Once upon a time, there were three travelers passing through the mountains and their valleys. There was Elmer, the driver. He steered the carriage, hopefully in the right direction. And riding in the carriage was his mother, Beatrice, and his young-aged daughter, Maggie. The family, dressed in their finest clothes rode through the land at its darkest hour. Elmer kept lanterns lit at both ends of the carriage to help him see. The sky was a deep violet color, stained only with white stars.
Beatrice kept a lantern by her of a peculiar shape. There were twists in the wiring and bulky little compartments along the bottom. She used it for night reading.
Maggie, the child, stared hopelessly out the window, waiting for something interesting to happen. And to her fortune, it did.
The carriage came to a halt as something unnatural crossed the path they were on. Goats or perhaps small yaks were walking on their hindlegs. Some carried poles with hanging lanterns on the end. Some carried silver platters with lids placed over them.
Elmer rubbed his eyes and cleaned his monocle just to make sure he was seeing clearly. Maggie rose from her seat, nearly sticking her whole self out the window, and Grandmother Beatrice closed her book and took a peek as well.
"My word," she spoke.
"What are they, grandmummy?" Maggie asked.
"I haven't the foggiest idea," Beatrice thought, tapping her withered fingers on her wrinkly chin.
"They must be going somewhere," Elmer claimed and grabbed a lantern. He jumped down from the carriage and called the other two after him.
"Here we go again," Beatrice huffed as she followed Maggie out into the woods, going after the parade of goatmen.
The strange creatures led them to a small hamlet wherein the middle sat a heavy stone table. The few goatmen with the platters set their meals on the table and presented them, lifting the lids. There were roast birds, potatoes, and cooked vegetables. But the goatmen never ate any of it as long as the travelers watched them.
The goatmen gathered around the altar and as if it were summoned, a giant mouth opened in the night sky. A vortex with sharp teeth and a bottomless stomach. It reached down with its slithery tongue and ate the meals set out for it. It rumbled and growled, still hungry. The goatmen raised their hands (hooves) and clamored with bleeps and bahs. The mouth roared and subsided, vanishing into the stars. Once it was gone, the goatmen began to panic.
"What's going on, Poppa?" Maggie asked, hanging from his arm.
"I'm not sure.
Grandma Beatrice huffed. "Clearly, the goats feed the thing in the sky to keep it at bay, but now it's only grown hungrier," she explained in a rude but informative voice.
"You got all that from this?" Elmer wondered.
"It's called storytelling. I suggest you learn some."
Bah!
The travelers looked back from their viewing spot and saw a frankly large goatman standing behind them. Without so much as an explanation, it started pushing them towards the hamlet of other furry hooved citizens.
The goatmen, with little wings on their back and frog-like eyes, stared at the intruders. One bleeped but otherwise they just stared.
"Let's hope they don't sacrifice us," Beatrice whispered to Elmer who was alarmed by the idea.
The goatmen started rushing past them, bringing them along for the panicked walk. They passed the family's carriage, and when Elmer tried to walk away from the group, they turned his face forward to where they were heading. A stone building surrounded by torches. They stepped inside to find a kitchen, a warm, fully stocked, rustic kitchen. A goatmen stood with Elmer and his family and gestured a cooking motion, pretending to stir in a bowl.
"I think they want us to help cook," Maggie thought.
"Someone gets storytelling," Beatrice eyed her son. Then she reached into her satchel. "It's a good thing I always carry my family's recipe book."
"Our family," Elmer mentioned and got a feel for the kitchen. There was a long counter space, where ingredients were prepared and left when finished. There were shelves, crates, and jars of ingredients on one side and tools and ovens on the other.
Elmer grabbed a big casserole dish and found a sack of potatoes he threw onto the counter. His mother had already laid out her vegetables and went to select a good-sized pot.
"Come here, Maggie," Elmer called his daughter over kindly. "I'll peel, you mash." Elmer took out a small knife and started peeling off the skin of the potatoes. He put them in the casserole dish and let Maggie mash them with a wooden meat tenderizer.
Beatrice looked over from precisely cutting her vegetables and preparing her both. She seemed to find this amateur display annoying because she rolled her eyes out of sight of anyone.
When Elmer and Maggie had half a casserole dish of smashed potatoes, Beatrice said something, "You're supposed to cook them before you mash them."
"Well, we're already halfway there, and I'm assuming a sky-mouth isn't too picky," Elmer said, continuing to cut up potatoes so they were easier to mash.
"And is smashed potatoes all you're going to serve?" Beatrice asked.
Elmer thought. "We could put carrots in it." Maggie looked over the counter and nodded, thinking it a good idea.
"If you're going to do a job," Beatrice started saying, "You best do it to the best of your abilities."
"Well, what are you making?" Elmer asked curiously.
"Aunt Fable's harvest stew," Beatrice claimed, going back to her bubbling broth.
"Oh, you used to make that every Christmas Eve," Elmer laughed. "The neighbors would come by and have some because you always made plenty for everybody."
"That's right," his mother mumbled, not listening as well as she was cooking.
"Maggie and I tried making your stroganoff a few times," Elmer went on sharing stories. "The one you made for the cousins when Uncle Bernie died."
"Bernard was a good man," Beatrice mentioned. "His children deserved a good meal."
"Maggie and I always end up making lamb bits," Elmer chuckled, garnishing their smashed potatoes with some parsley and carrot slices.
"Excuse me, lamb bits?" Beatrice asked, catching the last bit of the conversation.
"Yeah," Elmer laughed and carried the casserole dish to the end of the counter. Two goatmen were waiting to inspect it. They looked puzzled by it at first. One even tried to sample it but the other slapped their hand away before they could.
