It took Viola half an hour in all to move into the east-facing attic room.
Her luggage was so scant that Mrs. Porter could only frown: one old trunk, several changes of uniform, her private copies of the eight volumes of Register of Homecomings, her notebook, her mother's thimble, and the cuff in her father's hand. At the bottom of the trunk lay a paper knot folded and refolded—the one made from her registration stub at the bridgehead.
"Is that all?" Mrs. Porter stood braced at the head of the stairs. "Girl, I've let rooms for thirty years, and this is the first time I've seen anyone move house with less baggage than an overnight guest."
"The quantity of one's belongings depends upon the direction in which one saves." Viola squared the old trunk at the foot of the bed. "What this agent saves takes up no room."
The old woman did not understand, and did not ask. She set down the bedding. Before going downstairs, she paused in the doorway and gave the room another inspection: the bed warmed by the sun, the east-facing window, the eight books arranged in perfect order upon the table.
"Say the word if you need anything," she said. "Starting tomorrow, the stove will make one more breakfast."
"Mrs. Porter." Viola stopped her suddenly. "Thank you for not asking."
"Asking what?" The old woman waved a hand and went downstairs. "No one who lives on this street has a simple history. Not asking is the local rate."
The bed stood beneath the window, in the position Viola herself had chosen as soon as she moved in. "When I lie down, my head faces the window." Mrs. Porter, bedding in her arms, had muttered, "Sleep with your head toward the window and you'll catch cold." Viola had replied, "Procedure requires it." Unable to shift her, the old woman had merely nailed an extra thickness of felt around the window frame.
When the moving was done, Viola stood in the room for a while. The aired bedding was soft and plump; the whole room smelled of sunshine.
Early the next morning, Sharlo heard the attic window open from downstairs. When he went up, Viola was standing before it. Morning light poured in from the east, over the sill and across the head of the bed, filling the little room with gold.
"Inspection complete," she said without taking her eyes from the sunrise. "Mrs. Porter did not misrepresent the property. Open this window and there is the dawn."
"Anyone who lies abed has no prospects in this room," she added. "Good. I have never lain abed in my life—and I do not intend to begin."
Sharlo heard the other meaning in those words. I do not intend to begin. However long she slept, only someone who meant to wake again could say such a thing.
She drafted the Night-Watch Rules herself.
The woman trained in Regulations handled the limit of her own life as a case: open the file, assign duties, set the watches, omit nothing. The draft rules were pinned to the agency wall. The entire company gathered around to read them, caught between laughter and tears:
"Article One: the night-watch shifts shall commence on the date I fall asleep, one shift every two hours, according to the attached roster. Duties of the person on watch: tend the lamp, keep the record, read the book. Prohibited: weeping. Anyone who weeps while on watch shall receive one demerit and wash dishes for seven days."
"Article Two: while I am asleep, the agency shall continue ordinary business. Cases shall be accepted, meals eaten, jokes made. No one shall creep about on tiptoe. What I wish to hear in my dream is the sound of this room alive."
"Article Three: the book shall be read in Sharlo's ordinary speaking voice. No sentiment, no choking up, and no unauthorized additions. Any addition shall be treated as the falsification of an official document."
"Article Four: Half-Ladle's stove shall remain lit. The fragrance of soup is the signal: a fire burns on the hearth; someone is home."
"Article Five: the list of matters to be completed before I fall asleep shall be kept in a separate volume. I shall attend to them in person. No proxies permitted."
"Article Six: only three things shall be placed beside my bed. The black notebook, open to the page bearing my name. My notebook. And—"
The third item in Article Six had been left blank.
"What's the third thing?" Mick asked.
"I have not decided." Viola said. "I will add it when I do. A blank in the rules is compliant."
"Article Seven: during the countdown, no person shall address me with any of the following formulations: 'Are you all right?' 'Hold on a little longer.' 'Don't be afraid.'" Mick reached that point and could read no further. "You... you won't even let us say those?"
"No." Viola was decisive. "Every use of those three sentences reminds this agent once that 'you will soon be asleep.' Five weeks, ten times a day: three hundred and fifty reminders. Who could bear it?"
"Then... what're we supposed to say when we want to look after you?"
