It took two men to lift it onto the table.

“All right, friends,” Barbara called sweetly. “You all know how it goes.”

“Happy birthday to you!”

The song again. A birthday so big they had to sing it twice.

Neal looked at the hot dogs used as candleholders.

“Happy birthday to you!”

Slabs of venison and moose were packed so tight, blood oozed out the sides, staining the tablecloth beneath.

“Happy biiiirthday…”

Ground beef, duck, and goose made up the middle. So fresh it looked like a wound.

“…dear Huuuunter…”

Bacon fat decorated the top like frosting. Neal recognized quail, woodcock, dove, squirrel. Chunks of pork were set at the corners; the decorative details that any baker would’ve employed.

Small bones were arranged to read:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUNTER!

“Happy birthday to you!”

Tears rose in Neal’s eyes.

“Blow out the candles!” someone yelled.

Sixty candles for sixty bludgeoned settlers, for sixty years alive.

Neal sucked in a deep breath of air and closed his eyes and thought:

I want an owl.

And the Gobliner’s guilt following this wish rose and for one second Neal believed he had done something horrible already.

He blew out the candles.

The famed butcher bent in to cut the cake but Neal comically elbowed him out of the way and grabbed hold of the knives.

People cheered as he cut himself a wedge of bacon, duck, and cow tongue then rammed it into his mouth.

I want an owl, he thought again. This time with no guilt.

Somebody asked him, “What did you wish for, Neal?”

But Neal only waved a hand, waving the question away.

And thoughts of an empty space in his hangar rose like birthday balloons in his mind.

7

“I’m not going to make you all watch me open that mountain of presents,” Neal told the room. “But I’m gonna make you watch me open one.”

Barbara smiled and handed him her gift.

“Happy birthday, dear,” she said. Then she kissed his cheek. Neal pulled her close with his arm around her waist.

It was a small thin present wrapped in gold paper. Neal opened it gently.

“Trachtenbroit,” he said.

He held a Goblin city postcard with a photo of Jonathan Trachtenbroit. It cost Barbara $1.19. Green letters read:

GREETINGS FROM GOBLIN!

FIND YOUR TARGET HERE!

“Where’d you get it?” Neal asked.

“You know very well where I got it,” she smiled. “The same place you get your crappy energy sodas.”

The guests laughed.

Neal looked into the face of the man who had discovered Goblin’s Great Owls so long ago.