The floorboards give a long, sick groan. Dust sifts from the rafters, and the hearth flame leans hard toward the cellar like something below is breathing in.
Butch feels the whole cottage tug downward, not all at once, but in hungry little jerks. The moor is working under the stone, trying to loosen the home from its roots.
Sable
It is under us. It is reaching for the foundations.
The Son
The boards are moving. Not like wood. Like a thing waking up.
The front wall shivers. A dark seam snakes through the plaster near the threshold, and the rug Butch laid down twitches as if something on the other side has found the crack.
Butch rams his weight toward the floor and starts forcing the nearest beam into place, turning the home from a soft target into a brace against the pull below.
Sable
If the roots are the hook, we pin the house to them. Right now.
✓ Quest Accepted
Hold the house together against the pull below