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That night they ate turnip soup and went to bed with their stomachs grumbling, happy as could be.
The goose became Asgard’s beloved pet. It slept in the barn, followed Asgard to school every morning, and sat honking on the schoolhouse roof all day while she was inside. She let everyone know the goose was her best friend and that no one was allowed to shoot it or make it into soup, and they let it be. Asgard made up fantastic stories about adventures she had with her goose, like the time she rode Goose to the moon so they could see what moon-cheese tasted like, and she regaled her parents with these tales at dinnertime. That’s why they weren’t terribly surprised when Asgard woke them up one morning in a state of excitement and announced that Goose had turned into a young man.
“Go back to sleep,” Edvard said, yawning. “Even the rooster isn’t awake yet!”
“I’m serious!” Asgard cried. “Come and see for yourself!” And she tugged her tired father out of bed by his arm.
Edvard nearly fainted when he got inside barn. There, standing in a nest of straw, was his long-lost son. Ollie was grown now, six feet tall with strong features and a stubbled chin. He wore a burlap sack around his waist that he’d found on the floor of the barn.
“See, I wasn’t lying!” Asgard said, and she ran to Ollie and hugged him hard. “What are you doing, silly Goose?”
Ollie broke into a big smile. “Hello, Father,” he said. “Did you miss me?”
“Very much,” said Edvard. His heart hurt so much that he began to cry, and he went to his son and hugged him. “I hope you can forgive me,” he whispered.
“I did years ago,” Ollie replied. “It just took some time to find my way back.”
“Father?” said Asgard. “What’s happening?”
Edvard let Ollie go, wiped his tears, and turned to his daughter. “This is your older brother,” he said. “The one I told you about.”
“Who turned into a bug?” she said, eyes growing wide. “And ran away?”
“The same,” Ollie said, and put out his hand for Asgard to shake. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Ollie.”
“No,” she said, “you’re Goose!” And she ignored Ollie’s extended hand and hugged him again. “How’d you become a goose, anyway?”
Ollie hugged his sister back. “It’s rather a long story,” he said.
“Good!” said Asgard. “I love stories.”
“He’ll tell us over breakfast,” said Edvard. “Won’t you, son?”
Ollie grinned. “I’d love to.”
Edvard took him by one hand and Asgard by the other, and they led him into the house. After Edvard’s wife had recovered from the shock, they sat together and ate a breakfast of turnips on toast while Ollie told them all about his years as a goose. From that day forward he was a member of the family. Edvard loved his son unconditionally, and never again did Ollie lose his human form. And they lived happily ever after.
The Boy Who Could Hold Back the Sea
There was once a peculiar young man named Fergus who could harness the power of the currents and tides. This was in Ireland during its terrible famine. He might have used his talent to catch fish to eat, but he lived in a landlocked place far from the sea, and his power was of no use in rivers or lakes. He might have set off for the coast—he’d been there once as a young boy; that’s how he knew what he could do—but his mother was too weak to travel, and Fergus couldn’t leave her alone; he was all the family she had left. Fergus gave her every bit of food he could scrounge while he survived on sawdust and boiled shoe leather. But it was sickness that finally got her, not hunger, and in the end there was nothing to be done.
As she lay dying, his mother made him promise to leave for the coast as soon as she was in the ground. “With your talent, you’ll be the best fisherman who ever lived, and you’ll never have to go hungry again. But never tell anyone what you can do, son, or people will make your life hell.” He promised he would do as she said, and the next day she died. Fergus buried her in the churchyard, threw his few possessions into a sack, and began his long walk to the sea. He walked for six days with one shoe and no food. He was starving, and all the people in the towns he passed along the way were starving, too. Some towns had been abandoned altogether, the farmers gone to seek better fortunes and fuller stomachs in America.
Finally, he reached the seaside, and a little town called Skelligeen where none of the houses looked empty and none of the people looked hungry. This he took as a sign that he’d come to the right place: if the people of Skelligeen were still around and well-fed, the fishing must be very good. Which was a lucky thing, because he didn’t think he could go much longer without eating. He asked a man where he might find a fishing pole or a net, but the man told him he wouldn’t find any such thing in Skelligeen. “We don’t fish here,” the man said. He seemed oddly proud of it, as if being a fisherman were something shameful.
“If you don’t fish,” Fergus said, “then how do you live?” Fergus hadn’t noticed any signs of industry in his ramble around the town: no pens of livestock, no crops other than the same rotting potatoes he saw everywhere in Ireland.
“Our business is salvage,” the man replied, and did not elaborate.
Fergus asked the man if he had anything to eat. “I’ll work for it,” he offered.
“What work could you possibly do?” the man said, looking the boy up and down. “I could use someone who can lift heavy boxes, but you’re scrawny as a bird. I’ll bet you don’t weigh seventy pounds!”
“I may not be able to lift heavy boxes, but I can do something no one else can.”
“And what’s that?” said the man.
Fergus was about to tell him when he remembered the promise he’d made to his mother, and he muttered something vague and scurried away.
He decided to make a fishing line from the lace of his shoe and try to catch something. He stopped a plump-looking lady and asked her where he might find a good fishing spot.
“You needn’t bother,” the lady said. “All you’ll catch from shore are poisonous puffer fish.”
Fergus tried anyway, using a bit of stale bread for bait. He fished all day, but caught nothing—no
t even a poisonous puffer fish. Desperate, his stomach in terrible pain, he asked a man walking along the beach if someone might have a boat he could borrow.
“Then I could go a bit farther out to sea,” said Fergus, “where perhaps the fish are more plentiful.”
“You’ll never make it,” the man said. “The current will dash you to bits on the rocks!”
“Not me,” Fergus said.
The man looked at him skeptically, about to turn his back. Fergus really didn’t want to break his promise, but it was beginning to look like he’d starve to death unless he told someone about his talent. So he said, “I can control the current.”
“Ha!” the man replied. “I’ve heard some whoppers in my time, but that tops them all.”
“If I can prove it, will you give me something to eat?”
“Sure,” the man said, amused. “I’ll throw you a banquet!”
So the man and Fergus went down to the shoreline, where the tide was going out for the day. Fergus huffed and grunted and gritted his teeth, and with a great deal of effort he was able to bring the tide back in, the water rising from their ankles up to their knees in just a few minutes. The man was astounded, and very excited by what he’d seen. He brought Fergus back to his house and threw him a lavish banquet, just as he’d promised. He invited all his neighbors, and while Fergus stuffed himself, his host told the townspeople how Fergus had brought in the tide.
They were very excited. Strangely excited. Almost too excited.
They began to crowd around him.
“Show us your tide-pulling trick!” a woman shouted at him.
“The boy needs his strength,” the host said. “Let him eat first!”
When Fergus couldn’t force himself to take another bite, he looked up from his plate and around the room. Stacked in every corner were crates and boxes, each filled to the top with different things: bottles of wine in one box, dried spices in another, rolls of fabric in another. To one side of Fergus’s chair was a crate spilling over with dozens and dozens of hammers.
