A few days passed after the cryptic encounter in the market, and the House of the Hearth had mostly returned to its standard flavor of lunacy—talking soup, musical stairs, and a dramatic goose romance subplot that had somehow evolved into political intrigue.
Mother Goose had almost forgotten about the shapeshifting riddle-spewing visitor from earlier, choosing instead to convince herself it was just the result of stress and aggressively sentient cabbage.
Almost.
Until it happened again.
It was a quiet evening. For once.
She and Father Hearth were sitting on a hill overlooking the firefly-speckled garden behind the house. A teapot gently steamed between them, and the stars were just beginning to blink open in the sky. The children were, miraculously, asleep (or locked in the attic with a board game that couldn't be trusted).
Then came a voice.
"Did you miss me?"
They both turned.
Standing there—again—was the shifting figure, currently in the form of a spry middle-aged man with silver hair and a cloak that seemed stitched from the night sky itself. He held a teacup already full. No one had offered him one.
Mother Goose stared.
Father Hearth said nothing.
The man grinned. "No riddles this time. Promise."
Goose narrowed her eyes. "Why no riddles? Did you run out of metaphors about candles and backwards rivers?"
"Pfft. No. I just got bored. You should've seen your face last time. Priceless."
"You were messing with us?" she squawked.
"Absolutely."
She turned to Father Hearth. "Can I throw him into the pond?"
"No," said Father Hearth, sipping his tea. "It wouldn't work."
The figure laughed, plopped himself cross-legged on the grass, and leaned back like he owned the stars.
"Look, you two are always so serious. Even when everything is on fire—especially when everything is on fire. Thought I'd have a little fun."
"Fun?" Mother Goose huffed. "You made me think the world was ending! Again!"
He shrugged. "It might be. Eventually. Who can say?"
"You can."
"...Yes, but that's no fun."
She looked to Father Hearth again. "Why do we know him?"
Father Hearth finally said, with the weight of a man who has been patient for centuries, "He's the one who wrote the book."
Mother Goose blinked. "Which book?"
He stared at her. "The book."
Her eyes widened. "You mean—?!"
The man waved them off. "Oh, please. 'Wrote' is such a rigid word. I scribbled, I edited, I may have handed the quill to a raccoon halfway through. But yes. I'm that guy."
Mother Goose stared in stunned silence.
The man—the Storyteller, as he had once been called—smirked.
"I've been around longer than most myths. I watched the first child of chaos blink into being and scolded them for getting cosmic ink on the carpet. Sometimes I like to check in on the worlds I half-remembered. Yours is one of my favorites."
"Why us?" she finally asked, voice quieter now.
"Because you're interesting," he said simply. "You make chaos look like family. You make tragedy gentle. And every time I come here, someone's yelling at a goose."
Gunther honked somewhere in the distance, as if summoned.
The Storyteller rose, brushed himself off, and offered a parting smile.
"I'll stop by again. Try not to blow up the pantry next time."
He vanished before they could argue.
Mother Goose sat back with a long, deep sigh. "I liked it better when he was incomprehensible."
Father Hearth poured her another cup of tea.
"He still is."
Would you like to follow the Storyteller next, or stay with the Hearth and explore more chaos as the children of chaos begin to gather?