Introduction (Welcome)

In a small village, cloudy moonlight in a black and windless sky faintly accentuates high tree tops over a tavern which, until the next evening, must postpone the games and conversations of good friends who use the familiarity of nightly routes to find their way home over the autumn leaves that bury the village’s large, central path as it continues beyond the homes of the night goers to where buildings and trees slowly disappear, leaving nothing but shadowy fields of rolling hills to make a lonesome journey feel longer, until distantly, yellow and orange pierce the darkness through a cottage’s curtains and hypnotize passersby toward the heavy wood of the front entrance that is dented from its large iron knocker on which a single pound will slowly push the door back to reveal bright colors, warmth, the scent of tea, and a puzzling impossibility, for the cottage’s exterior is not big enough to fit its mazelike assortment of large rooms because they go further than can be seen, containing plants and candles in all corners, floors hidden under large pillows and carpets, walls dressed in eclectic decorations, and, among a quiet absence of people, the whisper of a distant fountain that invites visitors to enter and sit down with something to drink and something to read until the body is filled with music and poetry, and the mind is filled with sugar and cinnamon.