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Chapter Text

The Brackens were a respectable family that lived in a respectable house on a respectable street. They had respectable neighbours, friends, colleagues, and relatives, many of whom also happened to live on the same respectable street. After Mrs Mooton, one of their aforementioned neighbours, had sadly succumbed to the Stranger at the very respectable age of one-hundred and two, the Brackens had no doubts whatsoever that their new neighbours would be just as respectable as themselves.

They were wrong.

Amos Bracken, who had only recently been re-elected Mayor of Honeytree for the third time in a row, opened his bedroom curtains one fine sunny morning to see a van parked in the adjacent driveway, and a long line of men pulling boxes out of the back of the van and lugging them into the house. The men all had pale skin and jet-black hair, and were wearing very un-respectable clothing, such as sweatshirts and joggers. They must be hired help, he presumed, paid by the new owners of the house to assist with the move.

“Barbra!” Amos called down to his wife, “The new neighbours are here!”

There was a scurry of footsteps as Barbra Bracken quickly hurried up the stairs, scuttling into the bedroom and joining her husband by the window.

“I must think of a way to welcome them properly,” she muttered, absent-mindedly fiddling with her pearl necklace, “how about a cake? Perhaps…lemon drizzle?”

“No!” Amos immediately recoiled in horror, “Beatrice Butterwell won the baking competition at the church fête with a lemon drizzle cake only last week!”

“Oh, don’t remind me!” Barbra lamented, recalling how her own entry, a date and walnut cake, had only been awarded a very paltry third place, “But what of it?”

“Well, people will accuse you of having copied her if you suddenly start handing out lemon drizzle cakes! How about a classic sponge, instead?”

“Gods, no! That’ll make us look common, dear.”

The pair stood in silence for a few moments, watching as the men down below now pulled an assortment of wooden furniture out of the van, before Barbra suddenly clapped her perfectly manicured hands together in delight.

“I know! I’ll make a Battenberg! My grandmother always used to say that you could never go wrong with a Battenberg.”

Barbra looked quite pleased with herself and scuttled back downstairs, presumably to the kitchen. It was imperative that they make a good first impression to the neighbours, they would be living next to them, after all. Amos pulled himself away from the window and marched over to the foot of the staircase that led to the top floor of their three-storey house, the third level housing only his son’s bedroom and the third guest bedroom.

“Raylon!” he shouted up the stairs, fingers tapping impatiently on the solid oak wood banister.

“Yeah?”

“Come downstairs!”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

Raylon finally appeared at the top of the staircase, taking one airpod out while leaving the other firmly wedged in his ear.

“The new neighbours are here, so I expect you to be on your best behaviour today.”

“Okay.”

Amos couldn’t help but frown at his son’s nonchalant response to what was clearly a very serious situation, his anger rising even more once Raylon put his other airpod back in and started to walk back to his room.

“Is that it?” Amos demanded, the words causing Raylon to sigh and take the airpod back out again.

“I’ll behave!” he promised at last.

Amos nodded, finally satisfied at the response.

“Good.”

Raylon said nothing as he trudged back to his room, putting the airpod back in for a second and final time.

“And next time, come downstairs when I first call you, don’t make me call you again!” Amos yelled after him, the only response he received being the reverberating bang of wood against wood as his son’s bedroom door slammed shut.

“Ray, dear, would you like to help me make a cake to bring around to the new neighbours?” Barbra had suddenly materialised out of seemingly nowhere, now wearing the baking apron she had purchased on their last holiday to the French Riviera. Amos had not even heard her come up the stairs to the middle floor, he had been so engrossed in his own thoughts. Raylon’s bedroom door cracked open ever so slightly.

“Not really,” came the reply, the door swiftly closing again.

“I’d better get to work then,” Barbra sighed, before turning to Amos, “would you like to help me, dear?”

What kind of a suggestion was that? It simply wasn’t respectable for any man to bake, let alone the Mayor of Honeytree! Amos looked at his wife as though she had grown two heads and said nothing, only shaking his head as he retreated back to his private study, leaving a very confused Barbra standing alone on the landing.

The cake was, by all accounts, marvellous. If Barbra Bracken had submitted it instead of her date and walnut cake at last week’s baking competition, there was no doubt at all that prissy Beatrice Butterwell and her idiotic lemon drizzle cake would have been stuck with second place.

The sponge was light and soft, yet firm in the middle, the jam was sweet, but not too tart. Barbra had finished the cake with a thin layer of sugary marzipan, her grandmother’s own recipe, before plating the cake onto her finest servewere, a delicate blue and white platter that had been specially commissioned as a fiftieth birthday present from a workshop in Japan. She fixed her hair in the mirror and carefully reapplied her lipstick, Chanel Rouge Coco Flash in the shade ‘Boy’.

“Do I look acceptable, dear?” she asked her husband, who was busy scrutinising the latest issue of Country Life Magazine.

“You always do, Barbra.” Amos replied without so much as glancing up from the page.

Barbra tottered the short distance over to next door, making sure to carry her cake as carefully as possible, before rapping the brass door knocker thrice. She made a mental note of how perfectly manicured the neighbours’ front garden was, the roses bright and in bloom, and not a dreaded weed in sight. Mrs Mooton had employed a team of gardeners to tend to it until her dying day, and they could often be seen pruning bushes and pulling nettles, come rain or come shine. Barbra decided to take it upon herself to inform the new neighbours of the best gardening services in the area, as they must surely be looking to employ one.

There was the sound of movement from inside the house, a metallic scrape as the key turned in the lock and the door swung open. A man stood in the doorway, heavily tattooed and with a cigarette dangling from between his lips. He looked to be in his mid-fifties. Barbra recognised him as one of the removal men she had seen earlier through the window. How rude it was to smoke in somebody else’s home!

“Could I please speak to the new owner of Raventree Hall?” Barbra requested in her politest tone possible. The man only raised his eyebrows and not so subtly looked her up and down.

“I am the new owner” came the gruff response.

“Oh! Well, I - ”

“What do you want?”

“My name is Barbra Bracken, and I live next door to you with my family at Stone Hedge. I thought I would take it upon myself to give yourself and your entire household a very warm welcome to Honeytree. My husband just happens to be the mayor, so if there is anything at all that you require assistance with –“

“What’s that?” the man frowned, pointing at the cake with the stub of his cigarette.

“This is a Battenberg! I baked it as a housewarming present for yourselves, I have always found baking to be such an enjoyable experience – “

“A Batten-what?”

“A Battenberg. It’s a cake.”

The look of confusion on the man’s face persisted. How had someone never heard of a Battenberg?

“It’s a sponge cake with jam and marzipan, said to resemble the coat of arms of the noble House of Battenberg.” Barbra explained, holding out the cake to the man, who actually took it, much to her surprise. She felt a pang of regret at having plated the cake on her finest servewere, having a terrible fear that it would be returned damaged, or worse, that it wouldn’t be returned at all. The man remained silent, no word of thanks, no compliments, no nothing.

“I’m terribly sorry, I don’t think I quite caught your name?” Barbra asked, trying every conversational technique she had learnt at her Swiss Finishing School to try and salvage the exchange.

“Willem,” the man replied, looking increasingly disinterested by the minute.

“Willem…?”

“Blackwood.”

“Have you managed to find a gardener yet?”

Willem rolled his eyes before shutting the door in her face with a bang, leaving her stood speechless on the doorstep. Barbra replayed the conversation over and over again in her mind. What had she said that could have merited such a response? She stumbled back to her own home, panic rising in her chest. Amos immediately put down his magazine at seeing his wife so flustered.

“I knocked on the door, and the man who answered was one of the men we saw through the window earlier. So, I asked him if I could speak to the owner, and he said that he was the owner!” she blurted without a moment’s hesitation, no longer able to contain her shock.

“Impossible!” gasped Amos.

“He looked at my cake as if it was cheap slop, as if I had bought it from somewhere like Tesco! Well, you might not believe this, but he’d never even heard of a Battenberg!”

“No! Surely not?”

“And I asked him if he had found a gardener yet, and he shut the door in my face without another word! Oh, was my cake really that terrible? I suppose he did take it, after all, so it can’t have been that bad…”

Amos had begun to pace around the room.

“Did he disclose anything about himself, perchance? His name, where he’s from?” he inquired.

“He said his name was Willem Blackwood. That’s all.”

Amos pulled his wife into his arms and gave her a hug, rubbing her back reassuringly.

“I’m sure there must be a reasonable explanation for all this,” Amos tried to dispel her fears and put her mind at rest, though he didn’t seem to have too much success.

“I hope so. Oh, what on earth shall we tell Raylon?”

“Leave that to me, Barbra. I’ll figure something out.”

Amos was fairly certain the entire thing was simply one big misunderstanding that would inevitably be smoothed over in a day or so.

He was wrong.

Amos stared at the ceiling as he lay awake in bed. The digital alarm clock on his bedside table showed the time - 23:14 PM. He had been trying to get to sleep for almost an hour at this point, and for a while, he had been asleep, until the most god-awful heavy metal music started blaring through the walls with no end in sight. Amos tossed and turned, drawing the covers up over his head in a futile attempt to muffle the noise, only for the music to change to a song with quite possibly the most scandalous lyrics he’d ever heard. Amos abruptly sat up in bed and reached over to flick on the nearby lamp, causing his equally sleep-deprived wife to sit up as well.

“I’m not putting up with this any longer, Barbra. I’m going to speak to this ‘Willem’ fellow, man to man.”

“Oh, Amos! Do be careful!”

“That man doesn’t scare me! I went to Sandhurst!”

Amos pulled on his dressing gown and stepped into his slippers, slamming the bedroom door behind him, the sound barely audible over the rhythmic thumping of heavy metal emanating from next door. He stomped across to Raventree Hall, practically punching the front door with his fist so as to make sure they heard him over the blaring noise. The last time he had been so enraged was when the waitress at The Ritz had brought him Jasmine Tea instead of Earl Grey.

The door eventually opened, revealing a middle-aged man holding a can of beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. Amos had to bite his tongue to keep himself from prematurely lashing out.

“You must be Willem Blackwood.”

The man frowned, evidently confused as to why someone would be stood on his doorstep wearing nothing other than a dressing gown and slippers in the middle of the night.

“Who’s asking?”

Amos felt the anger gradually reaching a boiling point inside him, the nonchalant reply cranking the heat up a notch. He was surprised he hadn’t had a stroke yet, to be honest.

“My name is Amos Bracken. I live next door. Now, I must insist that you –“

“I’m not Willem, I’m Samwell. You want me to fetch him?”

“I don’t care who you are! I demand that you turn down that awful music at once!” Amos could no longer contain his frustration, letting Samwell Blackwood know exactly what he thought of his music tastes. Amos watched Samwell’s expression gradually shift from shock, to confusion, and then to thinly concealed anger, and for a moment he feared the other man might actually swing a punch at him.

The door was slammed in his face quicker than a fox running from a hound.

Amos marched back over to the welcoming warmth of his own home, kicking off his slippers as soon as he had made it through the front door. The muscles in his face ached from how long he had been clenching his jaw. The music was still blaring. He made his way back up the stairs, feeling more exhausted than he would have liked to admit. Barbra sat up like a meerkat the moment he re-entered their bedroom, clutching the bedcovers to her chest.

“I’ve given him a talking to. If that man has any sense about him, he’ll turn that music off any moment now,” he spat out through gritted teeth, still reeling from his encounter with their apparent nightmare neighbour, “the bad news is, there’s more than one of them. This fellow was called Samwell.”

Amos untied his dressing gown belt and went to hang it up on the back of the door, yet he immediately froze once it dawned on him that something had changed. He could actually hear his own thoughts.

It was silent.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Barbra almost wept, flopping back down onto the pillows, “You made him see sense!”

Amos couldn’t help the ounce of pride he felt at having successfully stood his ground. He was the Mayor of Honeytree, after all. He’d make sure the new inhabitants of Raventree Hall learned to respect that.

He had barely laid his head against the pillow before it started again, only this time, it was louder.

“Faster than a bullet,

Terrifying scream,

Enraged and full of anger,

He is half man and half machine!”

“Fuck!” Amos cried out, immediately jumping out of bed again and pulling on his dressing gown, not bothering with his slippers this time as he marched straight back down the stairs and across to Raventree Hall. He pounded on the oak wood door with all the force he could muster, not caring if the paint chipped or the wood cracked.

“Samwell! Answer this door at once!”

There was no response.

“Samwell!” he yelled out, the veins in his forehead bulging, “Willem!”

The music continued to blare. The door still did not open.

“Cowards!”

Amos looked upwards and began to scrutinise the top floor windows of the house, looking for any signs of life. He was just about to start banging on the door again before he swore that he saw the upstairs curtains twitch, being moved apart ever so slightly before being hastily pulled shut again.  So, those bastards had been watching him the entire time! He imagined the lot of them were probably rolling around on the floor, laughing at their neighbour practically having a breakdown on their doorstep. Amos felt his face redden with humiliation, an emotion he was not particularly accustomed to feeling. He struck the door with his fist one final time, more out of frustration than out of any genuine hope that it would open, before slinking back to Stone Hedge with his tail between his legs. Barbra immediately took note of the sullen expression on her husband’s face as soon as he re-entered the bedroom.

“Oh, dear, what are we going to do?” she asked as she twiddled with the ends of her hair nervously.

Amos was silent for a few moments, his brow furrowed as he sat on the edge of the bed, racking his brain for a solution.

“Clarence and I are meeting up at the country club tomorrow. I’ll see if he can do anything about this, seeing as though he’s the local Police and Crime Commissioner,” he decided at last.

“I do hope he can help us,” Barbra sighed, reaching over to switch off the bedside lamp, “I don’t know how we could continue like this.”

“I’m sure he’ll wangle something. He’s an old friend of mine from the academy, after all.”

