The Unnameables (10 page)

The Goatman was on his back under the eastern windows. "Why?" he asked the rafters. "Why, why, why, why, why."

"Did you do that?" Medford whispered.

The Goatman sat up, aglitter with glass shards. "So-o-orry," he said.

"How did that happen? I thought you had to lick your finger and—"

"Tha-a-at's the way it's supposed to be."

"Did you mean it to start blowing like that?"

"No."

"Then why...?"

"I don't know. I get exci-i-ited."

"Does it happen often?"

"Often enough."

"Does it happen to other ... goatfolk?"

"No." The Goatman looked pathetic, slumped back against the wall, his finger toying with a chunk of broken glass on the floor beside him.

Medford had never felt sorry for anybody else before. It wasn't a bad feeling. "Stay right there if you're comfortable," he said. "And I'll make us more tea."

The Goatman pointed to the squirrel bowl. "May I see tha-a-at?"

Medford hesitated. The Goatman's eyebrows twitched. "I will be ca-a-areful."

Medford handed the bowl to him, then crunched around on glass shards to fill the kettle and stoke the stove. The Goatman held the bowl up close and stroked the squirrel with one finger, just what Medford would do.

Medford swept the glass off the floor, put flypaper on the broken window.

As they drank their tea, the Goatman had Medford explain why he'd carved each Useless Object. He asked to see the tools Medford had used, made him demonstrate how he held a knife, a chisel, a mallet. At first Medford found the questions hard to answer, because he usually tried not even to think about his secret carvings. His words trickled, then flowed, then rushed out like Mill Stream the time the dam burst.

Some things he couldn't explain very well. '"Twas there in the middle, the shape of a Nutgatherer," he said, as the Goatman poked at the squirrel bowl with a grimy finger. "Once I saw it I couldn't just leave it. Twas already there, you see."

The Goatman nodded as if he did see. Some kind of longing bubbled up inside Medford. People nodded like that when Boyce talked sometimes.

Medford didn't mention the buzz he felt when he carved such things (or the hum or the song or whatever it was)—that was too scary to put into words. But he talked about everything else that came to mind. He couldn't stop talking. He couldn't see how he would stay silent after this. Hunger was all that slowed him down, and only when it was well past time for the midday dinner.

He invited the Goatman to stay.

Medford had leftovers of Myrtle Cook's Egg Fowl Stew in the springhouse, a small stone building with a spring-fed stream running through it to keep the contents cold. The stew had to be eaten, but the Goatman wouldn't touch it. So Medford and the dog ate the stew and the Goatman ate beets and potatoes—Starch Root, to the Bookish—from Medford's garden.

They drank Millicent Brewer's bottled root beer, cold from the springhouse. The fizziness made the Goatman sneeze but he said he liked it anyway. The Goatman ate his linen napkin to finish off the meal. He didn't like it as much as the towel that morning, he said, looking sideways at another towel hanging by the sink.

Medford explained about cotton and linen cloth and how expensive it was. "For spe-e-ecial," the Goatman said, nodding.

"Why don't you eat your clothes?" Medford asked. "They're cloth."

"They are goat hair," the Goatman said in shocked tones.

Medford looked closer and saw fine fibers mashed together into a thick, stiff fabric. He had to admit the cloth didn't look edible. But he'd never taken a bite out of a dish towel, either.

The Goatman watched, agog, as Medford washed the dishes. Medford was not surprised to learn that the Goatman had never encountered soapsuds. The Goatman blew his nose on his sash and then used the sash to polish his horns, with no apparent result.

They spent the rest of the afternoon outside. Lying on his back in the sun, the Goatman pressed a long grass blade lengthwise between his thumbs, held it to his mouth, and blew gently. The noise he made was almost like one of the songs the Fishers used to keep everyone together while hauling a net. But no human voice could make such a sound. It lilted like birdsong, skipped like a rock on a pond, darted like an insect in sunlight. Hearing it made Medford happy, although he couldn't have explained why.

"How is that used?" he asked when the Goatman paused for breath.

"Used?" The Goatman sat up. "It ha-a-as no use that I can think of."

Useless,
Medford thought.

The Goatman handed him a blade of grass. "You try," he said.

