4
How did they get so much wood?
I’m not sure why the question seemed so important to me as I moved from room to room in the house.
The kitchen had a wide wooden table, and a set of wooden shelves sat across from the massive fireplace. The dining room had seats for twelve people. There were enough beds and bedrooms for that many as well.
Every time I reached a new doorway, I would take a breath, steeling myself to find some horror in the next room. But as I made my way through the home, there was no trace I could see of anything terrible having happened.
The only damage to the furniture I could find had been done by time. There were no dark stains of long ago bloodshed or bones of a person left unburied.
I stood in the bedroom tucked at the end of the upstairs hall for a long while,
