Another Experiment, Part 2 – The Cottage

2 votes to go into the hills – so here we go.

Through a combination of tactical rocking and desperate paddling, you manage to bring your boat close enough to a rocky outcrop to scramble onto the riverbank. Before you can drag it ashore, the current has carried your little vessel back out into the river and away, down into the valley ahead. Well, you think, no going that way now.

Glancing at the path back along the riverbank, you turn instead towards the hills. The mote of smoke is still visible against the clear sky, though it is faint and pale. It could easily have been a cloud, if the rest of the sky wasn’t bright and blue.

You begin to walk.

The path is rough and old: it is clearly not a made thing but a path worn by generations of trudging feet, carving a shallow furrow into the earth and driving away the grass and moss. It is as straight as such a path can be, veering only for rocks or other obstacles. Someone, you gather – or many years of someones – has taken the shortest possible path to the riverbank and back, day after day after day. Hopefully, there is still a someone at the other end.

It is hot, the afternoon sun beating down from the clear sky. You are sweating before you even reach the proper hills, your legs aching by the time you crest the first rise. You hope you will not have to walk all the way up into the mountains that loom beyond the foothills before you reach the source of the smoke. But you can see the plume becoming clearer, and the path still points straight towards it.

You keep walking.

The sun is much lower in the sky by the time you crest the final rise. The mountains are a great deal closer now; you are as tired from this afternoon’s climb as you were from days of walking through the forests to the east. But you grin, because before you, nestled into the dip between two hills, is a house.

It is little more than a cottage but it is well-built, with wooden walls and a proper shingled roof. You can see a fence behind it describing some sort of paddock or garden, but cannot make out anything in it besides some sort of leafy plant. In the front porch, there is a bundle of rods and nets and hooks – fishing gear, clearly well-used, and explaining the track down to the riverside.

Photo by Bas van der Horst (Unsplash)

But there is nobody in evidence to use it. There is no sign of movement at the windows or nearby – and the windows themselves are dusty, not cleaned in a long time. One, on the side, is hanging off a single hinge. There are weeds growing through the steps up to the front door. And yet, from the stubby chimney, smoke rises still.

Your stomach rumbles. You are tired, hot and hungry, and this is the first hint of civilisation you have seen all day.

You could look around the back of the house, to see if anyone or anything useful is there. You could simply knock at the front door and present yourself as a weary traveller… or you could climb quietly through the open window, and try your hand at sneaking.

What do you do?

An open approach, a curious one, or… well, crime? All up to you. Votes in the comments below.