Free The Harvest Man by Alex Grecian

morning?”
    “This is the most likely time to find him, really.”
    “Who is it?”
    “You’d rather not know, I’m sure.”
    “Very well,” Day said. “Send a message when you’re up and about and ready to commence the search. Don’t come out here without me. Promise.”
    “I won’t.”
    “Nevil.”
    “I won’t. I promise I won’t.”
    Day took one last look around the clearing. He ran his palm over his stubbly chin and shook his head. “Boys! We’re leaving now! But we’ll be back to help you!” He listened for a response, but when he heard nothing he turned and limped away after Hammersmith.

11
    T he Harvest Man found the new couple by accident. They were leaving a house on Garway Road, around the corner from Leinster Square. It was a small house, and old, but it had been kept up. The couple was smiling, happy to be with each other. She was pretty, with long brown hair done up at the back of her head, and he was tall and lanky with a giant Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down as he murmured something in her ear. They held hands as they crossed the dark road and walked away. Neither of them even glanced in his direction.
    He looked up at the house and clapped his hands together with joy. There was clearly an attic, with a single window that looked out over the front garden.
    He waited until the couple was out of sight and then he went to the door and knocked. There was no answer. He looked up and down the road, but it was empty. Nobody was paying attention to him. He walked around the side of the house where a hedge obscured the view from the street and he stopped again. No one had followed him, no one was shouting. He wiped his fingers on a windowpane, clearing the dirt and condensation, and peered inside, saw a small receiving room with nothing but a chair and a round table barely large enough for the lamp that sat on it. Nothing moved. The lamp was not lit and the sun was down, but nobody entered the room to light the flame.
    He thought about the couple he had seen. They were doing well enough to afford a house to themselves, but they apparently didn’t employ a housekeeper. Or if they had one, she’d been given the evening off. He didn’t see evidence of children or a nanny. The couple was young, perhaps just starting out, which meant they might be living on an inheritance of some sort.
    He used the point of his blade to pry the window open and slid it upward on its runners. He put the blade away and tossed the plague mask into the room ahead of him, then hoisted himself up, balanced for a moment, teetering back and forth on his belly, his head inside the house, his legs brushing against the hedge outside. He heard nothing. The air inside was undisturbed. He smelled something sweet lurking beneath the usual stale quality of an empty house. He put the palms of his hands against the wall under the window and pushed himself the rest of the way in, dropped to the floor, turned, and pulled the sash down. He picked up his mask by the strap, sniffed, and followed his nose to the kitchen, where a tray of fresh chocolate biscuits sat cooling on the sideboard. Moonlight streamed through the windows, lending the room a dim blue hue. The Harvest Man took two biscuits and rearranged the others so that they appeared to fill the tray. He crept about the ground floor, munching on one of the biscuits, getting his bearings. First, of course, he needed to know where the couple slept, and he was excited to find evidence that they occupied separate rooms at night.
    He entered the woman’s room first. Her bed was small and neatly made. A nearby table held toiletries and a hand mirror. A brush was tangled with long brown hairs, and a semicircle of the table’s surface was lightly dusted with white powder. He ran a finger through it and smiled. The man’s room was similarly apportioned, but the bedsheets were rumpled and unmade. A table that matched the one in the woman’s room held a jar of shaving soap and a