Chapter 4

The house looked sturdy enough, the bare wood that conformed the first floor had seen better days, but the structure was solid, at least it wasn’t crooked, like some of the houses on the outer streets of town.

Lïn was satisfied with her guide’s choice, she needed to find refuge one way of the other, maybe she’d have better luck finding the merchant shop in the morning, for now, finding a place to sleep should be enough, this was going to be a longer trip than she had anticipated.

She walked up to the door, and twisted the knob like if she had done it a thousand times, anyone looking would have been under the impression that she owned the house and this was a mundane routine for her.

That would be, of course, had the knob budged at all, her hand slipped on the pitted brass, and her foot struck the wood with a loud thump, dust rose from the hinges and beams that surrounded the door, her pale face turned red, and chills went up her spine as she realised that getting in the house wouldn’t be as simple as she had once thought.

She came from a very tight community, the thought of the door being closed had not even crossed her mind, the realisation of a harsher world existing outside the walls of her confined life came crashing down on her, as she stood frozen in front of the door, as if she was expecting the cat to open the door now that she had learned her lesson.

She look around, as thoughts of walking under the rain all the way back to Quedlimburg crossed her mind, maybe the elders were right, maybe this was a mistake.

She quickly shook her fears away, she had not come this far just to turn around empty handed, she would defeat this door, she was stro ... smarter than a piece of wood and some rusted out brass and iron.

First she rattled the door knob, with violence first, and more slowly after a few shakes, as if studying the mechanism, is was stuck in place, the brass had turned dull and pitted, the iron had rusted, the thing was like a solid piece, the little movement she could induce caused no more than some ugly noises and dust, the knob might not even turn even if she had the key.

Her next victim was the wood, clearly this was the weak link, it was darkened and mouldy, clearly it’s strength was compromised, maybe she could force the mechanism out of the door.

She started looking around the ground that surrounded the door, weeds were overgrown and covered most of the path once would have leed to the street, she found a large rock not to far away from the path.

It was heavy enough that she had to squat to lift it, once she had the rock suspended at shoulder height, she launched it towards the door with all her strength, the sound broke the eerie silence of the town, it reverberated on the few windows that were left standing and the walls of the houses in the narrow street, a metallic “cachang” was followed by the thump of the rock embedding itself on the ground, like it had never been lifted, and then a rain of small metal pieces poured into the stone step that laid afoot of the door.

Lïn could have swear that the hole ordeal had lasted for a whole minute, and when the silence returned to the street her ears were ringing, but she was victorious, she had defeated the door.