Questions Without Answers

Seven winters in

Why do we walk counterclockwise during the second part?

I asked Elder Senekh this during the harvest ceremony and he looked at me like I'd said something wrong.

"We don't walk counterclockwise," he said.

But we used to. I remember watching Grandfather do it three winters ago before he died. Clockwise, then counterclockwise, then straight to center. Three parts.

Now we do clockwise, then straight to center. Two parts.

The middle part is missing.

When I pointed this out, Mother pulled me away and told me not to question the elders during ceremonies.

But I wasn't questioning the elders. I was questioning the ceremony. Those are different things.

If we don't know why we do something, how do we know when we've stopped doing it correctly?

Nobody could answer that.

Later, Elder Senekh came to our shelter. He asked me to show him what I meant about the counterclockwise walking. I traced it in the dirt—the pattern Grandfather used to make.

His face changed. "We forgot," he said. His voice was quiet. Ashamed, maybe.

Why did you forget? I wanted to ask. How do you forget part of the most important ceremony?

But Mother was giving me that look. The one that means stop talking.

I don't understand that look. If something is true and important, why would you stop saying it just because it makes people uncomfortable?

Ten winters in

The two potters were arguing at the trade gathering.

One said Yemotos's technique starts with the base. The other said it starts with the walls. They were getting louder. People were taking sides.

I walked over and looked at their vessels.

Then I asked: What are these for?

They stopped arguing. Stared at me. I'm ten winters in—children aren't supposed to interrupt adult disputes.

But it seemed like an important question.

One said: Storage. Heavy base, stable, for grain and water.

The other said: Transport. Light walls, easy to carry.

I held up both vessels. Different shapes. Different weights. Both using Yemotos's technique but for different purposes.

You're both right, I said. You're just making them for different things.

The arguing stopped.

Later Father asked me how I knew to ask that question.

I didn't know how to explain. It just seemed obvious that if you're arguing about HOW without knowing WHY, you're arguing about nothing.

Form follows function. Function follows purpose. Purpose comes first.

Why doesn't everyone see that?

Twelve winters in

Mother says I make people uncomfortable.

The way I look at them, she says. Too direct. Too steady. Like I'm seeing through them to something they don't want seen.

I'm not trying to make people uncomfortable. I'm trying to understand.

But understanding seems to require looking at things people would rather not look at.

Today at the well, a woman was teaching her daughter how to carry water. She said: This is how we've always done it.

But three winters ago, we did it differently. I watched the old women then. They used to balance the vessels on their heads with padding made from woven grass. Now everyone carries them in their arms.

When I mentioned this, the woman got angry. Said I was calling her a liar.

I wasn't calling her a liar. I was saying that "always" is rarely true. Things change and we forget they changed. Then we call the new way "always" and think it's the old way.

Why does pointing this out make me the problem?

Father says I need to learn when to speak and when to stay silent.

But how do I know which is which? If something is slipping away and nobody notices, isn't silence just letting it slip?

I don't have friends. Not really. The other children play games I don't understand. They laugh at things that don't seem funny. They cry about things that don't seem sad.

I'm not lonely exactly. But I'm alone.

There's a difference.

Fourteen winters in—the day everything changed

We arrived at The Great Rest this morning.

Father brought us for the seven-winter gathering. Mother didn't want to come—too many people, too much chaos, and she worries about what I'll say to strangers.

But an old priest visited our village last winter and told Father I should come. Said there were others like me here. Pattern-seers. Question-askers.

I didn't believe him.

But then I saw the cave entrance. Saw people tracing glyphs on the wall—copying them carefully but without understanding what they meant.

The pattern was wrong. They were performing without practicing. Signal without tone.

I walked up to the priests arguing about glyph interpretation and asked: Has anyone here asked WHY we do this?

They stopped. Stared. A child interrupting priests during sacred discussion.

But I couldn't stop. The question was too important.

What pattern are you trying to reach? What meaning are you preserving? Are you practicing or just performing?

One priest started to answer with anger. But then she appeared.

Wenh. The medicine woman. Thirty winters in but moving like water, moldavite pendant catching sunlight.

She looked at me and I looked at her and something happened.

Recognition. Not of faces but of the thing underneath faces. The seeing-through. The pattern-recognition. The inability to pretend you don't notice what you notice.

She smiled—not the polite smile but something fierce and real—and said to the priests: This one sees what we're losing. She can help us remember why.

Then she turned to me: Come here, child. We need you.

We need you.

Nobody has ever said that to me before. Nobody has ever looked at my questions and seen them as useful instead of uncomfortable.

Father is talking to the elder priests now. About me staying. Joining the priest tribe. Being deposited here to learn and serve and keep the patterns from drifting.

Mother is crying. Not because she's sad, she says. Because she always knew I belonged somewhere else and now she knows where.

I don't feel sad or happy. I feel right.

Like a vessel finding its purpose.

Like a question finding its answer.

Twenty-one winters in

Wenh is teaching me to hold questions instead of just asking them.

This is harder than it sounds.

A man came yesterday performing a healing ritual he said came from Wenh. But the steps were wrong. The herbs were wrong. He was copying the form without understanding the function.

I wanted to interrupt immediately. To ask: Where did you learn this? Who taught you? Do you know what these herbs actually do?

But Wenh touched my arm. Wait, the touch said. Watch.

