“Where did you go, then?”
The girl took a few more herbs, slipped them into a raggedy pocket, then carried her pot and foodstuffs back out to the fire, which was starting to blaze to life. She took a moment to tie the long ends of her veil back behind her head, out of her way. Now she wore not so much a veil as a mask. Tiny slits in the fabric at eye level provided her only line of sight, yet she moved gracefully enough for a country bumpkin. She tied the knot of fabric carefully, stalling for time as she chose her words. But she hadn’t been brought up to lie.
“I did go to the cave,” she said. “But not by myself.”
Beana stared with all the potency of a goat’s gaze. Then she baaahed again and tossed her head. “You know I don’t like you to use those Paths, Rosie! Who, by Lumé’s crown, did you go with?”
“Leo.”
“And who is Leo? Another imaginary friend?”
“A boy.”
“What, the boy who gave us such a fright in the wood yesterday?”
“Yup.”
Beana snorted. “Now you’re making up stories.”
The girl took a stick and moved the ashes in the fire pit to smother the fire, leaving behind glowing coals, over which she placed her pot. “Why does everybody think I make up stories? I went up the mountain to the cave, and I took Leo with me! He wants to hunt the monster, and now he thinks it lives in there, and now he’s my friend, and I’m goin’ to help him.”
“Hunt the monster?”
Rose Red nodded.
Beana backed away from the fire pit and walked out to a far corner of the yard. She fell to nibbling the grass in a thoughtful way, her tail to the cottage. And still the scents of the mountain drifted to her, the smell of Hill House’s kitchen fires and the sloping gardens where the old man worked.
And far down the hill, away in the low country, she could smell that Other unlike all others, could feel it with senses beyond the five natural ones. She muttered soft goaty noises to herself as she grazed. She’d been a goat as long as the girl had been alive, and ten years of eating anything that would fit in her stomach had wiped out any dietary scruples with which she might have been born.
The girl slipped up beside her and placed a hand on her back. “He’s goin’ to be my friend, Beana.”
“Bah.”
“I’ll take you with us next time, right?”
“Baaah.”
“I will! And you’ll like him. He’s not much good at climbin’ and he’s loud as anythin’ in the forest. But he’s nice. He tells good stories and makes funny faces.”
“And that’s the real measure of a friend, isn’t it?”
The girl chewed her lip beneath her veil, biting a bit of the linen along with it. “I want a friend, Beana. A real friend. Who really talks.”
The goat raised her nose and gazed up at the girl with as much tenderness as a goat’s face can express. “Times are changing, Rosie,” she said. “You’re growing up faster than I can blink! And I’m sad to say, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” She nuzzled the girl’s hand, lipping at the ragged glove. “Promise me, girl, that you’ll not take the boy back to the cave.”
Rose Red licked her lips. “He wants to, Beana.”
“But he shouldn’t.”
Rose Red shrugged.
“We both know what it would mean should he see the monster, Rosie.”
“Maybe he won’t see it?” The girl whispered this hope as though afraid to even acknowledge it. “Maybe he won’t see anythin’?”
“Sweetest girl,” said the goat, “you’ll only hurt yourself if you become attached to this boy. Let him go. Let us keep to our simple life the way we always have. Quiet, to ourselves, watching over that man you call father. Yes?”
Rose Red shook her head. “Leo’s goin’ to be my friend, Beana.” Tears pricked her eyes and dampened the cloth of her veil. “He’s goin’ to.”
The goat huffed. “We’ll see, then, won’t we? But you’re not to go to the cave again. And you’re not to stake me out in the yard, Lord Lumé help you if you do! Agreed?”
Rose Red nodded. “All right, Beana.”
The man she called father came home well after dark.
“Did you have a good day, Rose Red?” he asked her.
“I did, Dad,” she replied, then fed him porridge for supper.
He did not ask if she had seen the boy or not. He himself had watched the young mister enter the wood in a raincoat and hat and emerge again without the hat but carrying his beanpole. And the old gardener thought his own thoughts on the matter, ate his lumpy gruel, and creaked his way to bed.
Rose Red checked to be certain her goat was bedded down for the night. Beana gave her a slobbery kiss on the cheek through the veil, and Rose Red patted her nanny between the horns. Then she returned to the cottage, banked the fire, and climbed to her little loft bedroom up above. She fell asleep to the sound of the old man’s snores as though they were soothing lullabies.