Westley: «Give us the gate key.»
Yellin: «I have no gate key.»
Inigo Montoya: «Fezzik, tear his arms off.»
Yellin: «Oh, you mean this gate key.»
«The Princess Bride»
I was exploring a story idea with ChatGPT, when one of the characters developed a talent for writing fairy tales. As she killed a goat in her first story — which her children did not like — it became an expression in that household («You killed the goat!»). The general idea was interesting, so I used ChatGPT’s draft for the story for a fairy tale. Did a few improvements, but the resulting story could work.
Considering the story discussion was about something completely different, not the worst development.
The Girl Who Opened the Gate
At the edge of a village, where the road came down out of the dark forest, there stood an old wooden gate. It was made of oak, blackened by rain and silvered by winter. Its hinges were as thick as a man’s wrist, and its iron bolt was so heavy that small children needed both hands to move it.
On either side of the gate ran a high wall of stout timber. The wall surrounded the village, its gardens, its orchards, and the little meadow where the villagers kept their animals. Beyond it lay the forest, which was beautiful in daylight and full of things that moved quietly after sunset.
Sometimes deer came down to drink at the stream. Sometimes foxes hunted mice in the grass. And sometimes, especially in winter, wolves came out of the trees. The villagers knew that wolves needed to eat, just as foxes and owls and people did. But they did not invite wolves into their village, where they might kill an animal or, worse, a child. That was why they had built the wall and why they shut the gate every evening.
Beside the gate hung a bronze bell. Anyone who arrived after the gate was shut could ring it. Someone from the village would come, look through the small hatch to see who needed help, and fetch other adults if necessary. No one was supposed to open the gate alone after sunset. The gate had stood for more than a hundred years, and a wolf had never opened it.
Not once.
The village carpenter had charge of keeping the gate in repair. He knew its hinges and bolts better than anyone else. He also had a daughter named Elin, who was ten years old. They lived in a little house not far from the gate. His workshop stood farther off.
Elin was a clever girl with quick hands, untidy hair, and an unfortunate habit of deciding that she understood things before other people had finished explaining them. But if somebody dropped a basket in the market, she would help collect the spilled vegetables. If a younger child fell and scraped a knee, she would fetch water and a clean cloth. Once, when she found a fledgling bird beneath a tree, she persuaded her father to help her return it to a safe branch where its parents could find it.
Sometimes she helped her father close the gate. First they looked along the road to make sure no one was approaching. Then they brought the heavy oak doors together. Finally, they pushed the bolt into place.
Elin’s best friend was a boy named Jori. Jori was eight years old and owned a she-goat named Pipkin. Pipkin was white except for one brown ear and a dark spot on her nose. She had yellow eyes and a brass bell around her neck. She was the greediest goat in the village. She ate grass, clover, cabbage leaves, and the flowers from Jori’s grandmother’s garden. She once ate half a letter before anyone could stop her. On another occasion, she chewed the ribbon from Elin’s hair. Elin had been furious. Jori had laughed so hard that he fell over. Pipkin had looked pleased with herself.
Every morning, Jori milked Pipkin before breakfast. He carried some of the milk to his grandmother, who made cheese, and some to the baker, who gave Jori a little loaf in exchange. That made Pipkin very useful, but Jori loved her for reasons that had nothing to do with milk or cheese.
He loved the way she ran to meet him, the way she leaned against his legs when he scratched her neck, and the ridiculous little jump she made when she thought someone had brought her a treat. If Jori called her name, she came.
Usually.
Unless she was eating something particularly interesting.
One autumn evening, Elin went to the orchard by the gate to collect the last of the fallen apples. The sun had already slipped behind the forest. The sky was pale, and a cold wind moved through the branches. Pipkin was grazing nearby, tied to a long rope beneath an apple tree within sight of the gate. Jori had gone home to empty his bucket of apples, and Elin had promised to keep an eye on the goat until he returned. This was not a difficult task. Pipkin was busy trying to eat an apple that was much too large for her mouth.
Then she heard the bell ringing rather impatiently and someone calling.
«Hello? Is anybody there?»
Elin hurried toward the gate and looked through the hatch. On the other side stood Mr. Walters. Elin knew him well. He often tended his fields outside the village. That morning he had left the village with his cart. Now he was back without it and wet to the bone.
«Elin! Thank goodness. Open that blasted gate, would you?»
«Good evening, Mr. Walters.»
«There is nothing good about it. The path by the river gave way. I lost my cart when I fell into the river. I am soaked through, and I am freezing.»
«I am supposed to fetch my father,» Elin said.
«Your father knows me perfectly well.»
«I know, but —»
«Oh, for heaven’s sake, girl. I’ve been coming through that gate since before you were born. Am I supposed to stand here freezing while you fetch half the village?»
