Chapter 3: Where is the heart in a house?

Jule moaned to life in the arms of a very familiar stranger. The mutterings of the gruff gray man carrying her sunk her heart to the depths of her stomach, and the possibilities wrought by the shadowed moon sank with it.

Jule's futile escape had provided only the briefest taste of independence with which she once again had the ability to act of her own accord ... although her own accord seemed to have brought her right back to where she started. His house - though house does it too much justice. Dwelling place? Cave perhaps. It was built with drafty walls that provided little protection from weather and the decorations consisted of a beaver skin, a couple of raccoon pellets and a deer head. The deer's beady eyes disgusted her and existed to remind her of their shared prison; however, she was the living trophy. The deer - a more misfortuned prize.

Gray Man carried Jule into the house, catching her hair on the log door frame. Not noticing, he snagged the tendrils and jauntily continued into the house. Jule noticed the pull little more than the man as she tried to connect her disjointed thoughts. She couldn't recall what had spurred her desperate escape, and the harder she tried to bring back those recent memories the more it seemed sleep was all that would entertain her thoughts. Darkness enveloped her once more though this time not as cold or perilous.