Life in the new town still felt foreign. Lucy had left the city’s noise behind a few months earlier, after her company’s relocation and her own quiet exhaustion. The countryside had promised peace, a slower pulse. Instead, silence arrived heavy and unpredictable, broken only by wind and Emma’s peculiar conversations.
When she wasn’t working, Lucy filled the hours unpacking, labelling boxes, and trying to impose some order. The house resisted. Old shelving tilted, doors swelled in damp, and shadows lingered where light should have pooled. She missed the city’s hum, where odd sounds always had living sources.