After the meal, Alena and Perrin
stepped outside. The moon’s silvery orb
loomed close. It seemed as if one could
almost reach up and touch it. The
brilliant lady of the night sky both illuminated and cast ghostly shadows. They walked on the forest trail where they
had ridden only an hour earlier. Alena
could not remember when she had seen a night so brilliantly lit. Suddenly, she caught a fleeting glimpse of
movement--almost like shadow merging with shadow. She halted, grabbed Perrin’s arm and motioned
for silence.
Perrin looked where Alena pointed
but saw nothing. He waited, and then
decided that it was only the imagination of the young girl standing beside
him. He was about to continue walking
when he saw it, too. A shadow separated
from a clump of trees and then merged with more shadow. “What do you think it is?” he whispered.
Alena only shook her head. There was no doubt now that they had seen
something. Even though the night was
warm, she was covered with goose bumps.
She was almost certain that the shadow had been as large as a horse. Could they have just seen a unicorn?
They stood there silent for what
seemed an eternity. Alena finally
whispered, “I think it’s gone.”
Perrin nodded and whispered in
return, “I think so, too. We should
probably get back to the inn.”
When they turned to retrace their
steps, Alena gasped; Perrin froze in silence.
On the trail leading back to the inn stood an apparition. Silvery white was the ghostly stallion that
stood before them, almost within reach.
Even though they could view the trees and the trail through the silvery
vision, they instinctively knew that it was real. It was smaller than most horses Alena was
accustomed to, but if it had been a horse, it would have been the most
beautiful she had ever beheld. But a
horse it was not. In the center of its
forehead was a single white horn. Gazing
into the horn, Alena saw a night sky filled with stars--the most brilliant
stars she had ever seen. A tear escaped
from one eye of the beast and fell to the ground. It turned and galloped into the forest as
silent as mist.
Perrin was shaking as if he were
chilled to the very bone. Alena realized
that she was crying. She had been moved
to tears by the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. She placed her hand in Perrin’s and started
back toward the inn. “It was real wasn’t
it?” she asked.
“It was real,”
Perrin assured her. “I’ve never seen
anything so beautiful.”
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