Frustrated by his intransigence on the issue of having children, Anne had divorced Robert with the intention of marrying someone who did want to have children with her. She was yet to find him and remained unmarried and childless. Her divorce from Robert had been amicable and ever since they had parted ways as spouses she had continued to check in with him periodically to make sure he was taking proper care of himself. The amicability of the divorce was mostly due to Robert's desire for it to be so, as Robert couldn't abide anything acrimonious. His sensitivity was something that Anne had always loved and missed and was the main reason why she had thus far failed to remarry. None of the men that she had dated had been as kind and gentle as Robert was and thus weren't marriage material in her eyes. Whenever she checked in on Robert and discovered that he was still single like she was the discovery brought her a certain amount of comfort; it meant that, in the event that she wasn't able to find someone, Robert was out there as a possibility. This time however the visit that she paid to his house was far from comforting. She rang the doorbell and was greeted at the door by a young woman who, from the way she was dressed, was clearly living there.

"Yes," Jessie said to the woman when she opened the door.

"I'm Anne, I'm Robert's ex-wife, I came to see him."

"He never told us he had a wife, anyway he's not here, he had to go to Texas for something."

"When is he coming back?"

"He should be back soon, if you come back this evening he'll definitely be here."

"Oh, okay, I'll just..."

"Quack."

Anne looked past Jessie into the house and saw a goose waddling across the living room. Not knowing what to make of the sight Anne remained silent while she did her best to comprehend why her husband would be keeping a goose as a pet, but just as she was about to speak and ask Jessie why there was a goose in the house a goat emerged from the kitchen and walked across the living room and ascended the stairs to the second storey.

"Why are there farm animals in the house?" Anne asked.

"It's not just farm animals, there's a wolf here too."

"A wolf?"

"Yeah."

Anne decided that she would wait for Robert to return and ask him what was going on rather than ask this girl for the details of this strange living arrangement that Robert had gotten himself into. She returned to her apartment in Manhattan and sat in a chair in her living room staring off into space. Only when she was driving back across the Queensboro bridge did it strike her that it made no sense to have a goose, a goat and a wolf all living together, the wolf should have eaten the other two animals as soon as it saw them. Robert had gotten himself involved in something very strange and because Anne still cared about him she needed to know if in addition to being strange it was also dangerous. When she returned to his house later that evening and saw his long hair and big beard, both untidy, her fears about him being involved in something dangerous decreased and her concerns over the bizarreness of all of this increased.

"Hi Anne," Robert greeted her, perfectly normally, as if nothing was off.

"Robert, you look...different."

"You mean the beard? Yes, I've been so busy lately that I've neglected my personal grooming, but you know what, the look's kind of growing on me, I think I'll keep it."

"You look like a madman, like you want to go and bomb a government building or something."

Robert found Anne's appraisal of his appearance funny and laughed, though he could see that she did have a point and decided that he would keep the beard and the long hair but would neaten up.

"Okay, I'll do something about it; anyway let's talk about you, what are you doing here?"

"I came to find out what the hell is going on here; why do have a goose and a goat and a wolf here in the house with you, and who's the girl that answered the door when I came here earlier?"

"Oh that's Jessie, I met her somewhere and she didn't have anywhere to go so I told her that she can come and stay with me; as for the animals, that information I can't share with you."

"Is that because they're special animals?"

"As a matter of fact yes, these are very special animals."

"Are they special because they've got magical powers?"

Robert thought about this question and about his reason for taking the trip that he'd just gotten back from. The Goose had told Robert that some of the Guardians had the power to adopt different forms which made it plausible, no, likely, that this wasn't actually Anne standing before him but an imposter that had come to ferret out information.

"Why are you asking these questions?"

"What? I'm just trying to understood why you've turned your house into a zoo."

"I haven't seen you in what, over a year? And suddenly you show up when I am in the middle of the most important task that any human has ever been asked to perform? This is more than a little fishy."

"You're standing there looking like the Unabomber with a bunch of animals running around your house and I'm the one who's fishy?!"

"Who are you? You're not really Anne, are you? You're a spy, yes?" Robert asked crazily.

"It's okay Robert, she's not a spy, I would have detected a spy," the Goose stepped in and assured Robert.

"You're certain?"

"Yes, quite certain."

"Who are you talking to?" Anne asked. Robert's behavior was starting to scare her.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"The Goose, he vouches for you, so you don't need to worry about me thinking you're a spy anymore.

"You and that Goose can talk to each other?"

"Yes."

"Is that because of its special powers?"

"What? No, the Goose can talk our language, didn't you hear it just now?"

"All I heard was that thing quacking."

"Oh, I see, the Goose made it possible for me to understand their language so that's why you didn't understand what it just said; go ahead, tell her," he said to the Goose.

"Quack, quack, quack."

"There, you see?"

"That thing did nothing but quack again. Robert, what the hell is going on? What's the deal with these animals?"

"Are you doing this deliberately?" Robert asked the Goose.

"Yes, and it's so much funnier than I thought it would be," the Goose answered.

"Okay," Robert said, turning to Anne, "the Goose is playing a prank, it's making you think it's nothing but an ordinary Goose to make me look crazy, rest assured, I am not."

"If you're not crazy then explain what you're doing with these animals."

"They're not animals."

"They're not?"

"No, these are the Guardians of the earth. The Wolf is the Guardian of earth and death and the goat is the Guardian of the green, it's responsible for the giant forest that's consumed the mid-west. The Goose watches over the Guardians, it came to me after I'd been shitting golden eggs for months and told me that I am the Waker who must travel the world and awaken the Guardians from their slumber to prevent catastrophe from befalling the earth; so you see, there's nothing strange going on here at all!"

