The Merry Men Masquerade

12. Creeping Sunshine

It wasn't easy to scare Ronan nowadays. Between his childhood home and the one that followed, he'd had more than enough exposure to get over spiders and heights, blood and vomit, loud noises and small spaces and the dark.

Even so, the road to the Abrams farm was eerie before sunrise.

The countryside was pitch black save for the moon and the stars. They offered just enough light to cast angry, gnarled shadows from the trees onto Ronan's path. The forest rustled and murmured and groaned with the breeze, and although the morning was warm, he held his arms against a chill. It had been a long time since he'd struggled to move without light, but the pebbles seemed to shift beneath his feet, and they nearly gave way when an owl's screech pierced the damp air. He stumbled over himself in his haste to get where he was going faster.

"The hero's come early!"

"Holy–!" Ronan's feet really did leave the ground as he whirled around, but his arm was caught in a strong grip before he could topple. "Fucking– oh my god," he panted, heartbeat pounding in his ears.

"We're . . . saved?" Sadie looked bewildered. Edgar blinked blearily from his place on her shoulder, deeply disgruntled after being jostled awake. "You need a minute?"

"No I do not–" Ronan started to snap, but he hadn't quite caught his breath.

"I'll give you a minute." She leaned against the rake in one hand and tapped her foot.

Ronan gave her a narrow look. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here."

"You live there." He pointed to the house down the road.

Sadie followed his gaze to her house and stalled there for a moment with her lips pursed. Rather reluctantly, she admitted, "I was out in the fields, and I saw someone on the road, and, well– we lost a couple'a chickens last week, and my brothers all think it had to be coyotes, but I've been suspecting a thief, so . . ."

"So you followed me – the chicken thief – out here. With a rake."

"Well what are you doing here?" Sadie demanded. She sounded flustered. "Awful early shift, considering my pa's not even up yet."

Ronan looked again at the house, which was notably unlit. "He told me you all start your mornings early."

Sadie laughed openly at him. "Sure do, but it's half-four in the morning! Pa's prob'ly just waking up– don't expect him out here for another hour."

Ronan tilted his head to the sky, scrubbed his forearm over tired eyes with a heavy sigh, and resigned to the fact that he would have to swallow his pride and ask this girl for work if he wanted an excuse to be here instead of sitting sleepless at home, stuck on useless apologies spoken through a wall.

When he lowered his gaze, Sadie was already watching him, subdued. Shifting her weight back and forth between her feet and the rake, horribly awkward, she said, "Do you, ah– do you want to talk about . . . whatever it is that's got you lookin' for work before the sun's even up?"

Ronan made a face. 

Sadie snorted. "Yeah, alright. C'mon, I'll show you how we open up."

Ronan didn't know this then, but the seconds between when she started down the road and when she looked back at him over her shoulder with an impatient, "Need me to carry you?" were the longest stretch of silence he would get for some time.

Apparently, it was normal for Sadie to be the first one on the farm, because: "How could I sleep through this? My brothers and my pa, they just don't see what I see, d'ya know what I mean?" Ronan did not know what she meant.