The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 46:

Memories in the Mud

Moth didn’t want to go back to the greenhouse.

Unsettled and unable to give language to her heart, she dreaded working in the greenhouse under Correb’s observant eye – she dreaded any questions he might ask, or any conversation he’d strike up.

Moth wanted to avoid him altogether, but knew it’d be impossible, considering she’d agreed to listen to him read again at noon, and she didn’t have the courage to snub a ferrier. She decided to enter the greenhouse early and silence her exasperated emotions with work.

The day had only just begun when Moth crept into the greenhouse. It was still, and dark, and Lord Correb was not there – Moth sighed, feeling weightless, and walked around the greenhouse easier knowing she was alone.

Today, she would muck out the pool.

She had borrowed clothes from Lander – to avoid a conversation entirely with Agate about the propriety of a Lady doing this or wearing that. Those corrections were beginning to exhaust Moth, and she realized guiltily she avoided Agate now. Lander’s clothes were large on her but she rolled and re-rolled the sleeves and pants, and forwent shoes altogether.

Moth brought over every bucket she could find, set up a pulley, and lowered a ladder into the pool.

The pool was much deeper than she had originally realized – she assumed it was three feet deep, but once it was drained saw it was six feet, one of which was now mud.

Moth climbed down with a shovel and began filling buckets with mud, hoisting them up with the pulley and dragging it outside.

There was a ruined gazebo a short walk away, and behind the gazebo was a ditch – she emptied the pool’s mud into the ditch, and by the second time she had made the journey, she realized how long and how tiring the work would be, with no chance of finishing it either that day or the next – but she needed the labor.

Bucket after bucket was raised from the pool and dumped out into the pit. Moth arms were burning and shaking, but she was motivated by the small patch she had cleared – the mud was thick enough it barely oozed, having a consistency like aspic.

Growing too tired to work, Moth scooped up a final bucket and hauled herself up the ladder and outside.

Magpies were flitting around the gazebo ruins, watching her seriously. A sizable flock gathered curiously to her mud puddle, scratching through the mud and flying from tree to tree to looked down at it with heads jutted to one side.

Moth weakly struggled with the bucket and upturned it into the pit, shaking the last few glops out.

She sank on a rock to get back some breath. For all her work, the mud puddle was mockingly scrawny – she stared at it with annoyance, willing it to grow larger, until something in it glinted.

Squinting, Moth leaned forward. She heaved herself up and knelt by the edge of the puddle, and mushed through the mud with her hand until she felt something metal and solid. She yanked it out, cleaned it on her pants, and looked down at her palm.

A ceramic tooth.

Moth stared at it, and then at the swirling magpies who were clawing eagerly through the mud. Several of them had false teeth clutched pridefully between their beaks, and they winged off to store it in their nests.

Fascinated, Moth pocketed the fake tooth and scrounged through the mud, managing only to find one more – ivory – the rest had been gleaned by the magpies.

The mud was beginning to dry on her borrowed clothes, and Moth feared she’d never get the stains out, so she hurried back to the gatehouse.

There was a tiled room in the lower section of the gatehouse that was the bathing room, but it only had a simple pump that let out freezing cold water – fortunately the room was furnished with a brick stove. Moth put several pots on to boil the water, and when it was heated, she dumped it into two of the small wooden tubs.

Moth soaked her clothes in one bath and soaked herself in the other. She absently scrubbed at the dirt under her fingernails when she realized that she had not thought about the conversation with Correb for most of the day.

It felt far away. She could barely remember why she had been upset and laughed in relief. She would be able to easily enjoy another reading session with him.

Several hours later, scrubbed and in fresh clothes, Moth returned to the gatehouse.

Before she even rounded the veil of overgrown trees, and passed the footbridge, she knew he was there. Correb was on his couch by the tile fireplace. He had two pots of tea ready – the usual black tea with honey for Moth, and a much larger pot of his own heady brew.

