Dawn moved like a thought that already knew where to sit. Oakwatch blinked — . (ready); Millcross, Knoll, Turnstone, and Barrowford answered the hour — . / . — with their usual good manners. Five Stable Fields purred. The ferry chain hummed low and obedient. Founders' Way cairns hummed one syllable when Jory touched them—ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — River Cut Works (Turnstone Lock)• Aim: finish the Hush Canal side-cut and seat a White Gate lock at Turnstone• Pieces: reed-felt Softeners lining the banks, hinged Gate Doors with hush-lath, a station for white-to-go, and a "tax plank" that only collects loops, not coin• Goal: create a second lane around town that stays open under two short even if main ferry is blocked• Diplomacy: sign Seasonal Reed Charter with bank-paint cutters (Mokh's people) — official reed quotas / rope exchange under Grass & White• Watch: Pike syrup (rails/hinges), counterfeit "River Levy," fast-quiet jars hidden as "canal stabilizers," Moth mirror on north spur• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Morale: Work-bright, mud-cheerful 🙂
"Today we build a door," Elara said, helm under her arm, "but it only closes on trouble, not on bread."
"A proper door has a soup window," Mara declared, already hauling her pot. 😑🍲
Turnstone sat like a clever elbow where the river bent into ink and paper. The new cut—half-dug, half-persuaded—ran alongside the north bank and curved back in below the mill bridge. Yesterday it was a ditch with ambition. Today it wanted to be infrastructure.
Ansel's crew had skeletal frames already staked: big Gate Doors, each built like a walking palisade turned sideways—oak ribs, reed-felt hush skin, drip-lath stitched along the top so water hitting it wouldn't sing. Hadrik swore quietly at a hinge brace until it behaved. Kessa tested felt with the same stern affection she gives glass babies. Émile hammered in quiet pads along the lower joints—soft seats so slamming didn't echo down the whole canal like a drum. "No clanging," he muttered. "Clanging is free advertising for people we don't like."
Jory chalked foot symbols along the new tow path: left, set, right, lift. "Feet read better than warnings," he said. Lia's cousin nodded like that was doctrine and made the prints bigger where the curve tightened. 🫡
At the lock mouth, a wide plank had been bolted across pilings at hip height. It wore a sign in Venn's tidy hand:
WHITE GATE — STAND, SAY LOOPS.NO COIN. NO CROWN.TWO SHORT OPENS.
Tavi set the hollow drum right next to that plank like an altar that refused pretension. "This is the tax office," he said, palm on hollow. "We tax lying. We don't tax water."
Mokh brought three bank-paint elders to stand across from that plank. They came barefoot, reed cords on their wrists, hands open. One had scars spidering his forearms like maps. They looked at the plank; then they looked at Aiden.
"Will you take all our reed?" the eldest asked, as a test.
"No," Aiden said. "We'll let you cut in season without getting stabbed for your baskets. You bring bundles to Grass & White, you leave with rope and loop cards. If you raid boats, you get brooms. If someone tries to make you pay coin for passing," —he touched the plank— "tell us. We sweep them in front of their friends."
Mokh's mouth twitched. Which, for Mokh, is basically a hug. 🙂
— Seasonal Reed Charter — Grass & White Addendum• Reed cutters (bank-paint) may harvest in posted windows, deliver bundles to Grass & White under child-sun witness• Payment: rope tokens + loop cards, not coin• Reed-fell overnight outside posted windows = warned once → broom days → shun• Violence in the cut = stripped loops + market ban; white called instantly• Charter signed by Mokh, Tavi, Venn, and "Gran Edla for the ferry" (she insisted)
"Roots, not," Mokh said to the elders, firm. "In writing now."
The eldest bent, scooped a handful of mud, slapped it onto the plank, and pressed his whole palm in it. When he pulled away, he'd left a print beside the loop lines. "Then white eats first, even here," he said.
