Glass on Top of the Fridge (1972)

Power, be it private, state, or religious, has always sought to use art for its own ends. From the imperial mosaics of Byzantium to the frescoes of the Vatican, from the portraits of monarchs to corporate branding today, art has long been conscripted to extend the brand of dominance. A scepter in one hand, a paintbrush in the other. What we are shown is never neutral. A cathedral ceiling whispers divinity sanctioned by men. A war monument teaches obedience dressed as memory. A television ad turns desire into doctrine.

Under such pressures, artists must choose: to amplify power, or to quietly slip away from its gaze. Isabel Quintanilla chose the latter.

Her Glass on Top of the Fridge (1972) refuses grandeur. It refuses narrative. It offers nothing but presence—a single, humble object resting in light. In Francoist Spain, where visual culture was saturated with Catholic piety, nationalistic imagery, and heroic realism, this painting says: there is another world, right here, in the kitchen. This world is not scripted by generals or bishops. It belongs to the anonymous—the grandmother who dries dishes in silence, the daughter who fills a glass and thinks about her future, the son who stands barefoot on a cold tile floor. These lives, unstoried and unendorsed, were not on the billboards or stamps. But Quintanilla painted them anyway.

The composition is sparse: a cheap glass, filled with water, sits on a white refrigerator. Its shadow stretches across the top, and the light, diffused and gray, seems to come from an unseen window. There is a quiet geometry at play—the vertical lines of the glass, the horizontal edge of the fridge, the angular intrusion of light. The viewer is held in this austerity, asked to slow down, to look again. Nothing here is rushed. Nothing is made to sell or to glorify. Instead, it dignifies.

This act—of simply seeing—was subversive. It still is.

To paint the ordinary with reverence is to wrest meaning away from those who monopolize it. If the state says greatness looks like a general on horseback, then a glass of water becomes resistance. If the church says holiness wears robes and performs miracles, then a fridge lit by morning sun becomes a reliquary of another kind. Even private power—wealth, media, systems of taste—tells us what is worthy of our attention. Quintanilla ignores them all.

She does not shout. She does not accuse. She does something harder. She stays.

There is a long tradition of this kind of defiance. Vermeer did it when he painted a woman pouring milk. Chardin did it with a peach and a copper pot. In the 20th century, artists like Giorgio Morandi and later Antonio López García followed suit—showing us that the politics of attention is itself a battleground. In a world of spectacle, attention is currency. When we give it to the overlooked, we change the economy of value.

I think often about what kind of art we make under pressure. When institutions expect utility or alignment, when even social media subtly demands performance—who dares to paint a fridge? Who dares to take up space not with declarations, but with silence?

Quintanilla’s painting is not trying to persuade. It’s trying to endure. It tells us: the world does not belong to those who speak the loudest. It belongs to those who keep living, quietly, beneath the noise. Those who take a glass, fill it, and place it down. And those who, like her, notice.

Creative Writing

Dear jounral,

I’m having more fun writing Woodgate than I’ve had with any creative project in recent memory—maybe ever.

This is the first time I’ve tried to write something like this: not just a story, but a world. A long-form, serialized narrative with its own characters, currency, sacred relics, feasts, and ghosts. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I do. And truthfully, I didn’t know I had it in me. Each act, each episode, feels like both an excavation and an invention. I find myself somewhere between historian and dreamer, hammering iron and breathing life into what was once only the barest sketch in my mind.

What’s been surprising is how alive the process feels. Writing Woodgate is not like writing an essay or even a short story. It’s like walking into a dark forest with a lantern and discovering, one step at a time, that the path is already there—it’s just been waiting for someone to walk it. And in that way, I’ve found myself unexpectedly in conversation with a long tradition of serialized storytelling, stretching back to the 19th century.

Writers like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Wilkie Collins didn’t publish novels in bound volumes. They wrote in installments, printing chapters in journals and newspapers, sometimes week by week, sometimes monthly. Readers devoured them as they were released, writing letters, discussing plot twists, and waiting eagerly for the next issue. As Robert Patten notes in Charles Dickens and His Publishers, “Dickens revolutionized the novel by taking it off the shelf and putting it into the street. He made the novel a public event.” His David Copperfield, perhaps my favorite of his works, wasn’t just a book—it was a living serial, a shared experience.

There’s something profoundly human about that model. The story unfolds at the pace of real life. And as a writer, I’ve come to appreciate what that pacing does to the process: it allows you to live with the work, to reflect, revise, and slowly build momentum. Serialization invites a different kind of patience. It teaches you to value rhythm over rush.

And so, in that spirit, I’ve decided to slow my own process. Going forward, I’ll be posting just one new installment of Woodgate each week. Not because I’m losing energy—if anything, I’m brimming with ideas—but because I want this story to grow organically, the way Dickens or Hardy might have let theirs grow. There is a satisfaction in returning to the bench, the gatehouse, the forest, again and again. I want to savor this.

This kind of creative writing is entirely new to me. I’ve written reflections, essays, even poetry, but never a serialized historical fiction, never something that might span a hundred episodes or more. And yet, each time I return to Woodgate, I find more than I expected—more character, more plot, more meaning. It’s teaching me as much as I am shaping it.

Eudora Welty once wrote, “Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable, if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else.” That’s what Woodgate feels like to me—something rooted in place, in tone, in time. I know these woods. I know the stone chapel. I can hear the distant cries at the city gate. And though it’s fiction, it feels inhabited.

So I’ll keep writing. Slowly. Faithfully. One post at a time.

Always,

Dave

Currently Reading: Blaze

The Lonely Tree (1822)

There was a time, early on, when I believed teaching would be the work that saved me. Not in some grand, salvific sense, but in the quiet way a rhythm or ritual can root a person to the world. It gave me something to hold onto—a calling, a structure, a reason to wake early and stay late. I imagined myself as a young tree in a sunlit grove, surrounded by others just as eager, just as green, all of us reaching upward in hope and purpose. We would grow together, I thought. We would change the landscape.

Now, as I approach the close of my eighteenth year in the classroom, I look around and realize how few of us are still standing. The grove has thinned. Some have moved on, some have burned out, some were quietly cut down by forces they couldn’t resist—policy, burnout, illness, despair. I no longer see a forest. I see scattered silhouettes. I see myself.

And in Caspar David Friedrich’s The Lonely Tree, I see a mirror.

The oak at the center of his canvas rises from the earth like a monument to persistence. Its crown is broken. Its upper limbs are bare and jagged, reaching into a gray sky that neither threatens nor comforts. The landscape stretches out around it—fertile, yes, but indifferent. The tree is not celebrated; it is endured. And yet, look closer—its lower branches still bear leaves. Life remains, quietly defiant.

That is where I find myself now. A veteran of classrooms and corridors. Of assemblies and parent meetings. Of tests and retests and policies that come like storms and vanish like morning mist. I have become the old oak.

As Albert Camus once wrote, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” I have needed that truth. Because there are winters in this profession—long ones. Moments when you question if you are doing more harm than good by staying. Moments when the temptation to uproot yourself becomes nearly unbearable. But still, I remain.

The early years were about growth. Now, I see my role differently. I am no longer stretching upward—I am holding the line. I am the one who remembers. The one who warns. The one who steadies. I do not bloom as often, but I carry seeds. I offer shelter in small ways. A quiet word. A hand on a shoulder. A look that says, I see you—and I know.

Wendell Berry once said, “The teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” I understand that now. The fruit of my labor is not seen in applause or acknowledgment. It is in the way a student later faces the world—how they write, how they speak, how they choose to keep going when it would be easier to quit. That is the unseen forest I help grow.

And still, I remain.

Friedrich’s oak is not majestic in the classical sense. It is not symmetrical or lush. But it holds the history of wind. It knows the weight of years. It is a place where sheep gather for shade. It is a fixed point in a landscape that is always shifting. In that, there is sacredness.

Thomas Merton once wrote, “There is in all visible things… a hidden wholeness.” The veteran oak may be scarred, but it is whole. So, too, am I. I carry my wounds with me—years when students left midyear without warning, funerals I attended for boys not old enough to shave, battles with bureaucracy that left me exhausted and unseen. And still—I show up. I open the door. I teach.

Because maybe now it’s not about becoming something. Maybe it’s about being—being someone others can trust, someone who remains rooted when everything else feels transient. Maybe the goal is not to thrive, but to endure with grace.

I may no longer be the forest’s pride, but I am its memory. Its persistence. Its whisper of continuity.

Let the winds blow. Let the storms come. The oak still stands.

So do I.

I:III:II: The Winter Mass

II: The Midnight Mass

Snow had fallen twice since Martinmas, but not yet with conviction. It clung stubbornly in hollows and along the shaded eaves of the gatehouse, white as ash but thin as a monk’s worn robe. The air on Christmas Eve was damp and sharp, heavy with the scent of cold pine and distant hearthfires. Smoke drifted low across the fields like a pilgrim's prayer, caught between earth and sky. From the high watch at the gatehouse, Halward surveyed the scene with a soldier's detachment.

