Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it. The drums of rain had already
Speaker 1: claimed the day by the time I arrived at the
Speaker 1: Cloverhead Hotel. I chosen the week expressly for the storm.
Speaker 1: Early October always seemed to me the very edge of
Speaker 1: warmth and wildness, the time when the Irish coast might
Speaker 1: show you it's truest, loneliest face. I'd retired from the
Speaker 1: post office and Augustin promised myself a sojourn in a
Speaker 1: place that required nothing for me but my own quiet company.
Speaker 1: Driveway was a wild dock of gravel, rimmed and gorse,
Speaker 1: stud with yellow even under the hammering skies. I paused
Speaker 1: in the rental car outside, watching when blast the stubborn hedges,
Speaker 1: rain flickering through every current of air behind the Mister Winshield.
Speaker 1: The hotel was a low slate roofs bowl, too humble
Speaker 1: for grandeur, perched to respectful distance from the cliffs edge.
Speaker 1: Missus Shaughnessy greeted me with a practice mile, short gray hair,
Speaker 1: a thick blue jumper boots patched with sea tape. We're
Speaker 1: almost empty this week, lucky for us. You don't mind
Speaker 1: the weather, dear. She pressed a proper brass key into
Speaker 1: my palm soft at the room nine, at the right stairs,
Speaker 1: quietest in the house, ce vu. I'd apologize for the
Speaker 1: wind off the Atlantic, but frankly she never forgive me
Speaker 1: for the slander. The place was smaller than the woodside photos,
Speaker 1: but more amiably worn. The scent was lavender and furniture
Speaker 1: polish with rose. Something sweet drifting from a back corridor
Speaker 1: on the stairs foond the resident nephew in jeans and
Speaker 1: flufflecked navy hood. He passed me whistling something old and Irish,
Speaker 1: carrying a tray of empty MUCKs, and nodded good naturedly.
Speaker 1: There was only one other visible guest in the hall,
Speaker 1: a woman of a determinate age reading a battered paperback
Speaker 1: by the radiator, feet perched on a floral ottoman. She
Speaker 1: didn't look up. Room nine was at the end of
Speaker 1: the right corridor, beyond a series of increasingly nautical prints.
Speaker 1: My bag thumped onto the old boards and I took
Speaker 1: a long survey in the yellow white glow of the
Speaker 1: ceiling lamp. The room was modest, small, double beded, a
Speaker 1: desk with a water stained blot or, two chairs, wardrobe,
Speaker 1: narrow bathroom and a window I supposed look toward the
Speaker 1: sea wind. The world wasn't a sheet of rain. The
Speaker 1: wallpaper was faded blue with forget me not spriggs. The
Speaker 1: carpet a deep green that bore both used and generosity
Speaker 1: of scrubbing. I dropped my suit case and perched on
Speaker 1: the bed's edge, letting my shoes dry. The sound of
Speaker 1: the gale was all around to eat, constant shudder mixed
Speaker 1: with the water, shrieks of wind finding its voice along
Speaker 1: the gutters. I was unpacking books, slippers, striped pajamas when
Speaker 1: I noticed it. It was nothing at first, My hands
Speaker 1: rolling up my shirts seemed oddly comfortable for a damp,
Speaker 1: irish afternoon, not merely not colder. There was a quiet
Speaker 1: tea time warmth to the air, the kind that sits
Speaker 1: heavy and golden along cottage walls in July. Late in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, I frowned, set a mug on the desk,
Speaker 1: and walked to the window. The rain was blowing so
Speaker 1: hard a streaked horizontally across the glass and insistent gray.
Speaker 1: I heard the thunder of the surf. Angry and remote,
Speaker 1: I stood between the curtains peering out. The air on
Speaker 1: the window side was brisk, brisk enough to draw up
Speaker 1: goosebum saloon my wrist. But as I stepped back even
Speaker 1: three feet, there was a palpable difference. A gentle, living warmth,
Speaker 1: improbable but unmistakable, seemed to hover through the room, the
Speaker 1: late afternoon light coming from behind me. It was golden
Speaker 1: enough to cast a faint shadow across the pale beds
Speaker 1: burd Yet the sky outside was one solid wash, not
Speaker 1: a stray beam leaking through my cup of tea cooling
Speaker 1: since breakfast at the rest stop on the way still
Speaker 1: felt almost hot. There was an undertone, and the air
Speaker 1: fresh grass, maybe a wild foes trampled under sun. I
Speaker 1: looked up, expecting perhaps an neerrant ceiling bulb or POLYI
Speaker 1: installed radiator. Instead, the radiator was off, stone cold, and
Speaker 1: the central lamp glood no brighter than a gentle suggestion.
Speaker 1: I could still hear the scrape and roar of wind
Speaker 1: outside a distant three double glazed glass. But here, in
Speaker 1: this one inside world, EIR felt as though some one
Speaker 1: had slept a July noon into an October squall. I
Speaker 1: brushed my hands together, laughed, under my breath and fetched
Speaker 1: my battered notebook from my back. On the second page,
Speaker 1: between a quarte about breasting and a list of novels,
Speaker 1: I had considered a scribbled room nine, warmth in a storm,
Speaker 1: sunlight with no sores must be magic tea, I added,
Speaker 1: a smiling face, like I was humoring myself. The note
Speaker 1: was more for private amusement than posterity, barely worth a
Speaker 1: second look. But as I returned to my unpacking, feeling
Speaker 1: the sunlight that wasn't this settle on my arms? I
Speaker 1: caught myself pausing. Searching. I found nothing, no explanation, no
Speaker 1: trick of lighting, no machinery, not even a faint hum
Speaker 1: from beneath the foreboards, only the impossible sense that winter
Speaker 1: was waiting everywhere except just here. Such things, I thought, Oh,
Speaker 1: what happened when you finally give yourself time to notice
Speaker 1: the world? The next morning coughed up more rain, gray
Speaker 1: against the windows, the sword of morning that makes you
Speaker 1: grateful for the smallest routine. The clover had woke gently
Speaker 1: somewhere of breakfast. Radio murmured about rising water on the
Speaker 1: River Shannon, and the smell of fry bread drifted up
Speaker 1: the stairs. I'd always been an early rise of forty
Speaker 1: years of sorting letters and crisp dawns across Dublin south
Speaker 1: side train a body to waking while the rest of
Speaker 1: the world still dreams accrosses the clock. I stretched what
Speaker 1: it must I shoulder the joint had pested me since Christmas.
Speaker 1: The sword of Aki learned to ignore. Padded barefoot to
Speaker 1: the window. It resisted opening, swollen with last night's stamp,
Speaker 1: but a thin blade of air snake through the outside.
Speaker 1: Was a painting and grazed sea, pitched like a cauldron
Speaker 1: foam leaping skyward, sky boiled down to one unwavering cloud.
