Anna’s feet ached with each step on the rough mountain path.  She had seen the top of the castle, white and beckoning, just before this curve. Finding a flat-topped boulder, she sat down, kicked off a shabby shoe, and rubbed her foot.

Oh why had she come here?  The castle hadn’t called to others.   No one else in the village had been plagued with compelling wonder.  They were content to sit in their small pomen’s and work their gardens year after year, and survive until old, and worn, and dead.

But from Cabon’s Point, just outside the village, the castle gleamed like a tiny gem in the distance, tempting her.  Old Jable, the cobbler, had said it was a bad omen, her being so curious, when the tales warned of such behavior.  No one who’d set out for the castle had ever come back to tell the story.  So when Oma Olga, the baker, drew back at Anna’s inquisitiveness, it was years before she allowed herself to even glance at her temptation again.  After all, Oma Olga knew everything about anything, including the secrets of Adjin and the Universe.  She knew why He created and where He went afterward.  If she was afraid, then everyone was afraid. Continue reading THE CASTLE, a story, part one →