It took them awhile to move in completely into the farmhouse. There were so many aspects to getting this domain to run smoothly. As Maeva thought, Sky transformed the whole attic into his training area, with a small kitchenette, a complete bathroom, and a movie room with state of the art sporting and projection equipment. He added two bedrooms for guests as the changes made to the entire living area left only two free bedrooms. The one right across the hall to the master’s bedroom became Neve’s room. Sky chose the room with the secret door as his office and took out the door opening in the hall. The room between the master bedroom and the secret room was transformed into an 'his and hers' closet. The two front garden view rooms became two guest rooms, one frequently occupied by Yvonne when she needed to sleep overnight to stay with Neve.

 

The summer kitchen became their social gathering place with family or friends, or was used when they wanted to be together, Sky and her, for a peaceful evening in front of the fireplace. With an extra trivial amount of money, they became the proud owners of most of the antiques that were in the house.

 

While the renovations for the attic and the large closet in their living area, Maeva and Neve remained in the London house as the couple didn’t want Neve to be around all the renovation dust. Victor and Yvonne were also moving into their guest house. It was the first time the couple had their own house, and Sky had promised them the house as long as he would own the domain. Sky and Victor started to build up the domain’s caretakers’ team with Victor as their Team Leader. Victor was so proud of his promotion. Some of the caretakers already in place, were old and didn’t wish to stay on knowing the domain would have even more animals and an overall increase in work. Only two caretakers wished to stay and were happy to have new tasks and a good raise. They had been young at the time they started working and were now married with a family. Johnnie became the Stable Caretaker and Liam, the Barn Caretaker. Sky had hired security people, a driver and an overall Land Caretaker. Victor was to keep part of his gardening tasks, as well as being the Team Leader. Yvonne would remain with the same tasks for now, but Maeva saw to obtain house cleaning help every two weeks for bigger cleaning jobs.

 

They had signed the ownership papers at the end of June and were completely settled in the farmhouse by September. Fall was showing itself with shorter days, color changes in the tree leaves, some flowers wilting and animals wanting more time in the warmth of the barn. They added a third horse in mid-September. Sky wanted a stallion for Neve for her third birthday. The horse was wild. Considering the child would not be able to ride it for awhile, he thought he had time to train the horse himself, with the help of a seasoned trainer. It was a dream come true. Maeva thought that dreams were important in a lifetime. As long as you had dreams, your mind remained creative and your soul, fully alive. She continued to write but had dropped the metalsmithing. To her dismay, she was receiving many requests for scenarios. She was now able to choose the ones she wanted to work on. Neve was growing and changing. Everyday, there would be something new; a word, a gesture, a body movement, a new skill. It was a privilege to witness all the ‘first’ times Neve would experiment. Maeva was so relieved Sky was also able to witness them.

 

That faithful day, Maeva was sitting at the island. Yvonne had prepared Neve’s meal before everyone's as it needed to be lukewarm. Maeva watched her daughter trying to hold her spoon. She was trying to pick up little pieces of carrots Yvonne had given her while they were waiting for Sky to join them.

 

“Where is Mr. Sky?”, Yvonne asked. She was also waiting for him to serve them.

 

“He should be here any second now. He said he was going to the stables to check on the new horse.”. Yvonne walked over to the living room area to look out the panoramic windows. There was a clear view of the path to the stables from there.

 

“He must still be inside as I can’t see him walking back or anything.”, said Yvonne. Maeva checked the time and thought he had been away quite awhile now. She took her phone and texted him.

 

Hey babe! Where are you? Supper’s waiting.

 

She waited. No answer. She decided she would go see for herself. Neve was eating away, trying and succeeding often to get some food in her mouth. Maeva kissed her forehead and told her she would be back.

