Page 50 of A Dead End Wedding

We all pulled out our travel-sized, insulated water bottles, took a drink, and thought about it. Then, I handed out cookies, so we munched on those and thought some more.

When we finished, we still didn’t have any actual ideas, but we felt better about it.

“I’m with Tess,” Aunt Ruby said. “Let’s follow the ridiculous ape carrying the goat. They’d never believe we’d be foolish enough to do that.”

“They underestimate our capacity for foolishness, then,” Lorraine said glumly, but she nodded.

Eleanor agreed, so we headed down the narrow path after the orangutan. As we traveled, the hedge encroached more and more on the path, until we had to turn sideways to fit.

“My claustrophobia does not like this,” I muttered, but I was in the lead this time, after some redistribution of the emergency bungee cord, so I was first to feel the cool breeze on my face.

“Hey, we’re almost out,” I called back, and then I stepped out of the path and almost fell into a chasm.

Lorraine, directly behind me, yanked on the bungee cord and pulled me back just in time, and then we stood there breathing hard and staring down into the enormous dark, deep hole in the ground.

“Just to be clear,” I said slowly. “There was no canyon in town square before tonight, correct?”

“Correct,” they all said.

“So, is it an actual hole, or is it possible that it’s a glamour?”

“I’m not trying it,” Eleanor said quickly. “I’m a newlywed!”

“Tess is getting married Saturday,” Aunt Ruby protested.

“I’ll do it,” Lorraine said. “Tess is the strongest of us, anyway. I’d rather have her holding the rope.”

We restructured again, and Lorraine tentatively took a step out over the darkness of the chasm.

And plummeted over the edge.

We all pulled hard, and yanked her back up with us, but it was scary, I have to confess.

“So much for that,” Lorraine said, trying to sound calm, but I could almost hear her heartbeat racing. “Back?”

“Back,” we all agreed.

This time, when we turned around, we saw the baby goat sitting in the middle of the path and staring at us. It jumped up and raced past us.

“No, little baby!” I lunged at it to save it from the fall, but the little goat trotted blithely across a stone path that now led across the dark nothingness of the chasm below it.

“Okay, that’s just ridiculous,” I shouted, and my voice echoed back at me. “Diculous, diculous, lous, lous, lous.”

“What now?”

“I have an alliance kind of idea,” I said slowly, digging into my pack. “Hey, little goat! Want a cookie?”

I pulled out a peanut butter cookie and waved it around, hoping the scent wafted across to the goat. In seconds, the little creature stopped walking and whipped its head around to stare at us.

“Come on, sweetie,” I coaxed. “Yum, yum.”

The goat slowly trotted toward us, getting closer and closer, until he was close enough to stretch out his neck and delicately take the cookie out of my hand.

From behind us, we heard someone clear his throat.

“Did you mention cookies?”

We whirled around to see an ancient Fae man. At least, I thought he was Fae. His ears had the delicate points, but I’d never seen a Fae so old.

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