House states are stable ways in which the House binds, distorts, or loses accumulated memory. This page distinguishes an isolated sign from a new order, as well as transitions between improper retention, Awakening, and Cooling.
Sign or State
A House state is a lasting change in how it retains and returns what it has accumulated. A single incorrect response does not yet change its state: a door may stick, a seam may cool after rain, and a room may repeat a powerful memory without changing the entire course.
A state is recognized by three signs. The change recurs, appears in several connected parts of the House, and persists after the people who prompted the first response have left. What matters is not the event’s force, but its ability to become a new order: a loud refusal may remain isolated, while a barely perceptible delay of an inner name may pass from room to room.
Residents therefore first compare responses in different places and restore the former routine. A collator or corrector is called when ordinary presence no longer restores the former coherence.
Directions of Change
Improper retention means that coherence persists, but the House distorts the measure, recipient, or meaning of what it has retained. The error ceases to be an isolated case and enters a recurring order; the particular forms of such a change differ according to what the House begins to connect incorrectly.
Awakening moves in another direction. Scattered responses form a lasting preference of the House that cannot be reduced to one resident’s habit or one wall’s memory. The House begins to coordinate the signs on its own, although people remain responsible for their interpretation and consequences.
During Cooling, the connection weakens: responses become less frequent, circles cease to sustain one another, and the course loses its ability to retain anything new. A state is therefore identified not by whether the House has become “stronger” or “weaker,” but by what happens to its coherence: whether it is distorted, gathers into an autonomous response, or disintegrates.
Transitions and Intervention
States may transition into one another, but they do not form a mandatory sequence. A Shift is sometimes corrected before Contamination; Awakening need not end in Cooling; an unoccupied House may cool without a preceding error. Simultaneous signs of different states more often indicate several processes in different parts of the masonry than a distinct stage.
A transition is considered to have begun when the new response recurs without its initial cause. It is considered complete when the former order can no longer be restored by the residents’ ordinary presence. Between these moments, intervention may still change its direction: relieving the load eases overstrain, correction breaks an erroneous connection, and people’s return sustains weakening circles.
Craftspeople therefore argue not only about the state’s name, but also about when to act. A correction made too early may fix an isolated sign into the House’s order; waiting too long allows a temporary disturbance to become part of its structure.