Dream d2074-s: The Vesperhush Takes Root

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the light through the canopy came in coins, slow and shifting, and I watched one cross Rurik's flank where he sat on the threshold stone without moving.

Grove day five. The reading hour had a different weight than the others. The Loomkeepers had been in the upper terraces since midafternoon, pulling new thread through the old rows, and when the Builder looked up at them she said, quiet, that they were making room, not adding but opening a gap between existing rows the way you clear a sleeping space for a guest you know is coming.

The Weather Reader had her instrument out, checking the press of the evening air. She said the night would be still, no wind from the ridge, and she said it once and put the instrument away, which meant she was certain.

Lano lay in the warm dirt at the foot of the lowest terrace, nose pointing toward the canopy, ears tracking the Loomkeepers' movement overhead.

The Book of Readings sat on the broad stone we used as a table. The singed spine had dried in the five days since we carried it out; I had touched the corner of it each morning and each morning it felt more like a thing that had survived rather than a thing that had been damaged. Tonight it was open to the Vesperhush entry, third in the circuit. The Builder held the spine steady so the Loomkeepers could work from it directly.

There is no good way to describe what the Loomkeepers do that does not make it sound slower than it is. One would dart to the canopy edge, beak trailing thread, and the thread would catch on an existing warp and pull taut, and it was already a row, already part of the ledger, before the next beat of wings. Another followed behind, tightening what the first had set. They worked in a spiral from the center outward, and as they worked the coins of light shifted with the new thread, angling differently, catching on the row they had just made.

Rurik watched without turning his head. He can do that.

The Vesperhush entry is not long. Three names, two deeds, one threshold. When the Loomkeepers reached the third name a narrow-bodied one broke from the others and flew to the lowest terrace, carrying a paper sleeve. Inside was a seed smaller than my thumbnail. I took it, because they offered it to me, and I pressed it into the turned soil below the newest row of the ledger, down to the second joint of my finger, and closed the earth over it.

Lano lifted her head and put it down again. Rurik exhaled once.

The canopy did not change. The coins of light moved on.