But hardship, like the fire, also sparked something unexpected. In the quiet hours between chores and survival, dreams began to return to her—vivid and deep, as if some part of her spirit had been cracked open by the cold.
One night, wrapped in her coat beside the soft glow of pinecone embers, Asiola drifted into a dream unlike any before. She was an old woman, standing at the doorway of a crumbling cottage. The roof sagged under years of rain and snow, and inside, only a single room remained. Her bones ached from hunger, her hands worn thin from years of labor. Yet she stood tall, watching a young boy—her son—walk away toward the unknown.
He didn't look back. She didn't call after him. She only watched, holding her breath until the silhouette vanished over the hill. And then, with a slow exhale, she faded, becoming part of the cottage, the land, the silence.
Asiola awoke in the dark, her cheeks wet with tears she didn't remember crying. The woman in the dream felt so familiar, so close. A part of her—not just in vision, but in blood. A past life, maybe. Or the echo of a spirit who once lived the same silence, the same sacrifice.
She lay still for a while, staring into the low fire, and something shifted. That woman had endured until the end—but Asiola was still here. Still breathing. Still able to change things. To grow. To live better, not just survive. And that thought gave her a strange, steady strength.
From that morning on, even when the days were hard, she moved with a deeper purpose. Not just for herself—but for the old woman in her dream. For the generations of quiet women who never got to live fully.
Asiola sat in silence after waking, her breath shallow, the dream still wrapped around her like a second skin. The old woman's sorrow lingered in her bones. But instead of fear, it gave her clarity—a quiet vow forming deep within. She would not let that same story replay. If the past had been hunger and fading, the present would be fire and blooming.
She began rising earlier, moving with new purpose. She cleaned the corners of the house more thoroughly, scrubbing away the mold and rot with homemade vinegar from fermented fruit scraps. She mended torn clothes with tiny, precise stitches, turning old fabric into new strength. When she walked through the garden, she hummed to the plants, her fingers tracing the leaves as if greeting old friends. She talked to the apple trees, thanking them for holding on through hard years.
She asked for cuttings from neighbors and learned to root them in jars on the windowsill. She started reading again, not just to escape—but to learn: about preserving, healing herbs, ways to build things better with what little she had. Even her cooking changed—she mixed dried herbs with wild greens, turned leftover pasta water into warm broths, and made flatbreads from the most basic ingredients, shaping them with love and quiet songs.
And when she felt weak, she would remember the door—the one the old woman stood in. She would see herself choosing to stay standing longer, to not fade, to grow roots and bloom anyway.
With each passing week, Asiola dug deeper into the land. Her hands grew calloused, her nails forever dark with soil, but the earth began to respond. A neighbor gave her a handful of seeds-beans, chard, even a few pumpkin-and she planted them carefully, whispering thanks into the furrows. Others, seeing her quiet determination, brought her leftover seedlings, onion bulbs beginning to sprout, or old tomato plants left in the sun too long. She revived them all.
Ashu followed her through it all, his paws pressing patterns into the earth beside her. He lounged in the sun while she weeded, trotted beside her to fetch water, and barked softly if someone came near the gate. When she was tired, he rested his head on her foot like a promise. In the garden, they became a rhythm-woman and wild companion, growing something more than just food.
Eventually, a neighbor offered her three chickens, old but still laying. Their eggs were small and irregular, but they were golden treasures. Later came the rabbits-two does and a buck, given by an old farmer who couldn't care for them anymore. Asiola built them a hutch from salvaged wood and wire, feeding them wild greens she gathered on walks.
It wasn't easy. She named them at first, but stopped when it hurt too much. The decision to raise them for meat was one of survival. She cried the first time. But hunger and memory were stronger than sentiment. Each life taken, she honored-whispering apologies, planting herbs in their name. It became a cycle, not just of life and death, but of will-her will to live, to transform what little she had into a life that mattered.
Summer ripened slowly, wrapping the hills in gold. Asiola's garden pulsed with life-broad leaves, thick vines, buzzing insects, and the quiet rustle of chickens in the shade. Tomatoes flushed red in the heat. Beans tangled up the rough branches she used as stakes. The rabbits grew fast on clover and dandelion leaves she gathered in her apron. Every day was full. She no longer counted meals by the coins in her pocket but by what she had grown with her own hands.
Ashu often lay at the garden's edge, one eye watching the treeline, the other half-closed in peace. At dusk, they would sit together under the twisted pear tree-one she had pruned back to life-watching shadows stretch across the soil. The land was still hard, but it had become a friend.
One early autumn evening, Asiola stood at the edge of her rows, dirt smudged across her cheek and a cracked bucket full of late potatoes. The sky glowed with that strange, quiet fire only September carries. A breeze moved through the trees like a whisper, and she suddenly felt it again-that presence. Not quite memory, not quite spirit. Like someone was watching, not from outside, but from within her bones. That old woman from her dreams.
But this time, the woman wasn't fading.
This time, she was smiling.