The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 4:

A Clinging Snow

Lord Berrimont Ede, the Agricultural Councilor of the City of Magden of the County of Korraban, came by train to the southern end of the county, and travelled further down by carriage to Hiren.

Despite all tradition, the paperwork went through and was processed, and it reached the Count of Korraban who ordered the agricultural crisis being experienced in the southern farmlands to be investigated, because – as Grandpa Clem had predicted – the fog came back.

That night of Offering and its abundance was not seen the following harvests, as it became terrifying even to go out and till the ground for fear of the fog gasping out of the earth and seizing the oxen.

For all the trouble, there was a hope in the air about Lord Ede’s arrival. Every farmer in Hiren must have gone out to meet him and show him around their damaged sites, where the fog-touched ground had been marked off by rings of rocks and signs detailing the time of the damage.

Lord Ede, and his assistants – ecology and botany students from Magden’s university – examined each field, making hundreds of notes and measurements, examining each petrified vegetable with distillation and magnifying glass.

They promised to have some advice to give before their long voyage back up to the city, and so Hiren waited.

*

Moth sat in the kitchen, watching the farmers around the fireplace.

She flittered through their tangle of feet and discarded boots to pour cups of tea and pass around plates of cheese and bread. They were loud – happy, but argumentative about what they expected Lord Ede’s verdict might be.

“I dare hope he says we can plant in those areas again,” said one farmer. “My land’s not big and I need every sliver of acre I have.”

“I’m not sure I’d trust him even if he does say that,” said another, shaking her head. “I’d have to see just what sort of plant would get produced on that land before I’d even feed it to a bird – oh thank you Mere.” She accepted a cup of tea.

Moth worked her way to a farmer set up by the window, too tired to take off her boots and puffing on a pipe. “Tea, Mrs. Tunhofe?”

Mrs. Tunhofe – Rodin’s mother – took the tea and said, “That’s beautiful, thank you Mere. Oh–” she stopped Moth, “Pris told me to say hello if I see you and make sure you’re alright.”

Moth smiled brightly. “I feel like it’s been ages since the wedding. How is she?”

“Oh Rodin acts as though she were made of glass and insists she shouldn’t breath now that’s she’s pregnant. She hates it of course. Bossy one, she is,” said Mrs. Tunhofe, sucking on the stem of her pipe. “Bit like me, in that way.”

“Well send her my love and tell her not to fuss over me; she has the whole of Tunhofe to fuss over now.”

“And that she does.”

Moth kissed Mrs. Tunhofe and finished giving out the rest of the tea. There was a clatter in the foyer as someone else entered the house, so Moth smoothed her apron and left the arguing farmers to head to the front door. “Hello?”

Ama clattered into the foyer, wearing her bow and quiver – though all her arrows were missing – and said, “Mothy, hello!”

Moth squeezed her hand. “You’re done early.”

“Mom had to help Japh. One of the cow’s in labor.” Ama fidgeted a bit, and finally pulled a letter out of her pocket. “Also this came for you, maybe.”

Moth grabbed up the letter excitedly and hurried to the parlor by the window to get the spring light. “Tully! That was fast.”

She ripped open the letter and read the awful handwriting.

Dear Mothball,

I’m over my cold now which means I have to make up a week’s worth of washing and now I’m thinking about eating some lye so I can get out of it.

Aunt Rena’s travelling with some friends back up to Imbridon; I know she doesn’t like it there, she says is depressing, but she feels she must help her friend who’s struggling with the same severe cold we all had this month.

Well that’s all for the bad news, onto the good; business has been so good recently we hired on some more washerwomen. How funny it is, that while everyone is going through this rough year, people still need their laundry done, and don’t want to do it themselves – especially the rich.

I’m saving up for a typewriter, so expect my letters to be legible soon. You may be laughing at me making such an investment, but honestly someone needs to type up some sort of manual on laundering as no one does it half so well as me, and you know how lazy I am.

Give my love to Ama, who I know must be sulking in the corner waiting for you to finish this to give her attention. Tell her she is the only friend I have.

Your friend and second cousin, Tully

PS. Enclosed please find a pouch of green tea I think you’ll like. Consider it my Offering to you – NOT Korreban’s Ferryman – as I bet you are much nicer.

Moth struggled her way through the blotchy and scribbled letters, unable to stop smiling. She found a little package wrapped in a scrap of striped pink linen and tied with twine; she pressed it to her nose to smell the gentle odor of the leaves.

“What’d she say?” asked Ama, who was poking at the dust on the mantelpiece and glancing at Moth.

“That she loves you and you’re her only friend – do you want to read it? I don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t care.” Ama rubbed her nose. “Moth you promised to show me the gourd you were working on.”

Moth folded up the letter. “Alright, follow me.”

She led her upstairs to her room.

