“True,” Tress’s mother said. “But are we capable of either kind of brilliance?”
“No,” Tress said. “But maybe we can take a whole lot of little steps that, when looked at together, might seem brilliant to somebody who doesn’t know us.”
And so, they set to work. Tress was keenly aware that Charlie might be suffering, but she resolved to take her time. If she was going to do something as stupid as leave the island, she figured she should be meticulous about it. Perhaps that would dilute the stupidity with time, like how good flour could dilute the stale and improve the bake.
She took to knitting socks at the cliffside so she could watch the ships that came and left. Her mother began to make stockings at a table near the dock so she could take notes. They compared their findings each night, with Tress’s father listening and offering his thoughts.
Though Tress had always possessed a curiosity about the mechanics of shipping, she now had a motive to learn the details. There were two types of people who regularly left the island. The first was, of course, the crews of the various ships. When they landed, they’d come ashore to shop or visit the local taverns. The Rock didn’t have much to recommend it, but Brick’s ale was known as some of the best in the region. Plus, with enough of it in you, the rest of the amenities looked a whole lot better.
The second type of people who left the Rock were government officials. Not only the duke and his family, but other royal administrators, such as tax collectors, royal messengers, and cargo inspectors. They were allowed to leave when they saw fit. Members of the nobility who visited could also leave—and they usually did so quickly, after realizing their awful mistake.
Tress’s biggest challenge would be the current cargo inspector. The severe woman authenticated the writs of visiting merchants, then examined cargo for stowaways. For a place where no one wanted to live, the Rock certainly had lots of things people wanted. Salt from the mines, Brick’s ale, even down and feathers from the gulls.
The townspeople couldn’t sell these things except to ships that had a writ of commission from the king. The cargo inspector oversaw it all. When the current one had arrived earlier in the year, she’d refused to give her name, insisting they simply call her “Inspector.” She claimed she wouldn’t be remaining on the Rock long enough for names to matter.
Tress couldn’t remember an inspector who had been more strict. This woman was always watching, swinging the rod she carried, searching for any excuse to deliver a punishment. She seemed too stern to be fully human. As if instead of being born, she’d been spawned—and instead of growing up, she’d metastasized.
Tress and her mother spent hours covertly studying how the inspector searched outgoing shipments. Bags of feathers were weighed, while barrels of salt were stabbed, to search for possible stowaways. But some things being shipped—like large kegs of the local brew—couldn’t be opened without spoiling them. What if a person were to hide in a keg? Could they fill it with something like salt to make it weigh and balance correctly?
Unfortunately, the inspector had an answer to such potential escape plans. When examining kegs, she employed a special listening device, like the ones physicians used for hearts. The inspector would linger on each keg, listening for someone moving or breathing inside. Reportedly, the inspector had extremely good hearing and could detect the very heartbeats of stowaways.
Was there a way around this? A way to exploit the situation?
One night, two weeks after she’d first decided to leave, Tress sat up with a notebook full of ideas. The Emerald Moon shone bright as always, stoic and immobile in the sky. Spores poured downward in the distance, like crystalline moonlight.
Her father limped over, settled down, then waved for her to show him her plans. He read them carefully, then nodded. “This could work.”
“It could,” Tress said, yawning. “But I don’t think it will. I might be able to fool a bunch of sailors, but I’d never fool Brick, Gremmy, or Sor. They will know that something is wrong.” She rubbed her eyes. She’d been going without sleep, fraught as she was. （Worry, it might be said, is the carrion feeder of emotions. Drawn to other, better emotions like crows to a battlefield.）
“Perhaps you don’t have to fool them,” her father said. “Perhaps they would be willing to help.”
“I couldn’t ask that of them,” Tress said. “What if the inspector catches me? The others would get into too much trouble.”