Illustration Friday - Neighbor

The house next door was abandoned, or so I thought. The windows were boarded up and the gardens in ruin, and I had never seen a living soul on the property. Until one gray Sunday afternoon, I saw a boy on the front lawn. He wore strange, old-fashioned clothes and had a melancholy expression. He stood there watching me through the kitchen the window for a long moment, then he turned and went around the corner of the house. I never saw him again, but later that summer when I was gardening, I found a old and badly weathered toy horse near the fence. Maybe I have a neighbor after all.