Alicorn

by Beth Smith

Alicorn took three prancing steps, and they were off, into the night air, soaring above the pines and wild dogwoods that rimmed the farm. Higher they flew, across the meadow and dropping down to skim the edges of the farm pond and the streams that stretched across the land.

Once upon a time, Jarrett Garland was the most famous man on the Manor. He owned Manor Mill, the largest grist mill in the area, but he was mostly famous because he was grouchy, cranky, impatient, rude, mean- tempered, miserly, and, most importantly, very rich.

Jarrett was not an evil man. He did not rob banks, murder people, disrupt political rallies, abuse neighbors, chase ladies at the Monkton Hotel, or steal from the Methodist Church fund. He just hated everybody, and he showed it every single day of the week.

On Sundays, he mostly sat on the porch of his large house in Monkton and refused to even acknowledge the Methodists as they walked up the big hill to church.

They would tip their hats, and say “Good morning Mr. Garland, fine day.”

Jarrett would stare straight ahead and not say a word.

Once Tommy Jenkins on his way to church with his parents, looked up at his father and asked, “Why is Mr. Garland so mean?” His father quickly shushed him and hurried along Monkton Road.

The answer to the little boy’s question was not easy. Mrs. Anderson, the town postmistress, said it was because, “he lost his true love when he was sixteen. She died of measles twenty years ago, and he hated everything from then on.”

Most people in Monkton agreed remembering Jarrett, at sixteen, holding hands with Sally Howard as they walked along the Gunpowder River. Sally died in the measles epidemic. Jarrett was never kind or even pleasant again.

Mean or not, over the years, he did manage to accumulate a fortune mostly from horse trading. One thing Jarrett knew and knew well was horse trading. He would travel through the south, picking up young, mangey-looking fillies and colts and bringing them to the Manor. In a few years, they were rehabilitated and trained to become first-rate hunters or show horses. He then sold them to eager buyers at very high prices.

How could a man who couldn’t even ride a horse own such prize-winning horses?

His secret was Tad.

Tad was a short, wiry man with a head of flaming red hair and piercing eyes. He arrived in Monkton just as Jarrett, at age 36, inherited the Manor Mill from his old uncle and bought his first horses. Wasting no time looking for work, Tad strolled into the Mill on his first day in town and asked for a job, not as a millhand, but as a horse trainer.

Jarrett was suspicious but he took Tad out to his farm and watched as Tad walked around the few sad-looking horses Jarrett had purchased on his first buying trip to Virginia. He watched as Tad touched each horse and whispered something.

To everyone’s surprise, Jarrett hired Tad. He offered no pay, but a bunk in the barn. Tad took the job, but accepted the offer on one condition.

“I am the boss of the horses, what I say goes,” he said.

Jarrett hesitated. No one gave him orders, but something about Tad caught his attention. Jarrett Garland had a notion that Tad could possibly help make him rich; the Mill provided an income, but horses could make him wealthy.

Tad proved his worth in just a few years. In the local taverns, in the storeroom of Manor Mill, or anywhere on the Manor, everyone said that Tad worked “magic” with Jarrett’s horses.

When a rider in the Elkridge Hounds wanted a new horse, he came to Jarrett. When the huntsman at the Potomac Hunt wanted a new hunter, he would come to Monkton to buy a horse from Jarrett. If a gentleman in Greenspring Valley wanted a top horse for the Upperville Horse Show, he drove over to see Jarrett. In fact, horse people from all over the East and from down South would travel to Manor Mill to buy a horse.

Jarrett, who bought the young horses for hardly a penny, sold them for a hundred times more. Then shrewd as he was, he invested that money with Frank Merryman at Merryman and Sons in Baltimore City, and he became very rich.

Jarrett’s office was in Manor Mill. The horse buyers would arrive at the Mill early in the morning to do business with Jarrett. Most of the time they waited for hours to see him, stepping aside for farmers buying flour and cornmeal. When Jarrett came out of the Mill office, he would walk the horse buyers to the nearby Mill barn where the horse to be sold that day was stabled, and the auction would begin.

The horses lived on the Garland farm, which consisted of a huge, broken-down barn, numerous paddocks with patched fences, and a white-framed farmhouse with a falling-off porch. Strangers gazing at the Garland barn would never guess that some of the most outstanding horses in Maryland were stabled there. Jarrett’s secret was, of course, Tad.

One spring after about two or three years into the horse business, Jarrett sent Tad on a horse-buying trip to Scotland, a very unusual trek for him to arrange and very costly. But as Jarrett said to Tad, “I saw an advertisement for some mangy-looking horses in Scotland. Go buy them up. I’ll make a fortune.”