 

“Yvonne, would you continue with Neve? I will go see what is holding him up.”. Yvonne just smiled. She was more than happy to be with the baby. Maeva quickly put on the clogs that she kept at the door and walked to the stables. Since they had transformed this place into the domain it was now, she was always ready to be out of the house in a second for some kind of small emergency with the animals, gates, doors that flew open by the wind, or something of that sort. Walking towards the stables, she was enjoying the wind and fresh air on her face and listening to the birds. When she reached the building, she was greeted by the smell of hay and the horses’ whines and stomping shoes. She walked over to the stall where the newest horse should have been. Nothing. The stall door was closed but not pinned in. She was surprised as this horse needed to be trained. It had not had a rider on its back yet.  From where she stood, she could see the training ring and part of the horses gated grazing field. It was empty and silent. All the other horses were in their stalls. No saddle was missing. Harnesses were all accounted for, each on their corresponding hooks. This door she was facing in the stables was always open in the daytime. It was closed and secured only when dusk settled. The horses’ grazing fields opened directly from there, so the horses were safely enclosed as soon as they went out of the stables. Maeva walked out in the field entrance and looked around. Sky was not there. She could not hear any far away sounds either. She decided to walk further. Maybe she was not close enough to where Sky was and couldn’t hear him. She walked until she could see a slice of the ocean through the trees and heard its waves crushing on the rocky cliffs. Still nothing. At this point she was completely bemused. She looked down for tracks but, there were many from the other horses and the farmhands. She turned back wondering if he had taken a vehicle. She had to check where she stepped as there were some horse excrements around. Maybe the horse ran away, and Sky took a 4-wheeler to chase him? Or would he try to bareback it? Never. Sky was a good rider, but that horse was a wild stallion.

 

She checked on the vehicles and the cars and trucks were all accounted for. Even the 4-wheelers were parked where they should be. She suddenly saw Victor walking quickly towards her. Yvonne must have alerted him when Maeva did not come back quickly.

 

“Mrs. Maeva? Did you spot him?”, he asked, worried.

 

“I cannot understand this… No. But the horse, it’s not in its stall.”, she answered shaking her head in disbelief.

 

“Oh, the horse probably got away. He could have taken…”, he looked at all the 4-wheelers neatly parked where he had put them. “I guess he didn’t take one. A truck?”, he was grasping at straws. Neither truck nor car would have been successful to track the horse on the thin domain paths.

 

“You take a 4-wheeler and search the east side of the domain. I will do the west. I will check on Neve and Yvonne first. Do you think we should call for more help?”, she was panicking.

 

“Don’t worry Mrs. Maeva, I’m sure he went running after the horse.”, he answered getting on a vehicle.​

 

 

Maeva followed all the paths in the domain on the western side. She was now passing a second time looking for clues, tracks, anything. Dusk was slowly falling and she thought it better to go to the house. She hoped he was there waiting for her. She was riding back quickly “Oh, God, let him be there.”, she said as a prayer even if she didn’t believe there was a God. She did believe in a creator.

 

The first thing the saw was a police car. She accelerated, as fast as she could. Victor came to meet her making a hand sign to slow down.

 

“I did not find him. Nor the horse. I called the police and we were waiting for you to send for a search party.”, he said. She burst out in tears, wiping her cheeks with her dirty sleeves making dirt tracks on her face. Her hair was all crazy and tangled up. Her eyes red and puffy. He could see she had cried as she searched. Then she asked the question that was probably all on their minds.

 

“You went to the east, right? You checked the cliffs?”, she said this looking straight into his eyes.

 

“Yes Miss Maeva, I did. I saw no trace of broken gates, falling earth or tracks, but I could not see well down below. I even called his name a few times.”. Victor would not lie. Maeva turned her head to the police officer.

 

“Please go and check on the shore right away. He might be hurt. We don’t want it to be too late if he is.”, she walked briskly into the house. Yvonne was coming back from the toddler’s nursery and had the monitor in her hands. Now that Neve was two, Maeva accepted for the toddler to sleep in her own room.

