Spring came quietly to our village.

  I didn’t know the word for it yet. I only knew the air felt different.

  The snow behind the house had disappeared one morning, leaving the ground dark and soft. When I stepped on it, my boots sank a little, and I liked the sound it made. Wet. Heavy. Alive.

  The wind was there too.

  It moved through the yard and bent the tall grass near the fence. Not hard. Just enough to make it bow and rise again, bow and rise again, like it was breathing.

  I stood by the doorway and watched.

  Mother was hanging clothes outside. The fabric snapped once when the wind caught it, then settled. She didn’t look up. She seemed used to it.

  I wasn’t.

  The wind touched my face and slipped into my hair. It smelled like wet soil and something new. I didn’t know what was growing yet, but I could feel that something was.

  A wooden bucket rolled a little across the yard before falling on its side. I waited for someone to scold the wind, but no one did. The adults just kept working.

  Farther down the road, I could hear voices. Neighbors. Someone laughed. A dog barked once and then stopped. Everything sounded clearer in spring, as if the village had been washed clean.

  I stepped off the porch.

  The grass was cold through my boots. I walked toward the fence and placed both hands on the wood. The boards were rough. The wind passed between the cracks and brushed against my fingers.

  It didn’t stay still.

  Nothing in the yard stayed still for long. The wind would move one thing, then another. A loose rope. The edge of Mother’s sleeve. The small flag near the shed. It never rested.

  I began to wait for it.

  When the yard was quiet, I waited. When the trees stopped swaying, I waited. And then it would return, soft and certain, like it had only stepped away for a moment.

  I didn’t think of it as weather.

  It felt more like something that visited us.

  That afternoon, I sat on the steps and watched the sky change color as the sun moved lower. The wind grew cooler but didn’t disappear. It brushed against my cheek again, gentler this time.

  I remember thinking it must be traveling.

  It never seemed to belong to one place.

  And even at four years old, I noticed –

  it never stopped moving.

  ***

  Summer felt bigger than spring.

  The sky stayed bright for a long time, and the air didn’t bite anymore. It pressed against my skin instead – warm and heavy, like it didn’t want to leave.

  I wasn’t allowed past the old oak tree by the road.

  Mother had shown me the line more than once.

  “Stay where I can see you,” she would say, tying her apron tighter. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.

  So I learned the shape of our yard very well.

  The well.

  The fence.

  The toolshed.

  The oak tree in the distance – the border.

  Other children ran past it without thinking. I watched them from the shade near the porch. They were louder than the wind in summer. Dust followed their feet when they raced each other down the road.

  Mother watched them too.

  Then she looked back at me.

  “Don’t run on the road,” she would add, even if I wasn’t moving.

  I didn’t argue. I didn’t know what was out there. I only knew her hand would rest on my shoulder a little longer than necessary whenever someone passed too close to our gate.

  Father was different.

  He worked behind the house most mornings, sleeves rolled, hammer tucked into his belt. Something was always broken somewhere in the village, and someone was always calling for him.

  He didn’t speak much while he worked, but he would sometimes glance at me and nod, like I was part of the project.

  “Hold this,” he’d say, handing me a nail or a piece of wood.

  I liked that.

  The wind in summer was softer. It didn’t push like in spring. It slipped between things – through Father’s open shirt, under the drying herbs, across the water in the bucket.

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  Sometimes it carried sounds from farther away.

  Metal striking metal.

  A cart rolling over stone.

  A woman calling someone home for supper.

  I would sit on the steps and listen.

  Mother didn’t like when I climbed the fence, so I stopped climbing it. Instead, I leaned against it and watched through the gaps in the wood. The world beyond looked the same as ours – but it felt farther.

  The other children returned in the evenings, faces red, knees dirty. They talked over each other. I didn’t understand most of what they said, but I noticed the way their arms moved when they told stories.

  I began to notice everything.

  The way Father wiped his hands before entering the house.

  The way Mother checked the gate twice before nightfall.

  The way the wind never stayed with one family for long.

  It moved from yard to yard, lifting skirts of dust, tugging at loose shutters, carrying laughter and arguments alike.

  I wasn’t allowed to follow it.

  So I let it come to me instead.

  And when it did, I listened.

  ***

  Autumn was louder than summer.

  The wind no longer slipped quietly between houses. It ran through the village streets and pulled leaves into the air. The trees near the road turned gold first, then deep red, as if they were slowly catching fire.

  The harvest festival came when the fields were finally bare.

  I knew it was that day because Mother let me hold her hand instead of staying behind the fence.

  The village square felt too big.

