The Shepherd\'s Hut

They came out of the cave system on the other side of the mountain in the late afternoon. The light was golden and low, coming in sideways across a wide green valley that looked nothing like the valley on the south side. This one was softer, with long grass and a stream running through it and, on the far side, the shape of the shepherd\'s hut.

It was a small stone building, old and square, with a roof that was mostly still intact and a wooden door that opened stiffly when Felix pushed it. Inside was one room with a fireplace at one end, a wooden bench along one wall, and a small window that looked out toward the stream. On the window ledge, held down by a stone, was a small notebook.

Nora picked it up and opened it.

It was a visitors book. Pages of names and dates going back many years. People who had done the Hartwell Ridge walk and stopped here for the night. Some had written just their names and the date. Others had written a few lines about the walk. A few had written longer notes about the ridge and the caves and what the valley looked like from the hut door at sunrise.

She turned to the back pages and found what she somehow already knew would be there.

Her grandfather\'s handwriting. Small and careful.

There were two entries. The first was dated thirty years ago. It said: First time. Did it alone in a day. The caves in chamber three stopped me completely. I sat there for an hour. A person could lose themselves in a place like this. Will come back.

The second entry was dated twenty-five years ago. It said: Second time. Brought my son Thomas this time. He is eight years old and not frightened of anything, which either means I have done my job well or have not done it at all. He ran the whole ridge. He swam in the stream below the hut even though the water was freezing. He said the caves were the best thing he had ever seen. I agreed.

Nora read it twice. Thomas was their father\'s name.

She showed it to Felix without saying anything. He read it, and read it again, and then sat down on the wooden bench and looked at it for a long time.

He brought Dad here, Felix said.

And now Dad\'s kids are here, Nora said.

Felix looked up at her. He had his thinking face on, the one where his eyebrows came together and he went quiet. Then he went to his backpack and pulled out a pen.

He turned to the next blank page in the visitors book.

What should we write? he asked.

Nora thought about it for a while. She thought about the ridge and the wind and the stalactites glittering in the dark. She thought about the blue door of her grandfather\'s house far below in the valley on the other side of the mountain. She thought about what Felix had said in the dark cave, about being there for someone who could not come.

Write our names and the date, she said. And then write: We came for Grandpa Ren. We will tell him everything.

Felix wrote it carefully in his best handwriting.

Then he put the pen down and they both looked at what he had written.

Outside the window the stream caught the last of the afternoon sun and the valley below went slowly gold and then orange and then the softest kind of pink.