Zan stepped back, an excuse already forming. The goat butted her leg, bell chiming. She looked down into the slit-pupiled eyes—they asked for nothing but evening mash and the release of milking.
“Sure,” Zan said. “I’ve got a batch of cheese I could bring.” It was easier to say yes, though she knew she wouldn’t go. She could hear the women’s questions—too many questions about where she’d come from, why she was on island, where her husband had gone, and wouldn’t she like to meet a nice island man? Already the answers sliced like razor clam shells when she followed their paths to the past.
“The ladies will be delighted.” Mrs. B. smiled and turned back toward the dirt road. Zan watched her sway down the path, apron billowing like sloops at full sail.
*
On an unremarkable evening in early August, Zan ushered the last visitors down the lighthouse staircase to catch the mail boat back to shore. She paused at the door to watch the sun’s gilding slide up to tree tips and evaporate into sky. Waves sighed against the cliffs. Zan locked up and crossed the footbridge to the cottage path. Heavy-headed dahlias, daylilies closing for the night, and bright phlox on either side drooped over the stepping stones, brushing her legs. She whistled. Zan was sure the goat was catching on to the pattern that a whistle meant oat mash and ease from a weighty udder.
There was no answering bell or patter of hooves. Not so unexpected. Now that the tangle of briars at the cottage’s rear hung thick with berries, the goat often meshed herself in the thorns. Zan went inside to mix the mash.
Tin bowl in hand, she reemerged.
“Nan!” she called. Still no bell. “Nan?” She let the screen door swing shut behind. A full circle of the cottage revealed no goat. Lengthening her stride, Zan crossed the footbridge to the lighthouse, even though Nan never wandered there. She whistled. She knocked a stone against the bowl. Nothing. Fear slid down to her stomach.
Without bothering to see if she left the bowl upright, Zan ran down the path and out to the dirt road. She’d never opened the gate to the Beauregards’ drive before, but now she did. Steadying her breath, she raised a fist to knock at their door.
“Suzanna!” Mrs. B. emerged. A tortoiseshell cat twined around her ankles. “How unexpected of you to call.” She peered around Zan, as if looking to see whether the younger woman cradled a bottle of milk or crock of fresh cheese behind her back. She couldn’t see Zan’s fingernails digging into flesh.
“Have you—” Zan had to stop to gather herself, to still the shake in her voice. “Have you seen my goat?”
“Why no, I can’t say that I have.” Mrs. B. stuck her head farther out the door, and looked left, then right. She withdrew. “Dear,” she called into the house. “Have you seen Miss Suzanna’s goat?”
“Who?” came the faint reply.
“Miss Suzanna has lost her goat, dear.”
“Don’t know any goats.”
“Well,” Mrs. B. said. “There you have it.” She paused, seeming to read what Zan fought down. “It’ll come right back, dear, don’t you worry,” she said. “Anyway, we are on an island—it can’t have wandered far.” The older woman smiled in what she must have imagined was a comforting manner. Zan steeled herself from flinching at the soft hand patting her arm.