23.

The Shallow Edge

Fenwraek, AGH 78

Nelle Varr took the public steps sideways, finding room for her long hind feet and keeping the bowl level. She had left a corner of its cloth loose so the bean cakes would stay crisp. Now the wind kept turning it over, and the little pot of vinegar was beginning to work its way out of the crook of her arm.

“Take this,” she called.

Maro Fenn was not on their usual rock. The broad-shelled tortle had settled farther along, where the path widened above a pale shelf of stone. He put down the bag beside him and came to meet her. Dried clay whitened a fold in his trousers.

She passed him the vinegar.

“Onion ones?” he asked.

“With the edges you like.”

She had browned the onion slowly before folding it into the mashed beans, then flattened the cakes thinner than the ones sold over the counter. There was a fine ragged fringe where the mixture had spread in the pan. Maro usually ate that first. She had wanted him to try them before the cloth softened it.

The wind pressed her long harengon ears back as she turned toward their rock. Maro stayed where he was.

“I've put the bag over here.”

“I can see that.”

“I'd rather sit there today.”

The other place had room for his shell, but the sun lay behind it. Nelle had spent the morning between a hot pan and the preparation bench. She wanted light on her face and the sound of the shallow water below the rock. Since the shore had reopened two years before, this was where they had eaten when their working days allowed it.

“What's wrong with this one?”

“Come and look.”

He set the vinegar on a dry ledge and crouched beside the water. Nelle lowered the bowl onto the rock. The cloth caught under its base, and she had to lift it again before following him.

At first she saw only the familiar shallow, the thin wash moving over dark stone and a strip of loose weed stirring at its edge. Then she saw the little curved bodies caught among it. Pale legs clung to nothing. One body rolled when water reached it and lodged against another.

“There were more yesterday,” Maro said. “Along this side.”

Nelle looked out across the water. A bird had landed on the next shelf and was tugging at something below its feet.

“Things wash up.”

“Yes. But look under the water.”

She bent farther, bracing a hand on the dry part of the rock. Usually, if she stayed still, small movements began to separate themselves from the stone. Something would dart, or draw back under an edge, and then she would see where it had been all along. She watched until a strand of fur at her cheek tickled her mouth. Nothing moved except the weed.

“Perhaps they're farther out.”

Maro was looking up toward the opening in the low wall. A narrow trickle came down from it, darkening a seam in the rock before it reached the shallow.

“Does that always run?” he asked.

“It's the kitchen water.”

“What kind of water?”

“Wash water. What do you think we do up there?”

“I don't know. I'm asking.”

She could see the back of the Pellac provisions kitchen above him, its open door and the end of the bench where she had left a clean stack of trays. She knew how much work had gone into those trays. Nobody looking up from here could see it.

“Look over there,” she said.

She pointed beyond the raised seam to the neighboring shallow. Under the thin water, little dark shapes moved between stones. One climbed over the edge of a shell and disappeared behind it.

“There's nothing wrong with them.”

“I know.”

“So the shore isn't dead.”

“I didn't say it was. This bit's different. That's what I'm showing you.”

He leaned forward again. Nelle went back to the bowl and lifted it. There was room beside his bag. She took a step toward it, then stopped. He was still looking into the water.

“These will be cold.”

“Bring them over.”

“I made them specially.”

“Nelle, I want them. I just don't want to eat here with that under us.”

“It was all right last time.”

“Last time I could see things moving.”

She tucked the cloth around the cakes. Now that he was looking at her, she wished he would look away again.

“You can get something else.”

“I haven't asked for something else.”

She reached for the vinegar. He moved aside to let her take it, and that small ordinary cooperation made her more cross. She had wanted him to be glad she had come down the steps.

“Where are you going?”

“To eat.”

Neither of them had tasted a cake. By the time she reached the top, the vinegar had spilled a little against her wrist. She wiped it on the cloth and kept walking.

*   *   *

Dorrie came to the kitchen while Nelle was lifting salted roots from a tub. The manager brought the observer through the narrow space behind her, then went to answer someone at the counter.

“I've followed the outlet up from the shore,” Dorrie said. “Can you show me what goes into it?”

Nelle kept the roots in the strainer until the dripping slowed. On a busy morning she liked this part: a prepared thing leaving her hands, a clean vessel arriving, the next piece of work already within reach. Now the empty tray had been put on the wrong side of the bench to make room for the visitor.

“That trough,” she said. “The rinsing goes there.”

“And before the rinsing?”

“We scrape everything out. We don't put the peelings down it.”

“I'm asking about the liquid.”

She tipped the roots onto the tray, spread them with the back of a spoon and moved the spoon away from the damp patch spreading under the strainer. At the bottom of the tub, the brine was cloudy with fine pieces that had passed through.

She had been about to lift it to the trough.

“That goes through as well,” she said.

Dorrie waited.

“The first brine. Then the water from cleaning the tub. We rinse it afterward.”

“How often does that go down the trough?”

Nelle looked toward the second tub, where another batch was waiting. She could have answered only for the work she had done since opening. It would have been a smaller answer.

