Late in the evening, after the apprentices had gone to sleep in the dry loft of the cooperage and the levee wagon drivers had set their night watches, Pella Rook sat alone at the scarred oak table in the back kitchen of the Ferry Kitchen. In the quiet room, lit up only by the dying embers of the hearth fire, Hal Rook’s brass measuring tongs lay across a fresh sheet of thick parchment, their polished edges catching the faint amber glow.
Sister Merrow entered softly from the larder. She carried a steaming clay pot bowl of dark boiled tea and a thick slice of toasted sourdough crust. She didn’t speak. She set the tea down beside Pella’s elbow, sat down on the wooden bench opposite her. Then she folded her flour-dusted hands across her apron.
‘You’ve written fallbacks for the merchants, Pella,’ Merrow said, her voice unusually soft, motherly, and deep with intuitive wisdom. ‘You’ve written fallbacks for the wagon drivers, for the weavers, and for the families on Fish Street. Now I want to see the fallback you’ve written for yourself.’
Pella looked down at the blank thick parchment, her steel pen hovering over the inkwell of black dark oak-ink. ‘My job is to hold the listening circle with Senn, Sister. If the spirit’s memory knot begins to tear under the water pressure, I have to hold the contact until the third gate breathes.’
