Chapter Text
“Why did I think this needed more sage?” asked Molly after tasting a teardrop-sized serving of her chicken and rice stew.
She had many herbs and spices at her disposal on cute, little shelves that were above that large cauldron. She needed something that would go well with sage. Parsley? Rosemary? She was in a Rosemary mood today, so that was what she would add. This was just one of many cauldrons that were going at once, each one with a different stew cooking in them under calm, little flames.
In the six months since Molly had married Schmendrick the Magician and settled down with him, she realized her dream of starting a business where she could jar her own stews and sauces to sell at the market. In those six months, she had been introduced to many different ingredients and flavors from around the world that she would incorporate into new and existing recipes. She experimented with them in ways that would hit the flavor pallet just right and make you want more. She hadn’t used chocolate in anything savory yet but she heard that there were parts of the world that included it in savory dishes. Maybe chocolate stew was her next new thing?
Schmendrick largely gave up his life of entertaining people and decided to become a teacher. His classroom was in a separate building on their property and his classes attracted a wide array of people. In this new, more magical world, there were those who were interested in becoming magicians and those who discovered that they had magicians in their family trees and wanted to reconnect with their heritage. Whatever they did, the distance from their home ensured that none of the kooky magical stuff got anywhere near the stews and sauces that were to be cooked and sold.
On that dull winter’s day, Molly appreciated being in her side kitchen. She was responsible for the multiple cauldrons going at once but the heat from all of them ensured that there was no need to wear layers.
She was stirring the latest stew that she started when she heard the rattling croak of a raven coming from above.
HAW… HAW… HAW…
Interesting, she thought. That particular bird usually didn’t land on their roof. They certainly got doves and sparrows but not a big ‘ol raven.
The latest stew she started needed one important ingredient that she had to fetch from the pantry, so off she went.
But when she got to the pantry, she couldn’t find the ingredient, no matter how much she searched.
“Are you kidding me?” she said as she moved various sacks to the side, “Did I forget to buy button mushrooms?” Her cream of mushroom stew had those button mushrooms to ensure that certain spoonfuls of the soup would have an entire mushroom in them. It was just one of her signature ingredients that made her stand out from the competition.
As she dug through the sacks and jars like an anxious mole, Finn the Cat came in with a grin on his furry face.
“Molly, I just wanted you to know that there is a gift on the front stoop,” said Finn.
Molly flinched. Their magical cat hadn’t spoken in so long and he only ever spoke when he needed to.
“A gift?” she said, “From who?”
“Someone from a high place. The gift is a human-grown one, a small one. It was grown in darkness and has emerged with a soft, delicate exterior and can be smelly at times.” He took his eyepatch and moved it to the other eye as he said this.
“Yes, but what is it?” Of course, Molly had to remember what Finn had told her at the castle about cats not giving straight answers. She had to think about what he could be talking about. Let’s see… it’s human-grown in darkness… a soft, delicate exterior… can be smelly… Did this gift consist of cultivated mushrooms? He also mentioned the gift being small. Cultivated button mushrooms? That would be great if it was that. Then she wouldn’t have to go to the market. But why would the cat suddenly start speaking to give her this news? These must have been some really important mushrooms.
She ran to the main kitchen and grabbed her coat to go to the market. Schmendrick stopped by with his quill pen and lesson plan. Now that he was a true magician, he had gotten a new magician’s hat that was the same indigo color as his previous one but a bit less beat up. He also had an indigo cloak that had a unicorn on a field embroidered on the back of it. The lower half of his face had grown a bit hairier in the past half-year. These were the budding beginnings of a bonafide wizard’s beard.
“Schmen!” said Molly, “I’m glad you’re here. Can you watch the flames under the stews while I go to the market to get more button mushrooms?”
“Are button mushrooms that important right now?” asked Schmendrick.
“You can’t make cream of mushroom soup without all of the mushrooms. My regular customers would notice!”
“All right, all right. I’ll write my lesson plan while I watch the flames.”
“Good. Apparently, the cat told me that we have a gift on the front stoop and I will bring that inside first.”
Schmendrick disappeared into the side kitchen to make sure that none of the flames burned their cottage down. When Molly opened the door to the frigid outdoor temperatures, she looked down and saw a wicker basket with handles that was covered with a blanket. A folded note was sticking up from the side of the basket. She thought, “Is this a thank you basket from the event that I catered last week?”
She took out the folded piece of paper, at which point, she could have sworn that she saw something under the blanket move.
