The ceiling appeared to be closer than was quite proper. Her room felt like ill-fitting clothes. Moonlight filled her room. The sounds of the rasping mill wheel and the creek flowing over rocks also flowed into her room. Familiar sounds, yet now they seemed beside the point of her life. She was here, but she needed to be elsewhere.
She opened the door and went out into the hall and descended the steps to the ground floor. She was hungry. That she knew for sure. A pot of some stew simmered on the wood-burning stove. She took a bowl from the cupboard and filled it with the stew. She sat at the table, being careful to fold her legs just so, keeping them from banging against the wood, and ate from the bowl.
She finished it quickly and stood up and got another helping. As she was almost throu
