Gond got out of bed with tears in his eyes and a tightness in his chest that prevented him from breathing. With a trembling hand, he opened the bedroom window to a moonless night of cold, distant stars. A breath of air. A cold, dry air, like metal blades. Out of the corner of his eye, it seemed to him that a shadow, from the darkness of the room, loomed over him. A menacing shadow. Someone in a hood. He lit the candlestick he had on the nightstand and brandished it into the darkness as if it were a sword.
He looked around the small room, totally empty and dilapidated. There were only two objects: a broken mirror to his right and an old clock to his left, which had stopped at 2:30.
"The witching hour."
He walked out of the room and into the large parquet wood parlor. As she paced the room with the chandelier, he illuminated the fireplace, which still held traces of smoke and ash. And remembered his grandfather, by the fireside, telling him stories of the forest of Luar, the forest adjoining the estate that stretched over the hill.
"Never go into the forest at 2:30 in the morning, the witching hour" - he would tell him - "If you go in, you never know where the path will lead you. And the fae are mischievous beings. Many children and poets have been lost. Some playing. The others, searching."
"Searching?"
"Yes. Looking for the gardens of the moon."
The Gardens of the Moon...
"All poets, unconsciously, seek the gardens of the Moon" - He heard his grandfather's voice, but this time it came from inside the fireplace. He placed the candlestick under the fireplace and looked up.
Gramps?
Obviously, no one answered.
I think this house is going to drive me crazy. Something tells me it doesn't want anyone to live in it. Something wants this house to stay abandoned.
Let's see when the electricity people come. Ghosts don't like electricity - he said to himself, out loud.
"The gardens of the moon."
He left the chandelier on the table in the living room. Then went to one of the drawers of an old dresser and opened it. An old oil lamp. Another memory flickered inside it like a candle. Those nights of stories and legends. Oh, yes, he remembered it well. Grandma would turn off all the lights in the house and grandpa would light the candles, chandeliers and the old oil lamp "just like in the old days."
"Stories don't like electricity" - he would say.
He smiled inwardly.
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Brandishing the lamp he made his way, across the estate, to the edge of the old forest on the hill. And started to walk, with a slow pace, just at the border between the forest and the farm, under the cold light of the stars. His breathing was steady. From time to time, a scented wind came from inside the forest and seemed to caress and embrace him. Then, he would direct the light of the oil lamp into the forest. A thick forest of old, crooked oaks and hawthorns.
Another wind. This time it was a wind that seemed to be circling, spiraling, inside the forest. He knew that if he went inside at that time, he might get lost. "What time must it be, the witching hour?".
He shone his light into the forest again and, this time, he could glimpse a subtle path through the old oaks and hawthorns. "A stellar path."
The Gardens of the Moon.
Another memory, a moonbeam through the mist. The light of childhood, piercing the veils of maturity.
Two little boys were playing on the edge of the forest, under the light of the full moon. They were chasing each other amidst great laughter that they tried to suppress, for fear of waking people. It was late in the night. The witching hour was approaching, the hour of the "magic" wind. He recognized one of the children: it was himself. Little by little, his consciousness descended upon the child and possessed that memory, materializing it.
Now he was the child. His heart pumped with fervor. Before him, a girl with blond hair and big blue eyes. Sudrun. Now they both sat before the oil lamp and waited impatiently for the wind to start blowing.
She would turn to him and speak to him, in a passionate voice, but he could not hear her words well. It was as if they were coming from inside an ocean. When he stared at her, her figure seemed to wobble and become a luminous, ethereal smoke.
As the wind began to blow, a silvery path appeared before them across the forest and, without missing a beat, they hurried through it. The scent of flowers flooded everything. "The gardens of the moon." The two children disappeared into the darkness, and he returned to his adult form. He fell on his ass on the grass and stood dumbfounded, peering through the oak trees.
The little path had disappeared.
A flood of questions began to fall on him, with the weight of memories that had been contained in a fortress. Something or someone was opening a hole in that fortress of stagnant waters and the memories now flowed in free fall. His heart was pumping hard, like that child's heart.
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Who is this child?
Who is Sudrun?
Where does this path lead?
What are the gardens of the moon?
He sat there, trying not to drown in so many questions.
Then, back home and between the sheets, now without that oppression and feeling a strange peace that he seemed to have brought back from the forest, only one question constantly came to his mind.
Why have I forgotten everything?
That question was repeated like a mantra until he fell asleep.
----
The morning seemed to have dispelled the strangeness of darkness. The night belongs to the world of legends and dreams, night belongs to writers and artists, to the piercers of veils.
And the mornings? Mornings are the return to material reality, to this solid world full of banality.
As he was preparing his coffee and breakfast on the gas stove, he heard the sound of a truck. He looked out the window. The moving truck.
Crap.
Today he was ready to sit on the porch and think about everything that had happened the night before, to make sense of it. Those bits and pieces of memories that, for some reason, had seeped into his consciousness as he strolled along the edge of the woods with his lamp.
That day was already ruined. He sighed.
