The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 14:

Washbasin Water

Three months passed – to Moth, it was a jumble of days she couldn’t tell one hour from the other.

On a farm, each month felt so distinct and purposeful; one full of calving and lambing, another for plowing, one for planting, each under their own moon to direct the farmers.

In a wash house, each day was for laundry and each month for laundry, and the year began and ended in the wash house, scrubbing. If it was not for someone to talk to, the work would be too monotonous to bear, but Moth had Tully and Amanda to chat with, and occasionally Swelle if she was in a mood.

Salvia worked half days – she came in an hour after them and left several hours later to get home in time to make dinner.

Moth suspected she didn’t like leaving Aunt Violet at home alone for too long.

Moth did not see Aunt Violet much in the time she was in Hiren. Moth worked almost all day with Tully, and Violet only left the house to go to the market on Sunday; the effort of it was so much she would return at once to her bed.

Tully did not talk about any of it. She worked on her laundering manual, through spring and into summer, and Moth wondered if she would ever get the first draft of it done.

Summer came to Magden with all the heat Moth had ever felt on the farm, but none of the shade. She began to appreciate the wash house; it was always damp.

Setting off to work with Tully, Moth could feel how hot a day it would be already.

The sun burned behind the buildings, waiting to scorch everything it touched the moment it reared above the roofs. Tully’s fluffy hair was matted down with sweat at the back, and she glared against the bright, early morning. “I hate summer.”

Moth’s thoughts turned to the orchard at home, the shade of the apple trees and the juicy fruit that burst with cool sweet juice under her teeth – of taking a nap in the worst of the heat or going swimming with her sisters in the streams that came cold and clear down the mountain.

Shaking her head, Moth refused to feel homesick. She needed to work.

When they got to the wash house and opened it up, Moth turned tired eyes on mounds of clothes set up next to her station, and she sat on her stool and sighed, laying her head next to the sink.

“Don’t worry, Moth,” said Tully, setting up the fires in the oven. “Soon Magden will learn how to drink its wine without spilling it on their blouses.”

“Theres just so much of it and I never feel like it gets smaller. It’s huge, it’s a mountain! It’s–”

“Tiding Range.”

Moth laughed. “It’s Tiding Range.”

“Now look,” said Tully, sculpting the pile. “Seven peaks, right? Here’s Cenning in the middle.”

“You remember that?”

Tully tapped her forehead. “My brain’s a lockbox for detail. Also, I might have looked up a few things over the last four years about Hiren. Just to stay up to date with your letters – get a sense of it.”

“Well, can you name the rest?”

Tilting her head, Tully muttered. “Well, not in order. Uh..Wellkiss.”

“Welclose. The second to last one.”

“Galufod was before it. Hold on, the first ones Sarig I think. Am I mixing up where Sarig and Galufod are?”

“No. Sarig first, then…?”

“Blind!”

Moth covered her mouth. “Mount Blind?’

“No that doesn’t sound right. Oh, Blide, I got it. Okay, it goes Sarig, Blide, Myrtle, Cenning of course, then Galufod and Welclose, and Huthbert.”

“It’s Myrten, not Myrtle, and Hathart.” Moth patted Tully’s shoulder. “That was very good, I’m surprised you knew as many as you did.”

Tully looked over the mountain range of stained clothes, frowning. “That was fun. Back then, visiting you and your family, and the offering. I think it’s one of the best autumns I ever spent anywhere. I’m glad my aunt was there, too.”

It was rare for Moth to see Tully so serious – not smirking through a lazy expression, not telling a joke. She longed to poke about in her emotions and know what the cause of it was, but she left Tully alone.

Soon Swelle was in the wash house, crackling around in a precise, busy manner, and then after her came the other workers. Within a few hours, Salvia arrived to do a basket of laundry, her young, round face creased with worry lines.

Moth said hello and they chatted while they worked.

Four hours whittled away. Amanda chatted with Moth about the new dress patterns that had just come into her brother’s workplace, and how the seamstresses there were already working on a huge batch of them.

