Chapter 11: Pela's Three-Year Ledger

The millstone did not grind itself.

That was the first thing Pela thought, most mornings, before she was fully awake — not a complaint, just an accounting. The millstone did not grind itself, the sluice gate did not open itself, the flour did not sack itself or weigh itself or walk itself down the road to the baker who owed her three weeks of payment in kind and would owe four by Thursday. None of it happened without her, and the world was not interested in what she needed in order to make it happen, and that was simply the shape of things, and she had found, over three years of mornings, that naming the shape of things before she put her feet on the cold floor made it easier to stand up.

She stood up.