Speaker 1: Still the room was no different than the evening before.
Speaker 1: There was a subdued gold lurking along the desk and
Speaker 1: at the hem of the drapes. Ascent inside and outside
Speaker 1: belonged to different seasons. My skin carry the aft taste
Speaker 1: of summer. I dressed slowly, no hurry, nowhere to be,
Speaker 1: and wanted down to the breakfast room, a bigger barn
Speaker 1: of a space with one wall of windows, trying to
Speaker 1: convince the Atlantic to behave to table nearest the glass
Speaker 1: was set freight. The bowl of fruit was mostly apples,
Speaker 1: with a single lunge that looked like it had been
Speaker 1: rolling around for a week. Three other guests, two women
Speaker 1: clearly traveling together in a soft spoken gentleman who never
Speaker 1: quite met anyone's I, were already picking a toast as
Speaker 1: mister Shaughnessy bustled in. Were filling teapots and recounting the
Speaker 1: latest guests. We get the wild, but I prefer our,
Speaker 1: while to Dublin's mild, she declared over the wink, there's
Speaker 1: honesty to a storm. We discussed the weather as if
Speaker 1: it were a fifth member of the household. Fian Re
Speaker 1: appeared in a cracked blue apron, dolling out scrambled eggs.
Speaker 1: Give it another day, maybe two, he said. By Thursday,
Speaker 1: it'll be nothing but a breeze. We'll have forgotten the
Speaker 1: rain soon as the sun bite's back. S chuckle some
Speaker 1: with the weariness of every other September of visitor. Someone
Speaker 1: joked about the radiator's miss O'shrenessy promised extra blankets should
Speaker 1: the Atlantic sneaking past the plast. Jan offered to produce
Speaker 1: a portable heater for anyone at the back of the house.
Speaker 1: One of the women muttered that her room was so
Speaker 1: cold her slippers had given up. There's a rhythm in
Speaker 1: such places. Someone forgets a jam across the room, another
Speaker 1: recounts a memory of worse storms. Another tops upper cup
Speaker 1: and bidden. By the second morning, the routines of the
Speaker 1: place became gently clear. The mail, my sacred richell still
Speaker 1: arrived daily, delivered by an elderly man in a battered
Speaker 1: anaak with the quick efficient steps of a career walker.
Speaker 1: The kettle in the lounge seemed never to cool. Fresh
Speaker 1: cuts cones materializing at the hour of greatest need. Mister
Speaker 1: shawn Essy clipped crosswood pages to pinboard bout of stairs,
Speaker 1: and Fiorn whistled as he buffed the brass and the doors,
Speaker 1: and flicked dust from the framed certificates near the lobby.
Speaker 1: The two women took great interest in the crosswood answers,
Speaker 1: and even more in which biscuits were missing. At tea
Speaker 1: there was a small private pride in keeping routines alive,
Speaker 1: as the gale did its best to muscle them aside.
Speaker 1: When I returned to Rumaine, the warmth welcomed me all
Speaker 1: out of keeping with the weather. My wardrobe of mostly
Speaker 1: wool and navy cotton still damp around the cuffs when
Speaker 1: I had slipped in the last night, now felt dry
Speaker 1: and almost fragrant, the same subtle, clean sand. The air
Speaker 1: was both lighter and easier to breathe, a thing you
Speaker 1: only noticed by its absence, and a light even as
Speaker 1: morning sank into an early dusk, was more buoint in
Speaker 1: doors than out. I could see now that the other
Speaker 1: room's moss seven nine eight to my left drew half
Speaker 1: open doors, and a guest parlor at the end of
Speaker 1: the corridor had no such change in brightness or temperature.
Speaker 1: The window glass sweated with chill as it showed. I
Speaker 1: pressed fingers to the wall call, but just inside the
Speaker 1: doorway warmth again touched my skin with soft surprise. I
Speaker 1: ran a discreet finger along the paint work. Nothing special,
Speaker 1: nothing new or old, except that mild scent of lavender,
Speaker 1: the faintest creek across the floorboards. It was, if anything,
Speaker 1: exactly as bland as every hotel corridor I'd ever known,
Speaker 1: but rumnine itself, some small, impossible comfort persisted. I'm mid day.
Speaker 1: The sky showed no mercy. I'd meant to walk the
Speaker 1: cliffed up path into the village, but surrendered to the wind,
Speaker 1: choosing instead to read by the window. I kept the
Speaker 1: drapes half closed, watching how the daylight bent and pulled.
Speaker 1: My capperteine, now fresh, sat within arm's reached for nearly
Speaker 1: an hour at the steam drifting line wouldly as if
Speaker 1: some one did not begrudge its persons. I did not
Speaker 1: mention my observation to anyone at breakfast. Now quite it
Speaker 1: felt almost too small, too easily hand waved as a
Speaker 1: draft a lucky patch of sun. But as I pulled
Speaker 1: out my notebook that evening, I drew a little grid
Speaker 1: on a page titled clover Head Oddities, promise myself, smiling
Speaker 1: that I keep track, and wrote day two sunlight brecis
Speaker 1: whether wildly out of rhythm, feel oddly rested? Already I
Speaker 1: would have left it there, short up to the gentle
Speaker 1: magic that arrives when we're finally allowed to drift and watch,
Speaker 1: if not for how impossible the next days began to feel.
Speaker 1: The third morning, the wind tested the shutters with the
Speaker 1: gleeful malice of a child. As I slid from the
Speaker 1: warmth of sleep toward waking, I have expected the illusion
Speaker 1: to be gone, But no sunlight dance strong as any midsommer.
Speaker 1: I sat up quickly, testing whether this was the tail
Speaker 1: end of a bright dream. The sky outside remained iron
Speaker 1: and unyielding, rain gouging lines across the glass. Still, the
Speaker 1: air on my arms was soft, nearly sweet, a living
Speaker 1: contradiction to the October chill at breakfast radio has claimed
Speaker 1: and puff fruitlessly. Miss Slangly, whom I'd met on the stairs,
Speaker 1: declared she'd slept in woolen socks, and her last bit
Speaker 1: of dignity, fion teasing, proclaimed that only the birds relished
Speaker 1: such wither, and snook a bigger portion of marmalade onto
Speaker 1: her plate. No mention of heat anywhere, except in jest.
Speaker 1: The fire in the sitting room fizzed low, a mild
Speaker 1: apology for the persistent cold. The two women travelers replaced
Speaker 1: draft with fridges and commiserated with the new arrival, a
Speaker 1: thin German architect who brought slip as packed specifically for
Speaker 1: old Irish houses with bones. I sipped coffee, said nothing.
