The Castle of the King

It's a quiet day over here and I was playing with Photoshop again. I was reading through a collection of ghost stories and came across The Castle of the King by Bram Stoker. If you haven't read it, its a pretty dark short story considering it was made to be for children!

The story is very rich in atmosphere and describes a garden on the border between the lands of life and death:

"The subtlety of the King of Death, who rules in the Realms of Evil, is great. He has ordered that the way beyond the Portal be made full of charm. Thus those straying from the paths ordained for good see around them such beauty that in its joy the gloom and cruelty and guilt of the desert are forgotten."

Interestingly, before reading this story I have imagined a very similar place. Here is my interpretation of the garden.Coincidentally, there is a score from Dracula that runs through my mind when I think of the gardens. The song has a haunting beauty to it. You can listen to it here: Mina/Dracula (Bram Stoker's Dracula Soundtrack)