Page 83 of The Goat Next Door

We spin until we’re stumbling, our laughter mixing with the rattling of the house, until finally, we collapse onto the floorboards together. We’re both panting, our breath coming in short, white, visible puffs in the cooling air of the kitchen.

We stay tangled together on the kitchen floor for a long moment, our chests rising and falling in sync. I keep one hand pressed firmly against the small of her back, letting the rhythm of her breathing anchor me while the house creaks around us.

“Emmy?”

“Yeah, Soph?”

“Do you think the stars are still there? Even when the sky gets all angry and black like this?” She shifts, pulling back just enough to look at me. “Sometimes I think they go hide in the clouds because they’re shy. Or maybe they’re just waiting for the wind to stop so they can come back and watch over the trees.”

I brush a loose strand of hair away from her forehead, my heart squeezing. “I think that’s exactly it. They’re just waiting for the coast to be clear. They’re very patient. They’ve been watching this mountain for a long, long time.”

She nods, satisfied, but then her expression shifts, turning contemplative. “Do you think the trees talk to each other when it’s loud like this? Dad says they don’t have mouths, but I hear them whispering when I’m trying to sleep.”

I laugh. “I think they’re probably just grumbling about the weather. You know how old trees get. They’re probably saying, ‘Hey, you’re leaning on my branch!’ or ‘Stop poking me with your pine cones!’”

Sophie giggles. “I bet the big oak by the driveway is the boss. He’s the tallest. He’s probably telling everyone else to stand up straight and be brave.”

She pauses, her fingers absently tracing the stitching on my sweatshirt sleeve.

“Emmy, do you ever get scared that you’ll forget things? Like, if you don’t think about them really hard, they’ll just float away into the dark?”

I swallow hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “Sometimes. But that’s why we tell stories, right? To hold onto the important parts so they stay right here with us.”

“I don’t want to be scared,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I want to be like my dad. He never looks scared, even when the fires get really big.”

I pull her tighter, resting my cheek against her soft hair. “You know a secret, Sophie? Being brave isn’t about not being scared. It’s about being scared but doing the right thing anyway. It’s like when you took that big spider outside with the cup instead of yelling. That was brave. And right now? You’re being so brave for staying here with me while the wind does its big, grumpy dance.”

“I am?”

“You are,” I promise, kissing her forehead. “You’re the bravest girl on this whole mountain. You have a lion’s heart in that tiny chest. And even if the wind is loud, it can’t touch you, because we’re a team. And teams are the strongest things in the world. Stronger than trucks, stronger than trees, and definitely stronger than a little bit of wind.”

She smiles, a slow, sleepy expression that tugs at my heart, but then the house lets out a sharp, groaning crack as another gust of wind hits the roof. It’s followed by the dry, scraping rattle of a maple branch dragging across the tin of the lean-to behind the house, the sound like jagged fingernails against a chalkboard.

Sophie stiffens instantly. The dreamy, quiet light in her eyes vanishes, replaced by a sudden, rigid watchfulness.

She doesn’t cry—she’s too much her father’s daughter for that—but her gaze snaps toward the black windowpane, and I feel her small shoulders tighten against my chest, her body coiling like a spring.

“Are the goats okay?” she asks. “The wind makes the barn make the funny noise. It sounds like it’s scared.”

“The goats are totally fine, Sophie,” I say, squeezing her tight as I stand up, hoisting her onto my hip. “All twelve of them are tucked away inside the big barn. The latches are down, the hay is full, and they’re probably all asleep in a giant, furry pile right now. Kevin is supervising from the center stall.”

I grab the flashlight from the mason jar, the yellow beam slicing through the kitchen’s heavy shadow like a knife as we move toward the back mudroom to check the door lock.

When I crack the window in the mudroom to check the latch, the smell hits me—not the clean, wet scent of summer rain I’d been praying for, but a thin, bitter trace of wet ash that makes the back of my throat scratch.

Down in the lower pasture, the heavy barn stands solid against the dark.

A distant, collective chorus of soft, grunting bleats carries up the hill—the goats letting us know they are perfectly dry, safe, and entirely unbothered by the storm inside their tight perimeter.

“See?” I whisper to Sophie. “They’re inside their own fortress. They don’t need us out there messing up their routine.”

The kitchen is even darker when we return.

To keep Sophie’s mind off the roaring wind, I fetch the old tin box of watercolors I found in the pantry cupboard, along with a stack of heavy white printer paper I had leftover from my old life.

“Alright, Sergeant,” I say, setting a small bowl of water on the floorboards between us. “The lighting conditions are less than ideal, but a true artist doesn’t care about that.”

Sophie drops down onto her stomach, her legs kicking out behind her as she dips a plastic-bristled brush into the water and then vigorously swirls it into a cake of bright, cobalt blue.