From: Dr. Mira Halstead m.halstead@bartonmuseum.org
To: Prof. Elias Merrow e.merrow@lyndengrove.edu
Subject: Have you ever heard of this place??
Elias,
I know it’s summer and you’re supposedly on sabbatical, but something just landed on my desk and I need your brain.
A donor left us an uncatalogued manuscript—vellum folios, hand-stitched binding, phoenix-red wax seal. No provenance paperwork, naturally. We’re tentatively dating it to the 11th or 12th century, but the ink composition is…odd. The lab says it contains trace elements they “can’t identify using current standards.” Not encouraging.
The title page reads:
The Secret Garden of the Stars
A royal account of the flora of the Star Garden
The illustration is bizarrely charming—anthropomorphic flowers holding hands, a smug little fox in the margins—but the text is what really got me. The Star Garden is described as the royal sanctuary of the Bryndiel family, rulers of a place called Harandaal.
I’ve run it through every geographic and mythographic index I can think of, and I’m turning up squat.
Have you ever come across these names? Harandaal? Bryndiel??
Oh, and did I mention the final pages are sealed shut, because of course. We’ve looped in Niko from Conservation, and apparently, the seal is made with some kind of resinous compound that resists both heat and solvent. Very dramatic.
Let me know what you think. I’m attaching a photo of the title page, but I can scan a few folios if you want a better look.
Mira
From: Dr. Mira Halstead m.halstead@bartonmuseum.org
To: Prof. Elias Merrow e.merrow@lyndengrove.edu
Subject: RE: RE: Have you ever heard of this place??
Seriously, Elias, you have got to tell me these things sooner.
Also, I’m tagging along the next time you take your daughters to Harrowfell Hall—I had no idea you were a haunted castle enthusiast.
I checked out the blog you mentioned, Beyond the Hedge. Pretty random that you met this Margot Takada person at Harrowfell. Despite some of the, shall we say…creative theories she’s proposing, her citations are surprisingly rigorous. And she’s definitely read more 10th-century herbals than half the grad students in our program.
If we’re looking at the same post, she refers to Harandaal as one of the more “compelling examples of a kingdom caught in a timeline bifurcation.”
I had to read that about three times before it still didn’t make sense.
The footnote led me to a book my teenage self would’ve gobbled right up, in between obsessive re-readings of Lord of the Rings.
The Collapse of Crowns: Hidden Histories and Lost Empires.
Have you read this, or am I tumbling way too deep down the rabbit hole here?
Believe it or not, we had a copy in the stacks. Chapter 31—The Battle of Harandaal. Some versions say the kingdom fell overnight. Others claim the king struck a deal, and the fall never happened.
Check this out:
“What if both things happened, but in different timelines…and for some reason, only one reality survived?”
For the record, I don’t believe in “timeline bifurcations,” just in case you’re getting worried about me.
M
P.S. Okay, but what if there is something to this?
I mean…how has not a single historian ever heard of this place, yet we now have one book that mentions Harandaal and another manuscript that claims to be from there?? (cue Twilight Zone theme song)
[Editor’s Note – Barton Museum Archives]
Dr. Halstead’s correspondence is included here with permission.
Readers wishing to explore further references to Harandaal—and the mysterious manuscript known as The Secret Garden of the Stars—will find relevant material in The Fool & the Threads of Time (Book Zero).
Those seeking additional context regarding Harrowfell Hall, timeline bifurcations, and other related phenomena are advised to consult The Magician and the Labyrinth of Yesterdays (Book One, coming 2026).
