Ash Cottage: Part 3

“Ash Cottage,” Alice said aloud as she set her bags down in the hallway.

The words echoed slightly, swallowed by the narrow space and the unfamiliar stillness. She stood for a moment, taking it in. The house smelled fusty, damp with age, despite the steady stream of movers who had tramped through it all day. Old air, trapped in old walls.

Most of the large furniture had been hauled into place and stacked neatly, but boxes were everywhere. Cardboard towers leaned against walls, labels scrawled in thick marker. Kitchen. Books. Clothes. Office. The life she had uprooted, reduced to brown rectangles.

She stepped further inside and made her way into the kitchen.

The new oven gleamed, spotless and modern against the rest of the room. She had splurged on it, insisted on something reliable. It looked almost smug, sitting there ready to be used. Proof that she intended to stay. Proof that this was not temporary.

She scanned the boxes until she spotted one marked KITCHEN and knelt beside it, tearing the tape open. Her kettle emerged first. She filled it at the sink and set it on the hob, striking a match and lighting the gas. The sound was comforting, familiar.

Another box yielded a large mug, plain and sturdy. No pattern. No cracks.

She rummaged again and found a teabag, holding it up in quiet triumph before dropping it into the mug.

No milk.

Alice sighed, leaning back against the counter.

That meant a walk to the local shops. And sooner or later, neighbours.

She had come here for peace. For quiet. To disappear for a while. The last thing she wanted was polite conversations over garden fences or curious looks from people who wanted to know who she was and where she had come from.

Everything that had happened recently sat heavy on her, pressing down on her chest. She needed time. Time to rest. Time to recover. Time to write, because writing was the one thing that still paid the bills, the one thing she could not afford to stop.

The guilt sat in her stomach like a stone.

She had left people behind. Friends. People who had relied on her, or would have, if there had been more of them left. There had been conversations. Long ones. They had told her they understood.

“I don’t blame you.” “You’ve given enough.” “I’d do the same.”

Kind words. Necessary words. And still they changed nothing.

It felt like abandonment, no matter how gently it had been agreed upon. She wondered if she would ever see any of them again.

Times were hard.

She took a breath and straightened.

“Ash Cottage,” she said again, more firmly this time. As if the name itself might hold some power. As if saying it enough times could make it true.

A new start. A new beginning. A place to heal.

The kettle began to whistle, sharp and insistent. She poured the water, watched the tea darken, wrapped her hands around the mug and let the heat seep into her fingers.

She looked down at her hands.

The scars had faded. The wounds had healed cleanly. There was nothing a stranger would ever notice, nothing to mark her as anything other than ordinary. And yet the pain lingered, a dull ache that never quite left. Some nights it crept into her bones. Some nights it followed her into sleep.

The dreams still came.

She closed her eyes briefly, breathing in the steam from the mug.

She needed this place. She needed the quiet. She needed time.

Ash Cottage stood around her, old and silent, keeping its secrets.