The rain didn't stop, but it softened. Where it once slammed against roofs and turned pathways to rivers, now it tapped gently, soaking into the mud without rage. The lull brought little comfort—only a reminder that the storms could return at any moment.
Levi stood beside the half-filled rot-pit behind the storage barn, holding a bundle of rushgrass that smelled halfway to rot. Mold clung to the undersides—white and fuzzy. Another batch gone.
Mae squinted at it, pulled a knife from her apron, and sliced a stalk open. "Swamp rot. You stacked it too thick, boy. Rain don't wait for builders."
"I'll remember next time," Levi muttered.
"Next time, build higher," Mae snapped. "And keep air under your floor."
He glanced at the raised beams they'd already installed under the latest shelter. Too little, too late. But she was right. Moldy grass was useless for bedding or barter. Together, they dumped the spoiled bundles into the pit and turned it with sticks.
"We can compost this?" Levi asked.
"If the mushrooms don't claim it first."
Inside the barn, Levi watched a small group of newcomers eat. A boy with old bruises tore bread in silence. A girl sat wrapped in cloth near the fire, weaving dried stems into thin rope, her hands twitching with habit.
Levi didn't speak. He just left a small cup of stew beside each and moved on.
Outside, Jory was arguing with two of the older boys about who should clean the mud gutters. It ended with them playing knucklebones beside the wall and laughing too loud.
"Chores for meals," Levi said to himself. "No rules, but no freeloaders either."
That evening, Levi gathered Mae and Harwin beneath the overhang beside Mae's cottage. He unfolded the stranger's map and laid it over a dry plank.
"People are coming," he said. "And word's going out."
"Too fast," Harwin muttered. "Someone will come looking for who's stirring up the muck."
"I'm not ready for that," Levi admitted. "So we buy time. Quietly."
Mae nodded. "You want a gate without a gate."
Levi thought. "We start a phrase. A saying. Something anyone who's been here should know."
Harwin scratched his beard. "How 'bout: Rain without roots turns to flood."
Mae raised a brow. "You've got a poet in you."
Levi nodded. "Anyone who comes should say it. If they don't, we watch them closer."
The next morning, Levi watched the sky break open briefly, gray light spilling down like a blessing. He took out the stranger's map again and added tiny marks with charcoal beside the names the newcomers had shared. He drew a crooked line through them.
Soft ground. Firm paths. Where the bog pulled you under. Where you could run with dry boots. No road yet. But maybe one day.
He carved a wooden plank and stuck it upright near the main path into camp. On it, he scrawled with a knife:
To the world, if it listens.
That night, one of the older boys grumbled about the rations—said it quiet, not to his face, but loud enough that Levi heard. Later, after the fires dimmed, Levi walked over and gave him a second helping of boiled roots and dried fish.
The boy looked confused.
"Next time," Levi said, "say it with a hammer in your hand."
Mae found him later, fixing a loose fenceboard with nails half-rusted and hands mud-stained.
"You're not their lord," she said.
"I'm not trying to be."
"They'll still treat you like one."
Levi didn't answer at first. He hammered the last nail, wiped his hands on his tunic, and sat down.
"Then I'll lead from the mud," he said finally, "not from a chair."
In the morning, with mist crawling across the bog, Levi walked to the rot-pit, found a dry patch nearby, and dug a shallow hole. From his pouch, he pulled a swampberry seed. Just one.
He buried it gently.
No fanfare. No cheat. No burst of magic.
Just growth, if it came.
He stood, stretched his aching back, and looked at the rising roofs of Bogwater. Walls weren't just made of wood and mud. Sometimes, they were made of people willing to stay.
And so far, they stayed.