🍂Miles Fairchild💀

Chapter 5 🐎

"See you're doing great," Miles snickers as I struggle to stay on the horse. He whips Delilah much to my discomfort. I understand that he needs to control the animal otherwise it could buck me off or something but it was still a bit old fashioned and violent.

"Who taught you to whip the- ahhh!" I panic as I nearly fall off, "Horse?" I finish my sentence as I re-centre myself on the saddle.

"Quint," Miles answers simply.

"Is he like a horse trainer?" I ask as I continue to trot on the circular sand track.

"Yeah, but he practically looks after the whole property as well as us. He taught me and Flora how to ride when we were very young. He's cool," Miles says.

"When will I meet him?" I say but I couldn't resist..."Also, Flora and I," the need to correct him was strong even though I know it makes me sound like a shitty little know it all.

"Really?" Miles says sarcastically as he grabs the reins of the horse and starts to slow Delilah down, which I was struggling to do myself.

"Well you can probably meet him now," Miles says looking towards the house, well estate I guess because his family is rich and there is SO much land, I should know, I ran on it and my lungs nearly melted.

"Yeah ok," I agreed. Miles helps me down from the saddle. My feet make a loud thud as they land on the earthy, dusty ground.

"You did pretty good for your first time on a horse," Miles remarks.

"Er Thanks," I say awkwardly, suddenly finding it amusing somehow that the guy who practically bullied me for years is teaching me how to ride a horse.

Miles and I are walking around the building, through dim hallways, up carpeted stairways and through cobwebbed doorways. We hear a pair of footsteps coming quickly towards us. I turn around and see Flora running down the hall with a doll and a bright little smile on her face.

"Hey Flora," Miles says, crouching and smiling at her.

"Hi Miles," Flora says out of breath in her cute little squeaky voice.

"Can we show Issy the Koi pond, please Miles?" Flora begged, grabbing his arms and dramatically begging him.

"Yeah, let's go. We were just looking for Quint but Issy will probably see him at dinner anyway," Miles laughs as he stands up straight again and looks at me, deep into my eyes. Flora holds his hand which causes half of his body to tilt to where Flora was tugging his arm, he still keeps eye contact the entire time

"Come on Miles," Flora whines as she tries to drag Miles down the hallway so that he walks faster. I break the eye contact and pretend like there wasn't serious tension between us, this will be on my mind all day. Maybe he does have feelings for me, we could be a thing, like a couple but with cute banter and nothing cringey like public displays of affection.

I hear heavy footsteps trudging behind us, I anxiously look back since I could tell it wasn't fragile, light footed Mrs Grose or Miss Jessel. I see a dark figure, long black hair, toothy grin, sly eyes and tall, slumped frame. I unintentionally grab onto Miles' arm and grip it tightly. Now he probably thinks I'm scared and weak, ew.

"Miles," I whisper.

"Mm?" Miles hummed as he stared at me confused, startled by my sudden out of character gesture. He looks behind us and lets out a loud chuckle. Okay then...? Oh it's probably Quint, I pictured him like Hagrid from Harry Potter but he is more of a Snape mixed with Sirius black kinda vibe.

"Hey Quint," Miles says high fiving him, I stand there uncomfortably. Flora smiles up at Quint but not the way she would with Miles or Miss Jessel.

"Hello Miles, Flora," Quint nods a greeting to both of them in his low, voice that sounds like he either smokes or has sand in his windpipe.