第7章 The Sixteen-Year-Old

The boy came to the Saltwyke house at six on the seventh morning, in the way Barsham had said he would, with his school cap in his hand and his boots wet and his face thin from a night he had not had. He was sixteen. He was tall for his age, and sun-burned from a summer on the marsh, and he had the habit of looking at his own feet when he was thinking, which Barsham had told Nissa about, and which Nissa noticed immediately. He did not have a name she had ever heard used in Harnsey Wick, and he did not ask for one, and she did not ask him for one either, and for three days he answered to nothing but a sound he made when he was called, a small *ah* that came out of the front of his throat, and Nissa did not mind, because it seemed to him a kind of rest. He came in from the marsh at dusk, when the flat was grey and the water was up to the top of the first step, and he carried a length of rope over his shoulder and a small notebook in his coat, and he did not sit down, and he did not drink the cup of tea that Nissa put in front of him, and he stood at the kitchen table with his hand on the door and he looked at the Ledger, which was closed on the shelf with its back to the wall, and he did not look at it twice. "Barsham sent me," he said. "Barsham sent you." "To the marsh. To look for the child who heard the bell." "Did he say when?" "He said this morning. He said go out with the morning tide, and he said look for the child, and he said bring the child back if you can, and he said if you can't bring the child back, bring the child's slate back, because the slate has the words on it and the words are going to come to Nissa one way or another." Nissa sat down at the table. She put her hand flat on it. "He told you to bring me a slate," she said. "He told me to bring me a slate." "And if the slate is empty." He looked at his own feet. "Then I bring the slate back anyway," he said. "Because the slate is going to be empty, and if I don't bring it back Barsham will send another boy, and the other boy will not be sixteen, and Barsham will send a boy who is ten, and Barsham does not send boys who are ten, because he has taught forty-two children and he knows what a ten-year-old does in a marsh in October." Nissa looked at him. He looked at his own feet. "What is your name," she said. "I'm sorry?" "You're sixteen and you answer to a sound. That's a rest, but it's not a name." He looked up. He looked at her for a long time. He put his hand on the door. "My name," he said, "is on the ledger." "Which ledger." "The one in the schoolhouse." "The one the schoolmaster keeps." "The one the schoolmaster keeps." He did not elaborate. He did not elaborate because there was nothing to elaborate, and he had been told by the parson, on the morning he had gone to the schoolhouse and taken the record, that the record was not to be shown to anyone who had not asked, and he had not asked, and the parson had not told him to say his name, and the parson had not told Barsham to say his name, and Barsham had not said it, and for three days nobody had said it. "I will go to the marsh this morning," Nissa said. "You will go," he said. "Will you go with me." "I will go." The boy did not say more. He did not drink his tea. He stood at the door with his hand on it, and Nissa stood at the table with the Ledger on the shelf in front of her, and the room was cold, and the pans were not yet lit, and the shingle outside was wet, and the marsh was behind the house, and the marsh was waiting, and the boy stood at the door, and he did not leave, and Nissa did not tell him to, and the room stood still for a long moment. "Sleep in the back room," Nissa said. "I have slept in Barsham's schoolhouse since the last Long Ebb." "Sleep in the back room tonight. Barsham is coming in this morning to say the words, and Barsham is going to say the words before the marsh, and I would like the room to be empty of him when he does." He looked at her. He nodded. He did not pick up his hat. He did not leave. He stood at the door with his hand on it for another moment, and then he went into the back room, and Nissa stood at the kitchen table, and she took up the Ledger, and she put her hand on the front clasp, and she did not open it, and she sat down, and she looked at the slate in the corner of the table where she had left it the day before, and the slate had the seventh line on it now, in her own hand, and the seventh line read that the marsh was going to Barsham. She did not put the slate away. She left it on the table. She got up, and she lit the pans, and she boiled the kettle, and she did not open the Ledger, and she did not read the next page, and she went out to the marsh with a cup of tea in her hand and a length of rope over her shoulder, and the boy did not come out, and the boy did not go out, and the marsh stood waiting. ---