Unfamiliar Ceiling [For Amelia Ronsam]

Dappled sunlight and soft birdsong await when Amelia wakes. The room in which she does so features whitewashed plaster walls surmounted by smoke-darkened beams, standing over a well-fitted hardwood floor covered by woven-rag rugs. A desk sits by the window, paired with a chair in which sits a well-dressed man, currently occupied in reading a slim book. Next to the door are a mirror and a table with a pitcher and basin; opposite them stands a wardrobe.

Amelia herself lies atop the blankets of a single bed that smells faintly of lavender, having been neither undressed nor disarmed. The wall is to one side of her, a nightstand to the other. If she cared to assume that a trunk stood at the foot of the bed, she would not be mistaken.