Back in August, a listener named Catherine wrote to me with an idea for a sleep story. She suggested a village full of mythical creatures just going about their day, nothing dramatic. And I liked the idea, so I tried to write it, but it didn't quite work.Villages full of dragons and griffins turn out to be a little more exciting than you really want a sleep story to be. Maybe I'll do something else with it one day. But for now, I changed the story.Instead, I set it in a little village, the kind you find on the first page of every fantasy book. The kind of place where the adventure usually starts. Except this time, it never does. Nobody rides in with a map. Nobody sets off on a quest. Everyone just goes to bed. But don't worry, Catherine. I've put in enough fantasy to keep you happy. And anyone else who likes to let their imagination run a little wild.There's even a dragon. Just one. And it's very far away.And it's minding its own business. But above everything else, my stories are written for one reason. To help you sleep.And that's what tonight is all about. It feels like there's always something trying to keep us awake. One more level of that game you're playing.One more episode of that show you're binging. Or one more hour out with friends. And none of those are bad things.But they add up. And before you know it, it's one in the morning and you have to be up at six. Sleep needs to be a priority. Not the thing that you get to once everything else is done. And one of the simplest things you can do to improve your sleep is to go to bed at around the same time every night. Because your body runs on an internal clock.It decides when you feel sleepy and when you feel awake. And it works best when it can predict what's coming. When your bedtime is regular, your body learns the pattern.It starts winding down on its own a little before you even get to bed. And you fall asleep faster. You sleep more deeply.And waking up gets easier too. When your bedtime jumps around, that clock never quite knows what to expect. So sleep is harder to find.Tonight, each person in this village is going to be offered something that could keep them up tonight. And each one is going to say the same thing. Not tonight.But before we start, my usual reminder. I know my regular listeners can say it with me. Please make sure that you are somewhere safe to fall asleep.This episode is designed to guide you into deep rest. So you want to be in your comfortable bed and not anywhere. You need to stay alert. One more quick thing. I've been moving a lot of the older episodes over to the Snoozeville Sleep Club. So if you're looking for an old favorite and you can't find it, that's where it lives now.The details are in the show notes. But now it's time to help you get settled. And I hope you're in bed for this part. Because this is the time to be there.Hopefully your lights are out. Your curtains or your blinds are pulled all the way closed. So that the room is as dark as you can make it.And your phone. Make sure that it's sitting somewhere flat and steady. Not tucked halfway under your pillow.There. Now you can forget about it. And let's start by just noticing your body in bed.I'd like you to feel the softness of the mattress underneath you. Notice your legs lying still. Notice your chest rising and falling as you breathe. And if you're breathing long and slow, you might feel your stomach rising and falling as well. Notice your shoulders. Notice where your hands are.That's all. Just notice what it feels like to be still. And from here on, all you have to do is listen. Just let my voice be the thing that you hold on to.It knows the way. It's walked a lot of people into sleep before you. And it will walk you there too.All you have to do is come along. So let's begin. If you could see this part of the world drawn on a map, it would look like the first page of every fantasy book you've ever loved along the top edge. A long jagged line of mountains called the Dragon's Teeth. White as snow to the west. The sea of mists with a little sea serpent drawn curling out of the waves in the far south. A dark shaded patch of forest labeled the Shadow Mirror, where the mapmaker's lines get very close together. And in the middle of everything, marked with a tiny drawing of towers and flags, the great city of King's Hold, where the king lives. In his white castle.And way down in the small, you might miss it, a dot beside a thin blue river. Brindlewick. The people of Brindlewick know all those other places are out there.They've heard the names. But no one here has ever been to King's Hold. Nobody has seen the Sea of Mists.Nobody would want to go near the Shadow Mirror. Those places may as well be stories. The village itself is small.A stone bridge. A mill with a wooden wheel turning slowly in the river. A market square with a well in the middle. Its bucket hanging on a rope. An inn called the Crooked Lantern. 