Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of Shadows
The interior smelled of old pine, damp wool, and dust. Light barely made its way into the space, filtered through a single small window that was streaked with grime and rain. The room contained little: a narrow, iron-framed bed against the back wall, a single wooden chair, and an unvarnished oak table standing in the center of the bare floorboards.
Mrs. Rose crossed the cold floor, her breath rising in faint white plumes in the unheated air. She lifted the burlap sack and placed it onto the wooden table with a soft, dull thud that echoed off the bare walls. Her hands remained on the rough fabric, her head bowed as a fresh wave of weeping overtook her.
The silence of the cabin was suffocating compared to the storm outside. Her knees gave out slightly, and she leaned heavily against the edge of the table, her tears dropping onto the dark grain of the wood. The cruel words at the gate kept repeating in her mind, a rhythmic sentence of rejection: Take the rice and go. She felt discarded, stripped of her dignity, pushed out into the cold so another life could proceed without the burden of her age.
