The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 70:

Anyone Touched by Fog

Moth had nightmares about the skin.

It covered her until she couldn’t breathe – then, with peeled skin binding her, it stole her image and ran her into the marches.

All the while, she heard the circle of helra pulsing below her, throbbing through the whole dream like an earache.

Once again, she woke up feeling as if she hadn’t slept.

She felt if she had too many more nights sleeping like this, she’d have to borrow Lt. Grotte’s wine to fully knock herself out – there was too much to do, too much to prepare for, to be sleep deprived and on edge.

She forced herself out of bed. Tired and irritable even as the sun stretched over a splendid spring day, peeling open another wave of flowers for the bees, freshly awoken from their winter clusters. The singing of the birds was shrill to Moth, and the glow of the morning violent.

Moth fumbled tiredly with the vest she had worn yesterday, and blearily looked for her dress, when there was a knock on her door.

Yawning, she opened the door, expecting Nehem, but Feldar stood there. He held two cups of coffee and handed her one, saying grimly, “They arrived early.”

“They…” began Moth, her mind not fully alert yet.

“Anyone touched by the fog. I told them to come tomorrow, but they came today. They’re outside.”

Moth scrambled to the window.

For the second time, there was a crowd gathered in the grove of Poor Loom.

Around forty people waited, in the early hours of the day, waiting desperately to see if the news was true – that there was anything to ease their cursed bodies.

Many had come alone to the grove, painfully dragging themselves there on fogged legs and crutches. But there were some who had to be brought. There was a woman who had brought her fogspotted brother, his legs affected. Nearby, an elderly man had brought his two granddaughters, both younger than eight and unable to use their hands. There were several laid out on blankets – whoever had brought them had left them there alone.

Moth’s heart broke at the sight of them. She pressed her hands to the window and clenched her teeth – she wanted to hold them like a sick baby and sing to them, to swaddle them.

“What do you advise?” Moth asked quietly.

He examined her set, heartbroken face, and said, “Comfort Hiren. They’ve been limping for too long.” After she nodded resolutely, he added, “Tell me how I can help.”

“Heat as much water as you can – any pot, pan, or metal cup.”

Feldar nodded, saying over his shoulder as he left, “Wear something nice.”

Moth threw around Agate’s parcels of clothing, but struggled to find one that was mobile enough while still being impressive. She ended up choosing the riding outfit she had worn on her way to Hiren – it had a few minor tears on the mantle from the Picky Woods, so she left it behind. There was no way she could ever braid her hair in the way Agate had chosen for her when she left – the marriage hair with all the ornaments – so she didn’t bother and kept her jewelry to a minimum. She glanced at herself in the mirror and nodded shrewdly. She didn’t know if it was right, but it was all she could manage.

She choked down her coffee and ran downstairs.

Nehem was seated at the table with Mr. Larris, and Feldar was holding Larris’ son – Kulti – on his hip as he set up pots to boil, while Kulti loudly gave him instructions.

Wilhem Larris stood up immediately when he saw Moth and gave a deep bow, saying, “I’m so sorry, Lady Korraban. Feldar asked for my help to inform people to arrive tomorrow, but the moment they heard there was hope for their fogspots, they came immediately. Please forgive them, they were fearful they’d miss out.”

Forgive them? Moth marveled. Like she was some royal dolling out punishments and absolutions.

Larris added, apparently convicted by her helpless silence, “I came too. I was also afraid I would miss out if everyone came today. I brought my boy.”

Moth jumped forward to grab his hands, and said, “Please! Please, I understand. I would do the same as you – the same as anyone here – if I had a child that was hurt. I’m just sorry I’m so unprepared.”

“I’m ready to help,” said Larris. He handed her a sack – inside was four times as much mapmoss as she’d asked him to bring.

Moth stood, thinking for a long while, and then began directing.

She commanded Nehem and Larris to bring the kitchen table outside, then to tear up clean rags for bandages, and after that, they were to find as many mortars and pestles as was in the house – or anything that could function like one – and place it outside on the table.

After she doled out instructions, she took a deep breath, straightened her apron, and turned to the front door. It was time.

Moth emerged from the house to face the fogspotted of Hiren.

She had barely set her foot outside when people began howling for her attention.

