Valley of Unicorns

Grace stared out the window at the sunset, waiting for her father to drive away in his beat up Chevy.She figured Adam was already sitting out at the ruined wall, waiting for her father to drive away.The engine fired up like a shot in the woods.Grace jumped a little and leaned, pressing her face against the screen, to watch the truck rumble away on the dusty dirt road.

No matter what she said to the contrary, Grace’s father believed that Adam was trying to ‘put the moves’ on her.Adam was out of high school already and had never been quite like the other guys anyway.There was a time when Grace had a huge crush on the older boy with his torn jeans, elfin features, black hair… his affinity for playing the piano and guitar.What girl in her right mind wouldn’t imagine herself lying in bed with him?

But that was a long time ago.Grace was a senior now and, with Adam’s influence, she’d risen above the petty crushes and drama of most of her friends.The high school experience was more than a little boring to her.

She waited a few breaths before racing outside, glad once again for her long hair covering her neck against the autumn chill.It was already almost dark and a few stars poked out of the deep blue sky above her.Grace made her way out through the field toward the ruins, hoping to beat Adam, then cursed herself for not bringing a flashlight.It’d be too dark when it was time to go back to the house.

The ruins, aptly named due to the run-down state of a house-that-was sitting in the middle of an alfalfa field, were shadows against the twilight.Grace slowed down.It wouldn’t be good to trip and fall in the presence of the ruins.Somehow, it felt as though something was always there watching her and nothing would be quite as embarrassing as falling with that something gazing her way.

Grace brushed a hand along the one mostly intact wall, feeling her way to the old stone bench that sat in what used to be a corner of the house.The bench was cold but Grace sat anyway; laid back and stared up at the starlight.

“If your skin were any darker, you’d disappear in that corner,” Adam said, moving slowly into the ruins.

Grace sat up.“I wish I could be dark, though,” she said.“Dee tans like a California goddess and I have to slather on sunscreen to make sure I don’t puff up in blisters.”

“Dark skin wouldn’t go well with your dark hair,” Adam replied.He sat on the bench next to her.A breeze blew around the ruined wall, swirling in the corner before blowing through the bushes on the other side.Fireflies shimmered inside the foliage.“Besides,” he continued, “there are more than enough copper-skinned girls in the world to provide cancer research for millennia.”

Sighing, Grace turned to Adam.“Dad says I can’t go to the art show,” she said.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“He says he’s had something planned for my birthday for ages and if I go it’ll ruin it.”Grace stared into the bush, not wanting to meet Adam’s eyes.Some of the fireflies looked blue in the growing moonlight.The artist inside prodded Grace to remember every detail of the image so she could paint it later.

“Sounds boring,” said Adam, bringing Grace’s focus back to the conversation.“Plans with your dad?”It was as uninterested as he’d ever sounded.

“Dad’s not always boring,” said Grace, a little stung by the disdain Adam held for her father.“He seems pretty up about it.”

Adam sighed.“But couldn’t you go the art show before you do whatever it is he wants?”

Grace shrugged.“Maybe, but I think he doesn’t want me going anywhere at all on Saturday.He’s being really weird about it, too.”

“It’s because you’ll be eighteen,” said Adam.“Fathers always freak out when their daughters turn sixteen, eighteen and twenty-one.”