There was not much sleep to be had that night, the music blaring until 02:34 AM exactly, when the noise abruptly cut off and the street could finally bask in silence. Barbra had to stop herself from falling asleep at the breakfast bar the next morning, whilst Amos would button up his shirt incorrectly three times owing to his sleep-deprived state. Raylon was rather surprised to see his parents in such a pitiful condition, having by some miraculous ability managed to sleep through the entire ordeal.

“How I wish Mrs Mooton were still with us – fifteen years we lived side by side, and not once did we have any problems!” Barbra lamented, picking at the avocado toast on her plate with the prong of her fork. Amos grumbled in agreement.

“Shh!”

The pair of them looked up to see their son stood with his ear pressed against the wall, listening intently.

“What is it, Raylon?”

Raylon put a finger to his lips and pointed at the wall that separated them from their neighbours next door.

“Listen!”

If the circumstances had been anything different, no doubt Barbra and Amos would have chastised their son for being so nosy as to blatantly intrude on the neighbour’s privacy. But, seeing as though the neighbours had made it abundantly clear that they had no regard for their privacy, why shouldn’t they return the favour? They shamelessly pressed their ears to the wall and listened to the commotion taking place on the other side. There seemed to be some sort of argument going on, although the voices sounded different to those of Samwell or Willem.

“Davos! What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“What the fuck have I done now?”

“Someone’s drank all my vodka and replaced it with water!”

“Well, it wasn’t me, was it? It was probably Aly, or someone.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me! You’re clearly hungover!”

Amos had heard enough. He tore himself away from the wall, sitting down on the nearest chair and placing his head in his hands. His life had been the very definition of suburban bliss only two days ago, yet now, it felt like that privileged stability he had clung to so desperately had been completely turned on its head.

“I don’t know what on earth we have gotten ourselves into, Barbra…”

There was no sign of the new neighbours for the next three days. Amos would be lying if he said that this unexpected respite hadn’t lured him into a false sense of security, that he hadn’t started to hope that the previous night’s chaos was somehow a one-off occurrence and perhaps things would work out in the end, after all.

It was a sunny weekend afternoon when these hopes came unceremoniously crashing to the ground. Amos was sat outside on the patio, enjoying the heat of the midday sun whilst he filed the latest tax returns for his accountancy business on his laptop. Barbra had only just brought out another pitcher of her famous cloudy lemonade, a family recipe, after Amos had downed the previous two jugs in quick succession. He briefly paused to take another sip before punching a series of numbers into his calculator.

Thwack!

Amos snapped his head up to see two people stood in the adjacent garden, chatting between themselves whilst absent-mindedly kicking a football against the fence that separated Stone Hedge from Raventree Hall. He couldn’t say he’d seen either of them before – early twenties, mid-twenties at a push, pale skin and raven hair - one of them in particular bore quite a strong resemblance to Samwell. The impact of each collision caused a wooden rattle to reverberate in the air while the entire fence lurched back and forth.

Thwack!

The ball ricocheted off the fence once again. Amos felt his blood pressure begin to rise.

Thwack!

“Will you stop kicking that infernal thing against the bloody fence?” Amos scolded, scowling at the pair of them from over the rim of his reading glasses. The neighbours exchanged an irritated look with each other, muttering what was no doubt a string of profanities under their breath, though they said nothing to Amos.

Amos went back to typing on his laptop, filling in the endless forms that the government required him to do, before leaning over to pour himself what was probably his tenth lemonade of the day. He silently cursed his wife’s excellent culinary skills – the doctor had repeatedly warned him to watch his sugar intake, yet it was easier said than done when living with someone like Barbra.

Thwack!

The noise almost caused him to spill lemonade all over his laptop keyboard. He had the strong urge to go over and strangle the pair of them with his bare hands.

“I thought I told you lot to stop – “ Amos began.

“Why do you care what we do in our own garden?” one of them spat back.

“If you keep hitting it, it’s going to damage the fence, and then the whole thing will fall down! I’ll tell you this now, I’m not going to be the one paying for the replacement.”

The pair merely rolled their eyes and went back to doing what they were doing. Amos decided he couldn’t take any more of that irksome sound and began to gather his things together, ready to retreat back inside into his private study. Just as he was about to leave, the ball suddenly flew over the fence, landing with a thud on the grass only a few feet away from him.

“Well done, Ben!” huffed one of the pair, fixing the other with a dagger-like stare.

“I didn’t fucking mean to kick it over there, did I, Davos?” came the scathing response.

Amos took advantage of the neighbours’ bickering to pick up the ball, holding it up triumphantly as though it were some sort of trophy.

“Are you wanting this back?” he called across the fence, trying and failing to conceal the smugness in his tone. The neighbours immediately ceased their arguing, yet offered no response, eyes narrowed as they regarded him with suspicion. Amos brandished his letter opener with a flourish, making a show as he drove the pointed edge down into the football, which burst with an audible pop. The sound of escaping air filled the silence as he tossed the rapidly deflating sack across the fence.

“Here you go. Good luck trying to kick that around”.

Ben marched across and picked up the now-empty football, examining it for a few moments before letting it fall to the ground. He whispered something to Davos, who quickly retreated into their house before re-emerging soon after, hiding something under his arm. Amos didn’t know what it was they were planning, but if the furious expressions on both of their faces were anything to go by, then it wasn’t going to be good - at least, not for him, it wasn’t.

His fears were realised when an entire container of table salt – lethal to plants – was rather unceremoniously dumped over the fence and all along his prized flowerbeds.

“You bastards!” Amos immediately jumped up from where he sat and marched straight over to the fence, trying and failing to grab hold of either one of them as he leant across.

The Blackwoods could barely contain their laughter.

“I’m not scared of you! You should be scared of me! I went to Sandhurst, did you know? The finest military academy in the country!” he ranted, pointing a finger at the pair of them, “And I’m friends with Clarence Charlton, the local Police and Crime Commissioner! In fact, I saw him just last week! You’ll both be thrown in a prison cell by the end of the day!”

These words had the opposite of their intended effect, only making the pair of them laugh harder. They also both made a point of flicking him the middle finger as they made their way back into Raventree Hall.

Amos and Barbra spent several hours trying to scrape the salt off their plants. The flowers ended up slightly withered, and lost a fair amount of their leaves, but they didn’t completely die. Amos decided to consider it a victory of sorts. He was nonetheless astute enough to realise that it was only a matter of time before another confrontation with the neighbours would inevitably happen again.

Darla Deddings was the owner of the Honeytree Tea Garden, one of two cafes that operated out of the village. Her rivalry with the other establishment, Butterwell Tea Rooms, was widely known by residents as far afield as Longleaf.

She was also the village gossip.

If you had something you wanted to find out about somebody, or something you wanted everyone in the village to know about by the end of the day, then you went to Darla Deddings.

“Darla, it’s so great to see you again. You have no idea how much this means to Amos and I.” Barbra said, pouring a cup of Fortnum and Mason’s Royal Blend Tea as the trio sat in the living room of Stone Hedge.

Darla had been a more than enthusiastic recipient to their invitation to come over for afternoon tea, especially after news of the dreaded salt incident spread far and wide across the village – no doubt she wished to get a first-hand account of the gossip.

“I heard about your…’predicament’, shall we say? Honestly, who do they think they are, coming into our village and acting like that – and to the mayor and his family, of all people!” Darla sympathised whilst munching on her fourth chocolate bourbon of the day.

“It’s been so hard on all of us, we just can’t understand what would make them act in such a way!”

“How are the boys finding it?” asked Darla.

“Well, Aeron’s still away at RAU, he’s just finished his second year, can you believe it? He’s coming home not this weekend, but the weekend after, so we’ll have to see how he handles things then. And Raylon has just received an offer to study PPE at Durham, so he’s far too preoccupied to worry about any of this. We’re so proud of you, aren’t we sweetheart?” Barbra gushed, looking over at her son, who sat at the opposite end of the room playing on his Nintendo Switch.

“Mhm…” came the disinterested reply.

“Aeron is so fortunate to have an aunt and uncle like yourself willing to look after him!”

“It was the least we could do after that terrible car accident,” Amos recalled, his voice cracking as he spoke, “he was so young when it happened, I expect he doesn’t remember much of his own parents anymore.”

“A bit like Harry Potter…” Raylon called from across the room.

“What?”

“'Cause he went to stay with his aunt and uncle after his parents died, didn’t he?” Raylon explained, staring at the three of them blankly as though it were the most obvious comparison ever. Barbra and Amos exchanged a quizzical look.

“Yes, dear, but we don’t make Aeron sleep in the garage!”

“It wasn’t the garage, mum, it was the cupboard under the stairs!”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter where it was, we treat Aeron as if he were our own son!” Barbra chided, feeling herself getting increasingly flustered by the unexpected shift in the conversation.

“I know,” Raylon muttered through gritted teeth, as if to say, you already have a son.

“I heard that you lost out to Beatrice Butterwell at the baking competition last week!” Darla suddenly interjected, barely concealing the venom in her tone as she spat the name of her rival, “I’m sure her victory has absolutely nothing to do with the fact her husband sat on the judging panel.”

“Really? I didn’t know that!”

“I know everything there is to know around here!” boasted Darla.

“Well, continuing along those lines,” Barbra broached the subject carefully, “Amos and I were wondering what you could tell us about the new neighbours?”

Darla’s face immediately lit up in delight.

“I was down at the country club yesterday,” she explained, her eyes darting eagerly between the two of them, “and Roslin Goodbrook had much to say about the Blackwoods!”

“Do tell!”

“There are five of them, apparently - Willem, Samwell, Alysanne, Benjicot, and Davos. Roslin assures me that they’re from up north –“

“Five! I thought there were only four of them!” Amos exclaimed.

“Willem, Samwell, and Alysanne are siblings. Benjicot is Samwell’s son, and Davos is Willem’s son, or is it the other way around? I can’t quite remember. They’ve taken over the mechanics in Swynford, or so I’ve heard.”

“Where are the mothers of these two boys, then?” Barbra carefully pried for more information. Darla only shrugged her shoulders and reached over to grab another chocolate bourbon.

“Roslin didn’t seem to know anything about that.”

“They’re hardly boys, are they, Barbra? Davos is almost certainly older than our Raylon.” Amos interjected, scowling as he watched the neighbour’s neon green car pull into the driveway of Raventree Hall through the window. The salt incident still lingered fresh in his mind.

“I just hope they won’t cause our two boys any trouble,” sighed Barbra.

 Amos felt his anger rise at the thought of the neighbours causing either of his boys any trouble. They didn’t deserve to be dragged into any of this.

“I’ll tell you this now, Darla,” he declared, the determination evident in his tone, “Davos and Benjicot won’t be allowed within a ten-foot radius of Aeron and Raylon.”

Darla’s eyes sparkled over the rim of her teacup - no doubt the entirety of Honeytree would be able to recite those words off by heart by the time the sun set tonight. But that’s exactly how he wanted it to be. Amos figured it was the most efficient way to send a message to the new neighbours, after all.

The storm had been brutal. A weather warning had been announced on the news the day before, cautioning against high wind speeds and strong gales. Amos had spent much of the day making sure the patio furniture was properly tied down – he didn’t want it flying over into the neighbour’s garden, if only because he suspected they’d probably try and sue him. The rain crashed against the windows until the early hours of the morning, the thunder only calming down once the first rays of sunshine began to peek through the clouds. Amos immediately jumped out of bed and pulled back the curtains, looking to assess the damage.

The patio furniture was where it should be.

The fence was not.

Amos pulled on his dressing gown and slippers and ran outside, only to find that Davos and Benjicot had somehow got there first. The wooden fence panelling lay scattered in pieces across both their gardens, with only a couple of posts still defiantly standing upright.

“I told you lot not to kick that bloody football against the fence!” Amos yelled in frustration, jabbing an accusatory finger at the pair of them.

“The storm did this, not the football.” Benjicot replied evenly, remaining far too calm for his liking.

“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? I told you before, I’m not paying for the replacement!”

“Then why should we pay for it?” Samwell suddenly materialised in the doorway, having clearly been listening in on their conversation, “It’s a shared fence; we should split the cost!”

“It’s a shared fence, yet I didn’t cause half the damage!” Amos countered, hoping to the gods that none of their other neighbours were able to hear this altercation. The Mayor of Honeytree could hardly be spotted yelling at his neighbours whilst stood in his dressing gown at eight in the morning without some sort of scandal arising from it.

“What the hell do you expect us to do?”

“I expect you to fix this mess you caused!”

“We didn’t cause shit!”

Amos wasn’t in the mood for compromise that morning, and, as it turned out, neither were the Blackwoods. He decided to issue his neighbours one final ultimatum before turning on his heel and storming back inside Stone Hedge.

“I want a new fence built by the end of the week!” he declared, stomping his foot on the boundary for added emphasis.

Amos heard Samwell shout something after him as he walked back inside, but he didn’t bother to find out what it was - no doubt it was nothing more than a series of jeers and taunts. Amos found that he didn’t particularly care. He may have lost the battle, but he was damn certain he was going to win the war. He would make sure the neighbours had put a new fence up by next week, or else there would be hell to pay, that he could promise!

The fence continued to lay in pieces for the next six days, with no indication that the Blackwoods had made any effort to build a replacement. The immediate consequences of the fence’s absence were relatively minor, save for the fact that the neighbour’s cat, a bedraggled looking three-legged creature, had taken to crossing over onto their side of the boundary and digging up the neatly manicured grass. Amos had once again gone over to knock on the door of Raventree Hall to demand that they keep their pest inside until a new fence was built. Alysanne Blackwood, who was probably the most level-headed of the entire household, had been the one to answer the door. She had initially made a rather paltry attempt to try to diffuse the situation.

“She’s not going to hurt you, I promise.” Alysanne tried to reassure him.

“You say that now…” Amos grumbled under his breath, recalling a certain traumatic incident he experienced with his grandmother’s cat when he was a boy of around eight or nine.

