The Unicorn Girl: The Greenwich Village Trilogy Book Two
176
The Unicorn Girl: The Greenwich Village Trilogy Book Two
176eBook
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Overview
Mike and Chester, the alien-fighting hippies of The Butterfly Kid, have found their way from New York City to San Francisco — but that's just the first step of their odyssey. When Mike meets the girl of his dreams, he and Chester join her and her circus friends on a quest in search of a lost unicorn. Psychedelic hilarity ensues as they travel through time to encounter Victorian nudists, fire-breathing dragonettes, and live dinosaurs.
Touted as a "brain-blowing science-fiction freak out" upon its 1969 publication, The Unicorn Girl is the second book in the Greenwich Village Trilogy, a shared-world scenario written by three different authors, all of whom appear in the books as characters. Dover Publications returns this cosmic adventure to print for the first time in nearly 40 years, along with its predecessor, The Butterfly Kid, and its sequel, The Probability Pad. This edition features an appreciative new Foreword by science-fiction author Richard A. Lupoff.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486845128 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 11/13/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
It was a year after the butterflies. Things had sort of quieted back to normal. The reality pill, along with its audio-visual hallucinations, was a thing of the past; the supply gone, except for an odd one or two that Chester seemed to come up with whenever he felt creative. But then, when Chester felt creative, there was no telling what he'd come up with.
The only puzzle in my life at the moment was the two-week-old disappearance of a close friend and cohort of ours, Tom Waters. But then, Tom was a sometimes-professional magician, and given to disappearances. Usually he'd pop up after a few days and complain bitterly about the lack of civilization wherever he'd gone. Civilization, to Tom, was measured only by the relative abundance of peanut butter, cupcakes and cola; that being the scope of what he allowed to be food and drink.
Chester the Barefoot Anderson was on stage playing electronic harpsichord with his new group, the Elven Five. I was sitting at a table toward the back of the Trembling Womb, trying to ignore the music well enough to compose a sonnet to a lady I had recently become rather fond of. Somehow the music was making its way across well-worn synapses from the ear part of my brain to the hand part without stopping anywhere at the conscious level. When I saw that I had just written You are lovely as a tweedle and you diddle pam my heart as the third line, I gave up and put the notebook away.
Then I saw the girl.
She was standing just inside the doorway, not ten feet away, talking to Overly-Friendly Phil, the manager. I'd never seen her before, I was sure of that, but my subconscious told me I knew this girl. She had large, dark eyes, well set in the kind of oval face Flemish masters put only on the finest angels. Her hair was dark, color indeterminate in the coffeehouse's dim light, and folded gently about her neck and shoulders, reaching somewhere around the small of her back. She was dressed in a sort of tunic that made her boyish figure look awfully girlish. After a few seconds I realized where I knew her from. In my youth, during an extended period of reading romantic literature, I had rescued this girl from everything from evil knights to fearsome dragons in many a half-remembered dream. This was the Girl Who Talked to Unicorns: the symbol of purity and grace I had sworn to serve when I took my oath of fealty and stood vigil over my sword one long night. Ivanhoe had nothing on me when I was twelve years old. This, by Loki, was the girl of my dreams.
I couldn't help it. I got up and walked over to where they were standing. Their conversation stopped as I approached, but I, unabashed and unabashable, plunged on. I bowed low to the girl, knowing that in a few seconds I'd feel as silly as I probably looked, but living only for the moment. "Fair damsel," I heard myself saying, "how may I serve you?" If she had giggled, I would have stalked back to my table and sulked for days. If she had giggled, none of this would have happened.
She smiled. "Good sir," she said, with a voice like ripples in a silver stream, "I would that you aid me. I search for my unicorn." She had a distinctly Cockney accent.
There were, of course, several possibilities. It might be a puton. It could be a humorous response to my greeting. It might have deep psychological meaning, given the old unicorn legends. But somehow, I knew she was serious. This girl of my dream needed help finding her unicorn.
"Where did you lose it?" I asked.
