Chapter 279: River of Song

Hawkins said no more.

He closed his eyes and dredged the tune up from the very bottom of his throat.

The first line came out cracked.

The old priest's Adam's apple bobbed before he steadied his voice for the second line.

"Sleep, sleep, my little lamb, The river isn't cold, Mother's at the bridge."

Hundreds of people crowded the embankment.

The evacuating procession had halted halfway. Men clutched their hats; women cradled their children.

At first, no one dared to join in.

A woman in the back row was the first to hum along.

Her husband had passed away last winter.

But the tune she hummed was for the daughter she had buried before the girl was even a month old.

She had lost count of how many times she had sung this song at her daughter's grave. She could sing every word with her eyes closed.

"Sleep, sleep, the lamp still burns.

Your name, Mother remembers."

A second woman chimed in, followed by a third.

One by one, the mothers who had buried children in the North District added their voices.

Some were half a beat fast, others half a beat slow; the melody swayed and stumbled.

But the lyrics were the same, and that flicker of hope was exactly the same.

Richard stood on the other side of the Black Trench.

On this side of the veil, he "heard" it.

The moment the song touched the black water, the water changed.

The black water converging toward Mr. Reeve was met and held back in the center by the song.

A terribly faint light seeped from beneath the feet of the crowd on the embankment, flowing upstream across the surface.

Against the current of the Black Trench.

The water of the Black Trench flowed downstream, toward the center of that net.

For decades, it had only ever flowed in one direction.

But this light was different. It flowed toward the bridgehead where the mothers stood; it flowed upstream, toward the shore.

Richard realized what it was.

This was a new river.

A river paved with song.

Among the hundreds of shadows standing beneath the water, a small cluster of short figures stopped in their tracks.

Bearing the little faces they had in life, they had been trudging step by step toward the breach on Richard's side, but now their feet were snagged by the upstream current of light.

They turned around and looked toward the source of the song.

"Milke," Mrs. MacNeil said, kneeling by the floodgate.

On her left wrist, the wisp of light inside the Moonstone Pendant on her Bone Bracelet began to glow.

That wisp of moonstone light drifted from the Bone Bracelet and landed by the water's edge, condensing into a blurry, shapeless shadow.

It wasn't tall—barely taller than the children.

Milke walked to the water's edge and bent down toward the small cluster of short shadows beneath the surface.

Richard remembered this spirit. It was the one who had led away the counting boy at the Holbrook Textile Mill.

Only children would listen to it.

The Moonstone Pendant spoke.

"What number are we on?"

The shadow of a child beneath the water raised its head.

"...Forty-seven."

It was a boy's voice. After soaking in the water for so long, the sound was hollow and distant.

"Keep counting," Milke said.

"Count slowly. Count to a hundred. Your mother is waiting for you on the shore, do you hear? She's singing to tell you to go to sleep."

The child's shadow tilted its head and listened for a moment.

Line by line, the lullaby from the shore washed over them.

Sleep, sleep, the lamp still burns.

"...Forty-eight," the child counted. "...Forty-nine."

As he counted, his stiff posture began to relax.

Richard watched.

"Call their names." Mr. Hutton's voice was terribly hoarse, but he pushed through it.

He stood at the floodgate, the stack of rubbings in his hand suppressing the framework of the verdict.

"On the shore. Have the mothers call out their names."

His words carried to the other side of the embankment.

The old priest paused his singing for a line.

He looked back at the singing mothers behind him.

"If you think of someone, call out their name. Say the pet names you call them in your hearts every day."

The embankment fell silent for a moment.

The woman who had started the singing was the first to speak.

"...Lily, my Lily."

She was calling for the daughter who hadn't lived to see her first month.

She had whispered that name in front of her daughter's grave countless times, but this was the first time she had spoken it aloud in public.

"Lily, go to sleep. Mommy's here."

On this side of the veil, the smallest shadow beneath the water moved.

It was a baby who had passed away in swaddling clothes. It couldn't stand at all, just a blurry little mass soaking beneath the black water.

Hearing the name "Lily," that little mass floated up toward the sound.

The Moonstone Pendant reached out and caught it.

"Lily, your mommy is calling you. Let's go home."

Leading that tiny shadow, it followed the upstream light paved by the song toward the shore.

The moment it reached the edge of the water, the child's shadow dissipated.

It dispersed gently, just as if it had fallen asleep.

In Richard's Spirit Vision, the little mass that had been trapped in the water turned into a few specks of extremely faint light.

The daughter followed the river of song, heading toward the bridgehead where her mother stood.

The woman on the embankment had no idea what was happening beneath the veil.

She only felt that something weighing on her heart for years had finally lifted.

She burst into tears, yet as she wept, she continued to sing the lullaby.

One by one, the mothers began to call out names.

"Tom."

"Little Joan."

"Betty, my Betty..."

With every name called, the shadow of a child beneath the water floated up toward the singing.

The Moonstone Pendant paced back and forth by the water's edge, leading them one by one.

Its voice was always so soft, so slow, like someone genuinely coaxing children to sleep.

"Finished counting?" it asked one.

"Finished."

"Then go to sleep now, sleep."

The child's shadow bent down, lay by the water's edge, and dissipated.

The counting ceased one by one.

Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine... one hundred.

The children who counted to a hundred could finally sleep.

Richard stood by the floodgate, watching the scene unfold.

What coaxed these children to sleep had nothing to do with incantations.

It was the song their mothers sang to put them to sleep.

It was the fact that someone remembered their names.