"It's cut up lamb," Elmer explained to his mother. "We should serve it to the sky-mouth," he told Maggie. "See if you can find some lamb."
Maggie ran off to peruse the meat. Beatrice just seemed baffled. "And what are you serving with it?"
Elmer tapped his foot and thought hard on it. He snapped his fingers, clapped, and said, "Radishes! Maggie loves radishes."
"No, no, no," Beatrice tsked. "Brussel sprouts go much better with lamb."
"But Maggie hates brussell sprouts," Elmer told her.
"At least tell me you're seasoning the meat and putting onions with it," Beatrice sighed, almost pleading with her son.
"We could cook onions with it. I'll get some and some basil while we're at it."
Beatrice let out a moan.
"What?"
She looked up from her stew. "Mint would go better with lamb."
"Yuck," Maggie blecked as she put a wrapped-up piece of meat on the counter.
"The lamb isn't for you, sweetie," her grandma reminded her. "It's for the sky-hole."
Elmer cut up the lamb and started frying it in a pan next to his mother's stew. She grimaced as the lamb fat splattered onto her side of the stove. Luckily, her stew simmered nicely, and she could present it to the inspectors. The goats smelled the broth, and both started to drool a bit. Beatrice was sickened but flattered. She began flipping through her cookbook for a new recipe.
Elmer had started cutting the onions, and his eyes were tearing up. Maggie's eyes didn't water because she wasn't as close to them, but she still rubbed her eyes because she saw her father doing it.
"Let me do it," Beatrice stepped in and fixed Elmer's un-uniformed onions. "We're never going to make it to the McCaffrys' at this rate. How long are we going to be here anyway?" she spat, careful not to get any on her onions.
"Mum, they need help," Elmer said. "You can't put a time limit on that."
"We need to get to the McCaffrys' as soon as humanly possible," Beatrice explained and chopped the onions faster.
PLOP!
Elmer and Beatrice stopped and turned to the shelf of ingredients, where Maggie had dropped a bag of flour. Elmer laughed, for she looked like a ghost- the cutest ghost he might add. But Beatrice was not amused. She was a tad deranged- I mean, enraged.
"She's an absolute mess!" the grandmother shrieked. She grabbed a cloth and started wiping the flour off of Margaret's face. "She can't go to the McCaffrys' like this!"
"I'll clean her, Mum," Elmer said and took over.
Beatrice mumbled and grumbled to herself as she tossed the onions in the pan.
"You'll get your book, Mum," Elmer told her. "Everything will be fine."
"Everything is certainly not fine!" she yelled, taking her eyes off the pan. "We are in a goat kitchen, and I assure you, no one but us will know what that means."
"Mum," Elmer said calmly, trying to ease the anger. "It's just a book. It can wait a day or two."
"How long do you think we're going to be here?" Beatrice asked, waving a wooden spoon in her son's face. "I don't have forever, you know."
Suddenly, the pan caught a flame and crackled. Beatrice screamed, and Elmer grabbed the flour sack off the floor and threw it over the fire. Dust spilled everywhere and the family looked a sight.
Beatrice's anger had subsided, and she quietly began to weep. "We're never going to get to the McCaffrys'."
"What's so important about buying a book, Mum?" Elmer had to know as he wiped the flour off his monocle.
Beatrice sniffled. "I'm not buying a book... I'm writing one." Elmer looked closely at his mother, wanting a further explanation. "You see, I don't know how much time I have left with you and Margaret."
"Maggie," Elmer interrupted.
Beatrice sighed and continued. "I wanted McCaffry to write my stories before it's too late and you never hear them."
"Mum," Elmer awed and put his arms around her brittle body.
"We used to have so much fun together," Beatrice remembered. "When you were little. Now, you're older and it's like you've forgotten."
"Mum, I'll never forget about you or the times I even cooked with you," Elmer told her. "I may not be like you in the kitchen, but I do it the way you've always done...with love."
Beatrice laughed a bit to herself. "You and Maggie do have fun together."
Elmer chuckled. "Do you remember when I wanted to be a cat?"
His mother laughed some more. "You were six, and you'd only accept a saucer of milk at dinnertime."
"Why don't we make that... for the sky-mouth?" Elmer suggested.
Beatrice snickered. "You have such an imagination." She went and got a big bowl, and Elmer found the milk and poured it in. They gave it and the burnt lamb bits to the inspectors. "And a meal isn't complete without dessert," Beatrice said. "Why don't we bake something together?"
They looked in her recipe book and found instructions for Great Grandma May's chocolate cake. Maggie and Elmer tried their best to follow the steps, but of course there were mistakes. Beatrice didn't mind so long as she didn't have to eat the cake.
When they were done, they placed it with the other dishes, and the goatmen signaled that it was time again to feed the sky-mouth. The family each carried a dish with help from two goats. They marched to the hamlet and the altar, presenting the meals just as the sky-mouth opened.
It growled. It snarled. It reached its tongue down and consumed the meal. And then a horrible grumbling shook the mountains. Elmer and Beatrice wrapped their arms around Maggie.
BLEH!
The sky-mouth spewed out its meal and gasped for air as if choking. It dissolved into the sky, which turned to a calming blue as morning came to welcome them.
The goatmen cheered as Elmer asked his mother, "What does this mean?"
Beatrice laughed a little. "I'd say our meal was so terrible, it gave the sky-hole indigestion." She flecked off some of the discarded mush off her shoulder. "I don't think it'll have dinner here any time soon."
"Well, I guess now we can go to the McCaffrys'," Elmer thought. "I'm excited for you," he admitted. "I'd love to hear your stories."
His mother smiled. "I had a lot of adventures, but the ones where I'm with you two are my favorite," Beatrice looked down at her granddaughter who returned a warm smile. "Let's get going," she said. "I have so much I want to share with you."