“I’ve waited the longest!” cried a woman, while another shouted over her that he was in far worse pain and should be treated first.

Frantic that they might be overlooked, about six people rushed towards the porch with wild, desperate eyes, knocking each other over – when they all stopped.

Moth had held onto the railing for support, expecting to be shoved down and bracing for the pain – when she looked up and saw Nehem and Feldar standing behind her, watching the crowd with set jaws.

Feldar looked at those now sheepishly standing at the foot of the porch and said, “No. You’re going to wait.”

“But Feldar–” began a red-nosed farmer, but he did not have time to finish his sentence as Feldar stepped down the stairs.

“Don’t be in a hurry, Karl,” said Feldar, shoving the man along good-humoredly. “You’ve always hated labor and fogspots are a fine excuse. Savor the last few hours of idleness before I put you to work.”

An older, frazzled woman with missing teeth grabbed onto Feldar’s forearm and leaned on him heavily. “I’m so sorry, Feldar I don’t know what came over me. You’re not mad, are you?”

Guiding her back to her place by the trees, Feldar answered, “I never expect good behavior from you, Anna. You were never one to behave.”

Moth had never seen a group of people in such good spirits after being reprimanded. She studiously watched his effortless appeal, as Feldar went around saying a few quick words with everyone waiting, when she was broken from her research by Nehem nudging her and asking, “Where do you want the table?”

Moth pointed, and within moments, the workstation was set up.

She stood at the table, her ingredients laid out.

She felt exposed, there were so many eyes watching her – disbelieving, demanding, pained, hopeful – when she realized why she felt so uncovered. The magpies weren’t with her.

She looked around the grove, finding them in the boughs of trees, quiet and subdued. She recognized Nokk and met his eyes – he quivered but didn’t budge.

Are they waiting? Moth wondered and gestured him over.

Excited, he burst up from the tree and the other magpies followed, gathering around Moth on the railings and trim of the porch, chittering and fluttering. Nokk sat proudly on Moth’s shoulder, nibbled her hair and watched what she was doing.

The people cursed or gasped out in fear at the sudden magpie activity, and a few covered their heads as if they were being attacked.

Encouraged by the reverence the magpies provided, Moth called out, “Please gather around the table, and I’ll show you the recipe for the poultice that will help you. Bring over the mapmoss.”

The people gathered close to the table. They pulled out sacks with a few ounces of mapmoss, but several people cried out angrily, “I hadn’t been told to bring any mapmoss! Give me some of yours, you brought more than enough!”

Nehem rushed to intervene as arguments broke out.

Some hadn’t been told to bring mapmoss, others had forgotten or misunderstood, and others had assumed this was all a hoax and hadn’t expected to be helped – though they had arrived for help all the same.

Amazed by their foolishness, Moth glanced around as people were arguing, and said, “Theres a field on the other end of the grove. Theres a burn spot over there, and mapmoss grows alongside it.”

This caused even more of a commotion.

One young man shouted angrily, “I can barely walk! you should’ve gathered enough for all of us – you know we’re injured.”

“I know how this all plays out,” moaned a sour-voiced woman. “I leave for a few minutes to get the mapmoss, hobbling the whole way, and by the time I come back you’ll be all finished up and won’t help me. I’m not leaving. I know how it all plays out – it all plays out the same, every time.”

Frustrated, Moth looked at Nehem who stared helplessly back at her. Moth glanced around the grove, thinking quickly, and saw a few young farmhands laughing on the edge of the trees.

None of them were fogspotted. They had come because they were curious.

Moth rushed over to them, and said “You’re from Hiren, right?”

Some farmhands often came from neighboring regions for the work. But this woman lifted her head proudly and said, “Born and raised. This is my home.”

Relieved, Moth asked hopefully, “Would you be willing to help? We need more mapmoss, it’s just on the other side of the grove, not more than half a mile – could you bring back a few sacks full?”

The woman raised her eyebrows at Moth. She pursed her mouth and shook her head slowly. “Don’t think I will. I don’t appreciate your tone, either, while I’m thinking on it.” Her friends, standing nearby, snorted into their collars.

“Lady, we just came to see what this was about, we’re not your servants,” said another fieldhand.

Moth stared at them for a moment. She felt a fiery glow of anger and embarrassment around her neck, but she breathed slowly, smiled, and help up a coin.

