Part 4

Part 4 - Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida and The Unicorn Queendom

Caroline lay in bed watching the ceiling fan distort the murky air. It squeaked once every rotation, as if a mouse were being honked on the nose at each pass. Caroline hated rooms with rhythmic sounds: ticking clocks, dripping taps, snoring adults. Oh to use languid muscles to turn off the damn fan. But no, nature had doubly afflicted her with the mental inability to block out such annoyances, and the physical inability to do anything about them. This was one of many curses bestowed on her by God, or whoever had rained this pile of s**t on her life. Once she had lain awake until the early hours whilst a dripping drainpipe drove her insane. Eventually her father, on one of his two-hour nightly check-in’s, had been made to understand what the problem was. Bless him, he had donned hat and coat and abated the sound. 

Carline tried to block out the sound of the fan by recalling the events of today’s dolphin swim. From the theme-park flutterings of the assistants to their expressions of fake surprise when the dolphins (Jack and Jill….please!) swam into view. This ‘miracle’ was presumably nothing to do with the tons of dead fish dangled near them at tempting heights. Even Caroline knew when dinner was ready by the quality of the smell coming from her mother’s kitchen. The whole thing was so pantomimed, so rehearsed. It was like watching a circus act. Everything had been run with the efficiency of a Swiss railway.  Fortunately she was adept at hiding her feelings and had broadcast an air of serene indifference. She wished she could go to a marina and rent a fishing boat; escape out beyond the reefs, where the wild dolphins hunted. Now that would be an experience. No artificiality, just real-life swimming before you. And if you saw nothing? Well, then you knew you were alive and not in the presence of some controller, someone pulling the strings.

The only saving grace had been, bizarrely, one which she could not share with her family. As she had been lowered into the tepid warm, the dolphins had collided with each other. This, Caroline had thought, was very bad form. Dolphins at Sea World were a marvel of filmed choreography. These two had the same lack of coordination her father and uncle exhibited  after coming home from a bar. After their coming together, one of the dolphins (Jill she thought) had swum straight at her. This had caused consternation and alarm amongst the minions, as well as a not inconsiderable amount of gawking from her family. But Jill had swum up, and actually touched her! The head butt of a purring cat would have registered less on a personal seismometer. Jill’s beak had touched the bottom of Caroline’s jaw. The sensation was like touching wet silk. Then Jill had looked at her. Caroline could swear the dolphin looked right into her, as if her soul had been put under a microscope and polarized to reveal what was inverted, what was hidden. Then Jill had backed off and the dolphins had resumed their path up the ranks of the other tourists, none of whom received any special attention. Caroline’s signing was insufficient to explain the feeling of having been spiritually autopsied. Caroline had seen several mothers give her a look she well recognized. I supposed they paid for her to get special treatment. Yes, of course! Naturally her parents had bribed that particular dolphin, or (more likely) slipped a rancid sardine down the front of Caroline’s life jacket. 

The squeaking from the fan subsided. Caroline smiled, and felt her eyelids closing.

She sprang into her Queendom with the vigor of a colt released into pasture after winter stabling. She stopped, snorted and pawed a gasping chasm in the earth. Then she ran, ran so fast that she saw convexes of pressure build in front of her. Her castle rushed over the horizon. She skidded to a stop in front of the drawbridge, sending stones skipping into the moat. 

Simonale stood in front of the open portcullis. They had taken the form of a sea horse. She frowned, which here meant snorting and drawing her eyebrows down. It was unusual for Simonale to change their otter form.

Simonale bobbed. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

Caroline opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, said ‘Vis…’, then settled on closing it. 

‘Yes,’ Simonale said. ‘I can’t explain it actually.’ They turned and pointed their snout towards the castle. ‘He’s in the throne room.’

Caroline passed Simonale without a glance. They would have to be punished for this appalling lapse of security.

The throne room wallowed in sunlight. Perched on one of the dais’ steps, reading a book, was a black unicorn. Perhaps this interloper was a manifestation of her subconscious, come to entertain her in this time of disappointment.

‘Are you finished?’

The voice was male. It had a cultured quality, and an odd accent that Caroline couldn’t place. She had an excellent ear for geolocating people, thanks to much time spent hearing world TV. Her best guess was somewhere in Scandinavia. 

Caroline moved forward with high steps and a flashing mane. Whoever this unicorn was, he was in her world and would learn that she ruled here. She moved to within a few feet of the black unicorn. He was neither large nor small, muscular nor effeminate. His horn was pearl - although she detected flecks of gold in it. It didn’t seem possible, but his eyes were darker than the night-coal of his skin. They sucked at her. She felt she was disseminating and flowing into…

The black unicorn snapped his book closed. ‘I enquired if you were done sizing me up?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Caroline said, in a tone haughtier than she had intended.

The black unicorn set the book down, rose and clopped down to her level. She was at least six inches taller than him, yet she felt miniaturized, as if he could squash her. I must be careful, she thought. He has power here.

She stepped closer, so that their horns were almost touching. ‘I am Princess Caroline, ruler of this Queendom. And you, sir are trespassing!’

The black unicorn let out a bellowing laugh. ‘By Poseidon’s balls,’ he said, ‘you’ve got no fear have you?’

‘Not in here,’ she shot back.

His smile faded. ‘Indeed. My apologies your highness. My manners have been honed in…a different environment.’ He straightened one leg and bent the other, his head dipping. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Prince Archimedes Titus Andronicus Finnegan. But my friends, and I hope you will count me as one, call me Finn.’

Caroline was so taken aback by this switch to formality that she just stared. After some seconds he tilted his head to look up at her. 