"White eats first," Lia's cousin echoed, radiant. 😊
— System: Grass & White — Expansion• White jurisdiction now includes canal cut, lock gate, reed banks in posted windows• "Roots, not," enforceable on water lanes• Child-sun clerks authorized to approve reed bundles & issue rope tokens on-site (no middleman)
Now came the hinge.
Ansel and Hadrik lifted the first Gate Door off its support block and swung it over the channel on a pivot socket they'd carved into bedrock and cussed smooth. The door settled like a giant hand lowering its palm to calm a table. Reed-felt kissed water, not slapping, just… resting. The door didn't scream. It hushed.
Kessa was unreasonably happy about that. "Hear that?" she whispered.
"Nothing?" Hale offered.
"Exactly," Kessa grinned. "Nothing that spreads."
Émile knelt by the hinge and wiped his thumb along the drip-lath. "This lath feeds a tiny drip down the felt, so it won't dry-crack," he lectured, eyes sharp. "Dry felt hums. Humming travels. Travel brings interest. Interest brings trouble with boots." He looked up at Elara. "We are building uninterested doors."
"My favorite kind," Elara said.
Jory marked the opening/closing timing with his mouthpiece: two short = open way; five rising = hinge; one long = secure stop. Lia's cousin repeated it back at full child-sun authority, pointing to the chalk as she did. The ferry hands from Barrowford listened, nodded, and immediately began arguing about who got to be bell-striker on the hour. Gran Edla's nephews were not shy. 😂
Aiden thumbed his brow and let After-Sight nibble. Pain arrived like a thumbnail pressed against his temple, not a spike. Manageable. The chalk line behind his eye painted him the canal like a map—currents, pressure, echo pockets—plus three things that didn't belong:
A jar of syrup sitting under a hinge brace (meant to foul the pivot).
A folded paper levy tucked under a tool roll, stamped RIVER DUTY in an almost-Pact almost-font.
A coil of copper and resin parts wrapped in burlap near the drip-lath crate—jar guts disguised as "stabilizers."
"Hale," he said. "Brace foot, under—pull the jar. Ras, tool roll. Venn, read the 'levy.' Kessa, that burlap? Jar guts. Smile like you're not mad."
Kessa did not smile like she wasn't mad. She smiled like glass about to become a weapon. 😠
Ras plucked the tool roll and handed Venn the paper without touching the ink. Venn unrolled it on the tax plank next to the WHITE GATE sign, flattened it with his palm, and raised one eyebrow so high it needed a ladder.
"Mm," he said. "Look at that P. Too much rake. Greedy serif. Ink weight wrong, like it's trying to lean forward and shake you down before breakfast."
"Is it ours?" asked one of Edla's nephews, immediately suspicious and fully ready to kick someone out of the canal personally.
"No," Venn said cheerfully. "And now everyone knows." He turned to face the cutters, the ferry hands, the tow crews, the fox wing, the scorpionwrights, even Gran Edla who'd made the trip upriver just to glare at things. He lifted the paper high.
"This," he announced, "is trash. If anyone waves one of these and says they speak for white, you're allowed to laugh in their face first and broom them second. In that order."
Ana of Silverbrook rapped her needle against the plank like a gavel. "Objection sustained," she said.
The crowd laughed. The would-be toll recruiter in the work crew—the one who stashed the roll—tried to ooze away. Ardo politely placed a broom in his hands, face blank, and said, "Three days under white. We'll all watch your form. Keep your wrists safe. 😊"
Mara pressed a bowl into the man's chest like a verdict. "Eat before you sweep," she said. 🍲🙂
— Adjudication — "River Duty" Scam (Turnstone Cut)• Papers: seized, labeled FAKE P / SILLIEST POSSIBLE CLAIM• Seller: 3 broom days under white in public view at the lock• Added to Guild of Honest Type ledger; broadside printed: If the P leans, it lies• Pike syrup jar seized from brace; fast-quiet jar guts → tin "strings & stupidity"
Hale fished the syrup from the brace like pulling rot from under a tooth and waved it at the onlookers. "Sugar does not go in hinges," she announced. "If you're thinking 'but maybe just a little'—no. No 'little.' Sugar is for Mara."
