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“That sounds wonderful.” Fidi batted his eyes coyly. “Can you use that pink oil, please? The one you keep under the sink?”
“Pink oil?” Matt had to think for a second. “Ah, the Nature Zone snake oil? The one for mites?”
“Yes. It smells very nice.”
“Hmm. Feeling itchy, huh?”
“Maybe. Possibly. Perhaps. Or I could simply be feeling the itch to have your hands rubbing all over my body, naked.”
“But aren’t you always naked?”
“Of course I am, but I meant that I want you to be naked while you rub me.”
“That is so not a problem either.”
“Best future husband ever.”
Day 05
There’s nothing like the sound of a baby crying. Unless it’s one in the morning and you’re home alone.
Sound
Neil Glover knew nothing about running a farm, though his grandmother hadn’t left him much of one to worry about. Most of the land had been sold off years ago except for a dozen acres upon which sat the farmhouse, the old barn, and her prized vegetable garden. He knew that garden had been her pride and joy, and she’d built a tall iron fence wrapped in thick chicken wire to deter nibbling visitors.
“It won’t keep those thieving crows out,” he remembered her saying, “but it’s a damn fine start.”
He missed her terribly.
Neil’s parents died when he was very young and his grandparents had raised him. His grandfather passed away not long after Neil graduated high school, but Neil was already off to college by then and he hadn’t come back to the farm since. That was five years ago, and he’d been too busy to visit, though he and his grandmother had written to each other at least once a week and talked on the phone almost every day.
She had been the only family he had left in the whole world, and losing her crushed him. He missed her terribly, and he wished he’d come to visit more often. He had worked too much, always desperate for just a little more overtime so that next check would be better than the last. It seemed so silly now.
Money couldn’t bring his grandmother back, after all.
Her passing forced Neil to reevaluate his life in the city and he ultimately decided that the corporate grind simply wasn’t for him. It wasn’t worth it when it had cost him missing out on so much. He took on a new position that would allow him to work remotely and decided to move in to his grandmother’s house.
He’d enjoyed growing up in the quiet countryside and figured this could be a fresh start for him. Yes, it was in the middle of nowhere, the house needed some work, and the internet was questionable, but there was no place else in the world Neil would rather be.
It was home.
Home, however, was a little creepy at nine o’clock at night. The shadows inside the once familiar house were alien and strange, he’d found a worrying note about leaving bones in the garden, and then there was the issue of the baby crying. There were no other houses around for miles, and Neil couldn’t figure out where the sound was coming from.
He checked around the house to see if there was a speaker or any kind of radio that might be picking up a signal or playing a recording, but there was nothing. It wasn’t until he happened to walk by one of the front windows that he realized the sound was coming from outside.
God, what if someone had abandoned a baby on the farm?
Neil grabbed a flashlight and then took off into the darkness, listening for the wailing and running toward it. The sound drew him to the fence surrounding the garden, and he paused to aim his flashlight before slowly walking in that direction.
He tried to watch his step, worried that the baby was certainly somewhere on the ground between the rows of tomatoes or corn. He couldn’t believe that someone would leave a baby out here, and he tried not to think about the circumstances that would—
There was something hanging over the fence.
Neil froze.
It was a scarecrow.
He didn’t remember his grandmother having one, and it was like no scarecrow Neil had ever seen before. Fear spiked his pulse as he dared to approach, shining his flashlight over it to get a better look.