Speaker 1: Then curiosity, flickering brighter than embarrassment, drove me to a
Speaker 1: quiet experiment. Back upstairs. I opened the room door, propped
Speaker 1: it with my shoe, and stood half way in half
Speaker 1: way out in the corridor. The air was cheerless, exactly
Speaker 1: as you'd expect for sea facing hotel in full storm.
Speaker 1: My hand outstretched to the right, felt the necessary chill
Speaker 1: to the left, just inside the trailing jam, the pocket
Speaker 1: of gentleness radiated. I stepped back and forth three times, grinning.
Speaker 1: Now my left hand, when held inside, tingled as if
Speaker 1: just released from a glove. My right out in the
Speaker 1: corridor instantly cool. I ducked next door Missess Langley, whom
Speaker 1: I'd known in Dublin from mutual friends. Somehow the well
Speaker 1: drinks at the ages cracked the door open at my knock.
Speaker 1: Her cheeks were ruddy unto her scarf as she was
Speaker 1: wrapping another blanket around the foot of the bed. Sorry
Speaker 1: to bother you, Ruth, I said, but out of curiosity,
Speaker 1: is your room unusually warm? She gave me a look
Speaker 1: somewhere between surprise and suspicion. Warm this place, I wish
Speaker 1: it's chilly as a stone krypton here, even have a
Speaker 1: draft up from the floor boards, I think, I keep
Speaker 1: telling them I don't mind a bit of weather, but
Speaker 1: I expect some insulation, I smiled, Thanks, odd mind seems cozy.
Speaker 1: Lock of a drawer. She shook her head and touseled
Speaker 1: her scarf. If your heating's working, complain for the rest
Speaker 1: of us. Maybe they'll fix mine next. Back in room nine,
Speaker 1: my phone in hand, I resolved to capture the odd light.
Speaker 1: The photo showed a rumor indered flat and gray, everything
Speaker 1: washed in the usual storm day twilight. Staring at the screen,
Speaker 1: I found no trace of the butterery golden weight I
Speaker 1: could see in the moment. I even took a second image,
Speaker 1: this time with the drates half open to catch the
Speaker 1: sun's imagined angle on the wall. Nothing differed Online. My
Speaker 1: finger poised over a search bar. I tried half a
Speaker 1: dozen phrases hotel room warm, impossible out of season, a
Speaker 1: room warmer than weather, strange sunlight and doors, even warm
Speaker 1: microclim at Irish Coast. The explanations that appeared were all
Speaker 1: tidily practical, leaky steam pipes, defective thermostats, tricks of humidity.
Speaker 1: Not one offered anything subtly miraculous. That afternoon, I loved
Speaker 1: the temperature, with the old posty sense of diligence. Hand
Speaker 1: on the window frame, then the wardrobe, then the edge
Speaker 1: of my shirt. I wrote down times compared the clock
Speaker 1: to my memory, then drew a silly cartoon, sunbeams invading
Speaker 1: amid gray clouds. I began again feeling in fingers after
Speaker 1: a walk, cold feeling after crossing fresh old warmth, and
Speaker 1: palms spreading up forearm. I wasn't expecting to become a scientist,
Speaker 1: not in retirement, but the world had decided to offer
Speaker 1: a small experiment, and it would have felt rude to refuse.
Speaker 1: When evening closed in early and the storms snatched at
Speaker 1: the walls, I settled by the bed with a sense
Speaker 1: of anticipation. The air's comfort had tricked me into a
Speaker 1: longer nap than usual, leaving my mind both softer and
Speaker 1: Brightercome tea if the room remained impossible, At least I
Speaker 1: had company in myself if no one else. Over the
Speaker 1: next two days, the anomaly spread from pleasant oddness to
Speaker 1: something richer, more insistent. It was not just the quality
Speaker 1: of sunlight or the miraculous dryness of clothing. The tea
Speaker 1: I brewed in Room nine, using the same mug the
Speaker 1: same standard isshy kettle. As the lounge refused to call,
Speaker 1: I said an alarm, left the mug on the desk
Speaker 1: and returned an hour later, expecting at least a tepid mouthful, warm,
Speaker 1: almost as if newly poured. In the corridor of the lounge,
Speaker 1: I tried the same test there. The liquid surrendered its
Speaker 1: heat to the world as quickly as logic would demand.
Speaker 1: In Room nine, heating seemed not an event, but a
Speaker 1: fact immutable. A day of rain urges you to laundry,
Speaker 1: so helm one of my sock's cotton white run out
Speaker 1: after a clift up's blush inside the warder, But nine
Speaker 1: in the morning by lunch, to my honest surprise, it
Speaker 1: was dry as a July day, softer even than when
Speaker 1: pressed by radiator heat. I placed another sock at twin
Speaker 1: in the gas parlor three hours later. Retrieved from the
Speaker 1: low wind buffeted window sill, it was much as I
Speaker 1: had left it, limp, damp, and deeply offended at existing
Speaker 1: in late autumn island. Emboldened, I plugged my aging smartphone
Speaker 1: into the outlet by the desk. The green battery icon,
Speaker 1: usually sluggish on trips, flickered to full within forty minutes,
Speaker 1: less than half its usual time. I carried the fund
Speaker 1: to the corridor for RANTU. Charged in the lounge, the
Speaker 1: device took twice as long to reach the same level.
Speaker 1: I recorded all this sketching a primitive table in my
Speaker 1: note book room tea temp after one her sock dry
Speaker 1: phone charge corridor called still damp ninety min Room nine warm, dry,
Speaker 1: forty men, the meticulous gull suits something deep inside me.
Speaker 1: I'd always trusted in routine, the world of letters registers lists.
Speaker 1: But here was a routine that stubbornly uperformed itself. I
Speaker 1: tried the only other obvious intervention. Window opened, then close.
Speaker 1: No change. The err inside remained, as it was impossible
Speaker 1: regardless of what the hotel or the ocean chose to do.
Speaker 1: There was a scent again, something settled in the room,
Speaker 1: at first, like wild force crushed under foot, now with
Speaker 1: a note of ozen, fresh and light and inexplicably hopeful.
Speaker 1: Not the forced, sickly sweetness of air freshener, but the
Speaker 1: genuine promise of a new I tried, holding my face
Speaker 1: to the wardrobe's open door, breathing carefully. It was deeper
Speaker 1: by the bed most intents. As I lay back, as
Speaker 1: closed and hands limp at dinner, rose pork, red cabbage, petitious,
Speaker 1: crisped in a way only perfected by remote hospitality, I
Speaker 1: asked miss O'Shaughnessy, as casually as I could manage. Does
Speaker 1: Rum nine ever get? I don't know a bit of
Speaker 1: extra warmth nearer the seat and all that. She poured
Speaker 1: me another cup and prompted out boughs, briefly knitting together
Speaker 1: her Perumnine's always been a favorite. But if there's more warmth,
Speaker 1: it's just a fluke. All the walls here are the
Speaker 1: same stone and fiance wears. None of the pipes run
Speaker 1: behind it cozy by luck, if you ask me, Most
Speaker 1: folks like it for the view beyond passing with a
Speaker 1: tray of condiments joined in. People fight over the seaview, Angila.
