The sun had sunk to the very top of the Academy steeples as I made my way across the Square. On the other end of the wide, central space stood the Council Building and the adjoining Great Hall, where all of Mirrorvale's social Gatherings were held. The Council Building, itself, held the offices for all the municipal authorities, the town records meticulously maintained since its founding, and all the laws that kept things running smoothly.
Around and between these were the common industry buildings: the tinker, the tailor, the baker, the butcher, the carpenter, the apothecary, and various other skilled workers whose job it was to create and maintain Factory-made items according to Factory standards. Mirrorvale was unusual, in that it was too far away from the closest Factory. Long ago, the town council had effectively argued against stripping dozens of buildings away for the sake of one large, unseemly warehouse, all in the name of "aesthetic." There had even been a few farms at first, tasked with growing crops and raising animals to provide our own food--but it wasn't long before the Civil Authority got wind of our self-sufficiency and stepped in, saying that everything grown and raised in Mirrorvale still had to be delivered to the Factory for processing. This kind of distant oversight didn't last long--the families all packed up and left after the second "Factory reaping." While this was happening, the Civil Authority got wind of all the other independent industries going on, and very soon, every one of our shops had to be beholden to the Factories in some way. The shoemaker could continue to receive shipments of shoes from the Factory to sell, and in the meantime repair any worn-out shoes until the next set arrived. The baker could continue to make her loaves, cakes, muffins, and rolls according to Factory recipes; Mistress Needle could serve as Mirrorvale's tailor, sewing dresses and trousers with Factory patterns and repair those clothes as necessary--and even though we had avoided the usual requirement of a centralized Factory Market, all the little shops around the Square functioned as one.
By-and-large, Mirrorvale could continue to pass itself off as a thriving municipality, even though just about everyone who lived here ended up dying here. Sure, we might see a few families arrive to settle here, and it might happen a few times in the course of a generation, but either they stayed long enough to earn their spot in Mirrorvale's long and tradition-laden history, or they didn't stay at all.
I gave a wry glance at the vacant inn set up at the end of the row of shops. It was built back when the City Planners believed Mirrorvale would become a thoroughfare to the western coast of Hemptor, just like all the other towns... but not even Mirrorvale's residents used the long trail to the Old Dockyard, anymore. Rather than being a gateway, this town had become very much an "end of the line" sort of place. In a way, it seemed like we had found a safe, predictable rhythm a long time ago, and never left it.
I trudged up the small hill at the edge of Mirrorvale proper, over the small copse that separated that half from all the houses where people lived and such, and turned around to get the best view of the town. I could see all the way from the inn and the carriage house across the street, back to the Academy and the Council Building--and just beyond that, The Wall.
I shivered when I saw the way the sun's rays seemed to pass beyond it, leaving the whole structure in shadow. The Wall had stood there, marking that particular edge of the town's boundaries, for as long as I could remember--but the only reason I had ever been given for its existence was "it stands as a memorial to the day the Wordspinners left." To hear some people talk, the Wordspinners themselves had built The Wall, as some kind of warning, or a threat, maybe--though what sort of threat could a wall really pose?
I gave myself a little shake to break the thrall that had come over me, and marched down the hill toward the clusters of stately, identical houses, grouped in sets of ten or twelve around circular communal spaces we called "loops."
Various neighbors moved around the outdoor spaces, gathering up their children, or getting one last walk in before the sun went down completely. I waved at a couple of neighbors who stood at the front of their loop.
"Good evening, Callista!" called the one whose name was Dorthy Galvesyn, a matronly sort with two brown braids hanging down her back.
I smiled and returned the wave. "Good evening!"
The other, a pinch-faced woman with close-cropped pewter-colored hair, scowled discreetly at me. Mrs. Cordelia hated being interrupted, and she loved to tell long-winded stories and complain about every little ache, pain, and inconvenience.
