The Cracked Tin Cup

Marit Solen had waited at the Sallow Cross rope since before the lamps were lit, a sack of salt fish braced against her hip. The Antswarm’s lamp-house stood up the slope behind the ferry stage, and its chimney breathed a steady grey line into the pewter sky. A boy came down from the slope with a cracked tin cup in each hand, cold tea slopping over the rims, and went along the rope giving them to the men who had come off the glass floor for a breath. Nobody thanked him. They drank.

A man beside her said the Antswarm’s glass was running hot again, that the lamp-floor had been at it since the last bell and would be until the seal held. Marit had no opinion on glass. She had an opinion on the boards of the stage, which were wet, and on the rope, which was moving. When the gate lifted she got her fish aboard and her feet onto a dry plank, and the crowd took the rest of the ferry in one heave.

The link came as a shudder through the planks, like a cart crossing a bridge a long way off. The boy came back along the rope for his empty cups. Marit asked him whether he had caught the link himself. He wiped the nearest cup on his sleeve and said the Antswarm had caught it, not him, and tipped it to show her the tea was still cold.