CHAPTER THREE
She smelled the smoke before she saw it.
The pungent stench that assaults the nostrils and clings to your clothes long after the smoke is gone. Jovanna stepped out of her stone and mud house and looked around to glimpse what was burning. Nothing she could see.
Tiny gray flakes of snow began to fall. She held out her hand to let some of the flakes collect in her palm. They were warm.
Her eyebrows rose in curiosity. Snow wasn’t warm. She ran her index finger through the flakes and they smeared across her skin. It wasn’t snow.
It was ash.
Jovanna looked to the edge of the village and noticed a crowd had gathered. Deciding to see what was happening, she walked down the dirt path that wended its way through the small village. The place felt deserted. She was used to large ci