Elin could see the path beyond the gate all the way to the bend. There was no wolf on the road. She had only to move the bolt. Surely it would be cruel to leave Mr. Walters standing there, freezing, while she ran to her father’s workshop. Her father would have opened the gate anyway. She was certain of that.
‹He’ll think I’m unkind if I make him wait,› she thought.
So she said:
«I can do it.»
Mr. Walters looked relieved.
«Thank you. You are a kind girl.»
Elin felt pleased and pushed against the bolt. It was heavy, and for a moment it refused to move. Then, with a scrape of iron against wood, it slid free. Elin pulled one of the oak doors toward her. It swung open more easily than she expected and farther than she intended.
«Come quickly,» she said.
Mr. Walters shivered as he walked through the gate. Then, behind him, at the bend beneath the dark trees, something moved. Elin saw it only for an instant.
Gray fur. Long legs. A low, silent shape.
The wolf had been following the wet and shivering man, keeping to the shadows beside the road. Now it saw the open gate.
And the goat beneath the apple tree.
It ran.
Mr. Walters saw by Elin’s face that something was wrong and turned. But by then the wolf had shot past them. It passed so close to Elin that she felt the rush of air against her skirt. She stumbled backward, but the wolf did not look at her or at Mr. Walters.
It ran straight across the orchard.
Pipkin raised her little head. Her little brass bell rang.
Once.
Then the wolf reached her. Elin screamed. Mr. Walters shouted for help. A door flew open. Someone began beating on a saucepan. Men came running with lanterns and sticks. The wolf fled back through the gate before anyone could catch it.
And when it had gone, Pipkin lay very still beneath the apple tree.
Her bell made no sound.
Jori arrived carrying his empty bucket. He stopped when he saw the people gathered in the orchard.
«What’s happened?»
Nobody answered at once. Then he saw Pipkin and dropped the bucket.
«Pipkin?»
He ran toward her. His grandmother caught him before he reached the tree.
«Jori, wait.»
«What’s wrong with her?»
His grandmother knelt beside him.
«Come here, darling.»
«She’s hurt.»
«Yes.»
«Can we make her better?»
His grandmother’s eyes filled with tears.
«No.»
Jori stared at her. Then he looked at Pipkin again.
«Why not?»
His grandmother held him close.
«She’s dead, Jori.»
Jori pulled away.
«No,» he said, shaking his head. «No, she isn’t.»
But she was.
The villagers closed the gate, and Elin’s father pushed the great bolt into place. Then he came to the orchard. He listened while Mr. Walters explained how Elin had let him through.
«She told me she was supposed to fetch you,» Mr. Walters said. «I told her to open the gate instead.»
He looked toward the orchard.
«I didn’t see the wolf.»
«I didn’t see it either,» said Elin.
«Why didn’t you come and fetch me?»
Elin swallowed.
«Mr. Walters was wet and freezing.»
Her father looked at her and said nothing.
Elin looked down.
«I thought it would only take a moment.»
She wanted to say that she had been helping. She wanted to say that nobody could have known a wolf was hiding beside the road. She wanted to say that Mr. Walters had told her to open the gate. All those things were true.
But they were not quite the answer.
At last she whispered:
«I didn’t want him to think I was unkind.»
Her father looked at her for a long moment.
Then he said:
«I see.»
He did not shout. Somehow that was worse. She had wanted to help, to be kind, but she did not feel pleased now. Pipkin was dead. Elin had wanted to help Mr. Walters, and she did, and Pipkin was dead. She had wanted the first thing. She had not wanted the second. But both had happened.
The next morning, Jori was sitting on the low stone wall outside his grandmother’s house, holding Pipkin’s brass bell. Mr. Walters had already offered coins for a new goat, but Jori had refused them. A new goat would not have been Pipkin.
So Mr. Walters gave the coins to Jori’s grandmother instead, for the milk they had lost and for the day when Jori might be ready for another goat. He said that he should have waited at the gate. Jori’s grandmother took the money and put it away.
Elin saw Jori on the wall and approached slowly.
«Jori?»
He looked away.
«I’m sorry.»
He said nothing.
«I didn’t know the wolf was there.»
«I know.»
«I was trying to help Mr. Walters.»
«I know.»
Elin waited.
Jori turned the bell over in his hands.
«Why did you open the gate?»
«He was wet and freezing.»
«You could have fetched your father.»
Elin stared at the ground.
«Yes.»
Jori’s voice shook.
«Pipkin always came when I called her.»
Elin felt tears rising in her eyes.
«I know.»
«Even when she was supposed to be asleep.»
«Yes.»
«She won’t come anymore.»
«No.»
Jori gripped the bell.
«I don’t want to talk to you.»
Elin wanted to tell him again that she was sorry. She wanted him to say it was all right. She wanted him to stop looking so unhappy. But she couldn’t make any of those things happen. So she went home.
