Sect Year 1 · ninth month · night of day 9 · the fourteenth life: Brack Quay, his sixty-seventh year
Ardon lay propped on two pillows and counted the lamps along the quay through the window. He had done it every night of his life. Nine lamps on the near side of the water. Six on the far side. There, the fish-market roof cut off the rest. A seventh that came and went behind the harbour wall, as it always had. He reached nine and six and was reaching for the seventh when his chest caught. The breath stopped halfway down. He waited for it the way he waited for the tide at the foot of the steps. It came back in a thin, rough pull that scraped the inside of his ribs and took the count away with it.
He began again. Nine. Six. The water came up under the house and filled the gap between the piles with a long sigh, then drew back, and the timbers beneath the bed gave their small dry groan in answer. He had lived beside that sound for sixty-seven years. He knew it better than most of what he remembered, and what he remembered had gone soft at the edges, as the planks at the end of the quay had gone soft under weather and feet.
