Jorj muscled another log onto the stump he used for splitting firewood. He took a moment to breathe and swig from his canteen as he looked out over his family's nearby fields. The three farmhands they had taken on to help with some of the load around the farm were working out nicely, and Jorj was happy with their work ethics so far. Everyone was happily going about their duties, and it was a beautiful day. Jorj loved the few days after a really big storm, something about the fresh damp air made everything feel cleansed and renewed.  The birds were singing happily. Jorj took a deep breath in, and let it out. He wiped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

He turned back to the log ready to split and swung his axe. There was a reason that he had chosen to prioritize this chore today. There was the fact of course that the fields would be very muddy, so chores a little closer to the farmhouse were preferable while the ground dried. Then there was the fact that Jorj loved to do this whenever he needed to clear his head or work through something. The intense work of hefting of the heavy logs and rhythmic swinging of the axe was meditative and cathartic. It both lifted and grounded him. He had been at this for awhile now, and his mind and heart were feeling lighter. The girl in the woods had lingered in his mind in the two days since the storm. She had been harder to shake off than he'd like. But he felt optimistic. He needed to believe that she was ok now and that he had done all he could. That had to be enough. Here in the clear light and fresh air, it was easier to believe that all was well..

Jorj's mother strolled up to him and put her hand on his sweat-dappled arm, and he dropped his axe and turned to her with a smile.

"Are you well?" Marsylla Vosk asked her son. "I am," he said, smiling brightly. She smiled back, crinkles spreading around her eyes. Her 55 years were definitely showing, but Jorj thought his mother was still the most beautiful woman in the world. "That's good." Marsylla looked at the large pile of firewood her son had accumulated next to the old chopping stump. "You know, when you were five and broke your arm falling out of a tree... do you remember that?" Jorj nodded, "A little," he said.

"I had to take you down to the healer," Marsylla continued, "while your father stayed home with the girls." She chuckled. "Your father was so worried about you, he must have supplied us with the whole winters' worth of firewood that night." Jorj squeezed her hand. Marsylla looked up at him knowingly. "You don't have to carry it all, Jorj."

Jorj looked across the wide lawn toward the back of the farmhouse where his youngest sister Clyra, about to turn 21, at which point she would be counted as an adult in Valenor, was hanging up the washing. Jorj looked back to his mother, squeezing her hand in his again. "I know, mother. Thank you." A twinkle entered Jorj's eye. "Now if you'll excuse me..." Marsylla chuckled as Jorj took off at a sprint toward Clyra, who screamed when she saw him coming. She tried to get away but was swept up into the air as Jorj barreled forward a few more steps carried by his own momentum. He squeezed her in a sweaty, stinky brotherly hug as she loudly protested, laughing.

Molly wondered if she should be concerned about how much she had slept in the last 2 days. She had drifted off in front of her fire last night after eating a little more bread and cheese. Once her belly was full again, bladder was empty, and body was warmed, the headache that had been her constant companion had faded significantly. Finally beginning to exit a fight-or-flight survival state, her relieved body had been pulled into a blissfully restful slumber where it took the time it needed to recover from fending off constant pain. She felt she had slept excessively long, but it was clearly doing her body a lot of good.

It was now what felt like late morning. Molly awoke feeling significantly recovered. She had some energy again and was ready to find some answers. She stood (still favoring the ankle) and stared out the window while she smeared some of the healing ointment on her many healing cuts. She still was astounded at how fast they were healing. The sleep must have been doing a lot for her body. The view out the window was gorgeous. The land sloped away from the cottage in the direction she was looking. The day was bright and clear, and she felt cautiously emboldened. Today was the day she was going to figure out what the hell was going on and do something about it.

She took a moment to rinse her mouth with the canteen and run her fingers through her hair and separating the tangles. There were a lot of them. She couldn't imagine what she must have looked like. She thought about what she would do for even just a tube of chapstick right now. Or a hair tie, she thought longingly. She changed into her other dress--the olive one with the waist tie--just to feel like she was freshening up a little bit to take on the day. She put on the simple leather shoes. They were soft soled, sort of like a moccasin, laced up with a little length of leather cording. Her sprained left ankle was too fat in the shoe to fully lace up, so she looped those laces in on themselves enough to not drag on the floor. The right she laced up normally. They fit fine enough to get by.

