Last night's dream.

[snarp]

thegeekgene's dog was with Senator Mitch McConnell, who had neglected to book a venue for a political event he had arranged. McConnell put the reluctant attendees in boats and brought them to a massive empty Victorian house by a lake, which he broke into. It was cold and dusty inside. As he gave an evil speech, the dog tromped happily up and down the stairs.

I was there as a spy for a mad scientist. Being awake, I have decided that this must have been the scientist who created McConnell. I wasn't there for him, though; I was tracking two little girls in black dresses who were the only ones who seemed to belong in the house. One, who looked about nine, was somehow related to its absent owner, and the other, who looked about six, was not human, and was her familiar or golem or shikigami.

I followed them through the house, dodging thousands of little lacquered tables covered in fragile knick-knacks, but they were always just a little ahead of me. They never spoke to one another or looked back. There were stairs everywhere, and they always seemed to be climbing up or down a set. In the background I could hear McConnell talking and the dog clattering on his own sets of stairs. The walls of the house were thin and permeable. I did not feel that turning on the heat would warm it.

I paused for a moment in a cluttered room like a cross between a laboratory and a study, full of familiar-looking scientific instruments and thick leather-bound books whose titles I thought I recognized. I felt that there was something about this place that I needed to understand; and though it was cold, I felt comfortable here, as if I had been in this room many times before. I was sure I had sat in that worn brown leather chair before, reading that book.

But out the window, I noticed the girls descending a rickety wooden stairway that seemed to come from nowhere, towards a small black boat just the right size for them.