Carpenters from Nottingham labored under the bleached gray sky, their cheeks raw from the wind, their hands cracked despite rough woolen gloves. Timber groaned as beams were hoisted into place. Ropes strained against pulleys. The steady rhythm of hammers filled the morning, each strike reverberating off stone walls like the slow toll of a monastery bell. It was the most life Woodgate had seen in years.

For the first time in many seasons, the barracks roof gleamed with new thatch. The kitchen door no longer hung crooked on one hinge, and even the goat shed boasted a new crossbeam. All of it paid for by the new tolls — a tax not only on goods but on movement itself. Names were written down, papers inspected, tolls collected. Travelers without writs were turned back into the forest. Those without coin vanished into the mist. The gate, once a silent witness to passage and prayer, had become a sieve.

Halward noted each repair with a careful, spare hand in the ledger. He said little to the workers, though he heard their muttered conversations: about rising levies, about coins weighed thinner each year, about forest shadows that grew heavier with each season. One carpenter joked that Woodgate looked more like a grave marker than a fort. Another said it was a place that seemed to watch the past more keenly than the road ahead. Halward made no reply. Let them talk. The work was sound.

Wilmot, for his part, threw himself into the day’s labors with boyish enthusiasm. His boots, too large and poorly laced, were soon soaked and caked with mud. Flour from the morning’s bread still powdered his cheeks, and his hair stuck out at impossible angles. Yet there was a grace in his energy, an unpolished devotion. He fetched hammers, hoisted pails of nails, and tripped only twice. Arrow, the raven, flitted after him from rafter to post, the healed wing permitting short, uncertain flights. In the thin light, Arrow’s black feathers shimmered like ink stirred through water.

By midday, Oswin emerged from Saint Hubert’s Chapel, his mantle pulled close against the biting wind. His beard was frosted at the edges, and his walking stick thudded softly against the packed earth. He surveyed the bustle with a wry eye.

"That ladder," he said, pointing to a crooked scaffold lashed against the stable, "is more liability than aid. You’ll have a monk’s back before you’re thirty, boy."

Wilmot grinned through chattering teeth. "I’m stronger than I look, Os."

"Then learn to lift with your legs, not your pride."

Halward, hearing the exchange, closed the ledger with a decisive snap. "Enough," he called. "It’s Christmas Eve. The work is done."

One of the carpenters, a bald man with blue-stained fingers, leaned against his mallet and squinted at him. "You’ll hold Mass here?"

"If a priest crosses our path," Halward said. "And if Providence is kind."

As if summoned by the jest, a lone rider crested the bend beyond the gate. His pace was steady, neither hurried nor hesitant. His cloak was monastic black, dulled by road-dust and ash, the hem frayed from countless miles. A battered staff was slung across his back, and a satchel hung at his side. The hood was drawn low, shadowing his face against the gathering gloom. Yet the gate swung inward of its own accord, slow and solemn, as though recognizing the weight of his purpose.

Halward descended from the watch and approached the traveler with measured steps.

"Name and business?" he asked.

"Aelered," the man replied, voice low and calm. "Benedictine. From Rufford, by way of Blyth Priory. I seek passage to Nottingham."

Oswin came forward, studying the man with narrowed eyes. "You carry the road’s dust and something more."

The monk lowered his hood, revealing a face weathered by the long road but suffused with a quiet certainty. "I had a dream," he said simply. "A gate flanked by ash trees and crowned in frost. Beyond it, a chapel lit by the breath of a stag."

At those words, Oswin’s face changed. He stepped forward, arms open in solemn welcome. "Then you have found the place you sought. This is Woodgate. And there," he nodded toward the chapel half veiled by mist, "stands the house you saw."

Father Aelered inclined his head, humility plain. "Then Providence has led me rightly."

"Will you stay?" Oswin asked.

"If there is need, and if I am welcome," the monk answered.

"You are both," Oswin said, the words carrying the weight of ceremony. "And if your strength allows, will you celebrate the Mass tonight? Christmas Mass."

The corners of Aelered’s mouth lifted in a smile—not broad, but luminous with quiet joy. "Gladly."

Oswin turned to the assembled workers. "The day is done. Your hands have honored the season well. Go home now to your hearths and families."

The carpenters gathered their tools with murmured thanks and disappeared down the forest road, their breath steaming like incense in the cold air. Snow began to fall—not a blizzard, but a steady sifting, fine as sifted flour, covering the tracks of men and beast alike.

Wilmot swept the path to the chapel clean twice over, though the snow reclaimed it almost immediately. Arrow perched atop the lantern post near the gate, his head tucked beneath one wing, dreaming perhaps of farther skies.

Halward stood at the threshold of the gatehouse, hands clasped behind his back, watching the final preparations unfold. The world seemed to hold its breath, balanced on the edge of something unseen. In the gathering dusk, Woodgate was cloaked anew, not in decay or duty, but in expectancy—as if it too awaited the arrival of something sacred.

By the time the last nail was hammered, the last broom set aside, and the last shadow stretched long against the stone, all was ready.

***

The snow had ceased by the ninth hour, and by midnight, the sky had opened above Sherwood with a clarity rare even in the dead of winter. Stars glittered like spilled salt on dark velvet, and the air held a sacred stillness, a silence so profound it seemed that the whole earth held its breath. The trees stood as frozen sentinels, their limbs crusted in hoarfrost, and between them glimmered the faint, welcoming light of Saint Hubert’s Chapel, its humble windows casting fractured halos upon the packed snow.

Inside, Oswin moved with solemn purpose, lighting each taper with a flame borne from a single enduring coal saved from the chapel hearth. Each candle he touched sprang to life with a breath of golden light, a quiet testimony against the vast and creeping darkness. The mingled scents of beeswax, pine resin, and rosemary steeped the air until the chapel seemed less a place of stone and timber than a living prayer.

Father Aelered stood before the altar, arranging the sacred vessels with a careful, almost reverent precision—the paten, the chalice, the folded linen. His whispered prayers, half-heard, braided Latin invocations with the deeper silence, weaving an unseen tapestry of hope. He wore a plain black cloak beneath his vestments, the mark of a Benedictine brother who had walked many hard miles to arrive here.

Outside, Halward made his slow, deliberate rounds. His boots left shallow prints in the snow, and his breath rose in measured clouds. His hand rested near the hilt of his sword, though more in devotion than in readiness; here, the watch was not against men, but against despair. He moved with the ritualized grace of a guardian between worlds.

Wilmot, wrapped in a patched cloak two sizes too large, swept the last stubborn dustings of snow from the chapel’s threshold. Each breath he exhaled shimmered and vanished, as fleeting as a whispered Amen. Above him, Arrow perched in the crook of the chapel arch, a black sentinel against the stars, his dark eyes gleaming with strange intelligence, as if already sensing the holiness gathering around them.

And then they came.

From the winding forest paths, from hollows and ruined cottages, from camps hidden beneath ancient oaks, the folk of Sherwood gathered. They came not in great number but with great purpose: a bent widow clutching a rosary of worn wood, two soot-stained boys whose thin arms clung together in brotherhood, a tinker whose hands bore the scars of countless winters, a midwife bearing a satchel of dried herbs, a woodsman draped in a patched cloak the color of moss, a veiled woman moving with unnatural grace, a limping veteran who leaned on a staff marked with carved prayers.

And among them, unnoticed save by Wilmot’s fleeting glance, walked a tall man in a plain gray cloak, whose step stirred neither snow nor sound, whose face, when glimpsed, seemed alight with a glow not born of stars or fire.

They entered the chapel without ceremony, crossing themselves or bowing their heads, their movements whispering old, half-remembered devotions. They filled the benches and the stones before the altar, some kneeling, others simply sitting in patient expectation. It was a congregation of the poor, the broken, the forsaken—those to whom heaven still bent low to touch.

When the last had entered and settled, Oswin pulled shut the heavy chapel doors, and the night was sealed out.

Father Aelered approached the altar and raised his hands. His voice, soft yet strong, filled the space: "Dominus vobiscum."

A murmur rose in answer: "Et cum spiritu tuo."

The Kyrie followed, a ripple of entreaty among the assembled:

"Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison."

The words hung in the air, joined by the flutter of candlelight against ancient stone. Then, lifting their hearts, they sang—though many barely knew the words, though many mouths moved in silence—the Gloria:

"Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Laudamus te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te..."

The hymn rose in stumbling beauty, a patchwork of sound stitched together by longing and the deep ache for joy.

At the peak of the Gloria, as if stirred by a signal only he could hear, Arrow stirred from his perch. With a sudden lift of his dark wings, he took flight, circling once around the rafters of the chapel. His shadow passed across the faces of the gathered, and none cried out; instead, they lowered their heads, as if recognizing a blessing moving among them. The black shape of the raven cut a single, slow arc through the flickering candlelight and returned to rest above the door, silent and still.

The people exhaled together, a breathless hush falling over the chapel.

Oswin stepped forward with a worn Psalter, his voice rough but resonant as he read from the appointed psalm for the Nativity:

"Cantate Domino canticum novum; cantate Domino, omnis terra. Annuntiate de die in diem salutare eius."

The words, though many did not grasp their fullness, settled into the bones of those gathered, a lullaby as old as the stones.

Father Aelered then opened the Gospel and began to read, the Latin flowing like a slow river:

"Et pastores erant in regione eadem vigilantes et custodientes vigilias noctis super gregem suum..."