He helped the men, for two hours, move furniture in and out of the various rooms. Luckily, he was a fairly minimalist man. In the living room, a low black wooden table with a couple of chairs and several shelves for his books. In his bedroom, his old bed, which he substituted for the one that was almost broken, a closet and another bookshelf. And in the dining room and kitchen, another bigger table, a new refrigerator and a microwave.
Last but not least, the most important thing: his art instruments. The first, the most cumbersome thing: the piano. He placed it in a corner of the living room, which he had separated with several screens and called "the little room of inspiration". There, next to the window, he had placed a large desk. On it, he placed the laptop computer and, in the drawers and around it, notebooks, notepads, a box with drawing and writing utensils, and dictionaries. Between the piano and the desk, he placed, temporarily, the packet of canvases and the palette knife.
Only the indispensable.
In the afternoon the electrician showed up and fixed and updated the electricity meter, made some repairs, and connected the electricity in the house.
As the sun was setting and Gorm was drinking tea on the porch overlooking the abandoned field overgrown with weeds and bushes, he heard the sound of another pickup truck pulling up next to the driveway. Exhausted, he walked up the driveway almost scrubbing his feet. Who was it now?
Step by step, he felt the intense reality of it all. Everything had become too solid, again. Step by step, his feet seemed heavier than ever and he felt as if he was sinking. He needed time to think, to be alone. I needed time to... - he interrupted himself - What do I need so much time for?
But he found no answer.
"Whoever it is, I'll tell them I'm not receiving visitors today."
When he opened the gate to the entrance, he saw the van parked in front of the entrance and, inside, a girl with brown hair in a braid smoking a cigarette. When she saw him, she smiled, got out of the van and shook his hand effusively. She was small in stature, but her demeanor was firm.
-I am Cathia, owner of Seeds of Paradise.
-I'm Gorm, pleased to meet you.
With her green, searching eyes, she surveyed the abandoned farm field with a mixture of irritation and pity.
-I hear you're old Tom's grandson.
-Yes, I am.
Her gaze shifted to him and glanced him up and down. Then she took another drag on her cigarette and exhaled the smoke upward toward the evening sky. After she did that, she looked him in the eyes and smiled, nodding her head.
-You've already wandered through the woods, huh?
Gorm raised his eyebrows.
-How do you know?
She pointed her index finger at his shoes, white sneakers. Weeds were dangling from the laces.
-These weeds are at the edge of the forest.
-Wow. That's amazing. You must know a lot about weeds.
-It's my job! I know all the farms, fields, and forests inside out - he turned back to the truck and patted it several times - Our store is in the town of Delen, several miles from here. We sell seeds, tools, fertilizer, and anything else you need to bring this farm back to life.
Gorm was silent, thoughtful. He imagined that abandoned farm as a verdure full of fruit trees, large beds of vegetables, farm animals. And himself, strolling with a herd, full of sweat but satisfied, under the midday sun.
He shook his head and laughed.
-I'm sorry. I'm not a farmer, and I have no intention of doing anything with this farm. I'm moving in temporarily, until I can find something more suitable.
She shrugged, still smiling, and handed him a small card from her worn overalls. On it was her name, her phone number and the name of the store: " Seeds of Paradise".
-I understand perfectly. But my services include that of a traveling farmer. So if you decide to give the farm the first push, just give me a call.
With that said, they said goodbye and, leaving a trail of mixed tobacco, dirt, and wild grass, she drove the truck down the road. As she turned around, she greeted him with a smile. "See you soon" she seemed to infer. He waved back and also smiled.
Gorm heard the engine pull away. And he had to admit that he was once again feeling like his feet were floating above the earth. He no longer felt as if he were sinking. An inner calm. A strange calm. "Bringing the farm back to life. Huh?". He walked back to the house, down the brush-strewn path, this time with a brisk step and whistling a tune.
---
Gorm, now sitting at his desk, was trying to write down the experiences he had had the night before, but just as he wrote the first few words, it seemed as if the magic surrounding the events had dissolved. He and the girl playing on the edge of the forest. The witching hour, the magic wind. And the secret path leading to the gardens of the moon. He tried to play something on the piano, something that could give him a melodic sense, beyond words, but it didn't work either.
He had been blocked for two years, the source of creativity completely dried up. Nothing had changed.
After a light dinner, he sat on the porch and opened a can of beer. That night the night birds could be heard more clearly and the stars seemed closer. Between his legs he held his sketchbook. In a meditative reverie, he began to draw whatever came into his head, without trying to communicate or express anything.
He closed his eyes and conjured up the name of that mysterious girl from his childhood.
Sudrun.
And the pencil began to draw something. He simply guided the pencil. He let himself be led by the whims of the pencil.
When he opened his eyes he saw a sketch of a castle on a hill. All around him, large lavender fields that then gave way to a gigantic forest stretching out in all directions.
The pencil stopped just as he was about to add more detail. But Gorm didn't give up and stared at the drawing. He activated his imagination. On one of the terraces of the Palace he now saw a girl with her eyes fixed on the forest, trying to find out something. A girl with light blue eyes and long blonde hair.
"She, too, is looking for the way to the Gardens of the Moon."