Anne didn't know what her reaction was supposed to be to what Robert had just told her. He had suffered some kind of mental break and gone insane, that much was obvious, what was less clear to her was how she proceeded from here. The main thing that she needed to know was whether he was a danger to himself and/or others, especially the young woman that was living with him.

"Where's the girl that answered the door when I was here earlier?"

"Jessie? She must be upstairs in her room; JESSIE!" Robert called for her.

Jessie came down the stairs and joined them in the living room.

"Jessie, this is my ex-wife Anne."

"I know, we met earlier."

"Jessie, can you tell me exactly how you came to be living with Robert?" Anne asked.

"I met Robert in the forest when he awakened the goat, I didn't want to be separated from the goat so when Robert told me that I could come and live with him to be close to the goat I did."

"What do you mean when you say awakened?"

"The goat didn't use to look like this, it used to have six tails, golden horns and blue eyes, it started looking like a normal goat after Robert awakened it with the egg, that's also when it started talking."

"The goat can also talk?"

"Yeah, the wolf too."

Talking with Jessie had done nothing to assuage Anne's concerns about a potentially dangerous situation brewing in Robert's house. This girl Jessie was obviously suffering from some kind of mental illness as well for her to allow herself to be sucked into this lunacy of Robert's. The situation here was more dangerous than Anne had initially feared, because while Robert may not have been a threat to Jessie, the two of them living together and reinforcing and elevating each other's insanity increased the possibility of the two of them doing something destructive or self-destructive. Anne was concerned enough to feel that she had to do something to put an end to all of this craziness.

"Robert, I don't want you to get mad, but I am going to call a doctor, I am going to call a doctor and ask them to come here and assess the situation and we'll take their assessment and go from there, okay?"

"Call a doctor? What for? I already told you that I'm not crazy, that the Goose is playing a prank on us, and Jessie has told you that everything that I'm saying is the truth, so what do you want to call a doctor for?"

"I'm not saying that you're crazy, I'm just saying that this is all very strange and I would personally feel a lot better if a doctor came here and confirmed that there is nothing here for me to be concerned about."

"There is nothing for you to be concerned about, I've told you and Jessie's told you, so why are you still talking about calling a doctor?"

"Because this is nuts! You think that you can talk to animals! You think that you're on some holy quest! And you invited a girl to live with you right after you met her! What the hell am I supposed to think?!"

"Can you just trust me? Can you just trust that I'm telling you the truth, that no matter how crazy I could possibly be it wouldn't be enough to make this all up? Can you just do that?"

"No, I can't, because only a crazy person would believe what you're telling me and only a crazy person would expect others to believe them when they say they're not crazy."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to leave here and call a psychiatric hospital and ask them to come here and lock you up if need be!" She said, making for the door.

"I can't let you do that," Robert said, getting between her and the door.

"Robert, please, you are scaring me, step aside so that I can leave."

"Anne, what I am doing with the Goose is of far too much importance for me to let you be a hindrance to it in any way, so I'm afraid that if what you want to do is have me locked up then I can't allow you to leave."

"I'll scream!"

"Anne, please don't, there's no need for this."

"Robert, move aside and let me go or I am going to scream."

"Anne don't..."

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH..." Anne screamed at the top of her lungs.

Robert quickly put his hand over her mouth and muffled her screaming, which made Anne all the more afraid, and it was at this point that the Goose decided the joke had gone on long enough. The Goose laughed in its human voice and once it did the tension in the room dissipated, with Anne's tension being replaced by shock and mystification.

"I'm sorry to have done that to you Anne, you seem like a perfectly nice woman, it's just that I can't help myself when there's an opportunity for me to have some fun with Robert."

Hearing human words coming out of the Goose's mouth after hearing it laughing proved too much for Anne. She promptly lost consciousness and needed Robert to catch her so she didn't hit the floor.

"We may have gone a bit too far there," the Goose said.

"You think?" Replied Robert.

Robert lifted Anne up into his arms and carried her upstairs to his bedroom. He put her down on his bed to rest and closed the door behind him on his way out so she wouldn't be disturbed by the goings on in the house. The Goose observed the tenderness with which Robert treated Anne and found his care for her beautiful, which increased its curiosity about why the two of them ever separated.

"What happened with the two of you?" The Goose asked Robert when they were back downstairs in the kitchen. Robert had made himself a cup of coffee and was sitting with it in front of him on the kitchen table.

"She wanted children, I didn't," Robert answered, sipping the coffee.

"Why not?"

"I'm too afraid, the thought of fucking everything up as a father terrifies me."

"I can understand that; what still perplexes me is why, if you care about her so much, didn't you relent and agree to have a child with her to keep your relationship intact?"

"Unfortunately my desire to remain with her was outweighed by my fear of the awesome responsibility of parenthood."

"The two of you are still close though."

"She checks in on me from time to time, I'm not sure I'd call that close."

"Is she still single?"

"Yes, she is."

"And so are you."

"I know where you're going with this, but she's not there yet."

"Have you been waiting for her? All these years, have you been waiting for her to come back to you?"

Robert didn't answer this question but his silence told the Goose everything it needed to know about his feelings for Anne. Anne's visit was an important development in the Goose's relationship with Robert. Seeing this side of Robert close up further validated the Goose's decision to make Robert the Waker and revealed an opportunity for the Goose to do something for Robert who was doing so much for it. Robert seemed content in his solitude but the Goose had spent enough time observing people to know that Robert wasn't entirely content, he was also lonely, and with Anne being there it was the perfect opportunity for the Goose to do something about that.