Goose Chase (5 page)

The Geese were lying in a dispirited heap upon the ground where we had landed, much exhausted. No wonder in that! However, when they spied me walking toward the cottage, they bestirred themselves. At first I thought that they were hurrying to enter the cottage themselves, but soon saw that they meant to prevent me from doing so.

"N-a-a-a, n-ah, n-ah!" they whickered anxiously, pressing closer as I tried to push my way through them.

"Shoo! Shoo, now. Get away from the door, girls," I cried. "I wish to go inside and see what is what."

Still they would not budge, but blocked the way in the most maddening manner. Much vexed, I found a stout stick and began to drive them away. I was not happy about the way they were trying to run things on this journey.

As I prodded and pushed and poked with my stick they began to give way. They did not like it, but they moved away from the door.

"N-n-a-ay! Nay, nay, nay!" they cried piteously as they retreated before my stick.

What, I began to wonder, would I do if their protestations were justified? Verily, there was a stench of corruption and death within. Mayhap some fierce animal denned in this deserted house. Or perchance a robber gang slumbered on the other side of the ruined door. My courage almost failed me as I thought these thoughts, but I would have none of that.
I
was the leader of this expedition and 'twas for me to determine where we would spend the night. I took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold into the cottage.

It took some little time for my eyes to adjust to the greater darkness inside the hut. Indeed, to speak true, 'twas too pitch-black to see much of anything. However, I moved cautiously around the room (like our old home, the cottage was only one room large), poking my stick into every corner. This did not take overmuch time, as there was nary a stick of furniture in the place. A large metal object there was, like a big cooking pot, a great many oddly shaped bowls lying about, some store of cloth as it might be rags or bags or discarded clothing, much filth and debris on the floor, and not one thing else that I could find.

I sighed with relief and called to my girls, "Look you here, you silly ninnies, there is naught in this place to fear. We shall sleep secure tonight, away from the fearsome beasts of the forest."

They would not come.

"Nay, nay, ne-e-e-h!"

"Come, my foolish ones! See? You may escape through the hole in the roof if any danger threatens, while I must stay behind to perish, 'Tis quite safe for
you!
"

They did come into the cottage, but only to gather about me and try to herd me out again. Seeing, however, that they were all within, I made shift to push the door shut and rammed it up tight against the frame with the big cooking pot.

"Faugh! What an odor there is here, to be sure! Tomorrow we must have a grand clearing out of all this claptrap and clutter underfoot."

I spread out two of the featherbeds, retaining one for a covering, and curled up quite comfortably.

"There!" I said brightly. "Is this not pleasant? Here are we, snug and protected 'gainst any evil of the night, be it spirit or flesh. How say you now, my Geese?"

"Doom, doom, doom," they replied. "O, doom!"

"Hush your noise," I snapped. And paying no more mind to the frights and flutterations of my flock, I rolled over and slept.

"Whoooo's been aproppin of our
elegant
kicked-down door?"

'Twas barely light in the cottage, and a monstrous black
shape hovered over me. Immediately I reached out on both sides of my body to confirm that my Geese were at hand and uninjured. I felt naught but featherbeds. In my dreaming memory I retained the sound of rushing wings and knew that they were gone.

Instead of the Geese I hoped to see, I beheld a human skull with the top half sawn off. Indeed, there appeared to be many of these gruesome objects laying about. These, then, were the oddly shaped bowls I had felt in the dark.

"Whoooo's been ashiftin of our great black cauldron?"

There were
two
huge black shapes hovering over me.

"And whoooo's been asleepin' on our
bonny
bone-strewn floor?"

To be accurate, there were now three huge black shapes hovering over me.

"Git up, girl, thy doom is done," pronounced the first shape.

"Dyin' time is nigh," agreed the second shape.

The third said nothing, but pulled a simply enormous butcher knife out of its voluminous black gown and licked its skinny lips.

"O, fie upon it all!" I muttered under my breath. Not another one of
those.
Why did everyone save myself seem to be carrying lethal weapons on their person?

