The tenement’s walls wept with damp as Eleanor knelt by the hearth, its meager fire spitting ash into the chill air. Thornfield’s dust clung to her, a gray shroud in her lungs, and her cough echoed, sharp against the silence. She stirred a pot of thin gruel—barley and water, all sixpence could stretch—and watched the steam curl like the ghosts of better days. Her hands, scarred by looms, trembled, and she felt the mill’s grip tighten, a thief of breath and bone.
Margaret rocked on her pallet, her voice a frail thread: “Little one,” she murmured, eyes briefly clear, and Eleanor’s heart lurched. She crossed to her, smoothing the wild white hair, and whispered, “I’m here, Mama.” But the clarity fled, replaced by a blank stare, a hum of nonsense—“Cows in the lane.” The words cut deeper than silence, a reminder of the mother who’d sung her to sleep, now lost in a fog Eleanor could not pierce. She kissed her brow, tasting salt and regret.
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Henry sat slumped, his gnarled hands clutching the air. “Stay close,” he rasped, his gaze flickering to her—a rare anchor in his drift—then dimmed, sinking back into the void. She grasped his fingers, their coldness a mirror to her own dread, and felt him slip further, a shadow fading from her grasp. Eldric coughed from his corner, clutching his wooden bird, and she turned, her chest tight. “Mama’s got you,” she said, though her voice wavered, a lie to shield his fragile hope.
The candle guttered, its wax pooling on the scarred table, and Wolthrope’s din—mills, carts, cries—pressed through the cracked panes. Their voices—Margaret’s songs, Henry’s gruff tales—were fading, drowned by the city’s roar and her own exhaustion. She sank beside Eldric, his warmth a fleeting stay, and stared into the dark. The mill had taken her strength; time stole her kin. She was a sentinel to their unraveling, powerless as their echoes softened into silence.