Part 1

Part 1 - Appleton, Wisconsin

It is a writing convention that no story should start with, ‘Once upon a time.’ But for a fantastical tale there is no better beginning. So, f**k it.

Once upon a time in a land called Wisconsin there lived a Unicorn Princess, and her name was Caroline. 

Caroline did not have a spiraled horn. Her coat was not moonlight silver, nor her tail a flowing band of mithril. Caroline was human, yet she did have two things in common with Unicorns: she could not walk on two legs, nor could she speak English. Caroline was confined to a wheelchair, and was a mute. 

Caroline Maria Krusch was born to Peter and Maria Krusch sixteen years before this story begins. At birth she was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disorder so rare that her father’s plaintive medical insurance hadn’t stood a chance. Caroline learned to speak to the world through her eyes and hands. Have you noticed in medical dramas how surgeons’ eyes express themselves? That is how Caroline communicated. Around her hazel irises emotions rippled like wind across a wheat field. Caroline did not have the dexterity for sign language, but the position of her hands on her wrists and the flexing of her fingers indicated her will. 

Caroline watched the people around her grow and develop. Yet she remained static. Not physically, she was lithe and beautiful with summer sand skin and golden retriever hair. She had grown biologically, but her life had been dictated by the help she needed. She had no self-sufficiency. Her father buried her in bed every night. In the morning his relieved arms birthed her out. 

But there was a place Caroline could go, an escape she could make. Caroline, you see, had a gift. As if the disablement of her body was the loss of a sense, her mind’s eye, her dreamworld, had expanded to compensate. Her dreams were so vivid that reality could not touch them. Moreover Caroline could perpetuate her dreams, store them like books in a library. When she wanted to escape, she withdrew a dream and opened it to the page from where she had left off. This collection of dreams was not extensive, because one dream out massed the others. This was the dream that Caroline had occupied almost every sleeping and daydreaming moment since her memory blurred from terrible clarity to dim resignation. It was the Unicorn Queendom dream world. In this dream Caroline was a Unicorn Princess. She was ruler of this magical kingdom, its chief architect and protector. Her magic was infinite. She could do anything, summon anything and - at times of rage so violent that the Queendom’s animals burrowed in fear - destroy anything. Once, driven by the denial of a request to attend tenth grade prom, she had reared up on hind legs, pointed her horn at the middle of the three suns and screamed the ‘F**k You!’ incantation. The sun had been obliterated. This spell had been a popular weapon in her arsenal since she her mother had nodded off after several martinis and Caroline had watched Pulp Fiction. She was then but ten years old. Supplementally, Caroline’s family often forgot her presence during discussions raging on such topics as the Packers Super Bowl chances, or whether Wisconsin’s winters were the worst in America. Language, she discovered, was a powerful tool in her dream world. ‘F**k’ could be used to wield terrible destruction. ‘A*****e’, although several steps below, could be employed to punish animals that pointed out how bad her language had become. 

By her sixteenth birthday, Caroline was sleeping so much that her doctors had (incorrectly) added hyper-insomnia to her diagnosis. She did not discourage this opinion. It suited her to be allowed to drift into her dreamworld whenever she wanted. Indeed her parents, tireless caregivers though they were, seemed to prefer it that way. When she was, or appeared to be, asleep her mother ceased hovering and retreated into typical matrimony. Since Caroline was not, according to one particular ‘a*****e’ in her Unicorn world, expected to live beyond the age of twenty-five, she was able to escape to her dreams as often as she wanted. Even her teachers (probably under instruction) allowed her escape. 

Caroline had one wish in the real world, one desire that she believed could be translated into reality. As a child her mother would park her in front of the TV whilst she prepared meals. Caroline would slip away to attend to her royal duties, but one show would bring her back: the adventures of Flipper the Dolphin. The grace of this animal counterbalanced her own, carved form. She wanted to meet Flipper. As time went by she realized that he was a fabrication, a stereotype of how people viewed dolphins. She understood this, since she herself was a rendition of the disabled. Something to be glanced at. Something to be pitied. 