“Every batch. The first wash too. Not just the last clean water.”

She set the tub back on its support. The liquid rocked against its sides. She had called it wash water to Maro as though he had asked her a foolish question.

“Can this stay here while we look outside?”

“If nobody needs the space.”

The manager came back. Nelle explained which vessel must not be emptied, expecting an objection about the next preparation. The manager looked at the tub, then moved the waiting tray to the front bench.

“Show me when you've seen it,” she said.

Nelle took off her apron and hung it on the back of the door. The air outside felt cold against the fur of her chest after the kitchen. Dorrie led her to the opening in the wall, then down beside the short channel. Nelle could hear a pan being set down inside. It was oddly easy to tell exactly where the cook stood, though the wall hid everything but the sound.

The channel followed a seam in the rock. Where the slope eased, water spread and lingered in the shallow below. Dorrie had marked that edge with a pale wooden peg set back from the wash.

“Here,” Dorrie said. “Then look beyond the ridge.”

Nelle knew which place she was being shown before she looked. The neighboring water was full of the small movements she had offered as reassurance. Near the outlet lay the dead bodies Maro had seen. Under the clearer water beyond them, the stone was bare.

“I've watched what comes down during the work,” Dorrie said. “It keeps arriving here. The brine and the cleaning water together, in this little space.”

“And it goes out when the water rises.”

“Some does. More comes down the next time the tubs are emptied.”

She rested on her heels. At this distance the kitchen was an open door, a stretch of wall and a narrow line running away from it. She could not see the clean trays she had wanted Maro to see. She could see where the first cloudy liquid went.

“We don't need this outlet,” she said. “We need somewhere to empty the tubs.”

“Let's show the manager.”

When they returned, the manager had left the held tub where it was. Nelle showed her the liquid, described the sequence again and took her outside. Dorrie came with them and pointed out the boundary of the affected patch.

The manager asked whether the old outlet could be stopped without closing the food counter. Dorrie explained what had to stop going through it. The manager listened, then called one of the workers from the doorway. They stood where the channel entered the wall and discussed access to the back of the trough.

Nelle went inside to put the roots where they could be kept until needed. The empty tray on the front bench was already in someone's way. She moved it again.

That afternoon the old outlet was taken out of use. The next batch waited while the manager arranged vessels and carriage for the waste. Nelle washed her spoon into a container set beside the trough and stopped herself from pouring it out.

The manager looked up from counting what the work would cost.

“Leave it there,” she said. “We'll get it moved.”

*   *   *

The men fitting the new containment vessels needed the back bench. Nelle had known they would need it, had helped clear it, and had shown them where the wall stayed sound enough for a support. By midmorning she had begun to hate the careful way they laid out their tools.

Her second tray was ready. The first was cooling at the front. Ordinarily she would have washed the tub, taken the next mixture off the shelf and had another pan heating while someone carried the finished food to the counter. Instead the tub stood where she could not reach it, and the shelf could be reached only by passing behind a worker holding a vessel in place.

She waited for him to set it down.

“Could I just get past?”

“In a moment. This has to sit level.”

It did. She could see that it did. The support was a little too high at one end, and if he let go now the vessel would lean. She held her tray and watched him measure again.

The manager came through with the carriage arrangement confirmed and stopped beside her.

“That's the last tray today.”

“I've got enough mixed for another.”

“Cover it.”

“It won't take long once they've finished.”

“They have their work to do. The waste has to be taken away. We're selling what's ready.”

“I can use the front.”

“Where would you put the used things?”

Nelle glanced toward the counter. There was room for the tray, if the stack of bowls moved, and room to work if nobody came through with a delivery. After that there would be a pan, a tub, a strainer and the first dirty washing. She had already followed them as far as the empty space where the back bench used to be.

“All right.”

She said it sharply and covered the mixture. The manager went to tell the counter worker what was no longer on offer. A customer who had come for a larger order left with less than half of it.

Nelle kept finding little jobs she could still do quickly. She wiped a clean rim. She straightened the cakes on the tray. When she reached for a second spoon, the person holding up the vessel asked her to pass the small wedge by her hand, and she did. The end settled onto its support. He leaned on it carefully, then reached for the next piece.

Pellac was paying for the labor, the vessels and the existing carriage to take the waste away. The manager complained about the price of the vessels while checking them, then paid what was due. The men finished their work and gathered their tools. Nobody sent Nelle after the lost order or asked her to stay late and make it up. The covered mixture was put away for the next day's preparation.

There was less on the counter than she wanted there to be.

Maro appeared at the end of the queue with a pot wrapped in a cloth under his arm. She saw him looking past her toward the changed work space.

“It's stopped,” she said. “They've blocked it. You can go down and look.”

“I was going to ask if you had any cakes.”

“There aren't any more coming out.”

He looked at the tray in front of her.

“Those?”

“Those are ready.”

“Then could I have two?”

She put them in a bowl. He reached for his money with the pot still trapped under his other arm. Nelle took it from him and set it on the clear end of the counter.

“Did you hear what I said?” she asked.

“About the outlet? Yes.”

“Dorrie found it.”

