The Red Door

I see a red door. It stands in a field. It stands without support and without structure. I don’t know where it goes. I don’t know where it came from. Beyond the field is a tree. A tire swings quietly from its branches as though waiting for a child long since gone. The whole world is silence and bated breath as I approach the door. What is to come will happen no matter what I choose to do. There is no path but forward. I place my hand upon the handle. In the distance I can hear birdsong and the crackle of thunder. I pull the door open.

Inside the door there is a room. An impossible room. Outside the door there is nothing, simply a door in a field. I could walk through that space and never reach resistance, but inside the door is a room of greater dimension than should be possible. The room is empty save for a desk and chair. Resting on the desk is a bust of a raven and an open book. Their purpose eludes me, but I proceed nonetheless. Written in the pages are five words the give me fright.

He is right behind you.

I feel the chill run down my spine. I do not know what I might find should I turn around, but I am compelled to nonetheless. The door is gone. In its place stands a man in a blue suit. He looks at me with hard eyes, waiting for me to approach. The man makes no move to speak, merely watching me as though he already knows what I will do. I clasp the busted raven and hold it out in front of me as though it were a shield. The man just shakes his head and disappears.

The stone raven grows hot in my hands as I watch a linger drift of smoke fill the space where the man did stand. I lower the bust to the ground and wait. The stone crumbles like so much dirt, revealing an aged and rusted key, tarnished with ancient marks of use. I bent and pull the key from amidst the ash. It feels heavy and tainted against my skin as I search for the lock it belongs to.

Beneath the desk I find a door. An undersized trap that I will barely fit through, but I must continue nonetheless. The hatch creaks open with nary a sound, and I mount the ladder beneath. The passage is dark and the walls are close, grazing along my shoulders as I descend. I offer one last glance to the light and see the man in blue looking down as the trap swings shut. I climb and think no more on the matter. What is to happen will happen, and it will happen no other way.

I enter upon an alley, my ladder seemingly ascending into the heavens above with no sign of the narrow passage through which I descended. It is dark and faintly I can hear the braying of horses. I set off towards the alley’s entrance, shivering in the sudden cold. It is all the appearance of a dreary winter’s night and I sense that my companion is watching from somewhere near. The sky shudders with unfelled rain and the promises of floods to come, as I sight the lights in the distance.

I hear the carriage before I see it. It pauses at the mouth of the alley, the driver waiting to take me on. Beneath that ratty old traveller’s cap is my friend in the blue. He waits and signals his impatience for me to board. The rig is pulled by four strong draught horses looking like mighty elephants inside their massive yokes. They sniff and bray in the night air as eager to get moving as their driver. I climb aboard the carriage and even before the door slams shut we are in motion.

We race through the streets and passageways like we have the devil at our backs. Outside my windows the world is nothing but a blur of motion as ghostly wisps of passing lights whip past. My driver makes no sounds and I scarcely believe he’s even still there. The horses scream and thunder along the cobble carrying me onto a place I do not know. I pray my decision wasn’t a poor one.

I must have dozed as when I open my eyes the carriage has stopped. We sit in front of a large manor house of strong fortune and icy decadence. I leave the carriage and hear the crack of the horses before I have chance to turn around. All I see is the fade of the lantern disappearing into the fog. The sound of the horses lingers long in its wake. I turn my attention to the house in front of me and make my way to the door.

Before me is a door with a great brass knocker in the shape of a fawn. I raise the handle and give the door three great knocks. I can hear the booms echoing in the room beyond. I stay for but a minute before the door is opened and I am meet with the countenance of a grim faced butler. The looks on me with professional detachment and ushers me into the manor.

I wait in the sitting room unsure who or what I am waiting for. The room’s décor is cold and impersonal. I can gleam no knowledge from the settings around me. The walls are covered in trophies and markings from whatever dark lands this master calls home. I see manner of beasts I hold no name for. Strange things with horns and odd misshapen eyes. Things that seem to move and shift when you are not looking at them. I grow uncomfortable waiting, unsure of my surroundings.

The butler returns carrying a tray of tea. He leaves again without speaking and I’m left again in the silence of the parlour. Feeling no compunction to drink, I take leave of my chair and approach the fire. In the scatterings of fallen ash, I can make out the remnants of letters burned. Gingerly, I dig the scrap from the flames and hold it up to the light. The few remaining words abound of ill potent.

Ware the traveller. He is come.

I hold the piece over the fire, trying to gleam meaning from the scant short sentences. Nothing more comes of it other than a growing sense of dread. I wish to be out of this house and a way on my path. Whomever the master is, I fear I do not wish to know him. Discarding the scrap, I turn to make my way from this place. He is waiting there, in the chair opposite mine, drinking his tea and watching me intently.

The man in blue. He makes no sign that I disturb him. He merely smirks and raises his cup to me, indicating for me to return to my chair. I conceive the notion to run from this parlour and from this place, but instead I take my seat and receive the tea he offers me. There is no point in fleeing as this man has shown. He will find me and we will have his talk. In well circumstance or not.

“I assume you have questions.” The man says to me, still with that smirk upon his face.

“Who are you?”

“I am the beginning and I am an end. Do not think yourself unworthy, there is much to discuss and precious little time.”

“What is this place?”

“This place is no place and it is every place. The dawn and the set. The hole and the bard. It is where the journey starts and restarts. Ends and re-ends. Surely you must know of it.”

The man says all this like it is the most obvious notion in the world. He just sips his tea and gestures that I should do the same. I raise the cup to my lips and smell the sweet aroma of jasmine with the merest hint of honey. The liquid’s sweetness crawls upon my tongue and suddenly I know the question he has been waiting on.

“Where am I going?”

The man laughs and climbs to his feet. “Onward, my friend. Onward.”

He leaves the room and as he does I notice a door set into the wall across from me. It is a plain and simple thing coated in fine black leather and with no markings save for small blue star inscribed above the handle. I wait should the man return again, but he does not. Setting carefully aside my tea, I venture to the door and push it open.

Beyond lay a pool of the clearest water. Its surface shimmering in crystalline perfection. I cannot fathom the purpose of such a room. It holds all appearance of opening onto a wooded meadow. In the cusp of the pool I can see a golden chalice. It shimmers in the wavering light of the moon, a gleaming beacon in the darkness. I bend down and retrieve it from its resting place. The metal is warm in my hands as if the chalice contained the light of the sun itself.

I fill the cup with water from the crystal pool. It runs like liquid silver, pure and cool. Unsure of why I am doing this, I allow my hands to do what they must. It is a simple thing. A ritual of sorts. I rest the golden chalice on a stone along the edge of the pool. Gently, almost reverently, I place the tips of my fingers against the lip and feel the water’s coolness encased in the metal’s warmth. With unseeing eyes I notice that the water in the cup has turned red as rubies. I wash the water over my face, taking baptism in that blood-red water.

The time has come to resume my trek. I leave the crystal pool and its chalice behind, brushing the dirt from the blue suit I’m wearing as I go. I follow the path laid out before me. It takes me to a field open unto the lands before me. In the field I can see a tree with a forlorn tyre swing swaying gently in the breeze. Standing in the centre of the field, without support or structure, I can see a door. I see the red door and I continue onward. Forever onward.