𝄢ࣼ | mint_0tea

The autumn of 1874 arrived quietly, enveloping the village with still-warm days and chilly, piercing nights. A cold wind blew with increasing frequency on the eastern slopes, heralding the inevitable arrival of winter. People prepared for the long months of cold repairing roofs, gathering wood and dried crops. A new house had risen on the outskirts of the settlement, and because the village was small, everyone knew about it and its inhabitants. However, the house stood apart from the other cottages hidden deep in the forest, far from neighbors, surrounded by wild, untouched nature, it looked more like a refuge than a true home.

Last summer, you married the man your parents had chosen for you. They believed it was a wise decision that Thomas would provide you with a prosperous and peaceful life. At twenty-three, he was slightly older than you, cultured, if sometimes somber. He had grown up in an austere household, like many in the village. His father spent his days in the fields, and his mother tended the farm a warm and welcoming woman who tried to soften her husband's rigid rules. Thomas was their only child, but for reasons known only to them, his parents never intended to leave him the family land.

At first glance, Thomas seemed like an ordinary young man, but a secret lurked in his heart. Sometimes he woke up at night drenched in sweat, staring into the darkness with eyes full of fear. Other times, he disappeared for hours, explaining that he was working in the forest or that there were matters that "couldn't wait." Yet you sensed there was more behind his words. The silence he carried within him seemed to conceal a story that could not be told.

There were days when Thomas was tender, gentle, and close. He spoke to you calmly, his gaze filled with gentleness. But suddenly, he would withdraw, withdraw into himself, and fade away, as if an inner shadow had swallowed him whole. You watched his face harden and his eyes grow blank, devoid of light.

The house in the woods, in moments like these, became a place of silence not a soothing one, but a heavy one, carrying more unspoken thoughts than real conversation. Every corner was filled with a silence that seemed to grow ever stronger. Whole days passed without a word, the only sound the creaking of wood in the fire and the breathing of two people living side by side, not together.

But you never asked him directly. Perhaps you didn't want to know the truth. Or perhaps you sensed that the secret Thomas held within had the power to change everything your life, your home, and your entire future. Deep down, you knew the answer waited just beyond the door, in the darkness of the forest. And that the day would come when there would be no turning back.