Speaker 1: They are always asking for that n room lucky like,
Speaker 1: she says a bit quieter, that's all. He winked at me,
Speaker 1: maybe sensing the faintest with of eccentricity and enjoying it
Speaker 1: a press further, gently, do people request room nine every year?
Speaker 1: Missus Shaughnessy shrugged, then smiled, as if betraying a secret.
Speaker 1: There are old regulars who've come forever, But honestly, there's
Speaker 1: nothing in it besides chance. Some times a room just
Speaker 1: suits a person. Later among the other guests scrounging for
Speaker 1: scones and hunted over last week's crossward, and nudged the
Speaker 1: conversation toward room comfort. The German architect sniffed and set
Speaker 1: his radiator, histed uselessly all night, leaving his foreign battery
Speaker 1: dead by morning. One of the traveling women claimed she
Speaker 1: wore three layers and a scarf indoors, more out of
Speaker 1: spite than personal comfort. Nothing in his house's was but stubborness,
Speaker 1: She declared. No one volunteered a compliment for warmth, saan
Speaker 1: or anything beyond fian scones. Back in my room, noting
Speaker 1: each tiny oddity was carving out a shape in my mind,
Speaker 1: the phenomenon was persistent, stubborn and saddle, never ostentatious enough
Speaker 1: to be easily spotted, but impossible once scrutinized. Still there
Speaker 1: was more to tease out. I wondered about the boundaries
Speaker 1: if it could be caught at all times. That night,
Speaker 1: I pay close attention as I slipped towards sleep, resting
Speaker 1: on my side amid sheets that smelled of lilies and
Speaker 1: faintly improbably with some lawns, near the edge of dreams.
Speaker 1: Just before surrendering to the tide. I sensed the warmth thinning,
Speaker 1: the room, gradually losing its golden glow, trending ordinary waking
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, half aware, shadows pulled heavily,
Speaker 1: and the sense of exception faded entirely. Each time I
Speaker 1: started fully awake, yawning, it arrived again within minutes, as
Speaker 1: if my presence, my active wondering attention were what called
Speaker 1: it forth. I set my watch tobus everywhere across a
Speaker 1: single night, three a m plain chilled the creak of
Speaker 1: russus wood and wind. At six thirty, as dawn threatened,
Speaker 1: the air brightened, light seemingly boiling up from the mattress
Speaker 1: rather than streaming from outside. I measured, at best I
Speaker 1: could the temperaturity each alert hand inside the covers, upon
Speaker 1: pressed to the desk. At no hour did the usual
Speaker 1: chill persist for long, except in those borderlands, at the
Speaker 1: very threshold of sleep, perception, imagination, it resisted dismissal. I
Speaker 1: knew enough of tricks of mind, how loneliness of comfort
Speaker 1: can shape a place, But compared to the facts of
Speaker 1: drying laundry, the mug that refused to call it, the
Speaker 1: phone brightening itself on half the usual charge, imagination ran
Speaker 1: up against a hard limit. I logged the next day's
Speaker 1: observations with particular care, including the hour spend in the lounge,
Speaker 1: where the only warmth came from the direction of the
Speaker 1: crack fireplace. I I added a note, Room nine seems
Speaker 1: affected by activity strongest when awake. We can new of sleep,
Speaker 1: but always returns. Is it me or the place itself?
Speaker 1: My own small bodily aches, the crick of my wrist
Speaker 1: accrued through decades of parcels and pens at ease by
Speaker 1: the fourth dawn, lessened absence, then on unnoticed comfort, subtle
Speaker 1: restoration that felt both utterly natural and faiintly miraculous. My sleep,
Speaker 1: too was vivid, one memory, in particular of the golden field,
Speaker 1: the sun upon my hair, the world at distance so
Speaker 1: safe as to be impervious. Something about the room, or
Speaker 1: what pulled within it had begun to repair, not just
Speaker 1: whither but mind. I stood that day between the rain
Speaker 1: last window and the gentle lamp, considering this, How many
Speaker 1: years had the room held secrets like these? Was it
Speaker 1: mere accident or something layered by time by intention? Nearly
Speaker 1: a week in I found myself wondering perhaps my little
Speaker 1: science was too narrower. This was not merely weather, nor
Speaker 1: the odd benevolence of insulation and hot tea. Room nine
Speaker 1: was behaving as though the ordinary rules of space, time
Speaker 1: and body flexed in its walls. There was comfort in
Speaker 1: my bones, yes, but also a clarity. The presence my
Speaker 1: days felt lengthened, my thoughts lighter, or restored well being
Speaker 1: that went further than insolation or routine? Was I alone
Speaker 1: in this? Did other guests before me notice? If so,
Speaker 1: why did no one ever speak of it plainly? And
Speaker 1: what truly must have happened for a modest room up
Speaker 1: of gray cliffs to quietly contradict the entire season? Somewhere,
Speaker 1: I thought a reason waited. All I had was the
Speaker 1: sensation that in the ordinary trappings of tea, slippers and
Speaker 1: quiet days, a secret lived, one that might be better
Speaker 1: for not resisting discovery, but for seeking it fully. A
Speaker 1: knock at the door of firm consider it tap, rather
Speaker 1: than the anxious rattle of some one of the problem,
Speaker 1: pulled me from the middle of these thoughts. Miss O'Shaughnessy
Speaker 1: poked her head around with the friendly impersonality of someone
Speaker 1: who'd run a dozen busy guest houses, bearing a small
Speaker 1: tray stat with fresh towels and biscuits. Perhaps she suspected
Speaker 1: I was flagging. Guests, after all, tend not to linger
Speaker 1: so long in their rooms unless defeated by weather. Nursing
Speaker 1: something private. She set the tray on the desk and
Speaker 1: began fussing with the layered towels in the old way
Speaker 1: of Irish hospitality. Her voice was gentle, but never quite prying.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help myself. You must get tired of the wind,
Speaker 1: I said, my tone as breezy as I could manage.
Speaker 1: She laughed, setting the biscuits just so, it keeps the air. Honest,
Speaker 1: I say, we're lucky to get any guess. Once the
Speaker 1: skulls go back, most only last a night or two.
