The goat entered through the wrong door.
It was a wooden goat, carried by two children beneath a brown cloth, and the wrong door led into the winter hall’s broom cupboard. For a moment its painted head remained visible above the shelves. Then the rear child backed out, the front child objected loudly and the entire animal reversed into the room to considerable applause.
Iven laughed until Neri put a hand on his knee.
“Be kind.”
“I am.”
“Quietly.”
On the little stage, the moon waited with an expression of injured dignity. Kesh held its silver circle above her head while the narrator tried to recover the place in the story where an ambitious goat had decided the sky contained a particularly fine cheese.
The hall was warm.