Medford shook his head.
Useless,
he thought.

A cunning look flickered across the Goatman's face. "We could use this to call goats. Because they don't have na-a-ames."

"I don't need to call goats."

"You ne-e-ever know."

No sound Medford made was anything like the Goatman's. But the more gruesome the noises the better he felt. They excited the dog, who kept romping over to lick Medford's face in a frenzy. Medford hadn't laughed like this since before Transition.

They worked on the sounds until the sun went down. The Goatman started calling Medford Goat Gas.
Almost like Nightfarts,
Medford thought.

They ate bread and beets for supper. They spent the evening by the fire. When the Goatman hitched up his robe, Medford found he could look at the hairy shins without shuddering and glancing away. "My secret Friend from afar." That's what Cordelia had called her goatman. Had he called up the wind and broken a window, too?

Or perhaps he'd just admired her weavings, made her feel they were almost Useful.

"There's something else," he told the Goatman. He brought out the seashell bowl.

The Goatman didn't notice the horn right away, distracted by Pinky and its rosy stripes. But then he twitched. "Bweh-eh-eh. When did you ca-a-arve this?"

"Yesterday. Just before you came here."

"How di-i-id you know what my horns would look like?"

"I saw an Unnameable Woven Object." Medford told how he and Prudy had unearthed the box on Bog Island, about Cordelia and the man on the cloth.

"Do your people come here often?" Medford asked.

"I don't think so. But I told you we have ta-a-ales about this place."

"What do the tales say?"

"That you name everything and everything has a use like the na-a-ame. And someti-i-imes ..." His voice trailed off.

"Sometimes?"

"Sometimes you ma-a-ake people leave."

"I don't," Medford said.

"No. The ones like you are the ones they se-e-end..."

Again, he didn't finish his sentence. He didn't have to.

Do not Yawn nor Spit when another is talking. Offer no criticism of thy companion's speech, nor moralize upon his life unless called upon to do so.

—A Frugall Compendium of Home Arts and Farme Chores by Capability C. Craft (1680), as Amended and Annotated by the Island Council of Names (17187–1809)

"N
IGHTFA-A-ARTS
. Where are you, Nightfarts?"

Medford opened his eyes. It took him a minute to remember why someone would be saying "Nightfarts" outside his bedroom window at daybreak. Apparently a goatman could call someone the same thing twice, almost like using a name. That was comforting.

Otherwise, comfort was scarce. The more Medford lay there thinking about it, the more certain he was that Prudy and Earnest would visit him today, as they often did midweek. And when they came they would find a horned man living under the porch.

A horned man with no name.

A horned man with no name who knew all about Medfords Useless carvings.

Perhaps I could tell him not to say anything about the carvings,
he thought. But keeping the Goatman from talking would be like trying to control the wind, he suspected.

There was only one answer: The Goatman must be gone when Prudy and Earnest arrived. If he could be gone for good, so much the better. Full of resolve, Medford jumped out of bed. He stoked the stove and re-hid his carvings, Usefulness on two legs.

The Goatman was surprisingly easy to get rid of. "I must work today," Medford said after an exceptionally messy breakfast of honey and oats. "'Twould be best if—"

"I will go," the Goatman said. "I found the-e-ese"—he held out a handful of Pitch Tree cones—"and I will look for more. Nightfarts will hunt."

So the Goatman borrowed a potato sack and loped off into the woods with the dog beside him. Medford went into his workshop and did an excellent imitation of a fourteen-year-old boy working blamelessly on a blameless wooden trencher.

To his astonishment, reality caught up with the imitation and he actually did make progress on the trencher. It was well shaped and ready for sanding by the time Prudy knocked on the porch door in late morning, carrying a pie.

"Clayton Baker sends thee this," she said. '"Tis Red
Keeping Fruit. He thinketh he gave thee not enough for the spoons."

Earnest rolled his eyes. His respect for New Prudy's Book Talk hadn't grown any since the head-under-the-pump incident.

Prudy deposited the pie on the table and sniffed the air. "Hoo. What stinketh?"

"I...," Medford said. He swallowed, thinking fast. "I forgot a chicken I had... 'twas in the cupboard. It went bad."