The story of the shepherds' vigil, the angel’s song, the infant in the manger, unfurled like a woven tapestry before them.

When he finished, he closed the Gospel with reverence and lifted his eyes to those before him.

"This night," Father Aelered said, his English plain and deliberate, "an angel spoke to shepherds—to men who owned little but their cloaks. To men forgotten by kings and priests alike. Yet it was to them the tidings were given: 'Fear not; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy.'"

He let the words settle.

"Christ was born not among silk and gold but in a manger, among beasts, beneath a roof of rough timber. His first breath was drawn not in a throne room, but beneath the watching eyes of ox and ass."

He swept his gaze gently across the gathered—the laborers, the widows, the forsaken.

"You who labor beneath the yoke of seasons and sorrow—you are nearer to that manger than any lord. You who know the long nights, the hunger of hope. You are the ones to whom the angels still sing."

His voice dropped, rich with feeling.

"So tonight we keep watch—not with arms, but with hearts. Not for kings, but for the Light that is come into the world. And even here, between stone and tree, the Christ is born anew."

The silence that followed was deep and whole.

Then came the Offertory.

Father Aelered lifted the paten and the chalice.

"Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam panis, sicut benedixisti quinque panes in deserto..."

He raised the bread.

"Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam vini, quam ex vite processisse dignatus es..."

He raised the wine.

The Sanctus followed, low and trembling:

"Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua."

Then came the Pater Noster.

"Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum..."

Few spoke it aloud, but all felt its weight.

Bread was consecrated, and wine was blessed upon the altar. As was customary in such humble gatherings, only Father Aelered partook of the Sacrament, consuming the bread and wine with solemn reverence. The gathered folk, though they did not receive, watched with yearning eyes—not out of exclusion, but out of reverence—for to see the Eucharist raised and blessed was to touch, however distantly, the mystery of the Incarnation they had come to honor.

The final blessing fell like a benediction of snow.

"Ite, missa est."

The people rose and departed, some leaving behind tokens: a sprig of holly, a carved bit of bone, a rough wooden coin.

Halward waited at the gate. As Wilmot passed, Halward touched his shoulder and handed him a leather-wrapped bundle.

Wilmot unwrapped it to find a small Book of Hours, worn by countless hands. Within the cover, Halward had written:

"Dominus custodit introitum tuum et exitum tuum."

Wilmot blinked down at the words.

"I can’t read all of it," he murmured.

"You will," Halward said. "The prayers keep watch, as we must."

Oswin called from the doorway, his voice low and sure.

"Come, lad. The fire still waits."

Arrow descended, his wings brushing the air like a whispered Amen, and settled on Wilmot’s shoulder.

Together they stepped back into the chapel's glow, bearing the fragile, burning light of hope.

And beyond them, unseen but surely present, an angel watched and kept his ancient vigil.

I:III:I: The Summons

I: The Summons

December 18, 1200

The frost still clung to the earth like a second skin when the courier reached Woodgate. His horse—a pale-coated destrier, now grey with sweat and flecks of frozen foam—stumbled to a halt with a desperate wheeze, steam pouring from its nostrils in heavy clouds. The animal looked as though it had been pushed to the brink of collapse, and perhaps beyond. The rider, swaddled in the black-and-gold livery of Nottingham, bore the lean, wary posture of a man who had ridden all morning in the cold. His cloak was torn at the hem, rimed with ice, and his gloved hands trembled slightly as he dismounted.

He did not bother to announce himself with ceremony. The city had no need for pleasantries at the forest's edge. This was Woodgate—threshold of the wild, last outpost before the trees claimed dominion. Formalities mattered little here.

Halward emerged from the gatehouse as the first light of morning began to unfurl across the sky in muted bands of ash and rose. His gait was steady, purposeful, but his face betrayed nothing—no surprise, no concern, not even curiosity. His boots pressed into the frost-bitten grass with the quiet authority of someone long accustomed to being summoned, but rarely consulted.

"For the Warden of Woodgate," the courier said, voice clipped from cold and exhaustion. He unbuckled a leather pouch from his saddle and extended it without flourish. "By command of Sir Bertram de Gorse, acting in place of the Sheriff of Nottingham."

Halward took the pouch without a word. He broke the seal—a heavy stamp of red wax, bearing the unmistakable hawk of Nottingham—with his thumb. Inside was a single parchment, neatly folded and smudged at the creases, bearing a message penned in the tight, precise hand of the Sheriff’s office:

The Sheriff has been summoned to Winchester to attend His Majesty’s Christmas Court. Effective immediately, Sir Bertram de Gorse assumes command in his absence. The Warden of Woodgate is to appear before the city council in Nottingham before the third bell. Matters of taxation, staffing, and station to be discussed. All ledgers must be presented in full.

There was no personal sign-off, no gesture of courtesy or favor. Only the hawk pressed into the wax, wings outstretched in silent judgment.

Halward read the message twice. Not because it was unclear, but because it demanded to be weighed—not just understood. He folded the parchment again with deliberate care and looked toward the chapel, where a thin trail of smoke curled from the flue, faint against the gray morning. Oswin would be inside by now, preparing the first prayers. A steady hand in an unsteady time. Wilmot, if not still abed, was likely somewhere near the stable, half-dressed and wholly behind in his chores.

Halward did not sigh. He did not frown. But something behind his eyes settled into a colder stillness.

"How long do I have?" he asked, his gaze still fixed on the horizon.

The courier, shifting to warm his gloved hands, replied, "If you leave now, you’ll arrive before the second bell. The city’s slower in winter, but Bertram keeps tight time."

Then, with a note of insolence disguised as humor: "You’ll be taking the donkey cart, I presume?"

Halward turned to face him fully. The silence that followed was sharp enough to shear the air. The courier flinched before the reply ever came, realizing too late the line he had crossed.

He cleared his throat, swung himself back into the saddle with stiff effort, and turned his mount. In another breath, he was gone—hoofbeats fading into the brittle hush of dawn.

Halward lingered in place for several minutes, alone save for the stirring wind. The trees that lined the lane beyond the chapel whispered faintly, their bare limbs creaking like old hinges. He listened—not for guidance, but for affirmation. The gate had stood long before him, and it would stand after. But while he drew breath, he would not see it pass quietly into ruin.

He turned toward the gatehouse. His breath hung briefly in the air, then vanished.

"Wilmot," he called, voice firm but low. "Fetch my travel cloak. I'm leaving for Nottingham."

Wilmot appeared moments later, rubbing sleep from his eyes, boots half-laced. Halward stood at the threshold of the gatehouse, fastening the heavy wool cloak across his shoulders with practiced efficiency. It was old but well-kept, dyed the deep gray of weathered stone.

"Not the cart?" Wil asked, glancing toward the stables.

Halward shook his head. "I’ll walk. Let the beast rest."

He adjusted the clasp beneath his chin and took up the satchel where the ledgers were kept. The frost creaked under his boots as he stepped into the morning.

"Tell Oswin to keep the gate. I’ll be back before dusk—if the council keeps their tongues short."

***

The streets of Nottingham exhaled smoke and breath as Halward stepped through the East Gate, the city rousing under a shroud of winter fog. It rolled low over the cobbles, hugging the alleys like a second skin of ash and bone. Light filtered through the milky sky, tinging the buildings with a bruised, uncertain hue. The city looked less like a seat of power and more like a creature waking slowly from its dreams of conquest.

Chimneys belched gray columns into the morning air. The smell of soot and offal mixed with the copper tang of iron and damp stone. Carts creaked under the weight of salted meats, rough sacks of barley, and kindling bundled in twine. Horses picked their way through the slush-rutted lanes while vendors shouted into the fog, their calls muffled and sharp. A beggar clanged his cup against the wall of a shuttered inn, while a fishmonger cursed the price of salt.

Halward walked with the resolve of a man who had known colder mornings than this. His cloak, worn but tightly drawn, snapped in the breeze. His breath steamed like incense from a censer. The forest had its own chill, deep and lingering, but city cold struck faster—an eager blade, not a slow grip.

As he passed through the city gate, a small crowd of idling townsfolk paused their murmuring to take note of him. A few chuckled darkly. "Forest ghost," one muttered. "Coinless keeper," another spat with a sneer. One man hawked and spat near his boots but dared not meet his eyes. Yet not all were so dismissive. An older woman at a bread stall lifted two fingers to her brow and nodded in solemn respect. A boy crouched beside a mule cart whispered to his father, who gave Halward the briefest bow.

From a food vendor's cart near the wall came an unexpected offering. A man, wrapped in patchwork wool and smelling of firewood and yeast, extended a crust of fresh bread and a small clay cup. "For the Warden," he said. His voice was rough, but there was no irony in it.

Halward paused, accepting the gifts with a nod. "Your kindness honors the gate."

He ate as he walked, the bread still warm despite the cold, the crust cracking beneath his teeth. The ale was thin, spiced with something vaguely herbal, its bitterness warming the back of his throat. It did not ease the burden of the day ahead, but it anchored him. A small ritual of grace, brief and grounding. For a moment, the sneers and mutterings at the gate faded. He walked as one remembered, if not revered.

