Blossom

“Seven! Eight! Eleven!”

“That’s not eleven!” shouted a whole boat at once, and the mist came off the Lake in rags.

Blossom was standing by the boathouse door, reading the crews’ times chalked on the timber, when the shout made them turn. Out on the water a Piglet sat in a round wooden tub, paddling in a slow, happy circle. A tin mug rode on the rim. On the boathouse step, an old Hare with a parcel on their knee watched it all and didn’t move.

“Bunty,” the old Hare said. “Gets the count wrong on purpose. Both crews shout back. Keeps them warm.”

Blossom sat down beside them. Up and down the shore, younger Beasts in jerseys were stretching and arguing about a time they wanted on the wall by the eve of first frost. The old Hare looked like they’d been on that step since before the step. That was the company Blossom had come looking for.

“Jago,” the old Hare said, and opened the parcel. Seed cake. “Mind the crumbs.”

Blossom minded them so badly that half went down their front, and they thanked Jago for the second breakfast they were now wearing. Jago laughed, a short dry laugh that felt like being let in somewhere. Then Jago glanced at the corner of folded card sticking out of Blossom’s pocket.

“Sunday Lawn,” Jago said. “Three o’clock. Cake at four. They don’t wait.”

The tub bumped the jetty. Bunty leaned over, grinning.

“New face! Can you count?”

“Up to eleven, apparently,” said Blossom.

Bunty roared. “Then get in. Call both crews, once round. Go on. I dare you.”

Jago said nothing, which said plenty. The tub was slow. The long way round went past the reeds. The card in Blossom’s pocket was dry, and it was the only thing they owned.

They got in anyway. They’d never once turned down a dare, and they weren’t going to start now.

The tub wobbled like a pudding. Blossom called the first crew’s count, then the second’s, and slipped a joke in about the second crew rowing in their sleep. The first boat laughed. The second boat didn’t. Their cox gave Blossom a long, flat look across the water, and Blossom felt the morning go cold around the edges.

“Hold water!” someone called from the shore.

Every blade went flat. Both boats stopped. Nobody spoke. In the stillness, Blossom could feel the Hum through the bottom of the tub, low and tight, the way it had been for months. Bunty reached for the porridge. It was cold. It was always cold, Bunty said cheerfully, and ate it anyway.

Blossom leaned out to look at the second crew, and the tub tipped. For a moment its underside showed above the water: letters carved into the wood, scraped half away. A name, or most of one.

“Whose is—“

“Did you see that heron?” said Bunty. There was no heron.

The tub righted. The call came to row. Blossom looked at the second crew, still stiff, and did the only thing they could think of. They called that crew’s count properly, clear and right, all the way to eight. Then they called nine as “eleven,” just once.

Both boats shouted back together.

Bunty laughed, swung the tub toward the reeds, and took them the long way round. Blossom dried the card on their knee and watched the sun climb, while Bunty’s paddle kept knocking the scraped place underneath.