TOUCHED TWICE

It was long that the unicorn stood by Prince Lír before she touched him with her horn. For all that her quest had ended joyously, there was weariness in the way she held herself, and a sadness in her beauty that Molly had never seen. It suddenly seemed to her that the unicorn’s sorrow was not for Lír but for the lost girl who could not be brought back; for the Lady Amalthea, who might have lived happily ever after with the prince. The unicorn bowed her head, and her horn glanced across Lír’s chin as clumsily as a first kiss.

 He sat up blinking, smiling at something long ago. “Father,” he said in a quick, wondering voice. “Father, I had a dream.” Then he saw the unicorn, and he rose to his feet as the blood on his face began to shine and move again. He said, “I was dead.”

 The unicorn touched him a second time, over the heart, letting her horn rest there for a little space. They were both trembling. Prince Lír put his hands out to her like words. She said, “I remember you. I remember.”

As delicate as life, as gentle as death, and as powerful as love: sheer, luminescent vanilla musk with frangipani, red sandalwood, frankincense, champaca flower, coconut, rose absolute, white cyclamen, Himalayan mogra, angelica, and white oud.