Speaker 1: Cabin fever, I suppose, will rain fever. Not that you
Speaker 1: seem bothered. Not so far, I said, I think room
Speaker 1: nine might be the secret. I watched her face over
Speaker 1: the rim of my mug, searching for even a flicker
Speaker 1: of knowing, but she only smile a little tied around
Speaker 1: the edges. That's a good guess. Room it is always
Speaker 1: seems to fill first. I suppose the view helps. There's
Speaker 1: nothing you've ever noticed as odd a draft, strange temperatures,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Missus Shawness's movements pause briefly tells midfold,
Speaker 1: but she shrugged. Each room has its quirks. Pet Nine's
Speaker 1: closest to the sea. Maybe it's the quiet. Some say
Speaker 1: it asleep best there, But ye know, we Irish like
Speaker 1: to ascribe a touch of personality to every wall. She hesitated,
Speaker 1: as if considering, were you warm enough? More than warm?
Speaker 1: I said, At times I thought I'd wondered us were
Speaker 1: entirely her gaze linger, then softened. Sure in the walls
Speaker 1: full of the life, blessings if you find one here,
Speaker 1: don't question too long. The moment you look for the
Speaker 1: crack in the magic, it slips out the window. Then,
Speaker 1: with one final brush of her hand on the door frame,
Speaker 1: she was gone, Her words stuck with me, half wise,
Speaker 1: half evasive. I had planned another foray through the public rooms,
Speaker 1: another taste of the storm's grayness, perhaps a question or
Speaker 1: two for the other guests, but her gentle warning pressed
Speaker 1: me back toward my notes. I spent the next hour
Speaker 1: of reading my log book, cross checking times and temperatures,
Speaker 1: circling and underlining seeking patents. The room was never cold,
Speaker 1: except in sleep's edge. Physical improvements couldn't be dismissed. The
Speaker 1: lack of achs my improvement and mood, even my sudden
Speaker 1: waking alertness. My correspondence with myself grew playful interrogative, as
Speaker 1: if interviewing an impossible witness. What if I wonder? This
Speaker 1: peculis sanctuary wasn't just habitstance, but something built over time. Eventually,
Speaker 1: curiosity pricked me into action. I dressed in my best
Speaker 1: errand running coat, the one with too many inside pockets,
Speaker 1: and made my way downstairs in search of some material record.
Speaker 1: I planned to ask for the guests, but not the
Speaker 1: glossy blue one left on the parlor tableful of witless praise,
Speaker 1: but the real ongoing one. I invented an excuse about
Speaker 1: writing postcards, and missus Shaughnessy obligingly produced an old, a
Speaker 1: filled ledger from her cupboard. It was heavy leather, worn
Speaker 1: at the edges and laced with a particular time of
Speaker 1: must and old ink. She set me up in the
Speaker 1: lounge beside the fire, seemingly in troubled by my interest.
Speaker 1: Just jot down here you need we keep the past
Speaker 1: entries handy in case anything's misplaced. As she left, I
Speaker 1: caught a glance from Fyor through the openacchuway. He grinned,
Speaker 1: arms folded, as if amused by my effort. I began
Speaker 1: flipping through the pages years, drifting backward in a careful succession,
Speaker 1: familiar aims, perfectly ordinary complaints. The bin in Room three
Speaker 1: went open properly, water pressure variable, best chowder in the country,
Speaker 1: A door's rattle and wind still slept well. Most guests
Speaker 1: were content to praise breakfast in sunsets, to scribble long
Speaker 1: after departure, and sign within kai flourishes. Entries for a
Speaker 1: Room nine, though prick my attention. The language turned every
Speaker 1: so often, just dd enough to notice miraculous sleeped despite
Speaker 1: the storm, at energy in my buns. I haven't felt
Speaker 1: for years. The heal of my knee after a cycling
Speaker 1: tumble should be impossed at my age. Some mentioned the
Speaker 1: golden afternoon I restfulness, awaking fully new. These weren't complaints,
Speaker 1: but in vocations, almost as if Roum nine were regarded
Speaker 1: as a charm as much as a location. The more
Speaker 1: recent notes listed first names, sometimes email addresses, rarely a
Speaker 1: full number for news of next year's rates. I jot
Speaker 1: a few discreetly. A woman from corcut left of verse
Speaker 1: of thanks for three knights of gentle reprieve. A man
Speaker 1: from Wales who scribbled left my pain here might return
Speaker 1: for it if it's found. The pages themselves radiated a
Speaker 1: cumulative affection. No great miracles, but an unwavering sense that
Speaker 1: Room nine provided more than shelter. I wondered if any
Speaker 1: one else had explored the anomaly with the same persistence
Speaker 1: as I was now drawn toward. The question began to
Speaker 1: nag at me. Where if I reached out, would any
Speaker 1: one answer? With a sudden resolve? Encouraged by a full
Speaker 1: pot of tea, I drafted a handful of e mails
Speaker 1: gentle an offenser, the kind of inquiry only the most
Speaker 1: staffable retire he might send My apologies if this is intrusive.
Speaker 1: Did you notice anything unusual while staying in Room nine?
Speaker 1: I'm gathering notes for her future travel peace. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: describe having slapped better than usual. Was there anything that
Speaker 1: seemed to you particularly notable about the room or your experience?
Speaker 1: It was a sort of fishing, but with soft bait.
Speaker 1: I hoped the odd charm of the place would carry
Speaker 1: the request or any suspicion. By the time the rain
Speaker 1: picked up again that evening, I had fired off five inquiries,
Speaker 1: no stingling, not from anticipation, but from a fundamental sense
Speaker 1: of trespass. Still the deed was done. While I waited,
Speaker 1: I strolled the public rooms again and requentted myself with
Speaker 1: the less miraculous side of Cloverhead Hotel's goff skirting boat,
Speaker 1: a cracked lampshade, tonight's dinner men you printed unevenly on
Speaker 1: the aging copyer. The other guests, if they noticed, offered
Speaker 1: nothing beyond the small kindness as forced by mutual boredom.
Speaker 1: I managed to strike up another casual conversation with missus Langley, who,
Speaker 1: after an especially shivery evening, declare room tenant test of character,
Speaker 1: not comfort. I pressed a little more, Did you have
Speaker 1: noticed the air changing light scent? She shook her head, baffled.
Speaker 1: If you were writing a travel piece, love, don't promise
Speaker 1: anything beyond patch your radiators. It improves the truth. She
Speaker 1: was immune to investigation, or else chose to feign it.
Speaker 1: That night, as I lay in the gentle cocoon of
Speaker 1: Room nine, books set aside, the smell now so familiar
Speaker 1: it nearly faded into background. I imagined a long chain
Speaker 1: of people like me, searching for wrist or distraction, and
Speaker 1: finding perhaps more than they bargain for. I fell asleep, curiously, content,
Speaker 1: the faintest trace of summer layer just above the noise
Speaker 1: of distant surf. The next morning, one sunshine, still a
Speaker 1: fiction outside of the first of the email replies arrived.
