The Ungrund

Chapter 1:  The Stranger I was fourteen when I first glimpsed the divine. Summer air hung thick with pollen as I drove cattle across the hillside southwest of Gorlitz. Father had assigned me this task after deeming me too slight for the heavier farm labour my brothers performed with ease. The beasts grazed peaceful, tails swishing at flies, while I sat upon the highest point of the Landeskrone watching clouds merge and dissolve like phosphenes across the sky. My mind wandered untethered from mundane concerns that occupied the adults in our village. Father was a deacon at the parish church and spoke often of proper Lutheran doctrine and responsibilities of community leadership. I thought instead of patterns in nature—how leaf veins mirrored river branches, how snail shells spiralled like the stars at night. It happened in the space between breaths. The hillside before me—so familiar I could navigate blindfolded—revealed what had never been there before. An arched opening appeared am...