Dear Mom, I found your house

Post No.4. Saturday morning, very early.

June Oakcrest. Before coffee. Possibly before full consciousness.

Dear Mom,

I fell asleep on the sofa last night with your plant journal open on my chest and all the lights still on. I don't remember deciding to sleep. One moment I was reading your notes on the wood sorrel— I read that line twice, actually, the one where you wrote that it tastes like something that has been keeping a secret. I don't know why I needed to read it twice. And I was somewhere else entirely.

I need to tell you about the dream. Or whatever it was.

I was in the sitting room, except the walls were breathing— not frightening, just slow, like the house was asleep and I could feel it. The squirrel was on the armchair across for me. Sitting upright, tail wrapped around its feet, looking at me with that expression it has— that one that says it has been patient for a very long time and is beginning to reconsider that choice. And I was floating. Not sleeping, not quite awake either— floating somewhere outside my own body, light in a way that felt like relief, like I'd been carrying weight I didn't know I was carrying and had finally set it down. In the dream I had no heaviness. In the dream I could listen the way the forest listens, without all the noise of being a person inside skin and bone.

The Squirrel spoke first.

The Squirrel: she's ready. Tell her now. She went into the forest, she touched the oak, she heard her name. She's ready.

The House didn't speak exactly. It was more like the feeling of a very large, very calm presence shifting its weight. A warmth that moved from one side of the room to the other like a slow exhale. But I understood it perfectly. 

The House: she has been here three days.

The Squirrel: three days is enough. I followed her through the forest. She waved at me. She's engaged.

The House: waving at a squirrel is not the same as being ready.

The Squirrel: she locked the door twice on the first night. That means she felt it. If she felt it, she's ready.

The House: locking the door twice means she was frightened. Frightened is not ready. Frightened is the beginning of ready. There is a difference.

A long pause. The squirrel's tail flicked once, which I understood to be the equivalent of a very controlled sigh. 

The Squirrel: she found the journal.

The House: I know.

The Squirrel: so.

The House: so wait a little longer. She needs to find the other thing first.

The Squirrel: which other thing?

The House: she'll know it when she finds it. They always do.

The squirrel looked at me—directly at me, as though it knew perfectly well I was listening there and had been listening the whole time. It held my gaze for a long moment with its small bright eyes. 

The Squirrel: she's awake, you know.

The House: I know. She has been awake the whole time—A pause that felt almost fond.

She gets that from her mother.

And then I woke up.

The journal was still  on my chest. The lights were still on. The squirrel was on the windowsill outside— of course it was— looking in with that expression. I lay completely still for a moment, the way you do when you know something just happened and you don't want to move in case it dissolves. My body felt suddenly and shockingly heavy— like I had crashed back into my bone and skin all at once. 

My mouth tasted of honey and something herbal.  Did I drink something?  I don't remember taking anything… 

I looked back at the squirrel for a long moment.

Which other thing? I said out loud.

My voice was hoarse. My body was still catching up to being awake.

It didn't answer. Obviously. It is a squirrel. 

But it didn't leave either. 

Mom—what is in the house? What did you leave here for me to find? Because I am becoming increasingly certain it is not going to be the short visit I was planning for. I  came here hoping to see you or at least to find some clue about where you are. I think you know I was coming. I think your house knew. I think the squirrel knew before either of you.  

I am going to the market this morning. And when I come back, I am going to look very carefully at every room in this house until I find whatever it is I am supposed to find. The house can call it "not ready" if it wants. I'm calling it Saturday. 

More soon—possibly much more—

June

P.S. The sleep remedy from Miss Dahlia's shop was on the nightstand this morning. The jar was open. There was a small spoon beside it. I don't remember any of this. 

P.S.S. "She gets that from her mother." I've been thinking about that since five a.m.