“Nothing you could afford, of course. It’s a nice shop my brother works at.”

By midday, the house was hot and sweltering, and the women were splashing themselves with water to keep their temperature down. Salvia had already gone home to get dinner ready.

Half a dozen people were coming to pick up their laundry, and Tully – in charge of getting everyone’s clothes back to them – went over her lists and counted handkerchiefs and blouses in the bags, sweat dripping from her long, pointed nose.

Cracking her back, Moth got up to get her lunchbox from the rack, and stared at the empty place where it should have been.

“Tully?”

“Hm?” Tully glanced up from her list but kept counting out stockings.

“Did you forget your lunch?”

“Did I–” Tully snapped her head up and groaned. “I absolutely did.”

“I left mine too. I’ll go get them, alright? It might be a bit.”

“Thank you Mothball, I appreciate it. I’m starving but I can’t leave until I’m sure they pick up their laundry.”

Moth waved goodbye and set off down the familiar path home. She did not have to think about the street names, or which street she was on, or the color of the house she was supposed to turn at – her shoes remembered the way, like Tully had said.

The sun glinted off the windows in shards of blinding light, and Moth shielded her eyes and sweated her way back to Mercy Avenue – she kept glancing around houses at the slow river cutting through the city, wishing she could dip her feet inside the flow.

When she saw the Sacherd house, she hurried up to the door and opened it – fearing for a minute it might be locked until she realized Salvia would be home – and stepped into the foyer.

The two lunchboxes were sitting at the bottom of the steps where they always were, and Moth was about to grab them when she heard shouting upstairs.

“Salvia! Salvia how could you be so stupid - you’ve ruined it!”

Something crashed to the ground, and Salvia gasped.

Moth bolted upstairs. She slammed into the wall of the landing and twisted herself to run up the second flight, and she reached Aunt Violet’s room.

“Salvia!” Moth shouted, smashing into the door so it rebounded off the wall.

Aunt Violet was hunched at the floor of her washstand, clutching her broken basin in her hands; the water had splashed over the rug and walls. Aunt Violet sobbed, her face red from her neck to her forehead, staring into the puddle on the ground.

Salvia stood like a slab in the corner, eyes wide and watering, her hands trembling and trying hard to breath. Moth hurried over and hugged her. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Aunt Violet stood up, still wearing her nightgown, and pointed to the door. She grunted through her teeth; “Get out.”

Moth urged Salvia from the room, down the two staircases, and into the kitchen. She set Salvia at the table and put the kettle on to boil; the young girls thin chest heaved for breath, and her hands clenched onto her apron. Most of her hair had unstrung itself from her bun; it coiled with sweat to her face as she stared dead ahead.

Moth sat next to her and held her hands. “Salvia, are you alright, baby?”

Salvia exhaled, and it dissolved into frantic sobs, and she tried to speak to Moth but it was just a garble of broken syllables.

“Okay, okay, shh,” said Moth, hugging her and patting her back. “Don’t try and explain until you’ve had some tea, alright?”

She held her until the kettle boiled, and then made them both a strong cup of black tea with cream and sugar, pressing the warm drink into Salvia’s hands; Moth watched her until she drank.

“Good girl. Are you feeling calmer?”

Salvia nodded, wiping her face on her sleeve. Her breathing was normal again, but she reached out and clutched Moth’s hand.

“Mere,” said Salvia, tears coming to her eyes again. “Oh god it’s been so awful.”

Moth waited, and Salvia seemed reluctant to speak, but with the silence she finally burst out, “Mom told me not to tell Tully, but she didn’t say I couldn’t tell you.”

“Tell Tully – tell me, what?”

“She’d been getting water,” said Salvia, trembling. Realizing what she said, she shook her head, “it sounds so stupid, it’s really stupid.”

Moth pushed strands of hair out of her face. “If a story seems too big or confusing, I just start from the beginning. Can you do that?”

