The estate agent’s office in Dublin’s southside

hums with the static of mid2000s digital radio.

He signs off on a sale, his pen scratching

across the paper like a shiver. The client

leaves, clutching a document stamped with a

faded crest. The agent doesn’t notice the symbol

until later, when he’s alone, flipping through

old files in the basement.

The crest belongs to a vanished estate, one

erased from maps after the Civil War. The

agent’s own family owned it once. He hasn’t

thought about it in years. Now, the name

surfaces in a land registry form he’s meant to

process. He files it away, but the image lingers.

He begins to dream of a field at dawn, the air

thick with mist. In the dreams, he walks

barefoot, the earth soft underfoot. He sees a

woman in a green dress, her face blurred. The

dreams grow sharper. He starts missing

appointments, leaving his desk unattended.

Colleagues mutter about his distraction.

One night, he finds a key beneath a floorboard

in his father’s old house. It fits a lock he’s

never seen, hidden behind a false wall in the

attic. Inside, a ledger dated 1921 lies open.

The entries are in a hand he doesn’t recognize.

A list of names, some crossed out, others marked

with an X. His own name appears, along with the

woman from his dreams.

He visits the site where the estate once stood,

now a housing development. The ground feels

different under his boots. He kneels, digging

into the soil. Something gives way—a buried

stone slab. Carved into it is the same crest.

Beneath it, a small metal box. Inside, a

photograph of his father as a boy, standing

beside the woman from his dreams. A letter,

written in a trembling hand, says: “We were

never meant to remember.”

He returns to the office, hands shaking. The

file on the estate is gone. His computer screen

flickers, then goes black. When it restarts, the

registry shows the land as unregistered, its

history wiped. The agent sits down, staring at

the blank page. He doesn’t know what to do. The

rules of the world have changed, and he’s caught

between two versions of himself.