Niamh has my arm. She’s urging me backwards.
I keep singing—“School one day, school one day!”—then whisper to Niamh, “What are we doing?”
“Leading it back to Watford.”
“You take over.”
“Why would I do that, Agatha? It’s under your spell.”
I keep walking backwards. The billy goat follows, not a care in the world now, like I have it on a leash.
“It followed her to school one day, which was against the rules!”
When we get to the Watford gates, there’s no one guarding them. Niamh opens the latch and holds one side open. I step through. The billy goat looks around. It glances up at me, then trots through and away, out onto the Great Lawn.
Niamh is frowning at me in a very pleased way. “Good show, Agatha.”
“Won’t it just get out again?” There’s a wall around the Watford grounds, but it’s mostly just for show. There are spells to keep out Normals and intruders, but not wildlife. (That’s probably why the Humdrum sent so many creatures after Simon.) If the goat got out once, it will get out again.
“I’m not worried about them escaping,” she says. “I’m worried about them leaving.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“We can’t exactly keep the goats of Watford in a pen. They’re supposed toknowthey belong here. They shouldn’t just be wandering away.”
“That sounds like exactly the reason people keep animals in a pen.”
Niamh’s looking down at my wand. “That was some tidy spellwork. I’ve never seen anyone cast a nursery rhyme before.”
I’ve never evenconsideredcasting one before. “You just have to commit to it,” I say, tucking my wand into my pocket.
“Well, I never would have tried it,” she says. “The rhyme’s about lambs, not goats. Your dad’s always telling me I’m too literal . . .”
I look up over the Lawn, at the drawbridge and the ramparts. And the peak of the White Chapel. “I’ll wait here for you,” I say. “I’m still feeling a bit off.”
“Oh,” Niamh says. “Well, if you feel better in a while, I really could use your help finding the rest of the herd. Sometimes it takes hours.”
“Hours?”
“They’re crafty.”
The goat we caught is already heading out to the fields behind the school, where Ebb used to take them to graze. “I suppose I could help,” I say. “Do we have to cross the moat?”
“No. The goats stay in the hills, usually. They hate the merwolves.”
“So do I.”
“Yeah,” Niamh says, “they’re horrible. They killed all the fish in the moat, and the school has to feed them horse meat. I talked the headmistress into euthanizing them, but some students led a protest.”
“Ebb used to bring them in every night,” I say.
“The merwolves?”
“No. The goats. They slept in the barn with her.”
Niamh frowns at me. “Ebb Petty is dead.”
25
