The ladder was in the storage room.
The dust and dirt collected on the curtains was enough to choke a human…but the ladder was in the storage room.
Where all the sleeping men were.
Reaching out to run a finger down the curtains was enough to make up her mind, though.
They had to be cleaned.
She sighed and walked toward the storage room. Roan hadn’t come out of his office all morning, and if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was hiding from her.
If she were braver, she’d ask him to help her get the ladder…but she wasn’t brave, and facing the sleeping men was less intimidating than knocking on his office door. So she opened the door, quietly, almost as if she was going to wake the men.
It was silly. She wanted them to wake up, wanted them to come back to life, and yet she couldn’t help tiptoeing through storage to where the ladder hung on the back wall.
She didn’t look at any of their faces. They hadn’t changed. Everyone’s eyes were closed, their breathing normal—though more than one of them was snoring. She choked down laughter as one of them hit a particularly out-of-tune note in the cacophony of song that was the snoring.
Hefting the ladder onto her shoulder, she carried it out of the storage room, carefully stepping over the few stray limbs that had splayed out from where their respective owners lay.
If only she could wake them up by stepping on them.
As it was, she didn’t want them to wake up with unexplained bruises.
The bottom end of the ladder whacked into someone and Abigail grimaced.
Maybe one or two bruises.
She made her way to the front of the tavern, where her least favorite curtains were, long and heavy drapes on all the windows.
They had their reasons for existing…but they had been annoying her from the moment she first started working here. The only reason she hadn’t taken them down yet was because she had been afraid of making Roan upset—and because she’d never had time.
But now she had time, and if he was upset, he could put them back up later, on his own.
At the very least, she could give them a good beating.
It might improve her mood, too.
She hummed a merry tune to herself as she propped the ladder against the wall and climbed it to begin taking them down.
The curtain weighed more than she’d expected, and the ladder wobbled as she released it from the hooks holding it above the window. She froze, gripping the top rung with shaky hands, but it didn’t fall.
Abigail quickly found a rhythm, and by the time she had reached the northern wall, she had a large pile of drapes to clean sitting in the middle of the room.
The whole room was brighter. She could see the dust flying through the air—and the fact that she could see the dust meant there was sunshine.
The sunshine made it all worth it.
She moved the ladder for the last time, leaning it against the wall between the final curtain and the Lucky Goat tapestry that Roan’s grandmother had made. Climbing to the top, she took a moment to study the tapestry.
It was beautiful. The stitching was immaculate, featuring a goat, the tavern’s name, and a border of tankards and white roses with green leaves. It must have been a true labor of love.
But it was torn.
Abigail frowned at the rip in the embroidery.
What had happened to it?
Not that it mattered—she could fix it.
