Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories - The Mystery at the Playwright’s Haven

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Narrator: Elizabeth Grace 🇬🇧 Writer: Kate Henderson-Nichol ✍️ Sound design: woodland ambience, distant river 🌳🌊 Includes mentions of: Walking, Friendship, Ghosts, Mystery.  Welcome back, sleepyheads. Tonight, we'll be visiting the charming Cotswolds in England. There, a young playwright, Amy, spends time in her favourite spot – a beautiful place in the woods where she always finds inspiration. 😴 Watch, listen and comment on this episode on the Get Sleepy YouTube channel. And hit subscribe while you're there! Enjoy various playlists of our stories and meditations on our Slumber Studios Spotify profile. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get Sleepy is a production of Slumber Studios and is made possible thanks to the generous support of our sponsors and premium members. If you'd like to listen ad-free and access weekly bonus episodes, extra long stories and our entire back catalogue, you can try out premium free for 7 days by following the link in the episode notes. Now, a quick word from our sponsors. Welcome to Get Sleepy, where we listen, we relax, and we get sleepy. My name's Tom and it's my honor to be your host. Tonight's story was written by Kate and will be read by Elizabeth. We'll be traveling to the Cotswolds in England and will meet a young playwright named Amy as she visits her favorite spot, a beautiful place in the woods where she always finds inspiration. One day she has a mysterious encounter

with a stranger who looks like she comes from the past. Who is this curious woman with her old-fashioned clothing and strange turns of phrase? Why is she walking alone in the woods? Perhaps this chance meeting will spark some ideas for the play Amy is writing. We have two extra special bonus episodes coming up on Get Sleepy Premium this week. Tomorrow in our usual Thursday night premium episode, I'll be reading a story about a man enjoying a morning swim at his favorite lake. Then on Friday I'll be back again as we have an exclusive long length episode where we've stitched together three adventures with a sweet little cat named Pidge. Pidge's stories are some of our most popular on the premium feed so it's a great time to try Get Sleepy Premium with the first seven days coming free of charge. In addition to our weekly bonus episodes, the Premium Feed is where you can access every single

Get Sleepy episode there's ever been in full and completely ad-free. Try Get Sleepy Premium and enjoy all the sleepy content you could possibly need. To learn more visit getsleepy.com support or just follow the link in the show notes. Thank you all so much. Now, my friends, let's settle down and take a moment to unwind. For all of life's purposes, all the challenges we conquer day to day, the effort we give for ourselves and for others. Every single one of us deserves a sense of calm, reassurance, and rest when we come to bed. Good rest is of equal priority to any other part of our lives, so let's help ourselves enjoy the best sleep possible by taking a deep breath in, filling up the lungs and holding for a moment, then smoothly and gently breathing back out. The breath can help us to transition into rest. Daytime is where energy is given, the output of our being.

Whereas night time, or whenever you choose to take some rest, that's where the energy is restored, the rewarding intake that sets us up for what's to come next. I know it can feel difficult to achieve the ideal balance, but you're in the right place here and now. So just be patient, continue to breathe at a comforting pace, and listen along to Elizabeth's story for as long as you like. With that being said, start to imagine the beauty of the English countryside. Quaint villages, green fields and hills, and peaceful woodlands. This is where our story begins. Amy St. James was a writer who lived happily in the dream world of her mind, in a small town in the Cotswolds. With a bird's eye view over the countryside, there was a spectacular span of vibrant market

towns, sleepy villages, and elegant country houses. A beautiful wide river snaked its way through a valley lined with ancient woodlands. And for Amy, all of this was within cycling distance. She had always found inspiration for writing plays from the lush countryside surroundings, and she had a favorite spot in the woods. Calling it her haven, she found it the perfect place to clear her mind, especially for working out the unexpected twists she sought for each play's conclusion. A keen cyclist, Amy loved the mind-clearing freedom of riding in the hills, and freewheeling down into picturesque towns and villages. She would slow down to pedal through the streets of warm, honey-colored stone buildings,

absorbing the atmosphere of mystery and stillness, the result of centuries of history. the results of centuries of history. Amy loved to see people going about their business in and around their homes. En route, she would often capture useful snippets of conversation to weave into the dialogues of her plays. Even fleeting glances of family life were a source of inspiration. Amy was especially drawn to writing mysteries set in different time periods. She specialized in building complex plots, with clues from beginning to end, to keep her audiences enthralled. However, the conclusion of her current piece of work was lacking the jaw-dropping twist she wanted. twist she wanted. It was time she sought peace and quiet to tap into her natural observation skills, and to create something that would thrill her audiences. Feeling the lure of her beloved haven, Amy decided to pack up her writing kit and head straight there.