“I heard.”

She wanted to say that she had helped. It sounded poor even before she said it. Maro counted out the price and moved his bowl out of the way of the next customer.

“I wasn't trying to stop you making these,” he said.

“You wouldn't even look at what I'd brought.”

“I did. I asked you to bring it over.”

She looked at the two cakes. The edges had survived. He broke one with his fingers, and she heard the little crack she had wanted to hear down by the water.

“Do you want the dressing?”

“Yes, please.”

She poured it into the small hollow at the side of the bowl.

“Are you going back to the pots?”

“I have to deliver this one.” He picked up the cloth-wrapped pot. “Then I'm finished.”

“I could bring mine down after we close.”

“I'll be there.”

“Farther along. Where you had the bag.”

“Yes.”

He took his bowl to the ledge outside and ate while the food was hot. Nelle went back to the remaining tray. When she closed the kitchen's back door later, there was no thin run of water below it. The blocked opening had a rough new edge she did not like the look of. She left it alone.

Maro was waiting at the wider part of the path. There was room beside him, with the stone warm where the late sun reached it. Nelle put down her bowl and eased her legs into a comfortable bend.

“I haven't made extra for you.”

“I bought mine.”

“I saw.”

He let her eat. The dressing was too sharp; she had poured it impatiently at the counter. She liked it anyway. Maro unwrapped the cloth he had carried the pot in and shook it over the path, freeing a little dried clay from one corner. Then he asked whether she would rather have a wide shallow bowl for this food or a deeper one she could carry with a lid.

“The shallow one,” she said.

“You keep spilling the dressing.”

“A lid will soften the edges.”

He considered that, turning the cloth between his fingers.

“A separate pot, then.”

“One that doesn't roll.”

He spread the cloth on his knee and sketched a shape on it with a fingertip. She made him flatten its base a little more. Below them, the water worked through the sound patch. They stayed until she had finished eating.

*   *   *

AGH 80

The waste carrier was loading the kitchen's current vessels when Nelle came out with her bowl. She waited while a lidded one went across the doorway, then slipped past the empty replacement. Containment and carriage were part of the new term's regular costs.

Maro had come from his workshop with wet clay still under one nail. They went down the public steps together. Near the old outlet, a shore worker was kneeling with a board on her knee. Making these observations was part of her paid round. She had laid her bag well clear of the pale marker so she could see the water beneath it.

Maro slowed.

“What?” Nelle asked.

He started to point, then withdrew his hand.

“Just there. Beside the little stone.”

Nelle put the bowl on the dry ledge and crouched. She saw the stone, the dark thread of weed caught behind it, a small break in the reflected sky. She shifted her head. The break moved with her.

“I can't see it.”

“Wait.”

The shore worker held still too. A ripple crossed the shallow, blurring everything. When it passed, something pale flicked into the narrow shade under the stone.

“There.” Nelle leaned forward. “I saw it.”

It came partway out again. Its little jointed body seemed scarcely thicker than the strip of shadow it had left. Then its legs worked against the stone, lifting the front of its body over an edge.

Nelle grinned. She wanted Maro to have seen the whole movement, though he had pointed it out to her. She looked at him and found his broad beaklike mouth open in a pleased, quiet smile.

“Another under that one,” the worker said.

Nelle followed the direction and caught a second movement. The worker made a note on the board, waited for the water to settle, and looked again.

“They're back,” Nelle said.

She kept looking. Beyond the small stone lay a longer stretch she remembered being busy with life. It was still bare. Across the ridge there were movements she did not have to wait so hard to find.

She turned back to the little creature. It had reached a tuft of weed and was hidden now, except for a trembling pale edge. She did not try to dislodge it.

“I wish I'd seen it come out,” she said.

“You did,” Maro told her.

“All the way.”

He settled onto the dry rock. She stayed crouched a while longer, then moved beside him, careful not to put her foot against the marker. The worker continued the round. Nelle ate with the bowl held low so she could see over it.

*   *   *

AGH 81

“More along the inside this year,” the shore worker said as Nelle and Maro reached the marked patch. She closed her board and moved her bag off the ledge. “Mind that peg with the bowl.”

Nelle set the food farther back. The peg had weathered gray except for a pale face near its base. Below it, small bodies moved between the new strands of weed. She could follow one for a little way, lose it, and find another without waiting for all the water to settle.

Maro lowered himself beside her, leaving space for his shell. He took the bowl she offered and sniffed the cakes.

“Different?”

“More pepper.”

“I thought so.”

“I like them that way now.”

She had brought the dressing in a squat little pot that stood where she put it. Maro held out his bowl for some. She was about to pour when something moved beyond the dark reflection of his shell.

“Wait.”

She put the pot down and leaned forward. He lowered his bowl. A pale creature was working along the underside of a stone, visible where the edge curved up from the water. Its legs moved quickly, stopped, moved again. Nelle found a place for her hand on the dry rock and kept still.

Maro watched beside her. The creature reached the weed and disappeared beneath it.

She picked up the dressing. He held out his bowl again, and she poured a little beside the cakes. They began to eat.