Dream d3451-s: How the Country Runs

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the ridge was cold underfoot and the country went away from me in every direction that mattered. Below, the four turf walls of Tamarackcroft sat in the grass like something left to settle. They looked smaller from here. I had known that from the first time I stood in this place, and knowing it again changed nothing.

Lano moved ahead of me along the ridge, her nose held low to the rock, tracking whatever the wind had laid down. She did not go toward the walls. She went parallel to the high ground, following her own account of the place.

The entry-keeper stood a little apart, the ledger tucked under one arm. She was not reading it. The relay clerk stood further on, watching the country the way you watch weather - not expecting anything, just keeping the direction in view.

A keeper of the place came up the slope from the other side. Not hurrying. He stopped at the ridge and looked down at the walls the way I had been looking. After a while he sat on a flat stone. That was all.

I had a notebook. I was not writing in it. The land was making no request.

The umber of the walls matched the dry grass around them. In the amber of the low light the whole settlement went soft at its edges - not vanishing, just ceasing to distinguish itself from its surroundings. Dormant was the word. Not abandoned. A place that had gone quiet in the way of winter grass, which does not require acknowledgment to persist.

Lano came back to where I stood and pressed her flank against my leg a moment, then went forward again. Her tail moved once. The country below us did not change.

The relay clerk made a note of something - I could not see what. The entry-keeper held the ledger the same way she had been holding it. The keeper on the flat stone was still looking down.

The name had been in the record for longer than this visit. The walls stood. The grass moved in a wind I could not hear from the ridge.

I put the notebook away without opening it. Below, Tamarackcroft continued.

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