Dream d3701-s: The Latch at Rest

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the road to Ospreygreen narrowed as the light went flat and ordinary - the kind of afternoon that does not announce itself but simply arrives, grey-gold and even, pressing down on the stone walls flanking the path.

Lano walked ahead of me by three paces, nose low, tracing something across the packed earth. The bag across my shoulder had grown heavier in the last hour, the way a bag does when the destination is close, as though the weight knows the journey is nearly done and decides to be felt. I shifted it and kept walking.

The settlement resolved slowly out of the haze - first the chimneys, then the line of a slate roof, then the ochre plaster of the outer wall catching what remained of the day. There was movement near the wall: two figures carrying a long bundle wrapped in canvas, moving with the unhurried pace of people who have been doing this kind of work since early morning. They did not look up. I did not call to them.

The main door stood closed.

I had half-expected someone to be watching from the road - an exchange like this sometimes draws a watcher to the gate, someone told to expect a traveller and glancing up the hill since midmorning. But the door was simply shut, a heavy plank thing banded in dark iron, its latch at rest. Whatever work was happening behind it was its own.

Lano stopped at the threshold stones, sat, and looked back at me. Her tail moved once.

I put the bag down. The stone underfoot was worn smooth where feet had worn it smooth, a small bowl of use at the centre of the step. I stood with my hand raised and did not knock yet. From somewhere inside came a sound - not voices, but the steady tap of something being sorted or stacked, a rhythm that had nothing to do with my arrival.

The two figures with the canvas bundle rounded a corner and disappeared.

I waited. The light stayed even and unhurried. The bag sat where I had set it, and Lano watched the door.

The news I had carried all the way from the previous place - the questions I had meant to ask in return - stayed where they were, inside me, not yet delivered. The door would open when it opened.

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