The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 16:

Tin Cry

Moth did not tell Tully. No one noticed the metal on her shoes were gone, but Moth felt their absence every minute of her walk to work the next day– she looked along the path as Tully chatted to her, wondering if she would find the tin caps somewhere in the gutter, but they were gone.

They opened the wash house and set it up. Swelle came in and greeted them both with her usual flat expression – she also felt no need to mention last night, or even act as though it had happened.

As the next group of women came in, one of them – the one called Matty – looked agitated and sweaty, and she hurried to Swelle and had a short, whispered conversation, with Matty glancing at Moth in between her words.

Swelle shook her head and gave Matty a pat on the shoulder – the girl looked relieved and went to her work.

Moth was deep in thought, staring into her sink of water, when a flutter of paper was shoved in her face.

“I remembered,” said Amanda, yawning.

It was a stack of articles from the agricultural research department, clipped from bi-monthly issues of the Magden University Science Journal. There was six of them.

“I couldn’t find some of the first ones, I didn’t think to keep it,” said Amanda, examining her fingernails. “I’ve read them repeatedly, practically memorized the journals by now, so you can keep those.”

Moth reached out and squeezed Amanda’s hand. “Thank you.”

Amanda was startled, but it quickly turned into a smug tilt of her head. “It’s only paper, Mere, but I suppose since you’re from the country it’s a rare treat compared to milking cows all day.”

*

When the day was over and they had finished dinner, Moth climbed to her room, her hand hovering over her pocket full of articles.

She paused at Aunt Violet’s room – it was closed, as usual – and she could hear nothing from inside.

She was about to continue up to her room, when she saw Tully climb the stairs and plop down on the landing. holding a stack of letters. Moth leaned over the railing and asked, “Anything for me?”

Rubbing her eyes, Tully muttered, “It’s mostly bills. You can glance through them if you like, I can barely see straight.”

Moth took the stack and skimmed through them. “It’s all addressed to Violet Sacherd-” Moth trailed off, stopping at one letter. “Tulip?”

“A letter for me? That’s rare.” Tully took the letter and gave a half smile. “It’s from Aunt Rena’s friend. She likes to keep in touch.”

The hair on Moth’s neck stood on end. “Your name’s Tulip?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Mothball,” Tully said, grinning. She leaned against the wall to read her letter.

Flustered by the memory of that hunted voice calling out for Tulip, Moth went into her room and kicked off her boots, sitting heavy on her bed. It was dark in the

room, as the sun was now below the line of houses – Moth felt cold, and quickly lit a candle so she wouldn’t be alone.

Moth forced her worrying thoughts away and pulled out the agricultural journal entries, reading by the warm, flickering light.

The articles extended all the way back to a year ago, and focused on the Petratic Miasma, which seemed to be the major point of discussion in the Academy – occasional bouts of blight or canker being briefly mentioned, though one article was all about a newly identified wasting disease that was plaguing apple orchards in Fellered.

The understanding in the Academy was one that firmly believed, based off Berrimont Ede’s study, that the poison of the miasma lingered in the soil for years, making anything produced from the ground inedible until years later.

It did not say how many years.

According to a recent study done by Lord Ede five months ago, strawberries were grown from five-year-old contaminated soil, taken on the perimeter of a contamination zone – a dozen feet within the acre. The fruit of it was given to rats to eat and all the rats died from the strawberries.

‘My conclusion, therefore, is that five years of burning and turning over the soil is insufficient to rid the ground of this hideous poison. How long it will take, I cannot be sure.’ Wrote Lord Ede.

Moth put down the papers and lay on her bed.

If he was telling the truth, maybe the farmers were saved from a hideous death. Though Moth knew many farmers had eaten food grown much nearer to the fogged areas, so perhaps they were immune to the poison in a way rats were not.

If he was lying, what did he benefit from it? To stir up a problem and gain notoriety? Moth was unsure.

Pushing herself from her bed, Moth picked up a paper, pen and ink, and wrote a letter to her grandfather, agonizing over her words for hours as the light drained from the window and left her with only the quick-burning candle.

When it was finished, she pushed the letter and the clippings from the science journal into an envelope.

*

Two weeks later, Moth received a letter from Clement Hevwed in the mail.

Dearest Meremoth

I have labored over this letter for days and still find myself with no words to fully explain how distressed I am in my soul over my home, over my Hiren, over my Korraban – my county that I feel horrified by, yet loyal towards.

The revolts in Aldur have stirred up every farmer I know despite the severe repercussions those farmers are facing. It’s being called the Tin Cry. The backlash from the sentries were overwhelming – several farmers died, more were arrested, and all lost their land. But still I am surrounded by young men who are so hopeless they feel they must die to protect their homes from the impossible burden of the contamination laws imposed on us by the KCAC, who now own hundreds of acres across Korraban.

My advice is falling off their pained hearts.

If those that remain do not farm, there will be nothing for anyone to eat. A vindictive part of me wishes we would all take our hands off the plow and watch our nation fall into disaster.

But I would not see the ones I love starve. No one else would either, and it’s the only thing keeping us steady – hunger is just a step behind us, and we must till or be overtaken.

Thank you for sending the articles from the science journal.

I feel half of it must be true, and the other is fabricated – though to what goal, I am unsure. I would not trust the food produced from the directly spoiled soil, but the claims that an acre of ground is spoiled by one burst of fog we have all observed to be untrue – we ate the fruit produced from nearby ground and did not grow sick.

Sweet Moth, stay safe, do not be alone in the city. It is soon going to be difficult for anyone associated with the tin cry to be in the cities – it will be our word against the educated and wealthy of Magden, and we will lose both in a present sense, and in the history books. We must bow our heads and endure, as we always have.

I wish I could give you good news, but I simply wish you to be prepared for lean years. All of us cry to the Ferryman to help us with the land, and no one responds – we scrape our storehouses for offerings that get swallowed in the quiet water. And still I am a foolish man, and I have seen him with my eyes, and I know he cares for this span of dirt we call Korraban.

I love you, be safe, be careful, come home if you need to.

Love, your Grandfather

PS. As for your questions about the passage of souls. A soul would not get stuck in the water, they would be ferried across by their ferrier.

I told you once, when you were very small, that we would know if a ferrier had died – the souls of the dead would not be able to cross over, and they would be imprisoned in the water.

Moth held the letter in one weak hand. She pressed it to her face so she could smell the tobacco and oak polish.

“I’m afraid,” she told him through the letter, and her voice began to shudder as she said it, and tears felt sharp in her eyes. “Grandpa, I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do. I only know how to be brave when I’m with you.”

Covering her face, Moth laid down and curled up with her forehead to the cold wall.