In the Castle Keep
A long time ago, within a forest there was a very great castle. Many villagers and merchants had passed it by, and while its torches remained lit at night, no sounds or signs of life issued from within its closed gates.
There was once a peasant who went by the castle every afternoon on her way back from gathering firewood to sell at market. Often she would stop and lay down her burden to rest for a moment when she passed by the castle gates. As she admired the castle’s brickwork glowing golden in the late afternoon sun, she would wonder what lay within those thick walls and high turrets. The interior of the castle loomed in her mind as an object of great mystery and potential dread.
One particular day the peasant’s curiosity overcame her trepidation, and she dared to venture inside. Walking up to the great stone double-doors, she grasped the entrance’s bronze knocker and rapped three times upon it.
There was no reply, no sounds issuing from within.
After a time, she slowly pushed on one of the doors. It swung wide open.
The peasant was not prepared for what lay inside, for there before her lay not the standard open courtyard like other castles, nor even a long stone hallway. Rather, there was a broad, dim enclosed space. Squinting into the gloom, the peasant stepped inside. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized that she was in a vast chamber of some sort.
The whole interior of the castle was one great room, in which there was a series of long, upright rods coming up from the floor, extending as far as she could see into the shadows. As for the floor, it was not comprised of flagstones or smooth marble, but rather was covered in grass, dirt, and pine needles — an artificial earth. A strange interior indeed.
Walking forward, the peasant touched one of the rods. Its surface was rough and wooden, its texture strangely familiar. It was bark, the peasant realized.
Gazing around in wonder, it dawned upon her that the rods were in fact trees. The castle was filled with an artificial forest. High above, the roof was dark, but speckled with stones which dimly reflected the light outside, glinting like shadowy stars.
The peasant cautiously made her way deeper into the interior forest. Unlike the forest without, this forest was filled with no sounds of bird or beast sitting within its depths. It was absolutely quiet, but for the sound of the peasant’s footfalls on the grass. It was cold, too, and the air was scented with the musk of ancient pine.
A dim, unmoving shape lay ahead now, looming larger as the peasant drew closer. It looked at first like a large cube of gray. As it grew more distinct, the peasant realized its top was jagged, like a row of teeth. Something about this shape was strangely familiar.
The peasant stopped dead in her tracks as the object came fully into view. It was a castle – a smaller version of the same castle this forest was contained within. She laughed aloud. Her laugh fell away, swallowed by the absolute silence of this vast stone chamber, and after standing for a few moments in the quiet, she walked up to the smaller castle and pushed upon its double-doors. Parting, they revealed a darkened space; she stooped slightly to pass through the doors and within, as her eyes adjusted, she saw, without surprise, another forest, identical in all regards but smaller in scale.
Within that forest there was a third castle.
The peasant walked forward and gently pushed its doors open, yielding a fourth forest. She stooped to enter, and so she continued on through a series of worlds, the light growing successively dimmer and the castles and woodlands successively smaller until, on hands and knees within the darkness of a miniature forest, she reached a castle whose doors were too small for her to enter. She tried to peer in, but her head blocked any light at all from penetrating the castle courtyard.
It felt like there was no time there, within that still and windless keep.
It was hard to tell how long she lay on her stomach, staring through the miniature doorway. But gradually, a sense of dread came over her, and she made her way back, crawling through successive doors until at last she was back under a beaming sun, standing upon gleaming grass, birds chirping from the woven branches. From there, the forests within castles did not seem ominous in the slightest, but like a child’s vain playthings. She laughed, for the real world was bright indeed.
A Single Sketchbook Excerpt:
If you like this newsletter, please do tell a friend. And if you want more, may I humbly recommend to you my first novel, The Forest Museum.