"Say 'Soup's ready,' 'It's your turn to wash the dishes,' or 'What is your assessment of this case?'" she said. "Treating me as a colleague with five weeks of shifts still to serve is the best form of care."
Half-Ladle listened from beside the stove, weighing the spatula in his hand, then announced, "Right. From today on, I've got just the one line: Soup's ready. Those two words'll do the work."
"Approved." The faintest curve touched the corner of Viola's mouth. "Those words never wear out their welcome."
Old Vane's little desk was set up during those same days.
In one corner of the main room, beside the window, stood an old account desk. Upon it lay a new ledger, a pen, and a little copper bell—made overnight by Old Mr. Ott when he heard what had happened at the bridgehead. Its note was not bright, but a deep hum like a bell in miniature. At one corner of the desk stood a handwritten sign in old Vane's lean, rigid script:
"Interworld Correspondence Desk. Registration, inquiry, and forwarding undertaken. No fee."
The line of attribution beneath it was smaller still: "Bridgehead Hall Human-World Liaison Office (self-appointed)."
"Why put 'self-appointed' on the sign?" Sharlo did not know whether to laugh or sigh.
"Procedure must be exact," old Vane said. "Our standing comes from the river. The office is our own invention. Put that in writing, and if the sky falls and someone assigns liability, it cannot land upon Bridgehead Hall."
On the first night after the little desk went up, the blue-green glass lamp over the door swayed twice. By the next morning, the first two entries had appeared in old Vane's new ledger. He would not say how he had "received" the registrations, only that when the lamp swayed in the night, the words came into his mind. Viola reviewed the format of both entries, endorsed them "compliant," and asked nothing else. For some time, no one had intended to define the agency's present scope of business.
Pip also brought back one important item from his work for the Maritime Patrol Office.
"Three red sails." He spread the sea chart upon the table and pointed to an anchorage offshore. "The connected ships of the Floating Island Theatre have been lying here for half a month. They don't call at port, open a show, or shift berth. They've struck every flag on the masts. Just sitting there."
"No troupe master, no cargo, no star," he said. "In theatre parlance, that's called—"
"Standing by in the wings," Sharlo finished.
The room fell silent for an instant. Viola raised her head from her notebook, glanced at the anchorage, then lowered it and resumed copying her handover documents. Her pen never stopped, and not one stroke went astray.
"Let them wait," she said. "This agent chooses her own stage. I have said it twice, and do not object to saying it a third time."
Auntie Golden Throat arrived on the third day.
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The old troupe mistress's arrival set the entire theatre world of Kandelburg astir. Her company had been touring in the south. When the letter came, she left the troupe in the hands of her eldest pupil and took the night fast boat north alone. Her first words upon entering the agency cut every courtesy away.
"Grey's favor remains on the counter even though the man is gone," she said. "This is where I cross it off. Now, where is the script?"
Sharlo presented the manuscript of Someone Keeps Watch in both hands.
By the window's light, Auntie Golden Throat read it one page at a time, very slowly. No one in the room dared draw a full breath. There was only the whisper of her turning pages—hush, hush—like dust being brushed from something.
After the last page, she closed the manuscript and left it upon her knees for a long while.
"I taught you," she began. "A bedtime play does not write a play. It writes peace of mind."
"This script"—she patted the cover—"is peace of mind. A watch running backward, an uncle making his rounds of the lamps, a door of sugar cakes, Misheng's bowl, a door that faces east. Item by item, all of it is true, all of it proof that 'someone keeps watch.' Whoever lays a head upon those things will be able to sleep."
"But." Her words changed direction. Her eyes swept toward him with the merciless appraisal she reserved for stars. "You write backward from the first thing she sees upon waking. Tell me—have you written that first sight?"
Sharlo's throat moved. "...No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know," he said honestly. "What she wants to see first when she wakes—I don't know."
"That is what ails this script." Auntie Golden Throat said. "You have lit every lamp along the road home and left out the door. However bright the road, without a door it ends at a wall."
"A play that coaxes someone to sleep is written backward from that first sight upon waking. That is not a nicety of craft. It is an iron promise to the sleeper: you will wake, and I have prepared the first thing you will see." The old troupe mistress returned the manuscript. "Ask her."
