The abandoned timber warehouse at the Old Ferry Landing smelled of dry pitch pine, tarred hemp rigging, river mud, and the sharp, vinegar tang of pickling salt water from the adjoining fish docks. Overhead, massive cedar roof beams supported a roof of cedar shingles, patched with canvas where the autumn rains had leaked through. Forty-two people sat on upturned herring barrels, timber balks, and salt crates. It was wrapped in wool shawls and heavy frieze coats against the river damp.
In the center of the floor, three kerosene dock lanterns sat on a heavy oak hatch-cover. It cast a warm, flickering circle of yellow light across the weathered faces of Lowbank’s working core. Draymen with cracked leather aprons, laundresses with red, lye-burned knuckles, ferry workers with tarred caps, and elderly boarding-house keepers clutching tin cups of boiled tea. Beside one lantern sat a basket of sourdough crust bread, shared among the neighbors who had come straight from the docks. Outside, the Gray Rush lapped against the wooden support posts with a hollow, rhythmic suck. The evening mist brought the familiar silt stench into every crack of the walls.
Mira Os stood at the edge of the hatch-cover, a clean pine shingle in her hands and a piece of red grease pencil tucked behind her ear. Her voice was not loud. But it had the clear, sharp carrying power of a woman who had spent twenty years calling tenants to breakfast across three flights of stairs. A streak of dry pipe…
