The Long Exhale

The first day in Oakhaven had the quality of decompression.

Not dramatic — the specific, gradual quality of a pressure that had been sustained for so long it had become the baseline, releasing in increments small enough that you only noticed them in retrospect. The body's equivalent of a long exhale.

Lenora woke in her old room.

It was unchanged — she had expected this, Isolde did not alter rooms