incognoscibilis | Somewhere in a hidden memory images float before my eyes [Amalthea]

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Somewhere in a hidden memory images float before my eyes [Amalthea]

In Henrietta, Cabeswater had been a secret thing. It was the secret clubhouse of a few miraculous high school students and the people they chose to invite. It was a thing rarely shared, the crown jewel of their exclusively held secrets.

Not so in Darrow.

Darrow was a strange place, an intersection of so many kinds of power that it would have been less a miracle and more a statistical improbability that Cabeswater remained undiscovered. There were others in Darrow who could walk its ley line and into the forest it held. None of them were held as high in Cabeswater's regard as Ronan and Adam and their circle, so Cabeswater retained its dearest secrets for them, but it was no longer theirs alone.

So when he felt another presence in the forest, he was perturbed but not unsurprised. What did surprise him was that Cabeswater regarded that presence with both fondness and some curiosity, compelling Adam to meet its source.

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Ever since Noah had shown her this place, she came as often as she could; ever since Ronan told her what it could do for her, she came more often. The moment she slipped past the boundary of the forest she shed clothes, skin, shape; she shed her humanity and felt herself again. Cabeswater was not, could never be, her forest. It belonged to itself. But it felt welcoming, and it delighted her with its unique nature.

It had given her a gift, and she would forever be grateful to the forest and its attendants.

Once her hooves touched the soft ground, she ran, the brightness of her catching the sunlight that filtered through the leaves. She ran and ran and ran until the desire left her. She found a pond - or Cabeswater provided one - so that she could look at herself.

Unicorns, after all, tended to be vain.

Her ear flicked when she heard movement. She lifted her head, perfect in her movement and in the consequent stillness. She looked at the boy with large, opaque eyes: as deep as the sea, refusing to reflect the mere surface of what she saw. This was not ghostly Noah or dreaming Ronan, but someone else tied here. He was part of the forest, or it was part of him. Or both.

After a moment, she dipped her head in a respectful bow, her long, spiral horn nearly touching the ground.

Edited 2016-08-14 03:30 (UTC)

Adam saw the flick of its ear and heard his clumsy movement too late. And then they were still. Adam had forgotten how to breathe at the sight and now Cabeswater wrapped silent tendrils of concern around him, trying to understand the sudden vastness Adam felt. In the last three years, Adam had seen so many things, beautiful, terrible, magical, and frequently a combination of all three.

But he had never seen a unicorn. He had never seen a creature that was so impossibly elegant, so beautiful, so obviously spun of magic.

There wasn't a word in any language to express his wonder but Cabeswater let a breeze shake leaves free, swirling them onto the surface of the water.

Adam bowed back, low and unpracticed.

His bow delighted her and she whickered her pleasure.

"You are part of this forest as I was once part of mine," she said, her voice clear though she had no human mouth to speak with. She looked at him more closely. "No," she amended. "Perhaps you are more." She moved in a slow circle around the boy, taking him in. Then she stood still again, eye to eye but a respectful distance away. She did not want to crowd him.

But she was curious.

It shouldn't have surprised him that she spoke but Adam's eyes went wide all the same. When she looked at him, it was a penetrating gaze that seemed like it must be able to find all the best and worst in him. In that, oddly enough, Adam was reminded of Persephone and that made it easier to look at her, to speak.

"I gave myself to it," he said, startled into honesty. Normally, he would be careful, hold back on that, but it didn't seem right to lie–even by omission–to a unicorn.

It clarified more than it didn't. He belonged to the forest. "My forest gave itself to me. I felt like I was abandoning it when I left to find the others." And now she was here, and she wondered if she would ever see her forest again.

Cabewswater had been very kind to her, she appreciated it.

But her forest was as real and as living as Cabeswater. In recognizing that, Cabewaster gave Adam an approving nudge against the back of his mind. It declared that if it had accepted a unicorn then so should Adam and so he would.

"I've never met a unicorn before," he admitted. "And definitely not here. Just the elk."

She tossed her head ad seemed to pose for a moment, as if to give him the full effect. Then she made a sound that was almost like laughing, but not human, and not entirely equine.

