Chapter 3: The Ghostly Homestead
The interior of the stone cottage was dim, smelling faintly of damp earth, dried herbs, and old wood smoke. Shafts of afternoon sunlight pierced through gaps in the thatched roof, illuminating floating motes of dust that danced in the stale air. There was almost no furniture to speak of—a low wooden table with three wobbly legs, a pair of wooden stools, and a raised brick platform in the corner that served as a bed, covered only by a thin, threadbare straw mat and a patchwork quilt that had seen better decades.
Arthur stood in the center of the room, his chest tightening as he took in the Spartan reality of his parents' daily existence. In the city, his walk-in closet alone was larger than this entire living space, filled with suits he rarely wore twice and shoes for every occasion. Here, his father possessed a single change of clothes, neatly folded on the edge of the brick platform, while his mother’s belongings consisted of a small cloth bundle tied with twine.
"Is this really all?" Arthur asked softly, his hand resting on the back of a wobbly stool.
"We never needed much, son," his mother said, moving slowly toward the corner to retrieve her cloth bundle. Her movements were cautious, guarded by the chronic stiffness in her joints. "Things are heavy when you have to carry them. Better to travel light through the end of the road."
"You aren't at the end of the road," Arthur insisted, though the tremor in his voice betrayed his own doubt. He stepped forward to take the bundle from her hands, marveling at how little it weighed. It contained nothing of material value—a carved wooden hairpin from their wedding day, a small brass mirror with a cracked reflection, and a few faded photographs of Arthur as a clumsy, smiling child. Seeing himself in those old pictures felt like looking at a stranger, a boy who had promised to return and take care of his parents, only to get lost in the labyrinth of ambition.
His father walked over to the small hearth, where a cold cast-iron pot sat unwashed. With deliberate care, the old man picked up a small pouch containing a handful of dried tea leaves and dropped them into a chipped ceramic mug. There was a quiet dignity in every movement he made, a refusal to let poverty strip away his inner grace. It was a grace that cut Arthur to the core, reminding him of how far he had drifted from his roots.
"We must notify the village head before we leave," his father remarked quietly, pouring lukewarm water from a clay jug into the mug.
"Notify them?" Arthur scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "After what they let happen to you? They watched you starve, Father. They treated you like animals."
"They have their own struggles, Arthur," his father replied gently, blowing softly across the surface of the tea. "The mountain is harsh to everyone in the end. We do not hold grudges against the wind for blowing cold. Besides, it is customary. We lived here for seventy years. We cannot simply vanish like ghosts."
Arthur relented with a heavy sigh, recognizing the stubborn pride that ran in his family's blood. "Fine. We will inform them. But then we are leaving immediately. I have a car parked down at the base of the paved road. We will drive to the provincial capital tonight, stay in a proper hotel, and fly to the city tomorrow morning."
His mother paused, looking up from her bundle with wide, anxious eyes. "Fly, son? In a flying machine? That sounds very expensive. We shouldn't waste your hard-earned money on us."
Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing the lump in his throat. Every word they spoke, meant out of love and consideration, felt like a physical blow. "Mother, please. Let me do this. Let me spend some of the money I’ve earned. It is the least I can do."
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As they prepared to leave the cottage, Arthur took one last look around the dim room. He realized that physical poverty was only part of the story. The greater tragedy was the isolation—the way the world had passed his parents by while they lived in the shadow of the mountains, forgotten by the son who should have been their shield. The journey back to the city was going to be physically demanding for them, but Arthur knew the emotional journey of healing would be infinitely harder.
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