All the fieldhands fixed their eyes on it like dogs at a bone.

“For every bag, you get one of these,” said Moth, her tone as sweet as she could make it. “No mapmoss, no pay.”

The fieldhands rushed off to collect mapmoss.

Moth returned to the table, trying to swallow her shakiness back down – Nokk sensed her mood and kept trying to groom her – and faced the crowd again, saying

crisply, “We’ll have more mapmoss in a moment. Now, watch me as I make this – it’s very simple, any one of you can make it at home.”

Taking a large mortar – meant for grains – Moth took as much mapmoss from the farmers as she could stuff inside and began crushing.

Feldar brought boiling water, Larris brought rags – his son on his back – and with Moth’s direction, they both began making poultices. She oversaw them to make sure the mapmoss was crushed enough, boiled down enough, or there wasn’t too much honey. It took a while, and some began to mumble impatiently, but most watched anxiously – there was a war in their minds, they oscillated between hope, or the fear they were being fooled.

At last, Moth had the first poultice ready, and before anyone could shout or demand to go first, she picked Kulti off Mr. Larris and set him on the table.

“Alright, Kulti,” said Moth, leaning down to speak quietly to him. “I’d like to help your legs if I can. Do you mind?”

“Sounds grand,” he said, and kissed Moth.

Moth laughter as Larris scolded Kulti. She rolled up the boy’s pants to see the extent of the damage – the fog reached to his knees, looking like he was wearing old gray stockings, and his legs had become thin and feeble with disuse.

Looking at Kulti’s legs, Moth grew fearful.

What if this doesn’t work. What if it only works for me?

She froze, staring at the gray flesh. Her ears pounded, and the voice became stronger: This will not work. Find a way out of this – explain it was all a mistake before they turn on you.

Nokk bit Moth’s ear.

Startled, Moth jerked out of her spiraling thoughts and hastily assembled the poultice before she could think anymore. She wrapped Kulti’s legs. He squirmed

from the texture and steam of the bandage, but then sat up rigidly and glared down at his feet.

Moth took his old socks and pulled them over the bandages to protect them and keep them in place, trying not to be conscious of the forty pairs of eyes that were trained on her. She massaged Kulti’s legs – as an added, nervous step, not knowing if it would help – and leaned forward close to him. asking softly, “Kulti?”

He nodded.

“Would you try wiggling your foot?”

He lifted his leg and, after a moment, bent his foot back and forth.

“Now your toes?” she whispered, feeling as though for a moment, she was in a tiny world alone with him.

Concentrating, to remember how, he wriggled his toes.

The crowd of farmers exploded with astonished cries, and there was a rush to press forward and see the boy, but Moth leaned closer to Kulti and asked him, “Would you like to try and walk?”

He nodded eagerly and before she could stop him, he jumped down from the table.

His legs, weakened over the years, buckled under him and he fell to his knees – but, without a moment’s discouragement, he grabbed onto Moth’s apron and pulled himself up, teetering on his feet like a toddler. It soon came back to him, and he began to walk, and then a shuffling skip, his socks getting stained green with the grass as he pounded around.

Mr. Larris sunk to the ground, watching his only surviving child skipping over logs and around people’s legs.

Moth wanted to say something to him – she wasn’t sure what, she wanted to hug him – but her attention was drawn away; the fieldhand returned with her friends,

bringing several bags of mapmoss that overflowed and floated off behind them in scraps of black.

The fogspotted who had brought no mapmoss grabbed the bags from the fieldhands, and there was a struggle over the mortar and pestle on the table – Feldar and Nehem had to break up the skirmish.

To those who had brought mapmoss, Moth handed out finished poultices, and people began to wrap themselves in it and cry out in amazement at the near-instant relief it brought their bodies. One woman was almost hysterical with relief as she could walk on a leg again – Moth knew her to be a widow with four children, whose livelihood was delivering milk.

“Lady Korraban!”

Moth whipped around.

Near the edge of the grove, blankets were spread out, and there was five people lying down on them – most were quiet, waiting to be noticed, but one elderly woman cried out again, “Lady Korraban!”

Moth hastened over to the people.

They were terribly fogspotted yet were somehow still alive – their bodies so damaged they could barely move.