Taking a long, steadying breath, Salvia nodded. “A little after Aunt Rena died, mom started staying home more, leaving wash house work to Tully and me – and then I started taking care of the house. I thought she stayed home all day but she doesn’t, she goes out every few days and she doesn’t say where she’s going, but she told me not to tell Tully. I think she goes to market, because she comes back with…strange ingredients. I don’t know what it is, it looks like dandelions or something, and she put it in her wash basin. Then she asked me to get water from the wash house. She told me not to let anyone see; to put it in my thermos and bring it back, so I did. That was over a week ago. She would just sit and stare into her basin, Mere, I don’t understand what’s wrong.”

Moth was just as confused by Aunt Violet’s behavior as Salvia. “But what was the argument about?”

“I was cleaning her room while she was downstairs, and her washbasin was disgusting. It hadn’t been changed or emptied for months, and it had all this powder and rotted plants in it, so I picked it up to ask her if I could change the water. She had come back into the room and she just…she was so angry that I had touched it, and I was so startled I dropped it and it spilled – it broke – mom was crying on the floor trying to get it up, and I…stood there.”

Moth searched Salvia’s face. “Does she often do that? When Tully is gone – does she often yell at you?”

Salvia shook her head. “Never, she never does. This is the first time. I don’t understand why she’s so angry.”

“I think we should tell Tully about this. Your mother is struggling with her mourning – Tully needs to know, for your mother’s own good.”

Salvia sniffed but nodded.

The front door slammed shut, and they both looked up, wondering if Tully had come home early. They went to the foyer but found no one. Salvia peered out the front window and said, her voice tight, “Mom is out. Not to market, she’s going somewhere else – I don’t know where.”

“Let her clear her head and go for a walk. Maybe she’s visiting a friend. She’s sad but she’s not a child, she might just need a change of scenery.” Moth turned from the window and looked at the lunchboxes. “I’m not going to go back to work today, I don’t want you to be alone. Why don’t you rest; how about I finish making dinner?”

Rubbing her arms, Salvia nodded, the bags under her eyes deeper than Moth remembered.

“Why don’t you go lie down and rest, or do something to relax – read, maybe? Wash up?”

Hesitating, Salvia looked up the stairs, “The mess…”

“I can clean it up.”

After some coaxing, Salvia took off her shoes and went to her room to rest.

Once she heard her footsteps land in her room, Moth went upstairs to clean Aunt Violet’s floor, taking a bucket and some rags from the kitchen with her.

The door was closed. Moth hesitated, her hand hovered over the knob, but she opened it and entered.

It hadn’t been tidied by Aunt Violet at all. Her nightgown was flung to the side, and her clothes drawers pulled open in a hurry to get dressed. The curtains were pulled over the window, and the room was dark and hot – the room had a faint medicinal smell, like a salve.

Moth wanted to open the curtains and the window, to air out the room, but was worried Aunt Violet would be angry. She turned her eyes onto the scattered fragments of the ceramic basin, and began picking them up, one by one, and putting them in the bucket.

She avoided the rug, which was sopping wet, and picked up the scraps of plants that had been in the water. She held them up to examine them; dandelion was one, and some lilypads, but neither had the astringent salve odor she could smell wafting from the soggy rug.

It was mostly picked up. Moth used the rag to mop up the water from the rug, but she gave up and decided to bring it downstairs and hang it outside to dry. She felt around in the dim light to feel where the wood was damp and a hand grabbed back.

“Violet?”

Moth jerked backwards, slammed into the door – she flung herself from the room, down the stairs, and crashed onto her knees on the landing.

Her body trembling, Moth looked up the stairs at the dark entrance of the room, the door hung open. Too paralyzed to move, Moth watched, wide eyed, waiting for someone to come out.

After waiting fearfully for several minutes, Moth pulled herself to her feet and climbed the stairs as quietly as she could and leaned around the door frame to peer inside.

The room was empty, and dark, as it had been before.

Moth darted across the room and flung open the curtains and the window, letting in a blast of hot air and burning light.

Once the room was lit up, Moth felt relieved, and she glanced in the corners, under the bed, inside the wardrobe, just to make sure no one was in the room – she knew she would find no one, and she didn’t.

