The next morning, after breakfast, the five of them didn’t start working as they had on the previous days.
Arthur stood in the doorway and studied the sky.
It hadn’t rained since yesterday afternoon, and although the morning was still overcast, it was noticeably brighter.
The ground behind the house remained damp, with mud in the low spots, but they should be able to take a walk if they watched where they stepped.
He turned back toward the others.
“Get ready.
We’re going out in a bit.”
Clara had known since last night that they were going to look around, so she rose from the table at once.
“Now?”
“While the weather holds.
We’re only looking nearby, though.
We won’t go far.”
Lucas was already at the door, peering outside.
“Which way?”
Arthur paused.
Since arriving here, they had barely ventured beyond the farmhouse, the neglected plot behind it, and the nearby stream.
They hadn’t properly explored any of the paths leading away from the property.
After a moment, he pointed to the clearest path in front of the house.
“Let’s start there.
It looks like people use it.”
Clara nodded and went to get her things.
Theo, meanwhile, had taken up a position by the door and was studying the path.
This time, he didn’t ask whether his shoes would get dirty.
He simply noted the darker patches of ground, then looked for firmer places near the edge.
Lucas came to stand beside him.
“What are you looking at?”
Theo pointed ahead.
“Don’t step there.”
Lucas followed his finger.
The mud was darker in that spot and clearly hadn’t dried.
“And?”
“Walk here instead.” Theo pointed a little to the side.
Lucas looked at him for a moment.
“You’ve already planned how to avoid the mud?”
Theo nodded.
After stepping in it last time, he had apparently learned his lesson.
Arthur overheard them and laughed.
“Good.
At least today we won’t have to stand around while you inspect your shoes.”
Theo turned to him.
“I already inspected them last time.”
Arthur opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He couldn’t argue with that.
Helena was filling a container with water and laughed too.
“Just watch where you’re going.
Don’t dodge one muddy patch and end up in the grass.”
“I know,” Theo said seriously.
They didn’t take much.
This was only meant to be a short walk.
Arthur brought a sturdy stick to test the ground and push aside any weeds, while Helena carried the water.
Clara wanted to bring the sheets of paper she used for notes, but Arthur stopped her.
“What do you need those for?
We’re only going for a walk.”
“To write down anything we see.”
Arthur glanced at the few old sheets they had managed to find.
“Remember it for now and write it down when we get back.
If you drop the paper in the mud, it’s gone.”
Clara thought that over, then reluctantly put it back on the table.
Soon all five of them were outside.
Arthur went first, Helena walked behind, and the three children stayed between them.
They knew the first stretch of path well enough.
The only difference after the recent rain was that a few spots had yet to dry.
Theo avoided every one of them.
Whenever he spotted a darker patch ahead, he moved around it and occasionally warned Clara too.
“It’s soft here.”
Clara looked down and stepped aside.
“Got it.”
After a while, she glanced at him.
“You’re getting good at spotting mud.”
“Because I stepped in it,” Theo replied.
Clara laughed.
Theo didn’t see what was funny and went back to watching the path.
As long as his shoes stayed clean, he was having a good morning.
The farther they walked from the farmhouse, the less familiar everything became.
Their land was not as isolated as they had thought.
Low wooden fences, patches of grass, and scattered trees divided the surrounding fields.
Some had been ploughed; others still held the dry stubble from the previous harvest.
Farther off, they could even make out a few rooftops.
Clara spotted them first.
“Someone lives over there.”
Arthur looked where she pointed.
Across a field stood a house with what appeared to be a small shed beside it.
It wasn’t close, but they could see it clearly enough.
Helena stopped to look as well.
“So we have neighbours.”
That was good news.
They weren’t cut off from everyone else.
If they kept exploring, they would eventually learn where they were.
Lucas studied the distant house.
“Should we go over?”
Arthur didn’t answer at once.
Their biggest problem wasn’t finding people.
It was that they had no idea what sort of relationship the previous Bennett family had with them.
If they turned up at someone’s door and were asked about the past, none of the five would know what to say.
“Not today,” he said.
“Let’s learn the roads first.”
Clara understood.
“Because they might know us?”
“Exactly.
We’ll see where the paths go and how many houses are nearby.
