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"Emily?"
Emily looked over her shoulder and smiled. Her wife was standing by the porch with a bag of fertiliser under her arm and her hoe resting on her shoulder. "Yes, Lily?"
Lily set the fertiliser down and tipped her straw hat back to wipe the sweat off her brow. "What are you doing?"
"I'm making friends with squirrels!" Emily turned to beam at the squirrel nibbling on a peanut on her lap and at its two bushy-tailed comrades sniffing out more scattered nuts on the grass next to her. "They let me them while they eat." To demonstrate, she glided her index finger across the squirrel's back, still marvelling at the wondrous softness of its fur.
Lily set her hoe down and shuffled over to the tree stump Emily was using as her seat. She hadn't so much as cracked a smile yet, which was strange — Lily had a sunny disposition and loved animals. Maybe she had slept poorly?
"Here." Emily reached into her pocket and offered Lily a handful of peanuts. "They'll take them from your hand."
Lily stared at the peanuts, then crept closer to the two squirrels on the ground and crouched down, resting her open palm on the grass.
It didn't take long for one of the squirrels to notice her. It was the most skittish of the trio and approached in staggered lunges, but once it was close enough to Lily to reach the peanuts, it took its time hoovering as many of them into its mouth as could possibly fit in it. Finally, it hopped away only to pause by the shipping bin, where it began nibbling through the peanuts with its tail elegantly curved against its back.
Lily's smile emerged like the sun peeking through a canopy of clouds. It faded as quickly as it had appeared. "They're sweet."
Freshly out of food, the squirrel on Emily's lap placed its paw on her hand. She offered it more nuts while studying Lily's face. "Is something wrong?"
"It's just... I'm not sure you should be feeding them like this."
Emily blinked. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn't this. "I thought you liked squirrels."
"I love them."
"Do you think feeding them will disrupt the local ecosystem?" Emily nearly covered her mouth in dismay. "Or are you worried that earning their trust will put them in danger?" Surely no-one who lived in Pelican Town would think to hurt a harmless animal?
"No." Lily looked like she wished she hadn't brought the subject matter up at all. "It's nothing about the squirrels themselves. It's just that when you leave food to them on the ground like this..." She nudged her head towards a cache of nuts Emily had piled close to a nearby pine. "Well, it might attract some other animals too."
"Birds?" Emily had seen more of them twittering in the the trees as of late.
"More like... rats."
"Oh." Emily blinked again and then smiled. "Rats are very cute too. Did you know they make for wonderful parents?"
"I'm sure they do. They just don't really jive with growing and shipping crops."
"...I see what you mean." Emily looked at the little squirrel now sitting on her knee and so delicately making its way through its meal. She couldn't help but feel a pang in her chest. "I'll put an end to it."
"You can still feed them. It's leaving food on the ground that's the problem."
Emily turned towards Lily with mingled hope and apprehension. "Won't the food the squirrels bury attract rats as well?"
Lily's responding smile was subtle but sincere. "It should be fine."
Emily heaved a sigh of relief and reached out to stroke the squirrel. "I'll make sure to be careful."
"Thanks, honey." Lily walked over and gave Emily a peck on the forehead. "I'll get back to my sowing, then."
"See you at lunch!" Emily beamed as Lily returned to the fields.
As soon as she was alone with the animals, however, she felt her heart sink a little. What Lily said made perfect sense. An influx of rats could endager the farm as well as the local animals, and so Emily really shouldn't leave food out in the open. Still, what would the poor dears do when Emily wasn't there to give them the food in person, especially once winter arrived? She supposed they would survive nevertheless, but even so...
When the squirrel's beady eyes turned towards her, she smiled and offered it more nuts. Oh well. She would have to sit outdoors more often, she supposed.
Two weeks later, the autumn colours had deepened to their brightest splendour. At least, Emily presumed so, as she couldn't see them due to the hands covering her eyes as she stepped outside. Still, she could savour the brisk morning air as Lily gently guided her down from the porch.
Once they halted. Emily raised her voice. "Now?"
"Now." Lily removed her hands from Emily's eyes and stepped back.
Emily unscrunched her eyes and looked forward.
At first, she didn't understand what she was looking at. The contraption before her was clearly Lily's handiwork — for all her wife's many wonderful qualities, she had never been very good at keeping her crafts symmetrical — but that was all she could perceive at first brush.
She stepped closer. The small structure was made of wood, with a wide rectangular plate fitted above a polished beam jutting from the ground. At the centre of the plate was something vaguely resembling a miniature log cabin. There were thick wires attached to the cabin's roof which in turn connected it to a nearby maple tree.
Realisation dawned. "Of course! It's a bird feeder."
"And a squirrel feeder." Lily had circled back to the porch and now picked up a bag of peanuts and sunflower seeds that had been waiting there. "I'm not sure if they can climb up the beam, but that's what the ropes are for."
"How clever!"
Lily grinned. "Wanna test it out?"
It took them only a moment to fill the little cabin with feed: its roof popped open thanks to a little hinge on the side. Emily scattered a small circle of sunflower seeds on the plate as well before she and Lily retreated back to the porch to be out of the sight of the more skittish woodland creatures.
"We might not get any customers today," Lily said as the wait stretched on. "It takes a while for the story to get out, and then—"
Before she could even finish the sentence, a bold squirrel skipped onto the farm from the direction of the bus stop. Emily watched with bated breath as the animal rose to its hind legs to study the new structure, then cleverly climbed up the trunk of the maple. Crawling down the nearest rope only took it a moment longer, and soon enough it was sitting on the edge of the plate happily munching on a peanut.
Emily had brought her hands together without even noticing. "How wonderful!"
"It's not the perfect solution." Lily looked a little sheepish in the face of Emily's elation. "It needs to be cleaned often, and rats are pretty good climbers too. But we can at least give it a shot. Now you don't have to worry about anyone going hungry when you're not personally there to feed them."
Warmth spread through Emily. She hadn't said a word about her concerns, and yet Lily had perfectly intuited them anyway.
She leaned closer and kissed Lily gently on the lips. "I love you."
Lily smiled and put her arms around Emily. "I love you too."
They stood together for a long while as they watched the squirrel happily filling its stomach.