"Noah brought here; then he and Ronan realized that the forest might be able to give me my shape back."

She dances around a bit, delighting in herself. When she is still it is perfect: the way deer pause when they listen for danger. But there is nothing fearful about her. "I have been spending time here, as much as I can, ever since. Being human frightens me. I'm afraid of forgetting what I am."

Every moment that she went still, Adam thought he might stop breathing. It was more than seeing a unicorn, which was amazing enough as it was, but she was also beautiful beyond belief. It was like looking into the heart of Cabeswater and seeing something human eyes couldn't see and human minds couldn't comprehend.

"Yes, I know them," he said, smiling a little. "Noah is my friend. Ronan is my..." Saying the word seemed oddly juvenile in front of the fairytale creature. "I love him."

Her sorrow touched on something in Adam and he nodded, because he understood that same fear, the risk of being accidentally subsumed by the forest.

"I'm Cabeswater's hands and eyes. I know it well enough to know you're welcome here, completely."

"When I first met Ronan, he didn't believe me when I told him what I was," she said with considerable amusement. His face had been the best one to watch when she finally returned to herself.

"Thank you." She offered another gracious bow of her head, a gentle tilt this time rather than lowering it to the ground. "If I must be human in Darrow, at least Cabeswater allows me this freedom." The unicorn watched the boy closely. "I hope I have your welcome, as well."

Adam smiled thinly, because that sounded exactly like Ronan. "Ronan never believes anything the first time around," Adam said. "Try not to hold it against him." Ronan had long-ago cultivated an armored shell, hardened by calling out bullshit as he saw it, but sometimes it made it difficult for him to see the miracles.

When she bowed, he bowed again, eyes raised so that he could keep watching her, too amazed to look away. "Cabeswater trusts you and I trust Cabeswater and I'd be glad to see you here as often as you like."

"He believed in Chainsaw," she answered. "And she is a dream-thing." The unicorn watched him with her large, deep eyes. They did not reflect the word around her; they were not a mirror.

"Will you walk with me? Will you tell me about Cabeswater?"

A dream thing that Ronan had shaped with his own two hands. What Ronan could touch and see was what Ronan believed and although he had touched and seen some very extraordinary things, they could not claim unicorns in Henrietta.

"I'll walk with you, but I'm not sure where I'd begin when it comes to Cabeswater." It was older than Adam and younger too. More infinite. More powerful.

"Try," she said, because she liked stories. "Your name is Adam?" The unicorn heard it spoken only in passing, but the other boys mentioned there was another person, another friend, that spent time here.

She waited for him, then began walking. She moved quietly, and it was not hard to imagine a creature even as bright as her disappearing into the shadows of the forest.

"Adam Parrish," he said. As they walked, he tried to keep a few steps behind the unicorn so that he could keep looking at her, some kind of reversed Orpheus. If he looked away, she would be too beautiful to be real and vanish.

"Sometimes I'm not sure where it begins. Because time ends up being so circular, but...Cabeswater as we knew it was brought alive by Ronan Lynch and then it stood on a ley line and we thought it meant one thing or maybe another, but it meant something else entirely." How did he begin to explain the intricacies of Owen Glendower and Noah Czerny and Richard Campbell Gansey III and Ronan Lynch? How did he weave in Barrington Whelk and a house full of psychics?

"Someone tried to make a bargain with the ley line, to make it obey. I made a bargain first."

She peered back at him a few times and eventually stopped walking, waiting for him to catch up. Once Adam was beside her, she continued. "You gave yourself to it rather than trying to... harness it."

She could still the threads connecting him here.

"You are all wrapped together," she said after thinking for a moment. "I saw it between Ronan and Noah when they were here together. I'm sure I would see it between them and you." Whatever had happened, it was so deeply entwined between the lot of them that it might not be right to try to parse out little parts of it.

She lifted her head, pausing to watch purple butterflies float by. She wondered if they were here because of her. Noah had told her to imagine something on her first visit here.

"My forest was timeless," she said quietly. "Always spring. That changed when I left it."

