The Giant-Slayer (12 page)

“Is he?” she said. “Tell me!”

“Don’t be daft, Woman. Does he look like a changeling?”

Well, he
did
, in a way. His ears were maybe a little too big to be normal, his nose a touch too long.

“Bah!” said Fingal. “You took precautions. I remember that. You had your coat hanging inside out for day after day, so he can’t be a changeling, can he?”

“Then we have to go the swamp,” she said.

Jimmy looked up at her face. “Mother, what’s at the swamp?”

“It’s where the Swamp Witch lives,” she said.

Jimmy cried, “I don’t want to see a witch.”

“And you won’t,” said Fingal. “No son of mine is going anywhere near the swamp.”

“I’ll go myself,” said the Woman.

“It’s bottomless,” warned Fingal.

“I don’t care.”

The Woman was determined. That very day she put on her good shoes and her lipstick and set off for the swamp. She didn’t know exactly where it was, nor what she’d find when she got there. But she went on her way nonetheless, following the sun down the High Road, with the thought of striking north when she met the first river.

The Woman was gone a week. She was gone a month. She was gone a year and a half. When the first snow of another winter fell over the inn, there was still no sign of the Woman.

In the morning the snow covered the ground three feet deep, and Jimmy looked out in despair. “Father, how far away is that swamp?” he asked.

“Now why do you want to know that?” said Fingal.

The travelers were in their beds. The fire was burning, but the parlor was still cold. Jimmy was standing at the top of a ladder, polishing the wooden dragon’s tooth, while Fingal swept the floor. The boy could see out the window to the Great North Road, its white coating as smooth as plaster, not broken yet by tracks.

“I just want to know,” he said. “Is the swamp beyond the mountains?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“How long does it take to get there?”

Fingal stopped sweeping. He leaned on his broom. “Jimmy,” he said, “it’s time to face facts. The Woman’s never coming home.”

“Why not?” asked Jimmy.

“Who can say?” asked Fingal. “A gryphon got her, for all I know. A giant squished her; a dragon scorched her; the trolls took her down in the caves. What does it matter? She’s not coming back.”

“Father, don’t say that.” Jimmy tilted sideways to look as far up the road as he could. “She might be coming out of the woods right now.” But she wasn’t. “Or right
now,”
he said sharply.

But nothing moved at the edge of the woods. The trees were like hunched men covered with snow. “She could be coming … right … now!” said Jimmy again. He believed that saying it would make it happen, if he wanted it badly enough, if he
willed
it to happen. “Right … now!” he cried.

At just that moment, a shadow moved in the forest. It was as though a branch of one of those snowy trees had broken loose and sprouted legs, and now was trudging toward him. Behind it came another shadow that loomed over the first enormously. The two of them together had six legs moving, six feet kicking through the snow.

Jimmy peered through the window until the shadows made sense. He was disappointed at first to see a man instead of his mother, a fellow on foot, leading a huge white horse piled with snow-capped bundles. But his disappointment soon vanished.

The man was mysterious and wonderful. His long coat was made of silvery fur, his boots of scaly skin. His hat was the fearsome head of a hydra, its jaws jutting out above his face to make a brim, its tiny eyes blinded by clots of snow.

He carried a long bow and a leather quiver. His arrows were flecked with the fiery feathers of a phoenix.

“Holy man,” said Dickie. “Who was it, Laurie?”

“A hunter. His name was—”

“Khan!” cried Dickie. He was twisting his head on the pillow, trying as hard as he could to look back. “His name was Khan, wasn’t it?”

“Sure. Khan the hunter,” said Laurie. She liked the name. It made her think of Genghis Khan, of wild warriors on horseback.

Dickie was grinning in that odd way of his. “I bet he looked like Davy Crockett.”

“Well, I guess he did,” said Laurie.

“And he was after unicorns, wasn’t he?”

“Actually, he was,” said Laurie, surprised. It was unicorns she’d been thinking of herself. She had imagined her hunter in a coat sewn of unicorn hides.

“He’s wearing the skin of one now, isn’t he?” said Dickie.

E
arly on Sunday morning, with breakfast just over, Miss Freeman stood outside the respirator room, listening with a smile. She had heard the children talk of many things—mostly of rockets and cars and candy—but never of unicorns. She doubted if unicorns had ever been discussed in there before.

There was another nurse beside her—Mrs. Glass with red and curly hair—and they stood by the open door, just listening. Dickie was saying that unicorns were huge animals, bigger than plow horses, and then Carolyn—without being rude at all—said she didn’t think that he was right.

“They’re small,” she said. “Like little lambs.”

Miss Freeman hurried into the room as though she had just arrived. Mrs. Glass came behind her, pulling a metal cart laden with supplies.

“What’s everyone talking about?” Miss Freeman asked.

