Daily puzzle

Put The Boarded Window back in order

Seven beats from our edition of The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce, shuffled. Drag them, or use the arrows, until the story runs straight. No account, no streak to lose.

  1. The boarded window The narrator introduces Murlock's ruined cabin, defined by one window that is permanently boarded shut, and the local mystery surrounding it.
  2. A young settler Years earlier, Murlock came to the wilderness as a vigorous young man with a wife, clearing land and building a home far from neighbors.
  3. The fever Murlock returns from hunting to find his wife delirious with fever. He nurses her alone for three days before she sinks into unconsciousness and seems to die.
  4. Preparing the body Believing her dead, the grief-numbed husband washes and dresses the body and lays it on a table to keep vigil through the night.
  5. A sound in the dark Asleep at the table, Murlock wakes in black darkness to soft steps and a violent struggle, seizes his rifle, and fires blindly; the flash shows a panther dragging the body toward the window.
  6. The panther's ear When he comes to, the sun is high: the body lies by the window, the throat torn, the hands clenched, and a piece of the panther's ear gripped between her teeth.
  7. A lifetime of silence The horror that she was alive when attacked explains the boarded window and the decades of isolation that followed.