Etta knocked three times before Marrow stopped singing.
“It isn’t even your voice,” the lodger said through the door.
Marrow lifted her head from the pillow. The song stopped. For one moment, a man somewhere else finished the tune, and she heard him as plainly as if he stood beside the bed.
Then there was only Etta.
“I pay for a room where I can sleep.”
“I’ll keep quiet.”
“You said that yesterday.”
Marrow sat up. Downstairs, the baker’s oven had cooled. Her husband had built that oven before he died. She still knew which stone held warmth longest, where his hand had left a slight hollow in the plaster.
She had asked the witch Nuv to let her hear what he had been thinking before he died. Nuv had told her that was beyond her reach. The pillow she offered would bring the dreams of living people instead.
Marrow had taken it anyway. The first dreams were strange, full of doors that opened onto fields, voices from childhood, bread that rose into birds.
“Don’t give away what you hear,” Nuv had warned.
Marrow thought she meant don’t tell secrets. So she did not tell them. She made things instead.
For the singer, a cup shaped like the bright moon in his dream. For Etta, a door hook shaped like a bird that had carried her safely over the dark village. The gifts pleased them. Etta decided to keep renting her room. The singer praised Marrow’s kindness in the square.
Now his song came through her pillow at night, and when he stayed awake, she stayed awake too. She had not yet understood why.
The next evening, Marrow used an ordinary cushion. The voices stopped. She closed her eyes with relief.
But she did not sleep.
Across the lane, the singer practiced long after dark. Every time he paused, her thoughts began to blur. When he started again, she woke hard, though no sound could have reached her through the closed shutters.
At dawn, Etta rose to pack for work. Marrow felt another sharp waking, even as the singer finally slept.
She went to Nuv’s market stall before opening the shop.
“You gave them something made from a private dream,” the witch said. “Now their waking comes to you. The pillow brought the voices. The gifts tied their nights to this house.”
“Then take the pillow.”
“That ends the voices. You’ve done that yourself.”
Marrow put both hands on the stall. “What ends the rest?”
“They may give the gifts back willingly. Each returned gift ends that person’s tie. Or you can give up the house for good. The house, the oven, the shop. No coming back to live here.”
“Sleep somewhere else?”
“For a night, perhaps. Then you return to what is waiting.”
“My husband built that oven.”
“I know why you stayed.”
Marrow stared at a row of plain cloth cushions for sale. “Could I burn the cup?”
“It isn’t yours. Taking it back by force doesn’t undo taking the dream.”
She left without buying anything. She still worked in the shape of her husband’s hands. She would try the gifts first.
The singer let her in before breakfast. Her cup stood beside his chair.
“It’s about the cup,” she said.
He lifted it. “Wonderful thing.”
“I heard it in your dream.”
He laughed. “You heard a cup?”
“The moon. You were drinking from it.”
His smile changed. He remembered.
“You never said.”
“I thought you wouldn’t like knowing.”
“I don’t.”
She told him what the gift had done and asked him to return it. He turned it slowly between his hands.
“I like it,” he said. “You can’t give a thing and then ask for it because you didn’t read your own bargain.”
“I haven’t slept.”
“Go to the witch.”
“I did.”
He set the cup on the table beside him. “Then go again.”
Marrow wanted to say he owed her something after all the free loaves. But the loaves had been her choice, too. She left the cup where he had put it.
Etta was carrying a basket downstairs when Marrow came home. The bird-shaped hook had held her work coat beside the bed.
Marrow began with the pillow. Etta put down the basket.
“You listened while I slept?”
“The dreams came to me.”
“You kept using it.”
Marrow stopped.
“I kept using it,” she said.
She explained the gift’s tie and asked for the hook. Etta shook her head.
“You’ve made this another thing I must do for you.”
Marrow sat on the bottom step. Her flour sack was open beside her, and she could not remember opening it.
“I liked you staying here,” she said. “When I heard you dream about flying over the village, I thought I could give you something you’d want to keep. Then you’d think of the room as home.”
“You could have asked whether I liked living here.”
“Yes.”
Etta went upstairs. Marrow waited without calling after her. When the lodger returned, she carried the hook and a packed bag.
“I don’t want this,” Etta said, placing the bird in Marrow’s hand. “I don’t want the room either.”
Marrow refunded the unused rent. Etta counted it and left.
That night, the singer began another tune. Marrow sat at the kitchen table, awake. She rested her hand against the oven wall. It was cool now, the hollow beneath her palm holding no warmth.
In the morning, she asked a neighbor who wanted a larger bakery to look at the shop. It took weeks to settle the sale. During those weeks, she slept when the singer slept and worked fewer hours than she could afford.
She sold the house and the oven outright. The buyer would have an ordinary house; the dream ties belonged to Marrow and the gifts she had made. She took none of the oven stones. In another village, she rented a small room and paid to use a baker’s spare oven before dawn.
She would have to learn where that oven burned too hot. Its walls knew nothing of her husband.
On her first night, a sound came through the partition. She sat up, waiting for a borrowed song.
The lodger next door coughed, turned in bed, and went quiet.
Marrow lay down again. Nobody’s dream arrived. She was still listening when sleep came.
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