The city grew louder as he neared the square. More boots. More shouts. A bell rang distantly, its voice swallowed by rooftops. Nottingham was not a city that welcomed the weary; it tolerated them for as long as they paid. The market buzzed with rising tension—the sort that foreshadowed tax levies, conscriptions, or worse. The air seemed thick not with frost, but with anticipation and unrest.

He reached the council hall just before the third bell. The structure loomed over the square like an old vulture perched on the spine of the city. Frost clung to its heavy stone lintels, and the red hawk of Nottingham hung limp on a banner stiff with frozen dew. Two guards stood beneath the arch, saying nothing as Halward passed. Inside, warmth and authority mingled poorly. Fires smoldered in iron grates, but their heat was thin against the stone walls. The hall smelled faintly of ink, sweat, and soot.

Five wardens sat or stood along the perimeter of the hall, each bearing the badge of their respective city gates—East, West, North, South, and Castle Gate. Their cloaks bore civic colors, their boots were caked in road mud or polished with bureaucratic sheen. Ledgers rested on knees or beneath arms, like shields made of parchment and ink. One drummed his fingers absently on a brass buckle; another whispered to a scribe standing behind him.

Halward, the only warden not of the city, stood apart. No token of civic allegiance marked his cloak, only the quiet austerity of his bearing. The others glanced at him with a mix of curiosity and dismissiveness, as though a woodsman had wandered into a council meant for order and stone. He belonged to another world, one that answered to roots and relics, not tariffs and treaties.

Some gave him a short nod; others offered only silence. No one welcomed him outright. Woodgate was not part of the city—only tolerated, barely remembered until it inconvenienced the crown. His presence served as a reminder of something older, something the others preferred to forget.

They were waiting for Bertram. Though the summons had been issued under the guise of policy and coordination, the purpose was clear to anyone who understood power: this meeting was orchestrated for spectacle. Bertram had called the wardens not to inform, but to assert. More precisely, to remind them—and especially Halward—that with the Sheriff gone to Winchester, authority now had a new face and a sharper edge.

The presence of Halward, lone Warden of the forest threshold, served as both contrast and target. He was not one of them—not molded by ledgers or trained in the court’s etiquette. His presence among the civic wardens was an old tradition allowed to linger, and Bertram had come to shame it.

He made them wait longer.

When Bertram entered, it was not with the pomp of the Sheriff, but with something colder—efficient, unbothered, and sharpened. He moved without haste, flanked by no heralds, his boots hard against the flagstones. The black leather of his gloves creaked as he placed a ledger on the table in front of him. He did not acknowledge the others immediately, instead opening the volume and running a gloved finger down its spine.

"Sheriff de Braose rides to Winchester," he said, eyes fixed on the page. "The King expects tribute. Nottingham will meet that expectation."

He did not raise his voice, but the hall quieted further, as if the stones themselves were listening.

"Tolls shall be doubled through Epiphany. Weekly reports are now required. Every gate shall maintain a rotating patrol by the first full moon of the new year. Forest routes will be monitored, tokens verified, and all irregularities recorded."

A low murmur rippled through the men. One of the western wardens muttered something under his breath. Bertram looked up sharply, and the room fell silent once more.

Then, with the precision of a drawn blade: "All gates outside the city are to be garrisoned. Patrols will enforce forest law within the bounds of the King's Wood. Each Warden shall submit regular reports—accurate, complete, and timely."

He let the pause stretch, then added, "Tolls will be doubled. No exceptions."

Bertram's eyes settled squarely on Halward. "And at Woodgate," he said, his tone firm and deliberate, "only the King's coin shall be accepted. Tokens, barter, forest scrip—they hold no weight here. Not anymore."

The statement landed like a hammer in the hall. A quiet rumble of unease stirred again, quickly quelled. A few wardens exchanged glances, but no one spoke.

"Woodgate will remain a gate—for now. But let no one mistake it for sacred. It is an asset, and its records shall reflect that. Warden Halward, you will oversee a standing rotation of four men. Provisions will be accounted through the quartermaster. Failures of discipline—yours or theirs—will reflect poorly."

Halward stood without shifting his weight. He gave a shallow nod—neither agreement nor deference, but acknowledgment. He would not play the game, but he would show he understood the stakes.

Bertram paused, his gaze lingering on Halward longer than on any other. There was something measured in it—not malice, but calculation. Respect threaded through it, if only faintly.

"You’ve walked long enough between the trees, Warden," he said, voice quieter but no less sharp. "This hooded bandit who troubles our roads—he mocks the crown and disrupts the King’s Wood. You will find him. And you will deliver him the King's justice."

It was not a request. It was trust, weaponized. A soldier’s task, handed from one veteran to another.

Bertram closed the ledger with a clean snap of vellum and wood.

"This council is dismissed. May your gates remain shut to trouble, and open to coin."

The men began to disperse, boots echoing across stone and slush. Halward lingered a moment longer, casting one final glance at Bertram. The acting Sheriff did not look up.

Halward turned, cloak swaying behind him, and walked back into the cold.

***

Halward remained in the city longer than intended. Before departing, he entered a small shop nestled in the shadows of the cathedral quarter, where he exchanged Bertram's silver ring for a modest Book of Hours—its pages faded, but lovingly preserved. A gift for Wilmot.

As he emerged from the shop, snow beginning to feather the stones, a courier approached. The man bore the livery of Wexley and handed Halward a sealed envelope—gold wax impressed with the sigil of a wexleaf and lark.

"The Lady requests an audience," the courier said.

Halward turned the letter over in his hands. It was heavier than it looked.

"When?"

"She names the Feast of St. Thomas Becket—four days hence—as the time. Before the twenty-ninth."

Without another word, the man turned back into the fog and disappeared into the pressing white.

Halward did not open the letter. He tucked it into his coat and began the long walk back to Woodgate, the book secured beneath his arm, the weight of the seal heavier than coin.

***

The wind had shifted by the time Halward returned to Woodgate. It blew hard from the north now, sharp as a whetted blade, carrying the scent of snow and distant smoke. His boots crunched across frost-laced ground as he passed beneath the stone arch, his cloak stiff with cold and travel. Oswin was tending to the chapel steps, a broom in one hand, his hood drawn up against the gusts.

Halward gave a short nod as he passed. "The orders are given."

Oswin looked up, eyes narrowing beneath the hood. "Well, then? What did the city want this time?"

Halward exhaled through his nose, breath ghosting in the cold. "A doubling of the tolls. A patrol of four men stationed here by the new year. Ledgers to be submitted weekly. And no more forest tokens—only the King's coin."

Oswin leaned on the broom like a staff. "They mean to make you a clerk. Or a jailer."

"Both, perhaps," Halward said. "Or neither. They mean to make this place theirs."

"Did you speak against it?"

"What would it matter if I had? Bertram calls it obedience. I call it erosion."

Oswin grunted. "And mercy?"

Halward’s eyes turned toward the chapel. "Not among the orders."

In the yard, Wilmot and Arrow were mending the canvas cover of the cart. The boy looked up, blinking against the light, and jogged over.

"Did they say anything about—"

"Yes," Halward interrupted gently. "We’ll host a patrol come the new year. Four men. Maybe five. You and Oswin need to clear the stables. Prepare bunks in the barracks."

Wilmot opened his mouth, hesitated, then nodded. "Will they stay through winter?"

"Long enough to make themselves known."

Halward brushed past him and made his way toward the storeroom, the Book of Hours still tucked under his cloak and the sealed letter pressing like a stone against his ribs.

***

The wind clawed against the gatehouse shutters like an animal shut out in the dark. Inside, the fire had burned low. A single candle flickered atop the desk, its wax pooling against a chipped ceramic plate. Halward sat with his back to the room, the coat still drawn around his shoulders, the sealed letter resting on the table before him.

He had placed it there almost an hour ago, the wax untouched. The golden seal caught the candlelight with a soft gleam—the lark and wexleaf of Lady Aveline, unmistakable and unbroken.

Nearby, the Book of Hours sat atop a folded cloth. He had opened it once earlier in the evening, if only to read the first line aloud. The Latin still rested uneasily on his tongue, familiar but distant, like the echo of a prayer he no longer believed would be answered.

He reached for the envelope now and broke the seal.

The letter within was penned in a practiced, graceful hand:

Warden Halward,

I write not as a noblewoman, but as one who has known loss, loyalty, and duty. I have heard rumor of a summons to Nottingham, and though the details remain unclear, I fear what may be set in motion. If Bertram has taken the reins, then I suspect the meeting was not for coordination—but for command.

I believe you understand what is being shaped—and who stands to be caught beneath it.

There are murmurs from the wood. Of movement. Of signs not seen in years. Of a token found with markings long thought buried. I will not name it, but I know you have seen it. You understand what it means—or will soon enough.

I have requested this audience not to warn, but to remind. We are stewards of thresholds. The weight of that title has not diminished, even if the world pretends otherwise.

I will come to you on the Feast of Saint Thomas Becket. I wish to see the boy, and to speak with you plainly. I suspect you have seen signs—tokens of a past neither of us buried deeply enough. If what I fear is true, then our roles are not yet finished. I need your eyes on what mine cannot reach.