She hung the carpet on the windowsill to dry and cleaned up the floor, but kept glancing over her shoulder while she did, just to make sure no one was in there with her.

She was happy to be out of the room – she hurried downstairs to cook dinner, taking the steps two at a time to get away from Aunt Violet’s room.

Most of the ingredients were already set up and ready for a meat pie. It took some time with one hand, but Moth was able to assemble it all and slide it into the oven. She tried to distract herself with cooking, but the cold feel of a hand clasped to hers made her shiver. The voice, garbled and distorted, played over and over in her ears.

It was a relief when, a few hours later, the front door opened and Tully came home. She poked her head into the kitchen, eyebrows raised. “What happened,

Moth? The ladies aren’t happy they had to do their own stains this time around – they’ve gotten spoiled.”

Moth hesitated and glanced at the ceiling, wondering if Salvia would get up when she heard Tully was home. There were no footsteps – she was probably sleeping.

“I came to get our lunchboxes but Salvia was very – very overwhelmed by today, so I told her to go to bed and I’d do the cooking tonight. I’m sorry I didn’t come back.”

“It’s no problem. Why was she overwhelmed? Did she say?”

Moth looked in the oven to check on her pie to think of what to say. Straightening, she said, “You should ask her, not me.”

Tully cocked her head, no smile on her mouth, and searched Moth’s face.

The front door open and closed, and they both looked up at the shallow stairs. Tully hurried to the foyer to check, and Moth could hear her.

“What are you doing up? Where were you?”

Moth recognized Aunt Violet’s voice, but she spoke so low she didn’t hear what she said.

Tully’s voice raised. “With what money? Where did you get flowers from? I swear if you’re borrowing Salvia’s money again-”

“Tully don’t you dare talk to me like that.”

Tully chuckled. “What are you going to do, lock me in my room? Who will pay the rent?”

Aunt Violet didn’t respond. She stomped up the stairs to her room.

Moth focused on setting up the teapot when Tully came back in the kitchen, her mouth set and her eyes narrowed.

“Tell me what happened.”

“We should wait for Salvia,” said Moth.

Tully placed her hands on the table and stared in Moth’s face. “This is my house. Tell me what is happening in my house.”

Avoiding her eyes, Moth muttered, “I came here to get the lunchboxes and Aunt Violet was yelling at Salvia upstairs. I went up to help, and apparently Salvia had broken her washbasin and spilled the water everywhere. Aunt Violet was upset; she was angry and crying.”

Tully’s mouth was a thin line, clasped together. Veins were bulging on the tops of her hands as she clenched the edge of the table. “Did she hit Salvia?”

“No.”

Taking a deep breath, Tully said, “What else. I can see there’s something else.”

“You need to ask Salvia, I don’t understand all the details.”

Tully left the kitchen. Moth heard her all the way up to the second story and into Salvia’s room.

Continuing to make the tea – though Moth doubted anyone would eat today – she set the table and finished cleaning up the counter, when she heard feet pounding on the stairs and Salvia hurried into the kitchen, red-faced, and dropped into chair.

“Salvia?”

Salvia shook her head. “She’s so mad – she’s mad at me for giving Mom money. She’s gone to talk to her.”

At once they could hear shouting from the top floor, stabbing all the way down to the kitchen.

The shouting went on for some minutes, and then it was quiet.

“She was angry that Mom was well enough to go out somewhere almost every day, but not to work.”

Moth raised her eyebrows. She pulled the pie from the over and slid it onto the kitchen table. “Was she…concerned about the herbs in the wash house water?”

“She thought it was strange, but that’s not what made her mad.”

They both stopped talking when they heard Tully come down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Her hair had worked itself from her braid, and her face was expressionless as iron when she said, “I’m going to eat in my room.”

Moth handed her a plate and she left.

Salvia laid her head on the table and groaned. “I hate it when it’s like this. I hate it when everyone’s angry. Tully said she’s going to supervise my money from now on, so I don’t give anymore to mom.”

Moth wiped flour from her cheek. She could smell the bitter salve odor on her hand.