30 or 40 cottages with thatched roofs and small windows.It's late afternoon in November. The harvest is in. The light is low and thin.Sliding sideways across the rooftops. The days are short now. And getting shorter.On the north side of the square stands the forge. It's an old stone building with a heavy wooden door that stays open all day. The roof is slate.Black with years of smoke. A chimney rises from one end and a steady column of gray smoke climbs out of it into the cold air. Inside.It's dim and warm. The floor is packed earth, swept hard and smooth. Along one wall hangs the tools.Hammers of every size. Long iron tongs. Chisels.Punches. Files. In the middle of the room is the hearth.A wide stone bed of coals raised up to waist height. Glowing a deep, slow orange. Beside it, the bellows.A big leather bag between two wooden boards. Next to the hearth stands the anvil and by the anvil a wooden barrel of water for cooling the iron. With a thin skin of soot floating on top.The forge smells of coal smoke and hot metal. The blacksmith is called Graham. He's not a tall man, but he's built like his anvil.Thick through the shoulders and arms and chest. His forearms are covered in small, pale scars. Old burns from stray sparks. He wears a leather apron and he keeps his beard short and close so a spark won't catch it. He's working at the anvil now. He lifts the bar of iron from the coals with his tongs.The end of it glows bright orange. Almost yellow. He lays it on the anvil and brings the hammer down.And with each blow, the muscles in his arms bunch and lift beneath the skin. He turns the bar a quarter turn and strikes again. Sparks jump off the metal.The iron dulls slowly from yellow to orange to red. Puts it back in the coals and works the bellows and waits. While he waits, he looks out the open door.Across the square on the far side is a narrow stone house with green shutters. That's the brewer's house. Nell's house.Graham looks at that window most afternoons while the iron heats. He's done it for three years now. He's never once said a word to her about it. When she comes by the forge to have a barrel hoop mended, he looks mostly at the barrel hoop. He says yes and no and that will be two coppers. And afterward, he thinks of all the other things he might have said.He pulls the bar from the fire. He strikes it and the note rings out. There's one last job before he finishes for the day. The widow Hale needs a new latch for her garden gate. He's short a little iron. So he reaches into the scrap bucket under the bench.Bent nails. Half a horseshoe. And at the very bottom, an old ring.Plain. Heavy. A little dented.Has no idea how it got there. He drops it in the crucible with the rest and sets it onto the coals. He works the bellows.The fire brightens. And as the ring heats, faint lines of writing rise up along the band. Thin, curling letters glowing red.Ram leans close and squints at it. He watches the letters glow for a long moment, and then he works the bellows again. The ring melts into the rest.By the time the window has gone dark, it's part of a sturdy iron latch for the widow Hale's gate. On some other night, in some other story, that ring might have been the beginning of something. A long road, a quest. A dragon or two. But not tonight. Ram yawns.His shoulders ache the way they always do at the end of a full day. He thinks about supper. He thinks about his bed.And across the square, down six stone steps, beneath the narrow house with green shutters, Nell is in her cellar. The cellar is low. You have to duck under the beam at the bottom of the stairs. The walls are rough stone, cool and a little damp. Smells of malt, sweet and nutty, like warm bread. And under that, yeast, sour and alive. Barrels line both walls, stacked too high. They're lying on their sides on wooden cradles. Each one has a date chalked on the end and small, neat handwriting.A single oil lamp hangs from a hook in the beam. Nell is small and quick. Her sleeves are rolled to the elbow.Her dark hair is tied out in a faded blue cloth to keep it out of the way. There's a smudge of something on her cheek. Her hands are strong and red from cold water and hard work.At this time of day, she makes her rounds. She walks along the row of barrels and knocks on each one with her knuckles. A full barrel is a low, solid knock.A barrel running low sounds hollow. She listens to each one. At some of the barrels, she stops.She turns a small wooden tap and lets a little ale run into a cup. She holds the cup up to the lamp and looks at the color. She smells it.Then she takes a small sip and thinks. Some are ready. Some need another week.One needs a month at least. She chalks a new mark on each. Her chalk scratching softly on the wood.Upstairs through the cellar ceiling, she can hear the ring of a hammer. She stops, chalk in hand, and listens for a moment. Then she goes back to her barrels, but she's smiling a little.At the end of the row, there's one barrel that has wobbled for weeks. Every time she knocks on it, it rocks on its cradle. Tonight, she finally has something to fix it with.A few days ago, cleaning behind the cellar stairs, she found a piece of old paper tucked into a crack in the stone. She takes it out of her apron pocket now and opens it under the lamp. It's a map, coastlines, a forest drawn in little trees, and in one corner, an X in faded red ink with a few words beside it, too worn to read.Nell looks at it for a long while, and she folds it in half and in half again and once more, and she slides it under the edge of the barrel. She knocks on the barrel. It doesn't move.She gives it a small, satisfied pat for a moment. The thought of adventure and travel and treasure filled her mind, but not tonight. She hangs her apron on its peg.She yawns, covering her mouth with the back of her wrist. Her feet are tired. Her back is tired. She thinks about the kettle and the warm brick she'll wrap in a cloth and put at the foot of the bed. She climbs the stairs and blows out the lamp behind her, and the cellar goes dark. At the top of the lane, the old captain is taking his evening