So I watched. The man finished his ritual. The sick person seemed comforted—not healed, but comforted.

Then Wenh asked him, gently: Where did you learn this method?

He said he watched her from a distance three winters ago. Tried to remember what she did. Made his best guess at the rest.

Wenh didn't shame him. She showed him the correct method. Explained why each step mattered. Gave him herbs prepared properly. Sent him away with knowledge instead of just correction.

Afterward she said to me: If you'd interrupted, he would have felt ashamed. Ashamed people don't learn. They defend. They dig in. They keep doing the wrong thing just to prove they weren't wrong.

But if you wait, watch, then ask gently—they open. They receive.

The question is still asked. The drift is still corrected. But the person stays whole.

I'm trying to learn this. To hold the question long enough to find the right moment to release it.

But it's hard. Watching drift happen and not immediately naming it feels like watching something break and not catching it.

Wenh says: Sometimes you catch it by not catching it. Sometimes the catching is the breaking.

I'm starting to understand.

But I don't like it.

Twenty-eight winters in

I'm good at this now. The holding. The waiting. The gentle asking.

But I'm not good at the cost.

A young man tried to court me last winter. He was kind. Patient. Interested in the pattern-work.

We talked for three moons. He asked good questions. Listened to my answers.

Then one evening he said something about the calendar-keeping. Made a small error—said the moon cycle was twenty-eight days when it's actually twenty-nine and a half.

I corrected him. Gently. The way Wenh taught me.

He nodded. Said thank you.

But something changed. I saw it in his face. The way he looked at me after.

He stopped visiting a few days later. When I asked why, he was honest: "I can't ever just be wrong around you. Even gently corrected is still corrected. Even kind witnessing is still witnessing. I need to be with someone who doesn't see every error."

He wasn't cruel about it. He was right.

I do see every error. Can't unsee them. Can't pretend I don't notice when something is drifting or wrong or performed without understanding.

That's the gift. But it's also the cost.

Wenh never married. Weiknos is alone with his goats. Yemotos survived everyone he loved.

Pattern-seers don't get normal lives. We get useful lives. Important lives. Lives that matter.

But not comfortable lives. Not partnered lives.

I'm trying to accept this.

Some days I can.

Thirty-five winters in

Alenh created her bead protocol today.

Brilliant. Elegant. Solves real problems with gift-exchange at scale.

And I can already see where it will break.

She makes beads simple and uniform—anyone can craft them, so no one can control the means of exchange. You can keep them for beauty or trade them for goods. Both gift and exchange. Both magnanimity and practicality.

Perfect.

Except.

Except someone will make beads more beautiful than functional. Someone will hoard beautiful beads. Someone will claim certain beads are worth more because of their beauty rather than their exchange value.

The protocol says: these enable trade without requiring it. Beads as bridge, not barrier.

But in seven winters, maybe fourteen, the beads will become the thing people want instead of what the beads can get. Beauty will become value. Value will become hierarchy. Gift will become wealth.

I can see it. Clear as I see my own hands.

Should I tell Alenh?

She's twenty-five. Brilliant. Solved a real problem. If I tell her what will go wrong, I'll take the joy from her discovery. I'll make her gift feel poisoned before it's even had time to work.

But if I don't tell her, the drift will happen anyway. And she'll blame herself for not seeing it.

This is the impossible position. See the drift coming but can't prevent it. Can only watch. Can only ask questions that make people uncomfortable. Can only be right in ways nobody wants.

I told her. Gently. As gently as I could.

She listened. Nodded. Said thank you.

But I saw her face change. Saw the joy dim.

I'm so tired of being the one who sees the trap before it closes.

Forty-nine winters in

The Strategos family numbers thirty-two now.

Renkhos and Tonkhos's children and grandchildren. All trained in protection. All necessary. All becoming hereditary.

I warned them. Fourteen winters ago when they validated their pattern. I asked: What happens when protectors become a class? When protection becomes identity? When necessity becomes entitlement?

They heard me. They marked the warning on the wall.

And it happened anyway.

Because seeing the trap doesn't mean you can avoid it. Sometimes the trap is built from good intentions and real necessity and there's no way around it. You just have to walk into it knowing what you're doing.

The Strategos children know only protection. They're trained from childhood. They're proud of their role. They're becoming aristocracy—not through malice but through specialization. Through being so necessary that they must be supported, honored, set apart.

Exactly what I said would happen.

Renkhos came to me yesterday. Fifty-seven winters in now. Tired eyes. He said: You were right.

I didn't feel vindicated. I felt sad.

Being right doesn't fix anything. Being right just means you get to watch the thing you predicted unfold exactly as you said it would while everyone else pretends to be surprised.

Wenh is eighty-six winters in now. Ancient. Still wearing the Coat of Many Colors that Genthor made her, though it's faded to earth tones again.

She told me last night: You'll live longer than me. You'll watch more drift than I did. And you'll keep asking the questions anyway because that's the gift and the curse.

I asked her: Does it ever get easier?

She smiled that knowing smile. No. But you get better at carrying it.

I don't want to get better at carrying it. I want to stop seeing the drift before it happens. I want to be wrong sometimes. I want to be surprised.

But I can't.

So I'll keep asking. Keep witnessing. Keep marking the warnings on the wall.

Even though nobody listens until after it's too late.

Even though being right is the loneliest thing in the world.