Free The Unnameables by Ellen Booraem Page A

a visitor away hungry. I say, Capability C. Craft never lived down the road from Martin Candlewright, who turns up at dinnertime regular as the tide.
    â€”Journal of Colby Tailor, 1966
    M EDFORD REGRETTED inviting the Goatman into his cabin. It would have been better to have thanked him for his visit, walked inside, and shut the door. The Goatman would have gone away and Medford would be working on a new bowl for Twig right now.
    The Goatman stood in the middle of the kitchen, leaning on his staff and watching Medford the way you'd watch the first flea of summer. This made Medford so edgy he almost dropped the teapot, a Transition gift from Clarity. It didn't help that the sink pump wasn't working right—three pumps for one squirt of water. For some reason Medford found this embarrassing.
    The dog kept nudging Medford's hand with her nose. He gingerly stroked her forehead, the only part of her that looked to be free of bird chunks. She sat down, closed her eyes, and sighed. While he made the tea she stayed where she was, gazing up at him.
    Maybe she liked him.
    He found he minded her smell a little less.
    Not much less.
    Medford poured the tea through a strainer into two mugs, then put the strainer down on the counter next to the sink. The Goatman grabbed it and lapped out the mass of soggy leaves. "Mmmm," he said. "Li-i-ike a pricker-bush."
    Medford didn't often wash the tea strainer. He decided he would have to do that before the next pot of tea.
    The Goatman peered into the mug Medford gave him as if the tea were alive and unpredictable. "What do I do with thi-i-is?" he asked.
    "Drink it," Medford said. "'Tis good."
    The Goatman sniffed the tea and stuck out his tongue to touch it. He twitched. "Ow. Hot," he said. He shot an accusing look at Medford.
    '"Twill cool. Really," Medford said. "You'll like it. Sit down, if it please thee."
    The Goatman set his tea mug on the floor and lowered himself awkwardly to sit next to it. He put down his staff and cupped his mug in both hands.
    "Wouldn't you like a chair?" Medford pointed to the table and three chairs under the porch windows.
    "Bweh-eh-eh," the Goatman said. He used his staff to haul himself up onto his hooves and inspected the chair facing the windows, brow furrowed. He lowered his hindquarters onto the seat and perched on the edge, unable to sit all the way back.
    Medford grated Tonic Root into his tea and opened the window before joining his guest at the table, hoping he wasn't being rude. The dog curled up at the Goatman's feet, so what had been separate smells became one united stench. Medford breathed through his mouth rather than his nose. That helped.
    He wanted a closer look at that goat-headed staff, which was leaning against the table. "May I?" he asked, reaching for it.
    "Of course," the Goatman said. He kept sniffing at his tea, poking it with a finger, sipping a little, sniffing at it again. "Hot colored wa-a-ater," he whispered.
    The wind swirls on the staff were rough in places, Medford saw. He could see where the blade had slipped or gotten caught in the grain and gone wrong. The goat heads, though, emerged from the wood as if they'd grown there. They looked as if they had goat bodies hidden behind them in the staff. Medford could see individual strands of hair in their beards. How could anyone carve so delicately? With his thinnest blade and a lot of practice, perhaps he could—
    Medford caught himself.
This,
he thought,
is how the Unnameable creeps up on you.
He could hear Deemer Learned's voice in his head, reading from the Book: "
Does
it feed us? Warm us? Shelter us? Then is it good. If it does none of these things, turn away.
"
    The Goatman was watching him. "Do you ca-a-arve?"
    "No," Medford said and felt his face turn hot. "I mean, aye. Well, not like this. This ... isn't allowed." He'd never uttered such a broad, general lie before.
    "Allowed," the Goatman said. "What's allowed? Who allowed? Allo-o-o-owed. Allowed-allowed-allowed." He