In love that we are made by stormfallen

Chapter 1

• The gates are open, yet you know you are watched as you walk in.
• Surely that is the sound of a bustling marketplace around the bend? But no, you reach the square and it's empty of life. The stalls are open, but none sell food.
• You take a wooden knickknack from one stall. As you walk away you feel— thiefthiefshameguiltyguiltyTHIEF
• You double back and leave a coin. The pressure fades.
• On the counter of the inn is a mug of fresh beer, waiting for you. You leave a coin. No, two coins. This was generous.
• You sit at an empty table and do not feel alone. You can almost hear the bawdy singing and smell the roasting pork.
• The ale tastes like the farm in the dells where you danced with your husband in the wheat fields and kissed him below the endless stars and the bedroom where you promised your eternal soul to his and the floorboards he cut himself that you buried his empty shell under and the green door you closed behind you for the last time as you set out for something new and the eastward breeze that sometimes carries his voice out of the Uttermost West and the answers you’ll never give him
• You were never married. You’re not thirsty anymore.
• As you lie down in an empty room, nothing wishes you peaceful dreams.
• You wake up. The bed is a mound of dirt. The inn is dust. The marketplace is stones and overgrowth. The gate is closed. The walls about it are gone.
• In what might have been the rot of the stall you visited, no copper gleams. You take the toy you purchased from your pocket. The paint is still unchipped.
• You leave through what might have been a watchtower, once. Remember, you do not hear it say.