She opened up the piece of paper and saw that King Lir’s insignia was printed in the top right corner, which consisted of a stylized phoenix emerging from flames. She then read the note:
Dearest Schmendirk Shmendrikk Shmendric,
I hope that you have been well since the liberation of my brethren and the end of Haggard’s reign. After I was released from the prison of my human body and regained my unicorn form, I returned to The Lilac Wood to resume my duties, and this time I was no longer alone. The animals and plants welcomed me back and celebrated me.
However, I am afraid I have not been well since returning. Shortly after I came back to the Lilac Wood, my magic started to weaken and I grew quite sick. The other unicorns avoided me, not because I had known regret but because they sensed a non-magical presence within my body. The sickness caused me to form nightmares in my waking life that I thought I could never escape.
Soon enough, I would discover that when you turned me back into a unicorn, you forgot to account for something, or should I say someone. For, on the sixth moon since we parted ways, I gave birth to the tiny human that you see in this basket. Knowing what this pitiful whelp had done to me, I did not want to have anything to do with her. And so I asked The Wise Owl about what humans do when faced with their sickness. He told me that they either wash it away, shield themselves against it or move far away from it.
And, so, I felt that the third one of those choices would make the most sense in this situation. As my first and dearest human friend, I trust that you will give this baby the love and care that she deserves, especially since you and Molly showed utmost love and care to me during our journey together. This may be the final favor that I ever ask of you. You have my trust and that is the greatest gift of all.
Very Truly Yours,
Unicorn, a.k.a. Lady Amalthea
Much like how a person would touch a wall to know first-hand that the paint was wet, Molly bent down and lifted the blanket from the basket. Sure enough, there was a sleeping newborn baby swaddled in a fur blanket. She had ruddy cheeks and a face that looked like it hadn’t yet grown into her brand new crumpled skin. She was breathing loudly through her nostrils, which alerted Molly that she was alive. Molly gasped and grabbed her chest as she stood up straight again.
“Schmendrick!” she called.
“I’m watching the flames, Honey,” said Schmendrick.
“I haven’t even left yet! You can leave those flames for a few minutes!”
As soon as Schmendrick got to the door, Molly held the note in front of his face. Schmendrick took the note and Molly waited as he skimmed it. As soon as he was finished, he dropped the piece of paper, causing it to gracefully make its way to the ground like an autumn leaf. He stared out into space. His face was ghost white. But he shook his head, reeled the sense back into himself and he cleared his throat.
“Well?” he said, “What are you waiting for? Let’s get this baby inside. It’s cold out here!”
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Molly placed the basket on their kitchen table, where the baby continued to slumber.
Schmendrick looked over the note again.
“How on earth does a unicorn write a note?” he asked, “And where did she get royal stationery?”
“Really?” asked Molly, “That’s what you focus on? Not how or why this unicorn was pregnant with a human child? We need to find that unicorn and tell her that a baby is not a disease!”
“So, you want to give a baby back to a unicorn to be raised in the wild?” asked Schmendrick.
“Well, when you put it that way, that sounds irresponsible.”
“The Lilac Wood is a three day walk. Chances are, we would make it all that way to discover that she still doesn’t want her.”
Molly looked over the baby again. “She certainly doesn’t look like something that a unicorn would give birth to. But then again, she would have been conceived when that unicorn was Lady Amalthea.”
The baby did not have the star mark on her forehead that Lady Amalthea had when they had known her. This made sense since this baby had never been a unicorn at any point. She just looked like a regular baby.
Looking back at their three months at King Haggard’s Castle, it all made sense: Amalthea liked to eat unusual food combinations that made everybody else at the table stare at her. Molly chalked this up to her feeling experimental and wanting to make the most of her human digestive system. At one point, Molly taught Amalthea about the menstrual cycle. Every so often, Molly would ask her if she had gotten her first one yet, only to be met with a “no.” Molly would just tell her, “Don’t worry, sometimes it can take a while for the first one to come!” And then there were the several days leading up to the showdown with The Red Bull, when Amalthea told Molly that her clothing was starting to fit tighter than usual. Molly told her, “That’s just what happens when you live a sedentary lifestyle with delicious food at hand.” Oh boy, she was especially kicking herself for that remark. Why, oh, why did she not connect the pieces sooner? That poor girl…
The two of them stared at the baby some more. Finn jumped onto the table to take a look at her as well.
