Gold dreamcatcher on upper back

The snow came down the Kessa pass two nights before the mules were due, so I have had time to finish the thing you asked about. I unpicked your mother's gold earring, the one with the chipped pearl, and drew the wire fine enough to lay across a hoop of willow. Then I wove the web from the middle outwards, the way Auntie Ilse taught me, so the centre fills first and the edges come after. There are eight beads on the hanging strands, one for each winter you were gone, and the feathers are from the grey hawk that nested above the waystation. I shaded the lower ones with ash so they would look like they had been caught out in weather.

Don't laugh at me for the beads. The drover who stays here says a web like this holds the bad dreams and lets the good ones slip through the middle. I told him the good ones are the ones that fall through, and he looked at me as if the thin air had addled my wits.

The wind has been at the shutters all afternoon. I hung the catcher above the bed where the lamp catches its gold, and for the first time since the autumn the wind has stopped waking me. I think it is the feathers that do it. They move without making any noise at all.

I am sending it down with the salt train at first light. Tell Mother it is not a gift for her, it is for the wall above your bed, and that the feathers will tell you when the pass is clear. Keep the lamp lit until the carts come in.

Yours, Marit