Dream d3356-s: Over the Thin Water

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the south track was pale at its edges, frost caught where the grass had not yet found the sun, and Brackenfall still stood behind us, its single window dark, its roof line holding the slow damp of the night.

Lano moved ahead on the path. She paused where the track bent, her white coat bright for a moment, then settled into a trot and went on without looking back.

I carried the notebook inside my coat. I had carried it through eight nights. The keeper stood at the edge of the yard with their hands low, not in farewell exactly, not in any posture that meant come back, but present, watching the direction of our going. I passed the last post. They did not reach.

The surveyor had folded the day's sheet before first light and stood already at the gate. The relay clerk was beside the equipment, ready. The distant reader had gone some paces south and faced the hill. None of them asked about the notebook. I had been watching for who would.

The water ran below the track in its cut, thin now, darker than it should be for October. Not stopped, not dry, but less than its measure. Lano found the crossing and went over in two steps without pausing. I followed. The sound of it was light, a counting with few numbers.

At the top of the rise I looked back. The keeper had not moved. The moss on the near wall held its color, the deep green that does not need much to stay. Brackenfall had been here through eleven visits and showed no particular wear from them. It was not asking anything from us now. It was simply going on, the way a place goes on when the people who came to it leave.

I put my hand on the notebook through the cloth. Still there. Still sealed. I had not found who it was for. Maybe the finding was not the same as the arriving, and the carrying was not the same as the holding.

Lano sat down at the crest, ears upright, looking back the way I had looked back. Then she turned and trotted on, and I followed, and Brackenfall went behind the ridge.

The water sound came with us a little way down the south track. Then that, too, stopped.

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