Sect Year 5 · second month · day 28 · the Loom’s rail, Ninth Knot Point
The steps were slick with spray from the last tide. Lin had come up the steps that morning behind Strum, who climbed them slowly, one hand on the wet iron rail and her eyes on the stone. Lin kept one hand on the iron and counted them, as he counted everything on the Point, and lost the count at the ninth, where a crack in the stone had been mended with lead.
Strum did not stop for the crack. Her breath was loud on the climb. Below them the sea came up the rocks in long grey heaves, and each heave left a white line that hung in the air a moment before the water drew back over it.
The iron rail ran along the top of the Point. There, the stone fell away in steps to the water. Lin had first seen it on the morning they came up the road, and he had taken it for a fence. Every upright had a nail driven into its wood, and most of the nails held a cord, and the wind had worn the cords grey.