“I guess Lady Amalthea got more experience out of her time as a human than we thought,” said Molly, “Who do you think the father is?”
“I don’t know,” said Schmendrick, “It could be just about anybody. Say, did you hear that The Wilkersons are going to put an apple orchard on their property?”
“Do you think it’s King Lir?”
“Well, honey, wondering is a great thing to do with your time. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lesson plan to write. My next class is going to be about summoning animals. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Quit changing the subject! Aren’t you the least bit curious about this kid’s parentage?”
“I suppose…”
“Well, the obvious choice would be King Lir. He was in love with Lady Amalthea, after all. If this is indeed his baby, then it would make sense to bring her to his residence.”
Schmendrick breathed a defeated sigh. “Molly, King Lir is not the father. Believe me, Amalthea wouldn’t let him lay a finger on her for a good long while before she finally fell in love.”
“Yes, you’re right…” Molly gasped at the other possibility that popped into her head. “King Haggard! That man had nothing but malicious intent! I’m not at all surprised that he would claim Lady Amalthea this way! He may be dead now but if he is the father, we would still bring her to King Lir since she would still be family.”
“King Lir isn’t the father, either.”
“What about those elderly men-at-arms who worked for King Lir?”
“Believe me, those men had only enough energy to guard the castle and its occupants and nothing more.”
“Do you think it was Mabruk, the magician that you replaced?”
“No! It was not him!” He then spoke in a lower voice with a dash of apprehension. “It was not any of them.”
“How could you possibly know? All that would leave is…”
Schmendrick then started humming nervously and avoiding eye contact, which is not something that someone who is innocent of something would do. Molly was then violently smacked with the horrid realization. Back when Schmendrick transformed the unicorn into a human, she went off to a spring in the woods to take a bath and then Schmendrick went to check on her. Not only did Molly wait a long time for them to come back, they were both relaxed and giddy when they returned, even though the lady had been distressed about her transformation not even an hour before that. It was starting to make sense why the unicorn chose Schmendrick to raise this child.
“No… NO… You Didn’t!” said Molly, “For the love of all that is pure and good, you didn’t!”
Schmendrick gave the look of a threatened cat backed into a corner but much like a cat, he was ready to defend himself.
“Now, you have every right to slap me across the face, but-”
Molly flattened her hand and did exactly that to Schmendrick’s left cheek.
After he rubbed his sore cheek, he walked Molly into the side kitchen. Although newborn babies had the miraculous ability to sleep through just about anything, he still didn’t want her to hear their argument.
Once they were in the room with the bubbling stews, Schmendrick continued.
“I agree with you, Molly,” he said with a lower voice, “I’m not denying that I made a lapse in judgement.”
“Oh, what a surprise!” said Molly, who didn’t care about the volume of her own voice, “The man who goes around wearing a glorified dunce cap makes lapses in judgement!”
Schmendrick sighed. “I will not have you talking about my classic magician’s hat that way.”
“It’s bad enough that you transformed the last unicorn on earth into a human, but you had to go and deflower her as well?!”
“Molly-”
“Unicorns are creatures of innocence and purity, Schmendrick! You took away both her original body and her very essence!”
“Molly-”
“I should have known that you would screw up worse than you already have! I should have been the one to check up on her when she was taking her bath!” Molly was so angry that she wanted to throw as many jagged words as possible toward her philandering husband in the hopes that some desired outcome would happen. But Schmendrick was not one to cower.
“Molly, will you give me a word in edgewise, PLEASE?!”
Molly shut her mouth to allow Schmendrick to explain himself. She trembled and breathed heavily through her nostrils.
“I had my reasons why I did what I did. In fact, I can name three.”
“All right… I’m listening…”
“The first and most important was that I felt terrible for what I did to The Unicorn, even though it was for her own good. She was so miserable at the idea of being trapped in a human body, I wanted to show her that a human body could be a source of joy and pleasure. I didn’t want her experience to be completely negative.”
“There were so many other ways that you could have done that! You could have given her some sweets or told a joke or played a game with her! Or is it true that a man can’t power his brain and his penis at the same time?!”
“What we felt at that time was mutual, Molly. She very much desired me. What was I supposed to do, say no to her?”
Molly’s hands balled into fists as she was doing everything in her power to not do anything that she would regret later on.
“My second reason was that incident with my old mentor Nikos. He was responsible for the one other time that a unicorn had been transformed into a human. One day, he saw a unicorn laying his head in the lap of a virgin and before the hunters could kill the unicorn, he transformed the unicorn into a human. That human married the young woman who was being used to trap him and spent the rest of his life as a human. There were no children in that marriage. Therefore, it was safe to assume that there would be no children from this union, either.”
