Eira wanted ketchup on the lamb because it was better that way, and she was very certain about it, defending her position with the logic of the five-year-old who knows she's right. "It's better! Try it!" she said with total confidence, pushing her plate forward like evidence that couldn't be argued with. Peter made dying sounds, clutching his chest dramatically. Everyone laughed at his performance. Tima ate her lamb plain, tired and content, listening to the conversation wash over her like a warm blanket.

Tima carried out the mugs when asked, making multiple trips, careful not to spill. Her face was warm from the fire. She was happy to help, pleased to be useful, feeling the belonging that comes with doing something that matters. Someone said the soup was good. Peter raised his mug in response. "It's just the valley in a pot," he said simply. "All the good things boiled together."

Laughter rang out again, mixing with the crackle of the fire.

Later, as the sky shifted to indigo and the fire crackled lower, settling into itself, Peter's mother sat beside Papa on the old bench that had been weathered by decades of valley rain. She spoke softly about her childhood—her father's laughter when he came home from the mines, the sound of coal carts rattling through the village before dawn, how the whole valley breathed differently back then.

Papa nodded, understanding something she wasn't saying directly. He looked out past the hedgerow toward the darker shapes of hills beyond, toward the night gathering. "First time I came here, I thought I'd stay a week. Couldn't tell you what happened. One day, I just… didn't want to leave."

Peter's mother smiled, knowing exactly what he meant. "And now?"

"Now I can't imagine being anywhere else." He watched the fire. "It's home."

She patted his hand. "That's how you know it's home. When you can't imagine being anywhere else."

---

The sun dips lower, laying soft golden ribbons across the cottage garden—the kind of light that makes everything look like it's glowing from inside. Shadows grow long, stretching across the grass, and everything is bathed in that hush that only comes near the end of a day well-lived.

Tima sits cross-legged on a tartan blanket in the grass, surrounded by daffodils they picked earlier from the hedgerow near the canal path—that ancient towpath that once carried coal and workers, now carrying them on their quiet morning pilgrimage. The yellow is brilliant in this light, almost unreal. Peter's mother sits beside her, her hands nimble and practiced as she shows Tima how to weave the stems together into a circle, into a crown.

"You have to twist, see?" she says gently, tucking a green strand behind another, her voice patient and warm. "And always be kind to the flower. Let it tell you which way it wants to go. Don't force it."

Tima watched careful, her tongue poking out slightly as she concentrated. "Like... hair braids? Like that?"