A Duet of Wolves and Sparrows

Chapter Five

Margaret pulled up outside of the house and Hazel quickly paid her for the journey. Afterwards, Margaret offered to help her carry all of her things inside in exchange for a cup of tea before she had to head back out on the road again. Hazel happily accepted and walked up to the door, where she looked around for where the key might have been left. 

She remembered the words of the receptionist back at Old Willow Springs Executors, informing her that they keys to the house would be placed somewhere around the front door, hidden under something. The only problem was that Hazel couldn't remember what exactly the lady had told her it was hidden under.

Hazel looked under the doormat and peered under a couple of plant pots, but there was nothing there. Hazel started to get a little worried that they keys might not have been left in the right place or could have possibly been stolen. 

She was just starting to get worked up when she spotted a brick in the floor just in front of the door that looked looser than the rest. Carefully, she lifted it up and underneath there was a little wooden box. She took it and moved the brick back into place before standing up.

Hazel opened up the little box and inside were the keys. She smiled to herself when she saw them and definitely felt relieved. She took them out and unlocked the door, putting the keys into an inner side pocket inside her handbag to keep them safe.

The interior of the house felt incredibly cosy and quaint; it was like walking into a cottagecore dream house. There were wooden beams running across the ceiling, the walls were painted magnolia white and the windows had black frames with pretty floral curtains. The floors were all light wooden panelling apart from the kitchen, which had black and white tiles a wooden dining table and light blue gingham wallpaper on the top half of the walls.

The whole place smelled like wood polish and pressed flowers. Hazel had to give herself a moment to take everything in. Just beyond the entryway there was an open kitchen on the right and the living room on the left, which contained a sofa and armchair, a small coffee table and a fireplace with a bookshelf in the corner and a cream coloured rug in the middle of the room. The hallway in the middle lead to an open room that had cream rugs and some large, French windows with glass sliding doors leading out onto a back porch. 

In the front of the far room, there was a wooden spiral staircase leading up to the second floor. When Hazel stood under it, it seemed that it also went all the way up to the attic room. She couldn't wait to explore everything and  look around. It was all still furnished from when her grandmother had lived there. It would all need a good day's worth of spring cleaning, probably a new mattress and definitely some fresh bedding, but other than that, it all seemed to be in working order. 

Hazel headed back outside to see that Margaret was already getting some of the boxes out of the back of the taxi van. 

"Let's get this over and done with and get some tea on the go. I'll take this one and we can start piling them up in the living room for now, so they don't clutter the hallway." Margaret said, lifting one of the boxes and carrying it inside.

"Yes! There's not really any doors downstairs, it's mainly just archways, so it should be easy to get through to put things down." Hazel agreed and went to grab one of the boxes out of the back.

It didn't end up taking them all too long to get all of the luggage out of the van's boot. A good fifteen minutes and all of Hazel's bags and boxes were neatly stacked up just inside the entrance to the lounge. Floss' dog crate was off to the side, behind the sofa and Floss herself had made herself comfortable on the living room rug.

Margaret sat down at the dining table while Hazel hunted through the cupboards for a kettle. When she found one, it was an old one, the kind that you heated up on the stove. So, she rinsed it out, filled it up and popped it down on one of the smaller burners. She was glad that it was fuelled by propane and not one that she had to light a fire for. She wasn't sure how much longer making a cup of tea would have taken if she had to wait for a rayburn stove to heat up first. She didn't even have any coal or wooden logs and definitely no kindling or firelighters.  

Soon enough, the little kettle was whistling away. Hazel had cleaned out some old teacups and fished out the tea from inside one of her bags of food shopping. As soon as they were done with their tea, she would be putting all of that away, she did have some things in the cool bag that needed to be refrigerated after all. 

It was Earl Grey that she had settled on before quickly stuffing the other tea boxes into one of the empty cupboards above the kitchen counters. A lot of the drawers and cupboards were empty and Hazel was starting to realise how unprepared she actually was for a move. She didn't regret anything about it, but she definitely needed to use the rest of the day to scope out the town and get herself some new utensils. She was lucky that the kettle was still there and one of the cupboards still contained a couple of mugs and glasses (dusty though they were). 

They sat together at the table, across from each other with their tea and were finally able to relax for a little while.

"It's good to finally be able to sit down somewhere that isn't a car seat." Margaret joked.

"Agreed. Though, I'm honestly excited to get up and have a look around. I would really like to get on and explore the rest of the house when I can, then I really have to make my way into the town and have a look around, you know, get a feel for the place and maybe talk to some locals." Hazel said excitedly, eyes shining.

"You've got a beautiful home here, so I can't say I blame you for being eager." Margaret laughed. "If I was living in a place as nice as this, I think I'd spend all day learning all the nooks and crannies too."

"I just can't help myself. This is the first place I've been where it's really all mine, it really belongs to me. It's incredible, it represents so much for me: my grandmother's love, a new beginning and a real chance at the freedom I've been denied my whole life until now." Hazel said fondly, looking down at her hands as she held her mug of tea.

