Dream d3427-s: The Keeper at the Margin

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the field smelled of turned soil and something older under it, and Lano moved ahead of me through the grass with her nose low, reading what the night had pressed into the ground.

The roofs of Rowangreen stood in a ring beyond the field's edge. I counted from where I was: seven of the nine were visible before the treeline swallowed the rest. Two hidden. The entry-keeper had set some figure down somewhere in the record. I did not consult it now. The notebook was in my coat and I had stopped thinking about who might want it.

A keeper of the place stood at the field's far margin, not among the roofs but facing them, arms at the sides. They did not move toward us and we did not move toward them. The green between the field and the settlement held no one crossing it. This was how it went.

Lano circled a low stone set into the ground near the field's center. Not a marker, or not placed as one. A field stone that had simply not been moved. She pressed her nose against its face, then sat back, tail still, ears tipped forward. The stone had no inscription. It did not need one.

The relay clerk stood behind me; I heard the scratch of their pen on something in the dark and did not turn to look. Whatever was being noted would keep. Whatever was not being noted would also keep.

I watched the keeper at the margin. They turned their head once, not toward me but toward the roof line, and then were still again. The warmth of the place was in the air around the roofs, not in the field. Out here the grass held its own temperature, which was the temperature of October and nothing more.

I set the notebook down on the field stone. Not to leave it. Only to use both hands to button my coat against the cold. Then I picked it up again.

Lano watched the keeper.

The seven visible roofs went on standing. Somewhere behind the treeline the other two stood the same way, I supposed, whether I could see them or not. The entry-keeper did not read from anything. The record had called this place once or perhaps twice and here it was, going on in the dark, not waiting to be named again.

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