Cal’s the calm twin. Always had been. So when he whispered “Oh SHIT”, I looked up. Despite struggling with an angry goat and balancing on a bucking raft which had felt plenty big enough when we planned this stunt.

I couldn’t see much in the pale morning light. Dawn wasn’t for an hour yet. So I turned my attention back to our unwilling passenger and whispered “What?”

“The hag.”

“No!” My head jerked up again, gazing raking the rivershore, and now I saw her.

Standing right in the open, on the spot we were headed for, making me wonder how I missed her the first time. Tall and skinny and *waiting*. Her bearing was like a soldier, back flagpole-straight and shoulders squared. Hands clasped on top of the knobbly walking stick she always carried. With the light coming from behind her I couldn’t see her face. Small mercies.

“Shitshitshit. What do we do?”

“Mm.” Cal kept rowing, his head ducked. He murmured “Nowhere else to land this side for miles. Don’t reckon Phil’s gonna put up with this that long.”

“Yeah, nah.”

Phil seemed to have decided that the best way to escape was kicking the raft apart, which he was admirably determined about. But given our best attempts to tie him up hadn’t been enough there was no way we were keeping this goat captive much longer. Besides, we needed him on the Baron’s lawn before work started. The fingers of light crawling up the sky marked our time limit.

“So, we give up and turn back, or we face the hag.”

I bit my lip, which was already bleeding from an unlucky argument with Phil’s horns. Turn back and we were good as caught. Keep going and we were caught by the hag. “*Can* we turn back?”

“Ah… reckon so? It wouldn’t be easy, but…”

Peering back and forward, I weighed up the distances. We were most of the way across. “I think if we try and turn back we’ll end up swimming, and I don’t like our odds there.”

Just the spray from the river had me shivering. Steam was bursting from Phil’s nostrils with each furious snorting breath, making him look exactly like the demon we wanted him to play.

“Then here goes nothing.” Cal muttered, and pitched his voice to our ghastly welcomer, managing to sound almost normal and casual. Far better than I would’ve done, at least. “A good morning, Mrs Moore.”

“A good morning it must be, indeed.” The hag’s voice was vacant. A distant, dismissive kind of chill which matched the air around her. “For early rising is known to be a sign of virtue. And such scoundrels being filled with virtue would make a miraculous morning.”

“Oh shit we’re dead.” I muttered to Phil, who shook his head and snorted goat boogers on my sleeve as if to declare this was all MY fault.

“Ahh I can explain?” Cal offered meekly.

“Do. I wait with bated breath.” The hag tapped her stick on the shore - and suddenly our raft was floating smooth and steady, ignoring both the river’s waves and Cal’s oar.

I once again contemplated swimming. Sure, freezing into cramps and then drowning sounded horrible, BUT it would mean not having to face the wrath of the hag, and then possibly the Baron, and certainly (if we were still alive) our parents.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, we were pulled in like helpless fish to a rod before my panic moved from flailing to action.

Phil, who hadn’t once shown signs of getting tired or running out of ire, was now huddled motionless against me. People who say goats don’t have sense just haven’t realised that goats know better than to take *them* seriously.

I awkwardly patted his neck in an attempt to comfort both of us. And perhaps to mollify the hag, whose unseen gaze burned my chilled skin.

“Well?” The word cut the silence like a whip-crack.

“Uh…” Cal took a deep breath and clearly decided that honesty was the only option. “We were pissed about the Baron cancelling the harvest play, so… we wanted to try and scare him. H-harmless, like!”

“Do you think Widow Greene would consider it harmless, when she saw her poor goat?”

“Um.” Cal looked at Phil, then down at his lap. “Probably not. We didn’t think that he’d be so… Wasn’t expecting…”

“Naturally.”

This word was a dagger in the ribs. While someone being disappointed in you hurt, nothing cut like knowing someone had no expectations of you to disappoint.

“Release the goat, Vincent.”

I fumbled with the sodden knots, then gave up and used my belt-knife to saw the ropes. Phil showed no sign of moving until the hag crooked a wizened finger, at which point he hauled himself up and shuffled to her side like a whipped dog.

“Now. I am going to return Widow Greene’s mysteriously lost pet. And you boys are going to hurry home and help your parents prepare for the play. They will have much work to do, to get ready in time.”

“Eh?” We stared blankly at her. “But, but the Baron…”

“The Baron has seen the error of his ways.” The hag’s lips twisted into a sharp smile, filled with grim joy I hope I never understand. “Do give my regards to your mother. I hope she will see fit to include the full revellers dance this year.”

“Oh, she will.” Cal promised. The quiver in his voice could have been down to the morning chill.

“Excellent. A *fine* morrow to you both.” The hag swooped away, Phil trailing behind.

Now I could see the distant manor behind where she’d stood, the sky around it painted in eerie crimson fingers. I hoped, for the Baron’s sake, that acrid stench wafting on the breeze was merely smoke.

Cal grabbed my hand and hauled me upright and rushed us home while I drifted in a confused daze. He’s always been the calm twin.