He reached out a hand, and Moth gave him the journal. “How long would you like me to read?” he asked.

“Two hours. I’m not sure I could take much more,” said Moth with a half-smile.

Correb nodded. He eyed her for a moment, and Moth wondered if human thoughts and emotions were so terrifyingly visible to a ferrier – but whatever Correb

had seen on her wasn’t worth mentioning, and he continued to read Nisse’s tedious journal.

A dozen pages in, Nisse began to talk of the greenhouse. Moth perked up, delighted, and whipped out her own journal to take notes as Nisse described the citrus trees grown at the south facing windows.

Reaching over with the book, the ferryman said, “There’s her sketch.”

Moth copied the layout and listened as Correb read on.

“Horrid, horrid plant, this walking rose. Adavidan is welcome to take it all back, it doesn’t belong in Korraban. Awful thing wants to strangle me every time I enter the greenhouse, and its stopped blooming entirely long ago because I don’t know kukielli – such a choking, absurd thing.”

Moth was fascinated by this news. “How would knowing kukielli help them bloom? I know a fair amount.”

Correb stopped, looking at her in surprise. “You speak kukielli? I thought it was all but a dead language now.”

“Speak?” Moth said, entirely confused. “I…I thought it was knowing the symbolic meaning of flowers.”

“It is much more than that – though due to it fading away, I imagine that’s all it means now. Jaakko was the last person who came through here who could speak it – a uniquely human gift. The ability to directly speak to flowering plants, to speak them into existence, to know their nature down to the utmost. A gift denied ferriers, given directly to your kind by the Gardener.”

“Do you have any books on it I could read?” asked Moth.

Correb shook his head. “It’s a language that can only be learned by listening, it can’t be written.”

Moth had never met anyone who spoke kukielli – nor even thought of kukielli as a literal language. Clement, nor her parents, nor even Mrs. Tunhofe had ever alluded to something like that as possible.

A dead language.

Correb resumed reading, and Moth had a hard time concentrating after the revelation of something so beautifully destroyed as a language only flowers now spoke.

Correb did not proceed much longer, and said, “Should we stop now? It’s been an hour and a half, but you seem preoccupied.”

“No, I-” Moth began, but realizing she didn’t know what Correb had read in the last eight minutes. “Yes, alright, thank you.”

The journal was closed and set aside. Moth stood up to stretch her numb legs, almost knocking over one of her buckets of lily pads.

“I see the progress you’re making in the pool,” the ferryman commented gratefully.

“Just a corner cleared,” said Moth, but she was proud of her corner, looking down at it again after resting made it look larger.

Recalling the tooth, she reached in her pocket and said to the ferryman, “When I was clearing out the mud, I found this buried in it – there were others, but the magpies snatched them away.”

The ferryman reached out his hand, and when he looked down and saw the tooth, a mixed expression crossed his face.

His claws snapped closed over the tooth, clenched tight, and he sunk back into his chair with his eyes fixed on something far away.

Moth stepped away from him, shocked.

She felt embarrassed – she shouldn’t be seeing a ferrier like that.

“We had a celebration,” he said, after a long, heavy quiet.

Moth throat was dry. She swallowed and asked, “We?”

“My friends from Markisern, all raised in the mines. They helped me defend against an invasion of spirits on the border – child snatchers. We won, we succeeded, the homes and cradles were safe. We were overjoyed – I was overjoyed. I invited those who fought with me here to a banquet, I wanted to thank them, to honor their pain and sacrifice. We danced on the lawn, and this greenhouse – it was under Nisse – was in the height of its glory, and we came dancing inside–” Correb laughed, bittersweet, his eyes still tense. “It overcame me – when me and my people are in unity, I am full of power, my land is strong, I am strong. I reached out, and I saw the false teeth they had, so young do their teeth fall out in the mines, and I couldn’t stand it – I regrew them. Their false teeth came falling out, a shower from their amazed smiles. The pool had just been finished, and they threw the teeth in.”

