Pupils ought to be round, thought Anna. Round, or maybe those long slit things that cats’ pupils sometimes did. That looked a little sinister, but not unnatural. Rectangular pupils were just, wrong. There are only two animals on Earth that have oblong-shaped pupils. The Octopus, (or octopodes, if you need to feel clever) which are basically aliens anyway, so them having odd-looking eyes is pretty on-brand for them. The other, is a goat. A seemingly normal livestock animal, but with too many bones jutting out of their hips, and strange little satanic goatees and horns that looked just a little too sharp for a creature that supposedly eats only vegetation.

Anna shuddered as the goat’s black rectangles bored into her soul. It stood there, chewing on her Burberry scarf without blinking. She made one more attempt to wrestle it out of the goat’s mouth, but it did that head-bobble thing that made her feel like it was going to headbutt her, so she leapt rather ungracefully backwards and conceded defeat.

‘Bastard’ Hissed Anna. ‘Keep it then.’

The goat, seemingly understanding her, turned and walked away to rejoin the little herd that was gathered around the back of the little farmstead; her new farmstead, corrected Anna in her head.

Her brother inherited the beach house, of course. He’d be knee deep in mojitos and molly by now, and she was out in the middle of, somewhere, watching her $400 scarf getting slowly, but surely, turned into goat shit.

At least the view was nice, she thought as she walked back into the house. It had two bedrooms, and an all-wooden interior, with an enormous North-facing window that looked out from the lounge into the valley below. To the West, the hill sloped upwards sharply and lead into the mountains. The house came with a handful of chickens, a tractor that appeared to be mostly made of rust and of course, the goats. Fourteen of them in all. Most of them a mix of white and brown, varying heights and arrangements of horns. There was one that was all black, which in the Autumn sun had appeared to shine as she had driven up the gravel track for the first time. Once inside, she strolled around the house, picking up knick-knacks and looking at the photos on the walls. She hadn’t known her aunt and uncle very well, she thought a little regretfully. She had spent a lot of time with them as a girl; playing in the fields, making ‘witches’ potions’ in the forest out of water and leaves. Aunty Rhea was a tall, warm woman with large, strong hands. She could make or fix anything, from knitting sweaters to replacing parts on the lawnmower. Her Uncle Danny had always been intelligent. Not only had Anna’s mother always said so of her older brother, but Anna could see it for herself. Even a child can recognize it in adults. And not the self-assured, confidence of an adult who simply has strong opinions on everything. No, Uncle Danny was smart enough to know that of all the knowledge and nuance in the world, he knew very little.  After graduating high school, she had moved to the city to work and they had spent all their time between this place and the beach house, they had become more or less strangers to her, as she was sure she had become to them. Strange, that one can share blood with people, call them family, and yet feel closer to the guy who dropped off the tray of lattes to her office every morning. She didn’t even know his name, but he was a permanent fixture in her life; far more than her aunt and uncle had ever been. But they gave you a house, she thought.

She went on checking the rest of the house, opening all the cupboards, thumbing through the books on the walls and generally just snooping around until she decided it was late enough to start cooking dinner.

She had barely begun chopping her third potato when she was startled by a hullaballoo (that really was the only word for it) outside. It was a combination of equally jarring sounds: the shriek of several distressed chickens, a terrific flapping of several pairs of equally distressed wings, all punctuated by the crash of something metallic and probably quite difficult to replace smashing into the ground. Anna ran outside to see the gas-powered leaf blower that hung just inside the large barn had been freed of its hook by the flock of hopelessly stupid chickens she had inherited. The leaf blower lay in the doorway like a Cludeo victim. Several springs that were undoubtedly vital to its operation lay strewn around with a rather theatrical splattering of engine oil. The chickens, to their credit, milled around trying to look innocent.

Anna sighed and began picking up the pieces and placing them in her pocket. Sometime in the near future she could give them to some gruff, balding mechanic in blue overalls named Phil or Rog or something and he’d disappear into a cluttered workshop and emerge from the gloom several days later holding her repaired leaf-blower aloft, like Paul holding the reanimated corpse of Jesus. As she picked up the tiny, oddly shaped bits of metal she noticed something. Or rather, she failed to notice something which alerted her that there was something that she ought to probably be noticing right about now.

The goats were gone.

She stood suddenly, the leaf-blower forgotten.

Backing out of the barn doorway, she glanced around the small paddock. It was easy enough to see all four corners, and although she was no expert, she was fairly certain that twelve goats weren’t capable of that kind of camouflage. Octopus were, though.

After a cursory, but brisk walk around the perimeter, she reached the small gate on the far side of the paddock. It was pushed shut but unlocked. Looking around the hills, there was only one place the goats could’ve gone that she couldn’t see from where she was standing. Right into the woods.

Night was falling, but it was summertime and it wouldn’t be dark for another two hours. She didn’t feel especially fondly of these creatures, but they were hers, after all. Walking towards the woods, she felt validated to see a series of hoofprints in the grassy soil. She wondered if she should call something out, to try and coax them out of wherever they may have wandered off to. Did they have names? Would they even respond to her voice? ‘Erm. Goat?’ She called hesitantly.