Ok. It was time. Molly took a deep breath. She still had a tightness in her chest when she thought about who else might be in this house. There were two doors, one on either side of the fireplace, leading out of the large main room she had been in for the last two days. She had been trying to ignore the presence of the doors, but it was time to face whatever this was. The door on the right was open already, so Molly started there. She had already seen that it led to a tiny hallway that then led to another door straight ahead, and directly up some stairs on the left. She steeled herself, clenched her eyes and fists, and took a deep breath. She was trying to hype herself up in her head the way she would before trying rappelling for the first time, or lifting something really heavy. She was out-of-her-mind terrified of what could be up those stairs, and that was why she had to conquer them first. Whatever was up there wasn't going away. It had to be dealt with head on. If someone had taken her as some kind of hostage, they were up those stairs.

"Hello! I'm coming upstairs!" Molly yelled. As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized she should have the knife in her hand! She cursed herself as she limped as fast as she could and grabbed the hunting knife from the stool in the corner. Back at the stairs, she yelled again, "Ok, I'm coming up now if you want to say something!" She wasn't too proud to admit--only to herself--that she was stalling. "Ok, I'm walking up the stairs!" Damn it, now she had to actually do it. One foot on the first step. Then another step, then another. Molly coaxed herself up the stairs one at a time. She still hadn't heard any stirring, not a single thump or shift or breath of movement. At the top of the stairs was a door. The air at the top felt stale and musty. With a deep breath, she flung open the door. The burst of air inside immediately sent motes of dust spinning into the air, catching the light from the uncovered window. As the dust resettled slowly, Molly stepped cautiously in. It wasn't a large room, and she could see all of it. It was a simple room, ceiling set at a slant under the roof, one window straight ahead with threadbare blue curtains clinging limply to the edges.

To the left of where Molly stood was a rough-hewn wooden bed that had seen better days. There was a pallet of straw resting on its slats. The fabric holding it together was all but gone, the straw poking out all over the place. Do people still use straw mattresses? The whole bed was of course also covered in a coating of grey dust. Under the dust, melted candle wax dripped down the side of a ramshackle side table--wax long since hardened and adhered to the table. To Molly's right was another brick fireplace like the one downstairs, thick with old ash. Next to it was a set of wrought iron fire tools. In the corner was an old-timey looking armoire. Molly turned in a small circle, taking it in. There was an old chamber pot in another corner. The only places the dusty room showed any disturbance were her own soft footprints on the ground walking in. No one had been in this room in a very, very long time. Whoever had left fresh bread and cheese and clothes for her--they had never entered this room. Having nothing more to glean about her situation from the old relic of a room, Molly exited and closed the door softly behind her.

She made her way slowly down the steep, creaking stairs and, knife in hand, bravely opened the next door; the one straight down the little hallway from the main room. To her surprise, bright sunlight and fresh, floral scented air flooded her senses. It was a back door. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she drank in the lovely sight. It looked to have once been a beautiful garden, now very overgrown. Down a short garden path along the house--and much closer to the house itself than Molly would have expected it to be--was a small outhouse. She would have groaned at the lack of indoor plumbing, except that she felt somewhat past that now that she had relieved herself in the grass he night before. Having a place to use the bathroom at all was welcome. And she was pleasantly surprised to find that she didn't detect any odor from it, despite it's proximity. Maybe it had just been that long since it's use.

She slowly stepped further into the back garden, both out of caution as well as and relishing in her stunning surroundings. She gazed around in wonder. Tall green trees with patches of moss towered overhead, sunlight lighting up the leaves bright green as it filtered through. Low brick walls were overflowing with some plants Molly recognized, and some she didn't. The decadently floral smell of hyacinths lured her to them on her right, while on her left, a garden box spilled its bounty of wild herbs. She recognized rosemary, dill, basil, and oregano. She breathed in deep the fresh, alive smells around her as if they could dispel every cloud that had accumulated in her mind over the last couple of days. A few more steps down the path and she saw more plants: lovely vines, bushes, and flowers; hollyhocks, honeysuckles, jasmine, and peas climbing old trellises. She thought of who here must have loved gardening so much to create such a lovely oasis that had remained long after the owner had gone. She stopped her footsteps. As much as she would love to spend an indeterminate amount of time in this garden, there was at least one more room to explore in the house, if not more. And Molly couldn't afford to be distracted until she knew if she was truly alone in this house. 

