Dream d3289-s: The Lamp the Keeper Left

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the sluice crossing at Marrowmill sat lower than it had on the eight nights before, or perhaps the water had dropped and exposed more of the crossing posts, their wood dark and furred with moss to the height of a hand above the surface.

The relay clerk had her ledger open on the near bank, shielded from the spray that usually came up between the boards. Tonight there was no spray. The water lay flat, absorbed into itself, and the only sound from under the crossing was a slow tick of something wooden shifting against an iron pin.

I counted seven planks across. I had not counted them before.

Lano moved along the bank edge, nose close to the water, not entering it. She stopped at the gatepost on the near side, where a chain ran through an iron ring and dropped into the water at an angle. The chain was new to me, or new to my noticing — a secondary line that the keeper must have added to hold the gate flush when the water ran slow and the pressure was not enough to keep it seated. She sniffed it, then moved off.

The keeper was at the far end, crouched by the lamp bracket that was bolted to the upright there. She was feeding oil through a small brass fitting with a cloth over her lap to catch the overflow. She did not look up when I crossed. The boards held firm. The iron pin ticked once more beneath me, then was quiet.

The surveyor had driven a stake in the soft bank on the far side, where I had not seen one before. He was reading the notch in it against a second stake ten paces upstream. I did not interrupt him. The relay clerk was still writing.

The lamp at the far end burned amber and caught the oil-dark surface between the planks, making the water look warmer than it was. The keeper replaced the fitting cap, folded her cloth, and set it on the bracket shelf. She looked at the lamp. She looked at the water. She picked up her cloth again and wrung it once over the bank.

The chain through the iron ring moved a little, as though the water beneath it had shifted without making a sound above. The relay clerk turned a page. The surveyor read the notch a second time and wrote nothing.

Lano sat at the foot of the near gatepost and watched the flat water hold its shape.

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