Random Reverie

The wind howled and buffeted around her. The rain only made it colder than it really was. She wrapped her tattered, wet coat around her shivering body and walked faster. She needed to find shelter from this harsh autumn storm. She had been walking up this mountain pass for what seemed like an eternity without seeing anything aside from the occasional rock or old, bare, dead tree. There were no houses, no people, nothing. She was alone. She thought she heard the baying and calling of wolves in the distance, but she never saw one. She heard a shriek and flutter of wings above her head, but there were no bats when she looked. She hurried on.

She saw a large house near the top of the road. Victorian style. The building looked to be at least a hundred years old. A faint light moved around downstairs. She could barely see it through the murky, brown windows. The shutters slammed and crashed in the wind. The boards of the porch creaked with the strength of the gale. Another wolf howled; another one answered. Still, there was none in sight. She made her way to the door. Slowly and tentatively, she reached out for the knob. The door opened slowly, seemingly on its own. She had not touched it. She could hear floorboards creak inside as if something were moving just behind it. She held her breath.

A tiny, bent old woman with a wrinkled, leathery face appeared. She looked just as old, if not older, than the house. Her eyes looked almost like yellowed glass marbles. Her hair was a thin, stringy mass of white strands. She smiled an old, wide smile, and when she spoke, her voice was as cracked as the plaster on the walls behind her.

“Would you like to come in for some tea and cookies?”