The rail station was very new, the paint still bright on the lettering that read SILER STATION. An enormous cloth banner proclaimed that it was HOME OF THE WORLD-FAMOUS CHATHAM RABBIT. I stepped off the train, clutching the cardboard suitcase that held all my worldly possessions, and wondered what, exactly, was special about the rabbit.

Unusually colored fur? Immense size? Third eye in the middle of the forehead?

Activity swirled around me as men hastily unloaded freight from the train cars. There was only one small passenger car, and I had been the only person to disembark, so I moved to one side, looking for the person who had come to meet me. My employer had sent the train ticket, and while I did not expect him to come himself, presumably he would have sent someone to collect me.

I craned my neck, but did not see any likely candidates. The anxiety that I had kept at bay threatened to rise up into my throat and I told it sternly to get back down where it belonged. There is nowhere here to wait. Perhaps they have only just seen the train arrive, and are coming now.

You have been here for less than five minutes. There is no reason to assume that anything has gone wrong.

The sky overhead was a blue watercolor wash, the clouds picked out in white gouache against it. Some skies look hard, but a Southern sky is usually soft, almost thready. If you pressed against it, you’d expect it to yield like cloth, or a soft network of roots. The upper edge was just starting to darken a little, a second wash of color to indicate that the afternoon was growing late.

From the station platform, I could see a warehouse and what looked like a general store. A mill poked up from the surrounding countryside, but once the town proper ended, there was nothing but a sea of thick trees in every direction.