The room used to be her father and aunt’s when they were little. There were two cupboard beds on opposite walls. The one on the right, Moth had chosen because it had had been painted by her grandmother, and Win Meremoth had covered it in bold drawings of yellow-yellow hartwort, their star-shaped flowers and vivid green leaves climbing around the outside, and tangling inside on the ceiling.

When she was very tired and it was late at night, with the candle flickering and sending up shadows, the hartwort moved.

And though the bed was very beautiful, it was hard to see anything much in the room, as it was draped with plants – fresh or drying. They dangled from hooks and nails, in garlands and clumps, perfuming the room.

The old green walls were plastered in her sketches of nature, and the floor was cluttered with jars of shells, or rocks, and one had tadpoles swimming around peacefully.

Moth helped Ama through the mess to the window seat where she had a tray.

On it, was a petrified gourd – she had split it open and was looking at the porous interior. “This isn’t new,” said Moth, pulling on gardening gloves and showing it to Ama. “This is from last year. It’s affected all the way though, see? It doesn’t crumble like that on animals though if you remember Japh’s ox.”

Ama shook her head. “Japh told me about it, but I don’t remember it at all. You know he keeps going to the Tine farm to see Patri?”

Moth shrugged a shoulder. “She never told anyone about that day.”

“Of course she didn’t! Why would she? She’d get in trouble.”

“Patri has never once gotten in trouble – no, I’m not going to talk about Patri. Look at the squash.”

Ama took a fork and poked at the inside of the gourd. It was hard, but brittle; it flaked like a flint.

“These are newer, though,” said Moth. She opened a jar, and inside were peapods, petrified through to the seeds inside. It felt heavy in her hands. “This is from a week ago; a farmer brought it to show Grandpa, and I asked if I could keep it.”

Moth took out another jar and held it up to the light so Ama could see. Inside, she had ground up the peapods into a dust.

“Moth…” began Ama, worried.

“I ground it up outside, and I washed all my clothes to be sure. Follow me.” Moth opened her window, and climbed out to the mossy, cold roof. In a box, attached to the edge of the roof, she had two pots. Ama leaned out the window and watched Moth pull the box up to show her.

“I planted spring onions in both pots. But before I planted it, I mixed the ground old squash into its soil,” said Moth. Inside the pot, a few feeble onions were struggling to grow. Moth showed Ama the next pot, inside which no onion had managed to grow at all. “And this one, I used the peapods.”

Ama squinted into the first pot. “So plants can grow…eventually? If the petrified plants are old enough?”

“I think so – I’m not sure – because look at this.” Moth pointed to the soil of the first pot, and Ama leaned in close, holding her breath.

On the top of the soil grew a velvety plant; it was black as the soil, but when it stole the sunlight it glowed deep with green and blue colors, bright and dark as gemstones.

“Moss?”

“Its lichen. I’ve never seen this type before. Is so soft and black.” Moth set the pots back and crawled through the window into her room, her eyes bright. “Ama, I think it’s eating the petrified plants and making things able to grow again. I mean, I’m not sure, but I’m hopeful – oh, I wish I could talk to Lord Ede and his assistants and what they found. I heard from other farmers that old areas touched by the fog have this lichen growing on it.”

*

Ama left soon after, as did the farmers returning to their farms, waiting on Lord Ede’s verdict.

It was late evening, and Grandpa Clem had a cold spell. Moth wrapped him in blankets in his room and brought in more firewood to feed the heat. She shed her apron and vest, feeling her neck sweat at the base of her hair, and made a mug of spiced tea with milk and honey, bringing it in to him.

Shivering, Grandpa Clem uncurled his hand and took the mug. His neck looked bone-thin poking out from the blankets. “Thanks Moth. I’m sorry to keep you up so late, I should’ve been in bed an hour ago.”

“Hush, you can’t control when the chills get you.” Moth pushed a footrest under him legs and tugged wool socks on his feet. She pulled at her collar to let some

air around her sweating neck, and retreated to a chair by the window to feel the night air against the glass while she kept an eye on Clem.

They sat in silence as Clem’s teeth clattered despite the blazing fire that reddened the room. Moth began to doze off in her chair, and closed her eyes for a minute, only to glance at the clock and find an hour had passed. She roused herself and looked at Clem.

He was half asleep himself, and no longer shivering. The fire had gone done a little, but not enough to merit more firewood. Moth began to settle into her chair again.

“Clem!”

They both jerked. Someone pounded on the front door.

Moth stumbled up on numb legs and tugged on Clem’s cardigan, running barefoot through the cold hallway and onto the chilled stones of the foyer. She undid the latch and swung it open, and found Feldar Tine – Patri’s older brother – standing in the door, his face gaunt and his eyes bloodshot.

“Is Clem awake?” demanded Feldar, rocking on his feet impatiently. Behind him, his horse was huffing, tied to a fence post

“Yes, yes, come in. Are you alright, is Patri alright?” asked Moth, disoriented and rubbing her face to wake up.