"Good morrowtide, madam," I said, scrambling to my feet and curtsying to the first shape, which I now perceived to be that of an Ogress with two heads, each more hideous than the other. "To—to both of you, that is. And to you
ladies also." Here I curtsied to the other Ogresses. "As you say, I have taken the liberty of sleeping in your charming though somewhat derelict cottage while you were away. I am most glad indeed to meet you that I may express my gratitude and find some way to show my thankf—"

"Hish up, ye bladderskate," said the first Ogress, shaking both heads until her noses wobbled. "Mine earbones ache with thy drasty speech. Don't talk so much."

"Certainly not. I shouldn't dream of it," I said, peeping around the room out of the corners of my eyes. The Geese were gone. I could only hope that they were indeed gone through the hole in the roof and not outside trussed up for the cooking pot. "I am much aghast at the thought of causing your earbones any discomfort whatsoever. In truth," I went on, "I trust you will not mind my mentioning it, but you look most lamentably tired. You have been up all night, I imagine, hexing people and souring the milk of your neighbors' cows."

"How dast ye, missy?" demanded the first Ogress, but the other two made some snorting noises behind their filthy, horny hands which I interpreted as laughter.

"
Very
tiring work, hexing people," I said sympathetically. "Or so my old Auntie Ogress used to tell me when she came in after a hard night's ill-wishing. And then I used to comb her hair for her and trim her beard and make her a lovely cup of"—here I cast about in my mind to try to think of what ingredients might be available which would make a lovely cup of anything—"hot nettle tea," I concluded triumphantly, having observed these stinging plants growing in the old vegetable garden.

"Oooo," observed the second Ogress thoughtfully.

"Never mind all that," roared the first Ogress, whose one head was bearded while the other was bald. "Iffen we don't kill and eat this juicy little dumpling, what, pray, are we going to do for dinner?"

"Why you poor
things!
I exclaimed. "Have you not had anything to eat? By your leave, dear ladies, I should be honored to prepare a meal for you if you would only let me. 'Twill not be aught luxurious, you understand, since I am not at home with my things around me, but 'twill be enough to chase the wolves from your innards."

If they were fools enough to let me go off foraging for food in the wood, that would be the last they would ever see of
me.

"If we kill her, we shall have to cook her ourselves," observed the second Ogress, who possessed coarse hair sprouting in random tufts all over her body, including a luxuriant growth from a large mole at the end of her nose, and skin the color of a blade of new grass.

"Aye, and she's bound to be a better cook nor either of
you art
" argued the third Ogress, standing with arms akimbo, her hands on her hips. This would not have seemed so queer had her arms not been twice as long as they should be, so that she looked like a windmill or a great black bird of prey about to take flight.

The two-headed Ogress was clearly puzzling over a
method whereby she could force me to cook myself so as to save them the trouble. I decided to behave as though the matter were settled.

"Excellent! Have you by any chance got a basket or anything of that sort in which to put my gleanings? No? Never mind, I shall use my skirt. And now, of your charity, I must be going out and about, you know, so as to get us a bite to eat."

"She'll run away!" shrilled the third Ogress. "Let us tie her up, Tessa!"

"That's all very well, Lucinda, but with what?"

They looked about themselves, as though they thought that a stout rope might materialize out of nowhere, neatly coiled up on the hearth.

"There is naught here, I tell ye," said the bald head of the two-headed Tessa. "We got to kill her or she'll run away." The bald head appeared to be the more talkative of the two heads, but now and then the bearded one chimed in with some remark.

"Do you know," I said brightly, "I believe I have just the thing here in my bag. Do you see? It is a spool of golden thread from my sewing kit. Tie it round my waist if you don't trust me." I intended, of course, to untie it as soon as I was out of sight.

"What good is that?" growled Tessa. "She'll only untie it as soon as she's out of sight."

'Twas becoming clearer every moment that Tessa was a perfect pest.

"
I
know," said Lucinda. "Tie her up by her hair."

I frowned. My hair, while long and luxuriant, was no more than four feet in length. I wouldn't be able to roam far.

"By her hair?" protested Nellie. "What good would that do?"

Tessa rolled all four of her eyes. "Nellie, y'blockhead, any fool can see the maid's got enchanted hair."

