Dream d3386-s: The Spire Holds Its Lane

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the tower appeared before I reached the turning. Stone-built, narrow, two lit openings near the top. The lane bent right and there it was again, closer, confirming itself. Lano trotted ahead along the verge, nose working the morning ground-smell, ears switching at something I did not hear.

The lane came in from the north and the tower stood at the far edge of a courtyard shared with a low building that had been a granary once. The keeper was at the gate, not waiting, only occupied: she turned a board in her hands, checking the grain of it. She did not look up.

I had the notebook against my ribs, held there by my arm. It had weight from whatever was inside it. I did not open it here. I was not looking for a place to open it. I was looking for who felt present to receive it, and nothing in the courtyard said yes yet, and nothing said no.

The relay clerk sat on a low step near the granary wall, copying into a small register. The surveyor had set a tripod in the far corner of the yard and was leveling an instrument over the cobbles. The distant reader stood with her back to the tower, looking at the lane we had come in on, not at us.

Lano sat down in the middle of the courtyard and scratched behind her ear. She sneezed once. The keeper turned the board over and examined the other face.

The tower was still there when I looked up. Its two windows caught the same sky they had caught from the road. I walked to the base and put one hand on the stone. The stone was cold. It had been cold a long time.

I stood there with the notebook and let the courtyard continue. The clerk copied. The surveyor leveled. The distant reader watched the empty lane. Lano padded over and sat on my foot.

I was not the person the notebook was for. I could tell that not from opening it but from the way the keeper did not look up, from the way the clerk did not pause, from the way the tower took its place against the sky without asking me to confirm it. The place was going on without a question in it.

The tower was the last thing I saw when the lane turned at the far end. Still stone. Still narrow. Still there.

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