First day of Germinal we get forty centimetres of mushy snow.Not precisely cold, either, not the way it’s been. Block stops producing drifts to run through uphill and backwards and starts with unevenly icy slopes. We get a good two hours of how to make our feet have variable traction with the Power, standing in place, first, and then walking frontwards up the slope for practise, before doing it backwards. Steam, without ever saying anything, gives the impression that Block’s being extra-nice to us.Mushy snow sets off garden planning in pretty much every Creek over six who isn’t Dove or Chloris. It can’t really be every single other Creek, but it seems like it. Even Halt is setting out trays of seeds under glass inside the north window of the little cottage Halt inhabits; someone, I don’t know who, asked at dinner what Halt was planning to grow and got told “Strange flowers,” in entirely distracted tones.There was a general pause in the flow of conversation in the refectory.Grue decides we’re far enough along with shape-shifting to try counteracting external influences, and shows up one afternoon with several bottles.
