After months of waiting to gain access to the sandstone castle cave at the old townsite of Kalida, southeast of Yates Center on Osage Road, I sat beneath one of its multi-ringed towers, reveling in the bursts of cool air that dipped and swooped in front of the structure.
All of that waiting, anticipation and curiosity, and yet I only felt longing, bearing the burden of someone’s absence.
The architectural marvel, inspired by the Chicago World’s Fair and constructed on the Davidson Farm in 1893, loomed above me, its wide base stretching more than one hundred feet, yet it was my new love’s slender frame that singularly occupied my thoughts.
DAYS PREVIOUS, Vickie Pickering, who today owns Kalida Castle with her husband Roy, walked with me through the nearby dilapidated farmhouse that she grew up in as a child.
“I really don’t mind people comin’ out and lookin’ at it,” she said. “My folks loved it.”
Doves called in the heavy evening — be-uu, be-uu — as we entered the house. Vickie lamented that “when [her] folks passed away, people started coming out here and vandalizing stuff.”
We had to watch our step to not lose footing and fall through the brittle wood floor. Vickie said the house didn’t have electricity when she was growing up, and that they “lived in the middle room” near the crumbling antique piano.
I WAS JUST NORTH of the house when I began to write — back on solid ground — and yet my feet still felt unstable, knees wobbly, as I reflected upon the excursion. I feared my chest might collapse like the old red barn behind the castle.
Large elm trees stand guard over the cave’s front entrance, though I could see around the corner to where its white wood door was cracked open beneath an ornate carving in the facade.
In keeping with its original function as a cellar, Roy Pickering had placed boxes of sour green apples just inside the threshold. Whether the cave can shelter one from romantic confusions, I have yet to find out.
Behind me, the cave-structure sloped down into the earth, allowing one to stumble up the rugged hill from either side and stand on top.
Large sandstone blocks flank the ascent, and at the bottom are curved ornamental decorations of immense weight.
I had wanted, like a knight-crusader from some Medieval legend, to scale the walls to find my princess, rescue her from her proverbial dragon, and bring her home.
THOUGH ONLY 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the crickets were chirping nearby, their hymn a fitting reminder of my own drowsiness.
Had I dozed off I would have dreamt of her: the color of her hair, her tiny wrists, the way she laughs with her whole body, eyes closing with the effort.
A single black cricket leapt from the grass and began to scale the castle wall, climbing straight up, then stopping. Suddenly, the ebony insect changed paths and in doing so increased the struggle destined in its ascent.