"Anyway," she resumed speaking as I passed, "I've just been to the apothecary for a sleeping tonic."
Dorthy clicked her tongue in sympathy. "Oh, is your back bothering you again?"
I had crossed the street already and reached the edge of my home loop, and I still caught Mrs. Cordelia's reply.
"It's not my back so much as a plague of memories that afflicts me," she said in a tone that sounded more boastful than pitiful. "Oh, my troubled mind will not let me rest!"
I entered the loop for my home and stopped. Some part of what Mrs. Cordelia said caught my attention and almost drove me back toward the women. If I didn't know any better, I could almost think that Mrs. Cordelia's "mental malady" was not too far off from the inconvenient "dreaming" I experienced almost on a daily basis!
I stood there, thinking about retracing my steps and asking Mrs. Cordelia about her experience with the "dreams", if that was what they were. One didn't talk about "dreams" in a proper society--well-bred ladies spoke of "memories" or "night worries" instead.
The thing that held me back, though, was the recollection of exactly what had happened the first and only time I tried to tell my parents about a dream I'd had.
I had just started Level 5 at the Academy, when one of the farms had a break-in at the last Waning of Verdant, and the intruder had slaughtered several animals and damaged the barn they were in, spoiling the newly-harvested crops as a result. No one could discern the culprit, and yet the notoriety increased to the point of four big-city investigators coming out to see what they could learn. They stayed at the inn, and they questioned many people, staking out the entire property and searching it over and over again, in every corner. People started mistrusting one another, and all sorts of secrets came out between people--but though the investigators stayed a week and scarred some relationships for the rest of time, still they had to leave empty-handed. Theories ran wild, from a jealous ex-lover or a roving band of crooks, to whole packs of savage dogs or wildcats--but nobody could confirm for sure exactly what had happened at that farm.
Nobody except me.
I remember dreaming about the farm in question, even before I knew that something so extreme happened there. I had the dream the exact same night it happened, and while I dreamed I actually felt like I stood there in the grass, just outside the gate, while three huge, wolves--all mangy and starved to skin-and-bones--trotted onto the farmer's land and slipped in through a loose board in the barn wall. I remember the screams of terror from the animals, and the awful crashing and banging of splintering wood as the wolves fought their way out again. Somehow, the dream gave me the impression that they had wandered deep into the forest and died of hunger by the first cold snap of Harvest--which would have been just after the investigators left Mirrorvale--but when I awoke in my bed and everything about me was totally normal, I took it for an errant burst of imagination.
My parents weren't so dismissive, however. The next morning, I remember Father describing the grisly scene of the purported crime, and I simply mentioned that I had dreamed of just such a scenario the night before--and the moment I said "dream", my Mother cried out in shock and said that I must have studied too hard and overtaxed my brain. They held me home from Academy classes, sending word to Headmaster Guillem that I had awoken with a case of "fever and delirium" and I would not be resuming my studies until I felt well again.
That was the part that scared me the most--their insistence that I must be unwell, when I felt absolutely fine. Every day, Mother let me stay home and do as I pleased (provided I didn't leave the house, and stayed in my room when guests came over), and every morning, they would ask if I'd had any more dreams. For two weeks, I did dream, but it was the same event over and over again. Meanwhile, the investigators still pressured the town as if a person was at fault for the whole thing, but when all their efforts still did not produce a satisfying culprit for them to arrest (because in fact no person was actually guilty!), they gave up and returned from whence they came. From what I heard, they didn't even offer the farmer any kind of compensation or assistance.
By the time I finally felt miserable and bored enough to inform my parents that the dreams had "stopped" (they hadn't), and that I had recovered enough mental acuity to prevent them from ever happening again (as if I had any control over the thoughts in my brain), I was sure of two things:
First, the vision I had witnessed was the actual truth, but no one else seemed to realize that, so I could never figure out how to confirm it; and
Second, I was never going to mention any kind of dreaming or speculation to my parents ever again.
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