Chapter 28 - The Woman Across the Water

Mera refused to lower the crossing board until we explained ourselves. This required shouting across thirty feet of broken causeway.

Aoi disliked shouting. I disliked shouting while providing sensitive details. Mera appeared to dislike visitors in general.

Eventually Aoi opened the lamp box and held the lamp above her head. The woman on the roof went still.

“Where did you get that?”

“From Kaito.”

A pause.

“Boy at the toll house?”

“Yes.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

Mera disappeared.

A moment later, something scraped beneath the nearer bank.

An old board bridge swung outward on chains. It settled across the gap with a sound I did not find persuasive.

“One at a time,” Mera called.

I inspected the chains. They had been recently oiled. The boards had not been recently anything.

Aoi started forward. I stepped in front of her. She looked at me.

“For once,” I said, “allow me the practical privilege of weighing slightly more.”

The bridge held. I reached the other side without falling into the river.

An increasingly high standard for a successful morning.

---

Mera was older than she had appeared on the roof. Her skin had weathered dark. One eye was clouded. Her hands were thick across the knuckles, and she carried the hooked pole as naturally as Orra carried a sword.

She looked at the lamp. Turned it. Touched the repaired shutter.

“I answered it,” she said.

Aoi let out a breath.

Inside the house, ropes hung from ceiling beams. A table held river charts weighted with stones. Three different coats dried near the stove. The room smelled of fish, oil, and damp wool.

Mera set the lamp down.

“He got out.”

“Yes,” Aoi said.

“Good.”

She went to the stove.

That appeared to conclude the matter.

Aoi followed her.

“We brought a letter.”

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“Can’t read his writing.”

“You haven’t seen it.”

“If it’s anything like his signaling, I’ll need winter.”

I coughed. Aoi shot me a look.

Mera took the letter. She examined the characters.

“Definitely winter.”

“I can read it,” Aoi said.

Mera handed it back.

Then she put water on to heat.

“Go on.”

---

The letter was short. Kaito thanked whoever had kept the light. He described the path he had taken. He said the warning about the lower door had saved him.

At the end, he apologized for taking so long to send an answer. Aoi’s voice caught there.

Mera stood with her back to us.

For a while, the kettle was the only thing making noise.

Then she said, “Tell him he can stop apologizing.”

Aoi folded the page.

“Did you see what was attacking the station?”

“Grenn. Old female. Had young upriver that spring.”

“Is it still there?”

“Not the same one.”

I looked toward the window.

Mera saw.

“They die. Others come. Land doesn’t stay empty because you don’t care for its occupants.”

“Did you know no relief was coming?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did you try to reach him?”

She turned.

“I’m one woman. The ferry chain was down. The north bank was flooded, and there was a grenn at his stairs. You see a route I missed?”

“No.”

“Then ask something useful.”

I accepted the correction.

“The warning code. Would a newly assigned custodian normally know it?”

“He should.”

“He didn’t.”

“So I gathered.”

She poured the water.

“The field book had old notes,” Aoi said. “He worked some of them out.”

Mera grunted.

“Good boy.”

I studied the charts.

The flood house commanded both banks without properly belonging to either. From here, someone could observe movement along the road, the toll station, and the old crossing.

A signal post had once made sense there. Sending an untrained boy alone did not.

“Was the station regularly occupied before him?”

“Off and on.”

“Soldiers?”

“Usually.”

“What changed?”

Mera looked at me over her cup.

“War. Orders. Men with lists.”

“More recently.”

“New shutter board.”

I straightened.

“What board?”

“Signal instructions. Replaced the old one before the boy arrived.”

“Who replaced it?”

“Two uniformed men. Came by boat. Didn’t ask about the water.”

That, from her tone, was sufficient evidence of moral failure.

“Did you speak to them?”

“Told them the lower landing was unsafe.”

“What did they say?”

“One wrote it down.”

Aoi looked at me.

A warning had existed. Not merely in hindsight. Someone had been told.

“Could you identify them?” I asked.

“One, maybe.”

“Would you speak to a deputy here? The examiner may be willing to send one.”

Mera kept her hands around the cup.

“And when they need all morning?”

“I can ask how long--”

“Ask what they do when I walk away.” She pointed toward the river. “The sluice needs opening, I open it. The west chain needs checking, I check it. I won’t have someone telling me to sit down and finish.”

I took out my notebook.

“They wait until you are free. If you agree to a visit at all.”

“And they bring their own food.”

“Their own food,” I wrote.

“And don’t stand where I tell them not to.”

Aoi glanced toward the crossing board.

“Put that first.”

I did.

Mera finished her tea.

Then picked up the lamp.

“This stays?”

“If you want it,” Aoi said.

Mera inspected the shutter.

“Needs work.”

“He knows.”

“I’ll fix it.”

She set it beside two others.

No ceremony.

The lamp had arrived somewhere useful.

---

We stayed to help repair the crossing board. Not because Mera demanded payment. Because Berden saw a damaged chain anchor and asked whether she had a spare pin.

She did.

Getting the old one out required three people, a hammer, and language the field book would not have improved.

Aoi sorted fittings at the table. I held a brace where instructed. Mera occasionally informed me that I was holding it wrong.

By afternoon, the board no longer sagged when crossed. I found this a deeply satisfying political outcome.

Before we left, Mera gave Aoi a flat brass token drilled with three holes.

“For the boy.”

“What is it?”

“River keeper’s mark. If he comes back, he shows it. People at the lower locks will feed him.”

Aoi closed her hand around it.

“Thank you.”

Mera looked embarrassed.

“Tell him to learn his signals.”

“I will.”

“And tell him I saw his last one.”

Aoi paused.

“What did it say?”

Mera turned toward the water.

“Nothing useful.”

She would not elaborate. Kaito would know.

We crossed the repaired board and returned to the cart.

On the road, Aoi took out her notebook. She wrote for several minutes while the wheels jolted beneath us.

I did not ask to read it.