1.1

M - One day soon I will tell you of these last months. Of my departure from the abbey, in the dead of night. Of my escape from the city of my birth, hidden under the blankets of a merchant’s cart. I will tell you of that first night, lying awake in my tent, bruised and aching from travel: how the silence sang and the darkness held forth, every sensation turned heightened and holy. And I will tell you how the following morning, with trembling hands, I at last removed the wimple that has kept me safe from the eyes of men…for no longer could I invoke the protection of the church.

I will tell you of my first drink from a clear stream; of the goat’s meat we seared over an open fire; of the calluses that hardened my heels, and the mud that soaked my skirts. I will describe the merchant’s growing respect as I studied his native tongue, practicing faithfully so that I might barter for passage; and of his manservant’s corresponding respect, as I lifted the heavy bolts of cloth he struggled to carry.

I will tell you of the smell of the trading ports of Lübeck, the size of the ship’s billowing masts, the way my heart sang even as I parted from my companions. I will tell you of the sailors’ laughter, as I retched over a roiling sea; then, too, of their rough, paternal approval as they instructed me in knot-tying, my fingers following theirs on salt-swollen ropes.

I will tell you about the goodness I have encountered in this world, for it has changed me, Marketa - more so than the hardening of my palms and the coarsening of my skin.

But these things should not be conveyed by letter. I have crossed the Baltic Sea now; my journey is almost over. Soon I will reach Lake Vattern, and in the event that you have received my note I will find you waiting for me. If not, I will find your workshop - for I am poor and humble, O great alchemist, and permitted to know the way. Then I will say to you all that I wish, and at last all the intervening years between us will fall away.

M - Strange to think on my confidence, only a few days ago. For I was certain then of your heart - certain that, despite the years that divided us, you thought of me as often as I thought of you. I half-believed that you could sense my return, as the steed senses the approaching storm - that you would be waiting for me, arms outstretched.

Now I sit at the doorstep of your workshop, humbled.

The door is locked. The place is long abandoned.

The farm folk say you have been missing for months. You told them nothing before you disappeared, left no instruction or letter. Though you lived alongside them for years, they could scarcely say whether you had a family; whether you had been married; whether you had loved. You were an enigma, and allowed few into your confidence.

I think of the openness of your face, the ease of your laughter, and I half-wonder if I have found the correct alchemist, after all.

Yet I can see your craftsmanship in this place. Tracing my fingers along the door's engraved tiles, I see that they can be rearranged; all but the center tile can be moved. It is a door that could only have been crafted by you: a threshold locked by art.

Is it foolishness to think that you designed this for me? And yet I feel I have a sense of how to open it. A methodical reordering.

I stand at the brink of understanding. Of you, of your ways, of where you have gone. I must open the door, and pass through.