The twins looked at each other. Sandy said, “I hadn’t really thought about it till now. If I think about it, you do sound, well, different, but I can understand you. Right, Den?”
“Right,” Dennys agreed. “Except it was easier when we weren’t thinking about it.”
“Come on,” Japheth urged. “Let’s go.” He looked at Sandy. “You’d better cover yourself, too.”
Sandy followed Dennys’s example and pulled on his turtleneck.
Dennys unrolled his flannel shirt and draped it over his head. “Sort of like a burnoose to keep us from getting sunstroke.”
“Good idea.” Sandy did the same.
“If,” Dennys added morosely, “it isn’t already too late.” Then he said. “Hey, Japh—“ stumbled over the name-“Hey, Jay, what’s that?”
On the horizon to the far left, moving toward them, appeared a creature which shimmered in and out of their vision, silvery in color, as large as a goat or a pony, with light flickering out from its forehead.
Sandy also shortened Japheth’s name. “What’s that, Jay?” The mammoth pushed its head under Sandy’s hand and he began to scratch between the great fan-like ears.
Japheth looked toward the barely visible creature, smiling in recognition. “Oh, that’s a unicorn. They’re very odd. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. If we want one, we call and it’ll usually appear.”
“Did you call on one?” Sandy asked.
“Higgaion may have thought about one, but he didn’t really call it. That’s why it isn’t all the way solid. Unicorns are even better about scenting for water than mammoths, except that you can’t always count on them. But probably Higgaion thought one might be able to confirm where we thought there was a spring.” He smiled ruefully. “Grandfather always knows what Hig is thinking, and I make guesses.”
The twins stopped and looked at each other, but the mammoth had left Sandy and was trotting after Japheth, who was walking toward the oasis again, so they followed. In the intensity of the desert heat, their limbs felt heavy and uncooperative. When they looked to where the unicorn had been, it was no longer there, though there was left in its place a mirage-like shimmering.
Sandy panted. “I don’t believe this.”
Dennys, jogging beside him, agreed. “We’ve never had very willing suspensions of disbelief. We’re the pragmatists of the family.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Sandy said. “It I blink often enough, we’ll be back in the kitchen at home.”
Dennys took one of the flapping sleeves of his shirt and wiped his eyes. “What I believe right now is that I’m hot. Hot. Hot.”
Japheth turned his head and looked back. “Giants! Come on. Stop talking.”
With their long legs, it was easy enough for the twins to catch up with Japheth- “We’re not giants,” Dennys reiterated. “My name is Dennys.”
“Dennysim.”
Dennys touched his forehead, as Japheth had done.
“One Dennys. Me.”
Sandy, too, touched his forehead. “I’m Sandy.”
“Sand.” Japheth looked around. “We have plenty of Sand.”
“No, Jay,” Sandy corrected. “It’s short for Alexander. Sandy.”
Japheth shook his head. “You call me Jay. I call you Sand. Sand is something I understand.”
“Talking of strange names”—Dennys looked at the mammoth, who was again butting at Sandy, to be petted.
“Hig-“
“Hig-gai-on.” Japheth sounded it out.
“Are all mammoths his size? Or are there some really big ones?”
Japheth looked puzzled. “Those that are left are like Higgaion.”
Sandy looked at his brother. “Didn’t horses start out very little, back in pre-history?”
But Dennys was looking at the horizon. “Look. Now you can see that there are lots of palm trees.”
Although they could now see that there were many trees, the oasis was still far away. Despite their much longer legs, the boys began to lag behind Japheth and the mammoth, who were moving across the sand at an easy run.
“I’m not sure I can make it,” Dennys said, grunting.
Sandy’s steps, too, lagged. “I thought we were the great athletes,” he said, panting.
“We’ve never been exposed to heat like this before.”
Japheth, evidently realizing that they were no longer behind him, turned around and jogged back toward them, seemingly cool and unwinded. “What’s the matter? You’re both all red. The same red. You truly are two people?”
“We’re twins.” Sandy’s voice was an exhausted croak.
Dennys panted. “I think—we’re getting—heat—heat prostration.”
Japheth looked at them anxiously. “Sun-sickness can be dangerous.” He reached up and touched Dennys’s cheek. Shook his head. “You’re cold and clammy. Bad sign.” He put his hand against his forehead. Appeared to be thinking deeply. Then: “What about a unicorn?”
