Vanessa Winthrop sat still, hunched over a giant history book in her private library. The dazzling rays of the afternoon sunlight filtered into the room from the open window and cast a long shadow of herself behind her.
She was in a pensive mood. Just a few minutes ago, she has dusted off this molded book and had settled down to read from the pages of it, hoping that by doing so, she would find some illumination, some way to overpower the conflicting emotions that were raging inside of her.
Reading books imprinted with the debris of history had always been her favorite thing to do. But today, the book did nothing to calm her nerves. It worsened it.
She rose abruptly to her feet, tired of entertaining her thoughts, and began to pace through the room, holding her head as if to stop it from exploding.