"Get the answer and put it on the page. Then this script will be half complete."
"And the other half?"
"The other half isn't on the page," Auntie Golden Throat said. "It's in the readers. Come, form a line. Let this old woman see what sort of amateur company you are."
And so the agency's main room became a rehearsal hall.
Auntie Golden Throat put every member of the night watch through a reading. Mick read Granny Zheng's sugar-cake passage too quickly and cheerfully, received the verdict "sounds like a bill of fare," and had to begin again. Half-Ladle read Misheng's bowl and choked at "empty is also full"; the verdict was "breach of Article One; wash dishes," and the cook accepted it without complaint. Pip was the steadiest—a thief did not lie, and true events carried their own conviction in his mouth. Auntie Golden Throat heard Casimir's Detz Valley passage through, fell silent for a while, and said, "Nothing to change there. When you read it, look at the window, not the page." Cole read the lamps; the old troupe mistress corrected only one word. "The flame stands; it is not propped upright. A Lampmaster's flame is alive. Use the living word."
When old Vane's turn came, he read the recognition at the bridgehead—he read himself. The old accountant's delivery was level and square, as if reciting someone else's account. When he came to the words "I have returned," the room went still.
Auntie Golden Throat gave him no criticism. She merely nodded to the white-haired registrar. "No one can stand in for you in that passage. It is yours."
Sharlo came last.
"You needn't audition." Auntie Golden Throat waved a hand. "You are the leading man. I knew your mettle before I left Kandelburg. This old woman has only one instruction for you—"
"A play that coaxes someone to sleep has only one person in the audience," she said. "But you must perform it as a full house. You aren't playing to her alone. You are playing to the whole road home inside her dream. Once the road hears, it lives; once the road lives, a person can walk back along it."
After assigning the readers, Auntie Golden Throat did something no one expected: she called the "audience" to her lesson too.
"The sleeper has homework as well," she told Viola. "A play is a road, and a road must be built from both ends. The readers lay it toward you, but the sleeper must recognize it. There is only one way to recognize it: memorize."
"Learn the whole script. Learn it backward," the old troupe mistress said. "People in dreams cannot hold new things. They recognize only old things worked into their bones. Memorize this script backward into your bones, and wherever you find yourself in the dream, you'll know what comes one step ahead. If you know, you won't panic. If you don't panic, you won't lose the way."
"How thoroughly?" Viola asked.
"By theatre standards: if someone jabs you awake at midnight, you can continue from any line."
"Received," Viola said. "Two nights."
Auntie Golden Throat raised an eyebrow. It was an entire manuscript, tens of thousands of words.
Two nights later, the old troupe mistress administered the examination herself. She opened to a random page and read half a line. "On the back of the lamppost, score after score—"
"Like the marks on a doorframe where a child's height is measured," Viola continued without blinking. "The preceding sentence: Sharlo reached out and found those days upon the lamppost. The sentence before that: beneath it was another, smaller line, the ink added later. Would you like me to continue backward to the beginning of the paragraph, or forward from here?"
Auntie Golden Throat closed the script and did not speak for some time.
"I've trained stars all my life," she said at last. "This is the first time I've seen an audience do better homework than the star."
"Basic training in the Regulations Section," Viola said. "Recitation of the complete regulations backward from memory is the first part of the entrance examination." She paused, then added, "Of every set of regulations upon which I have been examined, this is the easiest to remember—because I was present for every article."
That night, they rehearsed the first watch.
Viola lay on the bed in the east room, but did not sleep. A woman wakeful for six years could not sleep; this was an exercise. The lamp was turned to its softest setting. Sharlo sat on a stool beside the bed, opened the script, and read the first passage in his ordinary speaking voice.
He read of the watch running backward. He read that their appointment did not run backward; it only drew nearer.
Viola lay with her eyes open, looking at the ceiling and listening. Halfway through, she said, "Stop."
"Did I read something wrong?"
"You read it correctly," she said. "Record one finding: while listening to you read this, for the first time in six years this agent"—she considered the wording—"envied people who can sleep."
"Is that good news or bad?"
"Good," she said. "Wanting to sleep and fearing sleep are two separate cases. The former need not be opened."
