy ending.
You wondered which part you were supposed to play in this story. You probably weren’t a maiden. Maidens, by their definition, weren’t pregnant at inappropriate times, and you definitely weren’t a woman. You had shed that curse long ago.
You didn’t feel like a knight, either, though. Knights served a king; knights had steeds and brotherhood. You had always been alone.
That left only the unicorn, but you didn’t want to be one, because—
3) Unicorns always died.
Sometimes it was a cyclical death, a reincarnation, and the unicorn got to return. Sometimes it was a sacrifice to save the virgin. Sometimes it was at the hands of a hunting party, twisted up in a trap and surrounded by snarling dogs. You were morbidly fascinated by those hunted deaths, entranced by images of the unicorn’s agony. The blood staining the white fur. The gleaming armor of the knights. The yellowed teeth of hunting dogs.
If you could track down a unicorn, you could force your fate to change. You could demand that the beast use its fertility magic to help you. You could kill it and claim its power for yourself. You didn’t favor that option, but it seemed the only way. Unicorns always had to die.
You went into the nearest village and used the last of your savings to buy a sword.
“What does your man need a blade for, anyway?” the blacksmith asked as he passed it over the counter. He was an old man with grizzled hair and few teeth. The assumptions—all of them—grated, but you brushed them off and responded as politely as you could.
“He’s going unicorn hunting.”
The blacksmith snorted. “Tell your man to give it up,” he said. “It’s a fool idea. I used to be a knight once; even showed up for a few hunts myself. Unicorns are tricky bastards. Real hard to kill. Every time you think you’ve got one trapped down, it slips the net and disappears, and now you and your family are cursed for ten generations. You gotta hit it right the first time, and make sure it stays dead, ’cause sometimes they come back. Like I said—awful tricky bastards.”
One chance, you thought, running your hand along the flat of the newly honed blade. One chance to change fates.
“We used to bring girls with us as bait,” the blacksmith continued. “But neither the unicorns nor the girls enjoyed that very much. It always resulted in more blood and death than we wanted. They fight too fiercely for virgins. But you don’t have that problem, do you?”
He chuckled. Your face went red. You took your sword, excused yourself, and walked away.
You stopped going into town after that. It was too hard to explain yourself, and your body now demanded explanation. Besides, you had everything you needed.
You went into the woods and began your hunt.
• • • •
You walked for some time. The smell of petrichor surrounded you. It was an old forest with good strong trees. The type of place where superstitions came true and magic might happen. You breathed in the earthy, rich air. The baby kicked.
You kept an eye out for hoofprints, but found only disappointingly mundane deer and rabbit tracks. The forest swayed around you. Sweat rolled in fat droplets down the back of your neck. You moved slowly, carefully. You might have made swifter progress if you hadn’t been pregnant—but being pregnant was what got you into this mess in the first place.
You cursed your ten-years turned luck. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. You weren’t supposed to suffer twice. Fate twisted one way, then the other, but in its turns looped back to the center again. Why was your destiny different?
There came the bright call of trumpets, startling you from your reverie—a hunting party. You hid yourself in a copse of trees as they rode towards you.
The hunting party passed by you in a blur of shiny metal: armor and blades and banner-poles. Knights called back and forth to one another, jostling in their camaraderie. Horses snorted and whinnied. Dogs howled up ahead.
None of them saw you. You stared up at them with an aching wonder; it seemed like a scene from a tapestry come to life. You wanted, viciously, to be among them. It wasn’t knighthood that called to you, but the unquestioning acceptance of manhood. The reek of chivalry. You knew that if you were astride one of those horses, no one would ever look at you strangely. It would be worth it. (Even if you didn’t like hunting, and the thought of stabbing a stag did make your pregnant stomach churn.)
The impulse came to you to step out of the shadows and join them, but you gripped the pommel of your sword and let the hunting party go. You knew you did not belong. Your body was a permanent reminder of that.
As the knights turned the corner and you stepped out of the trees, you heard the sound of hooves coming up the path.
