Chapter 4

The Dregs

The curse is called the Dregs. It is what sinks to the bottom: a heart left unresolved, whose day passed without the promise being kept or called off. It was not failure that became a curse. It was failure left unspoken.

The black rain fell on everyone. Most wept, cursed, and went home all the same. They are called the Let-Go. In those days they were called people who could not be trusted; today we Unbinders are their descendants. Only a few were held. They had promised with their own mouths and set a date on it; the day had passed; a way to stop opened right before them, and there, on that spot, they tied the knot once more.

The Dregs change them 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 what it held last. One who kept a kiln becomes a kiln, and one who waited for a lantern becomes a lantern. The beast in the shape comes from the stance they held: one who crouched to endure becomes a toad, one who walked slowly so as not to spill becomes a snail.

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. Yet none of them is an empty shell. The person grows thin, but is still inside.

They did not become this because they were wicked. They only tried to keep a promise to the very end. Someone did tell them "that is enough now." But it was not a voice with the right to say it, and they tied the knot once more. Only the one who received a promise, or the bell, could call it off. They could not let go, afraid that all their waiting until then would turn to nothing. That frightening shape is a warped echo of the thing they loved.

End of chapter 4

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