The DuGall Valley

The valley was smaller than she had imagined. This was always the problem with places that had been described to you by someone who loved them — they became enormous in the telling, and then you arrived and found them bounded by actual hills with actual sheep on them, which seemed somehow beside the point.

The farmhouse at the end of the track had a yellow door. Daphne stopped walking. She had seen yellow doors before. Her father had painted yellow wherever he went — gateposts, markers, signs only he knew how to read. But this door was not her father's yellow. This door was older than her father. This door was the original.