Too late, you tried to hide again, but the horse and rider saw you, and reared to a stop. You gaped up at a woman with long golden hair and a spear in her hand. She didn’t have the chrome plate mail of the knights—instead, she was wrapped in studded leather armor. Her helm looked well-used and had a dent in the side.
“What are you doing out here?” she said.
“Are you a maiden?” you asked in return.
She stared at you. “Excuse me?”
You flushed. “I apologize. I just—I heard that knights used to bring virgins with them on the hunt. To draw out the unicorns.”
“Oh, no. The knights don’t want me to go on the hunt. I’m participating anyway.” She smiled at you and hefted her spear. “I plan to bag a deer twice as big as any of theirs. But really, what are you doing out here?”
You showed her your unused sword. “Hunting unicorns.”
“Really? Are you sure you should be doing that in your . . . condition?”
“It’s to make the condition go away.”
“Well, there are certainly better ways to do that. You can use this herb—”
You cut her off. “I want the child.”
“I see. That makes things trickier.” The lady knight nodded thoughtfully. “I heard about a castle that used to have a lot of maidens and unicorns,” she said. “Thataway.”
“Thanks.” You hesitated. “Would you want to come with me?”
“Absolutely not. I’ve had enough of that virgin nonsense for a lifetime.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Good luck, though.”
“You, too.”
You left her in the clearing in the woods, and went to find the castle.
• • • •
It wasn’t hard to find. You followed deer tracks through the woods, tracing a prey-path through the greenery, and didn’t stray from the direction the lady knight had indicated. Soon enough, the crags of a crumbling stone tower rose in the distance.
It was an old and ruined thing, sagging with time and decay. There must have once been double-barreled wooden doors at the entrance, but they had rotted enough to crumble at your touch. You sucked in a breath and entered.
When you stepped into the castle, the smell of age hit you: warm and weathered rock, wet wood and withered wall hangings. Once there had been great tapestries on either side of the entryway, but all that remained was frayed strands of discolored fabric. You rubbed your fingers along it and searched for the story you knew was there. You found it in fragments: a maiden’s wan face, a shard of a knight’s banner. And of course, the unicorn. It remained unravaged by time, one shiny piece in an ancient jigsaw.
The unicorn’s baleful eyes stared at you. A knot of black thread fell from the center of its eye. Spitefully, you pulled, and the whole tapestry unraveled, an ancient artwork collapsing into a frayed heap at your feet. As a tailor, you understood how much effort and artistry went into working such threads as this.
You kicked it into the corner and continued on.
You found a set of stairs, narrow and set steep into the interior of a tall tower. At the top a slim ray of light drifted down like dandruff. Your calves ached at the thought of going higher, but you knew it would be the only way through. Without hesitating, you climbed.
You reached the top of the tower. There was only one door in front of you, one choice. You put your hand to the tarnished brass knob. It swung open easily.
You were standing in an ancient bedchamber. The walls were a rich, deep red, the color of organs. A scratched mirror hung loosely to one side. The bed was covered by a canopy, the gauzy fabric chewed through by moths and time. The unicorn sat cleanly in the center of the bed.
It was more bovine than you’d expected, with a rounded muzzle and protruding teeth. Its ears were pressed back against its head and its eyes were entirely black. The horn was a dull gray. It was nearly as pregnant as you were, its white-furred stomach stretched swollen against the coverlet.
Unicorns belonged in wild, verdant spaces. It didn’t make sense to see one in a bedchamber, limbs folded neatly along its side as it spoke to you. It seemed unnatural. Too human.
“Are you a knight or a maiden?” the unicorn asked. Its voice was plaintive, almost childish.
You felt sick. You answered, “Neither.”
“Well, everyone’s one or the other.”
“I’m a tailor.”
“Maiden, then,” said the unicorn, satisfied. “Maidens sew.”
“No. No—” You couldn’t bear the thought. You shook your head. “Not a maiden.”
“Then a knight.”
