Nita peered past her aunt, out towards the right. There was Great Sugarloaf. It looked very different from how it had looked from the air – sharper, more imposing, more dangerous. Heather did its best to grow up its sides, but the bare granite of the mountain's peak defeated it about two– thirds of the way up. Scree and boulders lay clear to see all about the mountain's bald head. The road ran past a service station where geese and a goat grazed behind a fence, watching the traffic; then through a shallow ravine that ran between two thickly-forested hills. Sunlight would fall down the middle of it at noon, Nita guessed, but at the moment the whole deep vale was in shadow. "Glen of the Downs," Aunt Annie said. "We're almost home. That's a nice place to hike to, down there, where the picnic benches are."After a couple more miles down the dual carriageway, Aunt Annie turned off down a little lane. To Nita's eyes this road looked barely wide enough for one car, let alone two, but to her shock several other cars passed them, and Aunt Annie never even slowed down, though she crunched so far over on the left side of the road that the hedges scraped the doors."See that town down there on the left? That's Greystones," said Aunt Annie. "We do the best part of our shopping there. But here. . ." She turned off down another lane, this one literally just wide enough to let one car through. In half a minute they came out in the graveled 'parking lot' in front of a little house. Around it, on all sides, fenced fields and farm buildings stretched. It was forty acres, Nita knew: her aunt's life savings had gone into the farm, her great love. "Welcome to Ballyvolan," her aunt said. "Come on in and we"ll get you something to eat." They did more than that. They gave her a place to stay which was uniquely her own, and Nita was very pleased.