Speaker 1: It was from Claire, the woman from Cork. Our tone
Speaker 1: was cheerful and forfeit. I remember Room nine very well,
Speaker 1: and I confess I almost questioned my own memory. Slept
Speaker 1: so deeply I didn't hear storm that knocked out half
Speaker 1: a village power. My walking boots were dry each day
Speaker 1: despite me leaving them. Rainsircd. There was a smell two
Speaker 1: or something meadowish. Dreampt vividly like being young again. Didn't
Speaker 1: tell anyone thought I was being silly. I came home
Speaker 1: and tried to recreate it for months. If you find
Speaker 1: out how it works, that mean or A second response
Speaker 1: trickled and by nine from the Welshmen. Still don't know
Speaker 1: what happened. Walk one morning, convinced my knee was near.
Speaker 1: Later the ache returned, but there it stopped huting for
Speaker 1: the longest time. Oddest thing was that my mobile phone
Speaker 1: charge did no time normally is slow old. Then I
Speaker 1: almost told mister Shaughnessyp, but didn't want to sound daff
Speaker 1: promise you won't write anything about new energy treatments summons
Speaker 1: bound to believe you. The third from a teacher in Dublin.
Speaker 1: I always thought it was the sea are My dreams
Speaker 1: were strange but comforting, like I was being shown memories
Speaker 1: that went mine, something about the space safe somehow more
Speaker 1: than just rest. Sorry, not helpful, but that it's the
Speaker 1: best I can describe. Each reply nudged me further from
Speaker 1: shreking coincidence toward a shimmering sense of something built up
Speaker 1: in layers, as if each guest had contributed a brush
Speaker 1: stroke to a portrait only visible to Dose Hulinga. When
Speaker 1: miss O'Shaughnessy next saw me at the mail table, she said,
Speaker 1: without preamble, you wouldn't be the first to ask her
Speaker 1: about that room. I started, surprised she'd reference it so neatly.
Speaker 1: She smoothed the folded newspaper in front of her, not
Speaker 1: quite meeting my eye, with this will list you know
Speaker 1: people who request room nine every year. As soon as
Speaker 1: we open bookings, I tell them it's luck of the drawer,
Speaker 1: but I known who'd get it most years, one way,
Speaker 1: a boy, the other. Some refused to stay if they
Speaker 1: up a further up. The hall never had a single complaint,
Speaker 1: except once about a droopy mavers, and even then the
Speaker 1: man took her back and said it seemed to improve
Speaker 1: by morning. Theon passing behind us with a basket of
Speaker 1: klean akins, leaning conspiratorily. Some say it's a thin spot
Speaker 1: of place where stones can't quite find you. But don't
Speaker 1: tell the weather. She'll get jealous. He grinned, then ducked
Speaker 1: away before I could press him further. But you've never
Speaker 1: stayed thery yourself, I asked missus Shaughnessy, a little too pointedly.
Speaker 1: She shook her head. All superstitions die quietly. Something's the
Speaker 1: best left to the guests. Then, as if remembering herself,
Speaker 1: she added, if it brings you comfort, I'm glad. But
Speaker 1: you'll find no technical explanations here. The rest is just
Speaker 1: old stones, old stories. Her candor shifted something in me.
Speaker 1: There was no sense of conspiracy or performance, only a
Speaker 1: resigned affection deeply woven into the fabric of the house.
Speaker 1: That same day, the weather shifted the stone, briefly, coming
Speaker 1: enough for the sun to break through layered clouds. Galvanized,
Speaker 1: I struck out down the main road toward a row
Speaker 1: of stone cottages that house the local library and archives. There,
Speaker 1: hunched in the corner office, I found Missessnola Hanratty keep
Speaker 1: her faintly organized chaos, yellowed ledgers, folders tied with stirring
Speaker 1: boxes labeled misk before nineteen sixty. I introduced myself as
Speaker 1: a visitor with the research bent and explained I was
Speaker 1: tracing all oddities of old hotels for pleasure. What's the
Speaker 1: name pet, she asked, rifling through her files. Clover had hotels, specifically,
Speaker 1: anything to do with Room nine. I think it used
Speaker 1: to be a different part of the building. If that helps,
Speaker 1: Hanaty blinked, then brightened the old clover head. They say
Speaker 1: it's the lust decent shelter before you hit the Atlantic proper.
Speaker 1: It's changed hands a dozen times. What do you want scandaloor,
Speaker 1: ghost stories? Just history? I smiled. She led me to
Speaker 1: a makeshift table and began extracting materials. A crumbling box
Speaker 1: of town blueprints, too grainy black and white phrotos labeled
Speaker 1: Priminence one thousand, nine hundred twenty and a clutch of
Speaker 1: hundred and notes from someone long dead annotated in green
Speaker 1: marker here or we don't keep everything by number, but
Speaker 1: rooms haven't changed much in the footprints since the fifties.
Speaker 1: The sea face and corner where Room nine is now
Speaker 1: used to be a reading salon for guests with nerves.
Speaker 1: In the last century. In fever season, they ran a
Speaker 1: sick bay for tanncefoot needings, aaldare for the back. It
Speaker 1: was the chapel wing justin Nick, little more than a
Speaker 1: place for strand to java a to Niel and pre
Speaker 1: out the storm. He even got a couple of sketches. Looketh.
Speaker 1: She showed me an old schomatic. The space marked variously
Speaker 1: as sanctuary, healing room, Parlor east End, at one point
Speaker 1: temporary sicrome in the Great Fever of nineteen nineteen. Misseses
Speaker 1: Hanhaty continued, they doubled it as a recovery ward when
Speaker 1: the main hospital was closed. Not that records are clear.
Speaker 1: People didn't document kindness, just death and scandal. I red
Speaker 1: faded newspaper clippings as she sipped tea healing at the
Speaker 1: clover head announced a tiny column from a century ago.
Speaker 1: Local children taken by fever have turned a corner after
Speaker 1: nights in the sanctuary room, to the astonishment of doctors
Speaker 1: Devlin and Bayn. No further explanation followed, just the exhaustion
Speaker 1: of an old public servant. Eagert records something light. Other
Speaker 1: notes referenced an unexpected number of recoveries among restless travelers
Speaker 1: tracked by storms. A photograph showed unmistakably the old east
Speaker 1: wing with a bow window facing the unreally of land.
Speaker 1: It campossible not to recognize his room nine, even hollowed
Speaker 1: by time and grain, children in a ward in dress,
Speaker 1: hat and a sunbeam on the floor. I traced the silhouettes,
Speaker 1: feeling the pivot of centuries beneath my fingers. I suppose
Speaker 1: Missess Hanmarty mused that we fill places up with what
Speaker 1: we want them to do. He comes somewhere for shelter
Speaker 1: long enough, and it becomes sheltered in a way deeper
Speaker 1: than stone and slates. Maybe habit itself as a kind
Speaker 1: of wire. They given enough memory, any wall might hold it.
