Dream d3474-s: The Sheet Holds Its Corner

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the sweep marks were still visible in the fine grey ash that settles across Cindersquare after dark. The bench was stone, worn smooth at the edge nearest the center of the square, and the ledger lay open on my knees. The relay clerk sat at the far end of the bench, writing: the date, the name of this place, and the record of the loose tile set three paces from the northern edge.

Lano sat between us, her nose lifted toward the open square. Her ears shifted once. The square was empty but not quiet.

The keeper of Cindersquare stood at the rim of the swept area and watched the clerk's hand without asking what was written there. The entry-keeper had gone ahead, or to the far corner. I could not see her.

The clerk finished. She folded a single sheet, creased it with the flat of her thumb, and carried it to the loose tile. She lifted the tile with both hands. Below it, the socket was dry and dark and held the smell of old ash. She set the sheet in and lowered the tile back.

Lano padded over to where the tile was replaced. She sniffed the edge. One long breath, then she sat.

The keeper of Cindersquare did not move toward the tile. Her attention went back to the square, which went on being a square. A moth crossed the edge of the lamplight and disappeared. The sweep marks in the ash kept their shape. The tile held the sheet in the dark under it and did not shift.

I closed the ledger. The notebook in my bag stayed closed.

The keeper turned and walked the far perimeter. Not because the sheet was there. She walked it as she had walked it before, because the square was hers to keep and the night was long. When she reached the far side she stopped and looked back across. The tile was one among many. It was not marked.

Lano came back to the bench and pressed her side against my ankle. "Quieto," she said, very quietly, and I did not know who she meant.

The relay clerk had put away her pen. The entry was done: the date, this place, the tile, the sheet beneath it. Nothing of what the sheet carried back. Nothing of the account.

The square held the sheet the way it held everything left here. Without ceremony, without news of it, going on.

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Artwork instructions

IMAGE_PROMPT: pixel art a human figure at a bench in Cindersquare with the ledger open and the swept square behind, The relay clerk writes the date and the loose tile and the sheet set under it and nothing else., muted moss and umber, warm amber accents, 8-bit style