Abigail Baumgarten took one last, deep breath before she cautiously opened the cellar door and stepped into her once pristine kitchen. Jeb had made her stay downstairs until he could get the majority of the grizzly remains cleared away to where he thought that she would be able to handle what had happened to what was once the coziest room in their farm home. Abigail knew that she was stronger than what Jeb gave her credit for, and she thought that most certainly he knew as well. She let him begin the clean-up process for her anyway, thinking that if she showed a little fragility this time around it might do him a bit of good, let him feel the part of the protective husband. She had certainly chewed him out enough over bringing them to Jastrey. In the end, they were alive, and she supposed that was all that mattered. She couldn't help but feel guilty though, that they made it through the gnoll infestation and the majority of the town did not.
She squinted her eyes, letting them adjust to the bright sunlight streaming through the windows. The green checkered curtains that she had sewn herself were splattered with thick, viscous gobs of dried, black blood. The rest of the kitchen looked much the same. Abigail stifled a groan as she ran a hand over the wooden table she had rolled her pastries on all of these years. The wood was stained pink from the blood of whoever had been laid upon it. It was ruined; she would have to get Jeb to make her a new one.
She turned around in a circle scanning the rest of the wreckage, tears brimming in her eyes for the first time since she had seen the gnolls. The chain hanging from the ceiling that Jeb had installed to hold her rack of pans had been jerked out, leaving a large hole in the plaster ceiling and her cast iron scattered across the floor. The majority of her pots and pans did not look as if they had been used, but she doubted she would be able to use them again anyway without imagining what had gone on in her precious kitchen.
A mass of shredded paper caught her eye; as she hurried across the kitchen, it dawned on her what it was and the sobs came. Her grandmother's cookbook - torn into pieces. Thank the stars that she knew every recipe in there by heart, but those recipes were hand-written by her grandmother, who had taught her everything she knew about cooking.
Abigail leaned back against the counter and covered her face with her hands, sobbing until the tears would no longer come. She took a breath, wiped her eyes with her apron, and forced a look of grim determination upon her face. She grabbed an old rag from the cabinet under the kitchen sink, wet it under the faucet and began to scrub.
The windows of the farmhouse were wide open, and a slight breeze blew through the kitchen. Abigail hummed an old tune underneath her breath as she kneaded and rolled pastry after pastry.
The kitchen appears completely different than it did almost three days prior. Neither Abigail or Jeb have gotten much sleep and she has spent every waking moment remaking her kitchen into the haven that it once was.
New curtains, sewn from an old blue floral-print skirt of hers, flap softly in the wind. The floors, counters and walls have been scrubbed vigorously with water and bleach until their original surfaces shine once more. The wooden table that was stained beyond repair has been removed from the room and is currently on the bonfire that Jeb has going in the eastern field; he's told her that a new one is next on his long list of things to take care of. The hole in the ceiling remains; her rack and cast iron pots and pans have been tossed on to a scrap heap of metal that they have waiting for Gecel, the dwarf, to pick up, and she is using the old pans she had from when she and Jeb first got married. She would have to wait until someone showed up at the Market in order to purchase some new ones. She didn't want to hazard a guess as to when that might be.
Abigail grabs a thick cloth, wraps it around her hand and removes a batch of pastries from the oven. In a well-practiced and almost graceful maneuver, she grabs the awaiting pan of raw pastries with her other hand and deftly slides it into the oven, shutting the heavy iron door with a not-so graceful bump of the hip.
She would have to ask Jeb to pull the wagon around so that she could load everything up and take it into town. Certainly their rescuers would be wanting something sweet to eat and what else would she do with the finished baked goods that were now covering every surface of her kitchen? Work had always been a stress reliever for her and this had certainly been the most stressful period of her life. She sincerely hoped that the new townsfolk would at least enjoy the outcome.
"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Just make sure to stab with an upward motion." - Stephen Colbert