The path they turn down on the way to their house is strange. He could’ve sworn he knew this road forward and back but he’d never seen the little track they followed before.
It let out into a beautiful tree ringed meadow, and near the back was a charming little cottage.
As he stepped in one of the said, “Welcome into our home!”
This gave him some pause but he had admit it was very beautiful. “There’s certainly plenty of room to run around.”
He glanced down at his papers and reluctantly said, “Now, a major dilemma is that of feeding your foster children.”
They looked at him intently and waited for him to make a point.
Sweating slightly he said, “Anything they eat here, it will keep them here? Forever? That’s not ideal for this programme.”
“Oh!” Said one of the Peters, “They can’t eat inside the house. We plan to feed them outside, so that they can’t come to any harm by that.”
“You’ll feed the children outside? Every meal?”
“Of course!” Their smiles were huge and delighted.
“What do you plan to do if it’s raining?”
Their faces crinkled up in puzzlement, and finally the other said, “Well rain doesn’t fall outside, I shouldn’t think it would matter.”
“But we are outside…” he felt he was losing in some way to a tide of logic he didn’t understand.
“Ohhhh, I see the problem. Here, you are inside our home. Let’s show you the backyard.” And they turned at walked with purpose to the cottage.
They opened the door and gestured into a lovely living room, “This is our backyard. It’s outside, so our children will be comfortable and fed. We know keeping them in the backyard may seem inhumane to you, but we assure you we’ve made it very comfortable.”
His brain started to twist in a way he wasn’t used to, but as it stretched he could almost understand their logic. Their home was the meadow. This was their backyard, and it was outside the meadow. Even though it was obviously inside still.
“That’s. Very nice. It’s a very nice… back yard. And the food in the backyard is… safe?”
“Oh yes! We have a human ready to make deliveries for us.”
“It’s very…” he looked around, “clean.” And it was. There was omissions you wouldn’t have expected. In the corner was a copper wood stove, and he idly thought ah yes, no iron. He would have bet there wasn’t a single nail holding the place together.
The couch looked like it had grown up into a position and all the wood floors had an extra vibrant gleam to them. The furnishings and rugs all looked to be exceptionally fine and soft, made of materials he didn’t recognize.
In the corner was a collection of musical instruments. “We do hope,” said a Peters right by his ear making him jump, “that one of the children exhibits an interest in music.”
“We wouldn’t,” hastened the other to add, “force them. But it would be very lovely. We tend not to be very musically inclined you know.”
He nodded weakly and said, “This seems quite suitable. Let’s look upstairs shall we?”
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