Chapter 4
The curse is called the Dregs. It is what sinks to the bottom, and it is the feeling that stays behind, unresolved. The Dregs settle on those who, though the promised day has passed, cannot stop waiting, cannot stop guarding, cannot stop what they were doing.
The Dregs change a person in three steps. The first is Stiffening. They cannot leave their place and cannot stop their work. They fire the kiln just once more; they wait just one day more.
The next is Likening. The body grows to resemble the thing it was holding on to. One who kept a kiln becomes a kiln, and one who waited for a lantern becomes a lantern.
The last is Forgetting. They forget whom and what they were waiting for, and only the gesture of waiting remains. Those who end this way we call the Held.
They did not become this because they were wicked. They tried to keep a promise to the very end, and no one ever told them "that is enough now." That frightening shape is a warped echo of the thing they loved.
End of chapter 4
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