The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 26:

Mapmoss

When they reached the main house, Ama ran to their mother for archery lessons, and Moth went inside through the kitchen and into the small bedroom room next to the parlor, where Grandpa Clem often sat at the window by his desk.

“Moth!” he said, looking up from the letter he was writing. He reached out his arms, and Moth sat on the arm of the chair and hugged him tightly. “How’s the journaling going?”

Moth pulled out her journal, grinning. “This is the account of ten different families; none have written to you – or anyone – about the fog.”

Clem fumbled for his glasses and took the journal gently in his hands. He looked down at it and closed his eyes for a moment, gave a deep sigh, and opened it carefully. “Oh, you’re handwriting is so clear – this’ll be a delight to read.”

“I’ll make some tea and come watch you.”

“You’re going to watch me read? Were there no thrills in Magden you had to come all the way to me?”

Moth hurried to the door. “Don’t start until I come back.”

After she had made a tray of tea and some cut up fruit with cream, Moth returned to Clem’s room and sat on the windowsill and nodded to him.

He opened the journal with his frail hands and began to slowly pour over the words – soon he forgot Moth was even in the room, he bowed over the journal as if in prayer. Now and then, he’d reach to the side where he had rows and rows of letters

- organized by geographical location – and try and match it up with other accounts of fog bursts to verify location and time.

When he was satisfied, he’d reach with trembling arm to a map of Hiren he had on the wall, and poke a tack into it, and write the date of the fog burst.

It took Clem the morning to read through the journal, but when at last he closed it he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, and let his arm slump over the side of the chair. letting the words he had just read sink down into him.

“Moth,” he said, quietly, “thank you. You give such good details of what they’re going through. Through this, I’m staring to notice a pattern with the fog; if there’s fog in northern Hiren, there won’t be any in the south, if its in the east it won’t be in the west – I can’t understand why it would disperse like that. It follows a circular pattern around Hiren; sometimes the circle is more towards the center, sometimes the outer edges much further out into surrounding regions.”

Moth studied the map he had marked. Concentric circles rippled out from the center of Hiren. The southern edge remained mostly untouched, where Tiding Range was, and the fog couldn’t penetrate the rock.

“It’s like some massive, underground train going in circles, billowing up its steam. I can’t understand,” he said again, tapping his finger absently on the journal. He looked at Moth and asked, “Can you endure the work? Will you continue with it?”

Moth poured him a fresh cup of hot tea, pressing it into his hands. “Yes. It is hard, to hear so much misfortune, and I absorb it like a sponge – but Grandpa, someone needs to hear them. They need to know they’re not alone.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do; I don’t want their voices to be lost, now or years from now.” Clem reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a box with a stack of papers in it. “I’m compiling all the accounts as succinctly as I can into one book – just a record of Hiren during these fogs, during the KCAC’s restrictions on

us and their purchase of our land. I don’t want the only account of our suffering to be from the biased pen of a historian in Magden – I want it to be the very words written to me in letters, sent by families grieving for Hiren.”

Moth held Clem’s hand and he kissed her knuckles. “Write it. I will continue to gather everything I can with Mrs. Tunhofe.”

Clem looked up into her face and smiled, the wrinkles multiplying around his eyes. “You know,” he said, putting his box of papers away, “I was worried when you came back. I was glad – of course – but I feared you would be just as downcast coming back as when you first left, if not worse. But it’s nothing of the sort.”

“I worried the same thing. I just didn’t want to be someone who stayed silent or did nothing during a tragedy - and I worried I had nothing to offer. But now I’m able, at least, to be an ear to those who have it worse.” Moth squeezed his hand. “It was very hard for me not to put my own observations in the journal.”

“Oh? Like what?”

Moth returned to the windowsill and drank her cup of tea. “I can’t really explain it, but people talk of the Ferryman more. I thought, certainly, they would be angry with him for his absence, but I keep discovering the opposite – they seem concerned for him, they’re trying to protect the land while he’s gone.”

Clem looked past Moth, out the window. “When I was a boy, I remember my grandmother, when she left after a visit, would say ‘Correb tills’, as a sort of blessing. It was meant to mean that we don’t farm alone, that our Ferryman works alongside us to keep the land bountiful. I hadn’t heard it in a long time, but more and more, letters are ended with that blessing.”

Moth felt a warmth in her heart, but it soured as she looked down into the rippling tea in her cup and thought of Aunt Rena. She still had not dared mention it to anyone – she had not even been able to muster up enough emotional energy to write to Tully and ask her how she was doing.

“Grandpa?” Moth began, feeling her chest tighten.

“Yes, baby?”

Hands clutching her tea, Moth grimaced out a smile. “It’s just, I was wondering about…what you thought about the mapmoss?” It was still too scary to discuss so she hastily continued, “Mrs. Halig called it ‘Correb’s blessing’. I have a little here with me.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a tiny twig that had gotten a spot of fog on it. Mapmoss was growing out that small amount of white.

Clem nodded. “I don’t know if they’re correct, thought I suspect the other Tiding Farmers are all implementing the same idea – no fire, let the lichen eat it. If you and Opal go up Tiding again, you should ask more questions about it, what food they’ve successfully grown.” He sighed. “If it’s true, I don’t know what to think. The burnings are mandatory by the KCAC. If anyone doesn’t burn, their produce will be blacklisted, and they won’t be allowed to transport the produce anywhere to sell it.”

Moth watched him, thinking deeply in his chair, and then he shook his head and gave her a grieved smile.

“I am the least qualified to help people, Moth. I get hundreds of letters, all asking for advice. Don’t they know I’m just a foolish man who used to drink and fall in ditches? Who am I to tell anyone anything? For so long I was a terrible father – thank god Norwin forgave me, but Albara never did. Moth, who am I, to be entrusted with so much pain?”

Getting up, Moth got a lap blanket and draped it over him, taking his teacup from his hand. “You need a nap. You always get like this when you’re exhausted – when you wake up you can go back to bearing the weight of all of Hiren, alone.”

Surprised, he tugged the blanket around him and settled into his chair. “You can be such a bully.”