With a sudden upswing in earthquake activity over the past few days, and at least one plus 4.0 magnitude earthquake every day since Friday, it appears timely to be thinking about Tales for Canterbury again—which you may recall was put together by Cassie Hart and Anna Caro as a fundraiser for the Red Cross Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

The anthology is themed around “Survival”, “Hope” and “Future”—and once again, Karen Healey’s The Unicorn Bell, which I loved when I read it and am sure that you will too, is from the “Hope” section of the book.

The Unicorn Bell

by Karen Healey

Nana’s house was full of magic things, and the unicorn bell was the most magic of all.

Sophie liked to list the other things in groups of three, because she was seven, and Nana said seven and three were the luckiest numbers. She had to think hard about her three favourite goblets, but she decided on the biggest glass one and the smallest pewter one and the one made of battered brass, polished until it displayed her own face, glowing brown in the metal. The Sophie in the goblets had a wild smile, with sharper teeth, and the real Sophie was a little afraid of her.

The Sophie in her three favourite teaspoons was much easier to understand; the same girl, with huge eyes or enormous chin, depending how she tilted them. The magic in the teaspoons lay in the pictures of castles on the handles. The castles were called Monea and Duino and Versailles; strange names that Nana had to help Sophie say, with all the enchantment of lands across the sea.

The paintings were much less interesting, and mostly of deer or dogs or horses. Mum couldn’t afford riding lessons and Sophie didn’t like horses anyway. Her best friend Tracy Cho was learning how to ride, and talked importantly about manes and fetlocks and mucking out. This was a secret code, and not very fair. Still, Sophie picked her three favourite paintings. Two of them were dogs. There was a big painting of a lady in a long skirt and a blouse that buttoned all the way up her neck. She was sitting on a bench with a lot of books and leaning her chin on her hand, her forehead wrinkled like Mum’s was on Thursdays. Sophie chose that as her most favourite. The lady was clearly studying spells, not Mum’s accounting books, but homework was homework.

Anyway, horses were stupid.

…

To find out why The Unicorn Bell was “the most magic of all” you will have to read the full story in Tales for Canterbury. The anthology includes a range of short stories donated by both national and international authors to aid the recovery of Christchurch after the past year of earthquakes. It may be purchased from Random Static here.

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And don’t forget that tomorrow is “Fun with Thornspell” day—you can find out all about it here and read last week’s feature, here.