Lariah crossed the floor slowly, her feet sinking into thick, multi colored rugs scattered across the shiny wood floor, and paused to stare out the window. Her breath caught in her throat at the beauty of the landscape before her. Lavender skies stretched as far as the eye could see, broken here and there with puffy white clouds. Immediately outside her window was a covered patio, as she had guessed, with several deeply cushioned chairs and small tables scattered here and there, and one large round one in the center with matching chairs set neatly around it. Beyond the patio stretched a large garden filled with bushes, flowers, and trees in colors and shapes she had never imagined. In the distance, blue grass rippled in a gentle breeze over rolling hills dotted with animals of some sort. Her forehead wrinkled as she tried to identify the distant shapes. Cows, she thought, and, perhaps those other things were horses. She had only seen images of such things, had never actually seen the living breathing animals themselves, but she was fairly certain she was correct. Her smile widened in wonder at the breathtaking view. After a few minutes she turned away from the window and studied the room. It looked as though it had been decorated either by or for a woman, but at the same time, it didn’t seem to belong to anyone. There were no personal effects in the room, no clothing anywhere, no pictures on the wall. She spotted her handbag and her canvas tote on a chair near the bed and was relieved that she had not lost her few, meager possessions. She also noted a partially open door and hurried to it, hoping very much that it led to a bathroom. It did. In fact, it led to a beautiful, gleaming bathroom with a large, deep bath tub. Once she was finished with her more urgent needs, she debated using the tub.