“She’s just a cat, Amos.”

“I don’t care what it is, I want it gone!”

Alysanne had eventually promised to at least try to keep the cat from crossing over into their garden, a commitment that lasted the better part of twenty-four hours before Amos woke up to find that bloody cat once again munching away on his newly planted petunias.

The weekend eventually rolled around, with still no sign of a new fence, although the shattered remnants of the old one had been removed, he noticed. Amos had been sat in his private study, sorting out wage slips for his employees, when his wife suddenly burst into the room without knocking – very unlike her.

“You’d better come and see this, dear!” Barbra blurted, looking quite flustered as she stood with her hair still in its curlers.

Amos didn’t need to be a psychic to know that whatever it was likely had something to do with the new neighbours. He marched straight outside to see Willem Blackwood laying a series of stones across the boundary where the fence used to be.

“Here you go, Amos!” he chuckled, “One brand new fence!”

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” Amos snapped, pacing back and forth along the row of newly placed rocks.

“Well, since you weren’t willing to split the costs with us, this was the best we could do!”

“What even are these, patio stones?”

“Yeah, something like that. They’re pretty nifty, eh? Much more durable than the old thing.”

Amos immediately stopped pacing once he noticed something else that concerned him. He could have sworn the fence never stood that close to his flowerbeds…

‘This is a farce; besides, you haven’t even placed them correctly. They’re encroaching on my land by at least half a metre!” he insisted, stepping over the stones and drawing a line with his foot where the boundary should have been. Willem only raised his eyebrows.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes! First you destroy my fence, next you try to steal my land!”

“Ah! So, you admit it was your fence?”

Amos searched in his heart for more patience yet found none. His life had taken a rapid decline the day that these parasites had decided to move in next door, and he figured it might as well be time to call the exterminator.

“I’m not admitting to anything. I want these stones moved off my land and back onto the correct boundary by tomorrow, or else you’ll be hearing from my solicitor. And once you’ve moved them back, don’t even think about touching them again, understood?” Amos ordered, speaking in the same tone he used when dealing with uncooperative employees. Willem’s face immediately hardened.

“The same goes for you, Amos! Don’t even think about muddying the stones with your filthy paws!”

“Move the stones back to their correct position, and I won’t need to.”

It was apparent that a family feud was brewing, a feud that could only be ended by one or the other deciding to move away from Honeytree. There was only one question that remained – which household would give in and move away first?

Amos thought the whole fence debacle was mostly over. He would soon find out that it was just the beginning.

He woke up the next morning and stepped out onto the balcony, expecting to find that the stones had been moved back to mark the correct position of the boundary.

The stones had instead seemingly rolled themselves a further four feet into his garden.

Amos practically leapt down the stairs as he sprinted outside, almost knocking over Raylon in the process, who was busy pouring himself a bowl of cereal in the kitchen.

His fears were confirmed as soon as he stepped into the garden. The stones were definitely encroaching on his property more so now than they had been the day before. Yesterday, the stones had come very close to touching his prized flowerbeds – that was what had made him realise the stones were encroaching on his property in the first place. Now, the stones split the flowerbeds right down the middle, crushing a good number of the petunias! Was this their twisted idea of a joke? He demanded they move the stones back, so the bastards just moved them even further?

Amos was soon distracted from his thoughts by a black smudge that appeared in his garden out of the corner of his eye - a black smudge that was currently digging a hole in his lawn.

That fucking cat.

Amos bent down and picked up one of the decorative pebbles that lined the edge of the flowerbeds, lobbing it at the cat before he had a chance to notice that someone was watching him out of one of the windows in Raventree Hall. The pebble landed a foot away from the cat, which immediately scarpered back to its own garden with its tail all puffed up.

“You dickhead!”

Amos spun on his heel to see the neighbour’s back door swing open as Davos and Benjicot raced outside, closely followed by Willem. Davos picked the cat up, cradling it close to his chest, whilst glaring at Amos.

“What happened?” Alysanne’s voice called out into the garden.

“He threw a brick at Jinx!”

“It wasn’t a brick; it was a pebble.”  Amos tried to defend himself.

“What difference does it make?”

“Your pest was on my land. As are these stones.”

Alysanne and Samwell had both come out to join the rest of their relatives in the garden by this point. Amos glanced back over his shoulder to see both Barbra and Raylon stood on their patio, anxious looks on of their faces as they witnessed the rapidly escalating confrontation. Willem took a step closer to Amos.

“They’re not.”

“They are.”

“They’re not!”

“They are!”

Amos had to stop himself from breaking the man’s jaw right then and there. He could feel his fingernails cut crescent moon shapes into his palms from how tight he was clenching his fists.

“I’ll make sure you live to regret this, Willem,” he hissed, his voice devoid of any insincerity.

“I’d like to see you try, Amos.”

The two men exchanged no further words as they stood in the garden surrounded by their respective families. The expression of pure hatred upon both their faces conveyed more information than words could ever hope to communicate.

Barbra stared up at the ornate ebony grandfather clock that sat in their hallway, tapping her Christian Louboutin’s impatiently against the marble flooring. Amos had been ready almost ten minutes ago and was currently sat in the living room flicking through the latest issue of the Financial Times.

They were going to be late.

“Are you ready yet, Raylon?” Barbra called up the stairs.

“What for?”

How on earth could that boy have forgotten!

“We’re going to the train station to collect Aeron!” she shouted back to her son, who now stood at the top of the stairs, still dressed in his pyjamas.

“Do I have to go?”

“Yes! He’s your cousin!”

“Fine.”

Raylon disappeared back to his room, grumbling all the while, eventually reappearing wearing a hoodie and jeans. Barbra would have probably told him to change into something more respectable under different circumstances, but they were already late enough as it was, so it would just have to do.

The three of them piled into the Range Rover parked in the driveway. Amos turned the key in the ignition, his brow furrowing as the car failed to start. He turned the key once more for good measure, yet the ignition only stuttered as the engine refused to come to life.

“I had this thing serviced just last week!” Amos grumbled, stepping out of the car to take a look under the hood. He’d been sure to get his car serviced at a mechanic some distance away in Longleaf, rather than his usual one in Swynford, now that the new neighbours had apparently taken the business over. Amos had been far too paranoid that he’d receive his car back with the brake lines cut.

The engine compartment looked fine under the hood, albeit a little rusty, but nothing that would cause the car to stall. Amos slammed the hood back down and knelt down on the driveway to take a look underneath the car. He smelt the problem before he saw it – the stench of gasoline was unmistakable. Amos carefully shimmied himself under the car, only to find himself lying in an entire tank’s worth of petrol. He shone his phone torch up at the underside of the car, only to see a sizeable gash travelling down the side of the fuel tank.

The gash was clean. It was too clean.

It was manmade.

“They’ve punctured the fuel tank!” Amos shouted up to Barbra.

He eventually managed to extract himself from underneath the car, his suit now thoroughly soaked in gasoline, only to hear the sound of laughter emanating from somewhere above him. Amos looked up to see Benjicot Blackwood sticking his head out of one of the second-storey windows in Raventree Hall.

“You miserable cunt! Have you nothing better to do?”

“Oh, what are we going to do? What are we going to tell Aeron?” Barbra asked, fiddling with her pearl necklace. His train had probably arrived at the station already. Amos racked his brain for a solution.

“Call him and tell him that he’ll need to catch the bus. We’ll help him bring his suitcases to the house from the bus stop.”

Amos looked back up at Raventree Hall and thought of all the possible ways to burn the place down without running the risk of damaging Stone Hedge.

Aeron Bracken stood at Honeytree Station with his suitcase and rucksack, looking around for any sign of his aunt and uncle. The station was completely dead, all the other passengers on his train having dispersed a while ago, leaving only himself behind. He could only hope his relatives hadn’t forgotten about him.

Aeron’s phone suddenly began to vibrate in short, staccato bursts, and he fished it out of his pocket so that he could answer.

“Hello?”

“Has your train arrived yet, sweetie? Are you alright? Did you manage to eat anything on the train?” his aunt’s voice sounded from the other end of the call.

“I’m fine, I just arrived about five minutes ago. Are you here yet?”

“Our car has just broken down, well, it was sabotage, really, but that’s not important! I know it’s not ideal, but is there any chance you would be able to catch the next bus, instead? We’ll help you bring everything from the bus stop, just let us know when you’re about to get off!”

Sabotage? Aunt Barbra made it sound as though it were a James Bond movie!

“Alright.”

“I know it’s not ideal, sweetie, and I’m so, so sorry! We were all sat in the car and everything, ready to go!”

Aeron didn’t particularly like taking the bus. The bus drivers always kept trying to charge him for a child’s ticket, which was particularly embarrassing given that a child’s ticket was for under sixteens, and he had just recently celebrated his twentieth birthday. He supposed he shouldn’t complain, it was fifty pence cheaper, after all. The nearest bus stop was directly opposite the station.

“It’s fine, I can manage, I promise.”

“I’ll see you in fifteen minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Aeron dragged his suitcase back inside, approaching the information desk at the far end of the station.

“Excuse me, when’s the next bus to Honeytree?” he asked the woman sat behind the counter.

“Not until Monday,” she replied, not even bothering to look up from her book.

Monday? That couldn’t be right!

“I thought the buses ran on Saturdays?” he questioned.

“It’s weekdays only now. There’s a taxi rank outside.”

Aeron sighed and dragged his suitcase back outside again, making his way over to the taxi rank - it was completely empty, with not a taxi in sight. He considered going back inside to ask the woman where they all were, but something told him she wouldn’t appreciate being made to do her job. He sat down on a nearby bench and waited, hoping that a taxi would soon materialise.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Aeron glanced at his phone. He had been waiting for almost half an hour.

Fuck it, he thought to himself, Honeytree is only a twenty-five minute walk away, I could have been home by now!

Aeron stood up and decided that he may as well just walk home. He slid his rucksack back onto his shoulders before grabbing hold of his suitcase, dragging it behind him as he made his way down the road.

It was fine for the first ten minutes or so. There wasn’t another person in sight as he meandered down the narrow rural roads, the only sound being the chirping of crickets in the nearby hedgerows. Aeron liked his university campus well enough, but nothing could compare to being in the heart of the countryside. That was, at least, before the pavement suddenly disappeared, and he was forced to drag his suitcase along the pothole-covered country lane. The wheels would occasionally get stuck in one of the crevices, and he would be forced to yank on it to get it moving again. He did see one tractor, the driver giving him a rather strange look as he stood with his suitcase at the side of the road to let the vehicle pass by.

Aeron stumbled as the suitcase wheel suddenly caught on a particularly prominent pothole, being forced to let go of the handle in order to try and catch himself. It was just at that moment that a neon green Ford Fiesta came hurtling down the road at an ungodly speed, before suddenly slowing down once it passed Aeron. Aeron tried to ignore the car, dragging his suitcase out of the pothole as the driver rolled down his window.

“Need any help there?” the driver called out to him.

“I’m fine” Aeron didn’t so much as glance at the driver, too embarrassed at the fact they’d just seen him stumbling all over the place with his suitcase. He hoped they’d just give up and drive off.

“Whatcha say?”

Aeron mustered the courage to look at the driver and was surprised by what he saw. He had assumed that the driver would most likely be middle aged, forties or fifties, probably on their way home from work or something. Instead, his eyes came to rest upon a man probably not much older than himself, twenty-five at a push, with a mop of messy raven hair and a scar just above his lip. Aeron had to force himself to stop staring at the driver, who may or may not have been exactly his type, and actually respond to him.

“I said I’m fine!” he called back.

“You sure look it,” the driver replied, sounding unconvinced as he looked him up and down. Aeron imagined he probably looked quite a fright, having dragged a twenty-five kilogram suitcase for over half a mile in the summer heat.

“So, you gonna get in or what?” the driver asked, nodding at his empty passenger seat.

The guy might have been handsome, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a serial killer, and Aeron had been brought up well enough to know not to hop straight into a stranger’s car.

“And why would I do that, exactly?” Aeron questioned, trying to work out just how trustworthy this guy really was. If he was being honest, a lift did sound really good right now, especially given that he probably had another fifteen minutes or so to walk.

“’Cause you’re clearly lost on a country road in the middle of fucking nowhere?”

“I’m not lost”

Aeron was actually telling the truth, but the driver, once again, looked unconvinced.

“If you say so”

The driver seemed to get the hint and began to roll up his window. Aeron suddenly felt a pang of regret.

“Wait!” he blurted out, before he could fully comprehend what his plan was. The driver stopped rolling up the window, leaving just an inch or two of open space at the top.

“How do you even know you’re headed in the same direction as me?” Aeron asked, noticing the way the driver smiled at his question.

“This is the only road that leads to Honeytree.”

Honeytree was only a seven- or eight-minute drive away from where they were. It surely wouldn’t be terrible to hitch a ride from an attractive stranger – would it?

“Do you know where abouts Darry Avenue is?”

Aeron didn’t actually live on Darry Avenue, but it was approximately two streets away from Riverland Road, where he did live. He figured it was best to give the man a fake address for the time being.

“Sure do. That where you’re headed?”

Aeron nodded.

“Hop in, then.”

Aeron dragged his suitcase around to the back of the car, popping open the boot before laying the case down next to the two packs of lager that were already in there. He shut the car boot before hopping in the passenger seat, placing his rucksack between his feet in the footwell. The driver moved the gearstick back into drive before placing his foot down hard on the accelerator, taking off down the road at a speed that definitely wasn’t within the speed limit.

“So,” the driver asked, “what’s your name, then?”

“I’m Aeron”

The driver reached across and held out his right hand. Aeron shook it. The grip was warm but firm.

“I’m Davos”

The pair of them sat in silence for a few moments while Aeron tried to come up with something else to say. He wasn’t exactly an expert at hitchhiking etiquette.

