Capricornus, the Bearded Lady — by Helena Pantsis

The Goat illustrated by Evangeline Gallagher

A goat appears by the far corner of the pasture. Its fur is matted, its skin coarse, its eyes bleary and watchful - the light reflects against them, glowing eerie and as a flame to broken glass. You've found it lurking in the barren pockets of day, the empty valleys of night with your nose pressed to the fogged-up window, cold and opaque as milk. The goat's become a reason to turn your head when the sweat beading your forehead threatens to drain you, pass by open glass before bed, and keep the curtains pulled at all hours.

You assume the goat has strayed from your neighbor's property. They had a girl once who would sit by the edge of your farms, picking weeds and prying them in half with the thin of her nails. She thought she was alone there, that there was vast land between the houses and the perimeters, but you could see her through the window. You basked in her childish freedom, bliss, and fingernails dirty from play and not work.

The goat's eyes blink wide and yellow, marred by a single black pupil stretched vertically like a tear in the sun's surface. There is something solemn and fatidic in the way it stares. You think it is an omen or a blessing. Maybe it predicts the end of the drought. Your land has begun to crack, parched and orange by its having become strange to the substance of Gods, the fat, wet droplets which are rumored to fall and make grow the dying.

When you tell the others about the goat, they say you're mistaken; there is no goat here. They flick the dirt from their overgrown nails, spending the dense heat of noon consumed by the farm's endless tasks, sleeping through the night by snores so violent you fear the goat will be repelled. But it's there. You've seen it. Creeping by unpatched fences, watching by soft cheese moons. You think that if they took a moment, they might see it too. They tell you to get some sleep or take care of the damn goat before it closes in on the rest of your crop. There's not enough to spare. These are dire times. So you decide to do something about the goat.

a. You mend the fence.

When weeds were plenty by sunshine and rainfall, the daisies lined the far-reaching fence, bordering your property in natural defiance of boundaries and land ownership and undeniable crop infestation. The neighbour's girl used to pluck the daises and make chains to wear like a crown around her head--like you did when you were a kid. She'd part holes by the stems of the blooming daisies, interweaving and tucking them in and through each other until they formed so many chains, such great immeasurable rings, she could dress every limb in the bounty of her haul. Those daisies used to close the gap where the fence needed mending; now, there's nothing but clay earth and the goat when you can catch it.

You decide to patch the hole in the fence. The goat isn't there when you arrive with wire, pliers, and strainer in hand. You almost wish it was, but with the tools being at hand by a bucket on your arm and the patch of earth being clear of pests, intriguing or otherwise, you decide to stop putting this off. It's taxing work. Your thighs ache, and the arches of your feet throb beneath your bent knees. You mend the barbed wire by the bottom of the fence; goats don't leap, they burrow, bending low and stretching through the briar, flinty toes navigating crag and scrub. You pull the wire, hooking and looping it around, so the fence remains sturdy and impenetrable, coarse and unwelcoming by a jagged metal thread. It's bittersweet. You'll miss your crafty companion. But the job is done, the fence is mended, and in the cool afternoon breeze, you're content and fulfilled by the day's work.

You fall asleep immediately when your head hits the pillow. It doesn't seem to matter that the mattress is old and yellowing and too hard for your aching back. Your exhaustion consumes you as soon as your eyes meet the inside of your eyelids.

Despite your strained arms and feet made sore by the dry, uneven texture of the land, you wake abruptly in the middle of the night. It happens so suddenly you can barely fathom whether your eyes are open or not. The room is pitch black. You flail about in the search for a distinguishable object, a familiar piece of furniture, your hands just beyond your face, the outline of the ceiling fan. You find the light through your open curtains. Gazing upon the unfurling pastures spanning over acres of home and land, you notice something by the mended fence. Sitting up, you squint to clear your blurred night vision. Then you see it. The goat. Chewing large and round, it stares at you, wide and unblinking through the uncloaked window. You rub your eyes, stuck in a dreamlike illusory state. When you pull your hands away, it's still there, thin and pale with its sweet grass coat. You are struck. How did it get there? You blink and blink as if waiting for it to disappear. But it doesn't. It's really there, and you could almost swear there are daisies hung around its ears.

b. You tell your neighbours.

The neighbours have always been reasonable people. Two winters ago, when a bog began to form by the edge of their land, funneling rainwater to flood your arables and pastures, they were perfectly happy to fix a makeshift damn to keep the farms in good stead. It was a neighbourly thing to do, with the weather being so harsh and the work is so demanding. Besides, you mended your shared fence without complaint. They owe you this. So you decide to approach your neighbours about the goat.

Taking the car, you make the trek over hill and country to knock on your neighbour's homestead. No one answers. The emptiness of a farmhouse is not unfamiliar by the height of day. Perhaps you should've waited for supper time to approach them.

