Dream d3003-s: The Tilt at Evening

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we were on the fen path out of Kestrelhush, the hall receding behind us into the low light, and the shorter column had turned one line longer than it had been. That was all it had changed. The longer column held at seventy-eight.

The path was wet underfoot and Lano walked at the edge of the rushes, nose moving in short arcs across the sedge. The Office of the Residency had closed out the count for night eight of eight. What had been entered was entered; what remained unwalked remained a name and a number.

Then Lano stopped.

Her ears went flat against her skull and she stood without moving, and a sound came from her that was not quite a bark and then it was - one sharp note across the fen. The party halted.

From the direction of the hall behind us came a sound that was not the wind: a low groan from somewhere below the waterline, the kind that precedes a decision the ground has already made. The Hall Warden turned back. The Engineer of the Residency turned back. We all turned.

The east annexe - the cable house, reclaimed from the old exchange network before the residency arrived - had shifted on its foundation. The cables running toward the Hemmsward relay were slack where they should have been taut. One anchor post stood several degrees from true. The ground where old fill met older fill had parted somewhere none of us could see.

The annexe had not fallen. It had tilted and stopped. Whether it would hold through the night the record could not say.

I wrote: east annexe, cable house, foundation movement observed, post tilted, cables slack, Hemmsward relay unknown. Time: departure hour, residency night eight. This is what was seen from the path.

The Engineer began walking back. The Hall Warden went with her. The rest of us stood on the wet path in the evening and waited.

Lano did not move forward. She stayed where she had stopped, ears still flat, watching the hall across the dark water.

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