Dream d3219-s: The Oilcloth Holds

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I was crouched at the base of the hollow oak at the edge of Mistbarrow, pressing my fingers against the oilcloth wedged into the split where the bark had opened years ago. The cloth was cold. Morning fog had come in off the low fields and settled into every groove in the bark, but the cloth turned it. I pulled the edge back just enough to check the knot. The twine was tight, the same half-hitch I had left, and the wax seal along the fold had not cracked.

Lano waited just outside the oak's shadow, her nose pointed toward the path. She had led me here, padding ahead through the wet grass without hesitation, and now she sat with her ears up, watching the treeline.

The record sheet was tucked under the twine as it had been placed. Two accounts, both dated. One from the surveyor who had walked the unreckoned stones, each entry signed. One from the nine residencies and the ninety moments that followed, two dated threads traveling together, neither erasing the other. I did not read them again. I had read them. My work here was to confirm they were present, undisturbed, dry.

Rurik came from somewhere in the roots, pressed his flank against the oak and blinked once at me, slow, amber-eyed. Then he moved through a gap I had not noticed and was gone into the fog on the far side.

I pressed the oilcloth fold flat and smoothed the edge back into the split. When the absent witness arrived, they would find it as I found it. They would draw what they drew from the two accounts inside. I had nothing to add to the record and I did not try. The twine held. The seal was whole. The fog had not entered.

I stood. Lano fell in beside me. We walked back toward the town.

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