By the time I left Isadora's hut and started walking the road back to Millbrook, the sky was already steeped in violet dusk. Night was coming fast, stretching its quiet hands across the horizon. Crickets had begun their steady chorus in the grass, and somewhere far off, an owl cried into the deepening dark.
The village lay just ahead, nestled in its familiar hollow, its windows dim and peaceful. I could still hear a few signs of life—murmured voices behind closed doors, a dog barking once, distantly—but most of Millbrook had already fallen into sleep.
Nothing much had changed here in the two years since I first began sneaking out late to meet Isadora in the woods. The same old stone paths. The same wooden shutters and ivy-covered fences. The same sleepy rhythm. Everything was still and calm, as if time had simply dozed off with everyone else.
But I was wide awake.
And soon, I would leave all of this behind.
This village life—quiet, predictable, kind—was never meant for me.
