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Moo!

“What?!” I screamed at her. “Take a hike. What do you want?”

“You said something about spilt milk a second ago,” said a voice from somewhere beyond the cow. “Ginger’s just letting you know she didn’t leak one drop. She’s going for the record, you know.”

“Moo!” Ginger said as a way of punctuation, and then slid away to reveal a woman on a three-legged stool. “You were talking in your sleep,” the woman said, “and mentioned spilt milk. That kind of talk will get you stampeded around here, buster.”

“I had a bad dream,” I said, putting it mildly. “Let me guess. Milkmaid?”

The woman smiled. She had a sweet smile with a nice set of dimples. “Yep. And there are seven more just like me. My name’s Butter, by the way.”

“Butter? Butter Milkmaid?” I asked. “Does that mean you’re sour already?”

“I still get my churn on, little buster, don’t you worry about me one little bit,” Butter said. The dimples were still there. Butter was a round mound of a real girl, all hills and curves, with hair as yellow as, well, butter, and eyes like the Fountain of Youth.

My whole body felt heavy. I tried to lift my head and look around, but I could have just as easily picked up a mountain. I couldn’t see the other maids a-milking, just cows. Cows were everywhere, but it was quiet and peaceful. It was a nice change. “How come no one in here seems to want to kill me?” I asked.

Butter’s dimples disappeared. “I hate to break it to you, pard,” Butter said. “But you are indeedy going to get yourself kilt. They’re just keeping you here while they can plan something extra mean.”

“You want to fill me in?” I asked. “The last thing I remember was the Nine Ladies Dancing.”

Butter picked up her stool and moved it closer, but before she sat down, she swept her foot across the floor in a graceful kind of way.

Whoosh-whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh. “Look familiar, baby?” she asked with a sad smile.

I certainly didn’t need any more trouble than I already had, but I would hate to have been hanging since the time Butter had been at a dancing weight. She was in no danger of getting stalked by Ahab, but no one was going to mistake her for a sapling either. I decided to play dumb. “What gives?”

“That toe dancing in the next room,” Butter said with a jerk of her head, “is how we hypnotize ya.”

“We?” I asked. Butter didn’t take offense.

“They,” she said with a lonely smile. “I used to be one of them until I got too old and fat.”

“You look swell to me, Butter,” I said, lying in a nice kind of way. “If I didn’t have a girl back home, I’d say it a lot sweeter than that, but you know how it goes.”

“Don’t I ever,” she said. “Potter uses the Nine Ladies Dancing’s charms to put a spell on folks, when he doesn’t feel like having them beat by the drummers or the pipers. But when the girls get the least little bit long in the tooth for toe dancing and whatnot, she’s made a milkmaid without so much as a how do you do.”

I took a look around the room again. The other seven milkmaids were watching Butter and me. There were only seven there and Butter made eight. “Maybe I’m still soft in the head from the spell,” I said, “but, after all these years, wouldn’t there be more milkmaids than you eight?”

Butter’s eyes went sad and she shook her head. “No honey, there’s always eight and only eight.”

“Then what happens to a milkmaid once a dancing lady moves in?”

“It’s a daggum shame what happens, sugar, and that’s the truth,” Butter said. “We get turned into milk cows.”

Moo!

Butter gave the cow beside her a kind pet on the top of its head. “It’s OK, sweetie,” she said to the beast. “You’re still a beautiful girl, yes you are. As pretty as pie.” Butter turned to me. “This is Ginger. Isn’t she one of the most beautiful girls you’ve ever seen?”

“I believe she is,” I said, knowing what was good for me.

Moo!

“Ginger says ‘thank you.’ See, that no-account Potter, in addition to running everything in this sorry town, has cornered the black market on white milk,” Butter said. “Seems you