Speaker 1: In her words, tugged at an invisible thread. I took
Speaker 1: photos make Kevel notes. Hanratty drew a rough map showing
Speaker 1: how in the years after the war, the sanctuary in
Speaker 1: our room nine was petitioned from the larger public parlor,
Speaker 1: A small space for quiet needs. She finished, is sometimes
Speaker 1: more powerful than all the grand holes and polid luges.
Speaker 1: I thanked her and strolled out into an afternoon where
Speaker 1: the rain had for once paused. In my pocket, I
Speaker 1: felt the weight of all those intentions, generations seeking shelter
Speaker 1: and rest from fever, heartbreak, and weather alike, their wishes
Speaker 1: and the uses they'd put the space tow layered in
Speaker 1: the grain of the wood, in the lime in and mortar,
Speaker 1: persisting through renovation and habit. Back at the clover Head,
Speaker 1: I knocked again at Room ten. The Cess Langley opened
Speaker 1: the door in a confused model of scarves and hairpins.
Speaker 1: But do you remember anything about this place years ago?
Speaker 1: I asked, Maybe before missus Shaughnessy's family took over. Was
Speaker 1: there ever talk about a sanctuary a lucky room? She frowned, thinking,
Speaker 1: my parents brought me here as a girl must have
Speaker 1: been forty years back. There was always superstitious talk about
Speaker 1: these rooms. My mother called it the Haven and brought
Speaker 1: me pediment when I had the flu. She claimed the
Speaker 1: room kept her from pneumonia, though it may have been
Speaker 1: the hot hearty She sknocked me when the night nurse
Speaker 1: wasn't looking. Old stories never meant much. Her voice shifted,
Speaker 1: dropping in register. Maybe you know, as children, we decide
Speaker 1: were we're safe, and the memory at last, the cause
Speaker 1: could be your Room nine just collected all that wanting
Speaker 1: over time. She squeezed my hand, then soft and embarrassed,
Speaker 1: and retreated into her own honest discomfort. Later I located
Speaker 1: doctor Caitlin Divlin, a retired nurse whose name appeared in
Speaker 1: our cave notes. She met me in the hotel lunch,
Speaker 1: settled into a striped chair with an air of practice. Come,
Speaker 1: I ran the sick beheer during the flu, she said,
Speaker 1: sipping her whiskey. Need Room nine, Well, we called it
Speaker 1: the sanctuary. More tenerans in it than in any other
Speaker 1: convalescent room I've known. Folk would recover half way through
Speaker 1: a storm, fever would break, where at least they said
Speaker 1: they felt bless Our smile was wry, weathered by realism.
Speaker 1: Doctors said it was the sea air. I say hoped
Speaker 1: as strong as medicine in the right place. We kept
Speaker 1: it for children, but now and then even the stuff
Speaker 1: would take refuge for a nap, and the gossip in
Speaker 1: the kitchen was that the room made its own weather.
Speaker 1: She searched my face as if darry me to scoff.
Speaker 1: I asked if she devastayed overnight only once, when the
Speaker 1: electricity was often the roads were impassable. I dreamt of
Speaker 1: being a child again, running in sun. When I woke,
Speaker 1: the storm was still on, but my body felt light.
Speaker 1: I never told anyone a pause. I suppose we all
Speaker 1: want a place to be made new. Some rooms just
Speaker 1: carry it. It had become clear to me this was
Speaker 1: not an isolated cork or an accident of insulation. Room
Speaker 1: nine was in the language of Fokhor and family more
Speaker 1: than stone and schedule. It was a vessel for saintury,
Speaker 1: a roomor made and tasked with healing over centuries, intentionally
Speaker 1: or not. Scientific explanation now felt urgently incomplete, but I
Speaker 1: was determined still to pin it closer to reason. Sitting
Speaker 1: in the parlor after supper that night, I called up
Speaker 1: Doctory for Bay and, a recently retired physicist and old
Speaker 1: friend of my brother's, whose cottage perched on the edge
Speaker 1: of the next village. She met me for tea the
Speaker 1: next day, a cafade that smelt of cardamom and burnt sugar.
Speaker 1: I recounted my experience, the warmth, the light, the anomalies
Speaker 1: of time and body, with as little flourish as possible.
Speaker 1: Her brow furrowed at first, but her curiosity did not
Speaker 1: flag well if amused unusual microclimates or reel. Sometimes a
Speaker 1: room position just so with certain stone and structure can
Speaker 1: create stable pockets of temperature. But what you're describing, she
Speaker 1: ticked off my points on her fingers. Rapid rying devices
Speaker 1: charging faster physical improvements as sensory reset, the sort of
Speaker 1: thing we see in high energy experiments of the controlled
Speaker 1: rooms in battery research. But this is organic, persistent and
Speaker 1: against gradient. Nothing in normal thermodynamics explained so localized a reversal,
Speaker 1: and certainly not the changes to body or mood. I
Speaker 1: asked about electromagnetic effects or special minerals in the walls.
Speaker 1: She laughed, you'd need something unearthly. Fields strong enough to
Speaker 1: cocure tea would fry your phone. We've modeled some atmospheric
Speaker 1: anomalies on the coast, but they don't have her in
Speaker 1: single bedrooms. She fell silent, then continued in a quitter voice.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when things can't be explained, we consider the possibility
Speaker 1: of a standing energy field residual charge from decades of
Speaker 1: human activity. But its theoretical. If it were real, perhaps
Speaker 1: the cue mulative attention and expectation of comfort and print,
Speaker 1: something specially in a place of intensities, like a Santurio
Speaker 1: sacrime that saw the full range of human hope and need,
Speaker 1: still fascinating, if only as a thought experiment, She grinned,
Speaker 1: sharp eyed. Physics can't measure expectation, but it's the most
Speaker 1: potent force in any home. You'll get no paper out
Speaker 1: of this, but may be a miracled if you're willing.
Speaker 1: I left her with my notes in the most heartfelt thanks.
Speaker 1: Puzzled by all this talk of thin places, I resolved
Speaker 1: to try Emonteley, a local historian, a well known foll
Speaker 1: core collector. Emon's small front room was filled with battered
Speaker 1: books and the smell of Pete's smoke, and he welcomed
Speaker 1: et cetera questions as if to feed his own collection.
Speaker 1: I try explaining the effect as neutrallly as possible. He nodded, dreamily,
Speaker 1: these places exist, you know what we call in places
Speaker 1: the edges, where the world softened, No spirits required, no angels,
Speaker 1: But a place so often used for comfort it sirks up.
