Goatmoose

Many years ago, a young girl was walking through the woods when she came across a peculiar hole in the earth. It was not an ordinary hole in that it was not dug with a shovel, punched into the earth by a falling object or formed by any type of explosion. The hole, a relatively small oval-shaped orifice of light brown earth, seemed as if it were meant to be there and had always been there, arbitrarily placed on the earth and so far unexplored.

The previously mentioned little girl not only discovered the hole but subsequently tripped and fell into it, soon finding herself embraced by a wall of soil and a thousand mixed emotions. It was a long way up, and she tilted back her head to stare at the sunlight up high, she realized just how far she had fallen. A bit of mud and grass tarnished her leg, her shoes were ruined and her light summer dress now had a small tear near the bottom. However, being a rather practical girl, the young lady realized that these were trivial matters compared to the dilemma of her being trapped at the bottom of a seemingly inescapable hole.

Narrow as the hole had originally seeemed, the bottom opened to a rather large room of sorts, large enough for her to walk a few steps in every direction.  The ground was rough and far from flat, with dips and grooves and pebbles under every step.  Feeling the walls, she was hoping to find some roots or stones that would allow her enough grip to climb the vertical walls out of the hole.  The pit was nearly sheer darkness, as the light from above did little to seek its way to the girl’s location.  Patting around and feeling all sides of the hole, she did nearly a lap when she hit a certain area of the dirt, and it broke away…

Behind the paper-thin wall of soil, a cave was revealed, dark as a pie is round and stretching downward at great length.  Entirely made of stone and wood, it was obviously built and hidden for some specific purpose.  Always having been a tenacious and curious little girl, she stepped into the cave and began to work her way through its labyrinth.  Clearly there was no other way out of the hole.

Several minutes had passed, and the child was forced to navigate her way through the cave entirely by touch, as any dribble of light that had guided her from the hole had long since faded into intense darkness.  A feeling of terror and regret was forming and she began to question her judgment, thinking perhaps traveling this route was a fool’s errand better managed by staying in her original hole.  A mental debate started as to whether to press on or attempt to find her way back, and develop a means for escaping the hole.  She settled on the latter.

Still using the walls as a guide, she turned around and started moving back the way she came.  She continued this way for a while.  A little too long, in fact.  After time had passed, the girl started thinking she had been walking back longer than she had walked forward, yet where was the hole?  No sign of her original point of entry could be found.  She pressed on for several more minutes and still nothing – darkness surrounded her.  She was still in the cave, as the stone ground had yet to change back to dirt… but how?  It had been a single path, surrounded by stone, that led from the hole to her decision to return.  Trapped beneath the earth and lost in darkness, the girl began to feel true fear for the first time.  She fell to her bottom, put her hands upon her cold, dirty dress, and began to cry.

“Baaa. Do not cry, young lady.”

A voice, low, rough, powerful and strong, spoke in the darkness.

“This is my home. I can help you.”

Terrified to wit’s end, the girl cowered without replying.  Not knowing who (or what) was speaking to her, she buried her face in her arms and sought refuge in hoping this was all in her imagination.  Then she felt something touch her on the neck.

“Do not be alarmed, dear.  I am here to help.  You see, these are my chambers, and I know my way about them.”

“Who are you,” she replied.

“I am Goatmoose,” the voice replied, lighting a torch on the ground and illuminating itself.  The girl realized the speaker had lit the torch with its mouth.  It raised its head and gazed upon her as she met its eyes.  Standing before her was an animal; hairy and bearded with hooves like a goat, yet with antlers and size of a moose.  An epic beast, the likes of which the girl had never seen in any book or fantasy.  ”My name is rather appropriate. I take it you’ll agree.”

“Well, I can see why you had to light that with your mouth,” she answered.

“Yes. Lack of hands can make things like holding a torch a rather beastly challenge.”

“Beastly – nice pun,” the girl added.

“It was a fine pun, indeed.  And you are quite a fine girl for recognizing a pun at such a young age.  May I be so bold as to ask how you have come to be in my chambers, wandering through the darkness?”

“I fell through a hole and couldn’t get out. May I be so bold as to ask what you are, and why you are here?” inquired the girl.

“I will tell you while we walk. Come, let me help you find your way out,” said Gootmoose.  ”On my saddle, dear lass!”

The girl, leaving her dirty and broken shoes behind, climbed onto the back of Goatmoose and wrapped her arms around his middle.  He told her the tale of how he came to be the creature that he was, why he could speak, and why he lived underground.

“I was once a young boy, walking about the woods, not unlike you were this very day when you stumbled through the hole that brought you to me.  I came across a dead goat, all alone, in a sunlit valley near a creek.  Wondering how the goat had come to this place, seeing as it was not near any farms or villages that should house a goat, I walked over to it and investigated.  Minutes later, the goat suddenly awakened, turning to me and biting at my face without any pause.  Being mauled deep in the woods by oneself, I was fearing my own death, when I was approached by a tall woman riding a moose.  She revealed herself as a witch, told me I was tresspassing in her territory and would experience a lifetime of morbid suffering and disfigurement.  Her presence forced away the goat, which instead of falling back down dead, ran off through the trees shining and soiled by a combination of our blood.”

“But clearly you didn’t die,” injected the girl.  ”How could you have?  You are here with me now.”

Goatmoose was weaving through a large number of passages.  The girl wondered how many of these she had traveled without even noticing, and was able to understand how she managed to get lost.

“Yes, dear, but keep in mind – I was a boy then, and now I am a beast.  Baa. You see, the attack from the goat was no normal attack.  The goat had indeed died, for I had seen it myself, but the witch had animated it to harm me.  Being attacked in this manner left me physically alive, but only just.  Far worse than that, I now had a curse.  After the witch vanished on her moose, I was left to stumble through the woods.  The pain was unimaginable, and every step felt a million miles.  After much perilous time but traveling no more than a couple yards, I was at a large rock near a bank in the creek.  I propped my back against it, fell to the leaf-tattered ground, and expected to die.  Instead, my skin began to bubble, my body mutated, and after the most extreme amount of agony one could possibly contemplate, I became the figure that stands beneath you today.”

With the end of that telling, Goatmoose had delivered the girl back out of the rocky dungeon and through the hole she formed, to the first room she entered.  Looking up, she peered out through the very gap that had brought her inside.

“When did all this happen?” asked the girl.

“Baa. This was six hundred and forty seven years ago, my child.  Six hundred and forty seven years.”

“So why live underground all that time, in this weird old cave?” 

“Hold on tight,” Goatmoose yelled, as he reared backwards and soared straight at the hole in the earth.  Obviously too large for the opening, the girl grew fearful until Goatmoose pounded straight through the earth and out into the gleaming sunlight that signaled their escape from below.  Despite his obvious force and strength, he touched down gracefully and deposited the young child at the side of a towering old tree.  She sat at the foot of the trunk and brushed away some of the dirt that had accumulated on her clothing during the quest.  

Obviously confused about what just happened, her new company, and what to do now, she asked of her new friend, “Well? Why do you live underground?”

“See this creek?” he asked, pointing to a creek flowing through a sunlit valley.  ”That’s the creek where the witch attacked me.  These caves are underneath the very ground where I was turned into the creature I have been for the past six centuries.  I live here in hopes that someday the witch will return, and I can seek my revenge.”

What a plot twist.  I want to be baaad.

Or maybe he originated here.

Tags: story