Overly-Friendly Phil gave me a dirty look. "You know what she's talking about?" he demanded.
"Godfrey Daniel!" I explained, waving my arms and speaking above the level of the music to make myself heard. "What is there to know? The girl needs help. A damsel in distress. Surely that should be sufficient."
"Calm down," Phil said, patting me on the shoulder, a gesture I am not fond of. "Take her over to your table and talk to her. I'll send over some coffee, compliments of the house. I got enough troubles."
Taking his advice, and his free coffee, I led the unicorn girl back to my table and sat her down across from me. "Now," I said, "Tell me all about it."
The music, I noticed, had stopped. A bearded, plumpish figure was approaching the table. "Ah, Michael," the figure said in a stage murmur that carried over the intervening tables. "This Bach and Rock is hard work. Credo. I must rest." He sank into a chair up to his elbows, which he rested on the table. "Good evening," he said to the girl. "Are you one of Michael's, or may I scratch your back?"
"Chester," I told the girl. "Glerph. Anderson. This is."
"Glerph?" Chester asked, raising one eyebrow. He used to practice that in front of a mirror.
"And I ... my name is Michael. Mike. Kurland." I was flustered.
"You're flustered," Chester told me. "I have a back fetish," he said to the girl, "but we'll forget it for now, since it seems to fluster Michael the Theodore Bear to hear about it."
"I am Sylvia," the girl said, looking slightly amused.
"Ah, Sylvia. From Sylvian. Creature of the wood. A delightful name. Tell me, Sylvia, what are you doing out of your enchanted wood?"
"I have lost my unicorn," she told him. "And Michael is going to help me find him." She sounded very positive.
"Glerph?" Chester asked.
"You heard the lady," I told him.
"Indeed? Ah, humph. Unicorn." Chester had often told me of his firm belief in unicorns; now he was getting a chance to prove it.
Sylvia looked at me, and then at Chester, and then back at me. "I do not understand you people. You behave very strangely. Ever since I got off the train everyone has been behaving very strangely. Perhaps it's just that I am not used to this part of the country."
"Yes," Chester assured her. "You're from Liverpool, of course." He was very proud of his ability to place different accents.
"No," Sylvia told him, "Boston."
Chester turned and glowered at the stage. I could tell he was beginning to think this was a carefully arranged practical joke. He always suspected me of practical jokes. Sometimes he was right. I, at least, never put anything in his orange juice. I was constantly finding samples of various drugs Unknown to Modern Science in mine.
Jake Holmes, the world's foremost WASP ethnic folk singer, was tuning up on the stage. I affected a strong interest in Jake's lead-in routine while Chester turned the glower on me. "Boston," Chester said.
"It's in Massachusetts Commonwealth," the girl told him.
Jake finished the tuning process and broke into song. Several teenybrats and a few of their mothers wiggled silently in their seats; their eyes intent on Jake's clean-cut, boyish profile. I wouldn't call the look one of wanton desire, but then I'm no expert on those things.
A very old red leather face Sits by itself watching nothing ground ...
"Commonwealth," Chester said clearly.
"Do you know where you misplaced your unicorn?" I asked.
"I wouldn't say that I misplaced him, exactly."
"Good for you," Chester agreed. "I wouldn't exactly say that either."
"It was when I got off the train."
"Train?" I asked,
She nodded. "The train. Adolphus seemed rather excited and nervous. We all were after what happened. Then he just bolted and ran off into the woods. It's very unlike him. The whole crew is out looking for him now."
I looked at Chester. Chester looked at me. "Do you remember when the last one was?" he asked.
I nodded. "About six years ago. They made quite a ceremony of it. The end of an era and all that sort of thing."
"The last what?" Sylvia asked. Jake sang a few more lines while Chester and I didn't answer.
Reality staggers and weaves Takes it away from the doorway it lives in....
"The last train," I told her. "The very last train into San Francisco before they tore up the tracks. The engine's in the Museum of Science and Industry now."