“I’ve just come from the train station. I would have caught the bus, but I was told that they weren’t running.”

“Oh, yeah? You just visiting Honeytree, then?” asked Davos.

“No, I live there.”

“Really? You know, Darry Avenue isn’t too far from where I live.”

Aeron’s eyes widened at the implication of his words.

“You live in Honeytree, too?”

Davos appeared mildly amused by his reaction, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards.

“You look surprised,” Davos observed. Aeron tried desperately to come up with a response that wouldn’t be taken the wrong way.

“You just didn’t strike me as someone from the countryside, that’s all,” he explained, internally cringing at his poor explanation.

“Well, I’m not, not really. I’m from Nottingham, originally.”

“Oh, right.”

“You don’t know where that is, do you?”

It was moments like these that made Aeron really regret not paying attention in geography.

“I know of it, but I don’t know where it is,” Aeron admitted, hoping he didn’t come across as a complete idiot.

“It’s kind of in-between Sheffield and Birmingham,” Davos continued, fiddling with the car’s air conditioning.

“Oh.”

“You don’t know where they are, either?”

Aeron must have really come across as an idiot. He couldn’t place three of the country’s biggest cities on a map.

“I know vaguely where abouts they are,” he answered, though he must have been a terrible liar, as the other man only raised his eyebrows in response. Aeron felt his face turn red from embarrassment.

“Where’ve you just come from then?” asked Davos.

“I’ve just come back from uni for the holidays.”

“Which uni is that?”

“RAU.”

“Never even heard of it,” Davos admitted.

“You’ve never heard of the Royal Agricultural University?” Aeron continued, thinking that he might recognise its full name.

Davos shook his head, taking advantage of being stopped at a traffic light to fish a cigarette out of his pocket and light it with the car’s cigarette lighter. He rolled the window down further as he exhaled the smoke.

“It was the first agricultural college in the country, you know”

“So, what, you gonna be a farmer or something?”

“No,” Aeron laughed, “I mean, I’m going to work with horses, equine studies are my specialty, though the official title of my course is Bloodstock and Performance Horse Management.”

“Hm.”

Aeron wasn’t convinced that Davos actually understood a single word of what he was talking about. He decided not to bring it up in any case.

“What university did you go to?” he returned the question.

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t need a degree. My uncle is a mechanic, and he already taught me everything I need to know. I work for him,” Davos explained, shrugging his shoulders.

“That sounds nice.”

Aeron thought the idea of working for a family business sounded quite pleasant. There was his dad’s accounting firm, of course, but numbers had never meant much to him in the same way horses did.

“Where abouts do you want dropping off?”

Aeron looked around to realise that they had just turned onto Darry Avenue. He had already forgotten that he had lied about his address.

“Here is fine.”

The car pulled up along the side of the pavement. Davos insisted on helping Aeron haul his suitcase out of the car boot, going so far as to offer to lug it all the way to his doorstep if he so wished. Aeron was forced to politely turn him down for obvious reasons. If he hadn’t lied about his address, he probably would have taken him up on it.

“You, uh, got any plans for the week?” asked Davos.

“Not really. I’m just going to flop in bed for a few days, I think.”

“I could show you around the area sometime, if you wanted.”

“I’ve lived here all my life; I sure hope I know my way around by now,” Aeron laughed as he slung his rucksack back over his shoulder. Davos looked vaguely disappointed.

“Oh.”

“Thank you once again for the ride, you’re a literal lifesaver. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t found me on that road.”

“That’s no problem.”

“Do you want any petrol money? I have a tenner in my pocket,” Aeron offered. His friends often appreciated it when he paid for that sort of thing, but Davos only shook his head.

“I’m fine.”

Aeron was slightly taken aback. He’d never had someone turn down his offer of petrol money before.

“Are you sure?” he offered again.

“Don’t worry your pretty head about that kind of thing.”

Aeron felt his cheeks redden at the obvious flirtation. He wasn’t accustomed to being the recipient of such attention, not that it was unwelcome, but simply unexpected. He tried, and failed, to think of a similar comment to respond with.

“Thank you once again,” was all he managed to say, though the pair did exchange a smile before they parted ways.

Aeron had dragged his suitcase around halfway down the street when he heard someone calling his name, looking over his shoulder to see Davos running after him. He handed a notebook over to Aeron.

“You left this in my car.”

“Oh, it must have fallen out of my bag. I’m so sorry.”

Aeron noticed that Davos had a rather bashful expression on his face as he walked back to his car. He waved at the neon green Ford Fiesta as it took off down the road, before taking a closer look at the notebook. It was plain and spiral-bound, a bit like the ones he brought along to his lectures, but this one didn’t have his initials emblazoned on the front in gold lettering. His suspicions were confirmed when he flicked through the pages, only to find that they were mostly empty, save for some mathematical calculations scattered somewhere near the back. This notebook certainly wasn’t his. There was only one thing written on the front page – a phone number, with a smiley face drawn next to it.

Aeron couldn’t help but feel butterflies in his stomach. He knew he’d probably be giving that number a ring later in the afternoon. It felt nice to be desired. He would have to think up an excuse as to why he had lied about his address, though.

He practically skipped along the rest of Darry Avenue, wondering absent-mindedly to himself if life had changed all that much at Stone Hedge since he’d been away. He knew all about the new neighbours at Raventree Hall, of course, his uncle had taken great care with keeping him up to date on all of it – the salt incident, the fence falling down, the stones that had now been laid across the boundary. He could only hope it wouldn’t affect his summer too much.

His heart dropped as he rounded the corner onto Riverland Road and saw a very recognisable neon green Ford Fiesta parked in one of the driveways halfway down the street. He tried desperately to convince himself that it wasn’t parked where he feared it was, but his gut instinct already told him that it was. He clung to the hope that he’d somehow gotten it wrong, that it was parked at a different house, that it was a different car that just so happened to be the same make and colour.

Aeron only found himself able to accept the truth once it lay directly in front of him.

Davos’ car was parked in the driveway of Raventree Hall.

Fuck!

Chapter Text

The Brackens gathered around the dinner table that evening, once Aeron had hauled his suitcases upstairs, survived the barrage of hugs and kisses from his aunt, and finally felt like he was beginning to settle back into life at Stone Hedge. In many ways, it felt as though he had never been away from home at all. Aunt Barbra had served up one of her classic roast dinners – carrots, roast potatoes, parsnips, beef (nut roast for Aeron, who was vegetarian), cauliflower cheese, stuffing balls, with heaps of gravy to top it off. It made a pleasant change from the microwave meals and supermarket meal deals he had been living off at university. Barbra had attempted to convince Amos to crack open the £600 bottle of Penfolds Grange Wine he had purchased as a small treat from Fortnum and Mason the last time he was in London. Amos instead argued that such a fine bottle should be saved for Christmas Day, with the pair eventually settling on popping open the much more affordable £200 Gerard Bertrand Rouge that was sitting in the wine cooler.

“Aeron, we’re so glad to finally have you home! Aren’t we, Raylon?” Barbra couldn’t help but gush as she passed the gravy boat over to Aeron.

Raylon only hummed in response. Aeron knew deep down that Raylon had missed him (well, he was pretty sure he had), even if his cousin never liked to show it. He was also pretty sure that Raylon had somehow managed to sneak his brand new Nintendo Switch 2 console under the table, judging by the way he kept glancing down at his lap every ten seconds. Barbra ‘no phones at the table’ Bracken would doubtless confiscate it if she caught on to what he was doing.

“Well, I’m just glad to be home,” Aeron replied, pouring an unholy amount of gravy over his roast potatoes.

“I wouldn’t get too excited just yet,” Amos interjected, his tone grave and serious. “You know I‘m not one to give lectures, my boy, but things have changed around here since you left.”

“Ever since that despicable family moved in…” his aunt shuddered at the mere thought.

Aeron had hoped that the new neighbours wouldn’t be brought up in conversation that evening, not after he had just (unknowingly) hitched a ride from Davos Blackwood of all people. Gods help him should his aunt and uncle ever find out that they’d come within ten metres of each other, let alone that he’d actually hitched a ride from the man.

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it’s best to steer clear of that lot. I’m talking to you, too, Raylon,” warned Amos, throwing a stern look at both boys. Aeron nodded, pretending he agreed with every word, while Raylon gave a grunt of acknowledgement that seemed to satisfy his father.

“There’s five of them, isn’t there?” Aeron asked, trying to glean more information about the Blackwoods out of Amos. Well, information about one particular Blackwood, to be exact.

“That’s right. There’s Willem and Samwell, the two older men – tall, dishevelled, arms covered in all sorts of horrible tattoos. You know the like,” Amos explained, his face contorting with anger at the mere thought of his rabid neighbours.

“That’s not even the worst of it,” exclaimed Barbra. “They even have piercings. Piercings, Aeron! And Darla Deddings said Roslin Goodbrook said Clarence Charlton said that their tattoos are probably gang related! Oh, what has Honeytree come to?”

Barbra held her head in her hands as Amos resumed his rant.

“Then there’s Alysanne. She’s more or less the female version of Samwell, albeit slightly less insufferable - only slightly, mind you. There’s two boys living there as well, probably a bit older than you. Benjicot and – oh, what’s his name…”

“Davos…?” 

Amos’ eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Aeron suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything at all.

“Davos, that’s right. How did you know? Have you met him?”

“No. I think you mentioned him once, after the salt incident,” Aeron responded as innocently as he could, hoping to the gods that Amos didn’t see through his lie.

“Did I? Well, I suppose I must have.”

Aeron let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when his uncle didn’t question his explanation. He let the relief flood through him as Amos continued his description of the new neighbours. 

“Davos and Benjicot are the last of the bunch. They’re probably in their early twenties, and are by far the most volatile. I heard that just last week they threatened Bryan Frey as he walked home from work!” his uncle exclaimed, the outrage barely concealed in his tone.

Bryan Frey had been in the year above Aeron at school. That was, before Bryan had been unceremoniously expelled for smoking cannabis on school property. He had then gone on to be expelled from a further three schools, before he seemingly gave up on education entirely, instead devoting himself to his two favourite hobbies – throwing rocks at passing cars and leering at women in the street. His miraculous ability to escape prison time could be attributed less to divine intervention, and more to the fact that his uncle was a former judge, as well as the local MP. Barbra had heard through Darla Deddings some months earlier that Bryan had somehow managed to land a job at the local Tesco Express, a wondrous feat given that he had been arrested several years back for shoplifting from the same place. Aeron had been slightly intimidated by the thought of going into the store ever since he heard the news, as Bryan had not exactly treated Aeron too kindly during their days at school together.

“Did Bryan do anything to provoke them?” Aeron couldn’t help but ask. He might have only met Davos once, but somehow he couldn’t imagine him as the type to randomly threaten people in the street for no reason. 

“How should I know? It doesn’t excuse the fact that those two lunatics are turning Honeytree into the Wild West!” Amos reacted, his growing exasperation visible. 

There was a pause as the room fell into silence, the only audible sound being the metallic clink of steel cutlery against fine china dinner plates. Aeron waited until his uncle appeared to have calmed down somewhat before he attempted to prod for more information about Davos. 

“How exactly do Davos and Benjicot fit into the family?”

Amos sighed. “Well, that’s the thing. Nobody knows for sure, not even Darla Deddings, and she knows everything. Everyone seems to agree that they’re cousins, but no one can decide who exactly their parents are.”

“Clement Piper seemed to think that Benjicot was Willem’s son, and Davos was Samwell’s son,” Barbra piped up, pouring herself a fifth glass of wine.

“There’s one last thing I need to tell you, Aeron,” Amos suddenly announced, his voice devoid of all humour. “Do not, under any circumstances, go out into the garden alone. The last time I went out there, the whole lot of them suddenly materialised out of nowhere and started accusing me of moving the stones onto their land! Things got so bad that Willem threatened to throw one of the stones through our window if I didn’t stop moving them. I wouldn’t be surprised if those criminals had been keeping watch out of one of their own windows, waiting for the moment one of us dared to step outside into our garden!”

This outburst prompted Raylon, who had mostly remained silent for the entire evening, to finally tear his gaze away from the Nintendo Switch expertly hidden under the table and contribute to the conversation.

“You did kind of move the stones onto their land, Dad.” 

Amos almost choked on his roast potatoes as everyone else shifted in their seats uncomfortably.

“What on earth makes you say that?” Amos demanded, the veins practically bulging from his forehead.

“I know they moved the stones into our garden, but when you put them back, you moved them too far to the left so in the end they were kind of on their land.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I moved them back to the exact spot where the fence used to be, before those bastards destroyed it. Didn’t I, Barbra?” Amos looked to his wife for support, only to find her sheepishly avoiding eye contact.

“Well…the stones might have been encroaching a little bit onto their land,” she answered in little more than a whisper.

“Oh, for fucks sake! Who are you siding with, me or the Blackwoods?”

“Let’s not argue now, dear, we’re supposed to be celebrating Aeron’s return.”

These words seemed to temporarily quell much of the anger in Amos, who sunk back into his chair and immediately downed his glass of wine in a single gulp. Aeron worried at his bottom lip as he looked Amos up and down. His uncle seemed so much older than he remembered, he thought to himself, noticing wrinkles in his face where he was certain there hadn’t been any before. Aeron had always thought his uncle looked rather young for a man of sixty, with the stamina of a thirty year old and not a single grey hair on his head. As he took in the sight of his uncle, slumped defeatedly in his chair, it dawned on him that his hair was now peppered with streaks of grey. Amos hadn’t just paid a mental toll, but a physical toll as well - this whole ordeal had aged him. The room fell into yet another silence before Amos finally spoke again, attempting to muster a semblance of joviality in his tone.