“Not a knight. I have no horse and no king and I don’t really want to kill anyone.”
“Hmmm,” said the unicorn.
“I’m neither of them. I don’t fit in this story, okay?” You blurted out. “I know I don’t belong. But I have to make this myth work somehow, because I’ve got to get this baby out. I can’t be like this anymore. It hurts—it hurts all the time.”
You held your hands out, pleading. The unicorn didn’t say anything at all.
“I never asked for this,” you said. “I didn’t want to be made this way. I didn’t have a choice whether I was cursed or blessed. I tried to make the best of it. I really did. I want to find a home, I want to be who I am, I want to have a child. Is that so much to demand of the world? Do I deserve a curse for that?”
The unicorn blinked slowly. It repeated, “Are you a knight or a maiden?”
“Oh, fuck you.”
The unicorn regarded you primly. “If you are not a knight or a maiden,” it said, “then you must be a unicorn.”
You had heard enough. You drew your sword and in one swift stroke cut off the unicorn’s head. It severed from the body in a spray of red, then hit the floor with a wet thud. The glassy black eyes stared up at you. The mouth did not stop moving.
The plaintive voice continued, and the unicorn spoke your story.
It told you everything. It told you in impeccable detail of your childhood, your iron necklace and bitter tears. It spoke in intimate tones of your lonely life in the city. It sympathized with how you felt upon waking up pregnant. It remembered your walk through the forest.
It told you how you died.
Killing a unicorn caused a curse to go into effect—no ten-year turn of fate, either, but something immediate and devastating. As your sword struck the unicorn, you felt an invisible blade in your own gut. The implacable narration continued on.
You gasped. You fell to the floor. Pain stabbed through your stomach. Blood dribbled out from between your legs. Your vision went blurry.
You had played all three parts in the story. You had forsaken maidenhood. You had styled yourself a knight in your callous cruelty. You had tried to deny yourself the myth entirely. But the truth was worse—the truth was that you were a unicorn. And unicorns always died.
Your head swam. The world went black. You felt something squeeze out of you, something warm and gasping, but you could not see what it was. You lay your head back against the floorboards and breathed raggedly, waiting for the pain to end.
The unicorn was still talking, still narrating all of this to you. You had fallen close to the decapitated head. You could feel its warm breath in your ear.
Remember how every story ends, I said to you. Remember what kind of death this is.
You had come into the castle thinking you were a hunting party. You had tried to sacrifice the unicorn to save yourself. But really—truly—this was a cyclical death. A myth death. And with every ending, the story began again.
You woke up with a gasp, shuddering back to life. You were covered in blood—some of it was your own. You were no longer pregnant. The place between your thighs ached. You spat up ugly yellow bile. Your vision returned to you with blurry reluctance as you took in the rest of the room.
Your sword was beside you; the unicorn had fallen. It was sprawled awkwardly halfway off the bed, front limbs touching the floor. It was cold to the touch, and its glassy eyes devoid of life—but as you watched, its swollen stomach still quivered, skin stretching as if something within was straining to get out.
You crawled over to your sword, gripped its handle with a slick-sweaty palm. You raised it over your head and cut open the limp corpse of the unicorn.
Cradled within the unicorn’s stomach was your child.
You took it out and cradled it in your arms. You gently touched the smooth eyelids, the perfect curled digits, the whorl of dark hair like a cap on the back of its skull.
Your fingers traced the base of the horn on your child’s forehead. It was just a nub, but you knew someday it would grow. You pitied your child, for you knew how it felt to be born odd and unfitting. But there was magic in the horn, too, something powerful and strange— you smelled it, like witch hazel, wafting from your baby’s breath.
Was it a curse or a blessing? You couldn’t tell. It was an unavoidable turn of fate, but it didn’t have to be a bitter one. You thought back to your own misshapen, wrong-bodied birth. Maybe you had never been cursed or blessed at all. Maybe you just had a different part to play in the story.
No matter. You and your child had ten years to figure it out.