As the Goose Flies
Copyright© 2025 by Katharine Pyle
Chapter 10: In the House of the Queerbodies
Ellen and her companions were standing in a circular golden hall. All around the hall were arched doorways, and overhead, supported by golden pillars, was a blue dome studded with jewels that shone like stars. There were no windows to be seen, but all the hall was filled with a clear and pleasant light that seemed to come from the dome.
As Ellen looked wonderingly about, she heard a tapping sound behind her, and turning saw a tall man oddly dressed in green and yellow, and holding in his hand an ivory rod tipped with gold. It was this rod that she had heard as it tapped on the floor.
The man stood looking at her and her friends in silence for a few moments.
Then he said, “Now how did you all get in here I should like to know; I have not opened the door to any one this morning.”
“I had a key,” answered Ellen, “and it fitted the door, so this lad unlocked it. We didn’t know there was any one here to open it for us.”
“Yes, I am the keeper of the gate, but I don’t open for every one that knocks. But how did you find your way to the door, in the first place?”
“I came on this gander; it’s Mother Goose’s gander, you know.”
“Oh, then, that is all right. But how about this lad? Did he come on the gander too?”
“No, I came on the pig,” answered the boy, speaking for himself.
“I don’t know that pig. Where did you get it?”
The lad told him. The gate-keeper shook his head. “It isn’t really your pig, you know. You ought to have made it out of nothing. But did you come across the desert?”
“Yes.”
“And you passed the dragon?”
“Yes.”
“And unlocked the door! Well, I suppose it’s all right. And what do you want to set about, now that you are here?”
“I should like to try my hand at fitting a puzzle together,” answered the lad boldly.
Ellen stared. She had never heard anything so curious; for the lad to have come all that way and through all those dangers, and then want to play with a puzzle the first thing.
The gate-keeper, however, did not seem at all surprised. He walked over to one of the golden pillars and took a key from the bunch at his side. And now Ellen noticed that in each of the pillars was a narrow door. The gate-keeper unlocked the one in front of which he stood, and when he opened it the little girl could see that the pillar was hollow and fitted with shelves just like a closet. From a shelf the man took a box of puzzle blocks and put it in the lad’s hand.
“That’s your room in there,” he said, pointing to one of the arched doorways.
The lad took the puzzle, and hastened away with such eager joy that he seemed to have quite forgotten Ellen and everything, even the magic pig that followed close at his heels.
The little girl looked after him. “I should think if he just wanted a puzzle he could have gotten one at home,” she said.
“Not such puzzles as these,” answered the man. “Did you ever see a Queerbodies’ puzzle when it was finished?”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Then come here, and I’ll show you some.”
The man led Ellen over to a large case and opening the lid he bade her look in. There, all placed in rows, were countless boxes of puzzles, —puzzles that were finished. As Ellen looked she gave a little cry of astonishment and delight. The pictures she saw were just such as one might see upon any puzzle blocks, —pictures of children swinging in a garden, of a farm-yard scene, or a child’s birthday party. The difference was that all of these were alive. The swing really swung up and down; the trees and flowers stirred their leaves; the tiny cows switched their tails to scare away flies too small for Ellen to see, and a cock upon the fence swelled his neck and crowed. The children at the party looked at the gifts and then began to play. Ellen even fancied that she could hear their voices very tiny and clear as they laughed and talked together.
“Do you have puzzles like that at home?” asked the keeper of the gate.
“Oh no,” cried Ellen. She drew a long breath as the man closed the case. “Can everybody that comes here make puzzles like those?”
“No, indeed. Sometimes even when they get the puzzles finished they don’t come alive, and then they’re good for nothing but to be thrown away. Do you see all these doorways?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there are people in all those rooms, and in every room they’re doing something different.”
“What are some of the things they do?”
“Over there,” and the man pointed to one of the doorways, “they’re making garments out of thin air; in the room next to that they’re stringing stars.”
“Stringing stars?”
“Yes. They fish for them with nets from the windows and then string them for crowns and necklaces. It’s very pretty to see. Then there’s a whole room where they do nothing but make forgotten stories over into new ones.”
“Oh! Oh!” cried Ellen, clasping her hands. “That’s what I came for. I came to look for a forgotten story. Do you suppose it’s there?”
“Why, I don’t know. I shouldn’t wonder. But do you want to make it over?”
“No, I want to find it the way it is. My grandmamma used to know it, but she’s forgotten it now, so I want to find it, so as to tell her about it.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the man doubtfully. “We might go and ask about it. I don’t know very much about the different rooms myself, but come and we’ll see.”
The room of the forgotten stories, to which the gate-keeper now led Ellen was very large. So large that when the little girl stood in the doorway and looked about her she could hardly see where it ended. Upon the floor in rows stood countless golden jars. Among these rows figures were moving about or pausing at different jars to take something from them. They all seemed very busy, though Ellen could not make out what they were doing at first.
Quite near the door a girl or a woman was standing; Ellen could not tell which she was. She looked like a woman, but her hair hung down her back in a heavy plait. She wore some sort of loose brown garments. Her hands were clasped before her and she seemed to be thinking deeply; so deeply that she did not notice the gate-keeper nor Ellen nor the gander as they stood looking at her.
Suddenly she began to smile to herself, and, bending over one of the jars, she thrust her hand into it and brought it forth filled with some substance like wet clay, only much more beautiful than clay, for it glistened and shone between her fingers with all the colors of the rainbow. This she began to pat and mould into shape as she held it, humming softly to herself meanwhile as if from sheer happiness.
The gate-keeper waited a few minutes to see whether she would notice him, and then he tapped upon the floor with his ivory staff. The Queerbody looked around at the sound.
“Excuse me,” said the man, “but here’s a little girl who has just come, and she says she’s come to look for a forgotten story; can you tell her anything about it?”
The Queerbody gazed earnestly at Ellen. “A forgotten story!” she repeated slowly. “This is the place to come for forgotten stories, but it may be that it has been made into something else. How long is it since it was forgotten, —this story that you want?”
Ellen told her a long time; ever since her grandmother was a little girl.
The Queerbody shook her head. “I’m afraid it may have been made over,” she said; “but there’s no telling. There are some stories that have been here for many, many years; this one I was just beginning to use, for instance,” and she held out her hands full of the shimmering stuff for Ellen to see.
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