walk.He's tall and thin and a little stooped, a long gray coat buttoned to the chin. For twenty years, he guarded a castle a long way from here. When he retired, he came to Brindlewick, because nothing ever happens in Brindlewick.There's nothing to guard, and he likes that. He checks the gate at the edge of the near field. Closed.Checks the latch on the old barn. Fastened. His cottage is small and very tidy.He stirs the fire and lights the lamp above the fireplace. On two iron pegs hangs a sword and a worn leather sheath as he unbuttons his coat. The sword begins to glow a faint, cold, blue light seeping along the edge of the sheath. It used to do that long ago whenever trouble was near. Captain stands very still and watches it. The glow holds for a moment and then it fades and is gone.He looks at the sword a little longer, and then he hangs his coat over the hilt as he does every night, and he goes to put the kettle on. There may have been a time for epic battles and conquest, but not tonight. Back at the forge, Bram's apprentice is sweeping up.His name is Will. He's sixteen, long and thin, all elbows and knees. Every night he sweeps the floor, banks the coals under a blanket of ash so the fire will still be alive in the morning, and he hangs every tool on its own hook. When he's done, he doesn't go straight in for supper. He walks out past the last house to where the road leaves the village. There's a signpost there, old grey wood, leaning a little.Three arms, point three ways, king's hold, says one. The sea of mists, says another. The third is worn away entirely.He's read them a hundred times. Will stands at the signpost in the cold. The road runs off ahead of him into the dusk.Pale between the dark fields, climbing into the hills. The dragon's teeth are almost black now against the last of the sky, and for a long moment, he doesn't move. Then, from back in the village, somebody calls his name. Supper. And on the cold air comes the smell of it, drifting down the lane. Stew.Onions and barley and rosemary. Fresh bread. Will turns around, and by the time he's sitting at the table, with a bowl in front of him and both hands wrapped around it for warmth, he's forgotten. He was ever out by the road at all. He yawns into his stew. His eyes are heavy.He eats too fast and nearly falls asleep at the table. There may be a day. The road calls to him, and he may answer, but not tonight.Night is coming down over Brindlewick now. The sky above the village goes from pale gold to rose and then a deep soft blue, and then the first star comes out over the mill, and then another, and then too many to count. The cold settles into the low places, into the fields, and the lane, and the hollow by the river, and a thin mist begins to rise off the water.All over the village, people are getting ready for bed. Lamps come on in windows, small and yellow. Behind the old glass, shutters swing closed.One by one, somewhere a door bangs and someone laughs, and then it's quiet again. At the crooked lantern, a few people sit by the fire for one last drink, fires low and red. The room smells like spilled ale and wood smoke and the stew pot cooling on the hook.Nobody says much. Someone yawns, and then everyone yawns, one after another around the room. One by one, they drain their cups and stand and pull on their coats and say good night.Graham is there, his apron off, his hands scrubbed as clean as they'll get. Nell comes in for a moment to settle up with the innkeeper. She passes close to his chair on the way out.She says good night. He says good night back. That's all, but he sits there a while after she's gone.Looking at the door, up the lane, the captain steps out onto his doorstep for one last look at the night. The sky is clear and very dark, crowded with stars. Frost is already forming on the stone wall by his gate. His breath hangs in the air, and far off above the dragon's teeth, something is moving, a long dark shape crossing the stars, wide wings beating slow, a heavy body, a long tail trailing behind it. It's very, very far away. It makes no sound.It isn't coming toward the village. It's going somewhere else, over the mountains, toward wherever dragons go at night. The captain watches it until it disappears behind a peak, and then he goes inside and bolts his door and climbs into bed. Nobody else in Brindlewick looked up. The lamps go out, one after another. The Crooked Lantern first, its sign creaking a little in the cold. Then the miller's cottage by the river. Then the little house with green shutters. Then the rooms behind the forge. And Brindlewick sleeps. Outside, the frost spreads. Over the bare fields. Over the woodpiles. Along the top of every wall. Across the thatch of every roof. Over the new latch on the widow Hale's gate. The river runs under the stone bridge, low and dark. The mist lies over it, thin and white. The mill wheel is still. Water drips from its paddles. One drop. Then another. An owl calls from the wood. Another answers. And the road lies empty in the starlight. Pale between the dark fields. Climbing up into the hills, toward places nobody here has ever been. Nobody is walking on it. Nobody is coming down it. No stranger. No rider with a message. No knock at any door. The village sleeps. Warm under its quilts. Safe behind its thick stone walls. Small and quiet and far away from everything. The river runs. The frost settles. The stars turn slowly overhead. And Brindlewick sleeps on, through the long November night, the same as it always has.