  People filled it from end to end. Tables stood in long rows, covered with sacks of grain, baskets of roots. The smell of baked bread and roasted vegetables drifted through the air. Someone was beating a drum near the well. The sound echoed against the stone walls and mixed with laughter.

  Father walked ahead of us, greeting people as we moved. He shook hands. He clapped shoulders. He promised to fix someone’s roof before winter.

  Mother kept her hand around mine the entire time.

  “Stay close,” she said, though I was already pressed against her side.

  Children ran past me in groups. Some carried wooden sticks like swords. Some had ribbons tied around their wrists. They moved freely, weaving through adults without hesitation.

  I tried to follow them with my eyes.

  That was when I noticed them.

  Near the center of the square, just beside the stone steps of the temple, stood a line of men and women dressed differently from everyone else. Their clothes were simple but darker, cleaner, almost too still. They weren’t laughing. They weren’t shouting over the drums.

  They watched.

  One of them had a long scar running from his ear down toward his collar. Another stood with her hands behind her back, shoulders straight, even as children bumped into her without noticing.

  The wind moved their cloaks, but they didn’t seem to feel it.

  I tugged lightly on Mother’s sleeve.

  “Who are they?”

  She followed my gaze for only a second before answering.

  “People who have done their duty,” she said quietly.

  Father had turned toward them too. He gave a short nod to one of the men. The man returned it – small, measured.

  I didn’t understand what duty meant.

  I only knew they felt different from the farmers and the carpenters and the women selling bread. The air around them felt tighter, as if it had been folded too many times.

  The drums grew louder. Someone lifted a mug and shouted. Grain was poured into a wide wooden chest near the temple doors. One of the dark-clothed workers stepped forward to inspect it, running a hand through the harvest before giving a slow nod.

  The village cheered.

  The wind rushed through the square, carrying chaff and dust into the air. Leaves spun between boots. A banner snapped sharply above us.

  For a moment, everything felt alive at once – voices, drums, wind, movement.

  I held Mother’s hand tighter.

  Father rested his palm briefly on my head before stepping away to speak with someone near the temple steps.

  The temple workers did not celebrate.

  They watched the grain.

  They watched the people.

  And sometimes, I thought, they watched the road leading toward the distant city.

  That evening, as lanterns finally lit the square and the wind turned cooler, I kept looking back at them.

  They stood where the noise was loudest, yet they seemed the quietest of all.

  ***

  Winter slowed everything down.

  The yard felt smaller under snow. The fence disappeared first, then the edges of the road. Even the old oak near the boundary stood quieter, its branches bare and dark against a pale sky.

  The wind no longer played.

  It pushed.

  My fingers felt slow when I stayed outside too long. They didn’t close as quickly around small stones or bits of wood. Mother would notice before I did.

  “Inside,” she would say, brushing snow from my sleeves.

  I didn’t argue in winter.

  Father spent more time in the yard, chopping wood near the shed. The sound of the axe was sharp and steady. It echoed in the cold air: crack, pause, crack.

  I stood a few steps away and watched.

  The axe looked too large for me. When Father lifted it, the blade caught the pale light before coming down cleanly through the log. Wood split in two with a sound that felt final.

  I liked that sound.

  Sometimes he would hand me a small piece and let me carry it to the pile near the door.

  “Not yet,” he once said when I reached toward the axe handle.

  I didn’t feel disappointed. I only knew it wasn’t time.

  The wind circled the yard, lifting loose snow into the air. It moved the smoke from the chimney sideways instead of straight up. Father didn’t look at it. He worked through it.

  Inside, the house felt different.

  The fire in the hearth was alive in another way. It cracked softly, orange light shifting along the walls. I could sit in front of it for a long time without speaking. The flames bent and straightened like the grass had in spring, but warmer, closer.

  Mother would sew or sort dried herbs at the table. Father’s boots would thud once at the door before he entered, bringing a gust of cold with him.

  The wind followed him every time.

  It pressed against the walls at night.

  On some evenings it only whispered, sliding across the roof and around the corners of the house. Other nights it struck harder, rattling shutters and making the wooden beams creak.

  The blizzard came deep into winter.

  I remember the way the sky disappeared. Snow moved sideways instead of falling. The yard beyond the window blurred until it was only white and motionless.

  That night, I lay in bed beneath thick blankets, listening.

  The wind roared against the house as if it were trying to pass through it. The walls trembled faintly. Somewhere outside, something loose knocked again and again against wood.

  I pulled the blanket closer to my chin.

  I had heard the wind in spring, in summer, in autumn.

  But in winter, it sounded as if it had somewhere urgent to be.

  I stared into the dark and whispered to myself,

  “Where is the wind going in such a hurry?”