An old woman waved at her to come near, and Moth knelt beside her and took her hand.

“Lady Korraban, I’m sorry to be a bother,” said the woman, who despite her stiffness had a contented air about her and was smiling. “But, you see, some of us here have no one to help us with the poultices. My son brought me here, but he could not stay – he can’t afford to miss a day’s wages. He will come and bring me home at noon.”

Moth glanced at the other four who were on the blankets.

All of them had been dropped off and left alone, except for one woman whose nephew was with her to help – he was nine.

“We’ll help you all, don’t worry,” said Moth earnestly, and then turned back to the old woman, squeezing her wrinkled hand. “Where have you been affected?”

The woman touched the side of her ribs and onto her back.

Moth called Nehem over. “Will you bring her into the house for some privacy? I’ll be right there.”

Nehem carefully picked up the old woman, cautious not to bend her back too much because of the pain – the woman endured it well, but she pursed her lips together to keep from grimacing. Nehem brought her inside Poor Loom.

Moth was wavering on her feet, wanting to go to help the woman but also wanting to stay with those laid out on the blankets – one had his neck and shoulders touched and could barely chew or swallow, and one had his whole back fogged from neck to tailbone.

Mr. Larris – who had been standing nearby – hurried over. “I’ll stay with them.”

Relieved, she thanked him profusely, but he shook his head and grinned – he overflowed with gratitude and was eager to help – and then pointed behind her to the house, were Nehem was waving her inside.

As Moth crossed the grove to Poor Loom, she had to dodge people who were learning to walk all over again, completely unembarrassed by their own cries of amazement, their tears, or their wobbling, nascent attempts at dancing.

The whole grove rung with their noise. The magpies were so excited they began mimicking the sounds, the laughter, fluffing up their feathers and spinning around in the air with the joy.

Moth heaved tearful laughter, wiping her eyes and nose, wondering how dignified she was supposed to be, when the widow – the dairywoman, named Leeta – came dancing into view with her five year old son and grabbed Moth’s hands.

Moth had known her for years, Leeta had bought milk from their farm.

“Mere!” she cried out, her face ugly and beautiful with emotion. “Mere!”

She had no words to express beyond Moth’s name, and together the three of them swung around, hand in hand, like how they used to dance at the offerings – until someone shouted out, “That’s Lady Korraban, Leeta!”

Leeta stopped at once, terribly embarrassed, but for only a moment and she bent her head onto Moth’s shoulder and said, unable to hold back, “Thank you! Thank you, tell him thank you!”

Leeta’s friend apologized to Moth and pulled Leeta and her son away.

Moth felt drunk.

She was drunk with euphoria, she felt she was levitating as she entered Poor Loom – she could work for hours if she needed to, she could run to Tiding Range and back. Instead, she focused on the woman who she needed to help.

Nehem had laid the woman in the parlor, where a door could be closed for privacy.

“Hello! Sorry for making you wait,” said Moth, bringing a mass of poultices in with her – she wasn’t sure how much of the woman she’d need to bandage, and brought an excess.

The woman waved her hand. “I’ve waited awhile now for Lord Correb’s answer to this curse, what’s another hour?”

Moth helped the old woman undress, being careful not to bend her too much as she did – as they chatted, Moth discovered her name was Nell and she was from the Rothkid family.

“When I was a little girl, I had such a love for Orim, Clem’s father - a giant of a man,” reminisced Nell, while Moth wrapped her in a steaming poultice. “Poor Clem was only ever a twig, but it came back for Norwin and Nehem, I see.”

Moth thought of Clem describing the party with the Rothkid’s when he was a boy. She asked, “Do you remember a party your uncle held for the ferryman?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “We were all so shocked when he showed up.”

Moth’s eyes brightened. “Did you greet him? Grandpa said he only saw him through a window.”

“I slept through the whole thing, but he danced with my uncle and grandmother. I saw his footprints. He gave my grandmother a little necklace as a thank you for how she had helped him,” she said, and touched at her neck. “I have it now.”

Moth marveled at the necklace. On a chain hung a circle of gold set with a flat cut emerald, making it look like a round, green window. “It’s beautiful.” Then, remembering the task at hand, finished up the bandages and took a step back. “Can you tell me how it feels?”