 

“The little darling is sound sleeping. Any news?”, she asked with eyes wide open in anticipation. Maeva just nodded. “How about if I make you a coffee? You could go back out again if you want to? To search for him?”, Yvonne did not know how to handle this situation, but she could see how distraught her lady was, and it was breaking her heart. Maeva went to the bedroom without another word. She had to pee. She took a look at herself in the mirror. She had never seen herself so dirty and defeated looking. She took a quick shower, put on some jeans, a t-shirt and a zipped up polar hoodie. She asked Yvonne to have her coffee to go. Yvonne had already thought of that. She put on her rain boots, took the coffee Yvonne was handing her and went back out. The 4-wheeler was ready for her.

 

“I was sure you would go back out, Mrs. Maeva. I filled it up with gas and attached a full second container in case. In the attached bag, you have flairs but, what will you do about wild animals. They come out at this time.”, he had everything ready, but she knew she should not go alone.

 

“Search party?”, she asked looking around. They were no other police cars, and the police officer was in his vehicle.

 

“It takes awhile before they can gather everything.”, he was shy to say this to her.

 

“How about if we go together? You bring the shotgun?”, Maeva looked at him, pleading. He nodded eagerly and went to another 4-wheeler.

 

“I already prepared everything. You also have a flood light, as I do.”, he was proud that she asked for his help. They didn’t ask nor inform the police officer and they both left towards the eastern side of the domain. The officer, seeing them leave, came out quickly from his vehicle quite upset they did not even let him know. Instructions from his sergeant were to keep everyone at the house until the search party arrived.

 

Maeva led the way. This time she took the east path. It contoured the grazing field and turned abruptly in the direction of the beach and cliffs. She did not take any of the secondary paths but wanted to go directly to the end of this one. They would have to walk down to the shore and there was only one way to get there. At the end of the trail, they could continue on to the top of the cliffs or take a downward little path that swerved until they reached a point where they needed to park their vehicles and continue on foot. Both took their flood lights and flairs. Victor took his shotgun and she saw he had a knife at his hip. The terrain was arduous and slippery. It had rained for a few days at the beginning of the week and the water still pooled in some areas. Maeva thought even more about Sky slipping. It took them a good hour, and they both slipped a couple of feet down the hill a few times. They luckily were always able to stop their fall catching a tree branch or a rock. Once on the shore, they wabbled toward the big cliffs on their left. There were large puddles of retained sea water where the waves had hit during the high tide. That slowed them down quite a bit. Both were careful to look around with their flood lights. Neither saw anything suspicious or out of sorts. They were also pointing their lights upwards to see the ledges or any flat areas where someone could have landed had they fallen.  Looking up to those areas didn’t allow them to see well. They would have to redo this once they went back up. They knew that it wouldn’t be able to go further than the Point as, the sea had invaded the shore a few years ago from the erosion. That section was now part of the sea interspaced with rocky mounds were some boats broke their hulls when pushed by the wind and high waves.

 

“Unless he had fallen on the rocks, the sea would have taken him in its current.”, Victor commented.

 

“I know. As well as the horse.”, Victor and Maeva looked at each other, sadly.

 

“Let’s not think of this now. We must go back up. Do you think we can get close enough the ledge without slipping?”, she asked. It was more a question to herself, than to Victor. He didn’t answer but didn’t think so. They retraced their steps still looking everywhere. Maeva even went to search a little more towards the sea as the darker it got, the more shadows appeared making you think it was a human form or that it moved.

 

“Darkness can play tricks on you.”, Victor said worried about her temerity.

 

“I only want to find him.”, said Maeva weepily. Just as she answered, they heard a helicopter motor nearby and saw its flood lights through the trees before they saw the helicopter itself. Bright light exposing the nightly forest’s life. Maeva’s legs gave out and she was suddenly sitting in damp sand and mud. She closed her eyes, felt Victor approaching to help her up but put her hand up signaling to leave her alone. He did. The helicopter was now circling over the sea. She could see the shiny waves crashing on the rocks in foamy peaks, leaving behind the rocks shining like diamonds in the night. The beauty of it, the strangeness of the helicopter searching for Sky and her hands touching the earth, the land he had chosen for them, made her completely break down. She let out a scream that echoed through the darkness.