Dream d1768-s: The Book Closes at Rowanfield

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the west wind came in off the fields before anyone was properly awake, rattling the inn's shuttered windows and pushing woodsmoke back down the chimneys so the common room smelled of last night's fire. I sat at the table near the door with the book of readings open to its final Rowanfield page, trying to write the last entry before the light changed.

The Lamplighter found me there. She set a cup down without asking and looked over my shoulder at what I'd written: the pressure readings, the Builder's notes on the mill's load-bearing joints, the Weather Reader's observation about the cloud-memory over the valley, the way the village lamps burned longer on the west side because of how the wind came down from the ridge. The Lamplighter read it without speaking. Then she said, "You've written us truer than we write ourselves."

I told her that was the work. She laughed, short and dry, and said it didn't make it less strange to be written.

The Weather Reader came down last, her barometric case strapped and her coat already on. She'd been up at the weather-post since before dawn and came in with her fingers cold and her cheeks red. "Pressure dropping," she said to no one in particular, pulling the cup from my hands and drinking from it without apology. "We'll have rain by midmorning. Start early or start damp."

The Builder had already paid the house. She was in the yard when I brought the book out, checking the repaired wheel-brace on the cart - the one she'd spent two evenings setting right because the Lamplighter's apprentice had asked and the reading showed it would fail before the season turned. She tested it twice and then left it without comment.

Lano was at the gate. She had a smooth stone in her mouth, one she'd found at the edge of the well-yard, and she stood with her tail moving slowly, watching the road.

Rurik went first, as he always does at thresholds. He stepped through the gate and sat on the far side, amber eyes steady, waiting for the rest of us to follow. That's his work: to mark the crossing so it's real.

I closed the book. Four days of readings, one village somewhat less in the dark than we found it. The Lamplighter stood in the yard with her hand raised and did not walk out to the road with us, which felt correct. Some farewells are best kept inside the gate.

I went through. Lano trotted past me and fell into step beside Rurik. The west wind pushed at our backs. Behind us, Rowanfield's lamps were still burning against the early grey.