### In the Village
The hut smelled like old wood and cold soup.
Jacob pushed the door open with his shoulder — the familiar resistance of the warped frame, the familiar creak of the hinge, the familiar smell of his grandmother's cooking that was usually already warm by the time he returned from wherever he had been.
The soup was cold.
That was the first thing.
The second thing was the women.
Five of them.
Standing, sitting, moving around the interior of the hut with the comfortable ease of people who have been in a space long enough to stop navigating it carefully — using the bowls, the firewood, the water basin, the small table by the window — all of them in states of dress that the word 'dress' was being generous about.
