I begin to take in my surrounding. The shape of the room seems familiar, safe, a nugget of happy memory from somewhere deep in my mind.The air is warm, a bit stuffy but cocoon warm and I feel safe. The furnishings are plain yet well made, sturdy, good real wood, the lamp blown glass-a little blue sheperdess.The bed covering is in grey with a mere hint if silvery sheen and it is made of satin. There is a chair over in the corner, English plain and sturdy but in a delicate sort of way, feminine-some how reminds me of dance class. The dresser is tall and thin and evokes feelings of my Jewish ancestry but it is not, cannot think why I feel this way about it. The floor is wood, deep cherry and has been freshly polished and for some strange reason the small rug by the side of the bed looks out of place because it is an intricately woven rug from the middle east and the fringes are all beaded with glass. It is as if a prim English person went away on holiday and brought the treasure back not caring if it fit with the rest of the decor. The window is high though, very high, too high for me to see out of without a chair and although soft diffused lovely white light is shining thru I somehow don't want to look outside, in case what is out there does not match what is inside.
I am loathe to leave the room, but I simply open the bedroom door and go thru a misty light space and I can hear whisperings some not good, some childlike and lovely.I am now outside. Although the house is in the city magically I am in a few yards deep into a forest, unearthly quiet,yet full of more whisperings of ancient happenings and peoples,,perhaps my people. The trees are all very healthy, enormous in their trunk girth, smelling beautiful with a tinge of must or moss or lichen.Strangely the forest floor is not full of ages worth of dead leaves and twigs and fallen decayed trees. It seems as if it has been tended, here in the middle of nowhere half way up a mountain. But no hint of people or civilzation of any sort. At the top most branches I can begin to hear activity, of birds building their nests and visiting with one another. My ears become adjusted to the unusual quiet and I find that there is indeed activity all around me , but in a subdued sort of way.A squirrel darts out and runs up the bark of a grey brown tree. The sun light is very filtered and diffused and easy on the eyes.A sort of perpetual twilight and I feel instead of anxiety a very real sense of wonder and safety and expectation-as if someone from the beginning of the world wil walk out from behind a tree majestically robed gentle of soul-just to talk to me.
The path is very gentle in it's curves and windings, nothing harsh or unexpected and yet everything is unexpected, neither narrow nor wide,just a little comfortable and yet not too comfortable.It is not hard to follow the path but amazingly when I look behind me from time to time the path is no longer behind me, it doesn't exist. It always starts where I am currently walking.Again the feeling someone has been before and gently cleaned it of most of the debris before I got there. The hard part is knowing that I am going deeper and deeper and with no more path behind me it looks impossible to ever find my way back for the trees have moved and shifted behind me and there is no more clue as to where the path might have been. My heart is pounding with a little anxiety and the joy and wonder of following it.
The water comes unexpectedly as the forest falls away and the path which was sort of polished earth however odd that seems is now replaced by huge jagged grey rock, small pebbles and moss growing thru its cracks. The bank is saturated in cold droplets, the air is now cold and tingly like deep winter although the sun now is shining brightly and there is barely a cloud in the way. The water is clear with churning white mixed in and travelling at a frightening speed along its' course, roaring so loudly it is hard to think and I stand amazed and somewhat frightened.
I am amazed really at how easy I was able to get across once I put my mind to fashioning the bridge and now I am safely on the other side, cold, dripping and happy. I stop short when I see something glinting in tall grass.A tall thin flask made from the expert hand of a glassblower, dark wine colored with semi precious gems glued on is what is clearly runes, or some sort of complex yet beautifully shaped language.I am in great wonder how such a thin exquisite thing could still be in one piece and to whom did it belong. It is not of this time , it is obviously hand crafted.
After a while back on the path which now seems like home since I have nothing from before to count on , I again am surprised to find a key lying on it. I stoop and pick it up and can scarce believe my eyes. It is so finely wrought, so intracitely made, all silvery and whispy looking and in the middle is a woman's figure, tiny frail yet noble looking. It does, as I turn it around and back and forth in my hands, look like it has the strength to open anything at all though it is at least eight inches in length and three inches at the broadest part in the middle.