Dream d2628-s: Hands Enough to Hold It

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where it was the eighth night of the residency and then suddenly dawn, and I was still at the table.

The decision had been taken before the light changed. I opened the book to the next blank line and wrote it there: that the marks would be taught to other hands, that the teaching would begin where the hands were most, and that the places with nobody in them would be noted and left.

That was the entry. Nothing before the fact and nothing after it.

Lano was at my feet. I felt her shift once, settle. Rurik had found the high shelf sometime in the dark before the light came; he sat along it with his tail curled, watching the window.

I wrote the count beneath the decision. Sixty-five places. Three with hands enough to keep their own mark. Thirty-five with only a few. Twenty-seven with nobody standing in them at all. Forty-three ruins. Forty-seven cold. The Ruins of Pewterlow, where the most hands are gathered, is where the teaching will begin. The Ruins of Mistthwaite holds the largest pile of unanswered letters. There is no one left there to answer them.

I did not explain any of it. I only wrote it.

When I closed the book - both hands flat against the cover - Lano lifted her head, tipped her nose toward the entry, and then set her chin back down on the floor.

Rurik blinked at the window once. Did not move from the shelf.

The record held the decision. The room held the rest.

---