AS THEY were walking through the village with Peter, Tim, and Big Rachel, both Michael and Rachel felt uneasy about Peter’s revelation—if there was any chance of it being true. Even though both of them had despised the strict religious orthodoxy delivered by the likes of Joseph Strorm, the concept of ‘different’ gods—maybe with equal validity to the one they’d been taught about, was some­thing difficult to accept. For a while they were silent.

“This is our house,” announced Big Rachel presently, as they reached a small cottage. “Won’t you please come in for a moment? It’s smaller than Peter’s and Justin’s: that’s why when we meet up it’s usually in their house. But it’s cosy enough for the two of us.”

So they were taken for a quick tour of Tim and Rachel’s home: one floor only, just a living room, bedroom, and kitchen with a big fireplace. They had no bathroom but a tin bath propped up against the kitchen wall proclaimed its utility—as did the outside privy. But the cottage was very neat and tidy—testifying to Big Rachel’s house-proud sensibilities. In the back yard there were several skins of familiar animals—no Deviations amongst them, it seemed—stretched out on frames to dry and cure.

Tim and Big Rachel remained at their home. As the others returned to the street, the sun was setting. Peter suggested there was just enough daylight for them to do a quick tour of the fields at the back of the row of cottages. He pointed out those that belonged to him and Justin: a few rows of cabbages and potatoes, the rest dug over and awaiting sowing of next season’s crops. Then they returned to Peter’s and Justin’s home in the twilight.

“Dinner in a few minutes,” announced Justin. “I’m afraid neither my Dad nor I are as good cooks as Rachel, but we do our best. Hope you’ll be satisfied.”

As indeed they were. A generous helping of roast pork, with cabbage, potatoes, and gravy, followed by a big apple pie, which Rachel had to admit to herself, despite her cookery skills, that she couldn’t have bettered.

After dinner Peter entertained them with more details that he had discovered about the history of Labrador. He spoke some short sentences in the ‘French’ language which he had learned in the course of his research. Both Michael and Rachel were baffled by the incomprehensible words, but Justin nodded smugly and then continued the speech, clearly even more fluent in the language than his father. Then they proceeded to teach Michael and Rachel some words of the language. “Just for fun,” remarked Justin, “but who knows? If you really do cross the sea to Europe, you may meet up with the original French speakers. If they still speak that language…”

Eventually Michael and Rachel were sent off to bed. Peter warned them that next day they would have to come to the decision: whether they were to stay with them over the winter, or press on—but he repeated his urging them to stay.

They woke up the next morning to see heavy snowfall outside, which was already settling on the ground. In the circumstances, they needed no further persuasion to come to the decision to remain put until the weather turned more favourable. As Rachel whispered to Michael, before breakfast, “If we can’t trust these people, who can we trust?” Michael remembered how they had trusted Beth, and how it had almost come unstuck. They had got away, nonetheless, without more than a little embarrassment.

Peter explained that the cold weather with snowfalls usually didn’t last more than six weeks—after then it would turn warmer again. And, to their great delight, Peter announced that he was thinking of coming with them, part of the way. He had been to Rigo several times—researching for his books as he explained—and he expected to complete his work in progress just as the snows were melting. With a little help, he added. He suggested that both Michael and Rachel could both ‘earn their keep’ by helping around the house: Michael helping Justin outdoors, the work at present consisting mainly of feeding and looking after the animals, and cutting fire­wood, whilst Rachel would look after the house indoors, and help Peter with his book.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

But Rachel wouldn’t hear of this.

“You may think I’m just a weak little girl, but think again! I may be small but I’m pretty strong—and I’ve done plenty of hard physical work on the farm back in Waknuk. Let Michael help you with your book—he’s the more educated of us, after all—while I work with Justin outside.”

And she was as good as her word. She proved to be excellent at handling the axe and the saw. On the rare, short hunting trips in which she accompanied Justin (much to his astonishment), she also showed real skill with the gun and the bow and arrows. Meanwhile Michael, with growing fascination, was learning all kinds of unheard-of facts about Labrador and the surrounding countries, as he assisted Peter in sorting through his notes and writing up fair copies. Peter had a special interest in the lakes of Labrador.

“Labrador used to be a land with thousands of lakes,” he explained. “Most of them have gone now, but there are still traces. When you passed Curkajak, you saw the lake which extends many miles to the north of the village. That lake is a survivor from pre-Tribulation days, and Curkajak is built on a pre-Tribulation settlement called ‘Churchak’, apparently—though whether it was so named because there was a notable church there, I don’t know.

“And many miles to the southwest of here—further than Waknuk, in fact: it was possibly in your ‘Wild country’, but maybe not the part you visited—there used to be a fascinating lake, almost a perfect ring-shape. Most of it’s gone now, but you can still make out the depression which it occupied. From what I can find out, it was created when a huge mass of rock hit the Earth, many millions of years ago. Lake Manag, it seems to have been called, though information is sketchy.

“Before Tribulation, most of the lakes in Labrador used to freeze over completely in the winter. Of course, they very rarely do so nowadays.”

“Yes: we learnt at school about Labrador having been a very cold land. So Tribulation changed all that. But no-one seemed to know how or why. Have you any ideas?”

“You learned about carbon dioxide at school, didn’t you? But I don’t suppose they told you what happens when a lot of carbon dioxide escapes into the atmosphere. Well, there’s a theory going round—not everyone believes it, though—that Tribulation was attended by widespread forest fires all around the Earth: all those lands which still had large amounts of forest, that is. Trees are mostly carbon, and when they burn it produces huge volumes of carbon dioxide. There’s a curious effect when there’s too much carbon dioxide in the air. It causes the Earth to get warmer all around. Apparently this wasn’t a good thing: it led to the sea level rising, lots of storms, countless millions of people and animals dying, many areas which hadn’t already been devastated by Tribulation becoming desert, and uninhabitable.

“And some people even claim that this was already happening before Tribulation. There were many millions, hundreds of millions even, of people in the world back then, and they were burning too much wood and coal, to heat their houses and power their horseless carriages, to grow feed for their millions of livestock animals (they ate a lot of meat), and such things. But I’m inclined to disbelieve this: I hardly imagine even the pre-Tribulation civilisations could have been so unwise and lacking in foresight.”

“So you think Tribulation was not just a single cataclysm but a whole series of unrelated events, one after the other?”

“Michael, no-one really knows what Tribulation was. A lot of learned men claim that, in part, it was something to do with splitting apart ‘atoms’, which they say are the smallest bits into which any sort of matter can be divided. But how on earth that could be achieved, I’ve no idea.”

Michael had much to think over in the next few weeks. He still understood little of Peter’s theories and ideas, but he became quite adept at sorting, arranging, and transcribing Peter’s work; Peter announced that as a result the book would be finished even sooner than expected. He explained that he would then have to take the manuscript to his publisher, some distance away in the direction of Rigo; then the book, after the publisher had checked it over and done some editing, would be sent off to Rigo itself to be printed. It was only in Rigo that a printing press existed, and a very precious piece of equipment it was.

Sometimes Michael swapped jobs with Rachel: going outside to help with the firewood and do some hunting with Justin. Although Rachel had well proved her stamina outside, she still welcomed the occasional break indoors. The snow was thawing fast—earlier than expected, Justin said—and they began to prepare the soil in one of the fields for sowing some crops: beans at first, Justin explained.