Dream d2789-s: One Day Standing

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I turned at the top of the ridge and looked the other way down.

The drawn sheet was in my hands. Sixty-five places on it, ten carrying a mark for light. Below on this side a different valley opened, wider, and the windows in it came up one by one as the dusk settled. I counted them as they appeared. Twenty-eight.

Lano pressed against my leg and looked where I looked, ears up.

The sheet did not hold this side. The hands carrying the drawn country held two hundred and seventy-nine places in all, and one hundred and seventy-four of them had never gone to ink. They were here, or in valleys like this, or in the fold below Larklow Town, which stood one day old and was the newest ground past the edge.

Of the undrawn country, sixty-one places had been walked in the last thirty days. The ink stopped but the walking had not.

I looked at the seven marks on the sheet that pointed outward, to ground a reader could not reach from the page. The marks were correct as far as marks went. What they pointed at was lit or dark or somewhere between, and nothing from the ridge could rule which.

Lano sat down in the scrub beside me and her nose moved. She found something in the air and was still with it for a moment.

I recorded the count on the back of the sheet, in the margin. One hundred and seventy-four undrawn. Sixty-one recent. Twenty-eight alight. Seven unreachable marks. One day for Larklow Town.

The valley held more than the sheet. I folded the sheet and put it away.

Lano rose and took a few steps down the far side, looked back once, and waited.

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