‘Line up, little monsters. There’s plenty of goodies for all of you.’

***

It took a fair bit longer than ten minutes to get to the farm. The road Jack followed wasn’t much of a road. No wonder he missed the fork and had to walk back. The lawyer’s map wasn’t much help.

But here he was, standing in the farmyard, eyeing his new property.

Jack looked around. It wasn’t like any farm he had ever seen. Not that he knew much about farms. Born and raised in London, most of his farming knowledge came from TV shows. And this was far from anything he could have imagined. Everything was built with timber, for one thing.

The house itself wasn’t much to look at – a two-storey building with a narrow entrance door, built on a stone or brick foundation, he had no idea. The house was painted white, although the paint had peeled in some places.

On the other side of the farmyard was a small barn or stable.

‘God, I hope there are no dead cows in there,’ he said out loud to himself.

The farmyard also had other buildings, mostly sheds of some sort. The barn was red and sagging a bit, and for some reason it had a lawn on the roof. A bit behind stood a house built on four cairns. How odd, he thought. Why would anyone want a house built on cairns?

The phone pinged and he read the message. Holly, of course.

Dad says you’re in shock. Is it a huge farm? Will you make millions from growing strange Norwegian vegetables and become too good for the rest of us?

Jack grinned. He put the bag with food on top of the suitcase before answering.

I’m already too good for you lot. You should know that by now.

He sent the text and hoped she’d be satisfied. Knowing his little sister, he would get a barrage of texts if she was bored. But the text brightened his mood.

Jack walked around the side of the main house. ‘Wow,’ he said.

The views were stunning. A huge fence surrounded the house, and on the other side was a large field with rows of what he assumed were constructions of dry hay. A small path through a fence led down a garden to a snug beach with what looked like a couple of boathouses, jutting out over the water. After that, open sea as far as the eye could see.

‘Wow,’ he said again.

He took pictures with his phone, of both the view and the buildings, and sent them to his dad.

Finally he ran out of things to do. He had to go inside.

He brought the suitcase and the bag with him to the front door, pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He hesitated with his hand on the door handle. For a moment he remembered every horror movie he had ever seen.

‘This is stupid,’ he said and stepped into the empty hallway.