Dream d2653-s: The Nod at the Page

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the road came in from the east and the hamlet sat at the end of it, four walls on each side and most of them dark. I had the ledger under my arm. Lano walked ahead of me on the track, her nose down, reading whatever the cold evening had left there.

One window. Upper floor, southeast corner, yellow behind glass. That was the count as I entered: one.

I knocked at the door below the lit window. A long wait, then footsteps. The door opened on a person holding a candle. I will call them the Night-Keeper, because that is what the hamlet would require if anyone accepted what I had come to offer.

I told them what the ledger held: the marks of every place in the territory, each named, each noting what had stood there and whether it still stood, and how many hands remained to tend it. I told them this hamlet had been entered twice, that its tally was small but clean, and that I had no further right to hold the record myself - that by the practice I was following, the record ought to pass to the nearest capable pair of hands, or sit unclaimed until the residency was done.

Lano settled at my feet. Her ears were up. She watched the Night-Keeper's face with that particular quality of attention dogs give to a moment they cannot act on.

The Night-Keeper took the ledger and turned it toward the candle. They looked at the entry for the hamlet: three lines, three marks, one notation that read one capable hand. They looked at me. They did not speak.

I waited. Nothing more was required.

Lano lay down on the step, her chin on her paws.

The Night-Keeper held the ledger in one hand and the candle in the other and stood in the doorway while the last of the dusk left the sky. Then they nodded once - not to me but to the page, as if confirming something the page had asked - and stepped back inside.

I took that for yes. In my working copy I made a notation: this hamlet, handed. One keeper, standing.

Lano rose when I turned from the door. She fell in beside me on the track. We walked back the way we had come, and the window stayed lit behind us for as long as I could see it.

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