"It's mine," Mara confirmed. "And you're not ready." 😑🍲
Kessa unrolled the burlap "stabilizers," revealing fast-quiet jar guts—copper ring, resin cap, felt disk, all disguised with a smear of river silt. She spun the ring half a turn the way she'd learned on the river skiffs. The ring's hum tried to eat the edge of sound. Émile flicked the felt disk with one finger and the hum choked on itself, collapsing into a sulky whine.
"Same cheap silence," Émile said. "Same attempt to sell 'fast' instead of 'arrives.' Toss?"
"Toss," Elara said.
Rinna held out a tin labeled strings & stupidity with reverence. Kessa dropped the parts in it one by one. "Plink," Kessa said smugly.
"Plink," Rinna agreed, equally smug. 😌
With hinge sabotage cleared and lies broomed, the gate finally earned its first swing.
"Gate One," Ansel called. "Ease."
The push team—Hadrik, two ferry hands, and a reed cutter built like a rooted stump—leaned into the bar. Footprints told their feet where to go. Hush flexed and sighed along its lath. Water curled past, but didn't slap. The door moved, slow, heavy, obedient, and then settled into position like a spine slotting into place.
"Lock," Elara said, voice flat calm.
Jory breathed five rising. The tin hinge marker chimed. Rinna's crew set Pip to watch down the lane, limiter tight. Lucien's fox wash fanned quietly, no drama, just presence. Lia's cousin struck the ladle once. tuk.
The canal went quiet in the good way. No choir claps. No toll barkers. No fast-quiet jar hum. Just work. Just oars. Just ropes. Just feet where paint told them to stand. 🙂
Aiden let After-Sight spread a little farther than he had all morning.
Ache sharpened—like chalk dragged harder. Still not a spike. But close enough that he had to close one eye. 😣
He saw the cut not just as water and lumber, but as pressure fields of habit:— The way the hush skin of the gate drank echo before echo grew teeth.— The way the drip-lath fed softness back down.— The way the white-to-go post (two bars, hollow drum, child-sun stamp pad already inked) anchored not just law, but expectation.
He saw something else too. Upstream. Beyond Turnstone. Past the next bend and the next curve.
The violet.
Not the bruise that waited in place like before. This was moving. A slow crawl of wrong-color along the far bank, like someone dragging a lantern under water that refused to be blue. Corners along that shore leaned toward it, reeds bowed, and sound—sound there—wasn't sound anymore. It was absence rehearsing.
He pulled back, breath catching. The ache dug, then cooled.
Hale saw his jaw tighten. "You with me?" she asked quietly.
"For now," he said. He rubbed once at his temple and forced a smile that wasn't a lie, just tired. "Violet's walking now, not sitting. It's tasting banks."
"Does it taste here yet?" Elara asked.
"No," he said. "Not yet. But soon."
Elara nodded once. "Then we make sure it gets bored when it arrives."
Mara pressed a bowl into his hands like a shield. "Eat before you tell me about problems that can think," she said. 🍲🙂
He ate. Because you don't argue with Mara. Ever.
— Recon Note — Violet Shift• Observation: violet "bruise" upriver is now moving, tasting banks, testing corners• Behavior: eats echo first, then tries to settle in shaded recesses/eddies• Risk: eventually looks for an unclaimed lane to "sleep in"• Interim doctrine: build gates/dooryards that are already full of boring work so the violet can't claim them without fighting felt, drip-lath, and ladle cadence
Afternoon turned into ceremony, Turnstone-style: which is to say, no banners, no trumpets, but a ledger and three signatures.
The Seasonal Reed Charter went up on a plank beside the WHITE GATE sign. Mokh marked it with his thumb in mud. Tavi added his name under Grass & White. Venn signed in full clerk script. Gran Edla signed "Edla," then added FOR FERRY in letters as sharp as fish bones.
Ana stitched a strip of reed cord through one corner—"So people can't pretend it 'fell down'," she explained sweetly.