“So, let me get this straight… you’re basing your logic off of something that only happened one other time?! You didn’t stop to think that there were other reasons for there being no children in that marriage?!” At this point, a better explanation would need to pass Schmendrick’s lips because Mount Molly was getting dangerously close to erupting.
“The third reason I did it was because I was using a technique that was used in an ancient legend. Okay, so the legend goes that an ancient king in The East known as Gilgamesh noticed a wild man living amongst the animals. He wanted to civilize this man and bring him to the human world, so he recruited a temple prostitute to seduce the man and have sex with him. The prostitute went out into the wild and made love to this man for seven straight days. This caused the animals to no longer recognize him as one of their own and they avoided him from then on. In our situation, The Red Bull was already avoiding The Unicorn after I made her human. I figured that having sex with her would tether her more to the human world and make The Red Bull avoid her even more, like an added layer of security.”
By now, Molly had enough.
“REALLY?!” she shouted, “OR DID YOU JUST WANT TO GET YOUR DICK WET?!”
“Molly, you shouldn’t be that angry about this! All of this happened before we were married!”
“AND YET I AM, SCHMENDRICK!” She grabbed a glass jar and hurled it against the wall, causing it to smash into scattered shards. She was lucky that this didn’t wake the baby. By now, she did all the damage she could to Schmendrick and was now blaming herself for all of this. Why did she let Schmendrick go by himself to check on Amalthea while she was bathing? Why didn’t she teach Lady Amalthea about the medicinal herbs that brought on a late period? Schmendrick was not the only idiot in this situation.
Molly sighed.
“Schmendrick, I’m not angry at you for whatever sexual conquests you had before our marriage,” she said, “I’m angry that you took advantage of a young woman who was brand new to womanhood and didn’t yet understand her body or her new emotions. Shame on you, Schmendrick. SHAME. ON. YOU.”
Schmendrick looked toward the floor, completely defeated. All of his excuses had been exhausted. He was not in the mood to continue the fight, not that he was ever in the mood to start one.
“Molly, if it makes you feel any better, there was no coercion whatsoever in our encounter. In fact, I resisted Amalthea’s advances at first. I knew it would be unbecoming of me to do something like that. But when I finally gave in, I was respectful of her. I taught her about her new human body. I didn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do. And sure, I was also giving in to my urges, but I was a different person then. You can’t fault me for being at least a little human.”
Molly suddenly remembered the gentlemanly side of Schmendrick that she forgot existed while she had flown into her rage, the side of him that brought comfort.
“Listen, I think you need to take a couple of stabs at The Rage Log,” said Schmendrick, “And don’t come back until you’ve calmed down. Anything you decide after that is up to you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Molly grabbed her large knife and marched off to her Rage Log, a log near the wood’s edge that was designated for taking abuse whenever frustration got to Molly. It had sizeable chips taken out of it but there was still plenty of log left, which suggested that Molly didn’t really have it so bad these past six months. But today, the log was going to get a shanking of a lifetime.
Molly stabbed the log repeatedly. During certain times, she had to make an effort to pull the knife out because it went so deep. After about a dozen stabbings of the log, she could no longer keep it together and she burst into tears. As she loudly sobbed, she crumpled up and fell to her knees, wrapping one arm around the log as if to apologize to it. Now, she wasn’t as much in anger as she was in mourning. Wasn’t it enough that Schmendrick’s magical meddling introduced that unicorn to mortality and regret? Why did he have to take away her childlike innocence as well? That unicorn was probably changed forever in terrible ways that she didn’t want to think about.
The cat found his way to the forest’s edge, drawn in by the sound of Molly’s sobbing. He rubbed his furry head against her side, which caused her tears to stop. As soon as he rubbed one side of his body against her, he turned around and did the same with the other side of his body. She calmed down a bit, which caused her to notice how the chilly air made the trail of fluids coming from her eyes and nostrils stand out against her face. She trembled and breathed jaggedly. She had forgotten how much the act of crying can beat you up on the inside. Her trembling ceased the more she felt Finn’s purrs.
“Oh, Finn,” said Molly, “I wish you talked more often. I could really use some comforting words.”
But Finn already said his important if cryptic words. Molly had to comfort herself and thankfully, she didn’t need to make that much of an effort since stabbing the log and having a good cry brought her most of the way towards feeling better.