Sylvia looked puzzled. "San Francisco?"
"Or at least Oakland. The city across the bay. We're thirty miles south of it now."
"Oh," Sylvia said. "I'm afraid I know the names of few of the local towns."
I glanced at Chester. It occurred to me that I wasn't the only one capable of practical jokes.
"Is it near New Camelot?" Sylvia asked.
Chester leaned back. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. He slipped the sopranino recorder out of his belt and put it to his lips.
"At any rate, you must be mistaken about the train," Sylvia told me calmly.
"I must," I agreed, "it's a compulsion."
Jake started another song. Chester played back-of-the-room accompaniment on the recorder very softly. His face had the distinct bland look that meant he was deep in thought.
"You said the whole crew is out looking for the unicorn now?" I asked. Sylvia nodded. "What crew is that?"
"From the circus," Sylvia told me. "Everyone that wasn't too busy is out looking for Adolphus. I followed the twisty road, calling his name, until I got here. I thought he'd come to me, since I'm his keeper now and we're rather fond of each other, but he didn't. Maybe one of the others has found him by now, but I doubt it. If he won't come to me, then he won't let anyone else near him."
Twisty road? I wondered.
"You're from a circus?" Chester asked.
"Of course. Where else would you find a unicorn?"
"Yes," Chester agreed. "Where else indeed?" Jake had finished his set and was going offstage. In the silence Chester played a variant of an old circus song that we called "MacDougal Street Saturday Night" on the recorder. He followed that with a complicated baroque version of "Greensleeves."
"You play that well," Sylvia said.
"Thank you."
"Adolphus is quite fond of woodwind music. Do you happen to know 'Barkus Is Willing'?"
"Barkus Is Willing?"
"Yes. That's his favorite. It goes 'ta ti dum dum ti de diddly di, ta dum reedle fiddle fap.'" She had a strong, clear soprano voice.
"I, er, think I know it under a different name," Chester said.
He played it for her:
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
"That's it," she said. "But could you play it lower?"
"Lower?" Chester asked. Putting the sopranino down, he took the alto recorder from its canvas case and started adjusting the sections in that mysterious way recorder players put their machines together. "What key?"
"Fa, I think."
"Right," Chester agreed. "The key of fa it is." He blew a note through the hardwood tube, and then a riff. "How's that?"
"Very good. Excellent," the girl agreed. "If you'd come out into the woods with me, you could play 'Barkus Is Willing' while I call Adolphus. He must be around somewhere."
I was, I freely admit, miffed. Pied Piper Anderson was doing it again. Just because he could make music come out of that petrified pipe, while the best I could ever do was a startled pheep.
Sylvia turned to me. She had the largest eyes I'd ever seen off of an oil painting. "Of course you'll come, Michael, and help. Please?"
Wild gryphons couldn't have kept me away.
CHAPTER 2If you ever find yourself at a romantically lit table in the rear of an old roadhouse cum gambling casino that's been turned into an entertainment coffeehouse, staring into a beautiful girl's large eyes and telling her that she's your princess and you're going to help her find her unicorn, there's a cure. Go outside with her into the parking lot. It's impossible to keep any sort of romantic illusions intact in a parking lot — even if it fronts the Pacific Ocean thirty miles south of San Francisco. There we were, standing among orderly rows of squat electric cars and hulking gas buggies, feeling silly. At least, I was feeling silly. It was hard to tell what Chester was feeling, with his collar turned up against the damp breeze and the recorder clutched like a club in his right hand, but somehow I knew that neither of us looked like a gallant unicorn-rescuer.
Sylvia was splendid. Head erect, she marched between the rows of cars to the private sound of her own orchestra. A slightly pixilated orchestra, to judge by the skip in her step. We two followed, marching to the somber beat of a different, and much more melancholy, drummer. When we entered the glare of the single, powerful spotlight that illuminated the entrance to the driveway, Sylvia paused and looked around. For the first time the cars were lit up well enough to see clearly, and she stared at them in evident surprise. "What," she asked, pointing a delicate hand vaguely at the parked vehicles, "are these beasts?"