Nell’s face bore a moment’s hesitation – one of reluctant fear – but she, with creaking, crackling effort, pushed herself up into a seated position.

Her face crinkled into an enormous smile, showing her few remaining teeth. “Oh!” she exclaimed.

Moth took her hand, helping her stand up and stretch. She shuffled around and reaching up to the shelves, pantomiming taking down an object, and asked tremulously, “How long will this last?”

“I don’t know if a back would be different, but it lasted three hours or so with my hand.”

“Well, I’m still old and I still have arthritis – but it’s such a relief. That fog…it felt like the worst arthritis imaginable, turned me straight to stone.” She looked at

Moth with an intense gaze, undimmed by age, and kissed her cheek. “Thank you for going into the Ofere and finding our ferryman to bring us such good news. He hasn’t forgotten us – I’m ashamed I ever thought he had.”

*

Hours went by as Moth, Mr. Larris, Nehem, and Feldar, wrapped and bandaged and taught Hiren how to make poultices.

When the forty original people had been treated, they filtered off one by one, so enthusiastic about their restored life opening before them they hadn’t even said thank you.

As soon as one or two left, more showed up. When twenty people left, twenty more arrived.

Forty turned into eighty, eighty into a hundred and twenty, and the grove was crowded with people crying out for treatment – dozens had paid to be brought up in carts, shouting to Moth for help and bringing no mapmoss.

Hours began to drift away, and Moth’s body ached from bending over tables showing people how to make the poultices – the smell of the boiling mapmoss stinging her throat and eyes, her head throbbed from the sweat and the smell and the constant cries for help.

None of those who had been treated remained to help.

The day turned to evening and Moth’s knees were beginning to buckle underneath her, it hurt unbearably to keep running to the house to wrap the severely wounded. Without the three men helping her, Moth did not know what she would’ve done – but even they couldn’t help as much as she’d need, for everyone wanted to see her, to shake hands with Lady Korraban.

The intense crowd of people dwindled back down as it got later, one hundred left and only twenty remained.

All the euphoria had left her and she was now only tired, her neck so stiff she could barely bend it anymore. As she was making yet another round of poultices, she cringed in fear when she heard another set of hooves pounding into the grove.

She was ready to cry, she bit her cheek to keep from blubbering with exhaustion – but when she looked up, it was not another cartload of needy, desperate people, but Lt. Grotte arriving home.

Scratching at her lip, Lt. Grotte marveled at the scene taking place in her grove. Most of the people remaining to be treated glowered and muttered under their breath when they saw a lieutenant of the agricultural sentries riding through in uniform. The whole grove had been trampled – all the snow was melted, and the grass was torn up, no flowers remained along the pathway leading to the porch, scraps of bandages and mapmoss were everywhere.

Lt. Grotte’s horse pulled a cart loaded with groceries, and she dismounted and came over to Moth, surveying her kitchen table standing in the middle of the grove. “I heard about the poultice,” she said, and when she saw Moth’s haggard face, her eyebrows shot up. “God, you’re half dead.”

“We only have twenty more people to do,” croaked Moth, who as she spoke realized she hadn’t drunk anything.

Lt. Grotte was irritated. She looked over at Feldar, who was helping bandage someone, and grunted, “Hey ass, what is all this?”

Feldar finished the bandage and said, “What?”

Lt. Grotte gestured at Moth.

Feldar opened his mouth to answer, but Lt. Grotte launched into an angry tirade. “This is Norwin’s daughter! You can’t let her act like this, working herself to death, she should’ve been inside hours ago – she’s about to topple. What the hell is wrong with you? She’s no soldier, Feldar, she can’t be worked like this, like some mule.”

Feldar, unfazed by his friend’s anger, said, “I’m not responsible for her or this–”

“Oh the hell you are. Don’t fucking use that excuse, that’s not what you said when you were drunk two months ago, about your role in Hiren,” said Lt. Grotte.

Feldar’s eye twitched.

Satisfied she had got her arrow in, Lt. Grotte said, “Be more considerate of the weak next time. Dismiss the rest of the tinners, they can come back tomorrow I don’t care, let them trample what’s left of my grove.”

Moth wanted to protest, and then to cry, and she looked at those who still needed treatment and began to feel faint at the work it would be. She doubted her words would’ve done anything to Lt. Grotte and Feldar – irritated, Feldar turned to tell the remaining tinners to go home.