For weeks, the village felt different. The baker had less goat’s milk. Jori’s grandmother made fewer cheeses. There was no little brass bell jingling beneath the apple tree. And when Elin walked past Jori’s house, he sometimes turned away.
One afternoon, Elin found her father working on the great gate. He had taken down the bronze bell. Its rope had frayed in the rain, and he was replacing it.
«May I help?» she asked.
He handed her a length of new rope. She worked beside him for a while. Then she said:
«Father, was it wrong to help Mr. Walters?»
Her father stopped working.
«No.»
Elin looked up.
«Then why did everything go wrong?»
He considered the question.
«Because opening the gate is not safe.»
«But he was wet and freezing. And I wanted to help him.»
«Yes.»
Elin frowned.
«Then what should I have done?»
Her father pointed toward his workshop.
«Fetched me.»
«But he was freezing.»
«You could have passed him a blanket through the hatch.»
Elin was quiet for a while.
«He would still have been out there in the cold. He might have thought me unkind.»
«Yes.»
Her father pulled the new rope tight around the bell.
«You wanted to help him. So did I. But there were other people inside the gate, too.»
That winter was a cold one. Snow lay along the walls by the orchard, and the village children made enormous white animals beside the stream. Elin helped build a snow goat. She gave it one brown ear made from a piece of old cloth. Jori saw it on his way home. He looked at the snow goat, then at Elin.
«You made the ear wrong,» he said.
Elin’s heart jumped. It was the first thing he had said to her in weeks.
«Did I?»
«Pipkin’s brown ear was the left one.»
Jori walked over to the snow goat. He removed the brown cloth and tied it to the other side.
«There,» he said.
For a while, they stood looking at the snow goat.
Then Jori said:
«I still miss her.»
«So do I.»
«You didn’t have to milk her every morning.»
«No.»
«Or feed her when it was raining.»
«No.»
«Or get her out of Grandmother’s cabbages.»
Elin smiled a little.
«She was very good at getting into cabbages.»
Jori almost smiled too.
Then he looked sad again.
«I’d still rather have her back.»
Elin nodded.
«Me too.»
They stood together until their fingers became cold.
In spring, Jori’s grandmother bought another goat. This one was brown, with a white patch on her forehead. She was smaller than Pipkin and rather shy. Jori named her Hazel. Elin did not say that Hazel was prettier than Pipkin. She did not say that everything was better now. She knew it wasn’t quite true. Hazel was a good goat, but she was not Pipkin.
One afternoon, Jori invited Elin to help feed her. Elin brought a basket of clover. Hazel sniffed it suspiciously. Then she ate all of it.
«She’s greedy,» Elin said.
Jori nodded.
«But not as greedy as Pipkin. She would have eaten the basket too.»
They both laughed.
And after that, they began playing together again. Not every day at first. But more often.
One evening in late autumn, Elin was walking by the closed village gate when she heard a voice shouting from the road.
«Help!»
She looked through the small hatch. A woman was running toward the gate, carrying a small boy. Behind them, a wolf emerged from the trees. The woman stumbled, and the boy slipped from her arms. He landed on his knees and started crying. She picked him up and hurried toward the gate, looking back at the wolf. It kept coming.
«Open the gate! Let us in!»
Elin’s hand closed around the bolt. Then she remembered Pipkin. The silent brass bell. Jori crying beside the apple tree. She remembered the rule. No one was supposed to open the gate alone after sunset. And she thought:
‹Everyone will think I’ve been foolish again if I open the gate.›
She looked back toward the village, where her father would be working in his shop. The woman had reached the gate and the wolf had started to run.
‹There isn’t time,› Elin thought.
She pushed the bolt. It caught, but she pushed harder, iron scraping against wood. As soon as it slipped free, she pulled the gate open. The woman staggered through, the boy in her arms. Elin could see the wolf running toward the gate.
«Help me close it!» she screamed.
Elin and the woman threw their weight against the heavy oak door. The wolf lunged, tearing away part of the woman’s coat as the gate slammed shut. Elin pushed the bolt, her heart hammering until it finally slipped into place. The wolf struck the wood from the outside. Once. Then again. Then it stopped.
From the village came shouting voices and running feet. Elin’s father arrived with a lantern. He saw the woman, the boy, the torn coat, and the gate. Then he saw Elin.
«Did you open it?»
Elin nodded.
«Why?» he asked.
«I could see what would happen if I did not,» she replied.
Her father looked toward the gate. Outside, the wolf was still moving through the darkness. He looked at the woman and her son. Then he nodded. The woman carried her child to the village healer. He was burning with fever. That was why she had come through the forest so late.
Elin went home with her father.
«I was afraid,» she said after a while.
«Of the wolf?»
«Yes,» she said, and hesitated. «And of being wrong again.»
«Yes,» he said and put his hand on her shoulder. «I know.»
They walked past Jori’s house, where Hazel was happily eating one of the socks Jori had hung up to dry.