She had a powerful feeling that this play was going to be successful, and she just knew it was the right time and place to find the twist she needed for its ending. Mindful of her mother's mantra that one couldn't write well on an empty stomach, Amy packed up some sandwiches and water and set off to the west side of the county, towards her haven. The woodland on the hillside overlooked a well-known country house called Marlbrier Hall. This stunning building had been home to the de Mellier family for generations. Although open to the public now, it still provided a home for the ninth Lord Henry de Mellier and his wife, Lady Clarissa. Loving the sensation of speeding through the country lanes and feeling the caress of

warm air on her face, Amy arrived at her favorite woodland in good time for her day's writing. She left the main route and cycled off-road as far as the track would allow into the wood. Then she parked in her usual spot, near a rickety old gate. It was hanging off its broken hinges from a deteriorated two-bar fence. Near the fence was a dense thicket where Amy could conceal her bike safely. And now she was free to write. She had once heard a wonderful quote. It went, The act of playwriting feeds the soul unlike anything else in the theater arts. Amy was a spiritual person, and for her, the act of writing in the woodland truly did feel like a feast for the soul. She felt deeply that this wood had a magical power, and held a wealth of secrets.

Amy had only ever seen one person in this wood on two separate occasions, an immaculately dressed lady with a warpen hair, walking some distance away. She seemed incongruous, dressed far too finely to be a rambler or a cyclist. It was odd that this woman had just popped into Amy's mind. She wondered if she might see her again, and a strange feeling came over her that today she may well do so. So, swinging her bag over her shoulder, Amy began to pick her way through the woods, heading for her special place, where she could always rely on inspiration for her writing. This destination lay among the huge swathes of foliage which grew around

the huge swathes of foliage which grew around and over the ruins of an 18th century folly, an ornamental building in the shape of a small tower. Once part of the Marlbrayer Hall estate, years upon years of abandonment and woodland growth had hidden the crumbling remains. Suitably dressed in trousers and walking boots, Amy followed her own well-trodden path. The reverent silence of the wood was interrupted only by cheerful bird song and wildlife chatter. Amy immediately felt like she was walking into a huge, calming mantle that was wrapping itself tenderly around her. It was quite cool in the woodland, with a soft, low light, as she walked under the thick expanse of the canopy. But every now and then, Amy stepped through long, thin fingers of sunlight that had managed to push their way through the density above. There was a medley of colorful, wild flowers that spread themselves everywhere.

Amy found herself wondering which of the flowers were sending out such an exotic, aromatic, billowy scent. It was strange, because it seemed to wax and wane as she continued through the trees, whether or not there were flowers to be seen. whether or not there were flowers to be seen. As Amy breathed deeply and steadily, the hypnotic, rather musky fragrance seemed to guide her, as if presenting an ethereal path forward. Amy recalled a quote about walking in woods where you can lose your mind but find your soul. Smiling at its truth, she inhaled the aroma that hung around her and continued to head for the folly set deep within the woodland. Every step she took carried her deeper into her dream world of creativity. Her current play was an imaginative mystery set in the 19th century about the disappearance

of a string of priceless moonstone beads. The plot and dialogue had flown with ease from her mind to her pen and onto paper. It made the audience wonder what might come next, and who had done what. Amy now needed to dig deep into her imagination to find the perfect twist to this plot, where it would conclude with something the audience could never have anticipated. She was confident her special place would steer her imagination in the right direction. Amy soon arrived at the crumbling, ivy-covered stone structure by carefully picking her way over fallen trees, carpets of long grasses, brambles, and sprinklings of wildflowers. She made her way over two huge, weather-beaten gray stones, and made herself comfortable, using one as a seat and the other as a table.

She guessed these could have been once part of the entrance to the folly. Everything about Marlbrayer Hall and the estate mesmerized Amy. In particular, she loved to imagine herself living there, and would create plays about life as a domineer daughter back in time. She had produced several scripts about the family, tackling the problems of their day as if she herself were a Dommelier. If only she had a stroke of luck, the chance to be discovered by a theater director. the chance to be discovered by a theater director. As Amy daydreamed, she inhaled deeply, once again catching the strong scent. She could now detect a mix of musk and bergamot.

