Harvest Moon: Kestrel Village

Chapter One

                                                                                Enter the Twins

“You sure they’re following us?”

For the fourth time in that last hour, the chocolate-haired young man whipped his head around to take a look out the rear window of the rusty, dusty pick-up truck. The absence of a lumbering moving van close behind gnawed in the recesses of his fretful mind.

Eli turned his attention back to his sister’s attentive driving. Years of survival in the distant city had honed the twins’ skills in maneuvering vehicles in an expert manner. Injuries had more than once been avoided by a fraction of an inch. Although Aly had never driven a pick-up truck before, she had volunteered to drive to the twins’ new home for whatever reason Eli could not figure out.

It was a decision she came to regret rather quickly.

“The road… is so… bumpy!” Aly gritted her teeth in annoyance when another bump in the dirt road popped up like that unwanted cockroach scuttling across the kitchen floor. The little pick-up truck lurched upwards, sideways, sometimes even backwards while the two bounced around inside. The impact was only slightly cushioned by fading charcoal grey car seats and the seatbelts wrapped around their bodies accordingly per regular safety procedures.

“That’s why-!” Eli was interrupted in his scolding when his skull banged against the scratched up window. Ruefully wincing at the sharp pain, the man nonetheless managed to say with an edge of impatience, “Slow down!”

“But we’re almost there! Look, can’t you see the village?” Aly perked up immediately.

The honey-colored blonde pointed excitedly with her left hand at the dwellings coming up to the left of the moving vehicle. It was a charming sight of various homes and cottages, painted in cheery spring colors, surrounded by meandering snake-like paths of hard dirt. Every now and then these paths were bordered by walls of crumbling brick and packed stones, hedges of seasonal flowers, and budding grass. Eli caught a glimpse of the village square and tiny figures of townspeople before the scene whirled by his eyes. It was all just a tantalizing taste of Kestrel Village.

“Then you’d better slow down. We’ll be at the farm in no time… I’d better tell the moving guys too,” he advised.

The man brought out his cell phone and flipped it open, only to discover there was one bar left for battery and reception was not so good out here. Punching down the numbers on the pad (he messed up twice from the stupid bumps), he then pressed the phone to his ear.

“Hello? Yeah, we’re just about there so you should start… What? Hello?” Eli brought the phone away from his ear and wrinkled his brow. “The reception is pretty bad here,” he sighed dejectedly, snapping shut his phone and putting it away back into the pocket of his jeans. “What if they get lost?”

“Eli, don’t worry about it! It was just one straight road from, like, twenty minutes ago! You can’t be dumb enough to get lost if it’s just one straight line!” Aly laughed in a care-free manner and shook her head at her worrywart of a brother. 

The pick-up truck moved onwards and came up on the outskirts of the village, where the farm and their land were supposed to be. Aly slowed the vehicle on a patch of dirt and came to a full stop, parked, and then scrambled out of the car first. Eli followed immediately after in haste.

They could not believe their eyes at the heart-dropping scene.

The plot of land lay before them desolately. The area was flat and devoid of any sign of life, plant and animal, and there was not a sound to be heard. What used to produce rows upon rows of produce was now filled with packed, dried up dirt. The wooden fences bordering the land groaned in their rotten state, the barns and coops stared blankly back at the dismayed duo, and the house they were to live in sagged in loneliness. The only cheerful aspect was the warm spring weather, the white puffy clouds in the clear blue sky, and the shining sun upon them. However, that all seemed to amplify the grey down where they were.

“I… didn’t think it was this bad,” Aly commented hesitantly. “It looks even worse than it did in the pictures and stuff in the newspaper.”

She looked towards her brother with her dark brown eyes. “But we’re here, so we might as well make the best of it, right?” 

“Right, I… Yeah, this doesn’t look so bad after all!” Eli faked an optimistic laugh for his sister’s sake but could not hide how white his facial tone was and the alarm in his blue eyes. Sure, they had bought land nobody wanted, miles away from civilization and probably any sort of advanced technology, and they were to make a living on a farm when they had absolutely no idea how to farm. Spur of the moment decision! Oh for the love of « Harvest Goddess », what were they thinking when they picked up the phone to call?! Before Eli could legitimately analyze how doomed they were, his cell phone rang. Pushing his thoughts of doom aside, he picked up. “Hello?”

The words of the moving men snapped him back to attention and he listened intently.

“Oh, that’s… But… You can’t make it through?” He protested and ran a hand through his short brown hair. “I see. Yeah, we’ll head back.” Finishing the brief conversation abruptly, Eli announced to the curious Aly, “They can’t go any further than five minutes from here. The moving van doesn’t fit on the path. We’ll have to go back and make a few trips.”

Aly pouted ridiculously at the news with her hands on her hips. Eli cracked a smile at her way to cheer him up, but didn’t really feel any better.

“I’ll go with the truck. We have a bit of stuff already, so see how the house looks on the inside,” said Eli. He turned on his heel and began to unload the few bags of luggage and miscellaneous items they had brought with them from the back.

Meanwhile, Aly mock saluted her brother and then bee-lined for their new home. It was a small house, with two dusty windows and a plain wooden door. Nothing stood out at all to her. But she was sure to change that, the blonde reasoned, with a bit of paint.

She had expected the door to be locked, but to her surprise, the door swung open with the twist of the doorknob and an easy push. Country people didn’t lock their doors? Why? She did not ponder the question for long after the flick of the light switch on the wall to her left.

After the buzz of electricity flowed through the light bulbs, the sight that greeted her inside was certainly not as depressing. In front of her, up against the wall, was a bed frame made for a queen sized bed. It looked sturdy enough, the girl mused, but there was no way she was going to sleep with Eli in the same bed. In the middle of the single room was the dining table. But it was so low to the ground! And there were no chairs! Were they going to have to sit on the floor to eat? At least the wooden floor seemed clean enough to sit on. Beyond this simple dining table was the tiny kitchen with its tiny kitchen cabinets, devoid of any cooking utensils. Aly walked up to the sink and cautiously turned the tab. After a protesting squeak, water gushed out. She turned the water off and grinned in relief in her confirmation. Country people did have water, at least, even if they didn’t have locks on their doors! 

“Eli!” Aly triumphantly called out in jubilation to her beloved brother. “They have water!”

“What’d you expect?” He called back in the distance in a bit of disbelief. “Mud?”

Sticking her tongue out to him in response, Aly burst into the bathroom. Yes! They had a working shower too! And the toilet flushed! The water gurgled down the toilet bowl to her delight.

“We have a toilet! It actually flushes!” The woman hollered out in new-found joy.

“Please shut up before someone hears you!” Eli’s voice was much closer now. He popped his head in the doorway and frowned. “« Harvest Goddess », Aly, it’s not like we’re living with cavemen,” he grunted, unloading the last of the luggage on hand outside next to the door. He wrinkled his nose at the dust that Aly had obviously not noticed. “We’ll have to clean a bit before we move stuff in.”

The man looked up at the lack of response. “What is it?”

“There’re no plugs,” Aly answered in a shocked voice, searching frantically around the walls of the house with her increasingly desperate eyes. She shot off with a list of technology unavailable to them, her voice growing louder and louder.

“No cell phones. No laptops…! No television!!” She made a tearful gasp and looked at Eli with a horrified gaze, realizing their apparent doom.

“No more microwave,” she whispered.