"Well, now you have the rest of your life ahead of you to explore everything here to your heart's content. Hey, and you never know, you might even see a moon wolf." Margaret said, taking another sip of her Earl Grey.

"A moon wolf?" Hazel asked, curiosity piqued. 

"I'm surprised you've never hear of them, you having grandparents that lived in Bleydh Forest." Margaret replied, surprised. "They're a subspecies of wolf native to Bleydh Forest. You can't find them anywhere else in the world and they're incredibly illusive. Some people even doubt that they're real, they're more of a local legend or a piece of folklore, really." she explained.

"Do you know much about them?" Hazel asked.

"Not too much, to be honest, just what I've heard and read about while looking up the area. A lot of it is word of mouth, but there are some old books about them too. From what I know, they're much bigger than a normal wolf and have eyes that seem to glow. I've heard the eyes are what stand out the most; they're usually green, amber or blue. That's all I really know though. If you're curious, I'd recommend getting to know some of the locals and asking them about it. They'll know a lot more than I do." Margaret answered. 

"I think I will! These moon wolves sound fascinating! I hope I get to meet one!" Hazel exclaimed.

Hazel and Margaret finished up their tea, Hazel did the dishes and soon enough, Margaret was pulling away from the drive in her taxi van with Hazel waving her goodbye. They had gotten along so well during their whole journey from Hazel's family's house to Fernwood that they had decided to exchange emails in order to stay in touch. Margaret insisted that she wanted to know how Hazel got on in her new town and Hazel was quick to tell Margaret that she was welcome to visit any time she wanted.

Hazel went back inside and immediately went to explore the house. She had already seen the interior of the lounge and kitchen, so she went straight down the corridor to the back room that looked out onto the garden. It was filled with natural light that spilled through the windows. The French doors and long windows looked more modern than the windows at the front, with double glazing and white frames. 

The walls were painted white and there was a wicker furniture set laid out with a little round, glass coffee table between them. It all looked out onto the back porch. The garden outside was like the front, only the grass was a little more overgrown and there were even more wildflowers everywhere. The garden was lined with the tall trees of the forest and Hazel thought to herself that it really couldn't be any more perfectly picturesque.

She could see butterflies flitting around the flowers and hear the birds chirping from the trees. She couldn't wait to get out there and take a nice long walk with Floss. She could just imagine playing fetch and watching Floss bound around and play in the grass. This place... this place was better than she ever could have imagined.

Hazel turned back around and headed up the spiral staircase to check out the second floor. Immediately, the landing gave her a light and fresh feeling. The floors there were carpeted with a light cream and the walls were the same magnolia white as the ones downstairs. There was a small bureaux to the left, up against the wall with a large window that looked out to the side of the house.  There were four doors up there and Hazel was ready to find out what lay behind them.

The first door on the right lead to an empty room that looked out onto the garden below. It was probably supposed to be used as a spare bedroom, but Hazel supposed that she could also use it as a home office if she wanted to. 

The second door lead to the bathroom. It had white tiles on the wall and light blue times on the floor. There was a toilet and sink on the right hand side and on the left was a spacious tub that doubled as a shower. Ahead was a large stained glass window with a texture to it that would stop anyone from being able to see inside. There was a little shelf space under it where she could keep her towels and bathroom supplies too.

Grinning to herself, Hazel moved on to the third room, that was next to the area where the bureaux was. Inside was what looked to be another spare bedroom, only this one had an empty bed frame and an empty wardrobe against the wall that took up the entire wall on that side of the room. There was plenty of space for all of Hazel's clothes and more if she chose to take that room and one of the doors even had a full-body mirror on it. There was plenty of space to put Floss' dog bed too and they would still have plenty of room to spare. 

The final room, at the end of the landing was a small private library. the walls were covered in shelves full of books of all different kinds. The window at the front was the only space that wasn't covered and it just so happened to double as the perfect reading nook. It was a chair that fit to the shape of the alcove where the window was and Hazel knew that she would be spending a whole lot of time in there.

Last but not least, Hazel made her way up to the converted attic. She found her anticipation growing as she neared the top of the spiral staircase. 

She gasped when the full room came into view. The whole floor was open plan, just one large room. There was a king sized bed frame in the right, next to a massive window that looked into the back garden. It covered the entire wall, all the way up to the roof. She looked up and saw that there were star-shaped lights hanging down from the ceiling rafters. 

Over on the other side of the room there was a long white desk and cosy looking sofa by the front windows. Hazel immediately thought that she could put a throw over it and make it even more cosy. The floor was white carpet and the walls were also painted white, but there was a vibrant teal feature wall behind the bed. 

There weren't any drawers or a wardrobe in there, but she could easily order a flat-packed one online and have it delivered. She wasn't all too bad at putting furniture together. There was plenty of shelf space to make up for it, though. Against the feature wall, at the far end of the room, next to the sofa, there was a column of white shelves that were about a meter wide, going up about six and a half feet of wall.

