The days had begun to settle into a rhythm — not perfect, but familiar. Kane found himself spending more time in the garden, tending to small things. Pulling out weeds. Watering. Observing. There was something calming about watching the quiet unfold — the kind of calm that didn't ask questions but invited them instead.
One late afternoon, as he pushed a hoe through a patch of dry soil, the blade struck something firm. Not stone. Not wood. Something living. He dropped to his knees, brushed away the dust, and uncovered a thick root curling just below the surface. Its skin was aged and textured, like the hand of someone who had seen years. But it was alive. Strong.
He stared at it for a long time. It didn't ask to be found. It had simply grown — quietly, persistently — beneath his feet.
And suddenly, he saw himself.
Kane had been chasing so much on the surface: purpose, clarity, identity. But underneath it all, something else had always been at work — something ancient and his. His roots.
He began to think of where he came from — not the village, not the house — but the voices that shaped him. The habits he didn't remember learning. The silences that echoed through his home. The stories told not with words, but with eyes and gestures.
Roots, he realized, are not always chosen. Some are inherited. Passed Here is Chapter 9: The Memory of Water — a chapter where Kane begins to confront the flowing nature of emotions, healing, and memory, just as water holds, moves through, and reshapes all that it touches.