“Can you put my window down, Trudy?”
“Sure, babe. Just for a minute. It’s chilly out there.”
“Where are we going?”
“Maybe we can go to the park at the Point. You can go on the swings.”
“Yeah!” Mercy was on her knees on the passenger seat, her head and shoulders leaning out into the wind. “Hooray!”
Trudy reached over and tugged her back into the car by the back of her jacket. “But first I want to drive down Old Murphy Road.”
“No! That’s boring, Trudy. I want to go to the park!”
Trudy said nothing, just turned on the radio, signalled left, and pulled off the highway onto Farley Road and then onto Old Murphy. Glum, Mercy slumped down in her seat and watched the trees go by. Trudy slowed down as trees gave way to pasture and pavement turned to gravel. “Baby, look! Horses!”
“No. I’m not looking.”
“Mercy, these are the prettiest horses I’ve ever seen.” She pulled the car over to the side of the road. “Come on.”
Trudy killed the engine and opened her door. Mercy got out, too, staring at her feet as she went but clearly warming to the adventure. Trudy helped her across the ditch, lifting her over the water rushing at the bottom, and they made their way toward the field. Leaning against the log fence, they could see the horses in the distance. Two of them, white as snow, the sun lighting them up like lanterns against the blue sky and green grass. Mercy sighed, her cheeks pink from the cool spring air. “Trudy, I think those are unicorns!”
Trudy laughed. “I don’t know, sweetie. They don’t have any horns.”
“That’s just because they’re too young. Those are unicorns. UNICORNS! COME HERE!”
One of the horses lifted its head and stared. Mercy squeezed Trudy’s hand and stood perfectly still. “I think they’re coming over,” she whispered. “Stand still.”
Both horses were staring now. One of them threw its head back and whinnied. The other nodded and both of them started to walk toward the fence. Mercy was twitching, fidgeting, trying to control the urge to jump up and down. “OK, unicorns,” she whispered. “Just a little bit closer.”
The horses kept coming and Trudy started to get nervous. She had never been very close to a horse before and could not quite believe the size of them as they approached the fence. She took two steps back, taking Mercy with her. The horses pressed their chests against the fence and leaned their heads down toward them. Trudy could feel their hot breath. Their nostrils flared. Mercy took a small, careful step toward the fence. One horse took a step back but the other leaned closer. She reached her small hand out and ran it down over the horse’s nose.
Trudy was holding her breath.
The horse leaned down and nuzzled Mercy’s kangaroo pockets, nudging her belly, knocking her back a step. Mercy held her hands above her head as though the horse was a bandit and this was a holdup. The horse snorted, backed up, turned, and walked away. The other followed. Trudy let her breath out. “Jesus!”
Back in the car, Mercy said, “That was a unicorn, Trudy. I could tell. His nose was so soft.”
Right before the railroad tracks on Old Murphy Road, down a long dirt lane, was an old red-brick farmhouse sinking into the swampy earth beside a shallow bay thick with rushes at the shore. A car was parked in the front yard, and tire tracks made muddy trenches in the grass. A sprawling willow tree leaned into the water. Trudy took her foot off the gas and glided past the lane. A plywood sign hung from a post. Jules Tremblay Headquarters spray-painted red in stencilled letters. She pulled over onto the shoulder and killed the engine, looking at the house in the rear-view mirror. Mercy climbed over the front seat and tumbled into the back to look out the back window. “Who lives there, Trudy?”
“Nobody.” They sat for a few minutes in silence.
“What if my mom lives there?”
“That would be a surprise.”
“Trudy, I miss my mom sometimes.”
“I know, hon.”
Trudy caught sight of Jules’s old Pontiac GTO coming up behind them, turning into the laneway. Flat black, it looked like someone had painted it with house paint and a roller. Probably rusted to dust under there. Likely paint was the only thing holding it together. Edgy, she started the car and pulled out, heading for the highway. “Let’s go to the park, pal.”
“I don’t want to go to the park anymore. I want to go home.”
Trudy looked at her niece in the rear-view mirror. Curled up with her arms crossed, her chin pressed into her chest, her knees drawn up. There were acres of car seat around her. She was a tiny little thing. Just a speck.
“Or we could visit some friends. What would you think of that?” Trudy slowed down, looking for a place to turn around.
“What friends?” Suspicious but hopeful, Mercy sat up in her seat.
“Our new friends, remember?” Trudy pulled into a lane between two cornfields, came to an abrupt stop, and backed out heading back the way they came.
“Cowboys!” shouted Mercy.
“Sure. Cowboys,” said Trudy.
And she headed back to HQ.