Two months later, Tad arrived back at the farm with just one horse, the strangest horse anyone on the Manor had ever seen. The young filly was pure white with a skinny, lion-like tail that almost dragged on the ground. Her mane was thin. She was timid-looking and small. Jarrett was furious.

“What in tarnation have you brought me,” yelled Jarrett, his face twitching with bright red splotches. “This horse is pitiful with a Billy-goat beard and a huge lump right between her eyes. She looks like someone hit her in the head with a fence post. She is fit for the garbage bin, not for the hunt. Shoot that horse in the morning.”

“That I cannot do, sir,” said Tad in a quiet and calm voice.

The farmhands, who had watched the horse being unloaded from the cart were flabbergasted. Tad had refused Jarrett Garland. They expected thunder and lightning to explode from the sky.

“Well, I’ll shoot her myself, “sputtered Jarrett.

“You do that, sir, and I will leave you, but I will shoot you first,” said Tad calmly, while squinting his eyes and glaring at Jarrett.

Jarrett hesitated. He thought of the money piled up in the Manor Mill safe, most of it from horse sales, not from milling wheat. He looked at Tad’s eyes, which seemed to flare with unflinching light. He grunted and snorted but he stomped off, grumbling, “You keep that filly away from my other horses. Keep her out of the paddocks and fields. Never let her out of her stall. Never.”

Tad only smiled.

A year passed and the white horse lived in the barn. She never came out to run in the sunlight. Tad would whisper to her each morning and rub her muzzle and the horse would whinny. Tad called the horse Alicorn.

The farmhands marveled as the days went by and the filly grew tall and muscular and more beautiful every day, with a flowing white mane that fell over her taut body. Her nose bump remained, but a full white forelock hid it. Her tail was pure white, no longer a lion’s tail, but full and thick and flowing.

All the farmhands loved Alicorn. She was calm and gentle and nuzzled their hands when they rubbed her forehead as they cleaned out her stall each morning and fed her. She didn’t paw to get out of the stall but seemed content to stand in the small space and gaze at the meadows beyond. The men felt sad that such a glorious animal couldn’t run through the fields that surrounded the farm.

Jarrett never visited the barn; he grumbled about the white horse that took up a stall and Tad’s time. But he didn’t say a word because Tad did his job with the other horses, training and grooming them to be the best horses in the country, bringing Jarrett lots of money when they were auctioned.

But, little did Jarrett know while he was getting rich, magical things were happening on his farm.

Each night, the darker the better, Tad, dressed in a white riding coat, breeches, and boots, went to the barn. He would quietly lead Alicorn out of the stall, quickly pull a velvet bridle and reins over her muzzle and hoist himself up. Then he would reach into his pocket and pull out a small silver box. When he opened the box, a tiny firefly- like faerie flitted out, dusting flecks of gold over the back and withers of Alicorn.

Tad rubbed a trickle of the gold dust on the hard bump between Alicorn’s brilliant violet eyes. Suddenly, the bump started to sprout, growing quickly until it was two feet long, a white ivory-like horn. Softly, Tad tapped the sides of the horse with his white riding boots. Two giant wings emerged from Alicorn’s shoulders, right under her withers. White as twinkling stars, they spread out like the feather wings of a giant bird.

“Lift up,” whispered Tad into Alicorn’s alert ears.

Alicorn took three prancing steps, and they were off, into the night air, soaring above the pines and wild dogwoods that rimmed the farm. Higher they flew, across the meadow and dropping down to skim the edges of the farm pond and the streams that stretched across the land.

After hours of roaming in the black sky above the Manor, Alicorn and Tad returned to Jarrett’s barn. Alicorn was still a striking white, but the horn and wings were gone. She whinnied as Tad jumped off her back, patted her shoulders, and whispered in her ears. She nuzzled against her trainer and then settled down to rest.

Tad continued his midnight rides in the rain or in the moonlight for a year or two. Jarrett never saw anything, but he did hear gossip that a giant white bird was flying like lightning through the sky at night. The mystery was the talk of the Mill. Not everyone thought the phenomenon was a bird. Some thought it was a new star that moved across the heavens and disappeared into the clouds. Rev. Dodson thought it was an angel from God.

“Back to work,” Jarrett would yell when a group men gathered in the long dark cellars of the Mill to talk about the night vision.

One morning Tommy Jenkins and his father were delivering grain to the Garland farm. Tommy saw the horses running in the meadow. He spied Alicorn standing in her stall.

“You know, Dad, I saw that strange night thing flying through the sky last night when I peeked through my bedroom shutters. I think it was a horse.”

“Are you crazy, boy,” said his father. “No horse is galloping across the night sky. Horses don’t fly.”

Tad, who was standing nearby, just shook his head and added, “Tommy, your dad is right, horses don’t fly.”

When spring came that year, a new teacher arrived in Monkton. Her name was Jenny, and she was a cousin of the postmistress, Mrs. Anderson. Jenny was going to teach at nearby Sparks School and live at the Anderson’s.

