The Gun From the Unicorn

**Trigger warnings: Animal death, mentions of violence**

I haven’t spoken to my sister in ten, fifteen, maybe twenty-five years — it depends what you count as ‘spoke’, I suppose  — but still I wonder nearly every other day where she put the gun. The one we got from the unicorn.

We were walking home from getting sodas at Wawa and we were alone. This was remarkable because I was only eight, which meant my sister was only ten, and these were years of peak Stranger Danger. A girl had been kidnapped and cut up into tiny little pieces not three blocks from my house — or at least, that’s how the story made its way down to me.

Adults never said anything clearly when I was a kid and I hated it. But I don’t know that I’ve done any better with my own kids.

Anyway, I was eight, so my sister was ten, but when I remember this story, I always picture her older. Twelve, at least, or thirteen, and a foot or more taller than me. Maybe that’s just how it felt, back then.

We cut through backyards on our way home – we were always cutting through backyards, back then. It really was the fastest way.

This particular backyard had a small thicket of trees on the near side, but if you cut through it, you could shave a quarter mile off your way back home. There was only a deer path through the forest, nothing official.

But that was alright if you didn’t mind a few thorns, and my sister never did. I was just dragged along, really. I wouldn’t have minded going around. I liked walking. But I was always go-with-the-flow.

The end of the deer path opened into the little backyard, which was always empty, except for a dry and deserted kiddie pool. This time, though, there was something in the kiddie pool. At first I thought it was a white dog, then I saw that it was a white horse. Or maybe it was a pony. It was tiny, after all, it didn’t fill half of the kiddie pool.

“I’m not a horse or a pony,” it said. “I’m a unicorn.”

The unicorn spoke in a voice just like our mother’s, except it was twice as high. That didn’t concern me much, though, because as soon as the unicorn spoke, I saw that it was right. A large, pointed horn protruded eight inches from its forehead.

My sister stepped forward and spoke up.

“You really are a unicorn.”

“I really am,” said the unicorn.

“Did we earn wishes?” my sister asked.

The unicorn shook its noble head. Even after it stopped shaking, its pure white mane flapped around as though in the wind, but there wasn’t even a breeze.

“That’s leprechauns,” the unicorn explained. 

“Leprechauns?”

“Or maybe genies. But it’s definitely not unicorns.”

“So, I don’t get any wishes?”

She sounded disappointed but I didn’t care. I didn’t need any wishes. I was happy with things the way they were.

“No,” said the unicorn. “But I do need something from you.”

“What?” I asked.

“Your help,” said the unicorn. “I need you to take my gun.”

“Your gun,” my sister repeated. “Why?”

“I can’t tell you,” the unicorn said urgently. Its eyes were now rolling back in its head, in apparent fear. “But you simply must take my gun.”

“But we’re just kids,” I protested.

“You must take it,” the unicorn urged. “The fate of all unicorn-kind depends upon it.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “How do we take your gun?”

I didn’t see a gun. 

“You have to kill me,” the unicorn said simply.

“No way,” I said.

“How?” asked my sister. “With the gun?

“No. To kill me, you have to stop believing in unicorns,” the unicorn said simply.

I just stood there blankly but my sister screwed up her eyes, like she was concentrating hard. Then, eyes still closed, she smacked me upside the head. I fell.

When I stood and looked up again, the unicorn was dead: eyes open, unseeing. On its head, where once there had been a horn, was a smooth, gray handgun.

My sister twisted the gun off the unicorn’s forehead. It came out with an awful, sickening crunch. Then she put it in her backpack. 

There was a hole in the unicorn’s head, where once there had been the horn, and then the handgun.

“Something’s poking out of the. . . the hole,” I said, with a quaver in my voice.

But I was too afraid to touch it.

Instead, my sister took it out. It was a crisp, clean $20 bill.

“Maybe that’s its way of saying thank you,” she said quietly.

“Can we go home?” I asked.

“Nah. Lemme take you to a movie.”

So, I went to the movies with my sister. I can’t tell you what movie we saw. I mean, I can’t tell you now, thirty years later, but I couldn’t tell you at the time, either. I didn’t really watch it. I spent the whole movie transfixed by fear of my sister’s backpack. She kept it on the ground, between her legs, with her box of popcorn balanced above it, atop her knees.

When we got home, my sister left her backpack at the door. I waited until she’d gone to her room and then unzipped it. But it was just her books and her pencil-case inside. No gun. No unicorn horn, either.

***

These days, I spend a lot of my time at the movies. It’s warm, and safe, and I can’t be kicked out. But I hardly ever remember what I see.

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if I could be like my sister — if I could, like her ten year-old self, stop believing in unicorns. Would a gun come for me, too? And a crisp, clean $20 bill?

But it’s useless to wonder.

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Looking for more great reads? Check out these pieces from the MockingOwl Roost staff and contributors.

• A Silent Hello, an Unsaid Goodbye
• The Boy at the Back of the Room
• An RAF Childhood
• His Paradise Lost