After munching on her sandwich, she took out her pen and paper and began to write. Deeply soothed by the calmness around her, the words flew from her mind as she created a perfect, thrilling end to her mystery. It was coming together as if being acted out before her eyes. Here, away from the shade of the trees, Amy felt the warmth of the sun on her shoulders as she wrote. It was like a cozy, her shoulders as she wrote, which was like a cozy, golden blanket that the sun was deliberately soothing her with. The light filled the folly, warming the earth in its center, which she imagined must have once welcomed many of the hall's guests. welcomed many of the hall's guests. One side of the tower still had a few steps of its original spiral staircase. The folly cast a strange, curved shadow, as if protecting something within it. Amy savored its history, loving the sensation of being alone, and yet not feeling alone. As she was finalizing the twist of her play's conclusion, she heard a crackling of dead twigs and leaves from footsteps approaching behind her. She looked round as a voice greeted her in the friendliest fashion.

Astonished, Amy recognized the lady immediately as the auburn-haired woman she hoped she might see again. Amy stood up and reciprocated her warm greeting, beckoning her to sit on the adjacent stone. The lady thanked her and smiled as she sat down. They engaged in pleasantries about the folly, the weather, and the woodland, when Amy caught the same subtle fragrance she had kept smelling earlier. This was odd, because there were far fewer wildflowers here than further back in the woodland. It was an incredibly beguiling aroma and quite potent. Amy wondered if it could be the strangest perfume, but she didn't like to ask too personal a question, so it remained unanswered,

hanging heavily in the air. The stranger's name was Aggie. As they chatted, Amy asked her if she had come far, or if she was local. Aggie cheerfully answered that she was from Marlbray Air Hall and that she had always found the folly compellingly mysterious, yet welcoming. As if confirming Amy's earlier speculation, Aggie explained that the two stones they were sitting on marked the entrance to the folly. She told Amy this was where she needed to be. Looking at Aggy, Amy recalled the photographs of Henry de Mellier, which she had seen in the tourist information about Marlbrayer Hall.

They seemed to have the same shaped nose. Perhaps they were related. Aggie smiled, and then, as if knowing what Amy's dreams were, explained that her own passion in life had always been writing. She paused thoughtfully, and added that writing had been a long, complicated journey, but she wanted to continue in a different way. Amy was intrigued. She wanted to know why writing had been complicated for Aggie, and what she meant by continuing in a different way. Amy also wondered why Aggie had said she needed to be at the folly's entrance. There were so many questions to ask her. Amy hoped they might even become friends and spend time talking about their writing. She told Aggie that she, too, was a writer

who prided herself in writing mysteries, and she was at the folly today to seek inspiration and create a surprising twist to the end of her current play. Aggie nodded knowingly and smiled, her sparkling, deep-set, green eyes lighting up her face. It was as if she understood exactly how inspiring this location was. As they talked, Amy observed how immaculately dressed Aggie was. It was a strange attire for walking in the woods. Aggie was wearing a stylish, mid-carve, red and black patterned dress. It was clearly made of silk and cut on the bias. The garment flowed with her, subtly flattering her tall, slender figure. Her auburn hair was cut skillfully into a bob, showing off a pair of cultured pearl droplet earrings.

It was difficult to say how old Aggie was, but Amy guessed she wasn't much older than herself. The two young women had an animated discussion about their shared love of creative writing. They chatted about books and theater and discussed their tastes in romance and mystery. As Aggie was from Marlbray Hall, she knew the history of the folly. She explained there had been a large staircase at the far side of the tower, situated just opposite from where they were sitting. Aggie said that underneath the spiral sweep, there had been a large storage area where you could still see the decaying remains of an old oak doorframe. Amy looked in amazement, because earlier, when she'd noticed the shadow around

the remains of the steps, she thought it looked like the tower was protecting something. Aggie went on to explain that she had once filled an old metal box with stories that she had written, it would be a time capsule of manuscripts. Aggie liked to come and see if the box had been discovered, and would sometimes exchange new pieces of work with earlier ones. She had dated and signed each page until they had filled the box to the brim. To secure and protect its contents, Aggie had fixed the lid on by tying an old leather belt around the box. by tying an old leather belt around the box. She had then hidden it in the space beneath the first few steps of the spiral staircase.