She was a pretty woman in her prime, but she had a way about her that didn’t invite flirting men or gossiping women. Jenny went about her business with a cool efficiency and purpose. One could easily imagine her taping a ruler against a blackboard while requiring “attention.”

One day, while Tad was in the Manor Mill office, Jenny arrived and asked a mill worker if she could see Jarrett.

“Well, Mr. Garland don’t usually see ladies without an appointment,” the worker stammered, surprised that a woman would dare request a visit with his boss.

“Well, I want to buy a horse, and I hear he is the man to see if I want to buy a horse,” said Jenny, in her best authoritarian teacher voice. “I want a horse to ride to school, and I want the same horse for fox hunting.

“I’ll get him for you, mam,” said Tad, fidgeting with his silver box that happened to be in his riding jacket.

In a few minutes Jarrett appeared, looking irritated and out-of-sorts.

“I seldom sell horses to women,” Jarrett blustered. “I…” He stopped suddenly when he saw Jenny.

Tad noticed. He quickly and quietly opened the silver box. Without a sound, the tiny firefly faerie darted out around Jarrett’s head, sprinkling a bit of gold dust, which Tad had rendered invisible, along with the flickering faerie. Jarrett didn’t notice. He did feel a bit strange, but he ignored the fast beating of his heart. He was instantaneously besotted with Jenny.

“Well, I don’t usually sell horses to women, but perhaps, perhaps, I can make an exception. If you like, I can ride you out to my barn in my new Ford. I’ve been wanting to take it out for a spin,” said Jarrett. Jarrett ran to get his car in the Mill barn and then helped Jenny to climb into the front seat.

Off they went bumping along Monkton Road. Tad followed in the farm wagon with the tiny firefly faerie sitting on his shoulder. He watched carefully ahead and saw Jarrett pointing out this and that along the way. He heard Jarrett laugh. Tad looked at the little faerie and said, “this might be why we came.”

When they all arrived at the Garland farm, Jenny immediately jumped out of the Ford and ran to the closest paddock, then to the meadow fence, gazing at all the beautiful horses.

“I want them all,” she said to Jarrett, “but alas, I have to choose one.”

Suddenly she saw Alicorn, standing in her stall. Her beautiful head leaning over the stall gate. Jenny rushed over with Jarrett lagging a bit.

“This is the most beautiful horse I have ever seen. Is she for sale?”

“No,” said Jarrett. “She is a special horse. She stays in the barn. She never goes out of her stall.”

“You mean she never goes out to run in the meadow or for a ride through the woods?” asked Jenny.

“No.”

“Well, I’ve never heard anything so mean. Mr. Garland, you should be ashamed of yourself. Take me home. I won’t do business with such a nasty man who would treat a horse in such a way.”

Jarrett felt admonished. “That horse gets good food and a clean stable. That is enough,” he said but in an unusual and conciliatory voice tone not his gruff, impatient voice.

He took Jenny back to the Anderson house and returned to the Mill, where he locked himself up in his office and pondered why he just couldn’t be nice. Tad, who by now was determined to give Jarrett a true heart, wondered why his spell didn’t completely work. “I might have to coat that man in pixie dust to cure his cold heart,” he whispered to himself. “Or create something a bit different, an event that might push his heartstrings to unwind.”

That night Alicorn and Tad went for a long ride. Through the clouds Tad saw a rare sight… Jarrett walking the streets of Monkton in the moonlight. Down, down, down, he and Alicorn skirted around Jarrett. Jarrett felt somewhat dazed but amazed at what he saw – a brilliant white streak in the dark sky. He had finally seen the vision, the white vision in the heavens over Monkton, and the vision looked like a horse.

Later that night, guiding Alicorn over the forest and meadows of Monkton, Tad reached down for his little silver box, opened it, and set free the firefly faerie. He whispered to her a secret formula and instructions and watched as she disappeared into the night air.

The next day, Jarrett was about to call Tad into his Mill office for a talk about the vision, when a crisis occurred. Mill workers came rushing into his office screaming, “The Mill stream is poisoned, the Mill stream is poisoned.”

And, indeed it was. The once sparkling blue stream had turned brown and ugly. Instead of gushing down towards the mill, the stream sputtered, kicking up water that killed all the green plants that lined its banks. In the afternoon the County farm agent came and announced that it was, indeed, contaminated. He closed down Manor Mill immediately. The Mill pond was also contaminated. Monkton’s wells were spared.

Jarrett knew his mill business would be ruined. Manor Mill couldn’t operate. Even the streams and pond on Jarrett’s farm were contaminated. “How?” Jarrett asked Tad. No one else in the village of Monkton had a problem. Their water was clean and pure.