“What about it?” Sandy asked. He felt tired and irritable.
“If we could get a couple of unicorns to become real and solid for us, they could carry you to the oasis.”
The twins looked at each other, each seeing a red, sweating mirror version of himself. “We’ve never gone in for mythical beasts,” Dennys said.
Sandy added, “Meg says unicorns have been ruined by overpopularity.”
Japheth frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Dennys, too. frowned. Thinking. Then: “Jay’s unicorns sound more like Mother’s virtual particles than like mythical beasts.”
Sandy was exasperated. “Virtual particles aren’t mythical. They’re theoretical.”
Dennys shot back, “If Mother can believe in her way-out theories, we ought to be able to believe in virtual unicorns.”
“What kind of unicorns?” Japheth looked puzzled. “Is it because you’re some strange kind of giant that there’s all this confusion?” !”
“Unicorns have never been a matter of particular importance before.” Sandy wiped his hands across his face and was surprised to find that the beads of sweat were indeed cold.
“They’re important now.” Dennys groaned. “Mother believes in virtual particles, so there’s no reason there can’t be virtual unicorns.”
“Hig—“Japheth urged.
The mammoth turned and faced the horizon. A faint shimmering glimmered on the sand in front of him. Slowly it took the shape of a unicorn, transparent but recognizable. Beside it, another unicorn began to shimmer.
“Please, unicorns,” Dennys begged. “Be real.”
Slowly the transparency of both creatures began to solidify, until there were two unicorns standing on the sand, with silvery-grey flanks, silver manes and beards. Silver hooves, and horns of brilliant light. They looked at the twins and docilely folded their legs under to lie down.
“Oh!” Japheth exclaimed. “It’s a good thing you’re both so young. For the moment, I’d forgotten that unicorns will not let themselves be touched by anyone who is not a virgin.”
The twins glanced at each other. “Well, we don’t even have our driver’s licenses yet.” Dennys said.
“Get up on them before they decide they aren’t needed,” Japheth ordered.
The twins climbed each onto the back of one of the silver creatures, both feeling that this was a dream from which they could not wake up. But, without the unicorns, they would never make it to the oasis.
The unicorns flew across the desert, their hooves barely touching the surface. Occasionally, where the sand had been blown clear and there was rock, a silver hoof struck with a clang like a bell, and sparks flew upward. Small desert creatures watched them fly by. Sandy noticed, but did not mention, some scattered bones bleached by sun and wind.
“Hold on!” Japheth cried in warning. “Don’t fall off!”
But there was a sense, in riding the unicorns, of unreality. If this was no stranger than their mother’s world of particle physics, it was at least equally as strange.
“Hold onl” Japheth shouted again.
But Dennys felt himself sliding off the smooth flanks. He tried to grasp the mane, but it sifted through his fingers like sand. Was the unicorn becoming less real, or was the still-blazing sun affecting him?
“Dennys! Don’t fall off!” Sandy shouted.
But Dennys felt himself slipping. He did not know whether it was himself or the unicorn who kept flickering in and out of being.
Then he felt something solid. Sandy on his unicorn pressing against him. Sandy’s strong arms shoving him back onto the unicorn, the virtual particle suddenly real, not just something in the lab. His head hurt.
Japheth and the mammoth were running beside them, amazingly swift for such small creatures- “Hurry,” Japheth urged the unicorns. “Hurry.”
Sandy, his flannel shirt still draped over his head, was hardly aware that he was supporting his brother. His arms felt as fluid as water. He was breathing in great searing gulps which burned his throat. His head began to swell, to be filled with hot air like a balloon, so that he was afraid he was going to float off into the sky.
The mammoth passed Japheth and the unicorns, leading the way to the oasis, so that his stocky legs were no more than a blur of motion, like hummingbirds’ wings. Occasionally he would raise his trunk and make a trumpeting noise, urging the unicorns along. Japheth ran along side, beginning to breathe, open-mouthed, with effort.
But they were not fast enough for Dennys, who was slipping into unconsciousness, and as the world blackened before his eyes, his unicorn’s horn became dim and the silver creature began to dissolve as Dennys lost sight and hearing and thought. And Dennys flickered in and out of being with his mount.