If we meet someone, we can say hello, but we won’t go knocking on doors.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“No need to avoid anyone, either,” Helena added.
“We should just go about our walk.”
The children nodded.
As they continued, they noticed more signs of other people: a repaired section of fence, a small pile of dried grass beside the road, and then two wheel tracks pressed into the dirt.
Lucas pointed them out.
“Dad, a cart came through here.”
Arthur stopped to look.
The tracks ran on ahead, still clear in places because of the rain.
“Probably a horse cart.”
Clara followed them with her eyes.
“Could this road lead to town?”
“Maybe.
We can’t tell yet.”
Before long, they reached a fork.
The path on the left was narrower, with taller grass growing along its edges.
The wider road continued straight ahead, and the wheel tracks followed it.
Arthur stood at the fork for a moment.
“Let’s remember this place.”
Clara instinctively reached for her notes, then remembered she had left them at home.
Arthur noticed and pointed to a tree beside the fork.
Its trunk split in two not far above the ground.
“Look at that tree.
We’ll recognise it on the way back.”
Clara studied it.
“All right.”
Lucas took a look too.
Theo was more interested in the wheel tracks.
Without stopping to complain about the mud, he shifted to firmer ground and kept walking.
Arthur noticed, but didn’t tease him this time.
Theo’s habits were simply part of how he went about things; there was no need to comment on every one.
Farther down the road, they came to a neatly tended field.
Lucas stopped first.
“Dad, look.”
The soil had been turned in tidy rows, with hardly any large weeds between them.
It looked nothing like the neglected ground behind their house.
Arthur stared at it, remembering himself a few days earlier, standing in their field with a hoe and no idea where to begin.
Clara looked from the field to her father.
“Dad.”
“Don’t say it.”
She blinked.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“I was only going to say that other people really do know how to farm.”
Arthur fell silent.
He had guessed correctly.
Helena pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh.
“Yes,” Arthur admitted.
“That’s why we need to learn.”
Lucas was still examining the rows.
“Why have they left so much space between them?”
Arthur looked at the gaps.
He didn’t know.
A few days ago, he might have tried to make an educated guess.
Since then, he had learned something more useful: when he didn’t know, he could simply say so.
“I’m not sure.
I’ll tell you when we find out.”
Lucas nodded.
Clara glanced at her father.
“You’ve changed, Dad.”
“How?”
“You used to guess first.”
Arthur was quiet for a moment.
“I’ve decided it’s safer to say less.”
Helena finally laughed out loud.
They stayed by the road and looked a little longer, but didn’t go into the field.
Someone had put a great deal of work into it, and they had no business walking across it.
As they were about to move on, a low call came from somewhere in the distance.
“Moo.”
All five of them stopped.
“A cow?” Clara asked, turning toward the sound.
“I think so,” Lucas said.
Beyond a fence and several trees, they could make out a dark shape moving.
It was too far away to tell how many animals there were, but the sound made it clear that someone nearby kept cattle.
“So there are people raising animals as well as growing crops,” Arthur said.
Theo watched the distant shape for a while.
This time, he didn’t ask whether cows were dirty.
Another question occurred to him instead.
“Will we keep one someday?”
“A cow?” Arthur asked.
Theo nodded.
Arthur looked toward the animal, then thought about the fact that he didn’t yet know how to work their own field.
“We’ll talk about that later,” he said carefully.
Clara understood him at once.
“You mean you don’t know how to look after one.”
Arthur turned to her.
“You don’t have to translate everything I say.”
Clara held back a smile.
“All right.”
They continued for a little while, but Arthur kept an eye on the children.
Lucas and Clara hadn’t complained, and Theo was still walking on his own.
Even so, they had three-year-old bodies, and they would have to cover the same distance to get home.
If he waited until they said they were tired, he and Helena would end up carrying them back.
“All right,” he said.
“This is far enough for today.”
Clara looked down the road.
“We can keep going.”
“We still have to walk back.
We came out to learn the way, not to see everything at once.”
Lucas caught on.
“You think we’ll get too tired?”
“Yes.” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“I can still walk,” Theo said quickly.
“I know.
But if we wait until you can’t, we’ll have gone too far.”
Theo considered that and didn’t argue.
They turned back.
Since they had already seen the route once, the return trip felt quicker.
