Step past the vermilion threshold and the weather changes. What waits on the other side has been waiting a very long time, and it is in no hurry at all.
The path narrows until choosing stops being possible. Every arch was raised by someone who walked here first — a name, a year, a small act of faith set into the wood. Walk far enough and the counting quietly stops.
Fifteen rocks, and from no angle can you see all of them at once. The garden is not a puzzle waiting to be solved — it is a reminder that seeing everything was never the point.
Inside, the rain becomes a sound instead of a kind of weather. Cedar posts have held this roof up for six centuries. The room is very nearly empty, which is precisely how it manages to hold so much.