Ferris Carries the Starter

Ferris Cloud-Ferryman had carried eleven babies, three goats, a harp in four crates and a clock that struck every time the boat tipped. None of them had come with notes. Poppy’s starter came with five.

It had come up the east road in Hobb’s cart, wedged in straw between two crates of lamp glass, which chimed once when the cart stopped. Hobb handed it over at the Hollow landing with the face of a carter who had been asked to drive gently all morning. It was a squat jar with a clip-down lid, full of something pale and thick and faintly sour. On the side Poppy had drawn a pencil line, and beside it she had written: here, not higher.

A sourdough starter, for anyone who has never been trusted with one, is flour and water kept going for so long that it can raise a loaf all by itself. A baker feeds it every day, the way other people feed a cat, and worries about it rather more than the cat.

Ferris’s job was to get it up through the cloud to Sorrel at Cloudbreak, risen to that line and not past it. He had never delivered anything to the wrong height, and he did not intend to start with bread.

The five notes were tied round the jar with string. Each was folded smaller than the one before, as if Poppy had been running out of paper but not out of things to say. Ferris untied the one marked with a one.

“Ferris,” it said. “Do not open note two yet. Note two is for when you are off the ground. This is my starter. It is nine years old and it has never been higher than my oven shelf. Keep it warm. Not hot. Warm like a loaf an hour out of the oven. The little bottle of water goes in your OTHER pocket. I will explain later. Thank you. Poppy.”

There was a small corked bottle of water with the jar, and a paper of flour. He put the bottle in his other pocket. Then he took out the scarf.

Linnet in the Glowmarket had knitted Ferris that scarf two winters ago. Linnet knits for people who stand about in the cold for a very long time. Linnet had decided Ferris was one of them, so the scarf was a good deal longer than Ferris. He had never once worn it. Round a jar it went three times exactly and tucked in at the end with nothing left over. Ferris looked at it with something close to respect. Then he buttoned the jar inside his coat, against his chest, and did the coat up to the collar.

His only passenger was waiting on the landing with a basket.

“Mrs. Ashdown,” said Ferris. “Last April you said the fog would be gone by ten.”

“And it went,” said Dilly Ashdown.

“At two.”

“It went, though.” She held up the basket. “Teacups. For my nephew on the quays. You wouldn’t believe what a cup costs up there.”

“I would,” said Ferris. “Sit on the left. You were green last time.”

She sat on the left, and looked at the front of his coat, which stood out in a square.

“What have you got in there?”

“Bread,” said Ferris. “Not yet.”

* * *

The ferry, a flat boat under a patched balloon, rose off the Hollow landing at half past eleven. The town’s blue and gold lamps dropped away below. Ferris opened note two. It was longer, and the writing leaned.

“Do not open note three until you are in the cloud. Have you opened note three? You have, haven’t you. Fold it back up. If you are off the ground, good, well done. Do not let anybody give you advice. Everybody has advice about starters, and most of it is honey. Also, if anyone at the harbor asks, the tally is seven. Wick says four. He isn’t there, so it’s seven.”

Ferris had not opened note three. He folded note two back along its creases with the dignity of a man wrongly accused.

Dilly leaned across. “Do you know what perks a starter up?”

“Yes,” said Ferris.

“A spoon of honey.”

“It’s been told about honey.”

Then they went up into the cloud.

Cloud is a very particular kind of cold. It doesn’t bite like frost. It settles on everything in small wet beads: on the rail, on the ropes, on Dilly’s hat, on Ferris’s eyebrows. It is cold enough to stop a starter rising at all. Ferris kept one hand flat on his coat over the jar, and opened note three.

“Do not open note four until a quarter to twelve. Not twenty to. A quarter to. Are you in the cloud? Is it cold? It’s cold, isn’t it. I knew it would be. Keep your hand on the jar. Not squeezing. Just there. If it feels cold through your coat, walk about. Can a person walk about on a ferry? Walk about anyway. Hobb says it will all be fine, but Hobb also says my seed buns are fine, and they are not fine, they are excellent, so Hobb doesn’t know.”

Ferris took out his watch. It was twenty-two minutes to twelve. He held note four and watched the second hand go round, seven times.

“Go on,” said Dilly. “Open it.”

“It says a quarter to.”

“Nobody would know.”

“I’d know,” said Ferris. “And she’d ask.”

At a quarter to twelve exactly, he opened note four.

“Do not open note five until you are THERE, Ferris, at the harbor, with your feet on the quay. Now. It must be fed at noon. Exactly noon. Not five past because you were busy steering. One teacup of flour, level, not heaped, LEVEL. Then the water from your other pocket, which is warm because it was in your other pocket. That is why. Stir it twenty times. Lid on. Back in the coat. It won’t do much till you’re out of the cloud, and then it will rise slowly, like a sensible starter. If it goes above the line, it’s too warm. Take it out of your coat, hold it in the air and count to a hundred. Not two hundred. A hundred. It will sink back. If it doesn’t sink back, don’t tell me. No, tell me. Ferris, it will be fine. It is a very good starter. I am only writing all this down because I can’t be there.”

Ferris had a mug, but not a teacup. He looked at Dilly’s basket.