Lucien wrote White Gate Fund in his ledger and sub-ledger'd: drip-lath upkeep, hush patching, hinge grease (unsugared!), rope for bank-paint bundles, clinic cloth restock.
Lia's cousin painted a sun next to the words two short opens and then, underneath in her own uneven hand, wrote: no yelling unless soup. 😊
The ferry hands cheered because finally, officially, their bell counted. Jory tuned it with gentle pride.
Then came the part everyone pretended wasn't a big deal.
Tavi turned to Aiden at the plank. "This is yours to bless," he said quietly.
Aiden shook his head. "No," he said. "It's ours to run."
Tavi looked at him for a long second. Not in challenge. In understanding.
Then Tavi stepped forward, palm on the hollow, voice steady:
"Stall. Edge. White eats first."
Lia's cousin struck the plank with her little stamp—clack—and said, "Open."
Jory breathed two short.
The Quiet Lock had its first hour.
— System: Quiet Lock (Turnstone Cut)• The Hush Canal can be sealed with Gate Doors that mute echo, not trade• White-to-go post + hollow drum + child-sun staffing makes the lock itself a "white room on water"• Ladle bell at mast-step sets row rhythm through the cut (oars follow pace; panic −small)• Seasonal Reed Charter ties reed cutters into Pact law instead of backdoor deals• Effect unlocked: If main ferry is disrupted, water trade can reroute through Quiet Lock with only minor slowdown; toll scams fail unless blessed by white 🙂
At last light, Clove left a folded leaf tucked behind the drip-lath brace where only Kessa was likely to find it.
You've made a door that says "come in, behave."Good.The violet won't like being told to behave.It will try to break the hinge instead of the room.Brace the hinge with people, not wood.— C.
Kessa read it, said, "Ugh, I hate it when he's right," and immediately told Hadrik to double the hinge collars and assign living hinge watch—actual posted bodies—whenever the gates were swung shut. "Not for muscle," she said. "For eyes."
Hadrik grunted, satisfied. "We'll put the ferry nephews on first watch," he said. "They're already loud enough to scare off gods." 😌
Gran Edla: "Correct."
Elara touched Aiden's forearm as the last ladle tap rang. "You saw too far again," she said softly.
He almost lied. He didn't.
"A little," he admitted. "It… pushes, now. The violet. When I look at it."
Her eyes narrowed, worry folding in on itself like careful cloth. "Can you still work?"
"Yes," he said.
She searched his face. Then: "Good." A tiny pause. Then quieter: "Don't be noble."
He snorted. "When have I ever?" 🙂
She bumped him with her shoulder, almost smiling. "Every day," she muttered.
Mara appeared like punctuation. "Eat before you try to be humble about it," she demanded, pressing him a second bowl. 🍲🙂
Aiden took it. He leaned against the new gate's hush skin, feeling how it sighed water back down instead of letting it slap, and let that become the shape of his own breathing.
"Novaterra," he told the cairns and the tower and the new lock that had learned to talk in quiet, "we carved a second throat into the river and taught it to whisper instead of scream. We signed reed into law instead of raids. We broomed lies on the plank where tolls thought they could dress up as duty. The water can detour without choking. The hour shook hands. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
*— Evening Summary — Novaterra / Turnstone Lock & Hush Canal• Quiet Lock seated: hush Gate Doors, drip-lath, hinge plates with live watch, mast-step ladle timing• Seasonal Reed Charter signed (Mokh, Tavi, Venn, Gran Edla); Grass & White now governs reed trade openly• Toll scam foiled ("River Duty" papers stamped FAKE P / SILLIEST POSSIBLE CLAIM); broom days assigned• Fast-quiet jar guts seized in disguise; syrup sabotage caught under hinge; sugar reclaimed for Mara• Violet confirmed moving upriver (testing banks); hinges will be key point of attack• System: Water traffic reroutable through Hush Canal; "white room on water" now real; panic −small in cut; seer-ache tolerable but climbing 😣• Morale: Quiet-proud; soup excellent; roads, ferries, and now canal open 🙂