She stared at the clock in her hands, the last thing in the pretty yellow house left unpacked. Karen traced her fingers along the intricate woodwork, then sighed and placed the clock back on the mantle, deciding that the new tenant could have the blasted thing because she no longer wanted to look at it. All it served to do was make her feel sour. She didn’t want to be sour.
 
And so, she left the clock in the house and took herself off to her new abode, ignoring the whispers she heard from some of her neighbors. The neighbor who she did trust hung back, her husband’s hand on her shoulder to stay her. Karen understood. She was a pariah in these parts.
 
When all was said and done, she moved into the cottage, which was bigger than the little yellow house, and spent the next week making it her own when she wasn’t tending to the children or laundry. She finally acquiesced when it came to letting the nanny look after her children while she worked. She paid Lorn the first three months of rent since she had the money to do so, sight unseen, and had no qualms about moving into said cottage even if there might be some damage here and there.
 
She seemed to blossom over that week, and could often be found in the back whilst she hung clothes and linens, singing in either Gaelic or English. It didn’t take long to figure out that she was becoming happy, which was something she had rarely experienced since Harold passed.
 
Currently, she was cooking dinner in her new home, the smell of chicken stew wafting through the air along with some fresh baked bread. One might even hear her muffled singing through the closed door as she moved about the cottage.