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.