“Mrs. Ashdown,” he said. “I need to borrow a teacup.”

She lent him one with roses on, and a teaspoon, and a great deal of advice. She thought a pinch of sugar would do it good. She thought he should hold the jar up to the sun the moment they came out of the cloud.

“I’ll take the cup,” said Ferris. “Not the rest.”

He let the ferry drift. He unbuttoned his coat and unwound the scarf, once, twice, three times. He filled the teacup with flour and leveled it with his thumb, and then leveled it again. Then he held the cup over the open jar and waited.

The noon bell came down to them through the cloud. That was Wren of the Bell at the harbor gate, far above. From inside a cloud a bell sounds round and soft, as if it is coming from everywhere at once. Ferris counted the strokes, and on the twelfth he tipped in the flour.

Then the water from his other pocket, which was warm, so Poppy had been right about that. Then twenty stirs, with Dilly counting out loud from about eight. Then the lid, clipped down, and the scarf three times round, and the coat done up to the collar.

He wiped the teacup clean on the front of his coat and handed it back.

“Clean,” said Ferris.

The teacup was. Ferris was not.

* * *

They came out of the top of the cloud all at once, into sunshine, and there was Cloudbreak Harbor, hanging in the open air with nothing at all beneath it.

Stone quays and timber decks stood out over the white like shelves. Sky-ships rode at their lines. Everything that was going anywhere went on a rope: crates and barrels and hampers, and once, while they watched, a whole piano going up the side of a warehouse in a net. Under each ship a dock ward shone like a lamp. Ferris had seen it more times than he could count, and he counted most things. He looked anyway.

The sun was warm on his coat. His coat was warm on the jar. Under his second button, something moved.

Sorrel was at the West Mooring beside a cargo basket, waving both arms. Ferris started in for the quay, and the harbor wind went round.

The harbor wind does this. It blows steady from the east just long enough for a ferryman to start in, and then it blows from the north. Ferris took the ferry off and went round again.

Under his coat came a small flat pock.

“What was that?” said Dilly.

“Note four,” said Ferris.

He unbuttoned his coat. The starter had climbed half a finger over Poppy’s line and pushed the lid off its clip. Ferris held the lid down with his thumb and took the jar out into the cold air. Linnet’s scarf slid off into a heap round his boots. He tucked the tiller under his elbow and began to count.

He came round for the quay a second time, at a crawl. At thirty-one the wind went round again. Ferris took the ferry off again, so slowly that Sorrel stopped waving and sat down on the cargo basket. At sixty-four the wind settled in the east and stayed there.

Ferris brought the ferry in a foot at a time, counting under his breath. Dilly counted with him, having got the habit at the stirring.

At ninety-nine the ferry touched the quay as gently as a cup set down in its saucer. At a hundred Ferris looped the line over the post with his one free hand, and looked at the jar.

The starter had sunk back. It stood level with the pencil line, as neat as if it had been poured there. Here, not higher.

Ferris clipped the lid down properly, stepped out onto the quay and handed the jar to Sorrel. Then he handed Dilly up after him, basket and all.

“I’d still have given it honey,” said Dilly.

“I know,” said Ferris.

* * *

“It’s on the line,” said Sorrel, holding the jar up to the light. “It’s exactly on the line. She sent me six pages about whether I had a warm enough shelf. I’ve put one over the stove in the mooring hut. Ferris, do you know what a loaf costs up here?”

“Yes,” said Ferris.

“Two loaves a day and the whole basket crew eats. Four, and it’s the whole mooring. The crew will want rye. I haven’t asked them. They’ll want rye.” Sorrel was already digging in a pocket. “What do I owe you? Here. No, take this as well.”

“Poppy paid,” said Ferris.

“Then I’ll pay Poppy.”

“She’s been paid.”

“Then I’ll pay her more.”

Ferris untied note five, because his feet were on the quay, and opened it.

It said: “Tell me if it was too sweet. It isn’t sweet. Tell me anyway.”

Sorrel read it over his arm. “Too sweet? It’s a starter. It can’t be sweet.”

“She knows,” said Ferris, and handed the note over. “You’ll be the one writing back.”

“I’ll tell her it was perfect.”

“Tell her it was a bit sweet,” said Ferris. “She’ll want something to argue with. And the tally’s seven.”

“What tally?”

“Poppy and Wick. If anyone at the harbor asked. Nobody asked, but it’s been said now.”

Sorrel hugged the jar. “Thank you, Ferris. The first loaf’s yours.”

“It was on the way,” said Ferris.

“How was the trip?”

Ferris thought about the five notes and the honey and the bell in the cloud, and the wind going round twice, and the lid going pock against his second button.

“Uneventful,” he said.

From a ferryman, that is the highest praise there is. It means the weather did as it liked, the ferryman did as he meant to, and the cargo came off the boat exactly the way the sender asked.

Then Ferris picked up Linnet’s scarf and went off along the quay to find his lunch, with flour all down his front. In his pocket were four of Poppy’s notes, which he had no more use for and did not throw away. Anyone who asked would be told it was an ordinary run. The first loaf, when it came down the line two days later, was his.

He whistled on the stairs, though.