‘GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAT’. She tried again.

She was about to give up and go inside when she heard a single, solitary bleat from the woods.

Silence.

Whatever, she thought. They live outside anyway, if they want to come back, they will.

She went back inside, finished cooking her dinner, ate it and got into bed, all the while trying very hard to convince herself she didn’t care about the goats.

Twelve minutes later she was walking into the woods using her phone as a torch.

Anna would not describe herself as an ‘outdoorsy’ sort of person. Which is just as well, because nobody else would describe Anna that way either. She tripped every few steps on every slightly upturned piece of earth. Within a minute, her socks were full of pine needles. But the hoofprints were so clearly embedded in the soft earth that even she could follow them.

They led her to a small clearing, that had a low, flat stone near the centre. Her goats were all clustered together at the far edge. She could see the black goat was among them. As she came out of the tree line, the goats stiffened. Excitement? Fear? She didn’t know, but her heart began to thump.

She didn’t actually have a plan for herding them back to the house, it occurred to her as she neared the center of the clearing. But before she could dwell on this too much longer, the black goat detached itself from the herd, trotted a few steps and nimbly leapt up onto the stone. Its face was now level from hers and only a few feet separated Anna and him.

If I get him back to the paddock, thought Anna, the rest will surely follow.

Her phone light still shining, she watched as he turned his head to regard her with one black rectangle.

The forest was completely silent. All she could hear was her hesitant breaths, and the rhythmic thump of blood in her ears.

The goat tapped one hoof upon the stone, it clacked like a starting gun. It wasn’t a random movement; it was beckoning to her.

Anna stepped closer, and the goat nodded.

She reached out a hand to grab the rough rope collar that he wore, and then, IT SPOKE.

Its mouth hadn’t moved. But words came into her head, and they sounded masculine and nearby.  

‘Wait’.

Anna nearly fell over from shock.

‘Er’ She looked over her shoulders for signs of someone else. Although, in the woods late at night, she wasn’t certain that seeing a random man standing in the clearing with her would be an improvement over a talking goat.

‘Yes. That was me.’

Now she did sit down; or rather, her legs stopped holding her up.

‘We’re glad you followed us. Although, you took your time.’

‘I thought you’d come back’ mumbled Anna.

There was a low rumble in her ears, like a chuckle through closed lips.

‘We needed you to follow, because only here can you make the choice.’

Anna shook her head, not understanding.

‘The choice, Anna. To stay as you are, or to embrace, change.’

Anna was trying to comprehend everything. The talking had really thrown her and in all honesty, she wasn’t really appreciating the cryptic proposal she was getting. Then something occurred to her.

‘How do you know my name?’

The black goat flicked his head towards the herd.

‘They told me. Danny and Rhea.’

Anna’s heart was pounding. She looked blankly towards the herd. Two of the goats had stepped forward. One was a reddish brown, and had a long, lanky look about it. Its front hooves were immense. Aunty Rhea had been a redhead, and was taller than her Uncle Danny. The second goat was a bit squat, and had the same colour fur as Uncle Danny’s moustache.

‘You’re… You’re GOATS?!’ She tried to shout, but only a strangled whisper came out.

Aunty Rhea’s voice came into her head.

‘We’re happy, sweetie.’

Uncle Danny started talking.

‘Think about your life, the city. Really, really think about it Anna. Is it a happy place? Are the people there actually living? Or are they just going through the motions.’

Anna stopped.

The black goat peered at her, and she noticed small flecks of light were twinkling in what she thought of as his beard.

She thought.

She thought about her morning commute. About the sad, glum faces of young people hunched over into their phones as they ignored one another. She thought about the cold indifference passersby gave to the homeless woman who begged for food with a baby in her arms. She thought about the stale, repetitive conversations she had every Monday in the office about people’s weekends, and watched their happiness slowly ground down during the week, only for them to rush out on a Friday night to drink themselves into numbness for two days before starting again.

She thought about her Burberry scarf, and how she had agonized about saving for it, in the knowledge that it would perfectly compliment her grey work skirt.

She thought of it all—the email that had arrived that morning, the one that said, “Due to economic constraints, we regret to inform you…” while the CEO had just posted photos of his $20,000 dinner on Instagram. She thought of Michael, her best friend from work, sobbing in the breakroom the day he was laid off, clutching a severance check that wouldn’t last three months. She thought of the news, the politicians promising help for struggling families while approving tax cuts for billionaires. She thought of the bank bailouts, of the corporations deemed “too big to fail,” while her cousin—sick, uninsured, and drowning in debt—had been left to beg for GoFundMe donations to survive. She thought of the rivers of filth she had seen in Asia, thick with trash, the price of fast fashion and cheap manufacturing, the cost of convenience paid in poisoned water and dying fish. And she thought of the sick joke of it all—that she was expected to be grateful, to accept that this was as good as it got, that her short, fleeting decades of moderate okayness were the best she could ever hope for. She looked up and realized she was crying. The lights in the black goat’s fur twinkled like stars.

She sensed the herd had gathered around her. She reached her arms out around the nearest neck and nodded.