“I’m glad you like the fry bread. We have enough flour that I can make it more often. I just didn’t know that you enjoyed it.”
“There’s been no one to ask. Or to care. This much is already an unimaginable boon.”
I care. That, I don’t say out loud, because it’s so open to misinterpretation. Though I don’t think he’d take it as an invitation, I don’t trust him fully yet. I only know that he’s more alone than I am, a feat that takes some doing.
“I know that feeling as well,” I say softly.
He moves, but doesn’t approach; it seems as if he wants to. “You make me curious.”
“About what?”
“How you ended up here. Why the keep permitted you to pass when it’s allowed no one else.” His tone is pensive.
“You said it was because I had abandoned all hope and had nowhere else to go.”
“That’s purely speculation. I am not the master of this place,” he says.
“Well, I’m the mistress of the kitchen and I’m glad you had supper with me.”
“As am I. I’ve tested your resolve long enough. I don’t wish for curiosity to get the better of you.”
“You assume I’m curious about you.”
“Are you not? I should take comfort in that, but it’s a bit disappointing somehow. Keep safe and warm until the morn, Amarrah.”
Hearing him speak my name feels so intimate. The warm tremor it creates stays with me for a long while, well past the time when I’ve tidied the remains of our meal and am tucked up in my blankets, staring into the crackle of the fire.
4.
The next day, there’s a goat in the courtyard, and I have no idea how she got there. She seems equally bemused, bleating at me plaintively. The portcullis is still closed, and it’s not as if she could’ve simply dropped from the sky. She’s not injured, though she is a bit thin. Times are tough even for mountain goats, it seems.
But I have nothing to feed her and nowhere for her to graze.
Maybe it would be quicker and kinder to butcher her and smoke the meat, but when I gaze into her eyes, I can’t do it. She’s not as skittish as most wild goats, making me think that she might have belonged to someone once. The animal doesn’t flinch when I approach and holds still as I pick brambles from her fur. In fact, she bumps her head against my hand. Absently I rub her ears, treating her as I would a friendly dog. My family never kept livestock, so I don’t know much about looking after such a creature.
Is this because of my silent wish that I had a goat? The mere idea sends a shiver through me as I conclude that the keep is a sentient force, one capable of making judgments. I’d reckoned that Njål was being clever when he said he didn’t let me in—that the keep had a mind of its own.
But I didn’t tell Njål about that fleeting thought. And here the goat is regardless.
“How am I supposed to feed you?” I ask.
The goat stares at me, surrounded by patches of snow and the eerie ice statues that used to be people. Slowly, I pass through, examining their faces one by one. There are twenty in all. Two seem to be hunters, judging by their apparel and gear, caught in a moment of abject terror, mouths frozen open in matching screams. I shiver, moving to the next, a group of three, minstrels by the look of the instruments they’re carrying. Then there’s five merchants who came to peddle their wares and never left. The last group appears to have arrived together, soldiers prepared to deal with the threat, perhaps. At least that’s what the weapons and armor suggest. They all made it through the portcullis, but the keep deemed them unwelcome and froze them where they stood.
Why am I the exception? Perhaps it’s because I didn’t intend to take anything away from here. I only ever meant to work and possibly find a place to call my own, even if it seems sinister and strange to the rest of the world. Others might posit that they’re the chosen one, destined to bring life back to this barren place, but me? I’m just another desolate space. So maybe that’s it; the keep recognized me as an extension of itself.
The goat bleats, distracting me from my dark thoughts. “What’s your name, hm?”
Silence. I don’t know what I was expecting, though talking animals wouldn’t seem out of place in the fairy tale I’ve stumbled into.
“Meredith?” I try.
No response.
“Nancy? I guess not.”
The goat stares, as if wondering whether I’ve lost my mind.
“Agatha?”
She bleats in response, so I’m taking that as agreement.
“Excellent. I’m happy to have you here, Agatha, but I’m a bit worried. There’s nothing for you to eat, and I’ve never looked after any animals apart from Brave Sir Reginald. It didn’t end well for him, you see, though that wasn’t entirely my fault. At least my stepmother’s not here or she’d likely roast you over an open fire.”
Agatha widens her eyes, alarmed as well she should be.
I’m studying the goat, trying to decide what to do with her, when I recall that this place has a stable. That’s the natural place for a goat to live, but I don’t know how to herd a goat. To my surprise, she follows me like a puppy when I leave the courtyard, her little hooves clacking on the cobblestone. I lead the way to the stables, which I’ve only seen from the outside, as I’ve been more occupied with making the keep more habitable. I push open the door and stop, rubbing my eyes to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
This . . . is not normal. Nothing about Bitterburn is,