—Lady Aveline of Wexley

Halward read the letter twice. Then he set it down, staring at the curling edge of the parchment as if it might unfurl further, reveal some hidden postscript.

He thought of Bertram’s words, of the patrol soon to arrive. He thought of the boy asleep beside a dying fire and the book bought with a ring forged in mockery. He thought of the token buried beneath the cedar roots, and how the forest had not returned it by accident.

He did not want this. Not the politics, not the danger, not the weight of old symbols stirring in the dark. But wanting was irrelevant.

He was the Warden.

And the gate did not choose its watcher.

Halward rose, folded the letter, and placed it inside the drawer beneath his desk.

Then he stirred the fire, added one more log, and returned to his chair. The candle flickered. The wind howled.

And Halward kept his watch.

After a long moment, he reached again for the Book of Hours. The leather binding creaked softly as he opened to the night prayers—Compline. He found the familiar lines, the ones that had once steadied his breath in the far deserts beyond Acre.

His voice was low, reverent, but unwavering:

"In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum: redemisti me, Domine, Deus veritatis."

Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth.

The Latin was coarse on his tongue, but the cadence returned with memory. He closed the book gently, let his hand rest on the cover.

Outside, the trees groaned softly in the wind.

Within, the Warden prayed in silence.

The A's

Dear journal, 

A few weeks ago, my mom sent me a picture. Just a small thing at first—an old photo, a forgotten afternoon. But when I opened it, it was like a door swinging wide. There I was, maybe nine or ten years old, standing with my dad and my brother inside Busch Memorial Stadium.

The stadium feels almost mythic in my memory now—the red seats stretching up and up like a mountain range, the soft light filtering through the arches of the upper deck, and the field below, impossibly green. It was one of those sticky, heavy days that only a Midwestern summer can offer, the kind where you wear the heat like a second shirt.

I don’t remember who the Cardinals were playing that day, but I remember why we were there: to see The Wizard, Ozzie Smith. Ozzie was everything to a kid like me—a magician with a glove, a master of the impossible. He made the infield look like a stage, every ground ball an invitation to astonish.

But looking at that photo, it wasn’t just Ozzie that came rushing back. It was all of it—the years of baseball cards spread across the living room floor, the crinkle of foil packs being opened with more reverence than some people give to Christmas gifts. George Brett. Bo Jackson. Frank White. Ken Griffey Jr. And then there was Mark McGwire, still a young lion with the Oakland A’s, long before the bright lights and broken records in St. Louis.

I loved McGwire before the rest of the world did. Before the fame got so loud you could barely hear the crack of the bat anymore. Back then, he was just raw power and possibility, a towering figure in the green and gold. I wore his team’s colors proudly, even standing in the middle of Cardinals country. In that photo, I'm in my A’s cap and shirt, defiantly loyal to my guy.

The cards are long gone now—lost to the tides of growing up, moving houses, the silent hands of time. But the memories haven't scattered. If anything, they’ve been pressed even deeper, like old cards tucked between the pages of a book.

Baseball was never just about any one team for me, though the Royals have always claimed the lion’s share of my loyalty. It was about the players, about the art and the architecture of the game itself—the slow stretching out of a season, the long silences between pitches that feel like a held breath. It was about belonging to something that felt bigger than the place you were born.

Maybe that's why, even today, whenever I visit a new ballpark, I always buy the home team’s hat. It's my small way of saying: I'm part of this, even if just for a day. Every cap carries a memory, a game, a summer evening where anything seemed possible.

That old photo stirred something deeper than I expected. It sent me searching—not for baseball cards, but for something more stubbornly physical. I needed that hat again. The A’s hat. That exact green crown and yellow bill that somehow made me feel taller, braver, closer to the game itself.

After some digging, a few dead ends, and twenty bucks on eBay, I found it. When it arrived, it was like shaking hands with an old friend. I put it on right away. It fits differently now, of course—the boy in the picture has grown into a man, with a beard and a few more lines at the edges of his eyes—but somehow, putting it on, I felt like I hadn’t changed at all.

That’s the magic of these small things we carry through life: they remind us of who we were, yes, but also of who we still are beneath the layers we’ve built.

The stadiums change. The players retire. The baseball cards yellow and crack. But the love of the game, and the simple, stubborn joy of it—that stays.

Always, 

Dave 

Chapter III: The Seal of Lady Avaline

 

Currently Reading: The Icknield Way

Dans les Oliviers à Capri (1878)

Tonight, Capri and Sargent pull me back. In my mind, Capri Girl remains — my idolized woman, my unreachable beloved. I return to her not as a painter, not even as a man — but as something more desperate, more tender: a star-crossed lover. She exists only in my mind. I think of her; she cannot think of me.

In her, I have poured a lifetime of unspent love — love that, like water spilled into the olive grove, may nourish the ancient trees but will never reach her lips, never cool her head, never rush laughing through her hair.

And so it is tonight, standing again in imagination under the olive trees of Capri, that I encounter her quieter sister — the girl of Dans les Oliviers à Capri. She does not dance. She leans, as if already carrying the sweet burden of all the loves and longings that will never reach her.

At the same time, my thoughts drift — not only to the grove, but to Paris. To Sargent himself, young, ambitious, already brilliant, trying to find his place among the salons and studios of the city. The Met’s Sargent and Paris exhibition reminds me: in the late 1870s and early 1880s, Sargent was restless with possibility. He studied under Carolus-Duran, learning to paint with boldness, fluidity, daring brushwork that defied the meticulous finish the academies expected. He painted his friends, his fellow artists, even his lovers, in a flurry of movement and light. There was always a seeking in him — a desire to capture not just likeness, but life itself. And then, of course, there was Madame X.

In 1884, he unveiled his portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau — beautiful, aloof, self-possessed. In her, Sargent tried to distill something both eternal and immediate: a goddess of Parisian modernity. But Paris was not ready. The portrait, with its scandalous strap slipping off her shoulder, was met not with admiration, but outrage. The city that had trained him, that had taught him to dare, now recoiled from the audacity of his vision.

Perhaps Sargent learned then what Rilke later wrote: "For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror." To see clearly, to reveal too much, is often to be cast out. And so, wounded but undeterred, Sargent left Paris behind.

Yet he did not abandon beauty. He carried it with him — into the portraits of English aristocrats, into the watery light of Venice, into the quiet studies of readers and dancers and olive trees. He carried it like a pilgrim carries a relic: not for others’ acclaim, but to keep something sacred alive within himself.

There is something of that exile in Dans les Oliviers à Capri. The girl stands apart, neither glorified nor pitied. She is simply present — beautiful, unreachable, necessary. She belongs to the grove, not to the watcher.

Standing here, tonight, I feel a strange kinship with Sargent. We are both watchers. Both lovers of something that cannot be ours. Both pouring out our love into the roots of ancient trees, knowing it may never be returned, and loving anyway.

Maybe that is the true triumph. Not acclaim. Not belonging. Not even being remembered. As T.S. Eliot wrote: "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

I:II:IV: The Oak Grove

IV: The Oak Grove

The forest gave no greeting as Wilmot crested the rise. Only the sigh of wind through brittle limbs marked his return. Clover trod beside him, patient and unhurried, the cart behind them shifting with the soft clatter of oil tins, salted meat, and fresh-cut rope. The road, empty now, bore the hush of late autumn, and the trees stood like sentries on either side, tall and grave, watching with eyes made of bark and shadow.

Wilmot had walked half the day with little more than the donkey for company, and his boots were caked with the damp breath of the forest. He was tired, though he would not show it—not here, not now. He tightened his grip on Clover's lead and inhaled the scent of pine needles and smoke still clinging faintly to his cloak. The city had not left him; it merely followed at a distance.

At the gate, Halward waited. His helm rested on the bench beside him, the iron catching the dusk light like a slivered moon. He stood still as a carved idol, one hand on the ledger, the other at his side. He did not speak, but Wil saw the slight incline of his head as they approached—a ritual of reception more ancient than speech.

Wil halted the cart and lowered the gate's latch with care. He stood straight, though his shoulders ached. “Everything you asked,” he offered, his voice rough with road-dust. “And something from Bertram.”

He reached into the side pouch of his cloak and withdrew a velvet-wrapped bundle that had been in the cart—a pouch of dark leather tied with a green ribbon. “A message,” Wil added. “And this. He called it ‘fitting.’”

Halward unwrapped the bundle and let the ribbon fall away. Within lay a single silver ring, plain but polished, and a short note, signed with Bertram’s mark: A trifle, for the one still guarding rust. May it fit your finger, if not your post.

Halward’s jaw tensed. He said nothing, but the set of his mouth sharpened like frost on stone. He folded the note once and slipped it into his coat, the gesture slow, deliberate.

Wil stepped back and gestured toward the donkey. “This is Clover. The cart was part of Bertram’s orders. She’s stubborn, but steady. I named her.”

From the path that wound back toward the chapel, Oswin appeared, his walking stick tapping against the stone as he descended toward the gatehouse. The chapel stood a short distance up the hill, its windows lit by fading sun. Oswin moved slowly, but his eyes were alert.

