Magic the unicorn entered Gemstone Glade, a smile in his eyes. Twilight fondled the trees with shadows. The fountain flowed quietly, silver silence in water.

Magic lowered his horn to the fountain. Its healing effects buoyed him instantly. He needed energy tonight.

There was another mission calling him, so many this month already. For Magic – like many of the Gemstone Glade unicorns – has a unique gift. He can make crying children smile. His wish, to help every child. His mission, to help the ones he can.

Jacob was crying. Magic closed his eyes. A green door of light appeared before him, glimmering in the dim end of day light. He stepped slowly through the portal, arriving in a child’s bedroom. Posters of Doctor Who smiled down from the bedroom walls. Magic smiled back in his mind.

Jacob looked up, tears streaming down his face like a human fountain. He looked blankly at Magic. Then he mumbled, words like rocks that hurt as they fell from his throat: “You’re … you’re … a unicorn.”

“I am here to help.” Magic spoke in to his mind, a trick all unicorns can perform.

Jacob’s tears began to fly from his face, to high above his head. Jacob looked up in confusion, as the tears grew larger and took on the form of tiny shining angels, rainbows deep inside their transparent bodies.

Tiny faces appeared, and laughed down at him. The diminutive angels held out their hands. “Come with us! It is time to play!”

Jacob smiled, for the first time in weeks. “Where are we going?”

The angels only nodded, and began to sing, tiny bodies glowing as they radiated beautiful sound. Jamie felt a wind in his hair. A cloud formed around him. Soon he could see nothing but white cloud.

Slowly, the cloud then dissolved. Jacob was no longer sitting on his bed – he was on a bench in a large park, flowers like happy stories all around, and a large play area like a child’s playtime poem solidified. Other children were on the swings and slide, shrieking with delight.

Around the park, giant trees stood like guards. Windows winked in the sun from a dozen or more treehouses. Jacob laughed. Was he in paradise?

Picture by Kosuke Noma (from Unsplash)

The other children called to him. He ran to a swing, and was soon happily flying in to the air, a grin painted on his face that might never fade.

Then it began to rain, big drops falling on them like a superhero shower. “This means another kid is coming,” explained Harry, one of the children. “This happened before you arrived too.”

Sure enough, a little girl shortly appeared on the bench, surrounded by the tiny rainbow fairies. She soon joined them, her tears drying in the light of her sunny smile.

Jacob continued to swing, as the sun stroked his face. This was luxury in motion, poetry in freefall. He had never felt so happy.

A rainbow appeared. “This means the angel queen is about to appear,” confided Harry.

A larger than usual rainbow angel descended from the sky, the size of a two year old. A pink and green sparkling dress hung around her loosely, as if it did not fit properly. Sapphire blue eyes smiled at them. She landed in the middle of the play park, and announced, “I am Queen Divina, and I have come to welcome you all. But soon, you must go home. We will come for you once again in the future, I promise, and take you back here. We will never be far, this is your second home.”

Jacob listened intently as the white cloud materialised around him. When it dissipated, he was back on his own bed.

He yawned. He was really tired, and it was long past his bedtime. Tomorrow, he would wonder whether it was all a dream. But like all the best dreams, the memory would kiss his brain with indelible lipstick, a moment to cherish forever.