Chapter 14
words that wound
They rode silently down the mountain for the next three hours. Just as the housekeeper had said, the fog had descended the mountain. At one point, Nelia could barely see Hans ahead of her. There was only a slight outline of his figure and the swish of his horse’s tail that kept her from panicking.
The wind whistled around her, soothing her thoughts into bits of nothingness. Nestled deep into her woolen shawl, Nelia spent most of the descent in a haze, rethinking the last two days. Though she could see the tip of her breath swirl into the fog as a thin, white smoke, she did not feel cold at all. Partly because of her semi-embarrassment at her thoughts of disgust concerning the old woman.
All her life Nelia had considered herself someone who was at the lowest