“Well met, Clover,” he said, arriving at last. He reached to pat the donkey’s flank with a warm nod. “You’ve chosen a kind one, at least.”

“She’s clever,” Wil said. “Stopped at the clover patch just past the well. I thought that meant something.”

“Most names do,” Oswin replied. “Whether we know it or not.”

Wil turned back to Halward, fumbling in his cloak. “And this…” He withdrew the fox token, extending it with both hands. “I shouldn’t have taken it. I thought it was just a charm, something to keep. But I know better now. I’m sorry.”

Halward took it without a word. He studied the token—its shape, its weight, the way the wood caught the last rays of light. “You were told not to speak of it.”

“I know,” Wil said, voice low. “But I thought if I could understand it… I might be more like you.”

Halward exhaled slowly, not with anger, but with something wearier. “You’re not meant to be me. And I was never meant to be someone else. You are yourself, Wil. Let that be enough.”

He tucked the token into his belt. “Thank you for your honesty. See that it remains a habit. It may yet keep you well.”

Wil glanced toward the chapel. “Arrow's doing better. I found a thimble for him in the city. Pewter. Small, but it caught my eye. Thought he might like something bright for his nest.”

Before Halward could respond, a gust of wind swept down from the east, cold and sudden, as if drawn from a place older than the trees. Arrow, perched now at the gates edge near the lantern post, stirred sharply, his good wing flaring.

Then the forest changed.

A shadow detached from the trees—not with noise, but with intention. It did not walk so much as move, slipping between the boundary of shape and absence. Wil’s eyes caught it first, and for a moment he froze, his breath caught halfway in his chest.

Oswin turned at the shift in the air. He raised his lantern. “To the chapel. Now.”

Clover stamped once. Arrow let out a guttural croak and flapped his wings. Wil obeyed.

The shadow grew taller as it neared the border of field and wood. It stepped just past the first line of trees, then paused. A torch flared to life in its hand—not bright, but controlled, casting long flickers across the underbrush. Behind the light, a deep green hood obscured the figure’s face entirely. Yet beneath the hood, Wil felt the gaze—a burning, ageless awareness.

The torch rose.

Halward stepped forward. “Halt.”

The figure did not.

“I said halt.”

The torch dipped. A response. Or a challenge.

Halward drew his sword.

Oswin gripped Wil by the shoulder and turned him up the path. “Take the bird. Take the beast. Go.”

Wil resisted for only a second. “Who is it?”

Oswin’s voice lowered. “Go.”

Clover brayed, uneasy. Oswin walked beside them now, leading them up the path toward the chapel. Behind them, the gate creaked, and Oswin turned long enough to drop the iron latch. It fell into place with a dull clunk, a sound that echoed deeper than it should have.

Outside, Halward passed through the threshold.

He was no longer simply Halward. He the Warden of Woodgate. The forest had stirred, and he had answered.

The torch moved—side to side, back and forth. It danced like something testing the edge of firelight and memory. A dare. A signal.

Halward followed.

His sword glinted faintly in the last of the dusk. With steady breath and heart ready, he passed beneath the branches.

Sherwood swallowed him whole.

***

As Halward advanced into the deeper reaches of Sherwood, the path constricted and softened beneath his boots. Each step pressed into a carpet of decaying leaves and moss, the forest’s breath rising in a damp, earthy hush. This was no ordinary woodland. Here, time slowed. Trees leaned inward like listeners at a confessional, their bark gnarled with stories untold. He kept his sword drawn—not from fear, but reverence. This was not the king’s land, nor the domain of men. It was an ancient threshold, consecrated by root and ritual. The old laws slept here, but did not forget.

The torchlight that had guided him vanished without warning, claimed by the boughs. Darkness came not as void, but as presence. Moonlight, pale and uncertain, filtered through the twisted canopy in shards, painting the ground in fragments of silver. The scent of loam and moss soaked the air. Wind moved between the oaks like a monastic chant, slow and purposeful. Even the birds had fallen silent. The hush was not absence. It was vigilance, reverent and complete.

***

Halward stepped into a small glade, the heart of the ancient wood. The earth beneath his boots thrummed with old power. Before him rose the largest oak he had ever seen, a titan of twisted trunk and spiraling limbs that spread like an open hand holding the sky. At its base sat a lone figure, cloaked and hooded, torch resting in hand but unlit. The man raised one hand—not in threat, but invitation. Halward advanced, slowly, across the moss-softened earth.

As he crossed the grove’s threshold, others emerged.

Figures materialized from the shadows, not with speed but with rhythm, like a breath exhaled. One by one they stepped from the margins of the clearing, cloaked in green and brown, their movements as fluid as falling leaves. Their faces were hidden, their hands empty. They made no sound. A dozen, perhaps more, formed a quiet circle around the glade. It was not menace but ritual. They stood as if summoned—not to judge, but to bear witness.

At the grove’s center, beneath the oak whose roots spread like the spines of a great beast, the hooded figure remained seated. The torch rested across his knees, unlit. He wore no armor, carried no sword, yet he held the silence with authority. The folds of his cloak seemed to blend into the moss beneath him. His presence was not announced, but accepted—as if the forest itself had chosen him.

Halward stopped a pace before the encircling men, studied the line of their shoulders, the utter stillness of their vigil. Slowly, he sheathed his sword. The rasp of steel returning to scabbard rang louder than any voice.

“I know when I am not meant to draw first blood,” Halward said, his tone steady.

The hooded man did not move for some time. Then he spoke, his voice quiet, yet weighted, each syllable thick with history.

“The wind speaks to me,” he said. “It told me a boy bore my mark.”

Halward nodded. “He did.”

“Where was it found?”

“Near the old cedar. The one with roots like clenched fists. It was embedded in the earth—not dropped, but placed. Clean. Waiting.”

The man tilted his head slightly. “It was not lost. It was hidden. The fox does not misplace what it buries.”

A silence fell again—dense, listening.

“You kept it,” the man said. “Did you know its meaning?”

“No,” Halward replied. “But I know better now.”

“Then you know it must return.”

“To the boy?”

“Yes. Only to him. The promise belongs to the one who awakens it. You are the bearer, not the keeper.”

Halward narrowed his eyes. “What promise does it hold?”

The man’s voice dropped, slow and deliberate.

“If the boy finds himself in need—not the kind solved by coin or command, but the kind that bends the soul—he must place the token back where it was found. The forest will hear. The wind will stir. But nothing is given freely. The token is not a gift. It is a bond. And every bond must be paid.”

Halward’s voice hardened. “And what payment do you require?”

The circle did not move. Yet something shifted—the weight of air, the scent of the leaves, the gaze of trees.

The man in green rose with a motion like lifting fog. His steps toward Halward were silent, his path unquestioned. Draped over one shoulder was a linen bundle. The moonlight caught its curve—arched, elegant, unmistakably a bow.

He stopped before Halward and offered the bundle with both hands.

“For the boy,” he said. “A bow of yew, seasoned through storm and quiet. Arrows of ash, drawn from the grove’s own boughs. Fletched with silence. Let him learn not how to strike—but when to listen.”

Halward accepted the gift. It was lighter than he expected, yet somehow more solid than any steel. He unwrapped a corner of the cloth—beneath it, the grain of the yew shimmered in the moonlight.

“And the price?” he asked.

The man leaned in, voice a whisper that cut like chime across the bone.

“When the bell rings twice, you will know.”

No more was said.

The man turned. The others vanished. Not in haste, nor in fear—but like breath leaving a room. The forest absorbed them, branch by branch, shadow by shadow.

Halward stood alone.

The great oak loomed behind him. The moon sat high. In his arms, the gift remained.

Only the wind lingered. It offered no words to him.

But Halward knew.

The forest had spoken.

***

The forest did not speak on Halward’s return, yet its silence was not empty. It was contemplative, almost ceremonial—as though the trees, having borne witness to the meeting beneath the oaks, were now engaged in their own quiet conversation. The moss beneath his boots felt softer, the air denser with meaning. Every fern and knotted root now seemed charged with some lingering echo of what had passed. The yew bow in his hand, the quiver across his back—neither burdened him, but both pressed against him with quiet insistence. He bore them not as weapons, but as a message.

His walk back to Woodgate took longer than he remembered. Or perhaps the time bent differently now. The familiar track wove between skeletal branches and ivy-covered trunks, and he passed landmarks made unfamiliar by the weight of his thoughts: a fallen log now looked like an altar, and the hollow beneath the old sycamore whispered with unseen voices. He did not look back. The forest, though quiet, was still listening.

By the time Halward reached the gate, the stars had scattered westward, and the first thread of light brushed the eastern rim of the world. He passed beneath the stone archway without ceremony and made directly for the chapel. The air was crisp, laden with the scent of leaf rot and coming frost.

Oswin was already waiting.

The old man stood beside the chapel door with his lantern raised, as if illuminating not the night, but Halward himself. His eyes, steady and unreadable, caught the glint of the bow.

“You were gone a long while,” he said, voice low but firm.

Halward gave a slow nod. “The forest required more listening than I had prepared to offer.”

Oswin studied him for a moment. “And did it speak?”

