The book Nest cocooned its entryway in paper and lumber, some shelves so high they only managed spiders and wandering flies. A pungent woman with a cane of obsidian stood to watch over a spanning mahogany desk that spanned nearly the entire length of her bookshop, often resting untouched at the edges for its mass. Fire loomed in the back as an acid-ridden esophagus, devouring discarded books and extra copies that happened to fall from the grand room’s wooden molars. As a whole, the building bent, leaning down into a finality at the old woman’s doorstep that led to small quarters of a bed, stove, and closet. A faded rug once grandeur splayed underneath the woman’s shoes and tipped at the very edge of where ashes fell from the ever-burning fire, and it was once red, but now only served as a muter of creaks and shifts in the sole occupant’s limited positions, nearly worn with her daily path of stoking and stocking.

Evening struck the Nest with a faded atmosphere of warmed air, summer lingering now into the autumn nights as they bustled for the position; the Nest felt more like one with each passing day. The door ahead of her would soon welcome chilly friends and playmates such as the wind and a bit of snow. Had she any sons, she’d be pestering them to straighten the naughty plank she called a door out.

But she had none, and the door’s tilting arrogance had grown fond to her. Perhaps a son of hers would have displayed similar arrogance with the door and it would be just the same crooked thing it had been every day. She could not be sure.

The door was slammed open, startling the yellowing window and shutters, they shook in echo. Travelers barged through, rag-covered and hands stationed with discolored knives, all bent and murky with either age or use. One of them struck one into the woman’s table, near her folded hands.

“Aight crow. Money, all of it, now.”

The miss’ eyes stared up at her accuser through a beady set of wireframes that no doubt had expired some ten, twenty years ago; her face hung still. Expectant. But when they did nothing, she sighed.

“Is back there,” she motioned to her quarters, “Ya can go and take it.”

One man motioned to the other and the two traversed downwards to the Nest’s innards, one keeping watch over the woman that began to trail her eyes down to the knife so brutishly punched into her sitting section of the counter. She reached and gripped it with a fat hand, and the man gripped his glove around it.

“What you think you doin'?”

“Just getting the knife out me table.”

“You tryin' to rob me, lady?”

His eager smile grew shiny and, she let the boy go. The traveler retrieved his blade quickly, stuffing it back in the holding sheathe on his side.

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“I could just punch ya head clean off,” he said, “Not a single thought’s gonna be on the floor when I’m done.”

“Oh, you probably could.”

“And what’s stoppin' me?” he stared her up and down, “That purple gown must be awfully valuable to sell somewhere.”

“You wouldn’t undress a lady like me, would you?.”

He inhaled on impulse, now leaning on the table, pressing a finger to the knife hole he had created moments ago, “Think I’m a joke lady?”

“You’re not that funny.”

The man laughed and leaned back away, “You a funny sort of lady, lard made ya funny,” he said, “Some kinda rich sport set you up here, you get his humor from him?”

“Or some sort.”

“Or some sort,” he mimicked and then snorted out his nose.

The woman leaned, and her chair creaked from the base up, it would soon collapse under her she knew.

“Must be richer than a king if you’re alone up here in the middle of nowhere.”

He now leaned against the counter with the full heft of his muscled center, leather layers hardly containing the strain underneath a rusted exterior. Only his eyes round his dotted skin showed the fleshy internals of a true man of the road. The woman in contrast, looked as a large bowl of cream.

“Not rich no. I’m afraid tonight you’ll be much disappointed.”

“Lying. You’re a bluffing old cat,” he said, “Shop this big, covered in books, there’s no way you’re not spitting right in my face.”

“Then go help out your friend then. He’ll be done before you notice what color my bedsheets are.”

The leatherman stared at her for a moment, into her lifeless eyes that likely saw nothing but ash and the cloudy dismalness of age. There wasn’t a spark of pity. He craned his neck towards her door.

“Come on man, we haven’t got all night to play with grandma!”

They waited for a second more, and the woman’s head seemed to meld downwards with her neck, chin bobbing tired and heavy.

“Not even wake enough. Maybe you aren’t lyin, if you can sleep through something like this.”

“I told you the truth, boy,” she said, not opening her eyes.

“Don’t tone that way with me,” he said, “Old coot like you don’t need a place like this anyway. What if I just turned you over like a loaf of bread and showed you what the cold feels like?”

Silence. He huffed.

“I’d take this place in a second. You don’t know what you got lady.

“You free men.”

He looked back at her, quickly, “What’d you say?”

“I said, you free men. You’re spoiled,” she said, “Rotten, like candy apples you. My father’s father's father built this place long ago off the backs of a farm behind you. Many cows and corn and dogs and people took their last breaths back there. Dead and gone, buried in the dirt underneath the bushes. Once my father met a woman in those fields, and even though she didn’t want to be locked behind his barn doors, he took her anyway. When I came into this world on the Nest, my father, his father, and his father’s father were all dead in those fields, and my mother took the Nest as her only way to live out her days. Now I’m here, and the only coin I got are from the ones buried and gone back there. So you men, you live free, but you want castles. Didn’t you know that castles have dungeons?”

“Oh shut up lady!” he drew the syllables out, pedantically. Then he shouted back to the room again, “If you don’t hurry up, I’m leaving you to get a bedtime story with grandma. It’s great Tom, you’d love it.”

“Shut up will you,” Tom trotted up, holding a leather bag, “Lady’s got jewelry, some gold, some right fucked up decorations…and that’s about it. Unless ya feel lookin through these books.”

“Ain’t nobody lookin through those books,” he said, “We’re out, c’mon.”

The travelers left, letting the door fall closed before the silent woman. Knocking once on frame, and a second time, unhinging a strained bolt before falling to the floor in a loud and final protest throttle. Then it lay still. Cold blew in, howls riding them from fields all around. The sound of trees she knew, the wolves far beyond she could only envision, and the laughter of men suddenly turned boys in the moonlight. Horses flew now, all gallop and clop until a dismantling force tore through alarmed voices. A sudden collapse caused it to all fall through in the air, until the frosty wind claimed silence again. The woman got up, leaning heavily on her dark cane.

Eventually, she made it to the road where they fell, leather wine bottles of hers in their hands all fatally spilled out, mixing with their skull blood between the cobblestone pieces. Another fly to the nectar, and as she shoved her cane-end into a thief’s skull, she knew this one would look quite pretty on her nightstand. Perfect for clattering coins beneath his jaws.