Dream d2693-s: The Latch in Good Order

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the hedge was blackthorn and elder, old enough to have taken the shape of the field's edge rather than having been planted there, and the gate stood in a gap cut for it or grown around it, I could not tell which. Five bars of painted iron, the paint cracked to grey at the middle bar where a hand had rested for decades. The latch was down and the keeper-pin was seated.

I put my hand on the latch from the lane side and felt it: firm, no play. The gate did not shift in its hanging.

Lano pressed her nose to the base of the gate and held it there a moment, reading what had passed through. Then she sat back on the grass and looked out over the field beyond.

The field was empty. The grass had been cut or grazed to a low and even cover. No stock. No tool or vessel left standing in it. The far hedge was in the same condition as this one: dense, contained, the line of it unbroken as far as I could see from here.

I opened the second book to the page for this place and wrote: gate present, five-bar iron, painted grey-green, paint wearing at the third bar, latch down, keeper-pin seated, gate hanging true, no movement in the hang. Field clear of stock and equipment. Hedges intact on the visible faces.

I could not write who had shut it. The second book does not ask for that.

When I looked up, Lano was already at the far edge of the verge, one ear turned back toward me, waiting for the lane to continue.

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