Their daughter's dreams stopped feeling like a mystery to solve and started feeling like a message neither parent knew how to properly receive.
She didn't dream every night — three times across the following week, by Sekar's careful count, each time the same formless warmth, each time waking calm rather than frightened. She'd stopped calling them strange dreams and started calling them, with the specific matter-of-fact confidence children brought to things adults hadn't caught up to yet, visits.
"He doesn't talk," she told Rama one morning, working through a bowl of rice with more attention to the explanation than the food. "It's not like talking to you. It's more like — like when you're sleepy and someone's sitting near you, and you know they're there even with your eyes closed."
"Does it feel like Timeline?"