When they reached the fork, Clara recognised the tree before Arthur could point it out.
“Right here.
We turn right.”
“You remembered?” Arthur asked.
“The trunk splits in two.”
Lucas remembered the fork as well.
Theo remembered the patches of soft mud and moved to the other side of the path before they reached them.
Each child had noticed something different, but all three knew the way home.
By the time they reached the farmhouse, Arthur was glad he had turned them around when he did.
Lucas and Clara were quieter, and their steps had slowed.
Theo was slowing down too, though he was still most concerned with his shoes.
He hadn’t stepped in any deep mud this time.
There was only a little damp dirt on the soles.
He inspected them, picked up the old cloth kept by the door, and wiped them before going inside.
Helena smiled.
“You’ve got the hang of that.”
“We’re going to go out again,” Theo said as he cleaned his shoes.
Helena paused, then smiled more warmly.
“You’ve thought it through, haven’t you?”
If he couldn’t avoid going outdoors, he could at least learn how to clean up afterward.
For Theo, that was quite a compromise.
Once inside, Clara fetched her paper and began writing down what they had seen.
The path in front of the house is passable.
There is a fork farther along.
The wider road has wheel tracks and may lead farther away.
At least one other family lives nearby.
People here farm.
Someone nearby keeps cows.
Arthur came over as she finished the last line.
“You’re writing down the cow too?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Arthur thought about it.
She had a point.
“Go ahead.”
Lucas sat beside her.
“That field had been ploughed, and there was space between each row.”
Clara added it to the list.
Arthur watched the two of them sort through everything they had noticed.
They hadn’t gone very far, but the walk had taught them more about their surroundings than another morning spent inside the farmhouse would have.
They now knew they weren’t the only family in the area.
People grew crops and kept animals here, and a road used by carts ran past their land.
If they continued exploring, they would eventually find other people and learn which way the town lay.
Helena put the water away and joined them.
“There’s one more thing.”
Clara looked up.
“What?”
“That house wasn’t very far from ours.”
Clara thought for a moment and wrote it down too.
Arthur, however, had grown quiet.
They hadn’t met anyone today, which had made the walk easier.
But now that they had seen another house, they could hardly expect every trip outside to be just as empty.
“Before we go any farther,” he told the children, “we need to think about something.”
Lucas looked up.
“What?”
“What we’ll do if we meet someone who knew the people who lived in these bodies before us.”
That was the difficult part.
They could learn the roads one at a time.
They could find the town eventually.
But they couldn’t avoid other people forever, and someone nearby might know them—or even know why the Bennett family had moved into this farmhouse.
“What if they ask about something that happened before?” Clara asked.
“Don’t make anything up,” Arthur said.
“Answer normally if you can.
If you don’t know, try to move the conversation along.”
“So we should say less?” Lucas asked.
“Yes.
And don’t bring up the past yourselves.”
Theo had just finished with his shoes and came to sit beside them.
“What if they know us,” he asked, “but we don’t know them?”
Arthur hesitated.
That was exactly the problem.
If someone asked a question, they might manage to answer without giving much away.
But if a person greeted them by name and acted like an old friend, all five of them couldn’t stand there looking like strangers.
“We’ll have to listen first and see what they say,” Helena said.
“Let them do the talking.”
Clara nodded, then frowned.
“What if they notice we don’t remember anything?”
Arthur rubbed his forehead.
“Then we’d better try not to make it that obvious.”
For a while, no one spoke.
They had only gone out to look at the roads and fields.
Now they were thinking about the people who lived beyond them—people who might recognise the faces they wore and know things about the Bennett family that they themselves did not.
Clara looked down at her notes.
“Meeting someone who knows us might help,” she said quietly.
“If we’re careful, they could tell us something about our past.”
Arthur considered her words, then nodded.
“You’re right.
We don’t have to be afraid of meeting people.
We just need to pay attention.”
Lucas understood too.
They couldn’t keep to themselves forever.
If they did, they might never learn who they were supposed to be.
Today they had discovered that there were other lives going on beyond their farmhouse.
Sooner or later, they would have to become part of this place, and they would meet someone who knew the Bennett family from before.
They had no idea who that first person would be.
But with neighbours this close, they probably wouldn’t have to wait long.