Eight For a Wish, Nine for a Kiss

The farmhouse beguiled Keel, riding the limit of his vision upon the distant hillside. It appeared as a ramble of joined-up houses and outbuildings predating the two ephemeral centuries his life had touched. A stand of trees fettered the largest mass, presumably a barn, at one end. The walls were lime white, the roofs orange tile in two shades that didn’t quite agree, like the rooflines. If the…