‘I have some things to take care of as well. We’ll go Tuesday.’ Ned nodded. He tried to remember the weather forecast for the days before Tuesday, tried to calculate how many skins he might add to his collection by then. His father turned to leave. As he began walking away Ned remembered what he’d wanted to ask the old man that morning.

‘Toby said Bill could take a skin off without a knife.’

His father stopped. ‘You don’t want to do that. Not if you want to sell the fur. Looks flash, but it leaves the pelt raggedy, all torn up. Only good if you’re in a hurry. If you need to feed the dogs before they rip into a lamb. You stick to the way you’re doing it. You’re doing it right.’

‘But—’

‘But what? What’s all this butting—you meet a goat?’

‘Sorry. But could he do it?’

His father turned to the orchard. Breathed at the trees. ‘Who do you think taught him?’

~

The day before the trip to town, Ned’s sister Maggie returned to Limberlost. She had been staying with a distant aunt in Hobart, training to be a teacher. The plan had been for her to spend the whole summer down south, taking extra courses, shortening the time it would take to gain her certificate. But circumstances had changed. Ned didn’t know what circumstances, or how; he only learned from his father that Maggie was coming home the day before she arrived. And then there she was, marching down the gravel driveway, untroubled by the weight of her case.

By the time she’d eaten and washed, it was late. Ned was going to talk to her, but she seemed tired, and although she appeared pleased to see him, he read into her weariness that a conversation would only tire her further. After taking her case to her room he said goodnight.

As he lay in his bed he could hear her talking with his father, but he did not strain to make out the exchange. She was the eldest of the four siblings, the only one with a clear memory of their mother. It made sense for the two of them to talk, as they’d always done.

~

The next morning Ned found Maggie crouching by the chicken coop. He tried to figure out what she was doing, tried to think of something to say. He saw her fingers dip beneath the wire mesh, her face shifting with discovery.

Her hand stopped on a bare scratch of earth. Furrows were traced into the dirt, and the wire above was frayed and loose. She wedged her hand into the gap and, as she grimaced at the metal raking her skin, Ned must have moved or made an involuntary sound. Maggie glanced up. An expression passed over her face—a look somewhere between annoyance and humour. Ned raised a palm, words evading him.