"You mean the cars?" I asked. Sometimes I'm a bit slow.
"Cars?"
"Automobiles," Chester explained. "Horseless carriages. Nothing a girl hunting for her unicorn would be expected to know about"
"Are they common in this part of the world?"
I looked at Chester. "Time travel?" I suggested.
"Love to," he replied. He mouthed his alto recorder and lustily blew 'Barkus Is Willing' into the night, while I tried to explain to Sylvia how it was with horseless carriages.
"Yoo, hoo, Sylvia!" a deep baritone boomed out of the dark.
"Sylvia," a mellifluous tenor added, "is that you?"
Sylvia clapped her hands together delightedly. "My friends," she exclaimed. "My comrades. Perhaps they have found Adolphus." She rose up on the toes of her tiny feet and cupped her hands to her mouth. "Here," she called. "Over here!"
There was a clopping sound, and three figures appeared in the shadows. "Sylvia," the baritone called. "We were beginning to think we'd lost you too." The figures moved toward us.
I now had a good working definition of the old phrase too much. This was too much. Much too much. Girls of my dreams suddenly appearing and asking me to help find their unicorns I could accept. After all, if Alice hadn't fallen down that rabbit hole, where would the world be now? But believing in Sylvia's friends would require practice. The first, in order from left to right, was a tall, slender girl with long, red hair, dressed in a Grecian style gown. I could believe in her. The second, however, was a centaur. From the waist up, he was wearing a lace-trimmed shirt, fluffy silk tie, and an eight-button jacket with wide lapels. From the waist down he was a horse. The last was a man, eight feet tall and wide as a church door, but still a man. He had the build appropriate for a giant; I could see the muscles ripple under his net shirt. When he got one step closer, I noticed something else: he had only one eye — which was centered above his broad nose.
The centaur, I could see as they came under the light, was a deep olive green. The cyclops was wearing a monocle.
"Anderson," I yelped. "You promised. You swore faithfully that you'd never do it again. How can I learn to trust you if I can't trust you?"
Chester had taken the sopranino recorder from his belt and was happily squinting at the spotlight and playing both machines at once. I refused to be impressed. He stopped playing when I prodded him and squinted at me. "What's the trouble, son?" he asked in an irritated voice.
I said calmly, "I had your solemn word that there'd be no more chemicals in my orange juice."
"Not even saltpeter," he assured me.
"I hate to doubt your word," I said ...
"Sylvia!" the cycloptic baritone boomed.
Chester looked. His sleepy expression vanished. "Those?" he asked, prodding the air in front of him with the alto recorder.
"Those," I told him. "You see them too?"
He nodded. "What do you think we're on?"
The centaur cantered up to us. "Glad to see you're all right," he said. "Who are your friends?"
"Chester and Michael," Sylvia identified. "They're going to help us find Adolphus. This," she told us, "is Ronald."
"That's the idea," the centaur said, looking us over. "Mobilize the locals."
The cyclops and the redhead joined us and were introduced. The cyclops was named Giganto, but he assured us it was just a stage name. "My nom-de-carnival," he said. "But it's just as well, you'd never be able to pronounce my real name. It's Arcturian, of course."
Of course? I wondered.
The redhead was named Dorothy, and at close range she was stately and beautiful. She was beautiful at a distance too, but I'm nearsighted, and most girls look blurredly good to me at a distance. Her skin was fair, her hair was long, her features were delicate and proud, and her dress clung like the one Praxiteles sculpted on to his Aphrodite. She extended her hand to each of us in turn. I shook it, and was surprised at her strength. Chester pressed it gallantly to his lips.
"Delightful," she said. "Tell me, was't you I heard tootling upon the flageolet?"
Chester bowed, holding his alto before him like a gift offering. "Fair lady," he said, "was it pleasing to you?"
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Unicorn Girl"
by .
Copyright © 1969 Michael Kurland.
Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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