"It doesn't own me," Adam said. It was both an affirmation for himself and a reminder for the forest at large. He was Cabeswater's hands and eyes and it offered him protection. They were in an accord and they upheld their bargain.

"I act for it and it can see through me, but it doesn't own me. It helps me." That also felt important to say, with the appropriate subdued gratitude in his voice. They were a symbiotic pair.

"Cabeswater changes all the time, but it's timeless too."

"You need each other," she said, understanding, even if Adam seemed to have trouble articulating. "You help each other."

The unicorn tips her head up, looking pleased, if one could tell that about her. She stopped by the edge of a pond - one with a multitude of goldfish in it.

"I hope I don't upset the balance here. But Cabeswater isn't like any other forest I would live in. I think it will be alright, with your help."

The moment that Adam thought that the goldfish ought to be bigger, more like the carp-sized ones in ponds, the little ones seemed to disappear, replaced by the expected koi. Adam thought apologetically to the goldfish; he hadn't meant to affect reality but Cabeswater was an attentive power.

"I don't know if I can always be its voice. That wasn't part of its bargain and we get...lost in translation sometimes." Adam could still remember those painful, uncertain weeks in the heat of summer when reality had seemed as flexible and uncertain outside of Cabeswater as within it.

"But I'll try. I think it likes you though."

"I hope that will not change. Unicorns affect our surroundings if we stay long enough. But Cabeswater is is own. I cannot imagine it will change, even for me." She sounded amused more than anything and she watched the goldfish turn into larger fish. Her tail flicked.

"Where did you come from, Adam? Where did Cabeswater come from?" It did not seem like a thing Darrow would create. It felt different.

"I came from a place made for leaving," Adam said, his usual closed answer. There was nothing mystical or otherworldly about his origins. Henrietta and its rural half towns were not a place to mark on the map, much less to describe.

"Where Cabeswater came from isn't my secret to tell though."

"I suppose it doesn't matter. I am happy it is here."

The unicorn looked at him, unblinking and calm. "You remind me of a magician I knew," she said. "And a prince."

"I think Cabeswater is happy you're here too."

Adam nodded and he offered the unicorn a smile, a more hopeful one than he usually fashioned. Her words were kind and half-accurate; he was the Magician, but he'd never be the prince.

"You'd want to talk to my friend Gansey if you want to meet a prince."

"Not all princes seem like princes," she insisted, but she would not press the argument. Maybe this Gansey would remind her of Lir, too. But something about Adam made her think of him. "Lir was hardly much of anything until we came to live at his castle."

It didn't seem like the right thing to do, arguing with a unicorn, but Adam couldn't picture it. For all his stubborn work, clawing himself further away from that trailer park, Adam always thought his disguise thin.

"Lir? He's a real prince?"

"Yes," she answered, sounding fond. Loving. "Born to a peasant family, taken in by a man as cold as stone and raised. It took him a long time to realize what he could be. He made himself a hero, trying to impress me. I felt badly, at the time."

She flicked her ear. "He wasn't born a prince. But he did become one. And a king, after that."

Edited 2016-08-26 19:16 (UTC)

Then, maybe, she had a better read on Adam than he expected. But then, she was a unicorn and even if this was the first unicorn he'd met, Adam had no reason to argue. Not if she'd seen an orphan become a hero.

"And the magician?"

The unicorn considered what she wanted to say about Schmendrick. "He got in his own way," she answered at last. Perhaps Molly would say it was unkind of her to say that, but it was also true. "He had the potential for great power: to be a true magician was his greatest wish. But he forever doubted himself, and he forever sought something outside himself."

Adam's mouth twitched then, because it sounded accurate enough. In varying degrees, it suited Ronan and Gansey too. All three of them, with more power and grace in their fingertips than they knew what to do with or how to wield. Gansey was the closest to having a grasp of all he was, but that was before Cabeswater.

"I think that sounds like most of us mortals," he admitted.

"He was cursed," she answered. "Made immortal until he could... do whatever it was he needed to do to break it." She flicked her tail. "Perhaps. But most mortals do not make bargins with forests, or have friends that are dead-but-not-dead, or know people that can pluck things from their dreams."