Amy was about to ask her mounting list of questions, but before she could, Aggie continued, explaining that she loved Marbrer Hall and the folly so deeply that she wanted to leave a personal legacy of a literary time capsule. Her dream was for a gifted author of the future to discover the stack of her manuscripts and be inspired to write their own works. Perhaps the author would then leave a literary legacy of their own. Amy Sath, transfixed, her mind was racing with excitement. Somehow, she quelled the temptation to ask Aggie to show her where the treasure lay. Instead, Amy wholeheartedly agreed that it would be a wonderful discovery for some lucky writer in the future. The two women sat for a while in calm contemplation, gazing towards the location of the literary time capsule when Aggie broke the silence.

She told Amy that she had to leave because she had something to finish. She was no more specific than that. Amy imagined that Aggie would probably have something grand to sort out back at the hall, or maybe a mystery to complete. Aggie stood up and they said their goodbyes, wishing each other many happy days of inspired writing. Amy made a joke about the coincidence of their chance meeting, two minds that loved making mysteries. Aggie responded with a broad, knowing smile and nodded her head. She stepped forward, and in a gentle gesture of friendship, she touched Amy's arm, sent a surge of energy racing through her body. sent a surge of energy racing through her body. With a sharp intake of breath, Amy stood up and started to reach out to shake Aggie's hand. She had already turned and seemed to sweep away in the direction of the hall.

All that remained was the intoxicating aroma of the fragrance. Amy looked back at the folly and could no longer resist walking across to where Aggy had hidden her literary treasure. At least she could check for Aggy, but it was safe and well hidden. Now that it was later in the afternoon, the sun had moved and the shadow protecting the hiding place was smaller. Amy found the stone stairs that rose above the storage space beneath. stone stairs that rose above the storage space beneath. There were a lot of broken stones, which oddly enough didn't look like they'd been disturbed for years, but Amy dismissed that as Aggie's ability to cover her tracks very efficiently. She stood looking at the seemingly undisturbed stones, filled with curiosity, when she suddenly

became aware of the aromatic fragrance, which was even stronger than ever. She looked to see if Aggie had come back, but she hadn't. There was no one there. It must have been a change in the direction of the breeze, carrying the scent from the woodland. Curiosity consumed Amy. She could no longer resist looking for the box. She would put everything back of course, but she just needed to see it. Amy knelt down and started pulling away stones, dust, soil, and some grass. Undeterred by the clouds of mess, she kept digging until she suddenly touched something thin and metallic. She scratched away more piles of small stones and moved clumps of earth. And suddenly, right in front of her eyes, appeared a metal container the size of a large shoebox. tightly wrapped around it, was a very old leather belt, fastened

with a buckle. Amy was more puzzled than ever about how undisturbed the box looked. She couldn't imagine Aggie, scrabbling about in the dirt here, to top up its contents with new scripts. Amy finally managed to get a hold on the box and pulled it out of the hole. Still kneeling, she brushed the soil and sand off the top with her forearm. And with some considerable strength, she pulled and pulled at the buckle, and finally undid it. She was sure this couldn't have been undone for a very long time. Holding the box in both hands, she sat on the ground and placed the time capsule on her legs. She no longer believed Aggie had recently topped this box up with new scripts,

which had been so deeply embedded in the earth. As she opened the lid, the familiar scent swept over her. It was intensely strong, musky, and heady. She breathed it in slowly and deeply, and a wave of deep calm came over her. It was as if her new friend Aggie was there with her. Amy gently stroked the dozens of thin leaves of paper inside the box, carefully fanning some of them out to see them more clearly. mouth to see them more clearly. Quickly scan-reading a few paragraphs, she could see the high quality of the writing. It was everything they had discussed earlier, with the critical exception that this box and its contents had most definitely not been opened for many, many years. Singling out a page, Amy read the signature. It said, Agatha D'Amelia. Wow, that made sense. Next to it was the date which almost took her breath away. It certainly made no sense at all.

It said, 1924. Amy sat as still as the untouched stones of the folly. as the untouched stones of the folly. Her mind spun with the vision of Aggie, dressed in the style of the 1920s. Page after page was dated from 1912 to 1924. Bemused, Amy thought of the fragrance which had led her into the folly. She slowly packed up the box with its contents, tied the like she was playing a character in one of her own mysteries and had reached a real-life twist ending. Amy looked up to the sky as if asking for answers from a higher power, when a large, white feather floated gently down to rest at her feet. She felt with all her heart and soul that this box was meant for her. You You You You The You You You You You You You The The You.. you