Correb lowered his head and clutched a hand to his mouth, over his own teeth.

“I miss my people.”

“Then why–” Moth began, and felt the emotions from yesterday spit out of her mouth. She couldn’t stop it. “For god’s sake then why don’t you tell us! Tell us what happened to you! Why is a secret – why did I have to go through the ofere to get an answer?”

It was anger. She could identify it now, only as it melted out of her.

“I am sorry–”

“I don’t want an apology!” said Moth, tears boiling in her eyes. “I killed my grandfather when I left, I stabbed him through the heart to reach you on this mountain. How could I do that to him? I needed an answer from you – I felt the only explanation for your silence, for all the rejected gifts, was your death. There could be no other reason our ferrier would reject us like that. But you are alive, and chose – you chose to be silent. Weren’t we worth an answer?”

Correb looked at Moth.

His moon-like eyes overwhelmed Moth and she couldn’t bear his gaze. She stood up, dizzily, horrified at her own words and her anger – so strange to feel, to hold a fire in herself, she did not know how to wield it gracefully. She turned hastily, knocking over her chair to run from the greenhouse –from the mountain altogether.

But he grabbed her.

He’s going to kill me¸ she thought, his massive talons clutched firmly over her shoulders, half engulfing her.

“Don’t leave.”

The ferryman’s tone was quiet, gentle. “I am not angry. I told you not to hesitate to ask questions of me, and I am not offended by your anger. Will you listen to my answer?”

Moth’s blood was pounding in her head. She did not dare to turn around or speak any further. She nodded.

Removing his hands from her, Correb addressed her back.

“In the first few years that followed my illness, I was at my most sick. Knowing my vulnerability, powerful nobles practiced in shamanism seized and tortured my closest friends to find the secret passageways into the marches and enter this place – they entered my home, while I lay half-dead. They stole over a dozen of the souls from my guiles before I was able to intervene – I had to kill who still was here, those attempting to pillage souls like they were trinkets. My sister Davida heard of it and helped me – she blanketed my home in this ivy, choking up and closing all the passageways with brambles. No one may enter, no one may leave without my direct instruction. Regardless, I cannot leave the marches – if I do, the threads of this curse will snap over me, and I will be stuck in this form forever.”

Correb’s breath stopped at the thought. He was silent for a long moment.

“I am no stranger to human behavior. What is malformed, what is strange, frightens them – and fear drives them to anger, and violence. While some are

compassionate, such as yourself, and can look on me without rejection, you know that is not the case for most humans. Some will see me as a wounded bird and wish to take what I have – others will be so frightened and offended that they have a ferrier that looks like this, they will assume I am a false ferrier; they will try and kill me or flee to another county. They require me to look human – to be beautiful. The revelation of my distortion would cause great chaos, either way – and a fog-riddled Korraban, enduring a food shortage, would not survive. Too many would die. So, I give no answer to a desperate Hiren, and let it be said I am sick by those loyal, and I am dead by those who despise me. It is gentler.”

Moth couldn’t endure any more, and burst out tearfully – still unable to face him. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have accused you–”

“Moth,” he said, softly, and Moth fell quiet. “I am sorry you had to wait so long. You are worthy of an answer – Hiren is worthy of an answer. Thank you for listening to it.”

Moth truly couldn’t endure another word from him. She turned on her heel and ran towards him, hugging him around the stomach – as high as she could reach. She buried her face in his feathers, gripping him tightly, ashamed of every emotion she had felt, but still, still – she had been raised by Clem to comfort the grieving.

Slowly, an arm lowered, and the ferryman hugged her back.

Moth had no more words to say, nothing of value, so she hugged him until she was humiliated, refused to look him in the eyes, and then left the greenhouse. She did not come back the next day. She felt immense relief when he left for three days ferrying souls.