The unicorn considered, then added, "Most mortals do not know a unicorn when they see one."

Funny thing, being cursed to live forever. It seemed like the kind of thing that most people aspired to. It was the kind of thing he'd drape over Gansey if he could have but as that thought occurred to him, Adam realized he wouldn't want it for himself, wouldn't want to watch others pass before him and away.

"I gave Cabeswater my hands and eyes," Adam said. "It helps me see more clearly in return."

"What do you see when you look at me? What does it see?"

She didn't know if Adam could answer that, but she wondered anyway. The unicorn lifted her head, looking up at the rustling leaves. She ached for home, but if she could not be there, this was not terrible.

Adam had to think about it for a second, looking at the unicorn. It was like trying to switch between lenses at the eye doctor. One pair of eyes showed him what was in front of him, the other looked for the magic, greedy for beings like it.

But in his own gaze, Adam still saw a unicorn. It wasn't that he'd ever thought to explicitly believe in them but there was little he didn't think could be real anymore.

"Something neither of us thought to ever see," he said at last.

She seemed pleased by the answer. "If there is anything I can ever do for you or for Cabeswater, you have only to ask." For a moment she seemed sad. She added, "I do not have much magic outside this forest. I am human there, in Darrow. But the offer stands the same."

"What do you look like, when you leave the forest?" Adam asked, curious now and determined to find her again. It had nothing to do with her potential for magic or even that she was a unicorn.

Adam wanted to find her again because her deep, fathomless eyes reminded him of Persephone.

"A girl," she answered softly. "Would you like to see?"

Even as she asked the unicorn started walking, moving toward the edge of the forest. She knew she would change as soon as she stepped across the border. Adam would see what she looked like. She felt the change with a strange suddenness: it happened as she walked and she ended up falling to her knees in the grass outside of Cabeswater. White-blonde hair tumbled around her, partially hiding her naked body. She knew she should cover up, so she sat and drew her knees to her chest. The unicorn - the girl looked up at him with the same eyes.

Adam stared and couldn't look away. Her white-blonde hair was sleeker, more subdued than Persephone's cumulonimbus but there was something achingly familiar about her deep eyes and pale form. The resemblance to Persephone caught his attention completely more than her nudity and it was a delayed second before he thought to shuck his long overshirt and offer it to her.

"You remind me of a psychic I knew," he said by way of explanation.

She accepted the shirt and wrapped up, though she didn't get up off the grass. "Persephone," she said. "Noah said I looked like someone with that name." Amalthea tucked her hair back, feeling the loss of her body keenly. It always took her a moment to recover. "I left my dress... somewhere."

"Yeah, Persephone Poldma," he said. Noah or Ronan must have mentioned her, because even if they didn't like Persephone, she wasn't an easy person to forget.

Reaching out in his mind, he sank into Cabeswater, supplying it with the mental image of silken fabric, swaying cloth, until the forest understands. "It's that way," he points.

She got up carefully, like a fawn wobbly on new legs. It took her a moment to start walking, and when she did she stayed close to Adam. "I am not Persephone," she said softly. "And I am not Amalthea." She frowned as she said it, fingers curling around her hair. "Maybe I am Amalthea."

He knew that Amalthea was not Persephone but it didn't change how comforted he felt by the familiarity, not just in looks but in her silvery agelessness and grace.

"I think you decide for yourself what that means."

"I am afraid of being a human girl," she said quietly. "I am afraid of forgetting, again, who and what I am. If I forget no magician in the world, no power, not even Cabeswater, could turn me back into a unicorn." She clutched Adam's shirt around her.

She was a stranger to him, though a heartbreakingly beautiful one with more under her skin than the average ordinary person. None of that mattered and Adam nodded.

"I don't own this place, but as far as I'm concerned, come here whenever you want. As long as you want."

"Thank you, Adam." She smiled faintly when they found her dress and she slipped the shirt off, offering it back to Adam. She pulled her dress over her head and let it fall into place. "Adam," she repeated. "Like the story of the first man."

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Somewhere in a hidden memory images float before my eyes [Amalthea]

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