Speaker 1: The intention becomes a vessel for what's needed. My grandmother
Speaker 1: kept a chair like that to always succeed for the
Speaker 1: ill or the unhappy, and my father's woar, you could
Speaker 1: feel a weightlift when you sat. The story was if
Speaker 1: a place off of Santuria without fail, it becomes its
Speaker 1: own remedy churches, sick rooms, qui pals, seasoned by human
Speaker 1: wanting and kindness over generations. Mon reached for a battered notebook,
Speaker 1: leaf through it and handed me a page. Old old
Speaker 1: testimonies about the Cloverhead Haven to this say the effect
Speaker 1: only grows stronger when repeated through time. The room offers
Speaker 1: more the more is asked for it. But share it
Speaker 1: we must, or else at power with it. He looked
Speaker 1: at me as keen. Maybe it's a blend expectation, tradition, history,
Speaker 1: and who knows stray lines in the stone, science and
Speaker 1: superstition running side by side. Some say the comforts days
Speaker 1: because people need to believe is possible. Maybe we conjo
Speaker 1: sanctiory until the world can't help but comply. His sense
Speaker 1: of this phenomenon wasn't mystical, but deeper, human, rooted in
Speaker 1: ritual and comfort more than miracle. I wandered back to
Speaker 1: the hotel in an odd blend of humility and excitement.
Speaker 1: Here after so much seeking was the widest contradiction of
Speaker 1: all science admitted no ordinary mechanism, and yet stories persisted
Speaker 1: that layd meaning into walls and air, told and retold
Speaker 1: until the impossible scene gjendy routine to those willing to
Speaker 1: suspend certainty. I spent the afternoon assembling what I gathered.
Speaker 1: The guest book, old letters, clinical records, and experiences, all
Speaker 1: druel line through centuries of small kindnesses. There were, as
Speaker 1: Doctor by A noted, scientific models for microclimatic works, but
Speaker 1: none accounted for dream or healing. None charged a foone
Speaker 1: nor leaden to hat Emon's foucur shareds and juries building
Speaker 1: up over time compiled the supernatural, psychological, and social into
Speaker 1: something irreducibly complex. I realized that Room nine was, in
Speaker 1: some small sense an accidental experiment, a phenomenon born partly
Speaker 1: of physics, partly of communal imagination. But even more of
Speaker 1: collective need, generations choosing again and again to invest a
Speaker 1: place with their highest hopes, repeatedly made real by the
Speaker 1: faith and repetition of the seeking. Perhaps the wider truth
Speaker 1: what the world often missus was their comfort, even impossibly delivered,
Speaker 1: has a kind of agency. If enough people sought a
Speaker 1: room that could heal, then watched as it seemed to
Speaker 1: do so, then who could dismiss what followed? Ritual expectation
Speaker 1: and lived tradition could not be peeled away from the
Speaker 1: physical world, embedded themselves in it, until physics and memory,
Speaker 1: healing and weather became indistinguishable. That evening, as I returned
Speaker 1: to the warmth, and it was warmth, never heat, never
Speaker 1: oppressive of Room nine, I no longer hoped for one
Speaker 1: clean answer. I let myself bask an impossible sunlight that
Speaker 1: reached neither by nd no nor what, but by some
Speaker 1: steadier lived and laid wish. My final entry in the
Speaker 1: notebook was only half worded, Sanctuary made true, whetherough woven
Speaker 1: by memory, not a matter of insulation or miracle, but
Speaker 1: a kindness repeated until stone gives. In My last full
Speaker 1: day arrived with the storm having finally spent its outreach.
Speaker 1: Scattered sunlight ran along the sea, and the hotel stirred
Speaker 1: with anticipation. I wandered down for Tea, exchanging friendly words
Speaker 1: with the battalion of regulars, noticing how quickly they rallied
Speaker 1: to the promise of a brighter morning. Later, as check
Speaker 1: out proach, I lingered in Room nine, intent on memorizing
Speaker 1: the tone of light, the muted fragrance, the strange sense
Speaker 1: of ease that hovered whenever I let my mind rest
Speaker 1: for the first and only time, whether as I matched
Speaker 1: the inside a grain of settling, oversea and wall alike,
Speaker 1: cool but neither hostile nor roar. For the space of
Speaker 1: an hour, the anomaly seemed to draw back, synchronizing rather
Speaker 1: than resisting the world, and yet I felt no loss.
Speaker 1: All the restoration the room could offer had been quietly accomplished,
Speaker 1: not by best in winter, but by providing, against reason,
Speaker 1: enough comfort to allow wander aither packed hans moving with
Speaker 1: the careful ritual developed by career of sorting and despatching,
Speaker 1: I paused with my bag half sipped, taking in one
Speaker 1: final tabler a familiarly wallpaper, the edges of sun through
Speaker 1: thick curtains, The lived and glow at the desk. Nothing
Speaker 1: visibly changed, nothing to signal the room secrets, except for me,
Speaker 1: a subtle conviction that this place would continue in its
Speaker 1: sanctuary from habit and need for as long as people
Speaker 1: called for it. Mister Shaughnessy hovered at the door, keys
Speaker 1: in hand, ready with a friendly goodbye. Well we see
Speaker 1: you again, I smiled. If your favorite room's free, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't stay anywhere else. She went to the gentle secret
Speaker 1: safely kept and closed the dos offee behind her. As
Speaker 1: I reached the foot of the stairs, valise in one hand,
Speaker 1: Fionn hailed me with a cheerful salute. Safe travels, keep
Speaker 1: an aisle for fair weather. But if not, you know
Speaker 1: now where to find it. I stepped outside into the
Speaker 1: now muted wind and took one backward glance at the
Speaker 1: east end of the building. The light behind the window
Speaker 1: glowed modest golden color, neither miraculous nor forced, only a
Speaker 1: single moment of impossible sunlight, waiting for the next traveler
Speaker 1: in need of something quietly extraordinary. Even as the streets
Speaker 1: and sky claimed their ordinary storm tossed through them, I
Speaker 1: felt anew unhurried curiosity. If a single room overlooked and
Speaker 1: ordinary on the Irish coast could carry such contradiction, weather, healing,
Speaker 1: hope layered within its stones. How many other places, habits
Speaker 1: or rooms quietly defied the tidy boundaries of sense. Tomorrow's
Speaker 1: cup of tea should it linger warm, a late afternoon
Speaker 1: shaft of sunlight, inexplicably comforting, an old chair that holds
Speaker 1: memory as much as body. Each perhaps is a promise
Speaker 1: that the world is stranger and richer than our explanations allow.
Speaker 1: I would tell no one exactly what I found is
Speaker 1: some secrets as sanctuary enough only if kept. Yet every storm,
Speaker 1: every warm room would recall for me to weather in
Speaker 1: room now. And that is the end. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and I will see you in the next one.