It had a roof and a kettle and clean linen on the bolster. It looked like refuge until you noticed that every doorway required a password that changed while you slept, and the price of staying warm was walking on the outer edge of every floorboard.
A dwelling with thick walls standing along the road.
Creaking floor joists, hearth coals burning down to grey ash.
Motifs
▯The Borrowed Doors
🧥The Red Coat
〰The Red Thread
Figures
The Lantern
The light did not make the forest friendly. It merely revealed where the roots began.
Not illumination that cures the dark, but a circle of visibility large enough to place the next single footstep down.
The Tailor
Notes
- A cage lined with velvet is still calibrated to the millimeter.