and started flapping it above his head, shouting and yelling.
Suddenly a huge gunshot sounded, a terrific, echoing blast that made me jump. I spun around and saw a man at the back door of the red house holding a large rifle with smoke coming out of it. Tom. A sound of hooves on the ground signaled the animal’s departure, and all the men clapped and cheered.
Tom walked down the steps toward me, one hand holding the rifle, the other extended toward me. “Sophie,” he said, beaming. “So glad you could make it.”
I smiled nervously and shook his hand. “You scared off the moose,” I observed.
He nodded, just casually reloading a long silver bullet into the chamber of his enormous rifle. “Sorry about that. He’s been a bit of a nuisance these last few days. I’m hoping that was enough to see him off for a while.”
Clive came marching back up the hill, grinning. “You missed,” he said to Tom.
“I wasn’t aiming for him,” Tom answered, gesturing for me to come inside.
Inside the red house, or Granhus, as it appeared to be named, Gaia raced up to me in the kitchen and wrapped her arms around my knees as though we were long-lost friends.
“Sophie!” she yelled. “I’ve missed you so much!”
“You have?” I said. I wanted her to say it again. I don’t think anyone had ever said that to me before.
I told her I had a present for her, and she got so excited I fretted I’d built her up for something like a scooter, or maybe a pony. I presented her with the little pair of tweed trousers I’d made from one of Meg’s cushion covers for Gaia’s teddy bear, Louis. “To go with his waistcoat,” I said, and she gave a squeal of delight.
“He’ll love them!” she shouted. “Come and see your bedroom!”
Maren appeared then, telling Gaia to wait just a minute. She asked if my journey was a pleasant one, and would I like a cup of tea?
“Yes, please,” I said. I didn’t, but yes seemed the right answer. I sat down at the table opposite Gaia, who was introducing Louis to his trousers and chiding him for not wearing any beforehand. It’s naughty, Louis. And you could get a chill. I could hear Tom outside, pacing up and down and chatting to someone on his mobile phone. The kitchen had old Shaker-style turquoise cabinets, red bunting, and the most incredible views framed by each of the three windows. Maren poured me a cup of tea and explained the moose intrusion, though I’d seen it all firsthand.
“They keep coming because they think the river is here,” she said. “This is the problem when you mess with nature. The animals of this place have been drinking from that river for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. And now it’s gone.”
“Gone?” I said.
She grimaced. “Tom built a dam. He meant it to divert the river, but then it bled into the ground. Turned the whole site into a marsh. And now the elk are going crazy. I won’t be surprised if I come down one morning and find one drinking from the tap.”
She gave a rueful laugh.
I tried to laugh along. Great. She rinsed some mugs, turned back to Gaia. “Shall we show Sophie the rest of the house?”
* * *
—
We’ll start at the top and work our way down, shall we?” Maren said, leading me up an incredibly narrow set of stairs. Maren’s ample hips blocked out the light ahead of me, rubbing either side of the wood paneling. She led me to the attic, a long room with six feet or so of headroom and bookended by two porthole windows.
“Mostly storage up here,” she explained, batting away a moth. “But we keep a bed here in case we have guests.”
The next level down had a bathroom and three bedrooms, all with whitewashed floorboards that creaked whichever way I stepped. I noticed framed black-and-white photographs on the walls of the hallway, ghostly, moody images of the tall, narrow trees I’d seen on the way to the house. Maren saw me admiring them but kept us moving.
“These bedrooms belong to me and Tom, and Clive and Derry have what used to be the children’s.” She turned and smiled politely. “Yours is downstairs, and we’ve moved Gaia’s and Coco’s bedrooms there, too.”
She took us back downstairs and along a narrow hallway behind the kitchen, where a recent extension created a