Pip took the second watch. He did not read the script; his task was to tell her about dreams.
"Everyone from Ding Ward is there. They've moved into my dream—no, not everyone. Two months to go." The thief sat on the stool and rambled on. "But here's a strange thing. Night before last, I dreamed I heard something at the door. Like someone stood outside a moment and looked in, but didn't enter."
"For the record," Viola said from the bed. "Description of the visitor."
"Couldn't see. Only felt—it wasn't a stranger." Pip scratched his head. "Wasn't one of the C cohort. I know their sounds. This one... was like a relative who'd come calling at the wrong house. Looked once, then left."
"File: one unidentified dream visitation to Director Pip; no indications of malice; pending clarification." Viola paused after dictating it. "If it returns, carry a message for me. Visitors are requested to use the front door. This agent's door will open in a little while."
"How d'you expect me to deliver that in a dream...?"
"Word for word," she said. "A dream is your territory. Your word governs there. That was Auntie Golden Throat's lesson—in your own dream, don't stand on ceremony."
A tender mishap occurred on the night Mick took the third watch. As the boy read Granny Zheng's passage, his voice grew softer and softer. At last he fell asleep himself, the script clasped to his chest, his head against the back of the stool, snoring with perfect assurance.
Viola did not wake him. She lay listening to his snores for half the night. When old Vane came in to relieve him in the small hours, she tipped her chin toward the stool and lowered her voice.
"Do not wake him. Record: the watcher on this shift fell asleep at his post, a grave breach of Article One."
"The penalty?" Old Vane lowered his voice as well.
"Waived," she said. "His snoring works better than the script. The moment it starts, anyone would know this room is alive."
When rehearsal was over, Sharlo escorted Auntie Golden Throat to her inn. On the way, the old troupe mistress asked suddenly, "When do you mean to ask her about that first sight?"
"Tomorrow."
"Not tomorrow." Auntie Golden Throat shook her head. "Words like those should come at the right moment, not the earliest one. She'll give them to you herself on the day she wants to speak them. All you must do is let her know you're waiting to write."
Sharlo asked the next day after all. Not formally: while she checked the accounts, he opened the manuscript to its blank first page and pushed it beside her hand.
Viola looked at the empty page and understood.
"I have not decided yet." She pushed the manuscript back. "I have been considering that first sight for several days. There are too many things I want to see. To choose one would shortchange the rest."
"There is no hurry."
"It is not a question of no hurry," she corrected him. "It is a choice. A person closes and opens her eyes tens of thousands of times in one life. This one first sight is worth choosing until the end."
She paused, then said abruptly, "When I decide, I will not notify you orally."
"Then how will you notify me?"
"I will write it on the last line of my notebook," she said. "The Regulations Section's rule: the most important words must be set down as proof."
That night Sharlo worked late in the main room, writing the script.
He added the events of the past few days one by one: sunrise in the east room, Article Seven of the Night-Watch Rules, the audience who knew the script backward, the watcher asleep at his post and his snoring that "worked better than the script," the attribution "self-appointed" upon the little desk, and the words "Soup's ready."
As he wrote, his pen suddenly stopped.
He realized the script had changed. At the beginning, Someone Keeps Watch had been about the kinds of keeping he had witnessed: people keeping lamps, walls, stations, and rivers. Now every page was about this one room before him: who gave whom another half-ladle, who memorized a book for whom, whose snores kept whose night.
He did not have to search the ends of the earth. What he needed to write was here around this table, growing a fresh crop every day faster than he could cut it down.
He took up his pen and added a line to the end of that night's passage:
"At its deepest, 'someone keeps watch' is not the story of one person keeping watch over another."
"It is a company of people who have made their days into lamps for one another."
Upstairs, the faintest light showed through the crack of the east room's window. By its lamp, Viola was memorizing her script backward. Downstairs, the blue-green glass lamp shone dimly upon the threshold, and from time to time old Vane's little copper bell gave a low hum, as soft as someone outside bidding the house good night.
Night flowed steadily through the agency. Within that steadiness, the five-week countdown passed one day at a time—neither hurrying nor panicking, like an incense stick burning with perfect evenness.