"She's got your curiosity," Peter said, sipping his tea. "And her mother's eyes."

Papa nodded, not looking up. "And her own questions. All the time."

"You're answering them well enough."

Papa dried a plate, turning it slowly in the cloth. "I want her to know what's hers. This place. These hills. The river."

Peter leaned forward. "Then we'll show her."

Papa looked up, smiling faintly. "Tomorrow?"

Peter raised his mug again. "Tomorrow."

Morning came soft and pale, mist hovering low over the rooftops and curling like breath around the garden gate. The world smelled of wet stone and woodsmoke—autumn settling in for good.

Tima sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire, boots half-laced, holding a toasted slice of bread smeared unevenly with jam. The scent of tea and damp wool mingled in the air, while Papa stuffed their lunch into a canvas bag by the door—sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper, apples, a thermos of tea, and two chocolate bars hidden at the bottom where Tima wouldn't find them until afternoon.

Peter stood by the window with a map that looked older than both of them. He traced his finger down a blue ribbon of ink, murmuring half to himself the names of places that had been old before the roads found them.

"We'll take the train up past Crosskeys," he said, folding the map with a snap. "Hop off a little north and walk the river down."

Tima looked up. "Will we see fish?"

"With any luck," Papa replied. "Or otters, maybe. Herons if we're quiet."

Peter muttered, "Or if we bribe them with cheese."

They left just as the sun began to rise above the ridgeline. The garden sparkled faintly with frost, each blade of grass holding its own small jewel of light. And the canal beyond the path was calm, like a mirror waiting for a memory.

Tima pressed her nose against the train window, watching valleys blur past—houses stacked like old books on the hillsides, sheep grazing between trees, stone walls lining roads like ancient handwriting. Every few moments she'd fog the glass with her breath, wipe it clear, and press her nose back again.

"Look!" she whispered suddenly. "A river!"

Papa leaned to see. "That's still the Ebbw. She's just winding different today."

Peter chimed in, voice low and theatrical: "That river's older than all of us. Older than every train and every street and every chimney puffin' smoke out there."

Tima blinked. "Older than you?"

"Now listen here—" Peter began, scandalized.

Papa laughed. "Yes, love. Even older than Peter. Just barely."

The train clattered on through cuttings and past culverts, the valley narrowing and deepening around them. Here and there, the remains of old industry peeked through the green—a rusted gantry, a chimney stack with no building left beneath it, a wall of blackened stone slowly being reclaimed by fern and ivy. The valley wore its past openly, the way some people wear scars: not hidden, just folded into the living.