The council meeting moved to the town square so the families who had come up from the lower homes could hear the choices for themselves.
Vessa brought the household book and kept one palm on its cover. Han pinned the route map beside it, weighted at the corners with stones. Qinghe had the clinic list. Bai laid out the transport sheet, where every wagon had a column for people, supplies, and space left empty for the return trip.
Deme stood with his arms folded. “You’re asking me to leave the workshop my mother built.”
“No,” Vessa said. “We are asking you whether you can leave it temporarily, and what has to be recorded before you do.”
“Water doesn’t come back because you wrote down a number.”
Noma pointed toward the upper road. “And who carries the clean cistern water if everyone goes at once? If the people who know the gates are on the wagons, the cistern is just a hole in the ground.”
A farmer near the fountain asked whether the Orchard trees would be safe if no one stayed to tend them. An older woman said she would not leave her spouse’s grave without anyone to visit it. Several families called for the wagons to leave immediately. They had heard the barrier hum change in the night and did not want to spend another hour discussing it.
