I was clearing foundation lines at the plateau’s eastern edge when autumn hardened the ground faster than I expected.
For three days running, there was nothing to my work but a mattock, a pry bar, and stone that had not moved in longer than I could account for.
They will see the walls when they’re finished. Stone set true, corners squared, a roofline that looks, from below, as though it always belonged there.
They won’t see the three days it took to clear ground for a wall that isn’t even load-bearing. They won’t see the evenings that arrived as a surprise because the work had swallowed the hours between.
They won’t see the stone that had to be broken twice because it was set wrong the first time.
And they will certainly not see what the ground gave up on the third day, when the pry bar found something that was not stone at all.
I won’t say what it was. Not yet.
I will only say that I stopped. Crouched. Cleared the rest by hand instead of the bar, the way you clear something you’ve decided, without quite deciding, matters more than the schedule.
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I stayed down there longer than I had planned.
What I found was not something I could understand in a day. Some of what I understood, I have not yet said aloud to anyone.
I carried what I could back up into the light and set it aside. Then I returned to the eastern wing, because the foundation still needed its lines and autumn does not wait for revelations.
But I did not move any more soil that day.
Not until I understood what else might be underneath it.
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This letter is now part of the Conservatory — those who find one often need another.