Jack woke before the sun again, not out of duty but because the house felt wrong. The air was too still. Even
the fire's faint crackle had died in the night. His breath clouded in the cold as he stepped onto the
floorboards, each one groaning like it didn't want to carry him anymore.
The cottage felt thinner lately, like a place wearing itself out. His mother hadn't left her room the day
before. He'd brought her broth and bread. She hadn't touched either.
He didn't knock this time.
Her door creaked open, and the smell hit him first: sour herbs, sweat, something metallic. She was lying on
her back now, eyes half-open, lips parted as though caught mid-whisper.
He didn't move.
Not for a long time.
No scream left him. No tears came.
He stood, numb and unshaking, until a hand touched his shoulder. Eluna. She stood there, barefoot and
quiet.
"She waited too long," Eluna said softly. "Her grief filled the room. There was no space left for breath."
Jack didn't reply. He only blinked slowly, staring at his mother's still form.
"They won't understand," Eluna added. "But you do."
I do, Jack thought. I do now.
When his father found them standing there—Jack motionless, Eluna already vanished—he said nothing. Just
turned, muttered that someone would be sent for. And left the house.
The burial happened in silence. The priest said his words. A few villagers laid sprigs of rosemary on the
fresh dirt. Jack's father didn't speak. He didn't cry.
He only drank.
At first it was quiet: a flask from the cupboard, a sip at night by the fire. But by the end of the week, it had
become the slosh of a jug in hand morning and evening. The smell clung to his beard, sour and sharp. The
house, once silent from sorrow, now echoed with the clink of bottles and the muttering of old regrets no
one wanted to hear.
Jack kept out of his way. He tended the animals. Chopped the wood. Avoided the kitchen after sundown.