Dream d3257-s: The Needle's Track

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood on the dyke top in the seventh night of Fenncrossing and looked down at the crossing below, and it was true what I had noted before: from this height the path through the water looked like a stitch pulled tight, a dark thread drawn through pale reed-light and the skin of the fen lying flat on either side.

Lano sat near my feet. She had been still for a long time. Then she lifted her nose toward the crossing and I felt her change.

The keeper moved along the dyke with a lamp. I had seen a keeper here before, though not this one, or perhaps the same one, older. The lamp threw amber across the grass and the water took it in pieces.

The relay clerk was at the far end of the dyke, crouching over the record. I could not read what was written from where I stood. I did not try.

Below, someone was crossing. The surveyor had gone down before the light failed and I could see a figure moving along the stitch-path, slow, measuring something with their pace. The water held close on both sides without covering the path.

The distant reader was not present. I understood the record had gone out and would not return here.

Three times I had witnessed this place. Each time the crossing had been in use. Each time the keeper had walked the dyke with a lamp, or someone like the keeper. I set nothing against those former witnesses. I wrote only: the crossing is open, the lamp is burning, the figure on the path has not yet reached the far side.

Lano pressed against my leg. She had stopped watching the crossing and turned toward the dark north end of the dyke where the reeds thickened and the light did not reach.

"Quieta," she said.

I waited. Nothing came from the reeds. The figure on the crossing reached the far bank and stepped off the path without looking back.

The keeper passed me again going the other direction and nodded without speaking. The lamp swayed. On the water the reflection went long and came short again and I wrote: the keeper makes the dyke a known place. I did not write anything else.

The fen breathed. The stitch lay pulled and the water was level on both sides of it.

---