Saltwarden of the Lost Zuiderzee

“They say the water was different once.”

The old woman said it like that, sitting near where the canal ran straight and even. She spoke to no one in particular, which meant the children listened.

“It didn’t used to hurry,” she said. “It wandered. It made room.”

Someone asked when it changed.

The old woman shrugged. “When we told it to.”

She spoke of banks raised and walls set, of channels cut narrow and clean. Of how the water learned new paths because it had no choice. Of how it pressed harder in some places and went still in others.

“And it wasn’t only the water,” she said.

She told them how stories changed too. How names were given where none had been needed before. How fear sharpened those names, made them useful. How warnings grew teeth when children did not listen.

“Some things change to keep balance,” she said. “Some things bend so the rest of us don’t break.”

One of the children asked what those things were.

The old woman looked toward the canal, where the surface lay smooth and obedient.

“Not everything that changes does so for us,” she said. “And not everything that keeps watch wants our thanks.”