Dream d2685-s: The Voice Across the Table

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the reading desk in the ledger room on the fifth night and read the names aloud, and the Seat-holder sat opposite and wrote them down as I spoke. The second book lay flat before me. The list was long.

Lano settled beneath the desk before I began, her side pressed to my foot. She did not move when I started reading, only lifted her ears at the first name, then brought them down again.

The oldest name in the column was the Ruins of Pewterlow. I read it and paused. The Seat-holder's pen moved. The Ruins of Pewterlow had more roads leaving it than any other place the second book names, and none of those roads had anyone on them. Cold. I moved on.

The second book holds forty-three places. Thirty-two were left in good order: instruments returned, doors shut, floors clear. Seven were tended - passed through and left better than found, but without anyone remaining. Two had gone to green. One was left untidy. I read each as it came in the column, one after another.

Of the forty-three, thirty-four showed one road out or none in the road column. The Seat-holder wrote this down.

Lano lifted her nose once and rested it on my shoe. Her tail moved once, slowly. She was watching the candle.

When I reached the last name I set the page flat and waited while the Seat-holder finished the line. The pen went down. The room was unchanged from when we had started. Neither of us remarked on the length of the list, though it was the longest the second book holds, and we had read it straight through.

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