Halward stepped inside without answering. The chapel’s interior welcomed him with its usual warmth. The scent of pine, beeswax, and smoke drifted in gentle currents through the quiet room. Wilmot lay curled near the hearth, cloak pulled close, his breathing slow and deep. Arrow perched atop Oswin's staff, one eye open. Clover shifted but did not stir.

Halward approached without sound. He knelt and gently placed the bow beside Wil’s sleeping form. The boy stirred as if sensing something, one hand brushing the yew curve before slipping back into stillness. The bow remained against his side.

Oswin entered behind him, steps careful on the chapel floor. “You brought him a gift,” he said, glancing down.

Halward kept his voice soft. “It’s more than a gift. It’s a covenant. And there will be a cost.”

Oswin’s brow creased. “Then it wasn’t freely given?”

“Nothing in Sherwood is,” Halward replied. “But he offered it willingly. For Wil. The token was never mine to keep.”

The old man looked toward the window, where dawn approached with the slow reverence of liturgy. “You’ve made a bargain, then?”

Halward nodded. “One I don’t yet fully understand. Only that when the bell rings twice, I’ll know what’s required.”

Oswin gave a slow, measured breath. “Ancient pacts don’t clarify themselves until the moment arrives. That is their nature. You’ll be ready.”

Halward stood. “He’ll need guidance. Sooner than we’d hoped.”

“And he’ll have it,” Oswin said. “In the art of the bow. And in other things.”

Halward reached for the latch, then paused. “You should rest. I’ll take the gate.”

But Oswin lifted a hand. “No. Let me keep this watch. You stay. Teach him. Sit with him when he wakes. The questions are coming—slow, quiet ones that take root before they speak.”

Halward didn’t argue. He placed a hand on Oswin’s shoulder, a gesture brief but heavy with shared burden.

Outside, the rim of the sun breached the edge of the world, gilding the treetops with gold.

***

By morning, the dew lay thick on the grass behind the chapel. Wilmot stood barefoot in the glade, the yew bow resting in his palms like an heirloom relic. His breath hung in the chill air. Halward knelt before him, one hand on the bow’s curve, the other guiding the boy’s fingers with the calm precision of an experienced craftsman.

“Not with your grip,” Halward said. “Let the tension pass through you. The bow remembers. You don’t force it—you respond.”

Wil tightened his jaw, adjusted his stance. “It’s like… holding a breath.”

Halward nodded. “And when it’s time to release, you do so without anger. The wood listens. It never forgets.”

They stood there for some time—teacher and student, master and heir—surrounded by the hush of morning. Arrow resting on Hal's shoulder. The world seemed paused in reverence.

From the gatehouse, Oswin sat watch. He was more shadow than man now, still and seated, the hood of his robe drawn against the wind. His eyes did not stray from the road that disappeared into the forest. He watched not for travelers, but for omens.

The forest had spoken.

And now, it watched.

And waited.

Now Showing: Tombstone

#42

Dear journal,

It’s been more than a year since my brother and I stepped through the gates of Kauffman Stadium for the Salute to the Negro Leagues game. That night, the Royals weren’t the Royals. The Astros weren’t the Astros. For a few hours, they became the Kansas City Monarchs and the Houston Eagles, stepping into history under a heavy September sky. The players wore uniforms stitched with memory, and the air felt thick with reverence — not just for baseball, but for everything baseball carries: struggle, hope, pride, and community.

Kansas City is a baseball town in its bones. It always has been. Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, the Monarchs, Buck O'Neil — their stories are in the streets and the fields, in the old brick of 18th and Vine, in the halls of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Buck used to say, "You can't hate a man once you know his story." Sitting beside my brother that night, I felt that truth settle in. Baseball has always meant more to me than just a game. It’s where stories live — passed across generations, bridging divides, stitched together with innings and memory.

Tonight, we found ourselves back again. Different year, same teams. And yet, in my heart, it was still Monarchs and Eagles.

I'd had my eye on a commemorative bat for a long time — something to bring home from one of these nights — and tonight finally felt right. I thought I knew what I was coming for. But tucked away, almost like it was waiting, was something even better: a limited run of bats from that game — our game — made more than a year ago. Only fifty existed. And there, somehow still there, was bat #42. Jackie’s number. Jackie, who was a Monarch long before he ever wore Dodger blue.

I knew then. Some things you find. Some things find you.

I’m not someone who clings to possessions. Most things come and go. But every once in a while, something carries more than just its own weight. It carries a night with my brother. It carries the spirit of Kansas City. It carries the long road so many players walked so the game could become what it is today. This bat isn’t just wood and paint. It’s memory made solid. It’s the feeling of a night at the ballpark, the crackle of connection between past and present, the quiet joy of belonging somewhere.

Tonight, I carried that bat home. It has a place now, not just on my wall, but stitched into the fabric of my life — a reminder that baseball, at its best, is about people, places, and the stories we honor by carrying them forward.

Buck O’Neil said once, "Waste no tears for me. I didn’t come along too early. I was right on time." 

I think that’s true of nights like this, too.

Some moments find you exactly when you're ready to understand just how much they mean.

Always, 

Dave 

Houston Astros vs Kansas City Royals

I:II:III: The City of Stone

III: The City of Stone

Wilmot left the garrison with time to spare, his hands still tingling from the weight of Bertram’s gaze. The city greeted him not with ceremony but with chaos: a blur of carts and clangs, shouts and sudden laughter, and the clatter of hoofbeats against stone. He followed no map, only the broad press of foot traffic and the tug of curiosity. The buildings grew taller here, their windows narrow and hooded, their walls streaked with soot and moss. Chimneys smoked above every roofline, and bells rang discordantly from chapels and market towers.

He passed through a narrow arcade hung with drying herbs and wool, past beggars with empty bowls and women selling ribbons to passing children. Vendors hawked salted fish, cracked bones for broth, and saints' teeth likely carved from turnip. For every moment of wonder, there was another of unease. Wil had never seen so many faces etched with hunger.

The alleys smelled of tallow, ash, and urine. A woman chased a thief with a ladle. A dog barked from a second-story window, furious and absurd. Yet Wil couldn’t help but feel drawn onward into the pulse of the city, toward its unknowable heart.

A square opened at the end of a narrow street, fronting St. Peter’s. The church loomed as if carved from storm cloud, its stones darkened by weather and smoke. Gargoyles peered down like saints turned wardens. In front of it, a stone platform held a bell and a pulpit of carved wood—where a town crier now spoke in a clipped, nasal tone.

“By order of His Majesty King John: Let no man enter the royal forest without writ or coin! All poachers shall be marked and branded! No fire, no felling, no foraging—not even kindling! The king’s wood is not for thieves or beggars!”

The crowd half-listened, half-ignored, but Wil watched the crier carefully. Behind the flourish of official speech, the tone was iron. This was not law. It was warning. The forest, to the city, was not wild—it was property.

At the edge of the square stood a stall of tapers and beeswax candles beneath a crooked canvas. Behind it worked the candlemaker’s apprentice, her sleeves rolled to the elbow, a small knife in one hand and a box of freshly poured wax in the other. Her dark hair was tied in a rough braid. The corners of her mouth bore the calm earned through heat and patience.

Wil approached with the awkward resolve of someone acting before thinking.

“Hello,” he said. “I saw you once… at the gate. With the donkey cart.”

She looked up briefly, one brow lifted. “Did you?”

Then, after a pause, her gaze sharpened. “You’re the boy who rides with the Warden. Hal, wasn’t it?”

Wil nodded, suddenly unsure. “You… sell candles.”

She didn’t laugh, though a smile tugged one corner of her mouth. “Is that why you’re here? To announce my trade?”

“No. I mean… yes. But I wanted to buy one.” He fumbled for his coin pouch.

The apprentice set a pale beeswax taper on the table. She didn’t speak, but the price was clear in her eyes.

Wil paid—perhaps too much—but dared not ask.

She passed him the candle and turned back to her work. The exchange, complete.

But Wil lingered, awkwardly turning the candle in his hands. “You, uh… have nice hands,” he blurted.

She glanced sideways at him, eyebrow raised.

“For candle work,” he clarified. “Steady. And clean. You… shape things.”

“And you,” she replied, “have a gift for saying nothing with a lot of effort.”

Flushing, Wil pressed on. “Do you ever walk the forest trails? There’s a spring out past the ridge. Coldest water you’ll ever taste. I could… show you. If you ever needed… cold water.”

She shook her head, the smile still playing. “I don’t have time for trails. And even if I did, I wouldn’t drink where the law forbids it.”

A sharp voice cut through the moment. “Girl. The wicks are burning.”

The candlemaker’s wife, older, broad-shouldered, and stern, stood at the rear of the stall. Her expression could curdle beeswax.

“We’re not here to flirt with boys. Off with you.”

Wil stepped back quickly, nearly bumping the table.

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry. I—”

The apprentice gave him a small shrug. “Next time, try something better than ‘You sell candles.’”

He offered a sheepish smile, but she was already returning to her molds.

He nodded, flustered, and turned away, her quiet laughter following him into the crowd.

As he stepped into the lane beyond the square, something glinting caught his eye. Nestled in a crack between cobbles lay a small pewter thimble, dull but intact. Wil picked it up, turned it in his fingers, and smiled.