‘I believe,’ he said, ‘it’s customary to say something like “nice to meet you”.’

‘Errr…yes…sorry, a pleasure,’ she said, and bowed her head in response.

Prince Finn rose back to his normal stance. ‘Ditto,’ he said. 

He cocked his ears, rotating them slightly. She heard nothing, but saw his breathing quicken.

‘We must talk,’ he said. ‘There is little time, and we have much to discuss.’

‘We do?’ said Caroline, wondering how she was now on the defensive. 

‘Yes,’ Prince Finn said. ‘May we walk and talk? It is such a…novelty for me.’

Caroline could not fathom his meaning. She nodded and indicated towards the doors. Prince Finn moved to her side and they walked out into the sunshine. 

‘You are wondering what I’m doing here, invading your privacy,’ he said.

Caroline tried not to look interested. ‘It had occurred to me that your presence here is quite odd.’

‘Odd, yes,’ Finn said. ‘That is apt.’ He scuffed at a playing card half buried in the ground. ‘Curious,’ he muttered.

‘Sorry?’ Caroline said. ‘What’s curious?’

Prince Finn strode off in the direction of the tournament field. 

‘Hey!’ Caroline called after him. ‘Wait for me.’ She cantered and caught up. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘You already know half the answer to that question,’ Finn said.

Caroline saw one of his eyes glint. A nervous feeling sparked inside her. Could this Finn know about her ability? If he was a figment of her imagination then of course he did. Simonale knew all about her because he was her. But this didn’t feel like that. Finn was different, alien almost. It was as if he had been designed for her, but by something that didn’t really understand what she was: a cripple, a mute, a poisonous leech on her family’s time and money. Could he know about her alteration of the real world? They were small things, such tiny flutterings. But they took so much effort of will. The strain to overcome inertia, gravity, weight of mind was incredible. She had only been able to develop it because she had so much time to sit and practice.

Finn could not be part of her secret; he would know that was all, that there was nothing else. And why come now? She had been making magic for years now. What had changed…

The proverbial penny clanged against the bottom of her reason with a resonant thonk. 

‘The dolphin,’ she said.

Prince Finn nodded. ‘Yes. Her name is Lady Isabella. If you meet her again, you might call her Izzy and get away with it.’

‘Lady?’ Caroline said.

‘Yes, although you might think of her more as a spy than a member of the aristocracy.’

‘A spy? Spying on whom?’

Prince Finn looked into the distance and hummed a tune that reminded Caroline of a sea shanty she had once heard on the radio. Something resonant of ships being planed in one of the Ye Olde England’s naval ports. 

‘Whom does one generally spy on?’ Prince Finn asked.

Caroline thought about it. ‘Your enemy?’ she quavered.

‘Right!’ Prince Finn said. 

He side stepped in a move Caroline had seen Lipizzaner stallions perform on TV. 

Finn continued, ‘Izzy and her mate are tasked with watching how humans develop. Both of them have excellent physic abilities; mind readers you might call them. They’re able to review the state of mind of people who enter the water. They report back on how the mood of humankind is changing. That information is correlated with reports from other aquatic contacts to form a general state of humankind’s attitude towards the creatures of the sea.’

Prince Finn stopped abruptly and pricked his ears up again. ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘I must be brief, my apologies.’ He looked at her. ‘Izzy detected in you something that has not been found in humans since…well since a long time ago. Someone who has the ability to project magic into the real world. This is a gift that was once common but has been lost to time’s embrace.’

Caroline had the feeling that Finn was covering something up. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but he raised a hoof to silence her. She hurumped in disgust.

Finn said, ‘I’m sorry. Time runs away from us. Can’t you hear it?’

Caroline listened. In the distance, like far off thunder, she could hear a door banging.

Finn said. ‘I come as an emissary to entreat with you. Dolphins fear that humankind will soon push itself over the abyss into madness. At least one country in your world is planning to use the mushroom device to seek revenge for perceived slights to its way of life.’

Caroline had no problem guessing what the “mushroom device” was. 

Finn continued, ‘If the rift between humankind and the sea can be healed, perhaps we can find a way to resolve these differences.’

‘You said “we”,’ Caroline observed.

Finn nodded. ‘Yes, I am a dolphin. Even now I am floating offshore, not far from your hotel. I am using the dream band to communicate with you. My doing this without your permission is a terrible faux pax, so once again I have to apologize. But know that need drives me. We must resolve matters before you leave for your homeland.’

Caroline stepped back a pace. ‘Resolve matters?’

Finn stepped forward, so that her horn rested almost between his eyes. 

‘Don’t you understand?’ Finn said. ‘The person who works to reunite our peoples must be willing to do so, but they must also be accepted by dolphinkind.’

Caroline suddenly felt the ground, once solid and supportive, become sublime and seductive. 

‘I am…unacceptable?’ She stammered.

Caroline, time to wake up.

Her world shifted from side to side. Prince Finn staggered, his legs buckled as he toppled over. He began to fade.

‘No!’ Caroline screamed. ‘What do you mean, accept me? What the f**k are you talking about?’

Finn’s mouth moved, but the words were inconclusive. Caroline could not understand what he was saying, apart from one word that came though clear as bell in a storm, ‘…whole…’

Caroline was propelled out of The Unicorn Queendom. Her eyes sprang open to see her father’s face She tried to scream, but nothing came out except the gurgling of spittle in her throat. Her fingers clawed at her father’s hands.

‘It’s alight, baby,’ he said. ‘You just had a bad dream.’

Tears welled in her eyes. They slipped down her face onto sheets as ivory as her coat had just been.