Bruised hands gripped the arms of my chair on either side as he bent over me until we were face to face.
His eyes were bloodshot and sharp as he glared at me. I expected him to launch into one of his usual tirades, tearing me apart with his words for hours on end until I was exhausted and sobbing.
But the only sound that came out of his mouth when he opened it was a garbled, animalistic scream.
It sounded almost like a… goat?
Then I was ejected from the dream with a gasp and staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling as the scream continued in the distance.
My skin was coated in a sheen of sweat, making the oversized t-shirt I was wearing cling uncomfortably to my back as I sat up in bed. It took another thirty seconds to reorient myself.
I wasn’t in New Hampshire anymore and Mike didn’t know where I was. For now I was safe.
As I quickly got dressed, I repeated the words in my head over and over to soothe my frazzled nerves.
The goat was still screaming by the time I stepped out onto the front porch. It was early, so the marine layer from the ocean still filled the air, making everything hazy—including the animal pen in the distance.
“How the fuck did you manage to get yourself into this situation, Roger?” Cash’s gruff voice cut through the fog.
Without thinking, I let my feet carry me down the steps and towards where his voice came from.
The mist cleared, revealing Cash standing with his hands on his hips as he looked down at a goat who had his head stuck in between the rungs of the fence.
Cash must have heard my approach because he glanced over his shoulder at me and gave me a nod of greeting.
“What happened?” I asked, kneeling so that I was eye to eye with the goat. The poor things’ eyes were rolling back in panic as he tried in vain to go back the way he came, but his curled horns were making that impossible.
“Meet Roger, the dumbest goat I’ve ever met. I picked him and the rest of his little herd in the middle of the night after local animal control seized them. This is the second time this stupid thing has gotten his horns stuck in the last hour. First it was the water trough and now this,” Cash gestured at Roger who stopped struggling and instead looked up at us balefully like we were the ones who’d put him there.
Cash had casually mentioned that he ran a farm animal rescue during the car ride to the Wharf yesterday, but I was seeing what that actually meant now.
One glance into the pen showed fifteen to twenty emaciated goats, all with overgrown horns and sores covering their bodies.
Reaching out, I gave Roger what I hoped was a soothing scratch under his chin. “What happened to them?”
“Farmer a county over died last year and his kids were supposed to take care of the animals, turns out they were just stopping by once or twice a month to throw hay in their pens. There’s a pair of mares that will be dropped off by the vet later once they get their full checkups that are in much worse shape.” I watched the muscle in Cash’s jaw tense as he glared off into the distance.
“I can’t believe anyone would do this to a living creature,” I murmured, mostly to myself.
Cash scoffed. “When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you realize that all people are capable of evil. Doesn’t matter if they’re monsters, humans, or otherwise.”
There was enough vitriol in his voice that I had to force myself not to flinch at it. I knew better than anyone that his words were the honest truth.
“How are we going to get his head free?” I asked, changing the subject.
Cash stood for a moment, as if deep in thought. “I’ll see if I can manipulate his head back through, but if not, I’ll have to cut into the fence.”
With one last scratch under the now calm goat’s chin, I stood up straight. “Can I help?”
A flash of something crossed the gargoyle’s face before disappearing. “Have you been around farm animals before?”
I nodded. “Yep, I grew up with lots of them.”
I didn’t add that I never actually had to do anything other than muck out my horse’s stall after riding her. All of our animals on the estate were cared for by competent staff members. But I did spend most of my childhood hanging out in the barn watching everything they did.
Once upon a time I had dreamed about becoming a veterinarian. But after one of our younger horses had to be euthanized that dream had died with the beating of my too-tender heart.
Cash looked like he didn’t quite believe me, but he still turned and headed into the open doors of the nearby barn, emerging after only a few minutes, a saw in one hand and a metal toolbox in the other.
