Hearing that, the Unicorn jumped specially high up in the air, so that she had to grasp his mane to keep from falling off his back. His mane was so soft and yet so firm that she felt she held the wind in her hands. She threw her head back and gave a great happy squeak, so different than any she had heard on the battlefield. This was a squeak of joy, freedom and deliverance.

Just at this instant, the Unicorn and the mouse happened to look over and to see a hole in the wainscoting. Was it that the hole got bigger or that they got smaller? In any case, there was a great roar from the battlefield behind them as, in a twinkling, they passed through it.

On the other side of the wainscoting the night was clean and fresh. The wind had torn the clouds so that the light of the moon shone through. Falling snow glistened in the moonlight. Silence and white were all around.

The smell of wood smoke came to the mouse's nostrils. There was also another smell mixed in with it. This other smell was the scent of battle, of powder and rage and fear, of wanting to hurt and of being hurt. As the mouse sat on the Unicorn's back, entranced to be out here in this marvelous night of peace and freedom, she felt a pang in her heart.

What had brought her into the battle in the first place? It seemed so menacing and eerie. The question nagged at her, because she was not the kind of mouse who was good at forgetting. No doubt whatever had brought her there had brought the others, too. It was a great puzzle to her and also a great sorrow. She had a good imagination. She had already seen enough to picture only too well in her mind what was taking place back there from where she and the Unicorn had so luckily and mysteriously escaped.

She tried hard to understand, to find a clue, but all she could think was, "It goes back a very long way and so it is likely also to go forward a very long way."

At this thought, she was stricken with a great sadness, perhaps the greatest one she had ever experienced in her life. Small tears began to run down both her cheeks. She was happier than she had ever been, perched on the back of a white Unicorn with a golden horn watching the beautiful snow fall down through a silent night under the watchful eye of the moon. She was also sadder than she had ever been in her life, for she had realized that there was no way really to escape what was going on back in there. Wherever she went, she would carry the battle with her with its terrible mixture of horror and futility.

How she had loved her acrobatics! How she missed, even in this sparkling white night, the innocence of those days when she lived only for flips and twists, for somersaults and cartwheels, for whirling about rings and bars. Of course, she knew there was no going back. But what had possessed her to join the army? What mad wish, what mad desire? Why had the life she had had before not been enough for her? And what was to come?

Unicorns are sensitive creatures, sensitive almost but not quite beyond human understanding. As the little mouse began to cry, her body changed and the feeling transmitted itself through her legs and thighs to the Unicorn, who shuddered just a little bit as it entered him. Then, without a word, he changed his gait to comfort her.

He set off from the open meadow into a fir wood. Not five minutes after they entered the wood, they heard, "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo." The shadow of an owl detached itself from the trees, became larger and larger and passed directly over them. Knowing that owls like nothing better than to eat mice, the little mouse was terrified. There was no doubt in her mind that the owl, keen eyed as he was, had seen her. She felt within an instant of her end.

So she buried her head in the Unicorn's white silky mane, thinking, "What a foolish creature I am! I've escaped one peril only to find myself in a greater one."

At the very last second, though, her natural bravery and curiosity asserted themselves. She looked up just in time to see that the owl passing overhead had an oddly human face. The Unicorn, of course, recognized this face which so much resembled Druid Meyer's. The wings were just slightly crooked and the expression on the face was a bit feverish. But he was not afraid. He knew no owl would dare attack a Unicorn with a golden horn, because the horn's gold light would daze and dazzle the owl, so that it would certainly crash into a tree.

What upset the Unicorn, though, was that, as the owl passed overhead it seemed to wink just one eyelid down at him, as if to say, "You haven't seen the last of me. Of that you can be sure."

When the little mouse lifted her head out of the Unicorn's mane, she was surprised to find herself still alive, still perched on his back, not caught and crushed in the beak of that huge owl. She knew she owed her safety to the Unicorn, so she reached around his neck and kissed him in his ear. He gave a little whinny of pleasure, which sounded like tiny golden bells tinkling in the breeze. As the night wore on and the sparkling snow went on coming down, they passed deeper and deeper into the dark green fir woods.

The little mouse got sleepier and sleepier. She had had a long hard day, one on which more had happened to her and in her than in whole years that had gone before. Surely you can understand, dear readers, because you have had such days yourselves. You know the special kind of sleepiness that comes after them, as if you needed to go to sleep and dream in order to wake up to the myriad and marvelous meanings of what has happened to you.

The little mouse fell asleep right there on the back of the Unicorn. He moved so steadily, lightly and gently beneath her that she felt as she hugged his mane with her arms and his back with her legs that she was being rocked now just the way her mother mouse had rocked her when she was so much younger. For his part, the Unicorn, having been asleep so very dreadfully and dully long in the corner of the toy cabinet facing the spider web, had no use whatsoever now for sleep.

With the little mouse on his back, he trotted along, drinking in the night air through his nostrils and taking delight in each tree he passed, in each brook and rivulet, in every rise and fall of the way of the woods beneath his hooves. From time to time, he saw the owl's weird eyelid winking at him, but, when he did, he tossed his head ever so slightly to banish the vision. He did not like it, for it reminded him of the battle. Although Unicorns are by nature cheerful creatures, they are sensitive, too, not without their own griefs and wraths, but full of feeling for their fellow creatures.