“Anyway, Aeron, try not to let those brutes next door get on your nerves too much. I’m confident they’ll be out of Raventree Hall by the end of summer. My good friend from the country club, Clarence Charlton, said we might be able to take legal action against them in the courts if things keep carrying on. He’s the Police and Crime Commissioner for our area, as well, so he’s bound to know what he’s talking about.” 

The rest of the evening was thankfully uneventful, save for Barbra eventually discovering Raylon’s Nintendo Switch hidden under the table and subsequently confiscating it until the following morning. Raylon had briefly protested that his mother no longer had any right to confiscate his belongings, seeing as though he was eighteen years old and legally an adult. But when Amos bluntly reminded him that most eighteen year olds didn’t receive any sort of pocket money  - and followed up with a threat to suspend his weekly allowance - Raylon fell quiet and mostly kept to himself for the rest of the evening. 

The four of them eventually made their way through to the living room, where Amos tended to the log burner while Raylon watched re-runs of Peep Show on Channel 4. Amos, who considered shows like Peep Show to be ‘crude’ and ‘offensive’, shot Raylon a bad look every time one of the characters on screen (mainly Jez) happened to make even a mildly inappropriate joke. Aeron, on the other hand, was kept occupied with his aunt’s incessant questions about his life at university, including the one question that always made him cringe.

“So, Aeron,” she began, popping open her third (yes, third) bottle of wine of the evening. “Are there any nice girls that have caught your eye yet?”

“Not yet.”

Barbra gave him a look to show that she didn’t believe him.

“Really? I thought all the girls would be after a handsome boy like you…”

The statement was even corny enough to make Raylon roll his eyes. Aeron only shrugged and tried to act nonchalant, hoping the topic of conversation would eventually change on to something other than his dating habits.

Aeron had received some attention from the girls at university, more specifically from one particular girl on his course, Hanna Harroway, who had made a point of following him around campus like a lost puppy, joining all the clubs and societies he had signed up for (he still hadn’t managed to figure out how she knew he had joined the Equestrian Club) and texting him incessantly (despite the fact he could never remember giving her his number). Still, he didn’t think Hanna Harroway would meet his aunt’s definition of a ‘nice girl’, so he decided not to mention anything about it.

“There’s hope yet, my boy,” added his uncle. “I think Emphyria Vance is scheming to set you up with Marianne. She mentioned something about it to me last week.”

Aeron groaned internally, trying very hard not to make his displeasure apparent. Emphyria Vance lived at the other end of Honeytree, next door to the Vance Equestrian Centre, owned and operated by her son, Tristan, who had two adult children of his own - Hugo and Marianne. The family were the wealthiest in Honeytree, if not one of the wealthiest in the whole Cotswolds, with the horses bred in their stables having gone on to compete in races such as the Grand National. Emphyria’s late husband, Armistead, had previously been Mayor of Honeytree, albeit long before Aeron had even been born.

Aeron didn’t particularly mind Emphyria Vance, though he couldn’t say he cared much for her offspring. It was a shame Aeron was forced to see them as often as he did, given that the Brackens kept their horses boarded at the livery yard of the Vance Equestrian Centre. It was Tristan’s son, Hugo, who seemed to have a problem with him, always having to one-up him whenever Aeron went to visit his horse, Cedar. If Cedar managed to land a double combination in the training yard, Hugo would immediately jump on his own horse, a great behemoth of an animal named Saxon, and pull off a triple combination. Aeron always secretly hoped that Saxon wouldn’t be able to land the jump, but alas, he always did.

Aeron decided in any case that he couldn’t stomach any more talk of his love life with his well-meaning family, quickly blurting out the first semi-believable excuse that came into his head and fleeing upstairs. He felt utterly drained by the day’s events, as if all life had been sucked out of him, a feeling that was only exacerbated by the unexpected text he suddenly received on his phone. He couldn’t help but groan when he saw the sender’s name.

Aeron saw the three little dots appear as Hanna began to type again, no doubt some sort of scathing message about his cold-heartedness designed to guilt-trip him into seeing her. In Aeron’s defence, he had been too sleep-deprived to notice that Hanna hadn’t actually specified the week she was supposedly visiting. He muted the conversation and threw the phone onto his bed, deciding to deal with the brewing storm that was Hanna Harroway in the morning. 

As Aeron climbed into bed, he caught sight of the notebook Davos had given him earlier poking out of his rucksack. He still hadn’t figured out what he was going to do with it, flicking through the book until he found the page right at the very back where Davos had written his number, complete with a crudely-drawn smiley face. He couldn’t help but trace his fingers over the handwriting, feeling the small indents from where the black biro had pressed into the paper.

It wouldn’t hurt to send one text, would it?

Aeron’s thumb hovered over the Create New Contact button on his phone, replaying the day’s events in his head. What was he actually hoping to get out of this? Him and Davos wouldn’t even be able to be casual acquaintances without his uncle flipping out about it, let alone friends. If Amos suspected that his nephew had even a vague attraction to the boy next door, the shock would probably make him keel over on the spot. Aeron knew that he shouldn’t let his uncle’s personal grievances dictate his dating habits, but would striking up a friendship with one of his uncle’s sworn enemies really be worth it?

Aeron sighed and closed the Contacts app, locking his phone before plugging it into the charger next to his bed. This was going to be a long summer.

The first step of grief, they say, is denial. 

Aeron was certainly in denial.

As he lay awake in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, he decided on a whim that he had no real proof that the Davos he had hitched a ride from earlier that day just so happened to be the Davos that lived next door. Aeron knew plenty of people called Davos – Davos Seaworth, Davos Deddings, and Davos Dayne to name a few. What’s to say that Davos Blackwood wasn’t a different Davos entirely? And there were plenty of people who also happened to drive around in souped-up neon green cars, weren’t there? What’s to say that the neon green abomination currently parked in the driveway of Raventree Hall was even the same vehicle he had sat in the passenger seat of earlier? Now that he really thought about it, the car parked outside Raventree Hall looked to be a slightly lighter shade of green than the car he had ridden in. He also hadn’t bothered to take note of either car’s number plate, so he had no concrete evidence that both cars were the same. He wasn’t just clutching at straws, right? Right?

Aeron figured a bit of friendly internet stalking wouldn’t harm his quest for answers. He did a few frantic searches on Google for ‘Davos Blackwood’, ‘Davos Blackwood mechanic’, and finally ‘Davos Blackwood Honeytree’, hoping that an Instagram or Facebook account would pop up. After sifting through the search results for several minutes, Aeron finally managed to find a profile on Instagram with the username davos.blackwood and several car emojis in the bio, only to find that the account was private. The profile picture, rather annoyingly, was not a picture of the account’s owner, but rather a slightly blurry image of a frazzled-looking three-legged black cat. Aeron went back to Google and scrolled further down the list of search results, but found nothing.

That’s it, he told himself, I have no proof that they are the same person and they could very well be two separate people.

The delusion was not to last. Aeron found he couldn’t sleep that night, plagued by thoughts of the boy he met earlier. He tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, his attempts to ward off his anxieties futile, until he finally fell asleep through sheer exhaustion in the early hours of the morning. He woke up shivering several hours later, just as the first rays of sun began to peek through his curtains. He rolled over to check the time on his phone, blinking rapidly so that his eyes would focus – 05:59 AM. Aeron suddenly remembered that he had fallen asleep with his window open and groggily rolled out of bed to close it. He pulled back the fabric of his curtains and reached for the window, pulling it shut, before wiping away the condensation that had accumulated on the inside of the glass. As the water droplets cleared, the garden gradually came into view, and he saw, for the first time, the infamous ‘boundary stones’ he had heard so much about. Aeron had expected something dramatic when he first heard his uncle use the phrase, perhaps giant stone boulders or dramatic slabs of sandstone. Aeron thought that ‘stones’ was an over-exaggeration for what these things were. These were pebbles. Was this really what they were fighting over? Maybe they looked so small because he didn’t have his contact lenses in yet. Everything always seemed further away without them.

Aeron hated to admit it, but the longer he inspected the stones, the more he had to agree with Raylon. The stones were certainly further to the left than the old fence had been, encroaching very slightly onto next door’s land. He figured, in any case, that it would be wise not to tell that to his uncle, given how fiercely he had exploded at Raylon earlier that evening. Aeron had already pulled his curtains halfway shut again, preparing to climb back into bed for another couple of hours, when he suddenly noticed the back door of Raventree Hall start to swing open. He immediately yanked his curtains open again, just in time to witness two men, both clutching mugs full of something he couldn’t quite make out, step out of the house and into the garden below. Aeron’s breath hitched in his throat.

There was something about one of the men that made his heart start racing, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he fumbled around on his nightstand, feeling for his glasses. He was certain that his eyes must be playing tricks on him. Aeron’s worst fears were confirmed when he finally put his glasses on, the slightly blurry figure stood in the garden down below suddenly transforming into someone he undoubtedly recognised. The happy state of denial he had found himself in earlier was abruptly shattered, and he was finally forced to swallow the bitter pill he had tried so desperately to avoid.

Fuck.

He really did hitch a ride from Davos Blackwood.

How on earth was he going to survive the summer with Davos Blackwood living right next door? It had struck Aeron that Davos didn’t actually know that he was a Bracken – they had only ever exchanged first names, not surnames. What if he just so happened to bump into Davos around the village? Honeytree was a small place, so surely it was bound to happen at some point. How on earth would Aeron explain to Davos that he was Amos Bracken’s nephew, who lived with him, no less? He couldn’t imagine that conversation would go over very well. That wasn’t his only concern, however. He’d also have to explain to his aunt and uncle (and Raylon, for that matter), that not only had he hitched a ride from a complete stranger (something he had been repeatedly told not to do growing up) but that the stranger in question just so happened to be a Blackwood, and a rather nice one at that.

Aeron wanted to bash his head against the wall in frustration. Why the fuck did he agree to hitch a ride with the man? His life would be a whole lot simpler if he had never stepped foot in that car in the first place. If the sky were to suddenly fall on top of him now, he’d thank it for doing him a favour.

Aeron rubbed his eyes and looked out of his window for a second time, needing to confirm that he hadn’t, in fact, been hallucinating when he saw Davos standing in the garden. Davos, to his dismay, was still standing there, the cup of what was presumably coffee in his hand having now been replaced by a cigarette. He noticed that the other man standing next to Davos was around his own age, slightly older, perhaps, but probably not by much. Benjicot, he presumed. A black cat suddenly appeared out from underneath a bush, having presumably been busy sleeping or catching mice or whatever it was that cats were supposed to do. The cat lazily meandered across the garden to Davos and Benjicot, rubbing itself against their legs as Davos bent over to give it a stroke. Aeron noticed that the cat walked somewhat oddly, but it was only when the cat stretched, extenuating its lean body even further, that he realised that it was missing one of its front legs.

This was the cat in the profile photo he had seen earlier. That had been Davos’ Instagram account.

The cat slowly made its way towards the boundary stones, stepping over them and into the garden of Stone Hedge. It trotted over to his aunt’s prized flower patch, crushing several petunias as it flopped over onto its side and stretched itself out in the sun. 

Davos and Benjicot didn’t appear to be too bothered by this, casually strolling over to the boundary stones. Aeron assumed the pair were going to cross the boundary to try and get their cat back, or maybe try and coax it back over to their side, but was proven wrong when the pair suddenly began picking up the stones, placing them back down a further two metres to the right. Aeron couldn’t help but frown. The stones still weren't sitting on the boundary. They were moving the stones too far. If the stones had previously been encroaching on the Blackwoods’ land, now, they were unmistakably sitting on the Brackens’ property.

Aeron decided that he was too tired to deal with any of this right now. It was only six in the morning, for crying out loud, and he was usually accustomed to laying in bed for another couple of hours or so. He flopped face-first back into bed, pulling the covers up over his head in a futile attempt to block out the golden rays of the early morning sun. He managed to rest, uninterrupted, for an entire hour, oscillating on the boundary between dozing and sleeping, before he was suddenly jolted awake by the sound of yelling coming from somewhere outside. 

“What the fuck have you done to the stones!”

Aeron jumped out of bed, yanked back the curtains and pressed his face shamelessly against the window pane to see his uncle stood in the garden in his dressing gown and slippers, looking as if he were close to tearing his hair out. He noticed that Davos and Benjicot were no longer in the garden, having presumably gone back inside. There were no other Blackwoods outside either, even the cat appeared to have scarpered. If any of the neighbours happened to look out their windows at that very moment, it must have looked as though his uncle had gone mad, ranting and raving to nobody but himself. Amos didn’t appear to care, however, opting to continue his tirade. Even though the thick window pane muffled the sound, Aeron found himself able to pick up phrases here and there.

“I told you bastards not to touch the fucking stones!”

“You just want to steal my land! That’s what you want!”

“I’ll make sure you fuckers regret this!”

The back door suddenly flew open as his aunt burst into the garden, fleeing across the patio in her nightdress as she ran to her husband, no doubt chastising him for making such a scene. Aeron couldn’t hear what it was she was saying to him, with the pair appearing to bicker back and forth for a moment or two before Amos reluctantly followed his wife back inside. The back door suddenly slammed shut with a bang that reverberated throughout the house, and before long, he could hear the distant sound of arguing coming from somewhere downstairs, probably the kitchen or the dining room.

Aeron had been home for less than twenty-four hours, yet, he suddenly felt the inexplicable urge to get away from Stone Hedge, at least until his aunt and uncle had calmed down. The place felt suffocating, cursed, even, a world away from the cosy sanctuary he once knew. He wondered if it had felt this way ever since the new neighbours moved in.

An idea suddenly came into his head. Aeron hastily emptied his rucksack onto the floor, pens and papers flying everywhere, before throwing open his wardrobe doors and pulling out his riding gear. He threw off his pajamas and got dressed as quickly as he could, hopping on one foot as he pulled his riding jodhpurs over each leg, before stuffing his riding hat and gloves into the now-empty rucksack. He was going to pay a visit to the Vance Equestrian Centre.

