Sect Year 5 · eleventh month · night of day 30 · the fifty-fourth life: Halse Ford, his sixth year
The fever came up the ford with the hot season and did not go down again. It moved from the reed houses on the landing into the chapel loft, and from the loft into the houses along the bank, and by the time the cuckoos stopped calling over the mill the village had stopped counting its nights by lamps. Nobody bothered to light them. The reed houses smelled of smoke and vinegar, and the women tore strips from their own shifts to bind the children’s heads.
Lorne carried water. He carried it from the well at the bottom of the lane to the reed house on the chapel path, and from there to the doors of the families who could no longer lift a bucket. By the fourth day his shoulders ached in a way he understood. He didn’t mind the ache. He minded the quiet. Each morning there were fewer voices on the path.
On the third day the girl with the red scarf came across on the ferry again, this time with her mother. Lorne knew her by the scarf, which had faded to a dull red. She stood on the landing with her mother’s hand in hers and looked up at the bell frame, and when she saw him at the foot of the path she lifted her hand, as she had at the bell. Then her…
