The goat gave her a sidelong glance. “How should I know? I’m just an old goat.”
“He cain’t be gone. Not completely,” Rose Red persisted. “His body wore out, but he wouldn’t just be gone.” Tears dampened the veil where it rested on her cheeks. “Don’t goats have notions of what happens afterward?”
Beana sighed, tilting her head as she thought. “Mind you,” she said at last, “I couldn’t tell you for sure, but . . . but what I heard is that when a body dies, the spirit leaves this world and passes into the Netherworld, where one must walk Death’s Path. This path looks different to different folks. For some, it is a hard and lonely way . . . and they walk it alone, in darkness.”
Rose Red breathed a shuddering sob and bowed her head over the grave once more.
“No, no, listen!” the goat hastened to say. “It isn’t that way for everybody! Some, once they’ve passed through the gate, see a light shining on top of an old stone by the pathway. An old gravestone.” Her voice became faraway, as though she were recalling something from her own past, not merely recounting a story she’d once heard. “The stone is white, but you hardly see that for the brightness that shines upon it. A silver lantern of delicate work, older than you can imagine. And within that lantern shines a wonder. Like a star, yet unlike as well.”
Rose Red whispered, “The Asha Lantern.” She remembered the legend of the Brothers Ashiun that Leo had related to her years ago.
“This lantern,” said Beana, “is full of Hope. Not hope as you and I think of it, an emotion or a dream. I mean true, brilliant Hope. That you see and smell and feel through your whole body.
“The folks who see the lantern take it with them as they walk the path. And the light guides them through the darkness, keeping at bay all the terrors of the Netherworld. At long last it leads them to the Final Water, and there . . .”
“And there, what?”
The goat shook her horns and snorted. “I don’t know exactly from that point. It’s not as though I’ve crossed the Final Water myself!” Then she reached up and nuzzled her girl. “But you may be sure the man you call father has. He found that lantern beyond the gate, and it guided him true. And when the time comes for you to cross the Final Water yourself, he’ll be waiting for you on the Farthestshore. And that’s a place you’ll want to see, for it’s a land where no lantern is needed. Darkness has no room in that country where Hope is finally satisfied.”
Rose Red ran a hand down her goat’s neck and sighed. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about exactly,” she said. “But it sounds pretty. Thank you.”
“Bah.” Beana shivered the fur down her spine, a goat’s shrug. “Like I said, it’s what I’ve heard. Being an old nanny, I don’t pretend to be an expert on these things.”
Rose Red was silent a long moment as she continued to stroke Beana’s neck. “Beana,” she said at last, “what would you say to . . . us two makin’ our way off?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . .” She hesitated, then continued in a rush. “I mean leavin’ the mountain.”
“What?”
“It’s too dangerous for us up here, Beana! Folks are scared of us . . . of me. I’m not a fool, Beana, I know what they say. They ain’t never goin’ to give us a chance to make it. But down there, down in the low country, they don’t have no mountain monster to . . . to make them nervous. They don’t have no reason to hate us like these folks do, and I could find work maybe, and—”
“Rose Red,” said Beana with a bleat that sounded much too loud in that quiet graveyard, “if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: You must not go down the mountain!” She bleated again but calmed herself with an effort and went on in a softer tone, “Why do you think the old man left his place at the Eldest’s House?”
Rose Red shrugged.
“For you, girlie. He understood more than you think; he understood that he had to get you away, into the high country, where you could not hear . . . where you would be safe. Lonely, yes. Shunned, yes. But safe, my Rosie, as you can never be down in the tablelands.”
“But I don’t—”
The goat nuzzled the girl’s hand and lipped at her sleeve. “Please don’t ask why. It’s best you know as little as possible. Someday, perhaps, I’ll be able to explain. But in the meanwhile, you must trust your old Beana.”
“Trust my goat,” said Rose Red, “who cain’t really talk. You know what you are, Beana? You are my own mind makin’ up excuses not to face my fears, that’s what you are.”
“My, my,” said the goat, “aren’t we the little philosopher?” She chewed her cud at a furious rate. Then she said, “You should talk to the boy.”
“What’s that you say?”