Aeron arrived at the Vance Equestrian Centre at precisely nine in the morning, having swiped a pain au chocolat from the kitchen to eat on the walk there. It probably wasn’t the healthiest, but hey, some breakfast was better than no breakfast, right? He had been relieved to find that his aunt and uncle were no longer openly bickering, fearing for a moment that he might walk into the kitchen mid-argument. Their quarrel, however, had not yet been completely resolved, judging by the way they sat at opposite ends of the living room, refusing to say a word to each other. Raylon, once again, had somehow managed to sleep through the entire ordeal, and was still in bed by the time Aeron left Stone Hedge that morning. No doubt his cousin would be very confused as to why his parents weren’t speaking to each other when he finally bothered to come down for breakfast.

Although Aeron had just come back from university, he had only been apart from his horse, Cedar, for four days (four days too long, in his opinion). RAU, being an agricultural college, had an equestrian centre of its own where students could keep their horses during term time, if they so desired. Amos had initially protested that taking a horse from Honeytree to Cirencester was ‘more hassle than it was worth’, only relenting once Aeron refused to come out of his room for two days in protest. Aeron had visited Cedar every day while at university, riding her in the evenings after his lectures, finding great delight in showing her off to the other students on his course whenever they happened to stop by the livery yard. Amos had hired a horse transportation service to bring Cedar back to Honeytree a couple of days before Aeron was due to come home for the summer, though Cedar would doubtless by heading back to Cirencester when term started up again in the autumn.

After Aeron had taken Cedar for a ride around the training yard, he had led her back into her stall, before deciding to see if the new fancy horse brush Barbra had bought him from Hermès was any good. He tried to concentrate on brushing her chestnut coat, but that was easier said than done given that a certain somebody hadn’t stopped glaring at him since he got here. Aeron was fairly certain the man in question was still staring, given that he swore he could almost feel his prickly gaze drilling a hole into him, even though he had his back turned. He decided to glance over his shoulder to confirm whether or not his suspicions were correct. Hugo Vance stood at the other end of the livery yard, arms crossed and eyes narrowed as he glowered at Aeron. What exactly was that guy’s problem? If Aeron wasn’t forced to see him as often as he did, he would have told him to piss off a long time ago.

Aeron pulled up the cuff of his fleece to check the time on his Apple Watch - 11:59 AM. He had been at the livery yard for almost three hours. Maybe Hugo thought Aeron had overstayed his welcome, which was ironic, given that the Brackens paid very good money to keep their horses there. Aeron fumbled around in his pocket for his phone, firing off a quick text to his aunt, telling her that he would be home soon. Cedar nudged his arm with her nose, having apparently thought he was rifling around in his pocket for a treat. Aeron, who could never deny her anything, unzipped his rucksack and pulled out the carrot he had swiped from the fridge earlier that morning, offering it to her. He didn’t think his aunt would notice if she had one less carrot to make hotpot with. 

Aeron decided he’d better start heading home, hoping that three hours was enough time for his aunt and uncle to have finally smoothed things over between them. He zipped up his rucksack, swinging it over his shoulder, before doing one last check to make sure that Cedar had enough feed. Cedar, having noticed that her owner was about to leave, nudged his rucksack with her nose, apparently wanting him to put it back down again.

“I’ll be back again soon,” he reassured her as he stroked her nose. “I’ll even bring a sugar cube tomorrow if you’re good.”

Cedar’s ears immediately perked up at the word ‘sugar’.

“Not today. Tomorrow.”

Once Cedar finally realised that she’d have to wait until the following day, she quickly lost interest, turning away from him to munch on her feed. Aeron took the opportunity to slip out of her stall, walking out of the stable block and straight into Hugo Vance, puffing away on his vape underneath the ‘no smoking’ sign. 

“Leaving now, Bracken?” he called after him.

“Yeah.”

Hugo opened his mouth as if to say something else, but quickly closed it again when an older woman suddenly appeared from around the corner. Aeron had never been so relieved to see Emphyria Vance. 

“Aeron!” she exclaimed, walking up to the pair of them. “My, how you’ve grown! You’re almost as tall as Hugo.”

Aeron didn’t particularly like being compared to Hugo, though he supposed it was meant as a compliment, given that Hugo was a certified human skyscraper standing at six foot five. 

“Are you just visiting home for the weekend?” 

“No, I’m back for the summer now.”

Aeron had often wondered how a woman as affable as Emphyria Vance could possibly be related to someone as standoffish as Hugo. It was one of life’s many mysteries, he decided. Emphyria chattered away happily to Aeron for several minutes, demanding to know about his plans for that summer. Hugo, on the other hand, didn’t seem to appreciate his grandmother’s intrusion quite so much, no doubt itching to have another go on his vape, which he had rather hastily stuffed into his trouser pocket the minute she appeared around the corner. Emphyria suddenly leaned in closer to Aeron and lowered her voice, as though she were wary of being overheard, despite there being no one else around to hear them.

“Your uncle told me all about your issue with that dreadful lot next door. Practically everyone in Honeytree is on your side! My daughter tells me that people are even talking about it as far afield as Swynford!” she murmured, a hint of glee underlying her voice. “I hear the entire village has come together to boycott their business. It’s what those rats deserve, as far as I’m concerned.”

Aeron felt a sense of unease given Emphyria’s evident delight at the growing misfortunes of the Blackwoods. Maybe Emphyria was more similar to her grandson than he had originally given her credit for. It was no surprise to Aeron, however, that Emphyria Vance was so unhappy at the arrival of the new neighbours. Although Amos Bracken was technically the mayor, everyone with half a brain knew that it was the Vances who really ran Honeytree. Some might have even argued that they ran the entire Cotswolds. The family had their own coat of arms, their own family seat (an eighteenth-century mansion called ‘Atranta’), and even rubbed shoulders with royalty. Aeron had seen the photos of Tristan Vance standing side by side with the late Queen at Royal Ascot. There was even a rumour that Emphyria’s father had been a lord, and Aeron was inclined to believe it. 

Emphyria Vance wouldn’t be seen dead associating with people like the Blackwoods. Neither would anyone else in her family. They probably thought the Blackwoods posed a threat to the ‘respectability’ of Honeytree.

“I think my uncle’s hopeful that everything will be resolved by the end of summer,” Aeron responded, choosing his words carefully. He was reluctant to endorse Emphyria’s vilification of the new neighbours.

“Of course. What is it you’re studying at university again?”

Aeron was grateful for the sudden change in topic. He didn’t particularly want to talk about the Blackwoods any more than he had to.

“Bloodstock and Performance Horse Management. At the Royal Agricultural University, down in Cirencester,”

“That sounds very fitting for a young man like you! You know, my granddaughter, Marianne, is studying Veterinary Medicine in London. She’s only a year younger than you. I think it would do you well to be introduced to her, since you have similar interests.”

Aeron hadn’t actually seen Marianne since they were both children, so lord knows why Emphyria had decided out of the blue that they would make a good couple. Tristan Vance had divorced his ex-wife several years back, with Hugo opting to stay with their father in Honeytree to learn the family business, while Marianne instead chose to live with her mother in some posh flat in London. Raylon had bumped into her a few years ago, though, when Marianne returned to Honeytree for a family wedding. He’d been sitting on the pavement outside the village hall, waiting for some friends of his to arrive, when Marianne suddenly appeared out of nowhere and handed him a two pound coin, thinking he was homeless. 

Aeron nonetheless tried to appear at least vaguely interested in the idea of meeting Marianne, attempting to conceal the fact that he honestly wouldn’t have minded if the floor suddenly caved in and swallowed him up. 

“Um. Sure.”

His half-hearted attempt at feigning interest clearly hadn’t been convincing enough, given the way Emphyria’s brows furrowed in response. What else did she expect him to say?

“I can assure you that she’s very pretty, if you’re one of those boys that care about that sort of thing…” she continued, fixing him with a stern look.

Aeron suddenly choked on his own saliva, sending him spiralling into a coughing fit while his cheeks turned scarlet from embarrassment. Hugo, to his credit, looked just as aghast as Aeron, his eyes practically popping out of his head at his grandmother’s suggestiveness. Aeron was somewhat relieved to discover that Hugo was just as unenthusiastic about the prospect of him dating Marianne as he was himself.

“I…I’ll have to check when I’m free…” he stammered, racking his brain for any excuse to make a quick escape, “I’m sorry, but I really have to go now, my aunt wanted me back home before twelve and I’m already late.”

Aeron didn’t wait for Emphyria to reply, smiling awkwardly before half-running half-walking towards the exit without so much as a glance behind. His aunt and uncle would have no doubt been mortified by the crassness of his sudden exit if they’d been there to witness it. He could only hope that neither Emphyria nor Hugo happened to mention anything about it to them.

Aeron hurried out of the Vance Equestrian Centre, back down Lothston Crescent and past the long, gated driveway of Atranta, the family seat of the Vances. The house was a majestic country manor, straight out of a Jane Austen novel, complete with sprawling landscape gardens. It stood some six floors tall and was rumored to have over one hundred rooms, most still retaining their original regency features. The house had served as a film set for more than a few period dramas over the years. Aeron had enjoyed the privilege of visiting Atranta a dozen or so times throughout his life, mostly for the annual summertime ball hosted by the family every August. The family occasionally opened the house for other events, offering to host the village fête in their gardens one year when the village green became flooded. The driveway up to the house was over a mile long, flanked on either side with tall poplar trees. Aeron couldn’t help but slow down in awe every time he walked past the wrought iron gates that separated the top of the driveway from the main road, even though he had probably walked past it a million times in his life. The house seemed to loom above him, dominating the landscape, even though it stood over a mile away. Atranta was a beauty that could not be comprehended through words or photos alone, for its full splendor demanded to be appreciated in person.

Aeron eventually forced himself to tear his gaze away from the magnificent house and continued walking towards the village centre, past the church, the village hall, the dentist’s office, and, finally, the cornerstone of all village life, Tesco Express. He looked at the time on his Apple Watch again - 12:35 AM. He could make himself something for lunch at home, though he really didn’t feel like cooking, or, he could just run in and buy something from the shop, even if that did mean potentially running the risk of bumping into Bryan Frey.

He might as well just risk it. The shop had self-service checkouts, anyway, so even if he did see Bryan, he still wouldn’t have to actually talk to him. He could probably be in and out of the place in a minute flat.

Aeron walked inside, the automatic doors sliding open as he approached, and immediately headed over to the meal deal section (if you know, you know). He scanned the shelves to find his usual combo before glancing around the store to discreetly check if Bryan was around. He couldn’t spot anyone else in the store, much to his relief, save for one female worker standing behind the counter at the far end of the store. He began to head towards the self-checkouts, reaching for the phone in his pocket to bring up Apple Pay, before the muffled sound of voices outside made him freeze in his step. Aeron immediately ducked behind the nearest shelf the moment he saw the two of them walk through the automatic doors, ignoring the ‘high heart rate’ alert that swiftly appeared on his Apple Watch. He prayed he hadn’t been spotted.

“Did you actually say that to him?” he overheard Benjicot remark to Davos, his voice tinted with admiration rather than disapproval. Aeron let out a sigh of relief once it became clear the pair hadn’t seen him, though his heart still felt ready to burst out of his ribcage.

Davos only scoffed. “Yeah, course I did!”

“You’re mental.” 

The voices gradually started drifting too close for comfort. Aeron peeked his head out to check which aisle they were currently in, only to quickly duck down again once he realised that they were now walking down the aisle adjacent to his hiding spot. They could easily appear around the corner at any minute. Aeron scurried out from his hideout, making sure the coast was clear before he began to tiptoe across the store in search of another place to hide. He couldn’t help but feel as though he were playing a twisted version of hide and seek. He eventually stumbled into what appeared to be the personal care aisle, with shelves filled to the brim with hair products, body wash, and every type of cotton wool you could possibly imagine. Aeron crouched down behind a stand displaying discounted shower gel, hoping that the pair would eventually find what they’d come for and leave. He could only pray that they weren't here to stock up on more shampoo.

Aeron strained his ears to listen in on more of their conversation. Their voices, to his relief, now seemed to be drifting further away.

“This place is a fucking maze,” complained Ben.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to, so hurry up.”

The store fell silent, save for the quiet electric hum of the overhead lights. He began to hope that maybe they’d left, before realising that he hadn’t heard the automatic doors open since they walked in, meaning the pair had to still be somewhere in the store, hidden among the aisles like he was. Aeron contemplated making a mad dash to the self-checkouts. If he was quick about it, he could probably manage to be out the door before either of them realised another person was in the store with them.

“Who’re you texting?”

Aeron almost jumped out of his skin when he heard Benjicot speak again, his voice sounding much closer than it had been previously. The sudden proximity made his heart lurch. He whipped around, half-expecting to find the pair had wandered into the same aisle he was trying to hide in, but was relieved to find it was still empty.

“Nobody,” replied Davos. 

“Then why do you keep checking your phone every five minutes?” 

Davos sounded vaguely annoyed at Benjicot’s prying. Aeron could almost imagine him rolling his eyes. “I’m just waiting for somebody to text me, alright?”

“Who?”

“None of your fucking business, Ben.”

Aeron listened to the pair argue back and forth for a few moments before the topic of conversation rather abruptly changed.

“How many do you reckon we should get?” asked Ben. 

Aeron frowned. What were they buying? 

“I dunno, three boxes?” replied Davos.

“Eh, let’s get five.”

“Fine, but you’re paying.”

Aeron summoned the nerve to tiptoe towards the end of the aisle and peek around the corner, just in time to see Davos and Benjicot heading towards the self-checkouts, carrying five boxes of eggs between them. He had a strong feeling they weren't planning to cook with the eggs, but hadn’t a clue as to what they were going to use them for. Whatever they were planning, it didn’t involve breakfast. Aeron was about to retreat back to his hiding spot when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Across the store, near the bakery section, someone in a dark blue employee uniform was crouched behind a shelf. It took Aeron a second to recognise him - Bryan Frey. Had he been here all along? At first, he assumed Bryan was just stocking shelves or rearranging items, but something didn’t add up. Bryan was just crouching there, motionless, casting anxious glances toward Ben and Davos every few seconds. 