Recently Caroline had formed a plan. Variations of it were played out in the Unicorn Queendom. Various dolphins came and went, discussing how her plan might be enacted. Needless to say encountering a wild dolphin in Wisconsin was not happening. The opportunity to overcome this minor hurdle was the family’s winter holiday argument. Her parents hosted this annual event in the frozen wastes following Christmas. Caroline’s mother, confessing much to her captive audience as she often did, looked forward to this gathering with the anticipation of having a cavity drilled without anesthetic. Her father’s brother, Anton and his wife, Anita would descend on them towing their six-year-old daughter, Anya. Caroline’s cousin had been generously described by their Grandma - the day before she died - as “a little heller”. But Anya was the only child who treated Caroline as anything like normal. She would leap into Caroline’s lap and start to plait Caroline’s hair, often talking about developments in her hate/hate relationship with a girl at school called Melonie. Anya appeared to take Caroline’s lack of response as tacit approval to unburden herself of such troubles as would require an adult to engage a psychiatrist. 

This year’s holiday skirmish took place around the Krusch dining table after the warmup, a debate on the demerits of the current Administration’s motivations and abilities. The smell of leftover turkey, pallid and cloying, pervaded the placid light in the dining room. Like Rohypnol snuck into the wine, it brought IQs down to a level that guaranteed conflict.

Uncle Anton was a vigorous man with a winter beard so full that his mouth was invisible. He had already thumped the table several times during the first act. Caroline noted that the specs of gravy in his beard were harder to spot these days. As he pounded the best lace napkins with the gavel of his fist more drops flew from his plate. Several of them landed on Caroline’s arm. The sensation of cold globs on her skin was unwelcome. She caught her mother’s eyes, never more than a few seconds from checking her daughter for some indication of requirement, and tapped two fingers on her wrist. 

Need cleaning/wiping.

Her mother, a stickly woman of hidden strength, arose. She traveled the few strides to the kitchen and returned with a paper towel. Caroline glanced at her arm. Her mother removed the offending congeality with a grimace. Caroline returned her attention to the conversation.

“…abroad to get a break from that goddamn idiot,” Uncle Anton was saying. 

Caroline deduced that her uncle was not a fan of the President. Perhaps an aftereffect of her Uncle living too long on the jagged edge of the middle class? She heard her mother sigh. It was the same every year. Her uncle and father would argue about where to go on winter vacation. No-one would make a decision, then they would be left in Christmas’ rear-view mirror seeking last minute deals that both families could afford. Caroline’s disability made it hard. Wherever they went, it had to be wheelchair friendly. But Caroline was content to dream by a pool. A Unicorn Princess prefers warm dreams to winter’s breath. 

Her father rose. He shared his brother’s angular features but kept his face clean shaven, even at winter’s nadir. He said, “Sure, but it’s so much more expensive.”

They had gotten to the knot of the argument much faster this year. With Caroline’s disability, the percentage of her father’s pay that was available for luxuries like holidays was lower than his brother’s. There was also the pay differential. Uncle Anton worked in the city’s planning department, he had a good job. Her father tried to tie the ends of their finances working at the local lumber company. It was Thinker vs. Doer, and the Thinker attracted the money (as normal). Caroline also knew something that her uncle didn’t. Her parents put money aside every month into an account designed to help Caroline after they were gone. This was sweet of them, but Caroline suspected the account also had the purpose of a funeral fund in case (as expected) the circumstances were reversed. 

Back and forth the argument went, with neither Caroline’s mother nor Aunt Anita having much say. This was the way of things in their family. Her Grandpa had been the same. That being said, Grandma Krusch had possessed the ability to slip in a word or two with sufficient venom. Like a wife-ninja spotting a chink in her husband’s verbal armor, Grandma would thrust in her dirk. She had been known to bring a dispute like this to a crashing halt by saying something like, “Is that so, Erik?” 

Caroline felt buoyed by this memory, as if Grandma lurked behind her. She caught her father’s eyes. In some ways he was more attentive to her moods then her mother. He checked her eyes less often, but when he did it was as if a mental breaker had tripped. 

Her father raised his hand, a movement that everyone in the family knew. The conversation was to hold immediately; Caroline had something to communicate. “Caroline?” he said. He leant towards her. The bulk of his chest squeezed the table, it moved an inch and a resinous fart emitted from its protesting wheels. Anya looked up from her mother’s cell phone and sniggered. 