“No one’s fine. This is insanity. Is he in his room?” Feldar asked, but did not wait for a response as he stomped down the hallway and flung open Clem’s door, with Moth stumbling after him.

“Feldar?” Clem asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Lord Ede left town an hour ago, skulking out in the dark, after he posted his verdict on the council hall’s door.” Feldar stormed around the room, hands raised. “God Clem, he’s hung us all!”

Clem reached out and seized his arm with his gnarled, gentle hand. Feldar quieted, breathing deeply. Clem fixed his eyes on Feldar. “Tell me.”

Feldar gripped Clem’s hand. “He said the contaminated sites are much larger than we’ve allowed for. He said a twenty-foot radius around a fog-touched site is not enough. He says it needs to be an acre.”

“An acre…”

“From where the whitened ground ends, you must measure half an acre of contaminated ground…in all directions. Some people have been hit multiple places on their farm; their entire property is contaminated by Ede’s standard. They won’t have a farm left.”

*

By next morning, all hope had drained from Hiren.

By the week’s end, everyone could recite from memory the contents of Lord Ede’s statement, and by the month’s end, every farm had quarantined an acre-size gap around the contaminated fields, by order of Lord Ede through the authority granted to him by Count Taebere of Korraban, in service of His Majesty King Orwen, King of Coewylle.

The enforcement of the contamination guidelines was not taken lightly by Lord Ede, who shortly after was granted permission to re-establish a guard’s outpost that had long seen no activity in their small town. They were established as the Agricultural Sentries, working for Korraban County Agricultural Council.

In the following months, having no other options, a dozen family were forced to sell their farms – the KCAC bought it from them for pennies and it became owned by the Kingdom of Coewylle; all the government owned farmland became untended. The displaced families left for different regions – some to whole other counties.

People tilled the earth and did not spare an inch of ground. They all felt in the air the coming food shortage.

No one spoke to him of it, but everyone regarded Clem with more reverence. Had not tried to find a solution to the fog through the city, they would have been able to keep their land – the land they had already been farming and producing healthy vegetables on.

People came more frequently to his house for advice, and his advice remained unchanged: Farm, store food, give offerings to the Ferryman.

Clem took his own advice, despite his age. The flowers were stripped from his garden, and it became all vegetables. He pushed out the garden as far as he could bear to labor in it and grew hardy root vegetables.

It was autumn again, and almost time for another Offering Day. Moth dreaded it, she felt how different it would be from that day four years ago.

She went outside and looked over where her anemones and lemon-queens had been – now a plot for turnips. Moth gently touched their fronds and looked them over, before hurrying to the end of the plot of land Clem had converted into his own small farm.

“Grandpa?” she called. It was a cold day, though the sun was overhead, and she dreaded him getting chilled again.

“Here.”

She hurried out past the tall sunflowers, heads bent and drying, their seeds beginning to fall out, and found Clem on the outermost edge, digging up his potatoes into a basket.

He was on his knees with a trowel, but he stopped when he saw her. He wiped sweat from his brow – she was relieved he did not look chilled – and said with a huff, “You don’t need to keep checking on me every half hour, Moth, I know you have canning to get to.”

Moth handed him a mug of cold water from the cistern and said, “I can do both.”

Sighing and yanking off his gloves, Clem took the glass and sipped at it, gesturing to the basket of potatoes. “That’s a good amount. I’m pleased with that.”

“How deep did you plant it this time?”

“I’m not sure. Three feet, maybe, I keep finding them lower than I thought I had buried them. That’s the problem with being senile.”

Moth snorted. “Well don’t turn senile yet.” She tried to smile but it felt tight on her face. “You need to live for a long time and keep your mind sharp right now more than ever. I don’t like you exhausting yourself in the garden but-” she continued as Clem tried to protest, “Gardening is keeping you strong.”

“It’s keeping us fed, really.” Digging deeper, and stuffing his hand in, Clem pulled out a potato the size of a shoe. “Look at this, eh? I knew I had a gift for this but I worried I lost it.

Moth did not hear see him as he sat over his hole, or the vegetable he held up.

She saw the fog in the earth.

White, like a breath of snow, reaching up from the crack in the ground at Clem’s feet, and Moth fell on her stomach and shoved her hand in the hole to stop it reaching him. It burned like the longest, coldest night of a January winter, and Moth screamed for Clem to get away.

He got up and tugged her with him into the house, hugging her narrow shoulders against him and saying something – she wasn’t sure – and sat her down by the kitchen fire so he could run to the main house to get his son.

Moth was afraid to look. She could not feel her hand, it had passed from cold to empty. Nauseous, she trembled and heaved for breath, heaved for strength, and bent her arm to look at her left hand.

It was white like an early snow that clung in the shadows of the hills, and Moth could not move it at all.

Author ramblings: