*
When she returned to the cottage for an old electric lantern and a sweater, she thrilled at a flick of movement in front of the garden, but it was only the Beauregard cat. Poised with weight low, the tortoiseshell watched Zan.
“Have you seen my goat?” Zan asked. It felt as helpful as asking the islanders. She considered laying out food—but what? Would oat mash entice her? How do you tempt an animal that thrives on grasses and brambles?
Zan walked up the island’s single dirt road to where it met the northside trails. What could she look for, besides the goat herself: a hoof print? Could she even track the goat into the woods and hidden cliffs? If Nan had wandered off, why here? Why would she keep to human trails, when it was as easy to scramble up the boulders and browse impassible thickets?
With a deep breath, she ducked into the woods. She held an inner image of her little goat, belly opened by coyote teeth, spilling viscera into the moss. Flames, memories, flickered at the edge of her vision. She pushed them away and kept moving.
Able only to see as far as the lantern’s circle of yellow, she pressed deeper into the woods. Twigs raised red marks on her face and legs. Mosquitos whined in her ear.
Zan stopped. If she was on the path she thought she followed, she would have reached the half-bald crest of Pastor Mountain. But the trail rolled up small rises and back down without any sustained climb.
Lantern high to take in the shape of land beyond the trail, Zan turned. Nothing recognizable ahead or behind. The familiar loop had twisted on itself. She stilled her breath to quiet. No waves murmured at the threshold of sound. Nothing larger than a squirrel rustled the pine boughs. She was deep in the island’s interior. Would a clearing or a birch grove even register as a landmark, cast in low light? It was a different island without even fog-filtered sunlight.
With careful steps, Zan retread the way she was sure she had come. She was relieved, at least, not to hear coyote yip-howls. Not even owls hooted in the dark. She could only hear the crunch of her own steps and the pull of her lungs. It felt wrong to call for the goat. She could only search and search until she had wound herself back out from the labyrinth of granite and fir trees and moss.
*
Zan stumbled her way home to the keeper’s cottage that night and every evening for a week after the goat’s disappearance. Heat rose with the sun and held through the nights without relenting. Sweat stuck hair and clothes to her skin whether she moved or sat. Air hung stagnant. Few visited the lighthouse. If they did, they would have found the door locked, the keeper gone. The other residents no longer helped Zan look. If they knew how often she was absent from her post, they might’ve sent Mr. B. to intervene.
The night Zan fell asleep in her clothes, exhausted from the daily hunt, she stirred from a dream of bells. For a moment, an hour, she drifted in her blanketless bed, comforted by the silvery tinkle. Only gradually did she realize the sound’s meaning. Nan had returned. Zan sat up. She tried to open her ears as if widening her eyes. Awake, she could only hear the buoys. They tolled louder than usual, urgent in the dark. A deep rumble gathered beneath. A flash of light. If she had watched the mercury drop in the lighthouse’s barometer that day, she would have known the heat was breaking.