Tonight the flickering lantern is hanging somewhere unusually quiet: the Dreaming Rooms.
There is a bed there that nobody remembers placing.
It is very small—not quite child-sized—and completely overgrown with pale, papery flowers. No roots have been found beneath it. No vines enter through the walls. Yet every few nights, another blossom appears tucked somewhere among the blankets.
The Archives have begun calling it:
Dreaming Room Observation — The Unfinished Bed
The bed is always neatly made.
Almost.
One corner of the blanket remains folded back, as though someone has only just climbed out.
Attempts to straighten it have been unsuccessful.
Observers have remade the bed completely, tucked every corner, and even removed the blankets overnight.
By morning, everything has returned.
Including the folded corner.
The flowers behave differently.
They appear without pattern and disappear just as quietly. Some have been pressed between Archive pages for identification, but once removed from the Dreaming Room they lose all color and crumble before reaching the Conservatory.
No specimen has survived long enough to be catalogued.
There is, however, one consistent detail.
Whenever a new flower appears, something has been found beneath the pillow.
Never an object.
A word.
Written faintly against the linen in what appears to be pollen.
Previous observations include:
wait
nearly
remember
home
The most recent appeared three mornings ago.
It read:
again
No one has slept in the bed.
At least, no one currently working in the Gardens remembers doing so.