“Unicorns, Miss Freeman,” said Dickie. “Do you think they’re big or little?”

“Oh, in between, I guess,” said Miss Freeman. She always tried to please everybody. “Now, it’s time to get you cleaned up.”

“Aw, gee,” said Dickie.

“It’s not so bad as that, is it?” Miss Freeman didn’t wait for an answer. “Laurie should be here in an hour, so we’d better hurry.”

The nurses started with Carolyn. They stood at each side of her iron lung. “Ready?” asked Miss Freeman.

“Okay,” said Carolyn.

Miss Freeman turned off the iron lung. Her hand was resting on the big curve of metal, and she felt the thing go dead as the bellows stopped moving, as the machine stopped breathing. She unfastened the clasps around the front of the respirator.

Carolyn started gulping. Her mouth opened and closed like that of a fish. Her tongue moved forward and back, trapping air that she forced down her throat and into her paralyzed lungs. She made a ticking, smacking noise.

“Good for you, Carolyn. You’ll be an expert at frog-breathing soon,” said Miss Freeman. She and Mrs. Glass slid the girl from the respirator, drawing her backward on the moving cot, as though pulling a drawer from a filing
cabinet. The whole front of the machine came away, a huge metal collar fixed to the cot. Carolyn kept forcing air down her throat.

Mrs. Glass wrinkled her nose and held her breath for a moment. But Miss Freeman pretended not to notice the stench that came out of the machine, the reek of waste and urine. Sometimes it was nearly more than she could bear, but she never let on. She didn’t even grimace at the awful sores on Carolyn’s hips or at the pathetic sight of limbs as skinny as pipe cleaners. She worked quickly and steadily, talking happily all the time.

“I used to wish I could ride away on a unicorn,” she said. “Other girls wanted ponies, but I wanted my own unicorn. I wanted to ride it bareback.”

“See?” said Dickie. “Boy, they have to be bigger than lambs.”

“I was just a little girl,” said Miss Freeman.

One on each side, the nurses pulled away the soiled sheets, cleaned and scrubbed the girl, then stretched new bedding into place. On top of the stench came the new tickling smells of soap and antiseptic.

“I dreamed about him,” said Dickie.

“Who?” asked Miss Freeman.

“Oh, the hunter. In the story.” Dickie gazed straight up at his mirror, through it to the window. He wouldn’t look at Carolyn, hoping she wouldn’t look at him when his turn came around. “He hunts unicorns, Miss Freeman.”

“Really? Is that what Laurie’s telling you about?”

“Yes. And you know what else?” said Dickie. “In my dream I was him. I was the hunter.”

Carolyn forced her lungs full of air. “You’re just saying that,” she said. Her tongue started ticking again.

“It’s true,” said Dickie. “I was Khan the hunter. I had a white horse. And a bow and arrow. I killed unicorns.”

“My goodness!” said Miss Freeman.

“It’s like I rode into the story.” said Dickie. “I don’t know. But boy, it was neat.” The coonskin cap dangled in front of him, like a pelt that Khan had collected. “I was in the mountains, in the snow. I killed a unicorn with an arrow.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” said Miss Freeman.

“It sure was,” said Dickie. “I hit it in the heart. It fell in the snow and I ran to get it. I kept falling down. ’Cause the snow was so deep.”

He closed his eyes as he remembered the dream, the soft, tumbling way that he’d fallen. He could feel the coldness as his hands had plunged into the snow.

“The unicorn was dying,” he said. “It was kind of singing when it breathed. It kept trying to lift its head. But its big horn was so heavy. Then it looked at me and died. Boy, it was so beautiful. I felt kind of sick.”

“No wonder. Poor Dickie.” Miss Freeman was helping Mrs. Glass arrange the new sheet over Carolyn’s withered legs. “There, you’re done,” she said. “Good work, Carolyn.” They returned the girl to the iron lung, fastened the seals at the front, and started the bellows again.

Chip was next. He began breathing on his own before Miss Freeman had even opened the iron lung. He was proud of his frog-breathing, eager to show it off.

The nurses threw off the catches and pulled out the bed, and the mirror shimmied and jiggled as the front of the machine
rolled along. The smell was awful, but again they said nothing.

Carolyn was watching. “You’d better hurry, Miss Freeman,” she said. “I think he’s turning blue.”

He wasn’t turning blue at all. “I think he’s doing just fine,” said Miss Freeman.

But Chip didn’t talk, as Carolyn had. He was so intent on breathing that he did it almost frantically, and a shine of sweat appeared on his face. It was obvious that he was frightened. He looked all around, like a rabbit caught out of its hole. Miss Freeman hurried to finish, clattering bedpans and bottles. Dickie kept talking about his dream, but no one was listening.