The blossom alchemy

Once upon a time, there was a fortress like castle that stood tall and bold in a verdant countryside. The castle could be seen from miles around.

It was home to lots of  people: travelling merchants, artisans, storytellers and adventurers, cooks and wine merchants, blacksmiths, jewellers, dressmakers, butchers, grocers and all those in service to the family in charge of the castle. The castle was responsible for the well-being of so many. Each night it hummed with the sounds of songs, music and hard work of those who called the castle home.

The castle was secured by locks and chains. There were chains on the front door and chains on the bridge over the moat.  Throughout the castle, there were chains on all the doors and windows. And down in the dungeons, there were chains that kept the prisoners under control. The chains were a part of the castle. They made the people feel secure. 

The castle was surrounded by a moat. The moat appeared serene and still but deep below it was teeming with many fish and plants. Now and then, one could catch a glimpse of something moving – a shot of blue, a spark of green and a streak of deep and wondrous bronze – colours of a beautiful untouchable world. 

Part of this untouchable world was the most beautiful fish imaginable. With scales the colour of moonlight and a tail the colour of falling stars, this fish had always lived in the moat. Its ancestors had swum up the stream that fed the moat a long time ago.  But this fish had only known life in the moat.

It had been hatched from eggs deposited in a broken crystal goblet. The goblet had fallen to the bottom of the moat many years ago. The gold that decorated the goblet had long since tarnished. The crystal, so brilliant in the past was now embellished only by green algae. The fish and the goblet were one, linked at birth it was to the goblet that the fish returned each night.

Then one day the world changed.

Illness came to the castle. No one knew where it came from, perhaps a traveller, perhaps an animal. Like a wildfire it raged through the castle and the people became feverish, half mad with a desperate thirst, the people drank water from the moat. But it did no good. No soul was saved – children, women and men all died.

The castle chains were broken by desperate people wanting to get away. Even the prisoners were freed to take the dead out of the castle to bury them in the meadows. But once free, the prisoners ran away, and the dead were left to pile up on the castle keep. The family who owned the castle also died from the illness. The last person alive lit a fire on the keep and then left the castle for good. 

In the days that followed, the fire burnt everything in the castle. Even the strong castles walls began to crumble in the inferno. The ash from the fire was blown into the low-lying moat and poisoned all the remaining life.  The beautiful fish tried to hide in the goblet for as long as possible. But soon the dry winds, the harsh sun and smoke sucked up all moisture from the moat. With nowhere left to hide, she floated on her side in the broken goblet and looked up at the castle. What was left of the burnt and broken castle looked back at the dying fish and they watched each other die.

Some time passed.  The winds blew the dust and ash away. The castle was broken down by the elements and soon became just a memory. One wall remained however, but only half as high as it had been. The moat too was barren and bereft with only dried cracked earth in its place. 

Day after day, the sun swung over the desolate scene, alighting momentarily on the gilded edge of the broken goblet. Some seeds from the nearby meadows were blown on the summer breeze to land in it’s upturned cup.

And then the rain came.

It was soft and fragrant rain that continued for days and washed everything, making the world fresh and new. This rain felt like a blessing. And although it was too late for the castle and the fish, it served to cleanse and revitalise the land around. It fell into the moat, and on the seeds that had blown there.

And in the fish’s goblet, the goblet where she had died, a seed took hold. Kissed by the blessed rain, a tiny fragile blossom emerged shaded, in part, by the lone castle wall.  Although it was black and broken and only half as tall as before, the wall was high enough to protect this new growth.

So now, in this land grows a beautiful and rare flower; with petals the colour of moonlight and leaves the colour of fallen stars. It grows in the shade of a broken castle wall and smells in a strange way like the sea.