The realisation slowly crept upon him. Bryan Frey was hiding from them, too. 

Aeron couldn’t help but stare slack-mouthed in disbelief. Bryan Frey, the same guy who’d spent most his life terrorising the inhabitants of Honeytree, reduced to a cowering wreck? He also couldn’t help but notice the swollen, purple bruising around Bryan’s right eye, the mark contrasting vividly with the surrounding pale skin. Aeron had seen Bryan give plenty of other people black eyes, but never had he seen Bryan sporting one of his own. It was almost too ridiculous to believe. Bryan glanced over his shoulder, his eyes widening in alarm the moment they met Aeron’s. Aeron held his gaze, allowing himself a fleeting moment to relish the flush of humiliation spreading across Bryan’s face. He wondered if Bryan could tell that he, too, was hiding from the Blackwoods. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” 

Aeron’s heart rate immediately skyrocketed, adrenaline filling his veins as he glanced, panic-stricken, over at Ben and Davos. They must have spotted him. He was surprised to find, however, that the pair were not even looking in his direction, but instead glaring directly at Bryan Frey, whose horrified expression was reminiscent of a deer caught in the headlights.

“N-n-nothing,” Bryan stammered in response. His wide eyes flickered rapidly between Davos and Ben, as though he feared one of them might try to do something to him. Aeron could only pray to the gods that Bryan wouldn’t give his presence away.

Benjicot appeared unconvinced, his jaw tightening as he thrust the boxes of eggs in his arms towards Davos. “Were you following us?” he challenged, his now-empty hands now balled into fists, “Do you want us to give you another black eye to match?” 

Ben took a step closer to Bryan, which caused Bryan to instinctively jump backwards in response. He continued to advance slowly towards Bryan, who seemed to be wrestling with his fight or flight mechanism, his fists clenched as if prepared to fight, though his feet were posed as if he meant to run. The tension between the two men was abruptly broken by the sound of a female voice calling from somewhere across the store.

“Bryan? What’s going on?”

The voice had to belong to the female employee Aeron had seen standing behind the counter earlier, who had no doubt overheard most of the ongoing interaction. The realisation that someone else was in the store with them seemed to snap Benjicot back to reality, causing him to suddenly halt his advance towards Bryan, though it did little to subside the steely look in his eyes.

Davos stepped forward and grabbed his cousin’s arm. “Come on,” he said, pulling him towards the exit. “We gotta go.”

The employee emerged from around the corner just as the pair disappeared through the automatic doors, leaving behind a very relieved Aeron and a very traumatised Bryan. Aeron took his chance and dashed over to the checkouts, quickly scanning his items through the self-service machine, not wanting to linger in the store a moment longer. The moment the machine displayed its familiar ‘payment accepted’ message, he snatched up his items and hurried out the door, not bothering to wait for the machine to print out a receipt. The cool breeze on his face as he stepped outside was a welcome relief.

It dawned upon Aeron that if Davos and Benjicot were heading back to Raventree Hall, which, let’s face it, they probably were, then they would likely be walking the same route back as him. Aeron gritted his teeth. It was quickly becoming apparent just how inconvenient it was to have to avoid someone who lived less than five metres away from you. He didn’t want to risk another potential confrontation with the duo if he could help it, so instead opted to meander back home at a slower pace, hoping to put some distance between them. He was confident his plan had worked, walking most of the way back without so much as a glimpse of them, until he turned onto Riverland Road and saw the pair lounging in deckchairs in their front garden. 

Fuck.

There was another man with them, too - was it Willem or Samwell?

Aeron briefly considered whether he should just give up there and then, turn around, get on a plane to some far away country and never come home again. As tempting as the thought was, his phone battery was on thirty percent, his riding boots were beginning to give his feet blisters, and he could really do with a cup of tea, making running away not exactly the most feasible (nor enticing) option at that moment. Aeron quickly nipped down the alleyway that ran along the back of all the houses on the street, hoping to the gods he hadn’t been seen. There was no way in hell he was going to walk through the front door if those lot were sitting out there, that’d be practically walking into the lion’s den. The back entrance was a much safer option, he thought, given that half of the neighbouring household seemed to have congregated out front. He just hoped the other half didn’t happen to be in the garden. Aeron found his garden gate, a heavy, wrought-iron thing, and tried to pull it open, tugging with more force when it refused to budge. His uncle must have locked it again. He sighed, tossing his rucksack over the gate before planting one foot on the lowest rung of the gate and vaulting up. He swung his legs over, landing lightly on the other side, before slinging his rucksack back over his shoulder again. All those years of gymnastics had clearly paid off. 

The three-legged black cat he saw earlier had reappeared in their garden, he noticed, though this time it was sitting not on the petunias, but rather on his aunt’s beloved lavender plants. He wondered what its name was. The cat meowed at him as he walked past it, the bell around its neck jingling as it trotted up to him with its tail held high. Ah, what the hell, he thought, bending down to give it a scratch behind the ears. It wasn’t as if there was anybody around to see. The cat purred appreciatively, rubbing itself against his legs - it was a friendly little thing, he had to admit.

Aeron stumbled backwards in horror when he noticed a face peering out at him through one of the back windows of Raventree Hall. The cat, evidently spooked by his sudden reaction, quickly darted off into its own garden, bell jingling in its wake. The shock quickly subsided when he realised that the face was not that of a man, but rather that of a woman. This had to be Alysanne. She didn’t appear angry or annoyed at the fact he’d just been stroking their cat, as he’d first feared - rather, she seemed amused and somewhat curious, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Aeron didn’t really fancy hanging around outside for much longer, however, if it meant he was going to be stared at by his neighbour like some creature in a zoo. He hurried across the patio towards the back door, staring determinedly at the ground so as to avoid all eye contact with Alysanne. He was relieved to find the back door had been left open, so he wasn’t forced to bang on it and hope someone would hear. 

His aunt poked her head into the kitchen when she heard him coming through the back door, taking in his flushed appearance. “Aeron?” she asked, concern lacing her voice. “Are you alright?” 

Aeron nodded, trying to ignore the heart palpitations in his chest. He might as well just disable the ‘high heart rate’ notifications on his Apple Watch altogether, he figured, seeing as though he was probably getting around ten notifications a day at this rate. 

How on earth had his entire life managed to go to shit within the space of twenty-four hours?

Aeron continued pondering his life choices that evening, once the whole family had gathered in the living room after dinner. Raylon sat cross-legged on the floor next to the heat of the log burner, typing away on his laptop as he filled out his accommodation form for Durham University, where he would be heading in October. Barbra lounged on the sofa with her fifth glass of wine of the evening, watching Gardeners’ World on BBC Two. Amos, on the other hand, sat in his armchair with his back slumped, paying no attention to the television that blared in the background. His gaze was blank and unfocused, a thousand-yard stare that was fixed on the fire crackling away in the log burner. 

“I can’t put up with this for much longer, Barbra,” his uncle confessed, desperation seeping into his tone as he held his head in his hands. “I feel like a prisoner in my own village, and I’m the mayor, for fuck’s sake!”

Barbra reached for the remote, muting the television. She put her glass of wine on the coffee table before reaching across and taking her husband’s hand.

“I was thinking,” she mused, somewhat wistfully, “wouldn’t it be nice if we could go away for a few days?”

Amos looked up at his wife, frowning in confusion. “Go away? Where to?”

“Perhaps Paris, or Milan. Just somewhere where we can get away from all of this …some time away might give us some space to think about things, figure out what our next move should be. ”

Amos grimaced at the suggestion. “I wouldn’t want to go abroad,” he objected. “Who knows what they’ll do when they find out we’re away for the week? We’ll come back to find half our windows have been smashed in.”

Barbra’s face fell. She paused for a moment, deep in thought, before her face suddenly brightened up again. “What about somewhere nearby, then, like London? It’s only a couple of hours away by car, and we could ask Darla if she’d be willing to house-sit for us while we’re gone. If anything were to happen, we’d be able to come back home the same day.”

“London...” Amos appeared to mull the idea over in his head for a moment. “That could work. We could stay at the Ritz for a couple of nights, perhaps see a show on the West End.” 

Barbra appeared delighted at the suggestion.“We’d have to take a trip to Harrods, as well, I’m sure we each deserve to buy a little something after everything we’ve been through! We could even have afternoon tea at Annabel’s, I’ve just renewed my membership this month!”

Amos rolled his eyes, as though Barbra had said something ridiculous. “Not Annabel’s, Barbra, the club’s gone downhill since Caring’s been in charge!” he groaned, “Have you seen the kinds of people they’re accepting as new members these days? He’s turned the place into Soho House! We’ll go to 5 Hertford Street, instead, it has a much more respectable clientele.”

The pair continued bickering back and forth, Barbra maintaining that Annabel’s was a ‘perfectly reputable establishment’ while Amos maintained that it had become a haven for Eurotrash. Aeron and Raylon, who had paused typing on his laptop, both looked on in amusement. Aeron couldn’t say he wasn’t secretly delighted at the prospect of going away for a few days. Anything to get away from the Blackwoods. Anything to get away from him.

A loud thud sounded from the dining room.

Amos and Barbra fell silent. All four of their heads turned instinctively towards the doorway.

“What was that?” whispered Barbra.

Amos stood up from his armchair and strode across the room. He instructed the three of them to stay put before disappearing through the doorway to investigate the noise. He reappeared only a few minutes later, looking rather perplexed.

“I can’t see anything.”

Barbra frowned. “How odd! It sounded like something banging against a window.”

“Maybe a bird flew into it,” suggested Raylon.

This theory was swiftly debunked by another thud, which seemed to come from the kitchen this time.

“It’s them,” his uncle hissed, his eyes crazed like a lunatic. “I know it is.”

There was no need to explain who ‘them’ referred to.

Thud.

Their heads snapped upwards at the sound of something hitting the living room window. Amos yanked back the checkered curtains. It was pitch black outside, and though he couldn’t see much, he could still make out some sort of transparent gooey substance dripping down the glass pane. It wasn’t just transparent, though, there were white flecks scattered throughout it. Eggshell.

“Shit!”

Amos reeled back when yet another egg struck the living room window, the yellow yolk dripping unceremoniously onto the window ledge. Aeron felt his heart sink to his stomach. This was what the eggs were for. He had unknowingly watched Benjicot and Davos buy materials to deface his house. Aeron wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out again.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Raylon.

“Yeah. Eggs.” Aeron choked out, his voice threatening to crack on the last syllable. Raylon looked over at him quizzically, his strained voice having apparently given away his fragile emotional state. 

“I won’t put up with this fucking shit for any longer!” his uncle raged, marching through the hallway before practically kicking down the front door. “Is this your idea of a joke? Is that what this is?” he yelled into the night. 

Aeron pressed his face against the window, trying to see what was going on outside, but the only thing he could make out in the darkness was the moon’s silver glimmer in the sky.

“What should we do?” cried Barbra.

Amos didn’t move from the doorway, his eyes continually scanning the dark street for any sign of movement. “I can’t see them,” he spat. “Those cowards have run off.” 

Amos flinched as another egg collided with the brick wall, mere inches from where he stood. Wherever they were, they’d clearly heard him. He slammed the front door shut before they could aim one at his head. As if on cue, another thud sounded against the now-shut door. Amos stalked down the hallway and grabbed the landline telephone, punching three numbers into it. Barbra, Aeron, and Raylon gathered in the hallway to watch.

Barbra picked at her nails, a nervous habit of hers, as she watched Amos bring the phone up to his ear. “Who are you calling?” she asked, her voice timid.

Amos glanced up at his family, a look of steely determination on his face, the same expression he wore whenever he spotted a winning combination when playing chess. “The police,” he said, simply. “It’s about time those bastards faced some consequences, don’t you think?”

Aeron found himself sitting in the Honeytree Tea Garden two days later, sipping on a white chocolate milkshake while contemplating the easiest way to fake his death and start a new life in a different country. Things at Stone Hedge had become unbearable since the fiasco that unfolded two days prior. His uncle was constantly teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, going on daily rants about how the neighbours were conspiring to steal their land, while his aunt desperately tried to hold the family together. Raylon - well, who knew what Raylon was doing? He was holed up in his room half the time, playing video games, most likely. Aeron had mostly been left to his own devices while his family seemed to implode around him. He needed some way to pass the time, and what better than to rant about all his problems to his oldest friend?

Lyonel Deddings was the only child of Darla Deddings, the beloved village gossip, proud owner of the Honeytree Tea Garden, and sworn enemy of Beatrice Butterwell. He and Aeron had first met at prep school, when they were six and seven years old, respectively. Lyonel was new to the school, having recently moved to Honeytree from Cirencester, and had the misfortune of being cornered by an eight-year-old Bryan Frey on the playground on his very first day. Aeron had somehow managed to diffuse the situation by claiming that Bryan’s mother had arrived at the school to collect him early, leading Bryan to quickly abandon his plan of tormenting Lyonel and sprint across to the school reception desk. Bryan had given Aeron an arm full of bruises once he realised he had lied, but it was worth it in the long run, he reckoned, given that it marked the beginning of a thirteen year long friendship between him and Lyonel.

Aeron was the only customer in the tea room, the lunchtime rush having been and gone, giving way to the quiet lull of the mid-afternoon. Lyonel took the opportunity to quickly catch Aeron up on all of the village gossip the moment he walked into the establishment. Clarence Charlton had been caught with yet another mistress, Roslin Goodbrook’s son had been thrown out of university for paying his course mates to write his essays for him, and, most shocking of all, Tristan Vance had supposedly developed something of a gambling addiction after being introduced to blackjack by his latest girlfriend. That was one of the best things about Lyonel. He knew all the best gossip, courtesy of his mother, of course, but unlike his mother, he actually knew how to keep a secret.