Nehem helped Moth into the house, and she collapsed onto the window seat, listening to the people outside.

There were horrified protests, and several people tried to storm the house to reach Moth, but Lt. Grotte calmed them down saying, “There’s some food in the cart for the journey home, and there’ll be bandages enough tomorrow. You there - you know how to make the poultice? Show your neighbors, take some of these ingredients and go.”

Though they shouted angrily, and people called for Moth to help them – she had to cover her ears to stop herself from rushing back out – eventually the people cleared out of the grove and Lt. Grotte came stomping in, bringing with her what was left of her cart after giving away most of the food.

She was followed by Feldar and Nehem carrying in the kitchen table.

She eyed the household. Mr. Larris, Nehem, and Feldar all immediately sprawled out into a seat, barely able to keep their eyes open. She said, “I’ll make dinner. Go take a nap, all of you. Oh, hullo Larris. Who’s this?”

“I’m Kulti,” said Kulti, from where he’d been sleeping on the stovebed.

“Ey, what a solid lad. Stay here the night,” said Lt. Grotte, and though Larris opened his mouth to object, she ignored him and went upstairs to change her clothes.

Moth crumpled onto the windowseat and fell asleep at once.

She was faintly aware of Lt. Grotte cooking, with Nehem sleeping in a chair by the fire, Feldar asleep on a couch, and Mr. Larris asleep on the stovebed – all while Kulti was determined to show off his rediscovered walking by helping Lt. Grotte make dinner. She set him to work mixing and rolling out a crust.

Almost two hours later, Moth jerked from her sleep, hoping she hadn’t missed dinner, and saw Lt. Grotte pulling a rabbit, beetroot, and spring onion pie out of the oven, the smell covering the room like a blanket.

Moth groggily rose from her chair and drank water, splashing it on her face, and kicked off the shoes she’d slept in. She sat at the table – it had been scrubbed but still reeked of mapmoss. Nehem, Feldar, and Mr. Larris, bleary-eyed and rumpled, sat down at the table as well.

Setting the pie in the center and pouring everyone a dark red wine, Lt. Grotte sat at the head of the table – Kulti climbed onto her lap and Mr. Larris started to apologize and grab him, but Lt. Grotte said, “Not my new friend, sir.”

Relaxing, and now well rested, Larris kept looking at Kulti with disbelief, with amazement, and when he was handed a full mug of wine by Lt. Grotte he raised it up and said with a hoarse voice “A sealay, to the mapmoss – to our ferryman.”

“Sealay!” echoed everyone at the table.

Lt. Grotte raised her mug, happy for any excuse to drink even if she didn’t fully understand it. Moth kept an eye on Feldar, and was surprised that he raised his mug as well. He seemed irritated by Lt. Grotte’s rebuke and was deep in thought most of the evening.

Meanwhile, everyone else felt rested and cheerful, the wine revitalized them and soon they were chatting about the day and some of the people they had treated, Lt Grotte listened with fascination and picked up a stray piece of the mapmoss and examining it with Kulti.

“You need a better method,” she said, pointing to Moth. “Imagine if these three hadn’t helped, you’d have passed out. What will you do tomorrow?”

“I can help again,” said Larris.

Feldar added, “I’m working tomorrow. Korho needs help on his farm.”

Lt. Grotte put down her mug of wine and said to Moth, “Listen, you’re famous now in Hiren – everyone is going to want a bit of you. Some mean well, they need something and you’re here to help, like Larris – others want status or money or to con you out of something you have. Others are deranged and will want to eat your hair, so it’s good your brother is with you. I know you want to help, but make sure you don’t get consumed, Mere, just to get someone out a problem they could get themselves out of if they tried – just try not to get exploited, is all I’m saying.”

Moth nodded, looking down at her hands – one in a poultice glove. “I don’t know how to tell the difference between someone who is desperate, and needs help, and someone who’s trying to exploit me.”

“You’ll get used once or twice and learn the difference. Don’t feel bad when it happens because it will,” said Lt. Grotte grimly. “Tell some of these needy people to piss off. Put ‘em to work if they’re so desperate for help. You can’t be the only one in Hiren doing good.”