Arthur looked out at the dark sky.

“It is pouring now,” he said. “The path will be muddy, and the wind is picking up.”

“I don’t care about the mud,” I said. “Grab a flashlight.”

He hesitated, then reached into the drawer of the hall table and pulled out a heavy metal torch.

I grabbed my yellow raincoat from the hook by the back door.

The air outside was biting cold, smelling of wet earth and bruised pine needles.

The gravel crunched beneath our boots as we walked toward the northern boundary.

The trees of Blackthorn Ridge rose up like black ribs against the gray twilight.

“The old surveyor’s marker is another hundred yards,” Arthur said, his voice muffled by his coat collar.

He shone the beam of the flashlight ahead of us, cutting through the heavy drizzle.

My boots sank into the soft clay of the path.

The wind whipped rain into my face, stinging my cheeks.

We reached the edge of the property where the old stone wall began.

It was a crumbling dry-stone structure, built by hand over a century ago.