Chapter 50: Passage

"Passage where?" said Mei. He'd asked her at the end of the night, and she had lain awake in the wrecked cabin with the stars showing through the roof, listening to him snore on the stern bench, and thought about it the way you think about a big cargo. Now it was dawn on the sixth, gray and soft and windless, with mist on the water like steam on a bowl of rice. She stood at the stern with the pole in her hands, and he sat on an upturned bucket where the stove lid used to be, wrapped in the blanket, watching her. "Passage," said Bo. "Across." "Across where? The south shore? It's one copper. You know that. The board says." "Not the south shore." "Then where?" He took his time. He always did before he said something that mattered. "Both ways," said Bo. "Every day. For as long…