The Observatory on Mallow Hill a sleep story for adults

There is a hill above a small village, a round green hill called Mallow Hill, with a single path winding up it, and on the very top of that hill there stands a little observatory. It is made of old grey stone, and it is round, like a lighthouse that has decided to stay small, and on top of it there sits a great white dome, smooth and rounded, like an upturned bowl. On clear nights, the dome opens a narrow window to the sky, and a long brass telescope looks out through it, slowly, patiently, at the stars.

The village is called Kettlebrook, after the little brook that runs through the middle of it, under a humpbacked bridge, past the mill and the bakery and the old inn. From the top of the hill, it looks like a village a child might have made from a box of wooden toys: the square church tower, the cottages in their neat rows, the gardens with their bare apple trees, and the smoke going up from every chimney, thin and grey and straight, into the still evening air.

The observatory has a keeper, and her name is Hazel. She has lived on the hill for a very long time, long enough that the village children think she has always been there, like the hill itself. She is small and quick and quiet, with silver hair worn in a long plait, and bright, kind eyes, and hands that are always a little cold, except when they are wrapped around a cup of something warm.

On the evening of this story, it had been a still, bright day, the kind of late autumn day when the air is cold and clean and the sky is a pale, clear blue from one edge to the other. Hazel had spent the afternoon in her garden, on the sheltered side of the hill, pulling up the last of the runner beans, and tucking straw around the roots of her rosemary for the winter. And now, as the sun went down behind the western hills, she stood at her gate with her hands in the pockets of her long wool coat, and watched the light go.

It was the last clear night of the autumn, and she had known it was coming for days. The sky went slowly through its evening colours. First a soft gold, low over the hills, and then a pale rose, and then a clear, deep blue, like the blue inside a mussel shell. The shadow of the hill stretched out long across the fields below, and the frost began to come up out of the grass, the way it does on cold, still evenings, so that the field beside the path grew faintly silver, blade by blade, all the way down to the hedge.

Down in the valley, the lights of Kettlebrook began to come on, one after another, small and yellow and warm. A light in the bakery. A light in the window of the inn. A light in the schoolhouse, where someone was sweeping up after the day. Hazel liked to watch them come on. She knew almost every window, and who lived behind it, and she liked to think of all the suppers being set out on all the tables, and all the kettles being filled.

Then she turned and went inside, to make ready for the night. The door of the observatory was made of heavy oak, with a round iron ring for a handle, and inside, on the ground floor, was the small round room where Hazel lived. It had thick stone walls that kept it warm in winter and cool in summer, a little iron stove with a kettle on top, a table and two chairs, a dresser full of blue and white plates, and a bed tucked into an alcove in the wall, with a curtain that could be drawn across it.

On the rag rug in front of the stove, curled up in a large, soft, grey heap, there was a cat. His name was Moss, and he was very old, and very big, and he did almost nothing at all except sleep in warm places, which he did with great skill. He opened one green eye as Hazel came in, and closed it again, and his side went on rising and falling, slowly, the way it always did.

Hazel opened the door of the stove and put in two more logs of dry apple wood, and the fire took them gently, and a sweet smell came into the room. She filled the kettle from the big stone jar by the door and set it on the hottest part of the stove. Then she lit the lamp on the table, and turned it low, and the room filled with a soft amber glow that shone on the blue and white plates, and on the copper pans hanging from their hooks.

A spiral staircase went up from one side of the room, round and round, twenty-two wooden steps, worn smooth in the middle, to the dome above. That was where the telescope lived. But it was too early for the telescope yet. The sky was still too light, and the stars were only just beginning to show, and besides, Hazel was expecting a visitor.

He came up the hill path just as the first star appeared. Hazel saw his lantern first, a small, warm light bobbing slowly up through the dusk between the hedges, and then she saw him, a boy of about ten in a woollen coat and a red scarf, carrying a covered basket in both arms. His name was Tom, and he was the grandson of the baker in Kettlebrook, and on clear evenings, for as long as he could remember, he had carried Hazel's supper up the hill.

“Good evening, Tom,” said Hazel, opening the door wide. “Good evening,” said Tom, a little out of breath, and his breath made small white clouds in the cold air. “Grandmother says it's the last clear night, so she's sent extra.” He set the basket on the table, and Hazel folded back the checked cloth that covered it, and a warm smell of fresh bread rose up out of it into the room.