Tad said nothing. He patted the little silver box in his pocket.

As mean as he was, Jarrett’s plight did concern the people of Monkton. They started coming to the Mill, offering him help. At the end of the third day, tired and distressed, Jarrett looked up from his desk, and Jenny was standing there. She took his hands in hers, promised to stand by him, and she smiled. Neither noticed Tad standing in the room or his little firefly-faerie quietly darting here and there, coating invisible gold powder over everything.

That night, Tad went to the barn for Alicorn.

“Tonight my beautiful goddess we have chores to do before we ride free,” he whispered.

Then they flew off, not to the heavens, but skimming along the ground, first near the farm pond and then the three steams that ran through the property. At each stop, Alicorn lowered her white horn into the water. The water bubbled and gurgled and then turned bright blue as the scent of lemon floated up from the water. Tad tasted the water, and water was good.

A few minutes later they were at the Mill pond, with its nearby stream. Once again, Alicorn dipped her horn into the waters and the waters became clean. Even the dead plants lining the banks of the pond and stream perked up and sprouted new growth.

Tad looked around. All was good.

The next morning a huge cry of joy rang through Monkton when the millhands arrived at Manor Mill. Jarrett heard the yelling at his townhouse and ran down the hill to the Mill. The stream was clean. The pond was clean. The men cried, “We have a great miracle.” Rev. Dodson agreed and said the magnificent white angel had come down from the heavens to save Jarrett Garland’s Manor Mill, his famous and wonderful horse farm, and Jarrett himself.

Well, it was a great white something, but this time not an angel.

In a few days, after the County agent had agreed that all contamination was gone, Jarrett, who for years had been the meanest man in town, took a deep breath and decided he was done with that. He threw a great festival for the town. The Manor band arrived and Jarrett and Jenny danced the first dance. Even Tad showed up. He brought with him his silver box and his firefly-like faerie friend.

Opening the box, Tad whispered, “Firefly, I want you to sprinkle faerie dust on Jarrett and Jenny as they dance” he said. “I want to be very sure they are coated with magic because you and I will be moving on. I think our work here is done.”

Opening the box, Tad whispered, “Firefly, I want you to sprinkle faerie dust on Jarrett and Jenny as they dance” he said. “I want to be very sure they are coated with magic because you and I will be moving on. I think our work here is done.”

Very late that night, Tad visited Alicorn and took one last ride. As he put her back in the stall, he patted her gently and whispered, “I am leaving tonight for another job. I can’t take you with me, and I am taking your magic horn and magic wings. You will no longer fly through the night skies like a rocket; you will no longer have magic. You will be beautiful and kind and gentle with all riders, and you will become a magnificent show horse, and Jenny will ride you into greatness.”

The next morning, everyone was looking for Tad because everyone in town loved the little man with the bright red hair. Jarrett looked everywhere. He wanted to tell him he was going to marry Jenny.

No one could find him in the village, so Jarrett and Jenny drove out to the farm. Everything looked fine, but Tad was nowhere to be found. Alicorn was watching from her stall. They walked over to the beautiful horse. Jarrett took Jenny’s hand as they stood next to Alicorn’s stall. Alicorn whinnied and stretched her stately head to rub Jenny.

“Jenny, I love you,” said Jarrett quietly, his grouchy, mean voice gone forever. “I want to marry you. If you marry me, we will remake the farm and move here. Alicorn is yours, and you can begin and end each day riding Alicorn through the meadows, across the fields, into the woods.”

Alicorn whinnied again. Jenny kissed Alicorn on his nose and then turned and kissed Jarrett. Together they opened the stall door. Alicorn pranced into the sunlight.

Four years later, Jarrett and Jenny were sitting on their new farmhouse porch, overlooking the new barn, the new paddocks, and the old but still lovely meadow. They could see their children playing in the pasture, and Alicorn standing over them.

“Alicorn is still a magnificent creature, pure white like a star, always noble, always gentle,” said Jenny as she turned to her husband. “And, I have never forgotten Tad. He was a wonderful horseman and a kind man.”

Jarrett nodded.

“And, yesterday, at the school library, I was reading legends, and I discovered that the name Alicorn has a meaning. An Alicorn is the offspring of a unicorn and the great white Pegasus, a winged horse of ancient times. And, I find this very interesting, the horn of an Alicorn can cure poison.”

“Um,” sighed Jarrett, slipping his arm around her shoulders. “Is our Alicorn a true Alicorn? Did she grow a horn and wings? Did she once fly over the Manor? Did she cure the poisoned ponds and streams? Was Tad somehow magical, maybe a magic elf?” Jarrett smiled at his wife.

“Let’s not fret about the mystery or try to understand, my sweet teacher. Let’s just live happily ever after.”

And they did.

Faerie Tale Trilogy