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making breakfast and Robbie appeared. He asked me if I had slept well.
    “No,” I said. “It was a restless night. Sorry if I woke you.”
    “Didn’t wake me,” he said. “I heard the sheep and I listened. Sometimes there’s something worrying them, maybe a dog. Sets off an alarm in my head.”
    “Was it anything?”
    “No, they were just complaining. Pissed off that they’re sheep and not lions.” He pulled up a chair. “Well, Jack,” he said. “You’re off this morning?”
    “It looks like it.”
    “Bound for where?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “Must be lovely to be footloose and fancy free, come to a crossroads and flip a coin.”
    “I came here to work,” I said. “I thought I’d be able to write something new, get a fresh start, but it doesn’t seem to be working out.”
    We finished breakfast and it wasn’t until Robbie had left to take the flat tire into Gillingham for repair, shaking my hand and wishing me luck as he went out the door, that I realized Maggie had said nothing since Robbie had entered the kitchen. Terry went off to school and I was left in the kitchen with Maggie, who busied herself clearing up the dishes, washing them, stacking them on the counter to drain.
    “I’d like to take that walk with you,” I said.
    She smiled at me. “All right. Give me a minute to put something on,” and she went upstairs. I waited at the table, noticing that Terry’s copybook was still there, open to the essay on Roman hill forts. I turned it around and there was a careful drawing of the fort with stick figures loading a rock thrower and others with spears climbing over an earthen bulwark. Underneath were the words, “bugger off shouted Hadrian’s men.”
    Maggie came into the kitchen wearing pale yellow corduroy trousers and a red sweater with a red scarf around her neck.
    “No chance of losing sight of you,” I said.
    “When it’s gray like this, I sometimes crave a bit of color. Otherwise I’m afraid I might disappear.”
    “Not much chance of that.”
    Maggie stopped by the kitchen door to pull on her Wellington boots and said to me, “Here, put on Robbie’s. Otherwise you’ll be mired in muck before we get back.”
    We crossed the farmyard and went up the hill, the same direction she had gone the day before, and she was quick, moving up the slope easily. I felt my chest tighten but I tried not to let on. I was glad when the slope leveled off at the top and we turned toward the trees on the far side.
    “Are you all right?” she asked. “I’m a bit of a mountain goat, so if we’re going too fast, just pull on my leash.”
    Jack, the dog, had come with us, and he was ranging in front, head down, working back and forth as if he were on the hunt for something.
    We paused to look down at the farm and I said, “You were quiet during breakfast. I don’t think you spoke a word.”
    “There wasn’t much to say.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Just that. There are times when I think words just fill the air. Robbie did enough talking for the both of us.”
    “He didn’t say much.”
    “He said enough. I’m glad you wanted to walk with me.”
    “And why is that?”
    “I like you, Jack Stone. You have a kind face and a kind manner and I feel easy with you.”
    “You can’t know me.”
    “I think I do. I think you’re the kind of man who would listen to me if I wanted to tell you something important.”
    “And what would that be?”
    She continued to look down at the farmhouse. It was misting again, and the farmhouse began to disappear as we watched, as if it were being erased by some unseen hand. I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head but Maggie stood still, her hair wet and shining.
    “Perhaps it’s because you’re a stranger and I know that you’ll leave and I’ll never see you again. So I can tell you things that I can’t tell someone who will see me tomorrow.”
    “And what would you tell me?”
    “That sometimes a black cloud comes over me and I see the