Returning to your vehicle, you decide to check around the property, rolling forward slow and alert in searching for a neighborly face. You pass kines of cattle, berries ripe for harvesting, pigs making a mess of their breakfast. Scanning the lay of the land, something becomes clear to you. There is not a single goat in sight. The lawn is long, made short only in patches where the shadow is cast. While it's not entirely uncommon for lone farm animals to be kept as pets, especially on a family farm, your neighbours have never seemed the type to humour such a notion. Once, their girl kept a rabbit. You remember waking to hear her wailing one night, her wading through the crisp, crumbling grass, heavy steps of her parents following close behind. The rabbit had gotten out. They had warned her, you heard them say, that the rabbit was her responsibility. She could only have a pet if she took care of it. From the sound of her cries, she hadn't. You gathered her parents wouldn't be allowing her to keep any more animals.

Your neighbour waves you over by the chicken coop. The chickens all have their heads bent, bobbing up and down to and from the ground in a staccato rhythm. You leave the car perched upwards on a hilly patch of land. Your neighbour is mending the coop with wire, their face slicked with sweat and their pants stained brown. They drop their tools, brushing their forehead with the back of their hand, and step towards you.

First, you offer a neighbourly good day, ask them about themself and their family. They are good-natured and thankful for the break. They offer you a drink, you thank them for their kindness but tell them you need to get back to your work. Then you tell your neighbour the reason for your visit: you want them to keep their goat off your property.

Turning, you spot it by the corner of the fence, its coat-like buttermilk, its face drawn and narrow, eyes dropping under the turpentine sun.

Your neighbour furrows their brow, looking upwards to where your gaze is pointed. The goat looks up too, head angled to stare back at you.

Then to your surprise, your neighbour asks: "What goat?"

c. You wake the others.

You are haunted, taunted, tormented by the goat. It stands, pensively chewing at all hours of the day. It's real, it's there, you could touch it, you could smell the mud dried against its straggly fur, stiff and skirting its waist. You can see its hoof prints marking the uneven morass and walk through trails of short, half-chewed upon grass moving like aisles of a maze through the fields. You're sure it's there, you would bet on it, but it seems to turn less real with every distant encounter. You need to be certain.

So you set an alarm, an alarm for midnight. This time they'll see. You keep your curtains drawn apart, your slippers by the edge of your bed, a tall glass of water by your dresser. When the alarm rings out, you're prepared. In fact, you wake five minutes before the alarm goes off, and you lay just staring at the ceiling. When it pierces the air, you rotate your legs swiftly to touch the ground, and sliding your slippers on, you rush to the window. It's there. Where it always is. Doing what it always does. You don't waste a moment; you run to wake the others, tugging at their tired limbs and pulling them from their beds. They are hesitant, brushing you off angrily at the abrupt start to their sleeping. It's understandable. They worked a long day. You always do. But you are insistent, and it worries them. You rush to your bedroom window, the others following slow and sluggish behind you.

"There it is." You say. "Right there." Your arm is outstretched, your finger pressed against the glass. "There."

The others say nothing. One puts a hand on your shoulder. The other yawns. Then, pulling back, they leave the room. "You're tired." They say. "Get some rest."

But it's right there. You can see it. Right there. Right... there.

d. You kill the goat.

There was never any other option. You have to kill the goat. It plagues your sleep, cursing you by the slow circling of its unhinged jaw, devouring earth in dense portions, chewed coarse and deathly slow. The mirror on your bedroom wall reflects the window; even with the curtains pulled and your back turned, the ever lingering shadow of the devil is burned into the corner of your land. And burned into the backs of your retinas.

The night is dark. In the back of the shed, you find a rusty, old sickle. The blade is sharp despite the rust. It'll get the job done. You've never used it before, so you figure you can discard it when you're done without scrubbing the blood off. A noise rustles the deep, blued grass. You lurk in the shadows, waiting for the goat to appear. It stands short and wide-eyed, cold and off-white, reflecting the light of the moon. For a second, you pull back, dropping the sickle to your side. Then its eyes meet yours. A drunken, curled anger ripples through you. Any doubt is swayed. Your grip tightens, and you grit your teeth. Striking violently, you rip into the goat's neck, slashing wide and coarse. The blade pulls back and forth, back and forth. It tears through the goat's meaty flesh and rakish bone, tough and heavy under your weight. Blood drips in fat, curdled drops of dew that trace from your thumb to the crook of your elbow. Your hands, in the night, appear masked by something ethereal. Big black flies hover nearer by the hot, rancid mass of death before you, entrails spilled into coils on the ground. You drop the scythe.

You look at the massacred goat. Its jaw stopped at last in its movement. Turning its head, you come face to face with its decapitated crown. Only then, with its eyes staring lifelessly in yours, do you notice that the goat's head is a human one. The snout stopping short, the fur running thin, the hooves soft and tender. You touch her face—your fingers laying flesh upon flesh. Your calluses rough against her peach plump skin, now paled and grey. The blood rolls from your hands to her cheeks, so she is painted red under the shadowless expanse of open, starry sky. Your breath halts. You look up. The night is grave. You look to your neighbour's property. The lights are on in the homestead. Dropping your gaze to the base of the fence, made black by the night and white by the moon, you notice the grass. The daisies have grown.

AUTHOR BIO:

Helena Pantsis (she/they) is a writer of short-form fiction from Naarm, Australia. A full-time student of creative writing, they have a fond appreciation for the gritty, the dark, and the experimental. Her works are published in Overland, Island Online, Going Down Swinging, and Meanjin. More can be found at hlnpnts.com.