The Waking Dream

November 14, 1871

I dreamt of the orchard again.

At first, it was as I remembered — rows of trees bowed under the weight of fruit, moonlight trembling through the branches like water. The air smelled of clove and rain-soaked soil. Then the wind shifted, and I realized the trees were weeping. Not sap, but blood — thick and slow, steaming where it touched the frozen ground.

The fruit hung low enough to touch, glistening in the half-light. When I looked closer, I saw they weren’t apples at all. They were hearts. Dozens of them. Each one beat softly, their rhythms mismatched, forming a strange, uneven music that filled the air.

He was there among them — the stranger. Moving between the rows with quiet purpose, one hand brushing the hanging hearts as he passed. Each touch dimmed their glow, as though he drew their warmth into himself. His humming carried across the field — the same hollow tune I’ve heard under the floor, through the walls, in the stillness between heartbeats.

When he turned toward me, I saw myself in his eyes. Only it wasn’t me as I am — it was what waits at the end of this path. My face hollowed, my veins dark, my light devoured and repurposed. A reflection of what I might become if the dark ever finished swallowing the light.

I tried to run, but the soil clung to my feet. The ground pulsed beneath me — warm, wet, alive. Something whispered from below the roots:

“Open the mouth. Feed the soil. The vessel must breathe.”

I woke with the taste of dirt in my mouth, grit between my teeth, and soil packed under my fingernails. The scent of iron still lingered in the room.

The Kentucky book rested on my chest, open though I hadn’t touched it. Across both pages ran a single phrase, written over and over until the ink bled through:

“You are the vessel. You are the vessel. You are the vessel.”

I tore the page out, shredded it into pieces, and burned it in the candle flame. The ash curled and rose like smoke from a wound.

When I woke again at dawn, the page was back — whole, neat, sewn into the binding with black thread I do not own.