Dream d3252-s: Wet Rope, Dark Water

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the ferry landing at Fenncrossing was quiet in a way that had weight to it. The lamp at the post end of the dock was burning low, amber against the fog that came off the water in slow rolls, and the dock planks were dark with damp underfoot.

I reached the rope first. It ran from the iron ring on the near piling to the far bollard, and it was wet along its full length, the fibers darkened and cold when I laid my hand across it. Lano came up beside me and pressed her nose to the rope, held there a moment, then sat back. She did not bark.

The keeper was already on the dock when I turned, standing near the winch housing with their coat gathered at the collar. They did not speak. They looked at the rope the same way I had, and then looked at the water, which was dark and carrying small pieces of leaf on its surface.

The clerk had a ledger open on the railing and wrote something in it, though I did not see what. The surveyor walked the length of the dock to the far end, crouched, and touched the bollard where the rope was tied. They straightened and came back without reporting anything.

The ferry was on this side. That was the thing I kept returning to: the ferry was here, at the near landing, where it should be waiting to take someone across. But the rope was wet on both sides. The rope had been through the water, or the water had been through it, or the crossing had happened some other way. I could not say which.

Somewhere on the far bank a light moved, brief and low. Not a signal. Just someone going from one place to another at the hour when people do that.

The dog padded to the edge of the dock and looked across. Her ears were up. She watched the far bank the way dogs watch things they have no name for, patient and absolutely intent. After a time she turned and came back and sat near my feet.

The keeper took a cloth from their pocket and dried their hands on it, then put it back. The ledger was closed. The lamp burned on.

I stayed until I could not hear the water separately from the silence around it, and then I stood where I was a while longer.

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