The castle stood tall in the distance and the closer they got the bigger it got. It almost seemed like a plastic prop, plopped in the middle of the scenery awaiting a period movie to be filmed.
When they finally reached it, walking on the cobbled street under the scorching sun it felt even more unreal than before. With its tall towers, roofs gleaming in the sun, huge stone walls that seemed impenetrable.
It was a sight, that was sure!
What made the scenery even weirder were all those people in their jeans, sun hats, taking photos and selfies with their phones. There was this strange visual clash between the people milling around and the building itself, large and sturdy, allowing them to meander through all its corridors, rooms and passages.
‘How old is it?’, Rita asked almost whispering.
‘You have a phone, don’t you?’, his gruff reply took a bit from her excitement, but that is how he was, how he had always been, she had learnt how to deal with it, not to let it upset her.
They had traveled all the way to Ireland to trace his ancestors, the people that in the eighteen hundreds had left their home, everything they knew, in search for a better life.
They had visited some cottages that were like the ones they would have had all those years before. Rita looked around and was not sure how entire families, some even with twelve children, had been able to live in them. Some of the cottages were smaller than her entire wardrobe.
And they were so tiny. When they went in they both had to duck, and then had to go out quickly as the walls seemed to be just too close.
‘We forget sometimes,’ Rita told herself, ‘how things have changed.’
Rita was not of Irish descent herself, but as he was so proud and he had instilled the same pride in their children, somehow she felt an allegiance to the people that fought so hard to survive and succeeded.
Now, after seeing all of those things from their past, she felt even closer to them.
As they were making their way slowly around one of the towers, Rita caught with the corner of her eye some movement in a small hallway, and she was sure she had seen somebody struggling.
She wanted to tell him, but even before she started to speak he gave her such a stern look that she swallowed her words and pretended to blow her nose. Rita slowed down her pace, and then she snuck back to the hallway, where she thought she had seen the flutter of a summer dress.
To her surprise the hallway was empty. Unwilling to give up, she followed it until she came to face a heavy, wooden door. Next to the door a thick, red rope lay discarded on the floor.
Rita listened and was sure that she heard movement behind the beautifully decorated door. There was nobody else but her on the hallway, so she decided to chance it and check what was behind it.
Rita pushed slowly the door that opened noiselessly to reveal a round room, with floors covered in a crimson, thick carpet. The walls were covered in book shelves, top to bottom, the only spaces between them being three large windows that flooded the room in the most unusual, iridescent light.
She was stunned, never had she seen such a beautiful space, such a relaxing space, and she had had her fair share of spa trips and wellness retreats.
The breeze blew through one of the open windows and Rita saw again the fluttering dress, that is when she saw a woman standing next to one of the shelves reading something.
‘I am so sorry!’, Rita was all flustered.
‘I did not want to disturb, I thought somebody needed help, and came here … such a beautiful place …’
The woman turned and Rita was surprised to see that there was something familiar about her. She smiled without saying anything.
‘Do I know you? You seem vaguely familiar …’
The woman still did not reply and Rita tried to place her. She did not know anyone here, this was his place, his ancestors’ came from there, not hers. To be fair her family had not had this obsession with ancestors, they just were wherever they lived, happy to have a roof over their head and to be safe.
The woman put down the book she was looking at and came closer. Her eyes, the eyes were the first thing Rita recognized, they were the eyes she had been starting at for the past sixty five years, they were her eyes.
The woman was a very young Rita. Once she recognized herself, Rita also remembered the dress. It was the first dress she had made with her own hands. She was twenty two and all she wished for was to read, to sew and to create wonderful garments. That had been her calling which she had pushed away when she fell in love and started her family.
Rita had been happy with her choices, she loved her family and her gruff husband, but still she felt sadness for a part of her that had disappeared along the way.
The dress her younger self was wearing was stunning, and Rita could remember the work she had put into it. ‘The drawing must still be in the attic somewhere…’
‘Rita, Ritaaaaaaa!’, his voice managed to sound both annoyed and concerned.
She turned to face the door and, when she looked back, the room had disappeared together with her former self, leaving behind just the large windows through which light flooded the empty space.
The door opened abruptly and he stood there all sweaty and out of breath.
‘There you are! What got into you to go in here! Honestly woman, sometimes you don’t know what you are doing!’
He did not wait for her to reply, but turned around marching back to where he had come from.
‘Ritaaaa, come on!’ There is a concert downstairs and you know how you like that music!’
Rita smiled, indeed she did like that music. She bopped after him in the narrow corridor throwing one last look to the light filled room, where she was sure she saw the colorful hem of a summer dress flowing in the breeze.
Rita did not question her encounter, but it did leave a deep mark and awoke something in her that she did not even remember feeling.
When they got home, after she unpacked everything, did the wash and their lives went to their old, familiar rhythm, Rita went into the attic and took down a wooden box that had lived there quietly for the past forty something years, since they had bought that house.
Rita’s passion was now fully awake and in bloom. She set up a small studio in her wardrobe and with a brand new sewing machine (it took her two hours just to learn how to thread it from Youtube), she started drawing and sewing.
They were not very good, her drawing or her clothes, but they brought her so much joy that somehow it did not even matter.
Rita had answered her inner calling and that was all that she had to do.