The slat cracks. Not all the way. Enough. The goat wrenches free, ripping a chunk of wood loose. Now there's a hole in the side of the cart. One of the hens immediately tries to escape through it.
Melori shoves the hen back. It pecks her hand. She shoves it back again. "Kestria, can you hold this board up while I—"
Kestria is on the ground. Not sitting. Lying. On her back. Hands over her face.
Melori doesn't turn. "Really helpful. Very glad you came."
The hen makes another break for it. I catch her—one hand, no hesitation, scoop her right out of the air mid-flap and put her back in the cage.
Melori stares at me.
At my hand. Her lips part. Her breath changes—I hear it, I hear everything about her now, when did that start—and her eyes drop to my fingers and I know where her brain goes because mine goes there too. The tree. Her back against bark. My hand—
I put the hen in the cage. Don't look at her.
"That was—nothing."
It wasn't nothing. Kestria is five feet away. If I look at Melori right now my face is going to say things my mouth won't.
"You tied the goats wrong," she announces.
I turn. Slowly.
"What?"
"The lead ropes. You used a fixed knot. If one of them panics and pulls, the rope tightens and doesn't release. You need a quick-release hitch."
"I've been tying knots for thirty years."
"You've been tying wolf knots for thirty years. Goat knots are different."
"There's no such thing as a goat knot."
"There absolutely is. Goats chew. Goats pull. Goats get their heads stuck in things, as we just saw. You need a knot that holds under steady pressure but releases when you yank the tail. Otherwise you're cutting rope every time one of them does something stupid, and they will do something stupid, because they're goats."
Muscle under my eye pulls.
"You're going to teach me to tie knots."
"I'm going to teach you to tie goat knots. Yes."
She steps closer. Her shoulder brushes my arm whenshe reaches for the rope.
Her fingers work the rope. Quick, practiced, sure.
The rope. Watch the rope.
She's explaining tension and release. I'm not hearing the words. Body gone rigid.
The rooster chooses this moment to lunge at the cage bars, beak snapping toward my shoulder. Misses by inches.
"That rooster," I say through my teeth.
"Is perfect and I love him."
"That rooster is going to end up in a pot."
"You wouldn't dare."