Back inside, Molly stood before the door to the left of the main fireplace. This time she took in a slow, deep breath, and let it back out again. She turned the knob. She pushed. It moved only a little, hinges protesting. She shoved harder. It gave way with a protesting creak of hinges. She cautiously stepped down the single step into the room, a little darker than the main room. The leather booties on her feet left soft footprints as if in a dusting of snow as she stepped to the middle of the room. As she waited for her eyes to adjust she took in the smell. It was... organic and earthy, almost a food smell? Familiar in a way she couldn't quite place at first. She gazed around as the powder-coated room took on shape. The only other door in the room had a small window that she could see led back outside. Sacks and barrels lined the walls, interspersed with worktables and shelving. All the surfaces were covered in tools and random items, very cluttered. And it was all covered in a fine white powder. In the middle of the room was an absolutely massive round stone. Surrounding it were contraptions of beams and metal. She stepped closer to the stone, clearly the focus of the room, whatever it was. It was also covered in fine, white powder. She cautiously touched the rough stone with her finger. The powder didn't seem quite the same as the thick dust upstairs. She looked around again and caught sight of an open sack which looked to be full of... grains of wheat! She looked back at the powder on her hand. Cautiously, maybe a little recklessly, she touched her tongue. Of course! It was flour! Definitely rancid and she made a face, but still. She looked around again with this new information. A miller's shop! This must be what grinds the wheat!

Her ears then noticed a sound she hadn't paid attention to before. A rhythmic, steady ca-clack-clack...ca-clack-clack... coming from outside. She walked to a small window and looked out. A water wheel! It probably operated the mill... that's how that worked, right? She didn't really have a good grasp on this industry, to be honest. But looking around this room, seeing the remnants of a simple life lived to keep an old craftsmanship alive... It made this place feel a lot less scary. Still confusing and intimidating, but that was coming from her own personal circumstances, not the place itself. There were still more questions than answers, but Molly felt she could more or less mark this house as a safe zone. Whether or not she was being watched from the outside somehow was still another question... but at least she felt that, in this cottage, she wasn't in immediate danger. That felt like progress.

(section break)

After she had discovered the mill, Molly had looked a little more at the tools and various supplies in the miller's shop, but lot of it was hard to understand exactly what she was looking at--likely tools specifically to mill work--and the clutter and dust/flour were so thick that she eventually decided that should she need any of this, it would still be there when she did. She was much more curious in what was in the three cabinets in the main room of the cabin, and backtracked there. There was a small psuedo-kitchen on one end of the large rectangular room. It had something like an old-fashioned stove/oven thing but was wood-burning. There were a few small cabinets with a worktop over them, and in the corner a small water pump with a basin positioned under it on the ground. She had opened up the cabinets, which felt like they hadn't been opened in a very, very long time. She had had to wrench them open pretty forcefully, the hinges almost rusted shut. The cabinets were full of mouse droppings and a few dead roaches. All this, plus the state of the rest of the cottage, led her to believe that if she had, in fact, been kidnapped, this wasn't her kidnappers' place of residence. This house was certainly off the grid. Had they stashed her away in a cabin where no one would look? But yet again, nothing was stopping her from just walking right out the door. It didn't make sense.

She had been hoping in her searching to find a phone, an old computer, an old GPS... anything that could tell her anything. Or something to bring her comfort and familiarity, like a coffeemaker. But she had quickly noticed the lack of outlets or anything having anything to do with electricity at all. It felt like she was in one of those pioneer period museum houses. It didn't feel quite dilapidated enough to be hundreds of years old, but maybe like a replica built some time ago? The main room of the cabin hadn't yielded any clues to where she was, how she was here, or why she was here. It hadn't yielded any of the supplies she had hoped to find, but it did yield some useful things. At this point, beggars couldn't be choosers. A sturdy handled basket, a brown apron with deep pockets, and a box of candles all felt like wins. The few cooking tools would also come in handy if she didn't get out of here soon.