Caroline’s fingers were in their default position, right hand laying on top of her left wrist. She flexed them. This was going to be difficult. Implying ideas more complex than simple requests and demands taxed both her ability to engage in nonverbal communication, and her family’s understanding. Fortunately she had made Charades her b***h. She condensed all but one finger. 

“One word,” her father said.

She put another finger next to it.

“Two syllables,” he noted.

She pulled all her fingers back.

“The whole thing?” he asked. 

He was starting to fish now. She blinked slowly, signifying that he was correct. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger. 

“Sun,” her mother said.

Caroline frowned.

“Oh,” her mother said in a ‘my bingo number didn’t come up’ voice.

“Of course it’s not sun, Maria,” her uncle said. “We know we’re going somewhere sunny for Christ’s sake.”

Caroline saw her aunt’s body shift. Uncle Anton yelped and reached under the table. Aunt Anita had the body mass of a Soviet weightlifter. 

“Sorry,” her uncle mumbled. 

“Go on darling,” her father said.

Caroline extended her little finger and moved it down over the side of her wrist.

Food/drink - not fast food.

The distinction was important. Food was one thing; fast food was another. Caroline was determined not to become a wheelchair hog. She ate healthily, but on rare occasions allowed herself comfort food.

“Ummm…” her father said.

Caroline sensed him spinning the slot machine wheels of her favorite foods.

“It’s an orange,” Anya said, having miraculously put down the cell phone.

Caroline raised her eyebrows in a gesture of surprise.

“What?” Anya said. “They’re in the fruit bowl.”

Caroline’s father looked at her and inclined his head. “Did she get it?”

Caroline raised her thumb as far as she could, indicating approval.

Aunt Anita laughed and ruffled her daughter’s hair. “You’re so clever”

Anya shrugged and picked the phone back up.

“So it’s Florida then?” her uncle asked.

Catherine now had to work her Unicorn magic in reality. This was the hardest thing she ever did. Working the magic in her dreamworld was easy, it flew from her horn so readily that she could create castles, mountains, friends - whatever or whomever she wanted. But to make the magic work in reality took an effort of will. Her tendons tensed. In her mind she brought the magic to the middle of her forehead. She looked at her uncle. He was the one who needed swaying. Her parents would do it for her, and Aunt Anita would follow whatever Uncle Anton decided. But without his buy-in her plan would fall apart.

It had to be Florida. Somewhere with dolphins that her parents could afford to take her. 

Catherine looked at her uncle, looked into him. She brought the magic into the room. In her dreamworld this much magic could destroy the remaining suns. Here, in the cellar of winter, it might not be enough to get her uncle to abandon his wish to take the family abroad.

Relent…pull back. See my desire, my wish, my want! Step back from your refusal to see our poverty, our misery. See your brother as he once was: your friend, your confidant, your playmate. See that sun is sun. It is the same sun. It shines wherever in the world you are. See your family, laughing in the sun. See me in the sea with a dolphin by my side. See the joy in my eyes. See the life in me. See what I want. See the sacrifices my parents make. Take one small part of that and quash your selfishness with it. 

The magic trickled out of her, nothing more than a sliver of dream-light. It crawled across the gap between them. Caroline drove it with the full force of her being, mentally pushed it so hard that she felt the veins on the side of her head thicken with the effort. Closer… closer it crept until finally it touched her uncle’s forehead. Then the effort grew, the will needed to push that small fraction of an inch. To penetrate his skin, the bone of his skull and insert the light into his brain. To dodge the beating logic of his synapsis until it entered the darkness of his subconscious. 

Sweat beaded on Caroline’s forehead.

“Caroline, are you alight?” her mother asked.

She heard the worried tone, heard the squeak of pressure release as her mother rose to come to her.

With titanic force Caroline broke the biological barrier. The magic slid in.

Uncle Anton frowned, as if he had heard an organ chord on top of a mountain. He looked around. Then he looked back at Caroline. “I hear Miami Beach is quite nice in February,” he said.

Anya looked up and clapped her hands. “I love oranges,” she said. “Except those yellow ones.”

“Those are lemons darling,” Aunt Anita said.

Caroline’s father and uncle looked at each other. 

“Florida it is then,” her father said. 

A wave of palpable relief swept around the table.