At first the quietude is disconcerting. After Heidi – the friendly young lady who booked us the room – escorts us upstairs and shows us our quarters, we are left to inspect the bedroom. Soothingly painted in delft blues, with bedding in stark white, the room is softly bright, but the quiet, even in an afternoon nap, remains ever-so-slightly uncomfortable. We are not used to the silence.
This is the wearying effect of modern life on the soul ~ the things that matter, the things that are truly beautiful and good ~ get lost amid the frenzy. Maybe we have arrived here for a reason.
There is just a small stretch of activity outside the hotel, and in half an hour we had exhausted the few stores on Main Street (and I had gifts for all the babies in my life). The people we meet along the way are uniformly friendly and welcoming, and we are even chased by a particularly embracing storekeeper, who generously offers a few magazines for us to peruse as she was just going to get rid of them anyway.
Andy jokes that this is how every horror movie begins – the strangely over-affectionate welcoming characters of a small town masking the dark and unseemly underside that comes out – when things start to go bump in the night. As the grayness of the day passes overhead, it is not a pleasing thought, but an afternoon nap manages to erase the unease.
