My thought of saving the world coursed through my soul one evening as my father held me to him. If I stood straight and did not shut my eyes, I looked directly at the laces of his shirt. My mother smiled at me with a smile of someone who knows what is ahead and is happy. I had finally reached that brief but golden time when I was the family goosegirl.
The next morning my mother tied bread and cheese in my kerchief. My sister smiled and told me each goose's name and sent me on my way- it was her turn to stay home, for she was old enough to learn to coax milk from the cows and tend the vegetables. My brother waved from where he led an ox in the fields. My father looked up from his work and nodded to me as I passed out through the gate he was fixing. A neighbor laughed at the geese and at me, the new goosegirl, and in the sunshine it was a friendly laugh. I walked with the geese and felt on the verge of something. Would I save the world now?
The world opened up even further past the open fields and dusty road: the world became grassy and flowery, with a stream running though it. I herded the geese into a nice patch of grass near the water. All was in order and I was about to sit down among the flowers when a voice hailed me. It was a girl just past a low grassy crest, a little older than I and likewise with a herd of geese. But whereas I was wearing my most coarse clothes, ready for a day in the fields and among the geese, she wore a delicate white dress that seemed impossible on the earth. She looked as if she might be more at place in the sky, which matched her blue, blue eyes, so different from my very brown, and the tiny blue flowers of the chain that dangled from one hand. Her hair, too, seemed impossible. Mine was brown and straight and barely past my shoulders, tied back to keep it out of my face. Her hair was curly and loose, shining in a red-blonde rippled wave down her back. Her skin was much paler that mine, but she had obviously been out in the sun with her geese many times before. The geese restlessly plucked at her hem and the ends of her hair, but she stood serenely, waving. My geese were already happily grazing, so I left them and trotted over to her, not knowing what to expect.
Smiling at me, she spoke.
"Hi! I am Epiphany. What's your name?"
"I... I'm Zia." I smiled to shove my nervousness away. "It's my first day with the geese!!"
"I thought so. Isn't it nice out here?"
"It's great! This will be fun! I'm glad I'm finally be old enough to be the goosegirl. At home, there wasn't much to do. I had a few chores, and then I could play outside or with my doll, but there wasn't anyone to play with. And nothing exciting ever happened at home."
Epiphany giggled. "Nothing much exciting happens here, either. But it's nice when it's sunny. And there are the geese. And now, we can talk!"
"It probably can't be half as boring as home. I won't let it be!"
"That's good," she said, sitting. I squatted next to her. "Too bad we can't be goosegirls forever. We'll have to go home and work, someday."
I shook my head. "I can't live like that. I need excitement."
"Really?" she asked, almost to herself, as she wove her chain of flowers into a circle. I could almost hear Epiphany wondering, what excitement could I find in this remote and peaceful part of the country? What could I, a girl with a tender of grazing geese... I grew defensive over what everyone always thought and told me. Despite them all, I knew that I would find my excitement.
"I'm going to save the world someday," I told her. It was true, and she had to believe it.
She looked up from her circle of flowers and laughed. I turned away, angry that even this girl who seemed so nice could laugh, as everyone always laughed.
"I am!" I almost shouted. "I will save the world!"
"Will you let me help you?"
I turned back, surprised, and smiled broadly, and she put the wreath of skyflowers on my head. We became best friends.
Summers passed, and Epiphany and I were children together, surrounded by geese, playing and living in a world of sunshine and stories and skyflowers. We would save the world together.