The house had learned to choose.
Not by deciding.
Not by wanting.
But because some ways through it had become easier than others.
The creatures had noticed this without naming it. They took the forest door when the river was high. They took the river door when the forest was dry. They slept in the western room when the wind came from the east.
And so the house became part of their lives.
Then, one winter, a young creature arrived who had never seen the river.
It knew only the forest.
It followed the others through the forest door, along the old path, past the berries that had grown there since the flood.
But one evening the forest caught fire.
Smoke filled the path.
The creatures gathered at the familiar entrance and stopped.
The young creature turned away.
Behind the house was a wall of woven branches that had been strengthened many seasons before, when the wind had torn part of the roof away. No one used it now.
The young creature pushed against it.
The branches gave way.
Beyond them was the river.
The others followed.
They crossed the river and found a valley untouched by the fire.
For many days they lived there.
When they returned, they did not close the opening.
They widened it.
They moved stones.
They cleared a path.
They made another entrance.
The house had changed because something had happened.
But something else had happened too.
The creatures had changed because the house had made another possibility available.
And the new possibility had led them somewhere none of them had gone before.
Years later, another fire came.
The creatures did not wait at the forest door.
They went through the new opening.
They knew the way because the house had been changed by the earlier fire.
The past had become part of how they acted.
And because they acted differently, the house became different again.
The house had begun to change the traveller.
The traveller had begun to change the house.
Neither was simply carrying history any longer.
They were making it.
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