by Sylvia & Lillian

It happened on an entirely ordinary afternoon.

The sort of afternoon when the harbour lay quiet, the gulls had grown lazy with the tide, and the kettle had just begun its familiar whisper on Sylvia’s stove.

Sylvia was the first to notice it.

“Lillian,” she said slowly, peering toward the front door. “Did you hear that?”

Lillian, who was seated in the armchair with a notebook open on her lap, looked up over her spectacles.

“Hear what?”

“A knock.”

Lillian listened.

The house settled softly, the floorboards giving their usual gentle creak. Somewhere outside a gull cried.

“I didn’t hear anything,” she said.

Sylvia frowned slightly.

“Well, someone knocked.”

She walked to the door and opened it.

No one stood on the step.

Only the quiet street, a small breeze, and the faint scent of the sea.

“Well that’s peculiar,” Sylvia murmured.

Lillian rose and joined her.

“Perhaps the wind,” she suggested.

Sylvia tilted her head.

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “It wasn’t the wind.”

Just then something caught Lillian’s eye.

“Look.”

There, on the doormat, lay a small envelope.

Sylvia bent to pick it up.

“No stamp,” she said. “No address either.”

Lillian raised an eyebrow.

“Open it.”

Sylvia did.

Inside was a single card, written in careful, looping handwriting.

It read:

Your dream has arrived.

Both women stared at the words.

“Well now,” Sylvia said slowly. “That’s rather direct.”

Lillian smiled faintly.

“Dreams rarely announce themselves so clearly.”

“But suppose,” Sylvia said, looking around the little hallway, “that one has.”

Lillian folded her arms gently.

“Then we should ask ourselves an important question.”

Sylvia glanced at her.

“What question is that?”

Lillian’s eyes twinkled.

“Have we already been living inside it without noticing?”

Sylvia looked around the house — the warm lamps, the shelves of well-loved books, the quiet comfort of the room beyond.

Then she began to laugh softly.

“Well,” she said, “if that’s the case…”

She tucked the little card carefully into the pocket of her cardigan.

“…it appears the dream didn’t knock at the door at all.”

Lillian smiled.

“No?”

“No,” Sylvia said, closing the door gently behind them.

“It seems it moved in some time ago.”

And the house, warm and quiet, held the sort of happiness that rarely announces itself — but stays for a very long time.

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