Chapter 1
Whisper me a lullaby<!
It's the quiet that gets to him the most.
At work, Miles is always on the move, always keeping his co-workers in check (Zack and Dex will actually cause him early hair loss and chronic high blood pressure at this rate).
He talks what feels like all day, his hands are always moving.
He gets his coffee in hasty sips in passing, devours his lunch while squeezing in a little more work, cheeks stuffed.It's stressful.
It's exhausting.
He loves it.
But then, at the end of the day, he can already feel the dread in his stomach.
Miles does not like coming back to his flat.
It's too wide for him alone, the walls are too white, too naked, too empty.
All of it is too empty.
Miles will return, and everything is the same as it was when he left.
His mug on the coffee table, the dirty dishes in the sink, his abandoned laundry in (and around) the basket.
Nothing ever changes.
Nothing ever welcomes him home.
(It's not really a home.
It's shelter and a place to live, but it's not a home.)
Only when the radio sounds muffled from the kitchen, and the TV fills the rest of the space up with white noise, he can breathe and ease a little of the tension in his shoulders.
Silence is a funny thing, it always makes him feel like he can't breathe.
As if it sucks the oxygen right out of the air.
He did not have that problem when he used to live with Zara Hill.
His chores don't last long.
Miles tries to make a mess, but it's hard, when he spends every evening after work cleaning up.
He's back to the windows today, still squeaky-clean from two weeks ago, but the repetitive motion soothes him.
The lights are off except for the pale, ever-changing light of the TV, so that Miles can see the gentle fall of snow outside of his window.
The flakes are big and fluffy, sail to the ground slowly and undisturbed by wind, gently settling on the wide expanse of snow.
When Miles is done with the windows, he simply keeps standing there, the rag clutched loosely in his hand, his heart beating steady and quiet in his chest as the world outside gets covered in snow.
It's peaceful.
But of course, it does not last long.
It always ends up like this, his thoughts roaring up, pushing forward from the back of his mind again.
It makes him miss his friends and his family, way too far away.
The easy company in evenings.
Going out for food or a drink, or to play sports together.
The social circle he used to have and took for granted, before he moved.
(It makes him doubt moving all over again.)
Zara Hill has called every two days lately, always urging him to go out.
"It's no wonder you don't get to know anyone outside of work when you literally only ever are at work or hide away in your flat!"
"I'm not hiding away!", Miles snapped, met with silence.
He could literally feel his best friend's unimpressed stare through the speaker.
He could not exactly explain to himself why he did not simply give in and set an end to Zara Hill's on-going rants by simply going out.
It was not as if he was shy.
But, meeting new people had never been an issue in his old hometown, and here ... he did not even know where to start.
Going out alone sounded really lame to him.
When he thinks about it, Zara Hill is probably right.
He'll marry his job someday, and die a lonely death.
Heaving a deep, deep sigh Miles contemplates going to bed early, sudden fatigue settling deep in his bones.
The kind that felt like he wanted to curl up in his bed and sleep for the next three years straight.
The sudden sound of his phone, far too loud, makes Miles flinch, kicked out of his thoughts with warp speed nine.
He does not bother picking up the rag he dropped, chuckling to himself.
Zara Hill's senses probably alerted her to broody Miles, and now she's calling to snap him out of it.
Perfect timing as usual.
Miles picks up, presses the phone to his ear and opens his mouth to greet her with some witty comment about her motherhen senses, but gets cut off immediately by an unfamiliar voice.
"You won't believe what just happened to me, Owen!"
"Uhm -", Miles starts, trying to inform the caller that he is not in fact Owen and has no idea who on earth is on the other side of that call.
But the guy (sounds like a guy) simply talks over him.
"Remember how I told you the oven is possessed?
Yeah!
It is possessed!
I swear, this oven is the unholy spawn of satan.
There is no other explanation!"
Miles can't help a breathless chuckle, the aggravated voice at the other end seems to be really passionate about ovens.
Another attempt of informing the stranger that he has the wrong number goes unnoticed in the offended continuation of the rant.
"You know what, I dealt with it burning that cake I made for Cora.
I could cut off the egdes and save it, and dump cream and sparkles over it, and she loved it.
Fine!
I dealt with my lasagna extra crispy.
Special crispy.
Goddamn burned!
And that one time it set the baking paper on fire?
Okay, at least the house did not burn down!
Which is awesome, but that's not the point. I mean, I had a suspicion it was possessed.
Or maybe just difficult!
The problematic child of this family!
No, scratch that, that's Mischief.
Can't believe she did that to my plants.
But that's not the point either!"
Miles has given up trying to interrupt this passionate rant.
By now, he sat down on the sofa, listening to it all with a mix of fascination and mild horror, this tiny glimpse into a crazy world of possessed ovens and Mischief, problem child who did stuff to plants.
Miles really wonders what the person on the other line even looks like, who on earth Mischief is, and what the point actually is.
There's a small break where the stranger takes a deep breath and Miles realises he missed his chance to interrupt as he was wondering about all this.
"So, okay!
Possessed oven.
God, I HATE his oven so much.
I would kick it.
I swear.
I'm gonna balance on my crutches and kick it with my healthy foot.
Watch me, Owen.
Watch me.
No, don't worry, I won't do that.
I won't, I'll rest a lot.
And will never ever walk on ice again.
God, I hate this so much.
Why does ice happen to good people, Owen.
I'm good.
At least I'm trying to be.
And all I wanted were some cookies because I literally can't even leave the house.
So I scraped up all my last ingredients and I made the perfect cookie dough.
Perfect, Owen.
I think an angel cried."
It grows continuously harder not to laugh out loud.
"And then I left those perfect innocent little cookies-to-be to the clutches of the oven from hell.
They were so young.
They did nothing wrong.
They had a short, amazingly delicious life ahead of them.
Burned to a crisp, all of them.
It's a tragedy.
A tragedy for them.
But mostly for me.
Because now I don't have cookies.
I'm a desperate man, Owen.
I tried eating the burned ones.
Have you ever tried chewing ashes?
Don't do it.
Just.
Don't."
At this point, Miles has to admit, he's having so much fun just listening to the insanity unfolding, he does not even try to interrupt anymore.
"Jeez, Mischief, those are not for you!
I swear, this cat will eat anything.
Even the ashes of once promising young cookies.
Okay, anyway.
I hate everything, I am still stuck in my house, slowly going nuts, and I'm having a crisis because I don't have cookies.
I'm not kidding, I would eat raw sugar.
But I used all of it.
I need sweets because my ankle hurts and I've been stuck in here for four days in a row without any human contact, all I have are Mischief and Duchess and they are amazingly unresponsive no matter how much I talk.
And I talk a lot.
I am so sorry.
Oh God, I'm gonna shut up now."
Miles is almost disappointed, seeing that he spent the past minutes shaking with barely contained laughter and would have listened to even more of this absolutely ridiculous, endearing rant about the adventures of Mischief, Duchess and Mystery Voice as they burned cookies and slipped on ice.
But now is probably the time to tell he's not Owen.
That's the plan anyway.