“For Arrow,” he murmured. “Something bright for his nest.”

He slipped it into his pocket and did not notice the boy watching from behind the statue of St. Oswald nearby.

***

Wilmot walked the plaza in front of St. Peter’s, his face still flushed from the exchange at the candle stall, the sound of the apprentice’s quiet laughter echoing behind him. The square stretched wide and uneven, its cobblestones worn smooth by centuries of boots and wagon wheels. Buildings leaned into the space like aging onlookers, their faces stained with smoke and time. A dry fountain sat at the center, its basin holding nothing but windblown leaves and a single green-patinated coin. Braziers hissed and popped along the arcade, giving off thin curls of fragrant smoke that tangled with the air.

Vendors were packing up now, their voices quieter but still bartering—cloth scraps, roasted chestnuts, combs carved from bone. A group of children dashed past, shouting rhymes, while two dogs circled near the church wall in a slow, growling dance. A town crier’s voice echoed faintly from another street, lost in the push and pull of foot traffic. Pigeons bobbed between feet, pecking at crumbs, and an old man leaned against a post muttering proverbs to no one at all.

Above it all loomed the dark façade of the church, its spire jutting like a blade against the clouds.

Near the base of the steps, Wil’s gaze caught on a man in a worn green cloak. He sat apart from the others, still as a stone, with a wooden bowl before him and a harp resting at his side.

Harrow Jack.

A small girl approached the man in green. Her dress was torn at the hem, her hair tangled in sun-bleached strands. She leaned close, cupped her hand to his ear, and whispered something too soft for Wil to hear. Jack nodded slowly, his expression unchanged. The girl slipped away into the crowd like smoke vanishing between shutters.

Wil watched her go, uncertain whether she had spoken a prayer, a secret, or a warning.

As he did, a brush against his hip made him freeze. The pouch at his belt was gone. In that single blink of distraction, it had vanished—lifted cleanly. He spun, eyes scanning the crowd with growing urgency.

Jack remained motionless, but something in the air changed. Wil saw it then: not just the boy who had taken his pouch, but three others nearby, pretending to beg, playing dice, adjusting crates. None looked directly at Jack. None had to.

Jack sat at the center of it all, blind and unmoving, but attentive. A spider in the middle of his web, catching secrets like flies. Though blind, it was clear Harrow Jack pulled the strings of more than just his harp.

There. A boy stood at the harpist’s side and dropped something into the wooden bowl.

The fox token.

Wil stepped forward, his voice tight. “That—he took that from me!”

The man in the cloak reached into the bowl, lifting the token between his fingers. He examined it slowly, turning it as though deciphering an inscription.

“You’ve a weak grip, boy,” he said, his tone dry and measured. “And poorer instincts, carrying this in plain reach.”

Wil flushed. “It was in my pouch. The Warden—Halward—he found it near the old cedar. I… I kept it. He doesn’t know.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Halward. Still standing guard at that crumbling threshold between crown and canopy?”

“You know him?” Wil asked.

“I know of him. Men like that are more legend than flesh—long shadows that forget how to move.”

Wil shifted, uncertain. “I named my raven Arrow. After the song. After Harrow Jack.”

At that, the man’s mouth curved—something between a smile and a wince.

“Harrow Jack is just a song, lad. Nothing more. But ravens... ravens. Treat him well. He may yet repay the favor.”

“I like your harp,” Wil said, floundering for connection. “Will you play something?”

The man shook his head. “Not here. Not now. But if I ever pass Woodgate again, I might play a tune—for the trees, if not the men who walk beneath them.”

He turned his face slightly, his blind gaze unerring. “Much,” he said, not raising his voice.

The boy who had vanished into the crowd now reappeared at the man’s side, grinning with crooked confidence. He held Wil’s pouch in one hand, already lighter than before, and extended it without shame.

“One of mine,” Jack said calmly, as if that explained everything. “He’s quick, and mostly honest. You’ve met his fingers—now meet the rest of him.”

Then, without ceremony, Harrow Jack placed the fox token back into Wil’s palm.

“Keep it,” he said. “But understand what you hold. It’s not a keepsake. It’s a key. A token of recognition—for those who no longer speak above ground. If the forest ever turns silent to your call, if the gate stands open and no voice welcomes you, return it to the roots of the cedar. The woods remember those who owe and those who are owed.”

Wil opened his mouth to respond, but the phrasing caught him. “Wait… what does that mean?”

Jack tilted his head. “The river doesn’t ask where the stone has been, only if it can bear the weight.”

Wil blinked. “I… I don’t understand.”

From Jack’s side, Much chuckled softly. Not unkindly—more like a brother watching a younger sibling puzzle out a riddle. “That’s alright,” he said. “None of us did, at first. The old man only speaks in riddles.”

Jack said nothing. He only smiled, the same knowing curl of his mouth that seemed to say more than words ever could.

Wil nodded, his throat tight. The token seemed heavier now, the wood warm against his skin.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

The man inclined his head. “Mind yourself, boy. You’re nearer the edge than you realize.”

Wilmot turned and stepped away. He didn’t look back. Not because he wasn’t curious, but because he understood—instinctively—that whatever Harrow Jack watched with those unseeing eyes, it wasn’t him alone.

As he walked, Wil reached for his pouch and took quiet inventory. The coin was lighter, as expected. But the fox token remained. The pewter thimble for Arrow still nestled safely beside it. His candle—slightly bent now—was intact. But there was something else.

A second wooden token.

He held it close to this chest and looked. It was carved from a lighter wood, softer, worn at the edges. The mark etched into its surface was not a fox, but a hare, mid-leap.

Wil turned it over in his fingers, then looked back toward the square, though Jack and Much were nowhere to be seen. The plaza seemed quieter now, as though something had passed through it and left a silence in its wake.

A gift, he realized. Not a theft, but a sign. A signature.

Much’s mark.

He smiled despite himself. Perhaps they were friends after all. Or perhaps this too was part of the web.

Either way, he walked on—toward the gate, toward the storehouse and the barracks, toward home.

***

Wilmot returned to the garrison as the sky began to pale with the hint of winter dusk. The guards posted at the outer wall leaned against their spears, uninterested, their mailshirts dulled with wear. One of them gave a grunt as Wil passed—less a greeting than a formality offered without conviction. These were Sheriff’s men, and their allegiance ran not to honor but to coin. Their laughter, coarse and unguarded, followed Wil into the gatehouse courtyard.

Inside, two soldiers stood near the quartermaster’s post, speaking in low tones that grew louder as Wil entered.

“Chipstone’s getting another levy,” one said. “New roof for the keep. Royal timber straight from the king’s groves. Paid for in gold, too.”

“Should be,” the other replied. “That town’ll be the jewel of the shire once it’s dressed proper. King wants it ready before spring. They're calling it the Queen's Mirror. Sheriff says the queen herself might stop through. Wants it to shine like a mirror when she does—roof gilded, banners hung, the whole keep smelling of rosemary and coin. And the queen doesn’t travel alone, neither. Maidens aplenty, I hear. Silk veils, flutes, late feasts.”

The first soldier laughed. “A good place to find yourself if you’ve got the coin—or the charm. Better than standing guard at this muddy outpost with ghosts and goats.”

“Meanwhile, the Warden of sticks and stones still hoards his forest pennies like it means something.”

Their laughter came sharp, and neither man bothered to lower his voice when Wil approached.

The quartermaster looked up from a parchment with the dull weariness of a man long past the habit of courtesy.

“You’re the Warden’s boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

He shoved a folded writ across the table. “There’s your tally. Cart’s loaded. Provisions in full.”

Wil picked it up and began to skim.

“Oh—and the ass goes with it.”

Wil blinked. “The donkey?”

The man smirked. “Bertram’s orders. Said it was only fitting.”

There was a snicker from the corner.

Wil paused. “Does she have a name?”

The quartermaster scoffed. “It’s a donkey, lad. Not a knight.”

Outside, Wil reached for the rope tied to the donkey’s halter. The animal looked at him once, then returned its gaze to nothing in particular. She was small, slate-grey, and bore a scar along one ear that looked old but clean. Wil exhaled through his nose and started walking.

The donkey followed.

***

They passed out of Nottingham before the bells called Sext, the city slowly falling away behind them in a haze of chimney smoke and steeples. The road ahead was muddy and lined with hedgerow. It narrowed as it climbed, shouldered by bare-branched trees and the occasional watchful crow.

The cart creaked with each jolt, the barrels shifting slightly but holding. The donkey plodded forward with no complaint and no urgency.

Wil walked in silence, one hand on the rope, the other tucked in his cloak. He didn’t speak—not to the donkey, not to himself. But he listened: to the wind in the trees, to the clink of tack, to the shifting weight of what he carried.

Just past the turn near the stone well, the donkey stopped. Wil turned to find her tugging at a patch of green by the roadside.

A small clutch of clover.

Wil watched her chew. Her jaw moved slow and steady, each bite deliberate.

“You like that, do you?” he murmured.

The donkey flicked one ear, but kept eating.

“Alright then,” he said, brushing her neck. “Clover it is.”

The name settled easily.

He tugged gently on the rope. She looked up, blinked, and followed.

Together they walked the winding road home.