“Bryan Frey came in here the other day,” mused Lyonel. “My mum was watching him like a hawk the entire time he was here, in case he tried to steal anything.”

“And did he?” prodded Aeron.

Lyonel shook his head. “Nah. I think she might have even been a bit disappointed, actually. She would have loved to brag about fighting off a thief.”

Aeron couldn’t help but try to picture Darla Deddings, a petite, middle-aged woman, trying to take on someone like Bryan Frey. Though, now that he thought about it, Aeron didn’t consider Bryan to be quite so scary anymore after what he had witnessed in Tesco Express two days before.

“Do you think she actually would have been able to fight him off?” he couldn’t help but ask. 

Lyonel laughed as he wiped down the nozzle of the milkshake machine. “Of course not. She wouldn’t have appreciated me telling her that, though.”

“It’s a good thing he didn’t do anything, then.”

Lyonel’s face suddenly lit up. He stepped out from behind the counter, tossed his work apron onto a nearby table, then slid into the chair beside Aeron. “Actually, you’ll never guess what I saw last weekend,” he said, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“What?”

“I was walking home from the bus stop, the one opposite the village hall, when I heard some kind of commotion behind the pharmacy. I didn’t know what was going on, so I stuck my head around the corner to see what it was, and guess what I saw?” he exclaimed. “Bryan Frey, getting beaten up by those new neighbours of yours!” 

Aeron felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. His chest suddenly felt tight, just like it did before he had an asthma attack, though this time, he wasn’t wheezing. Lyonel, however, didn’t seem to notice, and kept on talking.

“I dunno what he did to piss them off, but they were pummeling him pretty good. Bryan used to rough me up a bit in school, so I can’t say I minded finally seeing him get a taste of his own medicine. I thought about pulling my phone out to record it, maybe get a few likes on TikTok or something, but I figured that if they caught me filming, they might beat me up too.”

Aeron needed to know more. He was determined to pry as much information out of Lyonel as he could. “Who were the ones beating him up? Do you know their names?” 

“I dunno their names, but they were definitely your new neighbours. There were two of them, young-ish. My mum would probably know.”

“Davos and Benjicot?”

Lyonel shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “If you say so. My mum’s been talking a lot about your new neighbours, actually…”

“Has she?”

“Yeah. You know what she’s like. I think your aunt told her about how your house got egged when she came round for tea yesterday. She said the police ended up getting involved.”

Aeron had completely forgotten that Darla had invited his aunt for tea the day before. Amos had been invited too, of course, but Barbra had insisted he wasn’t in any fit state to go out, given he was only one bad day away from a heart attack. Darla’s primary motivation behind the invitation was probably to learn as much as she could about the whole egging fiasco. After all, rumours had begun to circulate around the village the moment two policemen turned up and hauled Benjicot out of Raventree Hall.

Aeron sighed as he forced himself to recount the aftermath of the egging incident. “The police eventually came over and spoke to Benjicot. My uncle says he saw both Davos and Benjicot throwing eggs, but Benjicot somehow managed to convince the policemen that it was just him. He wanted to take the fall for his cousin, I suppose.” 

“Are they gonna charge him with anything?”

Aeron shook his head. “They took a statement from my uncle, detailing everything that happened, but in the end he got let off with a formal police caution.”

Lyonel raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised,” he said.

“Apparently he admitted to what he did, and it was his first offence, so. I guess they didn’t see a reason to charge him,” explained Aeron.

“I bet your uncle must have loved that.”

Amos loved it so much, in fact, that he called Benjicot a ‘cunt’, threatened to get the two police officers sacked, and punched a brick wall, breaking two knuckles. All in the space of five minutes.

Aeron debated whether to tell Lyonel what had transpired just that morning. His aunt and uncle probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but, hell, his friend could keep a secret, couldn’t he? 

“Did you know that Samwell actually knocked on our door to apologise today?” he blurted. 

Lyonel stopped leaning back in his chair and immediately sat upright. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah. Samwell said that even though we’re not on good terms, it shouldn’t excuse criminal behaviour. He seemed quite sincere, actually, said he was ashamed of what his nephew had done. My uncle was quite taken aback, but he didn’t tell him to piss off or anything,” Aeron cringed as he remembered what happened next. “And then Benjicot came outside and yelled at Samwell that he shouldn’t bother apologising to ‘stuck-up cunts’ like us, and then my uncle called them ‘chavs’, and then everything went to shit.”

“Damn,” chuckled Lyonel. “That’ll just give my mum another reason not to like your new neighbours.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. She complains about them, like, constantly.”

Aeron knew Darla wasn’t the biggest fan of the Blackwoods. Nobody in Honeytree was, it seemed. Still, he hadn’t known that she despised them. 

“Does she just…not like them, then?” he questioned.

“Well, word on the street is that the Blackwoods have been getting particularly chummy with the Butterwells lately. A friend of my enemy is my enemy, and all that,” explained Lyonel.

“Actually, I think the saying goes, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’...”

Lyonel rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Has your uncle mentioned anything about the village fête next weekend?”

“I don’t think so, why?” Aeron responded, slightly confused. He hadn’t thought Lyonel cared about the village fête all that much.

“My mum’s applied for the vendor’s stall next to the church entrance, but it turns out that Beatrice Butterwell’s applied for the same one, as well. Your uncle said he would try and pull some strings in our favour, seeing as though he’s mayor and all, but we haven’t heard anything about it since. I think my mum might throw a fit if we’re assigned a spot down the lane again like we were last year, since nobody ever walks down that far.”

Aeron suspected Darla’s real concern wasn’t getting the best stall location, but rather, getting a better stall location than Beatrice Butterwell. Darla would probably happily take a stall down the lane again if Beatrice was assigned a stall even further away. He figured it was best not to tell this to Lyonel, however. “I get that,” he replied, trying his best to sound sympathetic, “I think most attendees tend to stay near the church, since that’s where the main stage is.”

The bell above the door jingled as a new customer stepped into the tea room. Lyonel was forced to briefly resume front of house duties, slipping behind the counter to take their order (a slice of rocky road with a glass of lemonade). Luckily, the customer chose to sit on the patio outside, giving Lyonel and Aeron the privacy to continue their conversation undisturbed. Lyonel retrieved a piece of rocky road out of the display cabinet and plucked a can of lemonade from the fridge, placing both on a tray before taking them to the customer outside. A moment later, the bell jingled again as he re-entered, then dropped back into his chair with a sigh.

Aeron stared blankly at the wall, a storm of conflicting thoughts churning through his mind. He still hadn’t told Lyonel about Davos. On the one hand, keeping his encounter with Davos a secret was wearing him down. It sat heavy on his shoulders, like a weight he couldn’t shake. He felt as though too much time had passed to tell his family without raising further suspicion, and yet, the urge to confide in someone gnawed at him constantly. On the other hand, it wasn’t particularly a secret he wanted to get out. It would be scandalous - he’d never hear the end of it. But he knew Lyonel. He was his oldest friend. If anyone could be trusted to keep it quiet, it was him.

“There’s something I need to tell you, about the new neighbours”, he confessed quietly, almost in a whisper, even though there was no one else around to hear them. “Well, it’s about one of them in particular.”

“Hmm?” 

“The other day, when I was coming home, I got to the station and -”

“Aeron!”

Aeron nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his name. He spun around to see Darla Deddings stepping through the door at the back of the tea room - the one that led to the kitchen and storage area. Aeron hadn’t realised Darla was here the whole time. He’d assumed Lyonel was working on his own.

“Hello, Mrs Deddings,” he greeted, politely.

Darla walked over to the pair of them and ruffled Lyonel’s hair, causing him to grumble and push her hand away. “It’s so lovely to see you again! I know Lyonel here has missed you a lot, there’s hardly any other boys his age in the village anymore! He’s been very lonely without you…”

Lyonel looked downright mortified. “Mum,” he whined. “Stop embarrassing me!”

Darla only rolled her eyes at her son’s protests and tried to ruffle his hair once again, but he managed to duck out of the way in time. “I know, I know. Aeron, do you happen to know by any chance if the organising committee for the village fête have finished assigning stall locations to vendors yet?” she asked.

Aeron was pretty sure he knew where this conversation was headed. “I’ll be sure to ask my uncle about the stall near the church,” he promised. “Lyonel’s already told me all about it.”

Darla let out a breath, pressing a hand to her chest in relief. “Oh, thank goodness! I swear, if that prissy Beatrice Butterwell gets that stall…”

Lyonel appeared to have grown weary of his mother intruding into his conversation with Aeron. He kept bouncing his leg under the table and audibly sighing every two seconds, not that Darla took any notice, of course. 

“Mum, don’t you have stuff you need to do in the back?” he questioned, after Darla had finished giving Aeron a very detailed description of her new kitchen extension. 

“Oh, I don’t have much to do at the moment, I’ve just unpacked the new delivery -”

“Mum.”

Darla took one look at Lyonel’s stony expression and seemed to get the hint. Her smile faded, with her previously upbeat mood giving way to subdued embarrassment. Aeron couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt.

“I’ll leave you boys to it, then,” she muttered, before heading back through the same door she came through moments earlier. 

Lyonel waited until the door had swung shut before turning to Aeron with an exasperated look on his face. “Honestly, I thought she’d never leave. What was it you were saying? Something about your new neighbours?”

“Well…” he began, not entirely certain how he should go about explaining things. “It’s about one of them in particular…”

“Right…”

Aeron figured he might as well just start from the beginning. All he could do now was hope to the gods that Lyonel wouldn’t judge him for what he was about to reveal.

“My aunt and uncle were supposed to collect me from the station the day I came back, but, well, their car broke down, so they called me and asked me to get the bus instead,” he began.

“Go on…”

“Well, long story short, the buses weren't running, so I figured I’d just walk back. I’d probably walked about halfway when this car came up alongside me and offered to give me a ride home.” 

Aeron paused, searching for the right words to describe what happened next.

“Anyway,” he sighed, “I said yes, and I got in. I lied and said I lived on Darry Avenue because I figured it was probably best not to tell a random stranger where I lived. He gave me a ride home and he was really nice, like, we talked the whole way and everything. He told me his name was Davos, and that he lives in Honeytree, too. I was a bit surprised at the time, because I thought I knew pretty much everyone in the village, but then he said that he wasn’t originally from the area so I figured he’d moved here recently.”

Lyonel perched on the edge of his seat, eyes wide with anticipation, hanging onto Aeron’s every word.

“He dropped me off on Darry Avenue, because, you know, I’d lied about my address and everything, so I had to walk the rest of the way home, but as soon as I got onto Riverland Road, I saw…” his voice trailed off into a whisper as he reached the crux of the story. He still couldn’t help but wonder if he was making a mistake by telling his friend.

“You saw…?” prodded Lyonel.

Aeron figured he should just get it over with.

“...I saw the same car parked in the driveway of Raventree Hall,” he blurted, looking anxiously over at Lyonel to gauge his reaction. His eyebrows, furrowed in confusion, suddenly shot up to the sky, his mouth falling open as realisation crept upon his face.

“Wait,” Lyonel said, slowly, as if still unsure of what he’d heard. “You’re saying that the Davos you hitched a ride with…was Davos Blackwood?”

“I didn’t want to believe it at first,” Aeron confessed, his voice tight as the guilt and anxiety he’d bottled up within himself suddenly came pouring forth. “I even managed to convince myself that they had to have been two separate people, but this morning I looked out my window and I saw him. I saw him, Lyonel, with my own two eyes, standing in next door’s garden!”

A line appeared in Lyonel’s brows as he mulled over everything Aeron had said. “I mean…I dunno, I guess you hitched a ride with him, but it’s not like it’s the end of the world, right? Are you worried that your aunt and uncle are going to find out?”

“There’s more,” Aeron admitted, his cheeks turning pink. “After he gave me a lift home, he, uh…he gave me his number.”

Aeron watched Lyonel’s jaw drop to the ground in shock. In any other situation, he probably would have found it funny.

“He gave you his number?” Lyonel exclaimed, springing up from his chair and pacing around the tea room with his hands clasped behind his head. “Wow, I mean, shit, I didn’t know he was…y’know…”

“I know,” he cried. “But I liked him, Lyonel. I really liked him. He was my type, and everything…”

“Damn, it’s like Romeo and Juliet all over again.”

Aeron was grateful no one else was around to witness him almost choke on his milkshake. “Lyonel!” he scolded, his face reddening.

“What?”

“You’re not helping!”

Lyonel smirked and wiggled his eyebrows, clearly unremorseful. “You do kind of have to admit it’s true, though…”

Aeron slumped back in his chair, deciding there was no point in arguing further. “I saw him yesterday, too, in Tesco Express. Well, I kind of hid the whole time, but -”

“Aeron.”

“I know, but I panicked and just kind of hid behind the shelves, it was so awkward, but the thing is, a part of me actually wanted to go and talk to him -”

“Aeron.”

Aeron sat up straight, looking over at Lyonel, whose expression had turned deathly serious - a stark contrast to his usual cheeky demeanour.

“What is it?”

Lyonel said nothing to Aeron, much to his confusion, only giving a subtle tilt of his head in the direction of the shop window. Aeron glanced over his shoulder, curious what had caught Lyonel’s attention. 

His blue eyes widened as they met a pair of green ones through the glass, recognition crashing over him like a wave. It seemed as though time began to stutter and slow, the world around him fading into a blur, as if everything else were an illusion and only he remained real. Aeron squeezed his eyes shut, half-expecting he might be hallucinating, but when he opened them again, the sight hadn’t changed - Davos Blackwood, stood outside on the pavement, staring at him through the shop window.