"Thou keptst Egg Fowl in the cupboard? Raw Egg Fowl?"

"Aye," Medford said. "Don't know what I was thinking."

"It must have been there awhile to make a smell this bad. Where wert thou?"

"Oh, I was here. I was ... I was concentrating on my work."

New Prudy gave him the same look she'd given the Sap Tree cones at Transition.

"Why art thou so red?" she asked, exactly as she had then.

"The pump's dripping," Earnest said in a hopeful tone.

"Aye. And 'tis not pumping well," Medford said, realizing just too late that he should have kept his mouth shut.

"Oh, aye?" Earnest's face lit up. He advanced on the
sink, pulling a small wrench out of his pocket. Earnest had taken to wearing trousers instead of knee breeches because the pockets were so much bigger.

"Oh, no, Earnest," Medford said. "Don't—"

The first bolt hit the floor.

"Better go outside, Medford," Prudy said. "You won't want to watch this." She caught sight of the flypaper on the broken window. "What happened there, pray?"

"Oh. I ... ah ... my knife slipped." Medford tried to keep his face from moving, but he couldn't help wincing. He really wasn't good at this.

Prudy gave him a dour look that she must have learned from Deemer. She marched out the door, white-blond braids hanging straight against her stiff straight back. He knew the look of that back. That was New Prudy—or even Old Prudy—spoiling for a fight. In this case, spoiling to find out what Medford was up to.

"Art thou coming?" she called from the porch.

"Aye," Medford said. He was tired and he was going to need his wits about him. Lying was turning out to be hard work. It was easier when you hid things under the bed and didn't have to talk about them.

"'Tis the leather diaphragm," Earnest muttered behind them. "Must be." Another bolt plonked onto the floor.

Medford sat down on the steps next to Prudy, who was sitting as if she had a rod for a spine, feet Firm and Even as the Book taught.

"Medford," she said. "What ails thee? Master Learned
says thou hast been acting strange ever since Transition. And I agree with him."

"I'm not acting strange," he said, trying to make his voice deeper the way Arvid had. "I'm just working hard."

"Pa says thou hast not finished his bowls."

"I'm on the third-to-last one."

"That's what thou saidst last week. Master Learned says industry be our best—"

'"Tis in there on the workbench, Prudy, if you'd like to see it." How dared she question him like this, with all her
thees
and
thous
and
arts
and
shalts?
"I have things to do other than carving, you know. I have this cabin and the garden to keep up and firewood to get in. You live at home, don't forget."

"Others live alone. Thy last spoons were two weeks ago. People say ... They say—"

"They say what?"

She was the one turning red this time, but she didn't flinch. "They say once a Runyuin never a Carver."

"I wonder who could possibly have said that." Actually, he did wonder. It could have been Arvid or it could have been Deemer. He supposed it didn't matter which.

"Medford, you've always had more to prove than anyone else. That's nothing new. Why court trouble?" She'd dropped the Book Talk. Praise the Book.

"I don't court trouble," he said, adding under his breath, '"Tis courting me."

A goatman, a stinky dog, a bedroom full of Useless
Carved Objects, and now New Prudy in a scolding mood. What next?

At that exact moment, what was next bounded into view on four muddy feet. She had a dead squirrel in her mouth.

The dog shook her head furiously, squirrel tail flapping. She bowed and stretched, placed the corpse tenderly at Medford's feet. Then she sat, her long, wet tongue dangling out of her mouth. A drop of saliva rolled onto the ground. She waggled the tip of her tail.

"Hoo," Prudy said. "There's that smell."

"Another fla-a-atfoot!" a grassy and windy voice called from the woods. "Back off, Killer. Let the she-fla-a-atfoot breathe."

The dog gave a welcoming yelp, grabbed her squirrel, and pranced over to greet the Goatman as if she hadn't seen him in days.

Medford buried his face in his hands. He heard Prudy gasp and scrabble to her feet. By the time he lifted his head she'd made it to the road and was heading north, even though the road home was to the south.

"Prudy!" he yelled. "Come back! He ... it... 'tis fine."

Because she was Prudy, her curiosity got the better of her and she turned to look. The Goatman was bouncing and bowing, waving his hand back and forth in what he clearly thought was a friendly and inviting fashion.