The wind had picked up; the night was cold with a steady rain that pelted the old shingles on the cottage. She drew her chair closer to the fire trying to seek its warmth. One of the many disadvantages of being old was that feeling of never being truly warm. The room was small but even so the oil lantern cast eerie shadows on the wall and she felt a shiver move up her spine. Life had been hard for her, a never ending series of misfortunes. At first she had been optimistic that better things were coming her way but as the years went by she knew it was only a pipe dream. People like her were destined to fail; it was written in the stars. She had been married at sixteen to a man of her father's choosing. By thirty she had already given birth to nine children and there would have been more if her husband hadn't died suddenly. She had little time to grieve, her first concern was to feed and house her children. There were years of toil, years of working ones fingers to the bone to barely eke out a living. Her job as a charwoman paid scarcely enough to put food on the table. Extras were few and far between but somehow they had survived.
The years went by and as the children left; life became somewhat easier. By the time the last one was gone; she was well into her forties but looked and felt decades older. Life had passed her by and she felt bitter and resentful. Her children; whom she had struggled so hard to raise had their own lives and she was largely forgotten. Now in her sixties, her home became her world and her refuge. It knew her and understood her, its familiar walls brought peace and comfort. At the end of each day it listened as she poured out her feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. Oh yes her home was a safe shelter; her haven from the cruelties of her world.
That was then - this was now. It had started so gradually that at first she completely missed it. There were a series of small incremental steps that started to form over a matter of weeks. Her house seemed to transform day by day. There was never anything she could put a finger on but she now felt like she was unwanted in her own home. Her warm, welcoming house now felt cold and sinister; she was the intruder. Her gardens; always lush and beautiful; withered and died. The rooms of the house were always cold, even on a hot summer day. The sun often tried to peek through the ever thickening layer of clouds only to be thwarted time and again. The young boy from town who delivered her supplies left them at her door and took to heel as if the very devil was chasing him. Always a loner by choice; she now became shunned even more by the small town. As each day worsened; she knew she was well and truly on her own and her fears escalated.
She had no one; she had nothing. The cloud of doom had seen to that quite effectively. In a period of weeks she was isolated, a virtual prisoner in her own home. The cloud became denser; seemingly to come and go at will. Objects became blurred or distorted in the wavering mist and her mind began to slowly unravel. The creature comforts were secondary now; her main goal was survival from a force she had no power to fight. The days and nights seemed to blend into one; there was no respite from the continual sense of dread that loomed over her.
