On the porch, Alec Tate set about removing his gum boots. This involved hopping around on one leg, falling over a lot, and muttering swear words. In fifty-odd years of Wellington-boot-wearing, he had never mastered their removal without this ritual. Panting, he walked through the hallway into the back kitchen and put on first his fuzzy slippers, and then the kettle. He couldn’t be bothered to shout for Ophelia, although he was surprised she wasn’t making the tea. Probably still sulking, he thought. She hadn’t spoken to him much since she’d found out what he had done with Woody.

He was still suffering palpitations from his earlier fright, so he began the comforting ritual of tea-making. He put a used tea bag into a mug and fished around in the saucepan cupboard where he’d recently discovered that Ophelia hid the ginger snaps. He poured the boiling water into his mug and pressed the tea bag into the side of the cup with a spoon, carefully removing it for another time. Then he went into the parlor with a plate of the delicious treats (most of the box — he was very greedy, and partial to their sharp taste) and stopped dead in his slippered tracks.

Sitting in Alec’s favorite chair was the dim outline of a man. He was obviously a much taller person than Alec Tate, because his legs were drawn up awkwardly, almost reaching his chin. On closer inspection, Alec noticed he was dressed in a sharp suit, the knife-edge creases of his pants enhancing the odd shape of his legs.

Alec’s first reaction was one of outrage. This fellow’s crisp suit reeked of “government agency.” He had seen enough government officials to last a lifetime since the foot-and-mouth epidemic, which had spelled the end for his farm. That and the ban on hunting. He’d had month after month of finding his chickens headless — not eaten, mind, just killed for fun by a rogue fox that would’ve been finished off by the local hunt in the good old days. It was no wonder that Ophelia often said Alec’s deep suspicion of all things governmental had turned him mental.

But something told Alec that this visit was not about foot-and-mouth disease. Nothing would have made up for watching his livestock burn on pyres visible from as far away as the Welsh Mountains anyway.

The figure leaned forward, as if in greeting, and Alec recoiled slightly at the gleam of malice shining from the man’s eyes. The first fingers of fear stroked Alec’s heart. He decided to brazen it out, which was, although he didn’t know it yet, probably the bravest thing he had ever done in his life. It was a shame Ophelia wasn’t there to witness it. Come to think of it, where was she?