Lucinda stretched out one of her prodigiously long arms and grasped a sizeable hank of my hair in her grubby hand.

"All ye gots to do is sweet-talk it a bit, I trow." She ruminated on the hair for a moment, spit on the ground, and then pronounced:

"O yeller Hair,
Most goluptious fair,
N'er have I seen
A fleece more fit ten fer a queen.
Why, I expect it grieves ye some thin' dretful—"

"Git to the point," interjected Tessa.

"Keep yer hair on," said Lucinda. Nellie snorted. Lucinda went on, "Enchanted things is real conceited. Ye gots to lay it on thick." She closed her eyes and proceeded.

"O bee-yootiful Hair,
So daintevous rare—"

"We can't sit here all day while you sing love songs to that there hair," said Tessa. She reached out and grabbed a
large lock of my hair with such energy that my head came with it.

"Listen to me, hair," said Tessa. "You heard them praises like Lucinda said. What we wants now is fer you to grow an' grow an' grow, but never break. You hear me?" She waggled the lock of hair threateningly.

"Git over here, missy." Tessa gave a great tug on my hair and dragged me staggering over to the caved-in door. There she knotted my hair around an iron ring attached to the door frame.

"Now then, missy, git thee gone!" and she landed a clout with her huge fist right in the center of my back that sent me flying.

"And mind ye bring back somethin' fitten to eat!" she bawled.

I ran.

By very good luck, the door was agape where the Ogresses had entered. My legs whirled round and round like the spokes of a wheel. My shoulder blades fair ached with the power of Tessa's blow.

Free! I thought to myself as I helplessly hastened up hill and down dale, through bramble and bracken. For I
must
be free of the Ogresses now. I had run far, far longer than the length of my hair away from them by now. Gradually I gained control of my nether limbs and at length stopped and turned around.

My golden hair streamed out in a broad ribbon back, back, back to the iron ring in the doorway.

I gasped at the treachery of it all. "Most perfidious, villainous hair!" I cried. "How come you to play me so false? Wicked! You are wicked, I say!" I tugged on the hair with both hands, but it did not yield; nay, the only result was a positive shower of gold dust.

"Oooo!" I shrieked, overcome with wrath. "Thou nest of vipers! Thou mangy mass of beaten straw! I'll take a scissors to thee, see if I do not," I said.

But my threats were in vain, as my sewing kit was left long behind me in the cottage. I was obliged to mutter as I trudged onward and my temper cooled, "Faithless hair, do you not know that you bring about your own ruination as well as mine? If I die, so then does my hair." Yet the hair did not so much as tremble in the breeze.

There was naught to do but go onward and look for food. As I did not wish to become entangled amongst the trees, I stopped to look about me, trying to plan my path. Much to my relief, I spied a great quantity of those rushes named cattails growing in a marshy area beyond the duck pond. These, I knew, had tubers which would keep body and soul together for many a day. I need not return empty-handed save for a mess of nettles.

You may be sure I also had a good look around for my Geese as well, but nary a feather did I see.

"Really," I muttered aloud, "a worthless lot you twelve are. You might have stayed to defend me."

"Honk!"

I smiled. They were here, then, and not far away.

"Forgive me," I called softly. "My heart rejoices me that you flew away, else you might be bound as securely as I. Nay, 'tis better as 'tis. Do not show yourselves. I shall hope to free myself in the next few days."

"Whoooo's that you're atalkin' to, missy?" shouted one of the Ogresses, who evidently had hearing as sharp as an owl's.

"O, no one," I shouted back, airily. "Not a single soul."

"Well, hesh up, then. My word," she bellowed, "what a creetur you are for talkin'. And hurry up with them vittles."

In silence, I bent my head to the task and did my best to comply.

A
NEW BROOM SWEEPS CLEAN.

—P
ROVERB

"What I say is, we ought to keep her," said Lucinda, reclining at her ease on my featherbeds while I ruined my good sewing scissors cutting her huge horny toenails. "She be a regular marvel, she do. Bet this old house hain't been so clean and shinin' like since it were built. Looks real nice." She looked around at the swept hearth, the roaring fire, and the wildflowers on the windowsill. "Pretty little thing, too."