Silence Is Golden Read Free

until a woman walking toward me eyes me warily, and my smile fades away.

    I feel a little thrill of joy when I see my new home again. While it’s small and quite shabby, it’s mine, and I don’t have to share the space with anyone else. There’s no one to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. No one can order me to clean or make food. I’ll cook if I’m hungry, I’ll clean for my own satisfaction, and I’ll stay up all night reading if I feel like it. I’m here to start over, and the fact that I found this perfect house in the woods on my first day here seems like a sign. I think once again that I’m letting a forbidden word into my mind, as I did yesterday with the word premonition .
     
    For lunch I have a piece of the vegetable quiche, which is delicious, and then I smear a little jam on bread for dessert. I try to gaze out at the forest from my window, but it’s too dirty, just like the rest of the house. I have to get some cleaning products when I go back to the supermarket. Cleaning is one of the things I do best.
     
    At my old house, even though it’s no longer my home (if it ever truly was), my mother and I were in charge of keeping the house clean. My father and my identical twin brothers, who shared my father’s ignorance and malice, thought that cleaning was the only thing worth learning for a woman. Fortunately, my mother disagreed, even if she never had the courage to openly oppose my father. I first snuck into his study when I was ten, and I was so afraid my father would find out that it felt like a spy mission. From then on, I would pick out a new book once a week, which I would hide inside my dresser, pulling it out only at night or when my father and brothers left for work. Over the past sixteen years, I’ve read hundreds of books in between doing my chores and housework. The books told me of the world outside my tiny room, leading me away from my gray hometown and from my family, who had already decided what I should do with my life. Looking back on all the books I’ve read, I think it would be great to start my own little collection. On the other hand, between my rent and groceries, the money that my mother gave me won’t last forever. I need to get a job. I can’t wait to test myself in the real world after living the way I did for so long. I decide that my visit to the bookstore won’t be just to look around.
     
    That afternoon, dark, forbidding clouds block the sun, so I knot a scarf around my neck. I can’t afford to get sick. As I leave, I allow myself a long look at the forest, which is beautiful even with no sunlight. The wind has picked up since the morning, and the leaves rustle even louder. I’ve decided that they’re my trees and that’s their voice, so I’m not afraid.
     
    I head back to the village, setting my sights on the bookstore. I walk along the main road, where I can see most of the shops. I realize that none of them sell furniture. Where am I going to buy a desk and bookshelf? All of a sudden, I see a carpenter’s sign down a side street. It’s such incredible timing that I’m almost suspicious; I’m usually not so lucky. I end up in front of the carpenter’s shop window, which is so dusty it could have come from my house. The lights are on, so I press my face to the glass and peer inside. It’s a huge space, full of wooden planks, tools, and what appear to be blueprints. My gaze falls on a blond man facing away from me. He’s so skinny that his clothes hang off him. He’s lifting up what looks like a wooden cube and trying to place it on one of the planks. I wonder if he’ll be able to, as he seems kind of frail. He succeeds and takes a moment to run his hands over the cube, as if testing its smoothness. Then, for some reason, he suddenly turns and sees me. For a moment I feel the urge to run away from the window, but his intense expression holds me in place. We stare at each other, not lowering our eyes, until I see a door open out of the edge of