By the time the first song finished, there were no more children left in the waters of the Black Trench.

They had all followed the upstream light and returned.

Returned to the shore, returned to the bridgehead where their mothers stood.

With the children gone, only the adults were left standing beneath the water.

The adult shadows were much more stubborn than the children's.

They had soaked in the water for far longer, and their resentment was far heavier.

A lullaby couldn't soothe them; when they heard it, they simply turned their heads away, ignoring it completely.

Richard saw the mass of blackness in the center of the water begin to gather toward Mr. Reeve once more.

Children were soft, so they were sent off first.

But among the adults, some refused to leave.

"Change the tune," Mr. Hutton said.

On the embankment, the old priest stopped the lullaby.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked back into the crowd.

An old man stepped out from the ranks.

This old man had come after hearing the bell.

Hunched over, he clutched an old, frayed ledger in one hand.

He had managed the accounts for the stevedore company at the docks for nearly forty years.

How much every laborer earned, how much debt they owed, how many shillings in compensation were paid out for a work injury—it was all recorded in his book.

"Old Joshua," Mrs. MacNeil said, nodding to him.

The person reading this stack of papers had to be someone who recognized these men.

Old Joshua was perfect for the job.

These men who carried heavy loads, mined coal, and stoked fires in boiler rooms—most of them had their names registered in his ledger.

He recognized their employee numbers; he remembered how much they earned a month.

The old priest started the tune.

It was the work chant for hauling cables on the docks, the chant for pulling minecarts in the pits—the kind of tune a group of men would shout together to pool their strength.

The old priest slowed it down.

Chants were shouted to exert force; he stripped away the force and left only the melody, pressing it down slowly, heavily.

"One, two, three, cables on the shoulder, Four, five, six, deep waters under the bridge."

When the men on the embankment heard this tune, their eyes widened.

This was the chant they shouted every single day.

"Hold steady, brothers...

This trip, we're sending him home."

The first man began to chant along.

He was a dockworker, his arms corded with thick muscle, his voice incredibly gruff.

As he shouted, his eyes grew red.

A second man joined, then a third.

One by one, the laborers added their voices to the chorus.

They had shouted this tune their entire lives, and they had only ever done so to muster a burst of strength.

Today, for the first time, they were shouting it to send people off.

On this side of the veil, the river of upstream light widened.

A work chant was heavier than a lullaby.

When it struck the black water, the river of light surged toward the banks.

What had been a thin sliver swelled into a proper river.

The shadows of the men standing beneath the water halted their steps.

Old Joshua began to read out the names.

He held Old Biggs's stack of papers up to his eyes, squinting to make out each word.

"Thomas Reed," he read.

After reading the name, he glanced at the water to confirm which one it was.

"Stevedore, thirty-one years old."

A tall shadow beneath the water turned around.

It was the shadow of a strapping, burly man with exceptionally broad shoulders.

Drowned at thirty-one, soaking in the water for who knew how many years.

Old Joshua's finger dropped to the line of small text in the annotation column.

Old Biggs had written it. It was his "unfinished business."

Old Joshua read the line aloud.

"...Owed his wife a scarf."

On the embankment, a woman in the crowd went weak in the knees.

She was Thomas Reed's wife.

The winter Thomas Reed drowned had been bitterly cold.

He had promised his wife he would buy her a thick scarf once his wages were paid.

Before he even received his pay, he fell into the Black Trench.

He had owed her that scarf for years.

On this side of the veil, the tall shadow beneath the water heard it.

It walked ashore toward the voice.

Bending down, it scooped something up from the black water.

Whatever it scooped up was invisible, but its hands shaped themselves as if holding a thick scarf as it walked over to its wife.

His wife couldn't see anything; she only felt a sudden warmth drape over her shoulders.

The shadow draped that non-existent scarf over his wife's shoulders.

Then, it dissipated.

The debt was paid.

Old Joshua read the next.

"William Hutchins, boiler worker, forty-six years old."

Another shadow beneath the water turned around.

"...Still thinking about the birthday he never got to celebrate with his youngest son."

The old priest led the crowd in song.

The accountant read the names, and one by one, the shadows stepped ashore. Settling their unfulfilled wishes, they dissipated.

This tune was incredibly heavy.

While alive, these men had carried heavy loads their entire lives.

Before they left, someone had to help them shoulder a bit of that weight.

Halfway through the song, an unexpected change occurred in the water.

Those who refused to leave erupted in violence.

Among the shadows standing in the water, a few were blackened by overwhelming resentment.

Before the accountant could read their names, they lunged toward the shore.

They had steeped in the water for far too long, and their hatred ran too deep.

They wanted to drag the living on the shore down with them.

"Sarah!" Lieutenant Colonel Ord bellowed.

Sarah had been waiting.

She had already raised her modified double-barreled Hunting Rifle.

The old priest was singing.

The work chant's melody was slow and heavy, falling beat by beat.

Sarah's gun fired in time with the beat.

Bang!

The first shadow that lunged ashore was pierced by a Silver-Lead Bullet, turning into black water and falling back.

Her shot landed exactly on the beat of the song.

Bang! Bang!

She fired both barrels back-to-back, ejected the shells, and reloaded.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Six shots in eight seconds.

Every shot landed squarely on the beat.

The gunfire and the singing blended together.

One by one, the lunging wraiths were blasted back into the water, while one by one, other shadows followed the river of song ashore to settle their regrets and finally fall asleep.

Death and salvation spiraled together within the very same song.