Now that she had a clearer head, she wondered… Why? Why couldn’t she be more grateful? When she saw a unicorn for the first time, she wasn’t happy that she was finally seeing a unicorn, she was angry that she had to wait so long. Her ingratitude clouded the fact that The Universe had given her a unicorn. Now, the universe was giving her a baby a mere six months after the start of her marriage, something that she thought would never happen to her ever, much less within six months of marriage. This baby may have gotten here under less than ideal circumstances but Molly still got a baby, right? And it wasn’t just about her wants. She could think of all of the things she could have done to prevent a pregnancy from happening to a woman who was originally a unicorn but all the woulda-coulda-shouldas in the world couldn’t erase the fact that this baby was here now. What was done was done and this little girl needed a loving family. And Molly needed to go inside because she didn’t bother putting a coat on and she was freezing.
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When Molly came back, she saw Schmendrick sitting at the table and looking at the baby, who was still sleeping like an angel in her basket. She was so still that she mind as well have been a part of the scenery.
“How is everyone doing?” she asked. Her nose was still a little stuffy from all the crying she did earlier.
“We’re doing good,” said Schmendrick. He looked back at the baby. “I think she has my mother’s nose.”
“I wouldn’t know. Anyway, I just want to apologize for the way I acted earlier. I was completely out of line.”
“In your defense, you had every right to be angry. You maybe didn’t have a right to slap me or smash one of your glass jars, but you certainly had a right to be angry.”
“Didn’t the priest say during our wedding ceremony that a strong married couple would be there for each other during surprises, both good and bad? Well, I say this is one of those surprises. And I would love to be there for you now that this surprise is in our life. And, hey… you acted much more patient than I thought you would when I was flying into my rage. I think you will be a good dad.”
Schmendrick smiled. After all he had been through today, he appreciated any compliment he could get.
The baby moved her head a bit and yawned. Any doubts that Molly had about this child’s parentage dissipated when the little one opened her eyes. They were a deep purple that sparkled in the right light. They weren’t so much eyes as they were two tiny galaxies that were embedded in this child’s face. The baby was now getting a look at her new home and her new parents, which were just a tiny fraction of the new world that she had inherited; and yet at that tiny, vulnerable point in her life, they would be her whole world. When Molly looked into these eyes, it seemed like The Unicorn had never left, that she was now here in a new form.
“Oh, Darling, you’re beautiful!” said Molly, “Why would anyone want to get rid of you?” Molly sighed. “Of course someone would dump their trash on Molly Grue’s stoop. It’s what I deserve.” Alas, attacking the rage log got rid of her anger but it did not get rid of her self-loathing.
“Hey, what did we say about negative self-talk?” asked Schmendrick.
“To only save it for special occasions?”
Schmendrick gave a disapproving look.
“All right, I know not to do it and I will try harder not to do it. And I suppose I shouldn’t have called your daughter trash, either. I’m sorry.”
“Now, Molly, she’s your daughter, too. And don’t apologize to me, apologize to her.”
She looked back at the newborn, who was giving full attention to Molly. Upon closer inspection, the scant amount of hair on this baby’s head was auburn, the same hair color as her dad. She was clearly Schmendrick’s and Lady Amalthea’s baby.
“Listen, Baby… I’m sorry for calling you trash and I’m sorry about the way I acted since you showed up,” said Molly, “A baby should be welcomed into the family with joy and hope, not tears and hurt feelings. Truth is, I didn’t expect to become a mom today and I’m just full of so many emotions. But you know what? That’s Life. Welcome to Life. It’s full of the unexpected. Like your father told me all those months ago, ‘The future is a land where the horizon is always a mystery.’ And you can go to him for other thought-provoking sayings like that.”
“I think I got it from a book,” said Schmendrick.
“Well, you can consult books once you learn how to read. I just want you to know that I am delighted that you showed up. I have more than enough room in my heart for a cute, little half-idiot. Welcome to the family!”
Schmendrick hugged Molly from the side and gave a gleeful laugh. His laugh was infectious enough that she cracked a smile as well and held his hand.
The baby moved a little in her swaddling and Molly could have sworn that she heard the hanging cutlery behind her rattle.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” said Schmendrick. “You know, I do know a spell that can make you lactate.”
“Or you can just buy a damn goat,” snapped Molly.
“Okay, okay.”
And on that day, a new member was added to that quaint household. She was given the name Vivian.