This was it, this room was going to be her bedroom, no questions asked. She couldn't believe that her grandmother had had such incredibly beautiful taste. There was such a wonderful balance of older and much more modern design elements. Hazel could see this place really coming together when she had some new furniture and décor ordered. She had lots of planning to do and she felt the excitement bubbling over inside herself.

She walked around the room, taking everything in. The long teal curtains that reached the floor, the starry lights that hung from the rafters, the white wooden panelling that blocked off the roof insulation from sight, but didn't cover up the ceiling beams. She walked over to the back windows and to her utter delight, she realised that they could slide open and there was a balcony outside. 

Hazel spent a while on the balcony, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her skin as she leant against the railing, looking out over the garden and forest below. Many of the trees stretched higher than the top of her house, but it still had perfect access to the sun through the branches and over the tips of the trees. She felt herself overwhelmed by how lucky she was to be able to live the life that she had been given and overwhelmed just as much by the gratitude she held towards her grandmother for leaving her this magical place. 

It was around two o'clock in the afternoon when Hazel decided it was time to venture out into the town itself. She had taken her suitcases up to the loft room and set up Floss' dog bed next to the sofa that was in there. She had already put away all of her food into the fridge and the cupboards and had put the boxes in their respective rooms, as well as laid out Floss' dog bowls on an easy-to-clean mat in the kitchen. 

She hadn't unpacked anything yet, but everything was set out where it needed to be and she had allowed Floss to go outside and run around in the garden while she moved things. She knew that Floss wouldn't stray too far from her or the house, so she wasn't all too worried about her straying too far from the house or going into the woods.

Hazel grabbed Floss' leash and called her over to the house again. Floss bounded over through the grass, tail wagging rapidly back and forth with absolute joy and delight. It was easy to see that Floss was just as ecstatic about their new home as Hazel was.

Hazel clipped on the leash and closed the back doors, then lead Floss over to the front of the house, making sure she had everything she would need inside her handbag before stepping outside. She went out and made sure to lock the door behind her. She put the keys back into her handbag and they began their walk into the town.

Given the length of the drive leading up to the house, it took them about six minutes to reach the town. Hazel enjoyed the tapping of her boots against the cobblestone roads and pavements. There were a few houses and quite a lot of small shops on the main street. She spotted a corner shop, a café and a small grocery store that doubled as a post office. 

The architecture was incredibly pretty, most of the buildings being crafted from local stone and built up with some more modern framework. She kept walking, getting some curious glances from the locals that were out and about. 

She came to a slow when she reached the far end of the town. There were a couple of farms, one with a big field full of various crops and vegetables and another opposite it, on the other side of the road, that looked as though it was more of a stable than a farm. There were several horses grazing in the pasture outside and there was an enormous barn and paddock. 

Just as she was about to move on, Hazel saw a girl exit the stables. She had on grey leggings and a pair of black riding boots. She was wearing a yellow sweater with a small embroidered daisy the the top left corner and boy was she beautiful.

Hazel was taken aback, stunned speechless. The girl had long, wavy golden hair collected into two loose plaits that were draped over her shoulders. She had fair skin and the most incredibly green eyes Hazel had ever seen. She was laughing and waving to someone who must have been just out of view inside the stables.

Hazel's heart raced. She knew that she had never seen this girl before, but something about her felt familiar. She didn't feel as though she was looking at a stranger, but rather reuniting with someone she had known long ago. It was an odd sensation that welled up in her chest and it almost brought her to tears.

She was startled out of her thoughts and a little embarrassed, however, when the girl turned and spotted her staring. Rather than seeming confused, an indescribable look passed over her that was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Without wasting another moment, the girl grinned widely and jogged over to the fence where Hazel was still standing in somewhat of a trance, a warm blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks.

"Hello there! I don't think I've seen you around here before and I know everyone! Have you just moved here or are you visiting?" The girl asked, leaning over the fence. "I'm Luna by the way, Luna Fernsby." She introduced, sticking out her hand for Hazel to shake it.

Hazel took her hand and shook it weakly, still feeling a little flushed and dazed before answering. "I um... I'm Hazel, Hazel Garcia-Sparrow. I just moved here today actually. My grandma passed away a few years ago and I recently found out that she left me her house. Oh, and this is my dog, Floss."

"What a perfect name!" Luna exclaimed, leaning down to let Floss sniff her hand before petting her on the head. "She's so friendly."

"Yeah, she's a good girl, she loves everyone she meets." Hazel said, smiling.

They made eye contact and for a long moment, neither of them could look away. It was like they were hypnotised by each other's gaze. It felt like Hazel was caught in an embrace, unable to force herself away from the warmth of it. 

"Would you like me to show you around a bit? I know this place like the back of my hand and I just got off work, so I'm free for the rest of the day." Luna offered, forcing herself to be the first one to look away. She must have felt it too.

Hazel quickly accepted, eager to learn more about this beautiful stranger. "Absolutely! I'm really eager to learn more about this town that my grandma loved so much."

"Brilliant! Let's go, I'll give you a quick tour!" Luna said, hopping over the fence with ease. She patted down her sweater a bit and beamed at Hazel before leading the way back into the town. "Follow me!"